bash

Warp

This weekend is another one of the best.
Favorite hotel by far. Ultra charming and a little modern thrift store dungeon. Prw game. befriend man next door. Bars. Befriend Stephen. Free mohitos. Quick limbo into bachelorette party. Chase hotel cat. Luxurious hotel. Cute hotel nerd is an actor on the side. He has a french type of humor. Goggle girlishly at abundance of sex shops. Clubbing. Spice girls. Friends. Drive too fast. Gorgeous flat. Champagne. Sunrise.
Morning toothpaste scuttle taxi tour. Sad knuckles cherries shopping tease. Avid blogger cute jeweler dramatic tearful lunch audience tomato soup. Shop secret 3 beds time warp nap. Bars bars cafe slobbery rose sketch vampire club orange juice homeless early sound sleep bath. No phone call, haul selves into moon elevator taxi home silly hotel. Sushi homework.

I realized this morning; this feels normal. I have become accustomed to he lifestyle and may never ( want to) leave. For most students this is th last of the best. Only the beginning for me. Maybe I'll be Cinderella at Disney paris and never leave.

dormlife

slipped

modern vs old paris

i was innocently photographing water reflections when these two popped out of nowhere. Parisians.

Garden shoot

Sienne

Sienne

romance2

romance

julie

model

modern vs old paris

Willy

Today, we visited the Willy Ronis exhibit.

I'm doing a paper on it now, because I missed a day. To be honest I skipped class. I forgot to do the homework, so I woke up early with good intentions, and decided oh hell no and rolled over back into my tempurpedic king sized mattress and slept the day away. literally. I slept for a solid, beautiful 15 hours.

Sleep and I are very, very close. If I spend a night out, I need to balance it with an extra nap or two during the week. After a tough week, it’s natural for me to sleep at 14 hour night. Although I do appreciate the warm hazy sleepless nights and haphazard, coffee crazed mornings, stuffing your messy hairsprayed hair into something more manageable, or if not manageable, something out of your face, and wiping off the crusty glitter of the night before and soaking up the nutrients of the sunlight and a quick green apple as your body adapts to the changes in temperature and dehydration and the sores from the uncomfortable hot mess shoes that were kicked off at some point during the night, also known as early morning, and you fight the clutter in your mind like some kind of inebriated solider, elated to participate in parts of several worlds and combining the flurry and beauty of every single one into a sloshy night/day complex of notes and sour and friendly banter.

Speaking of. I am not used to the forward attention that men here seem accustomed to. Sometimes it’s appreciated; a rough 30 % of the time, I don’t mind talking to the adorable foreigner or casual Canadian. But to the majority of creatures lurking around the streets of Paris – are you kidding? What woman appreciates this kind of crude, untoward, grotesque attention? How do these people rationalize it in their minds? Are there actually responsive females that incite this type of behavior? Or is it based purely on crazy and animalistic hormones?

I am not used to it, and it makes me thoroughly uncomfortable. It forces me to examine myself in ways I am not used to. My friends here are a little boy crazy, and I love their enthusiasm, and I share their sentiments in theory if not in practice. I don’t know if I’m that type of person. Part of me wants to be, I want to let loose in Paris/Europe and go crazy, and push my comfort zones, etc, Eat Pray Love bullshit.

But I think I’m still stuck with myself. Which isn’t a bad thing, in fact it’s an entirely new level of self-awareness, which can be just as interesting as becoming physically aware of random boys in hot little nightclubs.

So do I stick with what makes me feel comfortable, in order to remain true to myself?

Or do I push myself to try new things, in order to grow as a person?

Willy Ronis was born to a pair of hardworking Jewish immigrants (“Willy” 1). His mother taught piano and his father ran a photography studio in Montmartre (1). As a child, he loved music, and dreamed of becoming a composer. His love of music takes precedence within the soft rhythms of his images later in life. Ronis chose to focus his photographer mostly on post-war life in Paris and Provence. He is most well known for his work depicting the working class districts of Belleville and Montmartre. He devoted his career to photographer at 22 years old, when family obligations compelled him to join his father’s studio (1).

Upon the death of his father, he began to pursue a journalistic career in photography (1). Ronis was the first French photographer to work for LIFE magazine (“Honorees” 2). By the end of his life, Ronis had become a member of the exclusive London Royal Photographic Society and had shown exhibits at the Oxford Museum of Modern Art (2). His skill had been well recognized during his lifetime, and he received considerable attention for his art.

phoenix est un groupe français

treasure box

I need lunch. I thought I could go without, but a salad(e) keeps nagging the back of my throat, so I give up and sneak off from our field trip area. I won't be gone for long, Lori won't mind/notice.

I leave the building, it's probably not a big deal if she sees me, but I make sure to walk parallel the big glass windows and breeze away into a neighboring street. Breezy. I’ll keep walking straight. Hope I don’t get lost. I’ll go through this odd little tunnel. And now I’m on the sketchiest street of my life. It’s not too bad, ranging a good 6 on the danger scale, but I flip a hard left down a random little side street in order to escape. There’s nothing on this narrow little thing. Wish I could find a salad.

Wait.

I pass by a window. It looks alright inside, most likely salad-worthy. I heave a tired sigh and slouch in through the doorway.

Everything is hushed. It’s like I’ve entered a vortex, the mediocre grainy grey street lies worlds behind me. Plush reds and high ceilinged beautifully wooden beams rise and fall around me; an architectural medley; an ode to old Paris. The beautiful waiter gives me a teeny French smirk. One, I tell him. He leads me to a table and we awkwardly silently converse over which chair I sit in. I choose the one against the wall and settle down.

This place looks five-star. Layers of utensils blossom around my ceramic plate like a metallic labyrinth. Violets drape themselves in the modest vase, paired with a sleepy candle.

I order the fish fillet. Everything on the menu sounds good. They pluck away half of the silverware and replace it with other necessary food items. I rustle through my bag, unsure what to do with my awestruck nervousness.

And then they unveil the fish; it’s served on a platter, my hot waiterman lifts away the shiny lid and softly dispenses the creamy sauce in a sweet semicircle around my fillet with a separate dish. He is watching me watch the sauce. I won’t look up.

The fish is amazing. Everything feels light and creamed and rich. I probably eat it too fast, but I can’t help it. The place glows with a hazy afternoon atmosphere, with the occasional decadent lunchers picking at their meals. The cutie returns. “Dessert?” I hesitate. I ask for the time. He answers in French, so I lean forward to look at his watch. I can make it. Yes please, I tell him.

I order the mixed berries with chocolate and a cloud of pesto. It sounds sort of odd, but it’s the only thing on the menu without gluten, and I love chocolate, and I’m confident that it will be lovely. I can hear the French chef yelling in the background, which only adds to the authenticity of the place. I sip at my evian water. Listen to the interesting, vaguely racist conversations between the British man and woman seated beside me, munching on salads.

My dessert arrives in a similar fashion, it looks absolutely fabulous, sweet red dollops of fruit girdling what appears to be literally a cloud of pesto. I turn my eyes up at the classic French waiter type, who pours a thick chocolate syrup in and around the berries, drizzling it carefully over the crest of the white creamed pesto, with an artist’s attention to detail, until it awaits like a chocolatey soup, or maybe an ocean, with melting icebergs of cute little berry droplets. He smiles and departs, and I do my best to handle the spoon they left me. It’s too big. The chocolate runs down my lower lip.

I am a very tactile person. This sort of sensuality sticks with me. I lean back. they bring the bill, but of course what they actually hand me is this adorable little treasure box, and when I open it, the check unfurls into my hand. Of course.

photo update

Irish wifey

I don't like typing too much on the iPod. But tonight it might be worth the odd spelling mistake.
What a day
First, Pompidou, I love yo soooo. I'll put up a lot of photos as soon as I am able. Next, my lunch, happenstance as most of my encounters tend to be, also simply decadent and straight from the pages of a worn romance novel. And filled to the brim with cute waiters.
Next scene: home. Dorms. California style dramz, like a sleepy trainwreck. I secure a room at my cute hotel and we make it over. It's exceedingly adorable and small and better. Fabulous dindin at cafe fleur, I think it's called. Tomato salad and the most gorgeous evening yet. Crepes by he church.
Split and fold and keys and le sac and cute Ripey ripe cherries and my retainer is in, my silk boxers are on and I am utterly settled in bed.
A knock on the door.
I choose to ignore. I prefer the company of the widowed drunken voices frothing at my windowpane.
Pause.
Another knock. Sounds friendly.
And there stands my Irish knight, telling me he must go and dashing my hopeful hopes of eventually falling love. The nerve.

whey

Happy motherfucking Bastille Day

Ran around with a little gaggle of british girls who were 'horny drunk'

unfortunately we live with a bunch of Italian nerds

and I'm in my bedclothes

found an Irish man who loves me

found a lovey cove dovey

loves an isolated island find me

don't mind the mess mind me

"the girls

are starting to get catty"

"lololol

week two is when they start getting voted off the island"

hotel hunting today.

I had never seen it 'rain in sheets' until this morning.

now it's cool. Parisian weather feels incredibly feminine.

magnetized

There is always so much I want/need to update on.

for a few special people in the audience, a shoutout

Crystallised reminds me of you/you.

Oh, 'warm breast milk' reminds me of nights on my livingroom floor.

Chicago by Sufjan reminds me of Ashland.

I Gotta Feeling reminds me of us driving to the beach.

and I'm done with living in my shadow!

Oregon feels like this odd dream, a curdled childrens story sprouting from a farmer's lie.

Paris fits me. It fits me now, yesterday I went to Monoprix, the Fred Meyers equivalent, and they had a huge sale so I bought shoes (I don’t need them but I adore them) and a light jacket (exactly what I needed) and a large black mens shirt (what I’ve been wanting) and nice Bic razors and a hair mask (Parisian water does horrors to my curly mane) and a large (grande) bag of cherries and apricots and cute little packs of chocolate soymilk, the kinds that come with straws, and I swept up my wares and idled past the cluster of adorable teenage boys crowding around the alcohol cabinet and strutted home. I carried a pink plastic Monoprix bag in each hand, and I strolled past the rollerbladers (a reoccurring theme) and mini dogs and the rare homeless man. The night was unrelentingly breezy, as nights always are here, chock full of twilight and wispy French phrases and a warm summery charm. I loved loved loved it. I was by myself and it was one of the most perfect nights yet. I love buying clothes and food that I actually like. I came home to my beautiful roommate, nearly as breezy as the lovely night outside, and we did our best to make the next plan of action.

Today, I have eaten:

Cherries and apricots for breakfast

Cherries and chocolate for lunch

Fruit cocktail (rude waiter)

A light snack of chocolate soymilk and rice cake

FABULOUs sushi

Super rich chocolate gelato (sorbet) that I couldn’t finish

I am honestly treating myself to the richest existence possible and I am appreciating every single second.

It wouldn’t be right to say I gawk at the sites. I don’t ogle over Parisians or slowly amble down the walkways.

I feel less like a tourist and more like a child. I am relearning everything, food culture and humor and confidence and fashion and accents and relations and ordering and communications, I am happily willingly absorbing it all, I haven’t yet become stuffed, I am still sucking up the details.

Here, you don’t grind at clubs; that’s inappropriate. You alert the waiter upon arrival. Customer isn’t always right. You need to register for internet. Less people smoke than expected, but there is more rollerblading. Everyone grabs a bottle and heads to the river after dinner. Sushi is fabulous and crepes are tourist magnets.

leftovers

we slept well due to the generosity of a classy arabian knight of some variety.

Mustafa lavished us with hosptality.

I'm taking the night off, i think. they left to dine in the presence of the starry Eiffel Tower.

Illuminated.

I haven't seen the magic metal structure yet. It can wait. I'm sure it will be a gorgeous site for worn eyes, but I feel so much more at home with the unpretentious sidewalks riddled with cobblestones, and the sweet strained blossom that wriggles its way around an ancient stone building, or the charming nunneries that straddle the narrow pale streets.

I am enjoying the act of existing, and seeking a promise of pleasure almost feels counterproductive. I think "winging it" is perfectly acceptable, that's more or less what my friends and i have been up to the past several nights, and it often works out for the best. All one needs is a pair of heels and a good attitude.

God I am lucky.

sneaky

so we went to 'sexy bar'

qnd danced with people on the river

because thats the place to be!

first critique in class today

i really love my teacher/classmates

except for some of the crazy is revealing itself

oh paris

erste

FINALLY:


[Preface: All of my experiences were doubtless enhanced by my massive amounts of jet lag. So I am not overdramatizing my relative situations, merely ascribing the actual impact of each moment.]


I can't sleep on the plane. Tina Fey mostly drowns out the crying baby on board, in the film the french chose to call Crazy Night (date night) of which I give a B+ and didn't get to finish.
I arrive in the airport. Pick up my bags. Can I find the right terminal? I'm supposed to meet the group flight when they land. The airport offers no solution. All of the signs point me to leave. Luckily, a lovely man at JFK casually scribbled some directions on how to get into Paris when he checked my tickets. Thank you, Alexander, I think his name tag read. So sweet.


So I follow the little signs to the RER, whatever that is. My shiny new red backpack pulls at my back, and I avoid thinking about the months to come. I wind up, many minutes later, in a downstairs terminal, filled with bustling foreigners and ticket stands. right.


I check my iTouch. I left the address of my dorms when it from the night before, when I eagerly looked up what my residence was to look like on Google Maps. So I have the address of my dorms, and I am forced to play it by ear, luckily for me the man at the ticket stand speaks fluent english, and takes the time to write out what to do at every stop. He even smirks and scribbles the translation for Sorry, at my request. (it's desole.)


So I take this RER train. At the first stop, I am a little confused, the metro (Parisian subway) underground looks somewhat sketch, and a friendly Canadian couple pops out of nowhere and helps me out. I know they're Canadian because they congratulate me with "Happy independence day!" as opposed to "happy 4th!" I think it's cute.


I leave the RER, and wander the gorgeous little streets around my dorm. It says PARSONS, but it is obviously still closed. I assume that the leaders from the group flight will come by eventually and open the doors.

So I find various benches to sit on and read A Clockwork Orange, (I hated it at first, and being obsessed with linguistics, fell into a ravenous literary consumption. finished it over the following 3 days.) and an old man approached me. He appeared relatively harmless and french.
He didn't speak English, so we managed a conversation based on garbled German and French. He shocked me by asking for my phone number at the end, and then insisting on giving me his address. With growing dread I realized he lived on the same street as my dorms. I got out of there fast.


I stop in a cute little store for cherries (my favorite fruit, mein lieblingsessen). The man speaks no English, that's fine, I am aware of feeling slightly fatigued, but that's all for the best because they have to start registration sooner or later, and i'll be able to nap in my room. The cherries are little buds of heaven. In America, if i wanted to find fruit equal in quality, I would either have to sleep with someone high up in Whole Foods, or live on a remote fruit farm in california.


So now I'm dying over this food. I suppose I haven't eaten much at this point. I heft my bags down another cute street, and someone leans into the street, opening their windowshades and grinning into the sweet morning air, exactly like they do in those disney movies. Dying.

I spot the cutest boy in the world, soo My Type (an older version of Alex Ko if you must know) and quite gay. He is asking for cigerrettes in English, so we meet, he goes to parsons too, he takes me to the hotel, where i discover My dorms are actually located in another neighborhood. The hotel is reserved for adults in the college program. The lovely lady lump redirects me and I manage to find my real dorms. Naturally, the address left in google maps was for our school.


More subways, and voila, I arrive at the real dorms.


However


My name is not on the list. the greeters look at eachother nervously. I don't want to cause any type of fuss, in fact I just want to set my bags down. they allow me to leave them with someone, and try their hardest to use reassuring tones. Go find lunch, they say. A parsons director will come by in an hour, she'll know what to do.


I buy more cherries. the neighborhood is too good for words. I want to read in a park. Sleepily, I arrange myself in a nook, some step or platform, and lose myself in the pages. not 2 minutes go by until I am ushered inside by a friendly Frenchie, who tells me if I am going to be reading, might as well do it in the courtyard.


I settle down by a grand tree, and I think I squeeze a good 20 minutes of reading in before the same man leans out of his window and asks where I am from. America, I respond, bemused. His brother in law used to live in chicago. Before I know, I am being served salad and wine and raspberries and cream amongst a french man, his sister, and her nerdy american husband. I like them all quite a lot. The woman paints, the room is scattered with her work. we discuss art and family and astrology.


They are most generous and eccentric, they give me their number before I leave. I must stay in touch, they insist. I thank them over and over again. The woman is a scorpio, her brother a raging Cancer, and the husband reminds me acutely of my german uncle Richard. The day is stretching, the shadows buffer the trees from the impending heat.


I meander home. I find a room. Meet my roommate. She is wonderful, all legs and long Californian hair. Foreign boys pop in to greet us, we quickly adapt to the thick accents and cluttered speech.



First Day. Bonjour

cerise

no time no time
i am inhaling cherries and almonds for lunch
and this keyboard is crazy
è-é"(éàç
so fabulous, so surreal
plans of forts and boat parties and wine
off to the irving penn exhibit with class soon
i am falling in love a hundred fold
more on that later

im not yet homesick
but i wish i had internet at the dorms