The End of Ikea

The French have it in for flat sheets. They like fitted sheets, and they're big fans of duvets and huge, fluffy square pillows, but flat sheets are like the annoying thing that comes in between you and your duvet. They hate them so much that at Ikea you can't buy them in any color besides white, which is kind of a drag if your fitted sheet is dark blue, and you bought two of them thinking one was a flat sheet, and you only brought one back to Ikea to exchange it for a flat sheet... Yeah, I now have mismatched flat and fitted sheets. What of it?

The good news is that I finally conquered Ikea. As in, I walked in, got the stuff I needed, scrutinized over prices to make sure I didn't get anything too expensive to be worth it or too cheap to be functional, and my apartment is now fitted out with a flat sheet, a new paper lantern over the naked bulb my bedroom came with, a mattress pad for my futon/sofa/bed (they call them clic-clacs here, way less complicated...), and a bedside lamp. In the interest of being a Responsible Adult, I set a spending limit for today's trip, and I did not exceed it. Now, this may not seem like a big thing. But I have a weakness for pretty things, and Ikea casts this glowy fluorescent spell on me that last time made me buy a gratuitous pair of slippers and picture frames that are too big for the photos I brought from home, so it's kind of an accomplishment that I didn't buy anything cute and stupid that I didn't really need.

Because really, this is Paris. Beautiful clothes can be had here at very cheap prices. If I'm going to blow my money on things I don't need - and I don't even really want to do that - they might as well be clothes. Or lavish meals. Or cafe cremes outside at cafe-brasseries.

I am never going back to Ikea. From here on out, it's flea markets and things I stumble upon in Paris. Scandinavian design has a special place in my heart, but I can get it at home.

Something I can't do at home is wander around Montmartre. And that is what I did after rearranging my furniture and making my Ikea spoils make my place feel more like home. I took the Metro to Montparnasse, then to Montmartre, where I meandered up to the Butte and my favorite view of Paris from Sacre-Coeur. I tried to find my neighborhood, but either you can't see it from there or my Paris geography is still iffy. Montmartre is always full of tourists, no matter what day it is or what else is going on or how many other places there are to be in Paris. But it's probably my favorite place in Paris, and I plan to go there as often as I can while I live here, no matter how many mimes try to talk to me or how many guys on the street try to sell me Eiffel Tower key chains or beer. After getting a look at the view, I decided to go back down the back of the hill rather than the (touristy) front, and as I wandered down the hill, I walked right through a movie set. I mean, a movie was being filmed on a street in Montmartre not far from the Montmartre Museum, and the actors were there as well as the camera crew, and they were just letting people walk through where they were filming. It was crazy. I guess I live in a city where movies get made now. It must be something that Parisians and New Yorkers are accustomed to, but it was really strange that the area they were shooting in wasn't blocked off at all.

I walked from Montmartre into the 17th arrondissement, where I found a wonderful bookstore at Place de Clichy. They had so many books, and I even found Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath translated into French. I was tempted to buy Mrs. Dalloway, because it's my favorite, but then I decided that if I read something in French, it should probably be French. I should be reading someone like Camus in French.

I also walked past the Montmartre cemetery. I'm not suddenly a cemetary fan, but it is also cool looking, although I think Montparnasse is really much prettier. Montmartre is darker and more gothic looking. There's something a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer about it, like you could picture an undead Jim Morrison wandering around if you went there late at night...

On the Metro home, I read the biography of Diane Arbus by Patricia Bosworth, and as I looked around the Metro car and thought of people I've spotted all over Paris, I thought that Diane Arbus would probably have a field day with Paris. There are so many weird looking people here. I keep reading Patricia Bosworth's descriptions of the people she photographed, and they're really sensational, as if Diane Arbus's subjects were really that unusual. And I think, definitely with the exception of the giants and dwarfs, they all sort of look like people I've seen on the Metro in Paris.

After my Montmartre walk, I came home, put on Duke Ellington, made a ham and brie scramble for dinner and realized that one of the best things about living in Paris is looking out your window at night and seeing all of the other windows around you lit up in the darkness, and knowing that each one is its own small world.