This Is Just To Say

It's sort of lame to have two posts in one day, but...

MY APARTMENT BUILDING HAS CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS UP!

As I was leaving my apartment to go swimming today, I ran into our gardienne (think the old woman in "Amélie" who takes care of the building, kind of like a super I guess...) on the stairs and she was putting up adorable Christmas decorations.  And it just warmed my little MFA app-exhausted, children-exhausted, occasionally homesick heart.

Don't worry; they have a very lovely life.

So yesterday I was observed at work (before being paid... tell me how that makes sense), I taught They Might Be Giants' days of the week song to a class of children who can pronounce the days now (but nothing else), and I went to my nanny job until about 6. It was a long day. When I came home, my apartment was freezing, and I was so cold and exhausted that all I wanted to do was sit in front of my heater wearing yoga pants and eating Muesli out of a box. It felt pathetic and really enjoyable at the same time. Sometimes that's what living alone is all about.

However, I had made plans with a friend of mine who, after a day of teaching and then her own nanny job (we both take care of cranky little kids), was equally exhausted. We had planned to go to a concert at this bar we like near Bastille that is in a basement and kind of resembles a speakeasy, but we missed it because she got off work late, and so decided to spend our evening wearing plaid shirts and sitting in our place near her apartment, being cozy instead of pretty. It's this old brasserie way outside of the center of Paris, and it takes me a long time to get there on the metro, but sitting in a crinkly maroon booth with friendly conversation and a glass of cider, surrounded by car racing paraphernalia and the place's middle-aged clientele and the owner's puppies was the going out equivalent of Muesli and sitting in front of my heater. I can't think of a better way to end a long day in Paris.

When I got back to my apartment, I checked my bank balance for what felt like the hundredth time since I was told I'd been paid (on Wednesday), and they weren't lying, it turns out: I have officially been paid. I have euros in my French bank account. How weird to say that. And I feel so much more secure knowing I have money to spend, even if it is just on rent and groceries and occasionally going out.

Today I'm going to be sequestered in my apartment with grad school applications, and sometimes living in Paris on a tight budget can be hard, but my evening out reminded me of an episode of Sex and the City about living alone. I like Sex and the City. Anyway, so in this episode, an animal shelter opens up next to Carrie's apartment and she's woken up by a rooster crowing early in the morning. After attempting to coexist with the rooster, she talks to one of animal shelter employees, and they take the rooster inside. When Carrie says they don't have to do that, the woman replies, "Don't worry; they have a very lovely life."

This same phrase is then applied to the characters in the show, who all live alone, but, as evidenced by a rooftop party they have with transvestites in the Meatpacking District later on in the episode, do have a very lovely life.

Sex and the City may seem like a silly point of reference, but one of the things that I think the show does really well is to show what it's like to live in a big, glamorous, amazing city by yourself. It's a show about single women, and it's also about being lonely and not having everything you want even when you live in one of the coolest places in the world, and even though there's often a touch of melancholy to its descriptions of being a single woman in a big city, the entire series could be summed up in that phrase alone.

And even though my friends and I don't have a lot and we all live by ourselves in Paris, after coming home last night on the metro, I think the same can be said for us.

C'est un total eclipse of the heart

A couple of things:

1. I really miss burritos.

2. My discount grocery store plays the strangest French versions of American songs. Last time it was "Let the Sunshine In" from "Hair." Today it was "Total Eclipse of the Heart" and the song from "Flashdance." Surreal when you're digging through the discount gouda selection. Or really just surreal...

3. The funny thing about grad school applications is that they make you write. This week I've written way more than in the whole time I've been here. I am conjuring up images of spending next year in New York or Boston or Iowa or SoCal. Or, you know, Wisconsin.

4. About a month from now, my family will be in Paris!

5. Today I ran to the Bastille from my house. Turns out it's like 4 miles. So I guess I'm getting back in shape.

6. I made pasta puttanesca successfully for a second time. Mastering the art of normal cooking is coming in right on schedule.

7. One of my friends has a jar of peanut butter. Our level of excitement over this is kind of ridiculous.

8. Still people-sick. Who wants a postcard?

9. Leonard Cohen's music was totally made for Paris. Nothing makes me feel quite like a young bohemian writer making my way in Paris like listening to Leonard Cohen while cooking in my shabby kitchen in my tiny apartment between looking out at Paris night windows over the courtyard and writing.

10. Or perhaps I'm just kind of pretentious.

Crunch Time for Nounou

I am officially a nanny for a Senegalese family in Montparnasse, and I have yet to get over the irony of this. First of all, Montparnasse, once the bohemian and artistic center of Paris is where I go to babysit. Hello, bourgeoisie. Maybe the 13th isn't so bad. It's where the poor artists are. Which is way more bohemian than the wealthy non-artists of Montparnasse. I still sometimes wish I lived there, but don't tell anyone.

Anyway, all over Paris, you see North African nannies taking care of white babies, and then there's the six-year-old girl I babysit for, and me. We are an odd and unexpected pair in Paris, but I kind of love that my nannying situation is the opposite of what you usually see.

Today we were walking home and one of the kids from her school walked up to her and said, "Who is that? Your mom or your sister? Nounou?"

And I realized that I am a nounou. This is the French word for nanny. I wasn't sure whether to find it cute or to be sort of weirded out.

Nose is set to the proverbial grindstone (why do people always think that using the word "proverbial" makes clichés sound less lame? Well whatever. This is a blog.) on grad school applications to MFA programs. Definitely have a newfound appreciation for online applications. But UC Irvine's sneaky 2-writing-sample-requirement? Not so much. For shame, UC Irvine. Why must you be one of my top choices?

Also, sometimes I have these moments where I just think, oh dear, why am I a teacher again? Because one of the teachers at one of the schools I work for asked me if I knew a song that includes all of the days of the week, to teach the kids the words in English, and my first thought was "Police On My Back." By the Clash. And for a minute I was like, well, they probably wouldn't understand the lyrics anyway, and I don't think the teachers would care, and "I been runnin' Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday" is pretty catchy. And what day in Paris do I ever not have the thought, "What have I done?"

Then I remembered that it has lines about shootings and stuff. And I am a teacher. So I went with a song that has no lyrics except for the actual days of the week, and a youtube video with a man singing in a fluffy hat. With hand puppets.

Also, when do you know you work with kids? When you pull out your umbrella because it's rainy in Paris and a flash card comes floating out onto the sidewalk with the word "NOODLES" on one side.

Plastic Wrap Jesus, Our Lady of the Garage, and A Bad Case of People-Sickness

I found out this week that the beautiful old church at Place Jeanne d'Arc near my apartment is called Notre Dame de la Gare. This is pretty much "Our Lady of the Train Station," or, less charitably, "Our Lady of the Garage." Coincidentally, I live down the street from a Portuguese bookstore that sells Jesus figurines, which are some of the scariest I've ever seen. I mean, the concept of Jesus doesn't bother me, it's just these bizarre plastic figures that are grotesque and crucified. I don't know. Crucifixes, particularly of the gory Catholic variety, have always sort of freaked me out. The most terrifying Jesus on display, and one that has never been sold since I've gotten here, is still wrapped in its plastic wrap. It's creepy enough to see Jesus looking all battered and scary. But the plastic wrap adds (my apologies) a whole new layer.

So there you have it. I live in the quartier of plastic wrap Jesus and Our Lady of the Garage. France does weird stuff with religion.

Today I ate American French toast for the first time in probably months at one of my friends' apartments. It definitely beat Parisian petit dejeuner, where you have to pay about 8 euros for coffee and a croissant and get hungry twenty minutes later.

So much of my life here revolves around food. Have I mentioned that I love grocery shopping here? It's way cheaper than it is in the US, and probably the only that is in France. Two days ago I discovered the holy grail (can't seem to get away from these religious references...) of food shopping -- the French discount grocery store, where you can get fromage blanc (France's delicious answer to plain yogurt), honey, fair trade coffee, and all of my weekly staples (couscous, lentils, eggs, fruit, veggies) and even sort of fancy stuff (harissa! olive oil! organic things!) all for around a euro each, if that.

Mmmmm. I love saving money. And I love cooking delicious things. I am learning how to cook here, and definitely not in the Julia Child sense of the word, either. But given that I could probably count the number of times I cooked anything before coming here, and also that my kitchen is literally two hot plates, a minifridge, and a sink, I think I'm doing pretty well. Couscous and lentils, harissa, kidney bean burgers, a variety of omelets... the next project is pasta puttanesca.

As always, at breakfast we started talking about not leaving. And it's tempting. I'm applying to grad school this winter, and if I get into one of my top choices, I'm definitely going. But I thought about it a little. I mean, if I was going to be here for more than a year, I probably wouldn't want to stay in my tiny apartment. I would probably want to find something cheaper, and maybe a little bigger (c'est possible!) in one of three Ms: the Marais, Montparnasse, or Montmartre. Or the 17th arrondissement because I know it and love it.

And I would want to get a magic jack for my computer (it turns your computer into a phone, way easier than Skype), and probably a toaster oven. And I would probably need more clothes. And a renewed visa. And probably a little more patience with the whole French bureaucracy thing.

But I thought about it.

And then I remembered that while I don't get homesick much anymore, I am constantly people-sick. I miss getting coffee with my friends at home and at school and walking around Greenlake together and going out dancing and doing stupid things like watching "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or searching for bubbletea in the university district at midnight or listening to Leonard Cohen driving around late at night. I miss watching "Mad Men" with my parents. I miss the back office at 826. And you know your life has gotten kind of strange when the people you miss are on both coasts of the United States and even in different countries. How did I get here? I left Seattle for college when I was 18, and I spent four years in Northampton, well, four months were spent in Senegal. That's key. I'm pretty sure that's when the wanderlust happened.

And now I live in Paris. And depending on where I end up getting into grad school, I have no idea where I'll be around this time next year.

A while ago, my mom told me that most 22-year-olds don't live by themselves in Paris. One of my friends said that if she could transplant the people she loves at home to Paris, she would never want to leave. And they're both right. Such is the conundrum of being one of the 22-year-olds that do live by themselves in Paris. If you happen to know one of us, we probably miss you. A lot.

Sometimes, though, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Life's a circus don't be so sad!

A few things have happened in the past few days:
1. I found out that French cobblers are really good at fixing boots.
2. Today I went to the open artist studios at 59 Rivoli with some friends. A painter sauntered into his studio and sang everything he said to us ("Helloooo, where are you froooom? Please correct my Eeeenglish! I like to paint, my name is Francesco!"), then gave us a tour of some of his work, and when one of my friends bought one of his paintings (a cheap one on a tiny piece of paper, we are teaching assistants here), he made little sketches of us at a circus. He said, "You see, life's a circus, don't be so sad."
3. Immediately after, we went to a free exhibition on war photography at l'Hotel de Ville. Some of the photographs were really effecting, but it was really crowded and poorly-organized.
4. We went to Starbucks. I know Starbucks is corporate, American, and evil, but I don't care. Nothing feels like home as much as a holiday latte consumed on the steps inside Starbucks between two of my friends while it pours outside.

It was a really good Saturday.

Life's a circus. Don't be so sad.

What comes is better than what came before.

Let me just say, there are few things that cannot be made a little better by delicious Israeli shawerma in the Marais followed by a cheap beer and listening to one of your friends play somewhat incomprehensible, really fun songs in a hipster (but not too scene-y) bar in the 11th, all with a good friend.

The pipes in my apartment are about a million years old, and there was some minor flooding today, but the above was pretty much a cure-all. Well, that and the fact that my landlord fixed it while I was out.

New favorite first line of a song: "The ashtray said you were up all night."

Things here get stressful more than I'd like them to, but I've been listening to Lou Reed lately (and Cat Power's cover of Lou Reed), and he has some good advice:

Oh, I do believe
you are what you perceive
What comes is better
than what came before.

Everything sucks until you find out Wes Anderson is your neighbor.

So, this week was kind of insane -- my apartment had hot-water issues, I found out the French government is definitely not paying me until December, my phone broke, and the French educational powers that be made me want to cry on several occasions. I also convinced myself that I had a bat bite, because I had a bug bite that looked kind of weird and even though I have never seen a bat in my apartment, I decided that the holes in my walls are big enough to let them in. I would blame this on the fact that my house at Smith had actual bat problems and so I'm a little abnormally paranoid about these things, but really? Anxiety overload causes bizarre worries and fixations. Sometimes being a grown up sucks, and it really is strange that I'm figuring out how to be one in Paris, of all places.

Then I found out that Wes Anderson is practically my neighbor. According to a profile in the New Yorker, he lives in Montparnasse. Montparnasse is a few stops away on the metro from the 13th, aka right near where I live.

Wes Anderson is also my favorite director. Well, actually Agnes Varda probably is. And I bet she lives in Paris too. But my favorite movie is "The Royal Tenenbaums" and he directed it.

But really. My job stuff is driving me crazy right now, and I had an insanely stressful week, but Wes Anderson is pretty much my neighbor.

Sometimes Paris makes me feel like crying and then sometimes I find out my favorite director lives on the left bank, which is also where I live, which is also where Ernest Hemingway lived, which is also where Man Ray and Simone de Beauvoir are buried, and you know what? It kind of puts the other things in perspective in the most surreal, wonderful way that will only ever happen in Paris.

So I guess that's pretty cool. And I guess I'll be on the lookout for an awkward gangly blonde-haired man in custom-made suits and Rivers Cuomo glasses. Because it might be Wes Anderson!

Sad cats, cheap cheese, and Victor Hugo

This morning I hit up the American Church for the first time since I was still looking for a place to live, with the hope that some cute Franco-American family was looking for an American babysitter to take care of their kids a few days a week. Not really the case -- there's an Irish setter that needs to be walked every single day for a couple in the center of Paris, and a lot of people want maids. Huh. Not so much with the success.

On the way home, I stopped at my quartier marche -- it's a small market on Saturday and Wednesday (not the same as my Sunday market, which is at Place Jeanne d'Arc) -- the Vincent-Auriol market goes underneath the above ground metro line and is full of produce sellers who will shout at you claiming to sell the cheapest produce. Reminds me of Senegal. I always go to a middle-aged woman and a younger guy who sell me cheap fruit and don't shout at me. They're nice and reasonably priced. Today I spent about half of what I would spend on fruit at the supermarche on bananas, apples, and tomatoes. There's also a cheese stand, where you can buy delicious cheese, and if you stick to small amounts (a sliver of cumin gouda, a little mound of chevre) it's also pretty cheap. And then there is the flower man, who sells fresh-cut flowers for a fraction of what you pay in the neighborhood florist shops.

I should add that the people I buy my cheese and produce from are really friendly. In Paris, people who have these jobs are often just plain rude -- not all the time, but there's less of a need to be overly friendly like in the US -- so it's really nice to have the cheese lady put up with my need to "reflechir" over the fromage and then only charge me 4 euro for two kinds that will last me all week.

I also discovered a boulangerie today that is apparently run by a woman with a sense of humor. This made my day. The thing is -- okay, my salary is not very much. I haven't even been paid yet, and when I do get paid, most of my pay will go to rent. So when I spend money, I'm more careful about it here. I like to linger over the pastry case before I pick out my pain au chocolat. I want to get my money's worth. I mean, I don't want to spend it on an unworthy, sub-par, not delicious enough pastry. When you're doing Paris on the cheap, you've got to make these things count. And a lot of times, Parisians aren't really fans of customers leaning over the pastry case deep in thought for a mini-eternity, when you could just buy your baguette and a pastry and head out.

But this woman? As I looked around her bakery and comparison-shopped tonight's dessert and explained myself by saying, "I have to reflect a little bit," she said, "That's fine. I'm open until 5."

Word. I am coming back.

So, things that I love about Paris:
-cumin gouda
-chevre
-French candy (Actually, I think Haribo is German, but still...)
-pain au chocolat
-how much more I read here
-how cheap and delicious my groceries are
-having breakfast in my apartment and looking out onto the other buildings and the courtyard
-free libraries that have excellent English sections
-cheap pools
-goofy little daily interactions
-the best public transit of anywhere I've ever lived
-my tiny kitchen and bedroom, especially since my last Ikea trip
-living alone (can be really nice, especially when the city gets overwhelming)

Things I don't like about Paris:
-my tiny, problematic shower
-having to watch my step over the urine trails on the sidewalk all the time
-how everything kind of slows down when it rains because people just walk everywhere
-old plumbing systems and consequent problems with pipes and stuff
-the fact that one of my hallway neighbors is turning out to be Mr. All Bad Music All The Time and seems to really enjoy the late-night conversations with people with high-pitched voices (and, this being an apartment building and not Smith, I can't just go over there all bleary-eyed and indignant and be like, "I have a test tomorrow, can you please be quiet?")
-living alone (can get lonely sometimes)

Things I miss about home:
-having on oven. I keep wanting to bake some cookies or brownies or something and that is just out of the question when your kitchen is equipped with hot plates and a mini-fridge.
-PANCAKES. Preferably chocolate chip or blueberry. I really want some pancakes. I don't know why, I don't even eat them that often at home.
-Oreos and peanut butter. Okay, so you can get both here, but they're so expensive!
-how everything doesn't close early,
-and how everything is (pretty much) open on Sunday
-a good mocha/latte that doesn't cost more than week's worth of bread
-American bureaucracy. I never thought I'd say that, but not getting paid until almost 3 months after my arrival in Paris? Yeah. I miss you, United States.

But one thing I love about Paris -- these random moments that sometimes happen in the metro. Like today, I was heading home from Invalides and the American Church with my earbuds in, and I was kind of on autopilot. I got to the Etoile/Nation line, and I started down the corridor to the direction of Etoile, when I realized that Nation is the direction where my neighborhood is, and so I quickly spun around and headed over to Nation.

A middle-aged woman in a hijab who was standing in the Nation corridor saw the whole thing and just smiled at me. I could tell she thought it was funny but there was nothing malicious about it. I smiled back and it was like we were in on a joke. This is a stranger I will never see again, but it's funny how you can connect with people in unexpected ways, even fleetingly, in a huge city full of strangers, which is exactly what Paris is.

I have plans to go to Victor Hugo's house this afternoon, but that moment made my day.

I go back to work tomorrow and I can't wait to start teaching again and see my students and attempt to make small talk in the teachers' lounge and have a million French children ask me questions about whether or not I was born in England or the English words for the days of the week or whether or not I have friends in Paris. I've already planned one lesson for Friday. We're playing Bingo with numbers up to 20 in English. Last week they counted pictures on the board and I tried to teach them little bits of English.

"How many sad cats are there?"
"Zair hah firteen sad cats."

"How many cats with hats are there?"
"Zair hah ten cats ins ats."

Vacation, schmacation, France. Maybe it's that pesky American/Protestant/Puritan work ethic, but I like going to work.

Vacation, all I ever wanted.

Vacation continues, and I have to admit, I really miss my teaching routine, which isn't even much of a routine, which is saying something. Also, I was really sad to miss Halloween. I mean, I love Halloween. It's probably my favorite holiday, mostly because I love dressing up. I've been Margot Tenenbaum (okay, well, I did that a lot actually), Patty Hearst, Deb from "Napoleon Dynamite," and as a child I was frequently a witch or a Greek goddess. One year I was Medusa. One of my favorite pictures my parents took of me when I was little is one of me as a four-year-old dressed as a firefighter for Halloween. I even have charcoal smudged on my face for extra effect.

We never skimped on Halloween at my house.

And when I got to college it just got more extreme, culminating in last year, when I made a tank top with the SLA logo on it, as well as a cardboard gun. There was also a beret involved. Looking back on it, it was a pretty politically incorrect costume, and I don't think I'll be Patty Hearsting it again any time soon. But I do love Halloween, and so being in a country where Halloween isn't really a big deal was kind of sad. I mean, I firmly believe that any party is better when it requires a costume. At Smith we often had themed parties -- in the time I was there, we had a communist party, a Candyland party, a Wes Anderson party, an alter egos party (I was Margot, as per), and a lot of themed birthday parties.

So I'm getting worried that maybe college is the only time in your life when it's acceptable to frequently dress ridiculously with very little reason to. Because if this is true, I really should have savored it.

I went out Saturday night, but the first stop was a bar in the Marais for a cheap beer (sensing a theme?) with some American friends, and then a birthday party one of my French friends was having at his place in "the sketchy part of Montmartre." Which, by the way, is actually that sketchy. Welcome to Paris, where ordinary people walk their dogs alongside prostitutes and drug dealers after midnight.

For the record, the French party turned out to be a costume party, which made me feel lame for not having one. Maybe I'll get a second chance at some point.

So today I spent my vacation time doing Important Things, like grocery shopping, which is really more like a hobby for me here, because I love it, returning overpriced and poor quality housewares to a French furniture store (yay! money back!), getting my new monthly metro pass, and taking my phone to the place I bought it in the Marais because today it decided to just up and die. Oops.

After my errands, I returned to the Cimetiere Montparnasse to take pictures, like I've been meaning to since the last time I was there. And Simone de Beauvoir's grave? Still amazing. And I finally found Man Ray's grave. It turns out it doesn't get me like Simone. I think that often times, the art that someone produces is more meaningful than even something like seeing where they're buried. At Smith we were always talking about archives and reading early drafts of famous writing, and learning about the writers that way, but I'm thinking more and more that you can actually get way more out of just looking at the final product -- at the painting, at the book, or in this case, the photograph. Just like Sylvia Plath's poetry means more to me than her drafts or journals, Man Ray's photos are a lot more meaningful to me than seeing where he's buried. Maybe that doesn't make sense. Because Simone de Beauvoir's grave gets me all choked up and I haven't even read anything she's ever written.

There goes my theory.

Also? I am such a Smithie. Ruminating on art and life and death with references to Sylvia Plath, Simone de Beauvoir, and Man Ray. It's times like this I feel a bit like a stereotype/caricature.

Anyway, something funny happened as I wandered the cemetery. I found Charles Baudelaire's grave (yeah, that's not the funny part) and all of the sudden, just as I was zooming my camera lens onto his name, my camera battery died. Now, usually, I can trick my camera into thinking it has enough battery by messing with the battery slot, but this time it didn't work. At all. The camera just stopped working.

So I'm beginning to think that old Chuck Baudelaire isn't too fond of people photographing his grave. Man Ray doesn't seem to mind though, which, given his field of expertise, just makes sense. And I have to admit, I find that pretty funny.

I cooked dinner at home while listening to Feist and then Duke Ellington again, and I have a new theory about jazz. I'm pretty sure it was invented for people who live alone. Because you can have it on at all hours of the day, and it kind of livens up a quiet apartment, and you never have to turn it off, because you can read to it. Okay, so having music I can read and write to is key. I can't do either if the music I'm listening to has lyrics, because I can only focus on the lyrics. It's like the opposite of ADD. It's like I have some kind of musical fixation syndrome.

So yeah. Even though it makes me feel like I am secretly a 47-year-old man, listening to jazz (Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, and Miles Davis specifically) is keeping my apartment lively. Even when I'm reading Wuthering Heights after I make dinner.

Next I'll probably be taking up cigars and golf and saying things like "old chap" with no sense of irony whatsoever. And then waxing poetic about Simone de Beauvoir and cooking vegetarian food and writing in my journal while sitting on my flowered sheets. So that'll be interesting. Leave it to Paris to bring out my girly defaults and old man tendencies at the very same time.