You and Your Racist Friend

One of the drawbacks of living in Paris is that little by little, you become aware of the things about Paris that are not beautiful, inspiring, or fun.  For me it's the awful sensation of being both extremely visible and invisible at the same time.  This stems from the fact that if you are a woman, in Paris, and are even moderately attractive and young, you will be stared at by sleazy, sketchy men everywhere you go.  And all bets are off if you like to go running.  Welcome to anomaly-hood.  So, everywhere I go, no matter how sloppy I look, I get stared at by men.  It would be less creepy if it were the beautifully dressed beautiful boys who I see on the metro all the time and are actually my age, but it's usually the creepy old dudes.  I've checked with my friends and this is something that happens to us every day.  To those men I just say, seriously?  Read your book.  It's fine to notice someone who's attractive but if I see you staring at me every time I look up from my book on the metro, I am creeped out, not interested.  Okay thanks.  Au revoir!

As for invisible?  I have been stepped on, bumped into, pushed, shoved, and squished so frequently since I've been here that I sometimes feel like I live in a city of blind people.

Another thing?  Well, in a word, racism.  At the last party I went to, I met this guy, who in between talking about his love for techno while his friend explained the intricacies of building a better hashish cigarette to me, informed me that immigrants are just a problem and should assimilate and be French or not come to France at all.

To which I was like, "Hmmm, in the US we see it a little differently, because, you know, everyone came from somewhere else."

To which he said, "Yeah, but in the US you guys have problems with immigrants too, you know.  They really shouldn't be allowed into the country."

To which I decided that we should probably just agree to disagree -- you know, him back to talking about techno, me back to smiling and nodding.

This reminded me of this guy who interviewed me to share an apartment with him, and informed me that where he lived was best because there weren't immigrants around to cause trouble.

Seriously?  If immigrants cause trouble, whose fault is that?  The immigrants, or the stigma that the French have towards them that causes them to have trouble accessing basic services?  I mean, really.  What do you think perpetuates what?

It just makes me mad that there's this tacit racism that's treated like it ain't no thing.  Of course we have racism in the US, but we also have this idea of political correctness and the importance of "diversity," which, while sometimes cloying and just a cover for the real problems, at least has its heart in the right place.  Sometimes I think France could care less about diversity.  And it's times like this that I am so glad that, yes, that's right, I live in Chinatown.  Where there are people from other countries.  And poor people.  And everything doesn't look perfect and strictly French to the point of scary.

This has been really bothering me lately, and I think it all started when I heard about how Switzerland is banning minarets.  This really upset me, because minarets are beautiful.  When I lived in Senegal, you could always look out across the city and see all the minarets from the mosques.  I loved them!  And there's also the whole lack of freedom of religion the ban implies.

Oh yeah, you guys can totally have your mosque, but please dispense with that annoying call to prayer.  Love, the Swiss Government.

Nothing about it is okay.  I mean, do they think that minarets cause terrorism?  Really?

I am so not down with the anti-Arab sentiment I detect here.  Again, it's something I just thought was worse in the US, but here it's just repressed and comes out in really subtle or shocking ways, which isn't better.  I really do think that in the United States we have a more open view of what makes a culture or a country of value.  I guess because the notion of ranking them is just stupid.  But many Parisians think of Paris as "the capital of the world," and there's very much a sense that the French way of doing things is the right way.

I really do love Paris.  But there are times when I am just so happy to blast the Ramones on my iPod on the metro while wearing my running shoes and unflattering jeans and my Space Travel t-shirt and a hoodie and my glasses and no makeup.  While clutching a paper cup from Starbucks.  Because when it all comes down to it, I am American.  And while I have my qualms with where I'm from, it's home.  Luckily I live in a part of Paris that feels a little like Seattle -- Tang Freres is no Uwajimaya, but I can get Japanese food a few blocks from my apartment, and when I look out onto the eyesore construction around the train station with the towers of the Bibliotheque Nationale in the distance, it could totally be the place where downtown Seattle and industrial Seattle come together.

At first I didn't like this, and I bemoaned my quartier's lack of perfection, but I actually think it's kind of a wonderful and interesting place to live.

Also?  Today I sent in my application to UC Irvine.  And after disastrous nanny duty, I made quesadillas in my apartment.  I had to use emmental and kidney beans, but they tasted really good.  In Paris, even home-made pseudo-Mexican food feels like a delicious rarity.

Frustration aside, I'm remembering a saying I learned in Senegal.  Ku mun muun.  Indirectly translated, it means I'm pressing on.  "Your Racist Friend" by They Might Be Giants is pretty special to me right now, though.

Also, my across the hall neighbor is my new favorite person.  He opens jars for me.  You know you no longer go to Smith when you share a hallway with two guys, one of whom is a rad jar-opener and the other just plays bizarre soft rock way too loudly.

They also have never complained to me about blasting the Clash, which given that I'm in a transition and they're my go to transition band, well, my neighbors are pretty okay.

So I guess this one goes out to the treizième.  I go back and forth, but right now it's home sweet home.  Also, I realized yesterday that I have best friends in Paris, who will console me on the phone while I'm in Carrefour buying groceries and freaking out about work, and with whom I am going to eat sushi and eclairs and watch Love Actually and color and paint nails on Friday.  And somehow, just knowing that I have people here, that bear hugs are just a phone call away, is pretty damn reassuring.

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.

The 13th in Pictures

This week we are technically on vacation, and I've been taking photos all the time, mostly of the things I've seen  -- we went to Versailles yesterday for a "real vacation day," although I have to admit that I've spent a lot of my break doing boring logistical but necessary things, like cleaning my apartment and figuring out how to get a library card. Versailles pictures tomorrow, for now it's all about the 13th:

This is a little park near my house, named after Eloise and Abelard. I don't spend much time there, but I love the name.

 

I love this sign.  It's basically just a sign saying that the plants in the park will come back after their winter repose. It's so simple, but phrased in such an absurd/elegant way...

The 13th is full of random little things like this. Kind of a non sequitur here, but I like stumbling on them.

So, there is a lot of graffiti in Paris. Case in point.

And right beside the graffiti, you have this. That's the 13th for you, but it is also just typical of Paris.

Also, no one loves their quartier enough to pick up after their dogs... these signs, while charming, are not very effective.

So I christened my apartment with a dinner party with a friend of mine. Behold our culinary prowess! Kidney bean burgers, tomatoes and avocadoes, a delicious baguette, and kir we mixed ourselves. I was pretty proud. Also, of my ability to rouse up a dining room table in my bedroom. I mean, my mulitpurpose room, I mean, most of my apartment...

It's me! Finally, a picture of a person. Enjoying some kir...

So, I love the combination of the brick, white-ish wall, dark shadow, and the trail left behind by an airplane. It's the view onto an airshaft from my kitchen -- and also just very very typical of old French apartment buildings. I love it.

And because the 13th is full of contrasts, here's a nice juxtaposition for you -- the Bibliotheque Nationale, about as modern as you can get.

So yeah. This is where I live. I'm not sure the pictures provide the whole story, but the 13th is a really crazy, interesting place, and what makes it all the more strange is that it's in such a state of flux right now that I know it will be totally different in even just a year. For now it's Chinatown, art galleries, artist ateliers (including one that used to be a refrigerator), the train lines to the suburbs, rich/poor, young/old, families/single people, old/new architecture, and a Metro line that goes above ground.

I like it.

Getting better and writing poems with L. Cohen

Disclaimer: The following contains references to my brief medical anomoly-hood this summer that some readers may find upsetting. Proceed with caution, dear readers -- however many of you there may be...

Today I swam for an hour, and I realized that I am getting much stronger after the excision of the Mini Cooper tumor this summer. Or maybe I'm just a faster swimmer because I'm not hauling around 7 extraneous pounds. It felt good, more than I can put into words. Getting better felt good, being better -- hell, just being okay -- defies description.

Also -- French pools sell swimsuits in vending machines, and require women to wear swim caps and men to wear speedos. Supposedly "hygiene" is the reason for this. I have my doubts.

Then my swimming friend and I stopped for a coffee at a small cafe across the street from the pool. It was the perfect antidote to swimming-induced aching (in a good way) limbs. Back at home in the 13th, I went grocery shopping, made dinner, watched "True Blood," drank tea and ate some pain au chocolat, wrote a poem, and listened to Leonard Cohen before bed. "Famous Blue Raincoat" and "So Long Marianne" and especially "Last Year's Man" sound different here. Better, if that's possible. Or maybe I'm just better.

I like Paris. It's been said but it bears repeating.

Lazy Dimanche

How I spent my Sunday:
1. starting my day by reading Ernest Hemingway and drinking coffee after sleeping in.
2. picking up a fresh baguette from my usual boulangerie -- miraculously open even though it's Sunday -- and an avocado from the Sunday marche at Place Jeanne d'Arc.
3. taking the Metro to Mairie des Lilas to see the movie version of "Le Petit Nicolas" with student discount tickets with one of my friends who's also an assistant -- it was adorable.
4. returning to the 13th for a wander around and show her my new neighborhood -- Bibliotheque Nationale Francois Mitterand, Piscine Josephine Baker, the quai and its accompanying nightclub boats, and Les Frigos, an abandoned refrigerator factory that is now an artist colony with requisite awesome graffiti and galleries and it is so cool!
5. ...and then returning from our wanderings to make and eat a delicious vegetarian dinner (kidney bean burgers, a salad of tomatoes and avocadoes, and baguette) and drink homemade kir at my apartment.

It was a good one.

A few more pictures:

More pictures are on their way, including those of my growing vegetarian culinary skillz.

Photos! Finally! Et la vie quotidienne...

In my last-minute preparations for France, I brought the wrong USB cord for my camera, and I didn't get a replacement until yesterday, which was sad because it meant I was taking some photos, but they didn't have anywhere to go. Here's what I've got so far. It's just the beginning:

This is the front of my building, at 161 Rue du Chevaleret. Typical crazy French facade and fancy door. The building is old, which is not as common in the 13th. My apartment isn't nearly as cool-looking as the facade, but I really like the way my building looks.

And inside - this is the biggest room in my apartment. I only have 17 square meters, but as you can see, I have a very French window and faux balcony in the corner.

I'm not religious at all, but Notre Dame is pretty amazing even for those born secular. I mean, it's beautiful. It's mesmerizing to just look up at it for a long time. Just watch out for all of the tourists taking pictures. I mean, not that I did that or anything... And also, gargoyles? Yeah. I love the gargoyles.

I love these eyes - they were up along the Seine when I first got here. The last time I was back at Quai des Celestins, they had started to peel off, sadly, but Paris is full of ephemeral art (and public art!) like this. And in Paris, even a lot of the graffiti is beautiful. Although there are probably some who would disagree with me.

This is the view from the cafe I would go to every day to check my email when I was staying at Hotel du Fauconnier in the Marais. You could just sit and look out at these buildings (all old, spotless, and pretty) and listen to crowds of people go by on the street below. A nice way to spend an afternoon.

You can take the girl out of the Smith College art department, but you can't take the Smith College art department out of the girl.

Saint-Jacques, near the Marais - I went here during my first few days in France, because from a distance I thought it was Notre Dame. Turns out it isn't, but it's still a beautiful cathedral (I think, maybe it technically isn't...) with a small park surrounding it, which was full of Parisians reading when I was there. Paris is full of places to sit and think or read, which I love, so it was a nice discovery.

So there you have it - photographic evidence that I live here. Further evidence is the fact that I've had my first truly stressful few days not due to trying to find an apartment but due to ordinary things - like Mondays, and then coming home yesterday to find that my land lord had decided to fix one of the pipes in my apartment without calling me first. That was awkward. There are few things as awkward as walking into your hallway to see your apartment door open and then to see a gnome pop out holding a wrench, informing you that he would have called but his cell phone died.

Then, later in the evening, the previous tenant of my apartment showed up just as I was getting home for the second time trying to get his mail out of my mailbox. He explained that he transferred his address but his mail is still coming here. So I gave him anything in my boite aux lettres that was clearly his, and then he gave me his email address so that I can email him if anything else comes for him.

So basically, a day of awkward interactions, not really abated by the fact that I have an earache at the moment, and all I really wanted to do was make couscous and lentils and try out my brand new French ear drops and watch True Blood. Sometimes it really is the little things.

Today got off to a better start. I went to my quartier's market, which goes under the Metro (it's above ground here), and people sell all manner of fruits and veggies and cheese and flowers and junk and Indian scarves and Chinese food, and the prices are way cheaper than supermarches. I got a huge bag of apples, oranges, and tomatoes, a tiny piece of fancy gouda and a small pat of chevre, and a bunch of irises for my desk. On the way home, I picked up a schedule for yoga classes at a community center near my apartment, and picked up my daily 40 centimes demi-baguette at Boulangerie Jeanne d'Arc. I think the market is definitely the way to go for cheap produce, but the cheese was pretty quality, and I think if I stick to the generic cheese at the supermarche, that might be the cheaper way to go. This is very mundane, but shopping for food in Paris, while way cheaper than buying groceries in the United States, relies on comparison-shopping and trying out as many options as possible. And there are a lot of options - everything from cheap discount grocery stores to more ordinary grocery stores, to borderline Target-ish stores full of pricy food and crying kids in the cereal aisle. Apparently one's desire for Frosted Flakes and consequent tantrum is not an American phenomenon. Who knew?

I've found that Carrefour is pretty reasonably priced if you buy the Carrefour products (this is my grocery store of choice), Leader Price is dirt cheap but kind of scary, Casino is a bit more expensive than Carrefour, and Monoprix, while it is essentially called "one price" is overpriced. I'm a big fan of my generic Carrefour cereal and lentils and couscous and fresh fruit and fromage blanc (which is cheese, but it's like a more runny version of plain yogurt) with jam. A lot of things here are really affordable - coffee beans are cheaper, as are basic staples. And totally random things are more expensive. American things are more expensive too, obviously - any international foods section in a typical grocery store will have incredibly pricy peanut butter and pancakes and maple syrup on the American shelf.

I've found that life in Paris is definitely as glamorous as you'd want it to be - you really can just buy a cafe creme and sit in a cafe for hours reading and writing. The majority of the people who live here dress beautifully, the food is delicious and sometimes even cheap, and every day I walk past beautiful things that are just here and have been forever. I also tend to stumble over things that I love - especially bookstores. The Metro is amazing and makes getting around really easy - nothing is too far away. I can hop on in the 13th and get off in the Marais or Montmartre.

But - a big part of living here is also what it would be anywhere else - figuring out how to save the most money on groceries, figuring out how to get to work on time, figuring out which boulangerie in your neighborhood has the best bread at the cheapest price, figuring out how to plunge your toilet, putting up with the annoying parts of living in an old Parisian apartment building. It's a lot of logistics and getting oriented, which I guess is really the difference between being here as a tourist and being here because you live here.

But I never wanted to live here because I like visiting the Eiffel Tower, anyway.

Now it's rainy, and I'm in my apartment listening to Iron and Wine, putting off going out again for boring but necessary errands. La vie quotidienne, I guess.

More pictures are on the way. I now have a whole memory card to fill up, and I am really excited to finally be able to photograph the things I see every day.

Sharif don't like it.

I just returned from my first Parisian party, where I discovered three things:

1) You have never really heard "Rock the Casbah" until you have heard French people singing along to "Rock the Casbah."

2) You know you don't go to Smith anymore when you go to a party and men are just there, voluntarily, hanging out, the music is American rap when it isn't "Rock the Casbah," and although your command of the language isn't perfect, you're pretty sure no one has used the word "hegemony" in the last hour.

3) The Metro runs until 2 a.m., and even if you live in the sleepiest part of the 13th arrondissement, you won't be the only one coming home on the Metro late at night.

Good to know.

13 Things

It's really late, and yet again cold and gray in Paris, and since I don't have too much time to write, the time has come to list. So, things I've discovered so far:

1. French women DO get fat. Just not morbidly obese.
2. Starbucks has taken over the world, apparently. Even in the 13th, an "up and coming" arrondissement without the same level of affluence as other parts of the city, there's a stretch of yuppie chains just a ten-minute walk from my house. One of them is Starbucks. Clearly there is no escape from them. There is also no escaping Brigitte Bardot.
3. You know you're from Seattle when having a coffee maker in your apartment makes it feel approximately 1000 more times like home.
4. French kids are adorable. They also don't understand English, so when you introduce yourself to a classroom full of 8-year-olds in English, it's best to talk about your time with them in terms of years, not months.
5. On a similar note, the cutest thing I've seen so far was a little kid in the class I met today asking the teacher, " 'Seven,' c'est sept?"
6. The Luxembourg Gardens close at 7 in the evening. This means that if you try to go there in the early evening for a walk before dinner, you should probably reconcile yourself to wandering around the Latin Quarter.
7. ...which is not nearly as fun as wandering around the Marais.
8. Even though people don't greet each other on the street, everyone in my building says bonjour/soir if they run into each other in the hallway or the courtyard. I love this. It makes me feel like even though I live in a little tiny studio in a huge city by myself, I am still living in a community.
9. ...which is largely populated by people my age, and families with babies. There is also a man who walks his chihuahua at night.
10. The Paris in "Amelie" is a fairy tale Paris, but sometimes it still feels like I live in that world.
11. Everything here is named after famous people. The schools I work at are named after Denis Diderot and Yuri Gagarin, the park next to my apartment is named after Heloise and Abelard, the footbridge over the Seine is named after Simone de Beauvoir, and just a look at a Metro map is a bit like looking at the index of a history book.
12. It's funniest when these famous people clearly aren't French. I have so far encountered two Boulevards President John F. Kennedy.
13. The 13th is where I live. The more I see it, the more I like it. Although I'm still waiting for my apartment to feel like home.

But the coffee maker is helping.

This is what it's like to live in Paris.

This is what it's like to live in Paris. I think I get it now. You live in your small apartment and cook simple, cheap staples for yourself, and then spend lots of money on delicious Mediterranean food and red wine when you go out with your friends. You live in a neighborhood that isn't touristy at all, because it doesn't have any tourist attractions in it, but it does have a lot of Parisians in it, of every imaginable appearance and age and ethnicity and religion and socioeconomic status, and sometimes you take the Metro into the more touristy or especially beautiful parts of the city to get felafel at that one place in the Marais, or to meet friends, or to go to Musee d'Orsay because it's your favorite, or just to wander around because you live in Paris, and no matter how much you wander through Paris, you will never see or understand or experience all of it. After your time in those places, you come back to your Metro stop and get off with everyone else who lives in your quartier, walk a few blocks from the Metro, type in your Digicode, enter your building's courtyard, type in your Digicode again, enter your building, and climb six flights of stairs back up to your small apartment to wash your face, hop in bed, and call it a night.

Because you live in Paris. And you don't have to do everything in Paris in one day. Because you know you can't.

Or maybe that's just me. I just got back to my apartment after the aforementioned dinner in the Marais, and I realized as I crossed the Seine in the Metro that this is how it's going to be. It's not too different from my life in Seattle, really, except that I got to stop and stare at the Bastille before catching my train back to the 13th.

God damn. I love it here.