You can't make me not love Paris.

I am not Amélie Poulain. I'm probably that introverted, but as it turns out, I don't really like living alone. I realized this yesterday morning when I woke up in my quiet, tiny apartment. I thought to myself, oh yes, this is all very bohemian and writer-ly, but... dude. I need people. I need someone to say hi to when I come home, even if it's just someone I share the apartment with. I live in a big city, and I have friends, but living alone in a tiny, only moderately cheap studio isn't worth it. Colocations are way cheaper, and the apartments are often nicer. I mean, my place is cute, for sure, but sometimes I feel like it's la Maison Bric-a-Brac, like if I stomp around too much one of the walls might begin to fall apart.

So I'm looking for a new place. And more importantly, I'm looking for roommates. It's a bit dramatic, because I have to break my contract with my landlord, but according to French law, you can get out of a lease without penalty if you give 30 days notice. So I only hope the gnome is up on his French law, because I really want my security deposit back.

Things have been really up and down lately. Like, on Sunday, I was walking down Tolbiac and this drunk homeless man kept trying to talk to me. So I ignored him. Because I do that. And then, just as I was passing him, he launched his beer can at the back of my neck.

Okay, a few things:
1. I'm glad it wasn't a bottle, and also that he was too incapacitated to throw that hard.
2. Still. It was almost full.
3. Dude wasted his beer.
4. And got beer all over my wool bomber jacket.
5. Can I just say, I was terrified. I ran.

I called the police and when I returned to Tolbiac the next day, the sketchy homeless guys had apparently been removed. Now, I do feel a little weird about calling the police about homeless people. But I also need to feel safe where I live, and I shouldn't have to cut into my budget to dry clean my jacket because it got drenched in cheap beer because this guy wanted me to talk to him.

So I was pretty bummed after that. Paris is Dreamland for me, and so when very real things happen, it shakes me up. Then yesterday morning, feeling residual angst over Beer Man and getting ready to launch my new housing search, I went to my quartier's marché. I picked up my apples as usual, and then, because I was feeling down, I went to the flower man to buy some little yellow flowers for my apartment. I think he could tell that I was sad, because he said, "Ça va?" and when I gave an unconvincing, "Ça va," he picked out a small pink rose for me from his stand and gave it to me for free with my little yellow flowers. It was such a small, sweet gesture, but it did make me feel better. And it was the antithesis of the creepy guys hitting on you all the time in Paris. Sometimes I think it's these little interactions that make Paris what it is.

That afternoon, my head full of images of shared apartments with clean, new bathrooms and washing machines, I got on the metro to meet one of my closest friends at the Abbesses metro stop in Montmartre. Montmartre is my favorite place in Paris, and it was the reminder I needed if why I love Paris. We wandered to Sacre-Coeur, and through the gloomy mist of a rainy Paris evening, we pointed out Notre Dame and l'Hôtel de Ville and the towers of the Bibliothèque Nationale far off in the distance. It looked magical and tiny in the layer of fog and rain. Paris looks so small from Sacre-Coeur - like a toy Paris. I love seeing it from that perspective. It reminds you of how many people live here, of how many tiny worlds exist here. As we wandered down to Pigalle (hello sex shops, hello red-light district, hello tourists in line for Moulin Rouge) we said good-bye to the winding streets, the tall old buildings leaning into the Butte, the Christmas lights strung along the narrow alleys. I might go back tonight. So take that Beer Can Man. You can get beer on my jacket, but you can't make me not love Paris.