Look Both Ways

My worst nightmare came true. No Jean-David did not leave me on the street awaiting December 15 for my flight home to a glorious American Christmas, nor was I summoned by Nicolas Sarkozy for a questioning of my purpose in France.

I was hit by a motorcycle.

I was hit by a motorcycle on my way to go start processing my health insurance papers. How’s that for irony?

For no reason, I wasn’t pressed for time-but of course when you are a faux-française you feel the need to rush anyway, just to fit in I suppose. Walking down Avenue de Versailles I saw the 22 stop at the red light. I decided to sprint so I didn’t have to wait another 10 minutes for the next bus. However, as I was gracefully nipping across rue Mirabeau a motorcycle turned the corner and came at me like a bat out of hell.

Everyone knows that feeling of watching yourself from the outside of your self. Yourself is about to creamed by a moving vehicle and your other self is the one that has her hands clapped over her eyes yelling, “Oh F**K!!! LOOK OUT!” Thankfully, my (outside) self orchestrated some sort of ballet-esque pirouette as the motorcycle swerved and flipped over, rudely expelling the driver from the saddle.

Amongst the “Nom de dieu! Fils de pute! Mon moto, putain!!!” The motorcycles tire was spinning madly on my right calf as I tumbled mid-air over the churning bike and flopped right onto my ample-backside. I sat there sprawled in the middle of the street with my skirt flipped over my thighs like a life-size doll, and started hysterically sobbing like an infant that falls down hard and scares themselves.

Through my tears and stumbling around grasping at my hard-won papers ready for the Social Security office, a nice lady came to my aid to help me stand up, examine my cuts and bruises, offer me a glass of water and try to comprehend whatever I was saying…which I believe was a mixture of blubbering, English and very-bastard-French. I rejected all offers of help and after making sure I didn’t have a concussion or any serious contusions I shakily walked across the street (yes I looked both ways!) to wait for the next bus, call Jean-David in tears, and go to my appointment at the Social Security bureau.

Walking back home from Social Security the colors looked brighter, the cars seemed faster and I seemed more alive. Or rather I seemed sore and bruised but thankfully had all of my limbs in working order. Each painful stride was exquisite. I was here, walking, breathing and taking in all of Paris’ wonderment.

That is Sooo French!

“Oh, bah, zis iz a typically French thing.” Prowling up and down the platform in the Pigalle metro station for 40 minutes trying to figure out the best way to hurtle myself into the next train is just not comparable to a flakey croissant or a café au lait.

Let me explain something. France is wonderful; the language beautiful, the food divine…the Hemingway-ian Paris- however, the one foul thing that I will never comprehend is the administration. Anything in regard to mass organization or paperwork is met with a Gallic shoulder shrug and a simultaneous puff of air through the lips…meaning… “Bah, zat iz ‘ow it iz… hein…”

Before I moved to Paris the first time I was besieged with warnings about the violence of French strikes. I lived nine months in the City of Lights without encountering any sort of inconvenience. Well-those nine months of bliss have caught up with me.

After finishing my nanny-ing for the day I was off to a soirée, I dawdled over choosing a bottle of wine because after all I had over an hour to get to the party. As I descended into the metro I missed a train. It was a literal sardine can of passengers, people throwing themselves on to the train forgetting the essential politesse that so defines the French.

It was no biggie…I had time, the next train was only in…WHAT?! 13 MINUTES? For the next thirteen minutes I walked up and down the platform knowing which passengers were going to get on, the pissed looking guy standing on the very edge of the platform ready to dive into the next passing train, the teeny-Asian girl, and big-boobs McGee with her shopping bags. I sidled up to the pissed-off looking guy, and when finally a train came up, I pushed with all my might, but in vain. Thirty seconds later I found myself on the platform muttering explosive profanities under my breath watching as Mr. Pissed-Off guy waved from the train window.

13 minutes turned into 18 minutes, into 45 minutes. As the fourth train approached the quai (after having weighed all other possibilities, bus, other metro route, walking, switching directions on the train…) I looked like an angry cat. There was no one in my vicinity due to the thunderous look on my face. And so, in my most robust American manner, the instant the train opened its doors, I shoved, pushed, pulled, growled and catapulted myself on the train.

SUCCESS! I was on that train! I felt very smug even though I was sandwiched between two gigantic men in a very intimate matter and had to endure the sweet-racist-ravings of an angry man slapping the door every 14 seconds.

8 metro stops, approximately 6 different racial slurs on repeat, inappropriate groping and a 10-minute walk through Belleville I had arrived without being crushed to death. Stepping inside the sanctuary of the party, I was welcomed with a glass of French wine, directed toward a cheese-plate, and enveloped in clouds of blue cigarette smoke and the throaty sound of the French language. Now, that is my type of French experience.

A Weekend in the Country

Waking up at 5:30am is not my ideal way to start a vacation. Especially when it includes scurrying to the train station in a Paris drizzle already in our vacation clothing. As we pulled away from Fall-like weather in Paris and chugged onward to the south of France I saw the light. Literally. The sunlight. And the promise of three blissful days in the hot summer sun in the South of France.

So as you can gather, Jean-David and I finally took a weekend and went to Marseille and Cassis. There we indulged in two of my favorite things:

We-swam in the salty sea of the South and ate fresh French fish.

One of the typical dishes in the South of France is Bouillabaisse so we went on a search for the tastiest in town. However when we realised that this fabulous dish went for 58€ per person, we decided on other delicacies of the South like mussels and fresh Tuna. Our three days were on repeat, walk around, sit and people-watch, imitate the Marseille accent-

Putaing je vais chercher du paing. Funny...eat fresh French Fish go swim in the salty sea and eat again.

Being surrounded by the bright colors of the still present sun-dresses, beach towels, and incredibly tanned, wrinkly topless grannies, I felt unprepared to face employment and Fall fashion in the impossibly chic Paris. At least I have a tan.

August in Paris

Ah, August in Paris. The smell of hot dog merde cooking in the sun, fanny-pack porting tourists clogging the public transport, and every good boulangerie, restaurant and café closed during ‘les vacances’.

Today is the 1^st of September. Yesterday was the 31^st of August. The difference between today and yesterday is alarming. Fall coats, boots, black, grey and camel colored garb surrounded me in a flurry of Parisians returning from their month of vacations. I noticed the 70% increase of people roaming in the deadest, oldest most bourgeois neighborhood, the ease of taking the bus (usually a sardine can of tourists gawking at the Eiffel Tower), and upon arriving in an area as dead as the 16^th arrondisment (Neuilly, where Jean-David works) we had to wait for a table.

I’ve been waiting with bated breath for September for a while now (since April). The start of my job, my entrance auditions for the Conservatory, moving into our apartment…

My, my, my how things change. In the typical French fashion my entire application process for the conservatoire has been bungled from start to finish. Pardon-moi to repeat moi, but as you may have read:

• I jumped through several hoops to have my residency card. Check!
• I pre-applied for an application for the Conservatoire. Check!
• I never got the application in the mail until the day it was due, then had to pull a thesis proposition out of you-know-where and submit it the following day…
• I received a letter saying my application was selected for an audition contingent on my passing a French comprehension exam, and sending the results before the 2^nd of September.
• The only TCF (test) was the 21^st of August with a three-week wait time before getting the results.
• I sent frantic emails starting the beginning of July.
• I never received emails or phone calls back.

Hilariously enough, we (the test takers) were guaranteed that we would under no circumstances receive our test results before September 15^th. I got them back on Monday (the 30^th). I passed. Whoopee.

I am finally receiving responses back from my many emails and phone calls…all of which say-“we are resending your check and application back, sorry about the test problem”. I am not going to correct this mistake, because I decided it is in my best interest to put off graduate school until next fall, when I can decide on a thesis, try out some different teachers, and most importantly rework my technique.

So this year, I will not be a student but rather-Baby sitter extraordinaire and hopefully waitress extraordinaire. I would explain about my job, but it is so boring and I gather that most of you have started reading something else by this point.

In other news, Jean-David and I are still waiting on our apartment (they are repairing the shower which means of course that they cannot answer our phone calls) so for the time being we are still chez his parents house.

If we are still not in our own place by October. I will use my entire first pay check on clothing. All in a black, grey and camel color palette.

My love affair with endives

Today, I was sitting at a café, and couldn’t help but hearing the three rakishly thin French girls chatting about how fat they were. At one point “Marlene” took off her stylish Fall-blazer and said,

“Anne-Sophie, look at this arm fat (read skin), I mean I know now, no more crepes, chocolate, pasta…”

The rest of the girls widened their eyes in awe of the centimeter of flesh hanging from Marlene’s arm. Then one of the other girls demonstrated some arm exercises-one of them was picking up her pint of beer (not light) sipping it and replacing it in front of her. She could probably do better with a fork loaded up with mashed potatoes.

Disgusted, I continued to sip my highly caffeinated espresso in hopes it would suppress my eternal longing for a lemon tart.

With the guilt of even thinking about a lemon tart I settled down to continue my reading of “Je n’arrive pas à maigrir”. Or for my fellow Anglophones, “I don’t know how to get skinny”.

The premise of this diet book was aimed at the entire spectrum of the French female-including those who are:

• Snackers
• Stressed out
• Thyroid problem
• Menopause
• Stopping smoking

And my personal favorite

• Can’t be bothered to get off their bums and bouge (sedentary life-stylers)

Generations of women have looked to the svelte Frenchies on this tantalizing subject-in fact there are cookbooks and diet books dedicated to solving the mystery of how French women stay thin. This is why I thought it would be highly educational to read a French diet book.

Well, I’m just going to go ahead and burst the proverbial bubble: French women stay thin because French people make babies with French people and stay in France, thus preserving their glorious ballerina bodies.

Strolling the boulevards in Paris is the best window-shopping, because the majority of Parisian women are living, breathing, smoking…hangers. Perfect for displaying Falls’ newest trends. I usually leave the house feeling good, but a moment in a trendy area surrounded by these gazelles gliding around in their effortless skinny jeans leaves me feeling like a frumpy, dumpy American with a resolve to live off of endives and celery for the rest of my life.

Anyway, flipping through this astounding literary achievement (and their subsequent regimes) taught me one thing. That for any of the cases listed above, I should be eating lots of bread, red-meat, dark chocolate, red wine, butter, fat and cream…in miniscule portions. Aaand, if my weight goes over by .000002 I had better not eat one thing until that microscopic ounce has vanished from my scale. Whatever the cost may be.

Literally, if worse comes to worse, I can drop hundreds of euro at my local pharmacy loading up on calorie burners, appetite suppressors and full lines of smoothing panty-hose. Apparently, appetite suppressors are a highly recommended and effective weight-loss method by the author of this diet book. I’m sure they mix great with the red-wine.

I think we (the rest of the female world) must come to terms that the bone-structure and gazelle like bodies that we so covet are genetic…so tant pis and eat a baguette. French women don’t actually know how to get thin. They are thin, and stay thin by being French. Le voila!

So I (hopefully) will shed pounds by reading diet books, chuffing along the Seine, and using diligently the ‘think’ method to release my inner ballerina.

A Street-Sign named "______"

I admit that I am not that fabulous at taking pictures of the sites in Paris.

However, there is one thing that makes me stop in my tracks, rifle through my purse, get out my iphone and with blatant joy take a photograph...and that is: ta ra ta ra...

STREET SIGNS NAMED AFTER COMPOSERS!

This is the start of my collection. Call it what you want...but this is the Lauren-geek-project-whilst-she-lives-in-France.

To be continued!

Curling Irons and Cutlery

In my destitution of learning that my faithful curling iron had heated its last hair, I went in search of replacing my essential beauty tool.

I was not excited at this prospect-although it did mark the grand occasion of buying a French appliance that wasn't a convertor. Upon much consideration, I decided to brave once of the most populated areas in Paris.

The BHV.

Quelle horreur! My previous purchases in this mega-department-store were nightmares. Searching for a pillow that wasn't a gigantic square (yet another French conundrum) or a rectangle of flaccid feathers was to be found on a floor that mixed 'bedroom' with 'lingerie/swimwear' and 'art supplies'. To find a simple convertor took a 45 minute underground tour in a veritable maze of anything you can possibly imagine that had to do with housework.

However because this is store is a literal bazaar (BHV: Bazaar de Hotel de Ville) I was certain that a curling iron was to be found.

Arriving on the floor that promised all things electrical I was dazzled-not by the abundance of hair supplies, but by each gleaming surface covered in kitchen wonderment. A wall of Pyrex, three full aisles of Le Creuset products, shiny pots and pans of every distinguished mark and happily-a customer service agent just for asking questions about knives.

All frustrations forgotten, I was in my dream kitchen, I meandered around contemplating the benefits of 'Tefal' versus 'Le Creuset, knives that never needed sharpening, found the perfect sautee pan and appreciated the sparkling splendor of the pyrex wall.

I realized, a solid 40 minutes later, that I had yet to purchase my curling iron and I was going to be late for my practice hour. So I scampered to buy my curling iron (apparently in France they don't believe in a girth larger than 1 inch) and hurried to my rehearsal thinking of non-stick cookware.

There might be a movie in the making:

Breakfast at BHV...there really isn't any place as lovely.