11 September, 2006 | 2 Comments

…to my dear Maman.

There are no words.

xx

11 September, 2006 | Comments

Link.

10 September, 2006 | 5 Comments

Here’s an example. When I left London I shipped a bunch of boxes to Paris (books, clothes, kitchen stuff, DVDs). The boxes were supposed to be stored in London, then shipped to arrive in Paris not too long after my September 2nd arrival. Instead, when I arrived here I found out the boxes arrived in Paris on August 11th and since I wasn’t here, they’ve been sitting in a French warehouse. And though I’ve been in Paris for a week, do you think I’ve called them to arrange the delivery of my stuff? Uh, no. Why I do things like this is a mystery to me. I mean, I guess perhaps I don’t want my stuff. Since I’m starting over I might as well start over from scratch? Maybe. Or I’m avoiding it because I know I can’t get those boxes up four flights of stairs by myself (they just deliver them to the front door of the building). Or perhaps I just don’t want to call them because I know I won’t be able to communicate with them very easily and it’s too stressful. I have no idea. Maybe they’ll just sell my belongings. At this point I don’t care. Honestly, I don’t. It’s just more stuff.

10 September, 2006 | 3 Comments

This is what I like about Paris: Last night when I got home, as I walked through the courtyard of my building and up to my apartment, I passed four of my neighbors. And each and every one of them said, “Bon soir.” When I lived in London and Boston and New York, I’d pass my neighbors on a regular basis and the vast majority of them never acknowledged my presence. Ever.

Yesterday was my one-week anniversary of living in Paris, so I decided to mark the occasion by visiting the Eiffel Tower. Original, yes, that’s me. Nothing else gives me that punch in the arm that says — You’re in Paris, you dope. Get a grip! — than seeing the Eiffel Tower. I walked around and took photos mostly. I need another photo of the Eiffel Tower like I need a hole in the head, but I took a few snaps to add to my insanely large collection anyway. I’m an addict. I took a handful of other photos too, which you can see right here. You can also watch a little movie if you so desire.

After hanging out at the Eiffel Tower for a while, I ended up walking across almost all of central Paris. This wasn’t by design – I didn’t have any coins for the Métro. Most of the Métro stations are unstaffed for some reason and the machines only take coins. Very inconvenient. So I started walking and just kept going, long after I’d bought a bottle of Evian and made change.

From the Eiffel Tower I walked along the Seine, then across the Pont de l’Alma and down the Avenue Montaigne. I walked down the Champs Élysées to the Place de la Concorde, down rue Rivoli, past the Jardin des Tuileries and the Louvre. From there I was in the more familiar territory of what I’m beginning to think of as my area. Before I got home I bought my first baguette. I carried it home under my arm like a real Parisian. The French don’t butter their bread, they just tear off a hunk and eat it (sometimes while walking down the street), so that’s what I’ve been doing. I normally don’t eat white bread like this, because my body metabolizes it like pure sugar. But when in Paris…

Somebody take this thing away from me!

Tags: Paris, Eiffel Tower

9 September, 2006 | Comments

Statue at the Place du Trocadéro, across the street from the Eiffel Tower.

9 September, 2006 | 1 Comment

Birthday Math Maths:

15 x 2 = 30

10 + 10 + 10 = 30

33 - 3 = 30

9 x 9 - 76 x 2006 = 30

[Carol Vorderman, eat your heart out!]

Someone I know turns the big 3-0 today. Happy Birthday!

8 September, 2006 | 2 Comments

Ever since I’ve been in Paris I’ve been in a bit of a funk. I know, I know. I’m in Paris, I should be skipping merrily down the street and eating croissants and looking at Impressionist paintings all day. But life doesn’t always work that way. Being on holiday in Paris is much different from moving here. It’s a big adjustment, a major life-altering change. It’s a bit overwhelming to have everything in your world turned upside down so drastically, literally overnight, even if it’s something I chose, something I want. Perhaps this is why it might seem like I haven’t embraced life in Paris with such joie de vivre. I will in time, but not yet.

It’s going to take me a while to figure out how to live here. Perhaps not everyone would respond this way, but that’s just my personality. It’s how I experience things. As a writer I tend to see my life in terms of a narrative. Life has to be lived as a narrative in order to have any meaning. When I worked as a writer at Harvard, I spent a great deal of my time interviewing graduate students and faculty for the college magazine. I needed to know their life story so I could write about it, so I could place their Harvard experience into the proper context, as if it were a chapter of their life. [The overall purpose of this, of course, was to inspire the rich people reading the magazine to give Harvard money, the more zeroes the better.] As I went about interviewing all these people, I was shocked to discover that most of them didn’t think about their lives as if it were a narrative, a series of unfolding events that’s part of a much larger story. They just lived life and that’s it. So I had to look at their lives and all of their experiences and find the story. If you’re a writer, that’s what you do. And that’s what I’m doing now. Right now my life here is a blank slate, a chapter that’s yet to be written. I find that to be disconcerting.

This is actually a very common phenomenon amongst writers, poets, artists and musicians. It’s one reason why artistic people tend to be more depressed than the general population. If you’re interested in this, you can check out the work of Eric Maisel, who has written a lot about it.

So that’s where I am now, just trying to figure out how to be the person I want to be here. It would better if I didn’t think this way, since I make life needlessly complicated for myself and everyone I know. But that’s just who I am. When I was home visiting, I was talking a lot about writing with my friend William, who is also a writer. I haven’t been writing any fiction lately (or reading any, which is bad). I’m always happiest when I’m writing and to not write, to be completely disconnected from my literary self, is a terribly frustrating experience for me. And William said that when I get to Paris I need to create the life I want from Day One. Don’t wait, just do it. Start working on my novel again straight away, get back into my reading life, don’t delay. And of course he’s right. I need to create the life I want here. I can’t wait for it to fall into my lap. I am the author of my own life.

7 September, 2006 | 2 Comments

I woke up at 4 a.m. in a panic this morning because I suddenly realized I didn’t know the telephone number for emergency services. I looked in my guidebook:

police: 17

ambulance: 15

fire department: 18

english language crisis line: 01 46 21 46 46

I feel much better now that I know this.

7 September, 2006 | 2 Comments

Thanks to the fabulous Emily for redesigning my blog. I hope you like the new look as much as I do. Now I feel my move to Paris is official!

In addition to the new banner, there is now a “recent comments” section on the left sidebar. I’m also posting my word-of-the-day again. This week I will be making some other changes, just to refresh things. I must be honest and admit I don’t like my Paris postings thus far. I don’t yet know how to write about this city. I hope I find my Paris “voice” soon. It’s a bit of a challenge.

6 September, 2006 | Comments

Yesterday someone found my blog by entering the phrase “I’m a slut.” Oh, come on!

6 September, 2006 | 3 Comments

I have my computer plugged into a UK adaptor that’s plugged into a Europe adaptor. I couldn’t find a three-prong America-to-Europe adaptor anywhere. My whole apartment is filled with adaptors! It’s a nightmare! Buying electronic equipment in three different countries is not recommended. The only bright spot is that most of the things I have (computer, camera, iPod) convert the electricity automatically. Otherwise, I’d really be up a creek.

5 September, 2006 | 4 Comments

So I finally got a mobile phone. Good grief. I avoided having one in London all last year and I was like a leper. I had conversations like this many times:

Other person: Let’s meet at 1:00.

Me: Okay.

Other person: What’s your mobile number?

Me: I don’t have one.

Other person: [stunned, as if they'd been told they had mere minutes to live] But…what if I’m running late?

Me: I’ll wait for you.

Other person: What if I need to cancel at the very last minute?

Me: If you don’t show up, I’ll go home.

I mean, give me a break! People throughout most of human history have gotten by just fine without mobile phones. If they made lunch plans, they just showed up. They didn’t have their movements tracked every moment of the day. And they could go grocery shopping and just shop for food and not feel the need to call their wife every five minutes to check which brand of cheese to buy. But whatever.

As you can tell, I really hate mobile phones — or as Americans prefer to call them, cell phones. They are evil. Oh shut up, they just are. It’s not like I’ve never had a cell phone — in Boston I had one instead of a landline because it was much, much cheaper. Still, I hated it.

But today, despite priding myself on being an individualist, I caved in to peer pressure. I could no longer bear the nagging and the ostracism and now, just like you, I am a slave to the corrupt and evil telecommunications industry, an industry that will not rest until the whole planet’s ecosystem is destroyed by discarded cellular phones. I was going to buy an ugly, cheap, black Samsung phone but then I saw this pink one, which was much more expensive, but it’s pink and pink is my favorite color and I had to have it. And it has a camera and video and bluetooth and I can use it when I go back to London. When I cave in, I do it style baby:

Now I have this ridiculous phone and no one in Paris to call. My mom called me tonight though — free incoming calls! So you cheapskates in America pick up the phone and call me. Vite! I can’t call you though — I only put 15 euros on my card.

5 September, 2006 | Comments

“Sans lactose” — very important!

4 September, 2006 | 1 Comment

I may be a dork for admitting this, but I feel sad that Steve Irwin was killed. It was only a matter of time, I guess, but he seemed very sweet and refreshingly naive and child-like. I’m sure everyone is going to say he was irresponsible, blah, blah, blah, but it really doesn’t matter now.

4 September, 2006 | Comments

I created a Flickr account yesterday and then uploaded a large selection of my photos last night. Most of the photos have appeared on my blog over the past year, though there are some new ones. I’ll keep updating it with photos now that I’m here in Paris. I’m going to carry my camera around with me all the time now. Click here. There’s also a Flickr box at the bottom of the left sidebar now.

4 September, 2006 | 1 Comment

I’m enjoying a quiet day at home today. I’m not feeling incredibly well — I’m not sick, but I think I’m a bit worn out from all the traveling and changes I’ve experienced lately. Moving can be quite unsettling, even if you’re thrilled about it. I haven’t eaten anything since lunchtime yesterday and I couldn’t sleep last night. Those are the signs that I’m stressed, so I’ll just take things easy. I have plenty of projects to work on, given that I was traveling for such a long period of time, important projects like figuring out how to get my iPod speakers and wireless keyboard to work.

My apartment has grown on me a lot over the past few days. It has many weird quirks that I would find annoying in normal circumstances, but here I just attribute them to Parisian charm. For example, the bathroom. My head almost touches the ceiling in the bathroom. The bathroom ceiling is the same height as the rest of the apartment, but you have to climb up three steps to enter it. The ceiling height was not adjusted. My dad says this is because the plumbing was obviously added later to such an old building and it had to be squeezed in. The worst part is the shower. I can’t stand up in it completely, but must keep my knees slightly bent. To wash my hair, I have to kneel down!

All of this makes me feel like Alice in Wonderland. And lest you think I’m a candidate for the WNBA, I’m 5′7″ — hardly a giant. In this photo, you can’t see the wooden beam at the top of the steps. I’ve become rather acquainted with it, as I think it almost gave me a concussion yesterday. Okay, and this morning.

3 September, 2006 | Comments

I spent part of the day walking around and exploring the area. A lot of shops and businesses are closed on Sunday. I needed something from the drugstore, or pharmacie, but could not find one open anywhere. I’ll have to get all my shopping and errands done on Saturday from now on.

Notre Dame, the Seine and thus the very heart of Paris are about a 15-minute walk from my apartment. The police had Notre Dame blocked off and would only let elderly people through (!). I’m guessing some sort of religious bigwig was there, given the abundance of men wearing fancy robes, etc. Here’s a photo I took from behind the police lines:

After traveling so much recently, it’s nice to be in my own place again. The delights of Paris are right outside the door, but there’s plenty of time for that. It’s fun to just hang out at home and sit on my sofa — it’s been a year since I’ve had a sofa! Hurrah!

2 September, 2006 | 3 Comments

Just a note to say that I arrived in Paris this afternoon. It still doesn’t seem real to me. I must admit I’m a little freaked out about not knowing anyone, much more than I thought I’d be. In London I lived in the hall and I was in a Ph.D. program, so people were looking out for my well-being. If I vanished off the face of the earth, someone would notice. But here, I’m living on my own and not connected to anything. I will be taking French classes starting in October, but until then I’m totally alone here. Deep breath.

I like my apartment. It’s a little smaller than I expected, but still lovely. The layout of the building is strange. More about that later. As I attempted to carry all my luggage up four flights of stairs, one of the downstairs neighbors appeared and actually carried all my luggage upstairs for me — including my massive 71-pound suitcase. Who says Parisians aren’t nice?

I did have a major triumph with the language today. When I got to the apartment, the owner could not get the cable or internet to work. We didn’t have time to deal with the problem before she left for an appointment, so she told me I should call France Telecom myself. Uh, don’t think so. So she said she’d come back on Monday to call them and figure out the problem. Okay, fine. But tonight I suddenly got brave and dialed France Telecom myself, just to see if I could do it. I had to call back about 8 times to listen to the menu options — it took me that many tries to piece together what was being said. Then I was on hold for about 30 minutes before an actual human picked up. The guy didn’t speak a word of English and after a few minutes of listening to me, he suggested that I have a French-speaking person call back. But I wouldn’t give up! I asked him to be patient with me — and he actually sighed at this request. But no matter. I somehow got the gist of what he was saying, switched a few cables around and voila! Everything started working, just like magic. Like any smug IT person, the guy let out a disgusted chuckle, as if to say — “You should have been able to figure that out yourself, dumbass.” But the whole thing gave me a confidence boost, to know that I can make myself understood even in complex situations.

So now I must finish unpacking — for the first time in six weeks! Tomorrow I will explore the neighborhood a bit. But before I go, a photo. My apartment has windows on two different sides. The front windows look out onto the leafy courtyard. The back windows, next to my bed, look out onto this lovely view:

2 September, 2006 | Comments

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

1 September, 2006 | 1 Comment

I leave for Paris in the morning. I must admit that none of this seems real yet. When I get off the train at Gare du Nord, perhaps it will hit me. If so, I hope I’m holding onto something.

I’ve had a lovely day in London, running errands all over town, having a lunch meeting, getting my hair cut (though I called it a day at 5:00. I’m tired and I’ve spent too much money already). Despite having a good time here, I wish that I hadn’t come back to London for these two days. When I left this summer I was really stressed out and it was boiling hot and I just wanted to flee. But these few days I’ve been reminded of why I love London so – and the autumn-like weather has made it even nicer. So it’s going to be hard to say goodbye, but no matter – it’s off to Paris I go.

As I get ready to leave for France, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language barrier. [I’m not so worried about the food, though perhaps I’m the only person on earth who wonders whether she’ll go hungry in Paris.] I speak French well enough to get by in daily life (I think), though I’m not sure how I’ll cope in more complex situations. But I wonder how living in a non-English speaking country will affect me in other ways. Not being fluent in the language will keep me at a slight remove from the culture, which can be both good and bad.

As a writer, my whole life practically revolves around language. I’ve talked to a few English-speaking writers who have lived in Paris for extended periods and they told me it will actually be good for my writing not to be exposed to English all the time, that it will change my relationship to the language. There is certainly a long history of American writers moving to Paris and producing the best work of their lives. I’m interested to see what affect this may have on my writing.

One thing I will miss is bookshops. I spend a tremendous amount of time [and money] in bookshops and any writer knows how important this is. I know there are English-language bookshops in Paris, but the ones I’ve been to are not that impressive in terms of size and scope. I hope I don’t go into withdrawals or become addicted to Amazon.com.

I also just realized that I won’t be able to watch French films in the cinema anymore because they won’t have English subtitles! Oh dear. In London I lived on Brunswick Square, home to the Renoir, which shows first-run French films. I used to go there all the time. Perhaps there’s a cinema in Paris that runs English subtitles on French films? I’ll hold out hope.

There are plenty of other concerns I have regarding the language, but despite all of these, I’m sure it is possible to live inside an English-language cocoon while in Paris. English is obviously the dominant language of the international mass media. Access to the internet makes English-language news and entertainment readily available, not to mention friends and family from home. And there’s obviously a large expat community. But I really don’t want to spend my time in Paris only associating with other English-speaking expats. I know from previous experience that it’s easy to fall into the trap of living life abroad as if you’ve never left home. Something about being in a foreign culture makes it tempting to cling to those from home, even if they’re people you’d never ordinarily be friends with.

So the language is really what’s on my mind as I get ready to relocate, though I’m thinking of it as a fun experiment and challenge. Getting out of my linguistic comfort zone will teach me a lot, I think. Of course it’s not only the language I think about — I worry about the fact that I don’t know anyone, though I’m sure the woman who owns my apartment will come to my rescue if I’m dying or something. But overall I feel a lot of excitement mixed with a bit of apprehension about what lies ahead.

C’est une aventure, non?