vivre sa vie

This is simultaneously my first entry in the ole blog in France, my first blog entry written on my beautiful new iBook and my first use of of its capacity for wireless internet. Therefore, I am three times as happy as I have ever been.

I'm sitting in a gorgeous, classic-looking cafe in Paris, just around the corner from my old stomping grounds in the Marais (read: homoville). Paris is as amazing as I remember. Even though part of me wants to slow down, drink in the sights and smells (no sound, too busy blasting musique) as they deserve to be drunk (and don't we all?), I find myself too much charged by merely being here, and so my leisurely stroll takes the form of more powerwalk. I feel like I could skip through the streets, much to the dismay of any parisien who may cross my path.

But here is the story of how I have gotten here...

Monday finds me packing with all the panicked ferocity I have been lacking since my return to my parents'. This is symptomatic of the reality-aversion therapy I have been practicing fairly routinely throughout the month of September. Simply put, I do as much as I can to think as little as possible beyond what happens after tomorrow.

As could have been expecting, I got about half a wink of sleep on Monday's all-night flying.

On Tuesday, I was blessed enough to have a friend who would drive four hours at an unseemly hour of the day to come rescue me from the clutches of Newark International Airport. My friend Erica, who I had not seen in over four years, made such a journey. Due to the nature of her journey, she was exactly as sleep-deprived as I, which was both good and bad, I suppose. We spent most of our day together wandering the war-torn lands of Times Square and Fifth Avenue. I was completely without the ability to focus/prioritize exactly how this random fit of a journey was spent, and so we merely wandered aimlessly.

(Side note: I am now smoking, drinking tea and operating a computer simultaneously while granted the blissful gift of also BEING ALLOWED TO BE INDOORS. All my dreams have come to be.)

Then we had the distinct pleasure of meeting blogger/hottie Fulminous and his equally charming boyfriend. I felt disappointed with myself for being so out of it, but such is the dilemma of the sleep-deprived, life-in-transition me. We had a lovely spread of delicious food, fruity cocktails and witty, often Olsen twins-centric conversation.

Not long afterward, Erica and I had to get ourselves back to Newark and abandon the dreaminess of NYC.

Getting to see her again, especially against such a marvelous backdrop, made me far happier than I could begin to say, let alone articulate in the state I was in. I could do little more than play short-attention-span-dj in her car as we rolled closer and closer to our inevitable parting of ways. I wasn't thinking about the plane or France itself at all, just about saying goodbye and getting through security as quickly as possible.

On the plane to Paris, I only slept an hour, in spite of my relentless mixing of planewine and lohrtabs. Who knew the gods could be so cruel?

On the train from Charles de Gaulle to Paris, it hit me. I would be living in France for almost eight months, away from everyone I know and love, and that I was actually terrified of what lay ahead.

After a long, Herculean trek through Paris with all of my bloody luggage, I was welcomed back into French life by my Paris host family from nearly three years ago. And remarkably, even though I haven't studied any French in about two years, I was still able to converse and understand with some ease and a fair amount of hilarious Three's Company-esque misunderstanding. I'm not really sure how I survived the obstacles of heavy sleep deprivation, a language barrier that could have been almost insurmountable given my infantile grasp of French grammar and excessive muscle fatique. But I did. And now, of course, I am sick - only victim to sore throat and too much snot, but last time I got sick in Europe it took me almost a month to recover.

But for the moment, I am terribly happy with my life and with my family. I love them to little pieces, and supposedly mumsy and dadsy are leaving for the weekend, which can only mean that the party shall be abounds.

Things that I am currently in love with about France:

1.) The existence of tiny little bathrooms without sinks - a healthy acknowledgement of people's unwillingness to wash their hands.

2.) Obviously, the ability to smoke anywhere except inside the metro.

3.) The French nose. I find it terribly sexy.

4.) Cafe society. I could sit where I am sitting for six hours before being kicked out, and only then because they were closing.

5.) The ridiculous prominence of people who are painfully in style

6.) The way that French men wear tight jeans almost exclusively

What I want rather desperately at this moment is to find a short-term, big-nosed boyfriend to sleep with me and massage my aches into submission. I feel as if I have just finished an Olympic task, rather than having 'merely' hauled my luggage all over goddamn Paris.