Classy One-Liners

While walking past a beautiful church that nobody knew the name of:
ME: Holy shit, are those punching fists at the top of that church?
AD: Um no...those are gargoyles.

While walking home from the grocery store:
AD: I can't wait to get home and and crack my hip.
ME: [doubled over laughing] I thought you said I can't wait to go home and crap in my bed!

While talking to my mom on the phone:
ME: Everyday I have a pain au chocolat for breakfast, they are so yummy.
MOM: You ate a pound of chocolate for breakfast? (This coming from a woman who takes French lessons every week)

While witnessing a protest from the roof of the Pompidou:
CD: They're probably freeing Tibet again!

While discussing the war late one night:
CD: Oh...you were talking about Iraq; no wonder I fell asleep.

Lost in Translation

While standing in line for the bathroom at the Louvre an elderly woman walked out and stepped on my foot. She looked at me as if to say "excuse me, your foot is in my way." I didn't say anything but thought to myself that usually when you step on a person's foot, you apologize. That is pretty customary around the world, I think. After she was no longer within earshot, I made a clever comment to the women behind me in line about how strange that was. They laughed and agreed that it was rather strange. We got to talking (it was a long, slow moving line) and they asked me where I was from. For some unknown reason I replied with New York City, but it came out sounding like a hybrid British/Texas accent. Then something amazing happened: they told me they had been trying to decipher whether I was from Australia or England.

I have officially perfected my accent. If only I could use these same skills to master a real foreign language.

For the Love of Accessories

We were strolling along the winding cobblestone streets of Montmartre when we passed by a cute leather shop that showcased coin purses and bags in its front window. We stopped and decided that since our mutual close friend adores coin purses, we should suck up the exchange rate and buy her one. Plus, they were reasonably priced. When we went inside there were lots of little signs written in English that said DO NOT TOUCH. We stood there staring at the rows of brilliantly colored small leather coin purses, and without touching any of them, decided upon a squarish-shaped cobalt blue one. I picked it up from under the rest thinking that the do not touch signs referred to while you were browsing. I can understand the store not wanting every single purse fondled by the masses. I figured since we were about to purchase it, it was now okay to touch it. I thought wrong! As soon as I touched it, the store clerk sitting three feet to my left started barking orders in French. My friend who speaks fluent French told me that the woman was saying we weren't allowed to touch anything and to put it back immediately. So I did. My friend then told me I had to ask to the woman to see the purse. Since I speak approximately six words of French and "may I see this blue purse" isn't one of them, I had to have my friend ask for me. And I kid you not the woman then walked over to me, picked up the blue purse, handed it to me and said: "Now you may touch it."

In Paris

The short of it is: we didn't sleep very much; we ate like queens; we drank like kings; we laughed so hard our stomachs and faces ached. I cried everyday but not because I was sad, mostly because of the laughter, but other times just because I was so smitten with Paris and everything it bestowed upon us...

• Nightly dance parties in our little Paris apartment on rue du Braque
  
• Nightly drunken phone calls to the USA
• A party that lasted till the sun came up, literally
• Another party that lasted till 4 am
  
• A broken corkscrew, a MacGyver attempt to chisel the bottles open, cork-filled glasses of the perfect 3 euro red wine
• Endless meals of cheese, red wine, champagne, baguettes and Nutella
  
• Daily trips to the Monoprix
• Getting our Jambon on
  
• Cute little cafés complete with delicious hot chocolate or onion soup
• Blue sky, puffy clouds, sunshine, trees with buds, flowers in bloom all over the city
  
• Crepes, a stroll through the Jardin du Luxembourg, climbing on benches to get the best pictures, stalking old men
• Beach Boys sing alongs in the morning
  
• A British accent that sometimes went Australian
  
• A dinner of fondue and roasted chicken
• Butchering the French language and making up my own words, becoming "fluent"
  
• An almost Easter Sunday mass
• Cobblestone streets, faded signs, broken shutters and windmills in Montmartre
  
• 2 hail storms
• Popping the champagne cork and almost killing someone
  
• Trips to the Lourve, the Pompidou and the Picasso, a catnap in the Pompidou
  
• Seeing art that brought me to tears
• Despite the hundreds of tourists, seeing the Mona Lisa after years of studying her
• An empty Lourve courtyard after the storm
  
• A photo shoot while raving out to one of my favorite techno songs in my mutton pajama pants
  
• Drinking directly from the bottle
  
• A pulled hamstring from doing ballet moves and splits
  
• A daily pain du chocolate
• A bottle of Patron, enough said
  
• A party with 2 "sort of" random guys from Providence, RI
• Texting a 21 year old on a pink razor phone
  
• A girl-on-girl wrestling match, bite marks, bruises, a scratched cheek (sorry!)
  
• Ghost stories under an orange fleece tent
• Brilliant French design and typography
• Cute French clothes and shoes that were totally unaffordable thanks to the Euro
  
• Hilarious videos which document the madness that was, rewatching the videos in random places such as the line to get into an exhibition and not being able to breathe because of how hilarious they were
  
• Catching up with one of my favorites, feeling like we haven't even been apart let alone for four months, bonding with another one of my favorites while in one of the greatest places on earth (I say one of because I have to give NYC and Sydney their due credit)
  

Adventures Await

I'm armed with an empty 3GB memory card, rain boots and an umbrella. I am seven years older since the last time I was in France, and I like to think seven years more the wiser, happier and self-reliant.

I'll be back next week with stories and lists and hopefully a clear head. And hundreds of pictures of beautiful Parisian architecture, narrow streets, city life and romance.

...au revoir and Happy Spring!

Route Change

I think the mediocrity and repetitiveness of commuting in this city causes me to do strange things in an effort to break the routine, even in a small and meaningless way. Sometimes I walk down a different street or stop at a different place for coffee since I loathe the thought that everyday starts exactly the same as the day before it. This morning, as it is St. Patrick's day and midtown will therefore will be taken over by thousands of drunken bridge and tunnel people under the age of thirty I decided it was best to avoid the east side at all costs. So I took my extra long commute route: the crosstown bus to the downtown B train, which stops about fifty yards from my office building. I used this method a lot during the bitter cold days of Jan and Feb when I wanted to avoid the two mile walk in single digit temps. But I digress.

It felt nice to get a seat on the bus and be able to squeeze in a few chapters of my new book before getting to work. Already this day felt different. The bus provided a quiet and calm environment, one where I didn't even feel the need to plug into my iPod.

When I got to the subway station I learned that there was an "earlier incident" on the B train so it was running behind schedule, which for the B train means it is running every forty minutes instead of its usual twenty minutes. When it finally came and I got on, I was completely annoyed that the alteration to my commute was now causing me to be really late for work, not just the usual 10-15 minutes late I am everyday. I was still iPod-less and was able to get a seat; this day was definitely feeling different. Right then, right as I was thinking all of this, the conductor came on and announced to please use all available doors. It was then that I realized something which quickly deflated my spirit. I realized that this is the same conductor as the last several times I rode the B train. The reason I know this is because for one she's a woman (and there are very few woman conductors employed by the MTA) and for two, she calls 81st Street the Natural Museum of History instead of 81st Street. I always thought this was interesting and worth noting.

Today I just found it mundane. Per usual.

Hurricane

All the sudden it's like a storm is raining down on the six of us, like all the laughter and singing and drinking and sometimes falling/tripping and ripping new holes in our stockings or waking up with no voice and random bruises on our knees has been put on hold for a large category five storm. The weather channel did not warn us and the storm took a sharp left turn; we are New Orleans, equally unprepared and shocked.

The six of us always have something going on, after all, this is life. But this week it seems different I guess because these aren't petty things, like falling down and ripping holes in our stockings. Okay, well now that I think about it, one of these things is totally trivial. Aside from that [one] thing, everything else is worthy of filing under extremely important.

Luckily some of us are headed on vacations next week to recharge our batteries that so easily get drained by living in New York City. The rest are looking towards their vacations later in the Spring. I haven't decided if going through hard times collectively will make us stronger or weaker; it seems like it's easier to lend a hand when you're not holding your own umbrella. I guess time will tell but until then...let us board up the windows and prepare.

Somewhere My Fourth Grade Teacher is Cringing

An hour ago at Kinkos where I went to quickly* review some proofs:

Kid at counter: How many are there?
Woman standing by printer: 900
Kid: I thought there were 3 separate sets?
Woman: So times 900 by 3.

Me in my head [shaking my head knowing this project can't come out correctly with these people in charge.] Um last I checked 900 "times" three is 2,700. I only ordered 900 total; I believe the word you're looking for here is "divide."

*By quickly I mean this took 45 minutes.

The Promise of

I'm having a tough week, sort of. It's super busy at work, which makes the days fly by which is a nice change of pace. But I'm also dealing with a lot of side bullshit that makes getting through the day kind of a bit...awkward. Plus, my body can't get used to the springing forward we just did. I'm loving the extra hour of sunlight but my body refuses to adjust to the daily alarm sounding at what seems like an hour earlier; damn you stubborn REM-sleep-dependent body of mine! ANYWAY I've got a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it because I have too much to get done in the next hour. So I'm just going to make a short list of things that are currently making me happy. It's important to focus on these things right now. And as usual, it's the little things:

• The scaffolding that has been removed on the corner of one of the streets near my hosue. It's like a brand new corner. I am seeing things I've not seen in the almost three years I've lived at said residence.
  
• Organic granola that I found, which is actually cheaper than the regular non-organic sugar-filled crapy granola I used to eat everyday for breakfast.
• Fantasy trip planning, dreaming of somewhere safe and warm(er) than this city
  
• March Madness
• 9 days until the official start of Spring
• Getting a seat on the 4 train two mornings in a row
  
• The promise of cherry blossoms
• Jelly Belly Sports beans
  
• The new Spring coat I picked up at H&M
• Tickets to see the Little Mermaid on Broadway in June (with my pseudo little cousins and favorite aunt)
• Coffee cake. Cut in two.
  
• Setting a new 4-mile PR
  
• My room mate is away for the week in Poland and thus it's like I'm living alone.
  
• The new shower curtain liner and the apartment smelling like plastic!
  
• Down pillows in a pastel blue stripe
  
• the new Chuck Klosterman book I picked up last night on my walk home
• pad thai; a rainy day; an apartment in harlem; girl bonding; Jackson Five Christmas music in the middle of March
  
• the promise of a baby niece coming at the end of July
  
• Falling Slowly; the Swell Season at Radio City
  
• the promise of being on a jet plane headed for Paris in seven short days
  

Circa 2001

Excuse me, I'm having a moment. A moment where I'm so far lost in the memory that I forget where I am or what I'm doing. This song just came on channel 36 (the dance station I've been hooked on to absorb some good Friday vibes) The song is called It's a Fine Day. ATB and Miss Jane have done covers of it, although the version I'm familiar with is by ATB, which oddly enough would have been my initials had I married my college sweetheart. I have not heard this song probably in a solid 3 or 4 years and hearing it just does something weird to my body. Part of me wants to turn it off right away and forget it exists, but the bigger part of me (the romantic) wants to turn it up to eleven and bust out in a mini dance party right here in my office. Hey, it wouldn't be the first time.

Suddenly I am 19 years old again and I am in a small cinder block college apartment sitting on a leopard print ottoman bought at Walmart for $19.99. The TV stand is adorned with absolute bottles filled with highlighter fluid and a black light that makes them glow. I am so in love and filled with the kind of passion you naively think will last forever. It is dark except for the black light and he is the acting DJ wearing a red Ecko sweatshirt and baggy UFO pants. He puts on a CD called Mousey's Mix and this particular song is on it. Because he is a DJ, he will only let the first 45 seconds of the song play before changing it to the next track. I always hated that.

I think it is utterly amazing how music can affect us, transport us, transform even. They say that smell is the strongest sense tied to emotion. I beg to differ. I think it's hearing.

A Reminder

Yesterday I did my long weekend run in Central Park for the first time since November. This winter I spent most of my time on the treadmill or in a spin class where it's safe and warm. The sun was brightly shinning and although the temperature was only about 31º, my special/expensive winter running gear kept me plenty warm. At about mile six, the steepest and most difficult part of the run, my favorite running song came on providing me the boost I needed to get up the hill. I was now running directly into the sun, the temperature had risen a noticeable bit, and I was finally beginning to sweat. I looked down at the woods edging the pavement and smiled not only because I had made it up "the hill," but because I saw the first signs of Spring; a small bunch of crocuses had peaked their yellow heads out from under the thawing ground. At that moment I wanted to stop and hug the ground, I wanted to scream out loud for everyone to hear, I wanted to release all my energy into the air in one single moment of exhale. I was, after the long and cold winter, rejuvenated. After all this time I felt that thing again, that feeling like yes, this moment right here, right now, this is why I run. This is why I train. This is why I love New York. Period. And it was exactly the reminder I needed. Amen.