Quote of the Day: Guns Germs Steal

Fall Paris: Audrey

There's a sense to me that all the prettiest words are written about women.  Maybe they're just the most written about, because come to think of it, the words aren't always pretty.  Sometimes they're trite and callous and cliche, starved for imagination, recycled, reused, revised, revisited, not always different, but one thing I can't deny is that there's always a passion behind them.  So that the good ones are the most beautiful things to hear.  Or to read. Or to see.  They make the best songs. The best poems. The best movies.  The best novels, because there's always a story to a woman.  


From first sight, she's beautiful.  It's blatantly obvious.  She's too beautiful.  To an unapproachable extent.  Her's is the kind of beauty one remembers all day after passing in a second's time on the street.  She's striking.  And she's a bit older.  But so is Mircea, even more so.  As they walk towards us, side by side, he almost makes her look my age.  She looks to mature for her early twenties though.  Too womanly.  She's taller than him.  And tanner.  And her hair's dark brown, almost black, while his head's all but bald.  She carries herself like a woman of Paris would for the most part, except there's less of a chip on her shoulder.  She looks almost lackadaisical.  Maturely so, in dark tight designer jeans and expensive-looking boots and a drabbly slim down overcoat that's furry in the hood and looks all too comfortable.  It's not quite poshy.  More sophisticated.  Less gaudy, more strong.  There's something not purely French about her.  Something exotic.  Something passingly seductive that maybe I'm just imagining.

Either way, as they get close I deftly flick my cigarette towards the curb, straighten up and pull my shoulders back, discreetly blowing all the smoke out of my lungs.  Lili holds onto hers.  She just taps the little bit of ash off the tip and rolls what's left up and down between her fingers.

"This is Audrey," Mircea says, presenting her.  "And this is Lili and - and..." He looks to the sky with a furrowed brow and snaps his fingers twice slowly.

"Brian," I say.  "Je m'apelle Brian."  My attempt at cordial French.  I don't quite butcher the accent, but it's without doubt sufficiently lacking because she glancing down for a half second, smiling before she shakes my outstretched hand.

"So nice to meet you," she says, and she puts her cheek to mine with two quick pecks.

"Enchanté." My French sounds less French than her English does.

Lili's is better, even if it's only one word.  "Bonjour." And as they kiss each other, Lili hold her cigarette hand out and away, and like that we're back in the car.  Mircea and Audrey up front, Lili and I in the back.  The traffic's not too bad in Paris.  Not like LA anyways.  But there's a lot of traffic signals.  A gaggle of them, and they're never too far apart, so Mircea drives slow, or at least not fast enough to have to roll the windows up just yet.  Not until the highway.

Mircea opens up the throttle by the Seine.  He takes one last deep drag from his Marlboro Red as the wind begins whipping, and he flick it, and Lili flicks hers too before the windows sneak up, and we zoom smoothly along at a man's pace under old bridges and out into the countryside.

[stop]

The ride is super smooth.  Mircea and Audrey aren't quiet souls.  They thrive on the thoughts that come from conversation.  On the stimulation of the psyche.  We're talking lively.  About everything, which will commonly happen when a forum starts in a cigarette's half-life.  And as France flies by on the highway, and all the speed limit and distance signs blink quick in kilometers, I ask Mircea how much farther we have to go.  

"About an hour and a half," he says after some thought.  The radio's been on.  Although there's a song here and a song there in French, the fact never ceases to amuse me that France loves English music.  American music (if it's not from the South) that you can dance to.  They just hate our general linguistics.  And our sense of entitlement, especially when it's coupled with stupidity.  But alas, none of us are French (Mircea is Romanian, and it turns out Audrey is Israeli), and none of us are stupid.  A commercial comes on the radio and Mircea turns to it and raises a question.  "How would you like to listen to some old traditional Romanian music," he says with a fast glance at Audrey and a into the rear-view mirror at me and Lili.

I'll listen to anything in France, so why not.  "Hit me," I say.  Lili nods agreement.

Audrey's enamored.  "Yes, please.  That sounds like it would be so lovely."

"Oh! But it is!" says Mircea, and he breathes in deep and closes his eyes for the shortest of seconds.  But still, it takes him back, and he puts the CD in.  "It is so lovely.  I grew up to this.  This is what raised me.  And what's more, after all these years, it still sounds so grand."  It's not long before I have to agree.  For it's certainly grand.  An amalgamation of high strung violins and fiddles and strings and accordions and Balkans anguish.  There are many minor chords sprinkled throughout, and they aren't happy songs necessarily, but they're good and many of them droll slowly like a blues song.  Like Billie Holiday.  And the recording crackles so I know it's old.  Something not of this century, from decades ago, and I listen hard enough to make my eyes blur the passing green countryside, and my mind runs towards the cold Balkan mountains.  To old wooden beer halls surrounding a fireplace in the cold that comes just before the snow.  With no ocean around except for a sea of high trees almost drowning a small village.  I like it.

It's strange how often sad music gives me comfort.  Is that an old person thing?  To smile at depressing nostalgia?  Maybe it's just a catchy rhythm.  It's not super fast gypsy music.  It's something else.  Something slower and more refined.  Something an old man like Mircea probably drink nice vodka to.  Or whiskey.  Or just something stiff while he sits in his favorite chair.  I ask him who's singing, and he tells me.  I forget, of course.  I'm not good with names, unless they're written down, which Mircea can't do, obviously, because he's driving.  So the band just floats through my ear and rattles around and gets lost somewhere up there.  The conversation comes in spurts now.  No one minds.  Mircea's in the fast lane, and we're making good time.  In front of me, Audrey flicks her head to the right towards the window, and takes a deep breath that i can almost hear over the music.  But I don't hear it, I just see her shoulders move up and hold for a second and come back down.  "I like this music," she says.  "When I close my eyes I see snow and hot coco."

"I see old brandy," says Mircea.

Lili looks at me confused and whispers, "What are they talking about?"

I shrug and show a stupid face. "I don't know.  Close your eyes."  She does.  "What do you see?"

"I don't know.  Black.  And light.  And squigglies."

"Look harder," I say, so she furrows her brow.

Audrey's rummaging through her purse, and she suddenly jumps.  "Aye! I forgot to bring the weed!"

"The what's that?" I ask.  Lili opens her eyes.  We've turned off the highway.  Mircea's takes his BMW over the bumps in the old country roads lightly.  Slowly.  He knows what he's doing.  But he's a little disheartened too.

"You left it?" he asks turning to Audrey.

"Ah! I think so." She's still rummaging.

Lili rolls her eyes at me, and I smile.  Audrey loves her weed apparently.  I think I'm in love with her.  She's older, and she's Israeli.  "Well, that sucks," I say.


Mircea looks at me in the rear view mirror, smiling.  "You enjoy the marijuana then, do you?"

"I dabble."

To which Lili retorts, "He dabbles like you dabble in stiff vodka drinks and plastic surgery, Mircea."  He laughs.

"You're a plastic surgeon?" I ask.

"I am."

"Wow. That's cool."

"It's not a bad way to live," says Mircea patting the dashboard.  For five minutes he takes us through the life of a Romanian plastic surgeon living in Paris.  The procedures (He does mostly facial reconstructive surgery).  The money.  The late night clubs.  The drinks.  The girls.  The trips to Greece.  It sounds like a hell of a way to live.  And it'd be lying to say that I'm not just a little bit envious.  Audrey's siting back, her hand pacing through her hair, and she's eyeing him up head-to-toe.

[stop]

Then like that, we're there.  There being here, and here being a small cozy town off the highway, and everything's green in the sinking sun.  We pull down a dirt gravel driveway.  Not a nice one, mind you, but a country one with little plant greens bursting through the seams.  There's a separate fenced off property on either side.  The house at the end is yellow stucco with stained wood trusses and stained wood doors and window covers.  It's a one story place with a high sloping roof, and there's already a number of cars pulled up to it.  We're the last ones to get there.  There being here, and here being some French heavenside where even at sunset it's not quite so cold yet.

It's Halloween weekend back over in the states, and a part of me feels lonesome and left out.  But that part's small and muttering like an old grumpy man.  The rest of me's yelping with childish adventure yearning and unknown soil beneath my feet.  The country air's cool crisp in my lungs when we get out.  I instinctively stretch my legs, spreading them wide and leaning from side to side.  There's a crowd gathered around a fire-pit and grill and the crackling and laughter is all I hear.

I whisper to Lili, "Looks like we're meeting the whole family then."  And she elbows me in the side as we walk up to greet them.  Intros.  Bonjour.  Enchante.  Je m'apelle Brian.  Everyone's a little bit older.  Lili and I are the young blood.  Even Andre and his brother and Boris are older than us.  If that seems awkward, it isn't because after handshakes and formalities comes beer and cigarettes and beer.  And beer and a heavy meat dinner and beer and more cigarettes before those crazy Romanians bring out the whiskey and the vodka.

If there's one thing I learned, it's that you should never think or even dream to go shot for shot with Romanians or Russians (turns out Boris is from Russia).  They drink their fucking faces off.  And it's chill.  Well, coherent anyways.  It is a celebration though.  It's another Andre's birthday (not Lili's Andre).  This Andre is in his early thirties with a kid and his wife is French and friends with Audrey.

[stop]

It's a wild rambunctious riot.  But we're all adults here.  We drink more because we're stuffing our faces with steaks and Romanian sausage and bread and dip all night.  We sing loud to the music and yell and howl and dance through our stumbles and take more shots and more shots and shots and shots and "Prost!" and "Salute!" Birthday Andre's baby daughter wakes up and blows out the candles on the cake with a fart and a smile, but she gives it her all.  She thinks our stumbling's funny.  She giggles and squeaks and makes me play toy cars with her on the couch.  The Romanian contingent's up dancing with beers and stiff drinks in hand Audrey comes over and plays with little Leah and me.

[stop]

Days of Heaven

There are two kinds of people in this world.  People who find something they want and are content, they're the nice ones.  The most of the lot, I'm guessing.  The lucky ones.  Then there are those, you see, like me.  The cursed.  The ones with an insatiable burn to never stand still.  That find a love only to tire and yearn for another.  That are full of life and energy and gusto and yet, always have that empty feeling inside.  They're incomplete and they're wild and crazy.  And everyone sees a little aura about them maybe.  Or maybe I'm just crazy.

I feel crazy.  My mind's always racing whether I want it to or not, and for the life of me I haven't a clue as to where it's headed.  My fingers twirl and pull at my hair constantly like some chronic disease.  There's no cure because how harmful could hair-pulling possibly be?  It's a tick. It's nothing. A bad habit at most. Nut I will say this; it's maddening.  It makes me think that maybe that's why I love watching old movies so.  Perhaps the beauty in simple imagery gives me peace. Puts my finger to rest if only for a pair of hours.

It's the raw reality, I think.  Why nothing was faked except a gunshot wound and a car ride, and computer animation was some futuristic guise.  Richard Gere was still a young man back then, maybe my age, which is weird to see so clear in HD.  It just goes to show that certain things save you immortal. 

I wonder is Sam Shepard ever felt this mad.
Was he afraid of death?  I feel like I should be much more so than I believe I am, but then again fear of death is reserved for those who have something to live for.

I Feel Dirty

Maybe it's because I'm listening to the Kills, and the Kills make me feel dirty usually.  In a good way.  And to me, that's disconcerting.  It shouldn't feel good, I don't think, and in a way it doesn't.  But in a way it most certainly fucking does.  It's an insatiable lust of physical desire which drives on an engine in my head that's constantly in the red.  Maybe it's the excitement of driving dangerously.  Maybe that's what keep my gears grinding bare.  Un-oiled.  Raw.  It hurts, but so does fear. Maybe running from that is what keeps the pedal down, as the engine claws and shudders and the needle ticks forward.  It's begging for a loud bang at the end.  Something fatal and caustic and life-changing.  And fatal again so as to be poignant.  But not fatal in that term as an end to the timeline.  A forever pause to a familiar pulse.  No, not that.  I don't want to die.  I just feel dead inside.

Paris 2011

The air bites right through my green knit sweater, and my thin California scarf only semi-helps.  I feel it's warm, but just barely so I bury my chin in my chest and I shake at the chill like a pigeon ruffling feather.  What is this feather?  This chill with no ocean to run away to.  It's a closed in feeling that comes more from the lack of an open blue straight-line horizon than it does from the cold.  I never knew what the ocean was to me until now.  I think.  I miss it dearly.  The salt smell it brings to the air. The undulation of waves.  The sun disappearing on a distant water's edge.  She was my center.  My calm. My even keel in a stormy conscious. One can never see too far here. There's always tall buildings or a turn in the rue unless I find myself walking by the Champs de Mars.  Or the Arc de Triomphe, but that's a rare line of sight, and the rest has this boat swaying port to starboard then back again and over and spinning on it's axis, lost at a tumultuous sea.  This city needs an ocean.  Only a river runs through it.

And that is not enough.
Not nearly.

Waiting for a Date

Give me attitude.
Show me sophistication.

Take a short stroll through downtown.
When it's dark and there's a soft nip in the air.
And all the tall buildings are pock-marked with little light cubes.
And nobody's out so it sounds dead and quiet,
Even with all the cars rushing north on Figueroa
And all the exhausts humming on the 110

It turns into rustling leaves through the trees and the ferns
And the metal-rail vines of this metropolis jungle.
The Great Los Angeles.
The city's center of corporate towers and closed Starbucks.
The sidewalks are clean smooth stone
And a single girl's laugh echoes down the street for a block or so.
I just barely hear it.

A single girl's laugh, but she's not alone.
She can't be, not here.
And besides.
Who laughs to themselves downtown?
Aside from the bums.

This laugh is too fair anyways.
Not a crazy one.
It's comfortable.
In response to some dry wit perhaps,
But the wit is not my own.

And a little child runs through the dark empty plaza.

Spoon

"Sacha! What are you doing."

"B-Dog! I'm at home! Just drinking some girly drinks with some girls."  She always sounds so happy. So happy and so nonchalant.  "What are you doing?"

I'm sure I don't sound so jolly, but I try. "I just got off work and umm... spliff?"

"We just rolled one! Get over here!"

"Yay! I'll be there in five."  I take off full-speed down Main Street in the early night.  Under the 7 o'clock moon.  Through red lights.  Weaving around open car doors.  It's November, but the air's still too nice for Fall.  It's an Indian summer in Los Angeles this year.  I don't even have a sweater on.  Just some jeans and a free t-shirt from the shop, and the cold barely nips at my skin.  Not shivering.  Alive-feeling.  Living to a Cotton Jones soundtrack on my bicycle.

Sacha's porch is on the bike path in Venice so the breeze blows sand and salty to her doorstep.  The gate's unlocked when I get there, and there's muffled laughter and French and music coming from the door.  I love it here.  It's a place that feels like home to me.  Sacha's is somewhere that always takes the stress out of a day.  When I walk in, she's sitting at the couch with her friend Tessa.  Her chihuahuas George and Milan are both set on the adjacent love-seat, on a big blue pillow with white anchors on it.  Sacha made the cases herself.  She makes a lot of things, like chairs covers and porch covers and hanging lanterns and refinished side-tables checkered with tarot cards.

[stop]

You may not remember, but Jade is a beautiful person with blonde French hair, blue eyes, and a fairy white face with whispers of sun.  Her disposition is sharp, but personable.  French.  I wonder.  And it warms me.

Fall Paris: Rachel

"Living on a diet of chocolate and cigarettes. I want to call you again." She says it to me in the slow tone to the lone piano. Lili. She sings the whole song, that dreary number of self-reliance by Angus and Julia Stone.  She hums it with the morning's first cigarette, striking a match for light and sticking her head out the tiny servant's quarter's window.  When it's done, the song, she tells me to play it again and I oblige her and roll myself a spliff.

Light on the weed and heavy on the Lucky Strike.  I'm not in California anymore.  There's no marijuana by the mason jar-full here in Paris, not for me anyways.  But I make do.  A tiny pinch, barely a bowl's worth at a time.  It makes for a spicy spliff, and a terribly wonderful headbuzz, especially when I roll it sans filter.  I usually do and today's no different.  It's a good morning.

One rife with possibility because today, like most every other day I wake up on Lili's floor, is all mine.  Free and clear with nothing planned and anything to do.  So I crack a pair of eggs and scramble them and butter a slice of bread with Lili's awesome salted butter that puts all that bland American butter to shame.  It's a proper breakfast with a bowl of chocolaty Carrefour cereal and a tiny cup of espresso from our new Italian espresso maker. Yum.

It's a Wednesday.  Lili's got school, but her phone's not charging so we make plans to meet at the Combes building where her class is because I need the keys to make a grocery run while she's gone.  So she goes to school, and I get to writing with some Cotton Jones playing in my headphones.

The words slide out to the drawl.  It's a chug-chugging away like a slow locomotive through the day and all the days past that I'm trying to recall. Focus. Close your eyes you, and take a deep breath and focus.  Where am I?

I'm in Paris.  No, I'm in the Berlin forests. I'm in the Catalan mountains.  I'm in the Med south of France.  I'm wherever I want to be, just make sure you remember it, you.  Remember everything and write it down.  And put some chocolate in your espresso.

[time for work]

For so many, the ideal is to write for a living.  But this is not a living I've hashed out for myself here.  I'm sleeping on my friend's floor in Paris lest we forget.  Hardly a living if you ask me, and so my parents keep reminding me.  I've gotten it all mixed up, I'm afraid. Simply living to write, not writing to live right now.  It's a sad and strangely desperate state when you realize you're not writing to live a little more, but instead living to write a little more.  It's quite the opposite when you think about it.  It's not fantasy or fiction then, it's cold reality on your neck hairs, and it's letting go.  Hopefully not of everything though.  One mustn't lose his grip.  No, one just let's slide through the fingers all the things he doesn't need anymore to the best of his knowledge.  The only problem is that I don't know everything.  Everything I should anyways.

I'm not even close, and so the things I let slide and fall through the cracks, some of them aren't so marginal as I'd imagined.  I might be lost in a lurch soon.  But oh well.  As the pretentious French put it, c'est la vie.  My fingers find a place to stop, and I run down the stairs and off to Lili.

[stop]

At Combes, all Erin's work is up in the lobby still, and Victor's sitting at the couch so I sit in a chair across the low table from him.  We make small talk about forgettable nothings, and I try not to dwell too much on last night.  Just the standard admissible, "Woo, I think maybe I drank too much last night."

"Yeah, last night got pretty crazy," says Victor with the hangover hurt still showing.  "Erin said she didn't remember a thing."  Of course she didn't, Victor.  For my sake though, I wish I hadn't either.  Unfortunately, it takes a bit more for me to blackout.  A substantial bit more, and I'd woken up next to the toilet on the bathroom floor.

Lili's out of class before too long, and she takes up a seat on the couch next to Victor.  Students are flooding into the lobby from the stairwell behind me now, and pretty soon Lindsay's standing next to me.  "Oh hey," I say with a smile.  I like smiling.  "Thanks for the writing class invite, lame-o."

She smiles back, "Oh... oopsies!  I actually just got out of that class.  What are you even doing here?"

"Meeting up with Lili.  Her phone's dead," I explain.  "Wait... was she there?"

"Uhm..."  She glances back at the staircase, and I crank my neck around to see.

There she is.  Her hair's done up in a messy bun, and a heavy bag heavy with books is slung over her shoulder and her flowy wool coat. There's a notebook in the crook of her left arm, and a pair of thin framed glasses resting high on her head.  Lindsay's description ("She looks like if Kate Beckinsale and Marisa Tomei somehow mated and had a lesbian baby") is blaring in my head as she walks past, and it fits her to a tee.  "Olivia."  It just comes out.  I don't remember meaning to say it aloud.

She stops and turns to look at me curiously.  "Hi..."

"Hi," says I, and there's that split second of awkwardness from when two strangers meet.  So I blurt out an introduction with a stupid grin on my face because I can't take my eyes off hers.  She's beautiful.  "I'm Brian, Sacha's friend."

Her eyes widen and her face turns from rigid unknowing to a contained excitement of recognition, "Oh-my-goodness, hi."  She holds out her hand, and I shake it smoothly.

"Hi.  Again."  I'm flustered, and I still feel a need to explain myself.  "Yeah, I was um, ha..."  My thoughts are all jumbled.  "Well see, my friend Lindsay here told me she was in a writing class and showed me some of the stuff from it and your name set off a little light in my head.  I think maybe from Sacha's blog.  I'm not sure..."

"That's incredible," she says with a look of disbelief.  I'm guessing it's a look that mirrored my own, and Lindsay's for that matter.  "It's great to finally meet you.  I've been asking around about it and - oh, professor!  Professor!"  An old, white-haired man following the flow of students through the lobby stops and turns to face us.  He looks like a writing professor.  "This is the man I was telling you about," she says glancing sideways at me.

"Ah..."  And he looks me over.

I wave silly, grinning like an idiot.  "Hi!"  He nods vague intrigue, before he's back on his way.

Then she turns back to me.  "I didn't think this sort of thing actually happened," she says.

"Ha.  Yeah, me neither.  It's got a bit of the whole stars aligning kind of thing about it, doesn't it?"  Or some cliche like that.

But she smiles and looks down, "Yes.  Yes, it does."  She's a bit flustered herself, "Oh, I must be going though.  Much too much work to do."

"Well, can I give you my number?"

"My phone's at the bottom of my bag.  Would you mind just calling me?"

"Of course," I say fumbling for the phone in my front pocket.

"You ready?"

A bit more fumbling, the damned buttons on this cheap French phone are too small, "...Yes, ma'am."  She does the digits in twos, and when I call, her bag rings.

"There it is then," she says.  She looks me dead on.  "It was really nice to meet you, Brian."

"Likewise, Olivia.  It was a pleasure."

"Call me sometime.  Or text me or whatever."  She turns to go smiling, and I don't think it's directly at me.  More at herself, the way one does when something funny's going through her head and no one else knows exactly what it is.  Hmm.  She's an interesting one, she is.

"I can't believe you," Lindsay says looking squeamish and perhaps a tad envious.

My shoulders shrug and I smile.  "I'll let you know if we do anything, and maybe you can come.  Maybe.  Probably not though, tehehe."

[stop]

We take the walk back to chez Lili's at a casual stroll down Rue Cler and Grenelle.  It's just the three of us, Lindsay, Lili, and I, and the talk circles around Olivia and our sarcastically-so-certain plans for the future.  Coffee plans.  Dinner plans.  Dancing plans.  Everything oozing with discussions of literary things.  Lindsay almost can't stand it.

"You have to let me come," she says.  "Please.  She lives such a fantasy.  I just want a taste."

With a bubbly grin at my dumb luck I say, "Maybe.  We'll see, hehe."

"Ugh!  I hate you!"

Lili's more cool and calculating, and she tries for a jab.  "She's not going to do you, you know."

"Eh, I don't care," I say, which isn't necessarily true.  In reality though, I haven't really thought it out that far.  My mind's not really one for sexual conquest.  Honestly, I think it's just geared more towards avoiding that normal loneliness.  I can't stand it.  Intriguing companionship is a treasure.

[stop]

Speaking of treasure, some unknown something in my peripheral arrests my attention from across the street as we pass Rue Amelie.  When I chance a quick glance, there's she walking the other way with a bag of groceries.  I feel a subtle lift in my chest, and I stop, and I shout her name before I can tell myself not to.  "Rachel!"

She stops too and so do Lili and Linds, and they all look at me.  "Who are you yelling at?" ask Lili.  But I'm not listening.

Rachel smiles, "Oh, hi!" and crosses the street to meet us.  She kisses me on each cheek, and I do the same. "Well, what are the odds," she says.

"Just good enough, I guess."  I could talk to her forever, but we ain't got that kinda time.  "What are you doing today?" I ask.

"Umm... Well, first I gotta drop off these groceries, then I was gonna go check out an exhibit at the Pompidou that supposed to be really good."

Maybe it was the midnight rape, or the toilet-clutching delirium I woke up to this morning, but my emotions are all out of tune and much more sensational.  Each little inflection in her voice, each slight sway and shift of her hips and tip of her head melts something inside that feels so good.  Good enough to keep asking questions just to hear her talk more.  It a desperate sensation, but it's nice to know there's still something to melt down there.  It's a feeling I'd almost forgotten.  "Ooo. What's the Pompidou?" I say.

Lili steps in though.  "It's the modern art museum, you hussy.  Remember?"  She casts a flirtatious smile towards Rachel while talking to me.  "Over by the Hotel de Ville," she says.

I knew that.  "You're the hussy," I say.

Lili scoffs, "Ha!  Please, as if."  Then she turns back to Rachel, "So who are you going to the Pompidou with, my dear?"

"Oh, just myself.  It's for one of my classes kind of.  You wanna come?"

"Ugh, I can't," says Lili.  "I have this paper I gotta finish.  Like tonight."

I bite my lip to stop from physically jumping at the moment.  "Well, my day's wide open," I say.  "I'll keep you company if you like."  Yeah, like I'm doing her some favor.  "I've never been to the Pompidou."

"Yay!" says Rachel.  Maybe she's just glad to have the company.  I mean, I'm pretty sure going to a museum with someone is almost always better than going by yourself.  "It's amazing.  Trust me, you're gonna love it."

"Lovely," says I.  "Should we smoke a spliff first?"

"Duh."  God, I love this girl.  She walks with us to Lili's so I can grab my jacket.  It's supposed to rain today.

[stop]

I roll a quick spliff up when we get to the flat.  Lili rolls a cigarette, and we three of us chase our respective highs blowing smoke out the small windows.  Lili and one.  Rachel with me at the other.  It's not a big spliff so we hold in each hit meaningfully, and when I do, I look down at the thing twirling between my fingers, the red embers burning bright as it moves, and there's an affinity inside me towards that single thought.  It's burning and it's restless, and when the spliff's done I turn red-eyed to my counterpart and say, "Un musée, s'il vous plaît? I think I'm ready."

She looks back at me smiling and nods, and we both bid Lili good-day and good luck with her paper before we race down the stairs and to the metro.  I don't grab her hand, but the little kid in me wants to.  I'm not a hand holder though.  Who needs it?

At the turnstile she swipes her pass and I just jump over behind her like the streetwise frog in the leather jacket from all the metro ads.  She turns back to me with a start and a smirk, so I quickly bring my finger to my lips and smile, "Shh," and we hurry along.  On the train I ask her about things.  She's from Portland, and she went to NYU to study art and why it's so beautiful and now she's in Paris studying abroad.  She's not obsessed with art the way pretentious people are where they hold art knowledge over your head like a golden scepter of intelligence (besides, a collection of facts can be dimed "knowledge" sure, but intelligence, in that regard, is held in a whole other hand entirely).  She just enjoys looking at it and the way it makes her feel.  She delights at the history of it as well.  The story behind each piece, which is why I think titles are so important.  A title should tell everything to the uninformed, or else the piece itself should tell the rest.  Through it's color, through it's mood, it's feelings, through it's light, through it's darknesses.  Hell, even it's frame may tell you something as long as you appreciate it.  And we both do, I think.  I tell her I don't know what I'm doing, but I say it in more words, in a roundabout way so I don't sound like the crazy boy who ran away to Paris for a month and a half with almost not enough money.  It still sounds crazy, even after a bit of rationalizing.

When I have nothing left to say, she smiles genuine and I know it's real because her eyes squint and there's a warmth and vague recognition in the face looking back at me.  It's comforting.  "You're writing," she says.  "That's something.  I mean, it's certainly not nothing.  And it's certainly not something you see everyday.  Like an old Mustang in Paris."

Suddenly, I notice I'm leaning forward in my seat, so I sit back and take a long a breath and close my eyes.  "You're something else," I say nodding towards her.  "I think I needed someone to tell me that."  I know what I'm doing.  And this Rachel, she's something special.  She's not just beautiful to look at, and to talk to, and to be with.  She's the perfect kind of aloof.

We get off at Rambuteau in the 4th.  It's sprinkling lightly outside, so Rachel brings her umbrella up with a swing of her left and with the other hand she slides up from the brown laced hook and opens the thing like a trombone long note.  A silent firework, one smooth silky movement between two strides of her high rubber red rain boots. "Do you smell that?"

I sniff hard and inhale fully, full lungs on command. "Smell what?"

"I love the smell of a Paris rain," she says behind a slow blink.  "It's no Oregon rain mind you, but it's still something else. I love it. So fresh and old at the same time."

One more sniff, and I shrug.  It smells like a wet city dog. This girl's my perfect kind of crazy.  Smiling, "Whatever you say."

We walk south the one block to the Pompidou shoulder-to-shoulder.  Nearly touching, but not quite.  Just close enough to stay dry.  I pace her steps.  The rain pitter-patters above us, and when I look up at what's stopping it, I laugh with intrigue.

"My mother bought it for me when she came to visit.  It's from the Louvre gift shop," she says mirroring my smile. On the umbrella canvas is a copy of some painted piece by Rembrandt or Renoir.  Or one of those other painters, probably French, whose name begins with r.  It's a portrait, not so close up, of a few women in a garden with exposed breasts.  "It's my titty umbrella," she says.

"It's probably the best umbrella I've ever seen," I laugh.  "I love it.  Don't ever loose this thing."

"Oh, I'm not planning to.  I already can't wait to be fifty, and be that old lady in the rain with the titties on her umbrella."

"That's the best thing I've heard all day, I think."  We walk carefully so as not to slip on the wet concrete courtyard incline before the entrance.  Centre Georges Pompidou, it's a pleasure.  All five or six or who knows how many stories of glass and clean silver steel and color coded green pipes and blue ducts.  The facade looks a little like construction scaffolding and there's a windowed escalator crawling up the outside like a great glass caterpillar with a red underbelly.  It's simple and strange, but at the same time compelling, especially on a spliff high.  And I guess that's modern art.  It makes me step back a little as we approach, to take it all in as it gets closer, and I slip a little, but Rachel's got rain-boots on so it's not exactly a level playing field.  The canvas on my Vans is almost soaked through, and the smooth concrete's slick with a thin film of rain water.  I can't wait to get inside.

[stop]

The floor inside is still concrete, but it's not so slick.  Rachel brings the titty-adorned umbrella down and gives her wrist a few quick flicks to get the water off before closing it.  I rufflle my bomber jacket and dig my hands deep into the pockets to hold it close because it's still cold.  Drafty's more the word.  The ceilings are super high and vaulted above another level that balconies the fringe.  My eyes follow the heat up into the rafters and the rafters aren't really rafters at all, but a puzzle of dizzying blue and grey ceiling ducts.  This Pompidou guy must've really liked color coding.  It's so blatant and bold and bright.  All the electrical wires are banana yellow.

"Voila.  C'est le Pompidou," says Rachel with one slow spin.  "What'd'you think?"

"It's big," I say with wide red eyes.  "I'm gonna follow your lead, i think.  You're the leader here."

"Nice.  I love leading."  So she guides me through the surprising throngs of people walking this way and that to the back where the ticket booth is.  There's a short line, and we stand side-by-side.

"How much is it?" I ask.  "C'est combien?"

She leans over and whispers that it's ten euro.  She whispers because she's in museum mode now.  Even though this ground floor center is loud and bustling.  The exhibit she wants to see is tucked away in a quiet corner somewhere in this modern-art maze.

[stop]


SECOND GUESS


Rachel Again, and Always Rachel

I walk beside her and behind her, and behind her more as we walk, by her guide, to that great mass Centre Pompidou.  Her pace is faster than mine, which isn't to say she walks fast, no, not at all, but her legs are nearly as long as mine, and I've always been one for slow strides, especially when I'm high, and hot damn we're flying kites right now.  Under the guise of it being daytime, I have my sunglasses on.  Sure it's cloudy, and sure there's most always some sort of shadow cast across the whole street from the tall architecture that looms on each side, but I'd rather take these looks than the would-be ones at mine bare naked eyes, both bloodshot and reckless like a whore's rouge lips and so squinted, so nearly closed, that someone'd probably think me a strange daylight sleepwalker if it were not for this precocious eyewear.

What a pair we must seem.  Two tallish types with slouched scheming shoulders and stupid grins or either slack-faced blank impressions.  When we talk, we're more animated than anyone we pass, a mime's movements in us, so that the stories and conversation we share - dull, and commonplace and everyday as any others - are no slow diction of an audiobook but a fucking mad Broadway musical.  As long as I'm keep up.  

"C'mon Speed Racer. Any slower and we won't make the Pompidou 'til dusk and by then it'll almost be closed, and oh, how I did want to see this exhibit today."  She says it with a turn and even starts to walk backward.  Almost clumsy-looking, but no, instead it's just cute and unsure with each foot reaching out carefully behind the other while she pleads to me.  My response is to look up with dumb shock-parted lips and raised eyebrows.  I'd gotten lost in the cobblestones for a second.  "Is it really that far?"

"SO far." In a rainbow arc she says it, and I have to imagine behind those vintage-chic shades of hers that her eyes are rolling.

I'd hate to keep the lady waiting.  "We haven't got any time to waste then, have we."  It's my best Sean Connery, and with a hop and a skip I take three quick strong strides to her side and she spins round again to face the same way and we take off together.

"We must look ridiculous in these sunglasses," I say.  We're the only ones I see with anything in front of our eyes.

"Why? Do I look ridiculous?"  She turns to me and shakes her head, whips about, up and down, and all around her face, and she puffs out her cheeks.

"Absolutely."  I point up to the sky and look up with my eyes.  "And the grey up there's so thick that there aren't even any shadows around. Sunglasses on a sunless day, eh? Oh, we are the motley fools." I half don't know what I'm saying, but that's not the case with her.

She looks down at the ground around our feet and speaks in long thoughtful drawn out words when she wants to, like a Queen's speech.  She speaks royally.  "Hmm... How observant of you, m'darling. Did you notice the smell as well?"

I sniff once and inhale fully, full lungs on command.  "Smell what?"

"It's going to start to rain soon," she says swinging her umbrella.

"Oh, yeah? How do you fancy that?"

"Well, I checked the weather," she says, "but also you can always smell a Paris rain coming on." And with that there's a tickle on my hand.  Then my brow, then another, and then on my nose.  I look up instinctively, then down at my shoes, my worn grey lace-up Vans.  Canvas.  There's holes at the tip of each where the gold of my big toe shines through and at each heel where the seam's blown out from never unlacing, but instead holding the sole with the other foot and prying out until I was free.  Ventilation I'd told myself.  Great.

"And here it comes," she says smiling.  One more swing and she brings the umbrella up while her other hand slides up from the brown lace hook at the base and opens the thing like a trombone long note.  All one silky smooth movement between two strides of her high rubber red boots.

A silent firework, it explodes with rich reds and blue hues next to greens and the skin tones of pale pink in between, "Oh, my..."  I'm quite taken aback in the most frolicking way.  It's not the colors.

"Do you like it?  

[stop]

Quote of the Day: Yes, Sensei

Absorb what is useful,

Discard what is not,

Add what is uniquely your own.

~Bruce Lee

Red Wool

Whenever I think of red wool,
It will always remind me of Rachel.
Of wool jackets and corduroy.
Of skin that's fair, and an air-soft laugh
That floats on dry sarcasm.

It will remind me.
All is not lost.

There are girls in this world that hold a key.
Hiding behind long legs and long blonde hair
That's almost brown.

Every key has a lock to open.
And that lock's always holding something back
Until someone comes to turn it.
Like a flood gate set free
To find a soul at ease.
It will remind me.

Of rainy days at the Pompidou at a whim's end.
At an antiques fair sur la Rue Clare.
The yellowed postcards and old corkscrews.

Of lazy spliffs and a crisp Autumn air,
It will remind me.

There's not enough time.
There's too many things I didn't do.
There's girls in this world that can save me.
But there's only a few.

And they like to dance.

Sundays After Six

It was a dark and stormy night (She told me not to waste time with such words, but fuck her.  They make me smile, and I laugh when I say them aloud).

"It was a dark and stormy night. Haha!" I say it with a deliriously grizzly tone and a dying flicker of a once wild fire in my eyes.  I see it's reflection in the quiet gas burning in the fireplace.  What the fuck have I done?  My beard rubs up against my shoulder as I close my eyes, and it feels just like the kitty or the pup that I don't have.  It's soft.  She tells me so.  "It's a soft teddy beard," she says.  "Quit cuddling with it. You look crazy."

"I am crazy."  What the fuck have I done?

It was a dark and stormy night.  Except it wasn't so so dark with the bright waning moon and the city lights, and the storm hadn't come yet.  The clouds in the sky were still innocent, and the wind wasn't rushing, but breezing by if it was breezing at all.

Dark was the mind and stormy was the empty soul.  Working on a Sunday will do that to a man.  It leaves one worn and beaten and craving any kind of living.  So when she said she had acid, well, of course I said, "Why not?" and she came over right after seven struck.  I met her on Northwest Passage by the guest parking because she didn't know which apartment was mine, but the Mariner's Village was an old friend to her.  She used to live here, back a ways before I'd moved in.  Her old stomping grounds, she called it.  She had on a color-faded flannel and short denim shorts like she always did.  Come to think of it, I don't think she ever wore pants.  Ever.  Which is strange, I think, but it went well with her wild blonde hair.  She was older than I, by a few years maybe, but no more than a handful.  She was short and slim-figured though, and she had wide blue doe eyes so she looked young; my age or younger even.  

We'd had a few sexual run-ins half a year back, in the cold winter, when people just want someone to hold at night.  I hold all right, but she was smart and quick, and she read a lot, and after not too long she'd read me through, and she knew who I was.  She knew what I was.  A boy with a lush sexual appetite and a dreadful short attention span.  An adolescent.  A wandering eye.  A slut.  She still called me this often.  Not in a bad way, mind you.  It was in a friend-who-knows-you-too-well kind of way.

"I thought you said your friend was coming," I said.  There was a hint of yearning that was unintentional, but she no doubt caught it.

"She wanted to hot tub, but she didn't want to do acid so she bailed," she said, and then she smiled.  "Don't worry. She wouldn't have sex with you anyways.

There's an affront on my face, but not my mind.  Not really.  "Well," I said, "That's a bit presumptuous don't you think?"

"Hmm... no."  She was still smiling.  It's what she does. "Just realistic."

"Oh, I do hate it when reality gets in the way of my sex life," I hoe-hummed.  "It happens much too often."

Just one of my roommates was home with his girlfriend, and they were on the old Irish kilt-patterned couch, and there were quick intros and a spliff.

"I don't know how good it is," she said after.  "The acid, that is."

"Did you keep it on ice?" I asked.

"No... It's just been wrapped up in my room for a few weeks."

I shot her a look with my lips pouted to one side.

"I know," she said understanding.

"Well, I have work tomorrow so maybe that's a good thing."

"Yeah, me too. Shall we do this then?"

"I think so. It's getting late. For acid anyways." 

She laughed me off. "Please. We've got plenty of time."  And it was down the hatch, one tab a-piece.  I swallowed it.  And then THIS happened.

Kickstarter

[video voice-over]

It's that time in life.  Those moments, that cliff's edge that we all stand at when we're young still and the thought that nothing in the future's definite and everything's possible isn't a bad thought or a sad one, but instead a hot-air balloon of a fucking thing that takes you up high and towards anything the wind's blowing to.  It's a novel.  Not in the Tolstoy sense of the term though.  It's short.  And it's sweet at times and bitter at times and definitely aloof and confusing because that's how the times are when adolescence dips slowly into reality.

It's taken the most out of me, this writing, but I don't think I'll ever stop.  I don't think I can.  It's not in my nature to quit things that give me such a tangible fulfillment.  Like bacon.  And sex.  And surfing.  And to be honest, I get little pleasure from actual writing.  You know, the act of it.  It's painstaking, and if you do it right, it strips you bare and exposes you to the core.  It makes me pull my hair out at the root, strands at a time.  But it's okay because after, to have written, that feeling from the final punctuation, the long exhale, the clarity of mind makes it all worth it when it sounds good.  It's short-lived like a cocaine high though, so I'm always striving for it.  It never sticks around long enough to savor properly.

But enough about writing.  That's not my rut here.  I wrote a book, or a memoir some would say.  It's not long and grandiose.  It's no East of Eden.  I'm no Steinbeck.  It's just two-hundred-seventy or so pages of drug-riddled, sex-starved romping through the Old World, and it's all held together (or pulled apart) by memories of those final months at university.

Not much, but it sure is something.  I self-published it.  And ah, therein lies my rut.  It takes money to print more books and it takes money to buy gas for driving to bookstores to sell more books, and when you work at a surf shop like I do, money's never something you have a lot of, or even enough of.

My goal is to raise $7,000 to print a sizable first run (500+ books) and buy gas to peddle them up and down the Western coast, and, funding permitting, around the country.  Just me, my beat up Ford Explorer, my surfboard, and a big box full of books.  That's my dream.  It's the nightshade over my eyes when I sleep, me blazing down the Interstate just a little over the speed limit because the chassis begins to shake if I go any faster.  It's a dream now, but it's not so lofty, I think.  I want to wake up and see it.  I just need a little kick.

Fall Paris: Cait

"I need a break for a couple days.  It feels like a running a goddamn hostel here in Paris.  In servants' quarters.  I just need a little solidarity, you know?  A little Lili time," she says.  Adrian had gotten on the train to the Charles de Gaulle in the mid-morning, and here I was, back to check in not even four hours after Lili's floor space and guest mattress pad have been vacated.

"I hear ya girl," I say with a half-smile and suddenly I notice the pack on my back digging daggers into my shoulders and the weight of this wretched city pulling down like two straps and a heavy load.  It's that sinking feeling so that maybe my feet are dragging along the tops of the catacombs as we walk back from Tour Eiffel.

She looks at me sideways as we stroll down Champs de Mars and maybe she sees it in my face, "Not right necessarily now, Bri.  Just like a few days this week or something."

Phew. "Oh, ok.  Yeah, I can definitely do that.  I'll get on it when we get home," and the pack lightens ever so slightly and my feet are on cobblestone again.  "So how was the Rapture? Epic?"

"Oh my god!  It was incredible!"  And she tells me.  It sounds incredible.  "The venue was this old train terminal," she says all animated, dancing while we walk and kicking at the dirt path.  "So we get there and the place is huge, and it's packed, and there's a million neon signs lighting up the front of it."

"Ooo la laa.  How long was the set?"

She shrugs. "They only played for an hour or so.  It was quick.  But it was good."

"Did they play any of their old songs?"

"Yeah.  It was super dancey.  You would've loved it," she says smiling.

"Oh, gee.  Thanks," I say adjusting the pack on my back.  "Well, I'm glad you had fun."

She looks me up and down.  "I am too.  Let's go out tonight."

"Mmm.  Yes, please. I could use a good steak."  A solid meal.  I feel like I'm slowly shriveling, leaning out more as each day passes, and I feel it especially as we're climbing the six sets of stairs to Lili's flat.  We play music and dance and drink wine for the rest of the day, and I tell her about my weekend on the floor of the German girl's single servant's quarters, and she tells me about her gallivanting with Adrian.

There's a thick-covered coffee table book on the love seat.  "What's this?" I say, taking it's weight in my hands.  "A bit heavy ain't it?"

"Oh! And he gave me that!" she says.  The cover is a picture of Paul McCartney.  It's a collection of photographs by his first wife.  Michael Jackson's in it.  The Stones are in it.  Everyone's in it.  I flip through as Lili grabs some glasses.

We get through two bottles of wine, and we jab at each other and hassle and pry until our tummies begin grumbling.  "Where do you wanna go?"

"I don't know," she says.  "Let's just walk around for a bit and find something."

So we walk.  At a slower pace though, not your normal Parisian fast-trot.  Down the stairs, across the courtyard and to the door like a soft breeze.  I hold it open after she moves her keys by the sensor.  "Merci."  She says as she whisks out, "What do you feel like?"

"I don't know," I say. "Steak?"

"You always want steak."

"Well, what do you want?"

There's an incredulous look on her face.  We're walking side-by-side on the skinny sidewalk.  Shoulder-to-shoulder so she's not far at all, and her cheeks are slack as she rolls her eyes at me.  With some sass she says, "I don't know..."

I laugh to myself with a smile, and we walk a little more.

In a second she jumps with a start and a "Wait!  I got it!" and her index finger's pointing in the air.  The nail's still blue from that night at the embassy, but it's chipped a little by the cuticle.  "Italian," she says, nodding.  Her eyes are far off up the road.  She looks happy. "Oui, italien."  And we look in at each restaurant and at the menu.  Everything looks good.  We keep going a while though.  Maybe there's something cheaper.

Up Rue de la Comète, a skinny street that ends at Saint-Dominique where we turn right and then quickly left across the street with our hands in our pockets onto Rue Surcouf.  My scarf's loose so I duck my chin down into it.  These nights are getting colder, and my shoulders give a twitch shake.  This knit sweater's going to have to be something more soon.  Half-way up the street is a French restaurant with a red overhang and yellow font and grid-paned windows.  Le Petit Bordelais.  We look inside, and we don't even look at the menu.  "Oh, I love it," gasps Lili with an open-mouthed grin.  "French it is then."  She swings open the door and we shuffle in.  It's a wider place with an old worn bar on the left, some tables, and some tables raised up a few steps on the right around old wood railings.  There's a group of older folks sitting at a table by the entrance, an American couple and a French couple chatting about business and vacation and New York and things like that.  At a raised table by the windows there's a boy and a girl our age.  They're either old friends or bad lovers by the looks of it, and they talk about classes and papers.  They don't look as bubbly as the older folks do.

I like higher vantage points, and so does Lili, so we take a table up the pair of steps.  But we're not really close to anyone, at a table against the wall.  The server cuts off her smiling small talk with the bartender and brings us a pair of menus.  "Bonjour."

"Bonjour," we say.

She's quick, but she's cordial and friendly.  "Vous voulez un verre?"

Lili glances at the wines and orders a rosé, and I say, "Une cruche d'eau, s'il vous plaît?"  But I butcher it, and our dear server smiles.

"Some wine and some water. Of course," she says.  "I'll be right back."

Lili's smiling too.  "Merci."

"Merci." I take a deep breath, and in my mind I'm patting myself on the back.  "It smells good in here," I say.

"I know.  It looks good in here," says Lili, craning about before leaning back into the rouge wall cushion with a plomp. "It's been a long weekend."

"It has," I nod.  And it had, and in two seconds it flashes before my eyes regrettably.  It's okay.  I'm with Lili again.  And hell, I got some writing done and some pictures pictured.  When our server comes back, I feel at home almost.  Lili orders a salad with seared tuna.  I get the steak.  It's a puppy-dog/bone love, and it never gets old.  I eat slow to savor it.

Lili remembers things when she's drunk. "Oh! I have to show you the pictures of Adrian's friend's place in the 3rd. Oh, my god.  You would've love it."

"Who's this now?"

"Adrian's friend and his wife.  They're twenty-five.  Or twenty-six, I think.  The friend's that came to the Rapture with us.  We went to their place first.  And it was sick," she says holding the wine glass in the air in front of her.  "Très très beau."

It's worth a smirk.  "So bigger than yours then?"

"Yes." She's sarcastic. "Bigger than mine.  Much bigger.  A real flat with rooms and walls and such.  And real chairs and tables and couches.  And dim lamps and a real kitchen and oh, it was so cute.  They were like... adults. With jobs. I want a place like that."

"Sounds nice."

[stop]


The Girl Who Liked to Picture Doors

On the way, on I forget what rue, there is a familiar sight coming towards us.  Champs de Mars is in the distance.  They're coming from, we're going to, or toward I should say.  Our destination's not much further.  It's a trio, two that I recognize.  There's Anthony, Tony, the gay guy with the long mane from the night before - a guy I don't know, an who else should it be but dear sweet Rachel.  It's not a busy street we're on , but even if it had been she'd be hard to miss.  From her boots to her waist, she's bright red denim.  Cherry red.  Plus she's tall, and she walks with the long-stride gait that's reserved for runway models, but for her it's fine and natural and a very beautiful thing to watch walking towards you.  There's no rush in her pace to keep up with the boys  Red legs.  My jaw drops just a little to an open mouth smile, and we each stop in our tracks.  Her mouth's open too in a faux gasp.

Lili looks at me silly.  "What are you doing?" she says.  Her eyesight's shit, and she didn't bring her glasses.  

"It's Rachel."

"Where?"

"Right there, straight ahead of us," I say without pointing.  Discretion.  We're walking towards each other again, and like that she's standing there right before us, her two friends to one side.  "Why hello there," I say.

"Well, hello. Fancy seeing you here on this fine not so early morning."  It's drawn out and preposterously theatrical in meter.  I love the way she talks.  Like things are rarely serious, and usually only vaguely interesting.

There's small talk and pleasantries, inquiries of the day and such.  Lili tells them she's taking me to Luxembourg Parc.  "We're just gonna walk there," she says.  "And what are you lady and gents up to today?"

Rachel takes point.  She kinda has from the get go.  "Today," she says, "we're taking pictures of all the different doors we see."  Anthony raises a chic-looking film camera on cue.

"Hmm... How exciting!" I say just trying to break up the staring.  "Have you got any good ones yet?"

"Oh! Amazing ones!" Rachel says.  "There's some wild doors around here. You should take a day and appreciate them sometime."

"You can bet I will," I say, eyeing a door across the street, and when I turn to Lili she's looking at me with an eye like let's go so, "But right now we're off to Luxembourg, so I'll bid thee adieu," I say with three sincere eye contacts with one stalling for a second, "and have a glorious day."

Lili's pulling me by the hand now, but she still manages to shoot off an "A bientot" over her shoulder.

The echo her in chime, and Rachel says, "A tout a l'heure" with a spirit finger wave.  Almost immediately they're lining up a picture of that door across the rue.  

Lili turns to me, walking, we're a lost to the park Le Champs de Mars, and I can see the tower.  "What's wrong with you?" she asks.

I must look frazzled.  Or maybe dazed.  or maybe I'm standing on my tippy-toes and I don't know it, I can't feel it because I feel something else.  I'm floating.  I don't even look at Lili but out across Le Champs at the orange and yellow and in places still light green trees.  "Oh my god. I'm in love with that girl."

[stop]


En St. Germaine

I call her.  No answer.  Oh, well.  Voila, Saint Germaine-en-Laye.  It's a different feel than the city here.  Small-town like.  Like Deauville, it reminds me, mais not so touristy and seafoody.  More rural.  Bourgeois rural.  The buildings are fine and pushed together, but not all uniform like Paris proper, and from the metro there's a wide open park to one side with straight rows of top-cropped trees and an ancient bastille, old and simple stone.  Not a palace, a fortress.  To the other side, the town.  Or what looks like the edge of it because there seems to be no end to the flat simple park of open grey-greens, only grass and rowed trees.

I don't know what it is exactly, maybe hunger, that pulls me down the first street into town.  It's storefront, storefront, storefront, and I get the feel that all the space above isn't residential, but commercial offices.  Most of it anyways.  The stores are all ultra-nice.  Boutiques.  The people here have money.  They live in houses and shop for leisure.  And have au pairs to watch their children.  It's the parisian Bel-Air.  Au Claire.

With my eyes on the roof-tops (shops are too bourgeois) my steps take me to the center, a square, an old square all in cobblestone and there's nobody there.  No Cait.  No one young.  I scan the sparse crowds, two here, three there together, without stopping.  Just spinning, spinning, looking for a face to hold me still between these two skinny streets, two nice french cafes to one side, tiny tables outside and green awnings.  To the other, an old lonely post office from some bygone era before the rest of this place, and it's here I find solace.  Not inside, still out on the cobblestone, but just the look of it, this old mail station under the grey sky, makes me feel old, and I smile at the thought of what Rachel would think of it's doors.  Big old oak.  Worn, ornate. 

Ring, ring.  Ring, ring.

It's Cait.  It rings twice.  "Are you at the square?"

"With the post office, yes."

"Green sweater? I see you. Look!"

I look and I see her, waving, red hair, short smile, blue coat.  She walks up and it begins to drizzle a little.  Drizzle slow. 

"Oh my god, hi!" she says. "How are you?"  Two kisses on the cheek.  "Ew, this rain. Are you hungry? Let's eat."

The little cafe, the green awning.  Le croque monsieur pour moi.  She gets a salad nicois.

[stop]


A French Picnic

"Ha! I can't believe you're here. In Paris. What are the odds!" She's not so much hands, but eyes and chin when she talks.  Blue eyes.  Red hair.  Inside with her coat off it's hard not to stare at her breasts in that skin-tight blue turtleneck of hers.  Misleadingly conservative.  Or comfortably seductive, I'm not sure.  It's a different hue than the coat, darker.  Navy dark and the mind nicks and ticks to a dirty two-step of what maybe could be.  What's wrong with me.  "So you're writing a book you said, right?"

"Something like that," I say with a shake - no, more of a twitch of the head, quick.  It's not the question, it's the sweater.  "How long's it been then? Since I so last saw you."

"Oh, what was it... The wine tour.  Yes, the wine tour in Santa Cruz. Right? Geez, I don't know... A year ago? Ten months? That's crazy!"

A year ago (or was it ten months...) when I was living in Santa Cruz I had, quite randomly by the way, been commissioned by Cait and her friend to drive them for a day up through the redwood evergreen forest to a number of vineyards by the central coast, just south of San Jose.  Commissioned's a strong word really, so formal.  It was a Facebook post that I commented on that got me the job.  We got high and drove wooded one lane streets through the mountains in spring to go wine tasting.  I didn't drink as much as them, oh no, not nearly.  But I certainly wasn't sober, and all the time floating on a cloud of spliff smoke, mais quoi, we all were.  That's Santa Cruz.  I'd known her before that though.  In high school.

"God, remember that? That was a good time," she says, looking at me.  "So what's you book about?" A slight brow raises.  "Paris."

"Not really. Or just a little bit I should say." And I tell her. I tell her the same thing I've told a million times now.  I feed her the stale shtick and she takes it, wide-eyed.  There's a flash in my mind of me inside, dirty girl.  Dirty me I should say.  Dirty, oui.

What do you call that?

"A picnic," she says. "We could grab some wine from the market and some croissants... I know this great bakery.  And we could go sit right in the middle of the park."

"Oh, the one by the castle? I'd like that. But what if it's wet?" Dirty, dirty.

It's not raining anymore, and it hadn't been hard, but still the cobblestone outside wasn't dry yet.  Still as le garcon clears our plates and as I get up to grab my sweater off the back of my chair, a quick look tells me we're the youngest pair in this joint.  By a long shot.  The old men at the bar watch us go with hunched backs over drinks and words en francais to the barman.

"It'll dry out," she says.  "Either way I have a blanket in here," with a pat of her giant shoulder bag, and a flash look at me.  "Don't worry. It's gonna be nice."

"Oh, I have no doubt," I say with my hands up.  We go to the market.  Not Carrefour, something grander like a plush french Target with tons of wine.  Wine everywhere.

"It's the Beaujolais Nouveau, that's why," she tells me.  "At the end of the harvest, they take the rest of the grapes and mash them into Beaujolalis, it's a mix.  It's not bad though.  Shall we get one?"

And with a dainty princess touch, she picks one up.  They're stacked, box-on-box like goddamn Coke-a-Cola before the Superbowl.  The top box is open, waist high, tiny wine islands in the aisle.  From every vineyard in France it seems.  These aisles go forever.

I look out down the aisle, isle after isle, vineyards on vineyards.  No use being picky here.  "Sure, why not. This one looks good," I say taking the bottle from her hand.  "Good label anyway."  I always trust an old-fashioned label, something with a crest for some reason.  "Shall we get two?"

She smiles devilish.  "I like it."  So she grabs another.

Down the road more towards the castle, we stop at a bakery, un boulangerie.

"This is the one," she says. "It's the best."  She shoots a quick glance up at me while we walk in.  A smell and a warmth inside bring me back, to a home we had both shared, Santa Cruz, we just hadn't shared it together.

We'd shared a city, from different sides, in different ways, through different lives.  I'd worked at a bakery there, Kelly's, and here it was just outside Paris.  The glass counters, the fresh bread behind, the plump pastries inside, the warm yellow custard interior with white windows.  The smell, the smell, the smell.  Just a second here, I lose myself to the blank weak knees of nostalgia.  Recollection.  "This place reminds me of Kelly's," I say, coming back.

She shrugs. "Kinda. What're you gonna get?"

[stop]

The birds.

I always remember the crows, not the pigeons.  Not the rats, but the demons.  They always huddled down at the end of my block.  All on the same green grass, rummaging and stomping like the daylight shadows they were.  With fierce beaks.  And eyes you could only see if you squinted.  All huddled.  And they'd stop when I'd stop and their beaks followed as I passed by.  All seven of them.

But I'd only think on it for the second it was before I had to climb the hill.  And then I was climbing, and climbing on a bicycle is something lovely to only think about in moment.  Swinging the bars left and right.  Sitting in the air.  It was a slow steady fly.  Like a goose's pace.  With heavy swings and long glides.  To the top by the on-ramp and down the hill to Centinela.

And across the bridge, and onto the path by Ballona Creek.  Up at the top of a concrete grade.  There's an encouraging amount of plant life on the shore (not too encouraging seeing as it's trying to grow through concrete, but at least it's trying). And it tries to an abrupt point at where the water, I'm guessing, becomes too salty.  Or too polluted.  It's a bit sad.  But we fly by and forget.  We see the pelicans more clearly now with the banks devoid of foliage.  And the herons as well.  Taking passes at the calm green waters.  There's just a slight ebb and flow from the tides.  Tides fruitful in fishy food I presume, because everyone's having a ball.  Even the fish jump in groups as the birds dive shallow and skim the water.

For a few strokes I pace one of the pelicans.  His eye is easier to see than the crows.  A bit happier-looking too.  But the crow's is more poignant.  More to the point, and those black orbs cut deep whenever they're around.  There's something strange about looking into the eyes of another animal and, for a moment, to think they're looking back at me.  And I wonder what they see.  Instinctually.  There's a smile.  Maybe a grin.  A wide grin on a long pelican's beak.  It's a funny picture, and it carries me to work with no other thought than the music playing in my ears.  And the seagulls sailing v's ahead of me.  It's going to be a good morning.

Summer in SF

"Thanks for the time traveling," Josh said as he slapped my hand through the open driver-side window.

I said it was a pleasure and reversed down the gravel driveway through the trees.  The light played tricks on my eyes like a fuzzy soft drizzle of sunshine.  They can't shake that faraway look.  

Everything was distant in my mind, like I'd spent the last four days climbing down a hole inside myself and the present was a little peep-hole at the surface.  It's a long climb back to the top.  Back to the place where things take certain significance again, and it's not just eating and stretching and trimming and sleeping anymore.  Such a vicious cycle that was.  Soul sucking.  Depraved.  Maybe the city will make things real again.

That was the thought as I hugged Highway 9's twists and turns to the Pacific.  To PCH and a gallop north.  Cloud cover retook the coast around Davenport. 

Imaginary Hero

It's Thursday, but it feels like Tuesday.  The sun and the wind beat like it's a Tuesday, and the every weekday drawl is coming through the little cobblestone market square. The whole place is gray painted sheet-metal and yellow borders around the doors and the windows.  The cobble is worn to different shades of dirt grey and spotted by shade from the umbrellas and trees.  

The sun shines glare off the silver tin tables, and the wind whops with swirls in the tiny square.  Swift Street.  It smells different now. There's still the sweet bakery aromas, still the tall shy-type models working at the boutique next door.  No, that hasn't changed.  

It's a subtle bite in the air.  A familiar feeling that's missing.  This hole isn't home anymore.  Life's picked up and moved on.  Things have changed.  There's a ghost in me of the shadow past, and now I'm sneaking through this younger world now, and everything looks like weed. 

And my trim hand's cramping.

Quote of the Day: I'm Going To Write

And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it.

~ Steve Jobs

Two Thoughts For Taylor Marie

It's unequivocal.  It's a soft, green-eyed prettiness that's veiled about her elegant stature.  It hangs over her fair-skinned freckles and flutters in the wind with her auburn hair.  It ties the tongue and stutters the thought if you're caught unaware.  Blindsided.  Perhaps at the turn of a corner so the heart skips lightly on a spring that's caught in the throat before it leaps right out.

It's a curious beauty she possesses.  A timid princess beauty.  A silly sultry beauty that harbors a confidence in her convictions. And to think she once told me she'd fallen for me. If had been a strange time for me though, and to be honest, timing was never really our thing.  Fuckin' aye, if I could, I'd do it right over and quite different, and there's precious few things I say that for.  See, I'm hardly ever one for regret, but this Taylor Marie, she's just prettier than everything.  In part, because it's the kind of pretty that digs in roots and grows on you, and it's been growing on me for some time now.

That being said, there's something destructive in the way she thinks.  It comes from that crazy that's in us all, and maybe that's why I'm crazy about her.  We've all got it.  And if you think for a second that you don't, well then you simply haven't looked deep enough.  It's in everyone, and it shows itself in different particulars.  In the particular case of Taylor, it's not something extravagant.  No, it's quality is innocent and pure with the most romantically hopeful outlook.  The only problem with it really is that life in reality isn't so storybook serene or as easily decipherable as she may believe.  It's not plastered across the universe in such rigid archetypes. 

She's a relationship girl.  That's what she tells me.  "I only have sex with my boyfriend," she says.  Okay, that makes sense.  I guess.  When she has a boyfriend anyways.  But what happens when she's single again because the last one ended badly like they always do for some reason?

"Have you slept with anyone else yet?" I'd ask.

She'd look at me hard, maybe judging. "I told you, I'll only have sex with my boyfriend. That's just who I am."

"Which boyfriends?"

"Ew, no. Not ex-boyfriends."

"But you're single."

"I know.  I hate it."

"Well, hell.  Date me then," I'd say smiling.  "What's the worst that could happen?"


"Oh, stop it," she'd say with a roll of the eyes or a shifty sideways glance. "Please, you're like my best friend."

"Yeah, but I'm also a boy. And I already love you, so it's like a win-win."

"Maybe. But I don't want to ruin what we have right now."

I never understood that.  I guess it's because all her intimate relationships end in disaster and heartbreak.  I feel sorry for her, sure, but only to a certain extent.

[revisited 4/30/13]

It's a year later now just about.  Fuck time's flying way too fast.  I wish I could say I understand her more now than I did then, but if I did, I'd be lying to myself.  But that's what writing's for right?  To bring about some semblance of understanding, some coherent self-satisfying dialogue.  Or is it a monologue?  I don't know.

What I do know is that somewhere in this between she became a woman to me, and when I look in the mirror now, it's not a wide-eyed boy I see staring back anymore, but a reluctant man of beleaguered stoicism pulled like see-through curtains over tired pupils.  So we've both grown I guess. She's single now.  Adult single with a single studio place to herself and a healthy taste for liquor and aesthetic sex with no strings attached.  Which means no me.  And somehow, after all this time and pessimism, I still have the capacity to get completely wrapped up in her.

Fall Paris: Lili

This is Paris.  It's a feeling of vague familiarity, but to be true, it's entirely foreign.  I didn't remember Paris like this, and it had just been a few months over a year since Max, Mike, Grant, and I had bid "Au 'voir" to Marie on a mid-summer morning and snuck away on the metro to Gare du Nord.  It feels like the same city - the symmetry, the architecture, the language - but this is different.  It's not a holiday.  It's not a free-form wild romp like before, no great adventure.

No, this is just living.  An attempt to focus.  To put pencil to paper and slave away at a keyboard.  I came here to write.  LA's too wrought with diversions.  Too many things to do, too many people to see.  Too many girls.  It's only Fall, but it already feels like it'll soon be too cold to get into anything real mischievous.  Plus, I don't know anyone out here - save for Marie.  And of course, Lili.

"Oh, hey there," I hear over the vague undertone of French flying around the steps of the Opera.  I pull the camera from my eye and my eye from the skyline to the sidewalk below, and there she is on a silly bicycle all covered in taupe plastic.  I hear the color's very soothing.  It's Lili.

"Oh, hey yourself," I say looking serious, and I try not to smile.  She's just how I remembered her, sassy and shoulder-groovin' and animated behind a pair of Raybans, and for a second the city turns to LA and I never really left.  But I think that's just the jet-lag.  My heavy eyes blink, and when they open again, I'm in gay ole' Paris.

Lili's looking at me hard.  "I can't believe you're actually here."

"Yeah.  I don't think I believe I'm here either," I say.  "Not yet, anyways."

She laughs, "Yeah?  Rough flight?  You look like hell."

"Gee, thanks."  My skin's sticky from the processed airplane-air, and all my joints hurt, and I feel high off delirium.  "What time is it by the way?" I ask.

Lili flicks her wrist and consults a classy little timepiece on a worn leather band.  "It's just past nine."

"Good Lord!  I'm about to pass out.  How far's your place?"

[stop]

"It's a quick ride on the Velib," she says looking down at the bike between legs.  It's a wonderful city service, the Velib.  There's tens of cheap taupe bikes locked up at tiny stations every other block or so, and they're available with the simple swipe of a Velib card.  But each card can only take one bike every thirty minutes.  It's like a metro pass without being able to cheat your friends through too.

"But I don't have a Velib," I say frowning.

She looks at me sourly.  "I know.  You suck."  Lili's always been a little tart, ever since high school.  Pretty and secretive and sarcastically tart.  That's Lili.  She's a wild one.  She's charmingly seductive.  I might have loved her once.  Maybe, but if I did, if that's even what it was, it was a long time ago.  Before college.  We're nothing but old friends now.  She's always intrigued me though, and for that I've since learned to be wary.  I saw beauty in her the way one sees it in a pack of wild mustangs running at a cliff's edge.  It's not something you want to find yourself in the midst of.  But from afar, it's a rare and beautiful thing to witness.  She's untamed and together and always flirting with a dangerous unknown it seems.  "It's not that far," she says.  "We can walk."

It's pretty fucking far actually.  Especially with fifty pounds of backpack and luggage digging into my shoulders.  We head southwest through the city for a spell and turn left on Avenue de Marigny.  A solid walk.  It takes us twenty minutes to get to the Seine, and as we cross at Pont Alexandre III, Napoleon's tomb in the distance, a young scruffy Parisian walking the other way picks a ring up off the ground and holds it up to me saying something in French.  

"He's trying to hustle you, ignore him," Lili says to me.  Then she turns to him with a wave of her hand and sneers, "Non, merci."  And we keep walking.

"What was that about?" 

"He was gonna try to get you to give him ten dollars for that shitty ring.  He dropped it there earlier.  It's a thing they do."

"Who do?"

"The gypsies.  Then they'll try to rob you.  Look out for them."

So I look out for them.  "Are we there yet?"

"Almost.  Kinda.  It's through this park and just past Invalides," she says, and does a double-take.  "You wanna take a break?"

I let a deep sigh out, "That would be awesome."  And we sit on a green wood bench lined up even with a row a trimmed trees.  

Lili crosses her legs, pulls a pouch of Lucky Strike tobacco from her shoulder bag and opens it.  There's a single rolled cigarette inside.  She didn't really smoke at all in the States, and she looks me sharp in the eyes, "Don't judge me."

"I won't if you roll me one," I snap back.

[stop]

"Fine," she sighs.  And she tosses me the one she'd been fiddling with in her fingers.  Then she rolls another and we smoke.  The ground's covered with leaves, brown-orange and trampled, but the trees still have some life in them, in the greens speckled yellow.

I catch my breath with a puff of tobacco smoke.  It's crisp and sends my skin into bumps.  Lili sees a close leaf falling and looks at me.  "You picked a good time to come," she says.  "It's not usually as nice as it is this time in November."

I blow a puff out.  "How nice is it usually?"

"It should be colder, but it isn't."

"Lucky me."  There's no emphasis in it.  I have none to spare.  Paris is bustling by through morning rush hour, and the clocks in my head don't think that sounds right and they're whining up a fuss.  It's a little past midnight back in LA.  What the hell am I doing here.  Each blink comes with a throb and a shake and I feel my eyes sink into my skull now as my cigarette burns low.

"C'mon," says Lili picking up one of my bags.  "It's just around the corner.  I've got another class to go to so you can take a nap up there or whatever when I'm gone."  

"Oh-kay," I say.  And I pick up the other bag.

Before we trek off again, she takes one last mean drag from her cigarette and flicks it at me with a smile.  "I can't believe you're actually here."

[stop]

Lili lives in a little servants' quarters room just below the roof of a lavish Parisian apartment block in the 7th Arrondissement.  There's no elevator and she takes me through to the back where there's a servants' staircase that spirals up six flights to the top.  The steps are steep and always twisting up.  They never straighten out, and a tiny landing and a servants' door marks each floor until there's no more steps and we're walking down a tall skinny hallway with doors on either side and battered floorboards.  They look recently stripped, but Lili says they've been like that since she moved in a year ago.  She's panting when she says it, and I'm panting while I listen because fucking hell, those stairs were no joke.

When Lili opens the door, we both drop the bags not so softly on the hardwood floors, and I grab my knees taking in deep breaths.  "Wow.  Really Lil? That was fucking miserable," I say.  "I didn't think I was in this bad of shape."

"Yeah, dude.  Tell me about it.  I do that at least twice a day."  She pours two glasses of water, and hands me one, and we sit a her table.  It's a tiny thing against the wall opposite the door, barely big enough for two people to eat comfortably.  The place is a box, and a closet juts out to the middle from the door wall and opens both ways.  Her bed hugs one wall, and the bathroom and kitchen hug the other.  "You must be starving," she says.  She breaks a baguette in half and digs through the mini fridge under the kitchen counter.  "You have to try this butter I have...  It's to die for, muahaha!"

"Is it now." I spread some on some bread and take a bite.  Then another.  And another and another until it's gone, and I finally begin to catch my breath.  It's damned good butter if I do say so myself.  "What is that?" I ask still licking my pallet.   

"That's butter, man.  Real butter," she says.  "French butter."

I take the bar of it in my hand and inspect it.  "Is that salt?"

"Yup.  Crystal-y sea salt.  It's so good."  Then she reaches into the fridge again and pulls out another bar, or more a sliced rock of butter.  "Here, try this one."

"What's this one?"

"Ouzo," she says.  It's altogether different, in flavor and sweetness and saltiness, and it's equally amazing.  I never pegged Lili for a fine butter connoisseur, but it doesn't surprise me.  She's accustomed to fine tastes.  After all, her parents are both Italian so her's was a savory household back in LA.  Or at least it was whenever I came over for dinner.  She's lived up a hill and just a few blocks west of me.

"Your butters are divine," I tell her.

"Why, thank you," she says with a curtsy.  "Oh!  I gotta go to class right now, and you look like you need some shut-eye, so I guess you can sleep in my bed for now."  She takes a step towards me and leans in and sniffs.  "Yeah, that's fine.  I'll be back in three hours or so."

"Haha, spanks.  I don't smell that bad."

"Sure you don't, hehe.  Smell ya later."  She's a mischievous giggler as she leaves, and she cuts a slim fit figure in the doorway.  It's got to be the stairs.  Six flights twice or thrice a day will give anyone body karate.

The blood's still pumping from those damned stairs and tired as I am, my sunken eyes don't feel like closing yet so I write.  In a mixed-up open-eyed unconscious daydream delirium I write.  Sitting on the single loveseat below the tiny servant's quarters window.

[stop]

For dinner we go out.  The night's sweater cold and cozy in this green knitted thing I picked up in LA just before leaving.  It's got little leather elbow pads, and it zips down the middle, and it's a little heavy for autumn in LA, but in Paris it's just right.  We walk arm in arm, Lili and I, chatting fast with jibs back and forth like little kids playing tag, and and she drags from a cigarette in her right hand, and I drag from one in my left.  And when the sidewalk thins, we split seamlessly and walk single-file.  She's a quick walker, Lili, and I keep pace.  "What do you want?" she asks.

"I want to eat something French," I say with a wave of the Lucky Strike she rolled me.

"Hmm... French you say? I know just the place."  She steers us to a corner restaurant nearby.   Café Constant.  The place isn't open for dinner yet, but there's already a line waiting.  It's mostly an older crowd, and to my surprise there's a lot of English being thrown around.  Lili tells me the 7th is the arrondissement that most Americans move to when they move to Paris.  "This place is an American favorite,"  she says.  "Last time the 'rents came out we ate here."

Lovely.  We'll fit right in.  And when they finally open the doors and let us sit, we do.  We slide right in at a table by the door.  It's not a big place on the ground floor.  There's a line of tables pushed up against the floor-to-ceiling windows, facing the bar, with just enough space for servers to rush by in between the two.  I take the seat up against the window because I get to look at bar and all the bottles behind it, and I like that.  Almost as much as Lili likes sitting in the aisle.  She's quite adamant about it really, and I don't mind the close quarters so it all works out.  Our server's sharp and gives us the English menus, and I sigh easy relief.  "Merci," I say.  "Merci beaucoup."

Lili gets the roasted chicken plate, and I get a hearty steak and potatoes.  She orders a glass of white French wine, and I ask her to order me a decent red because as I look at the list I realize that all the wines are different out here, and I don't know which to choose.  I'm starving, and it's been forever since I've had a proper steak dinner.  I want to do it right.  Luckily, Lili likes her wine, and she picks an ace.

The dinner's everything I wanted.  The steak's savory in a sauce with a sharp bite, and the chef hit the medium-well nail on the head.  To know me is to know I love steak.  Fucking love it.  And the taters weren't bad either.  Especially mixed about in the steak juice.

[stop]

We take the meal at a slow trot, with my trot being just a bit slower.  To hold onto the taste for as long as I can, and to make sure, as always, that there's a little bit of wine still left to wash it all down with after.  Lili watches me after she's done and tuts and laughs and talks of all the sneaky things she's been up to in Paris, and I listen.  "And don't you tell anyone," she says.

"Me?" says I with my mouth half full.  "I would never.  Who would I tell?"

She eyes me with suspicion for the vaguest second, then dismisses it.  "So two months, huh? What are you going to do here for two months?"


"Write, I guess." And I gulp it down.

"That's it?"

"That's the idea."

"Well... You can't crash at my place for two months.  I won't allow it."

"Oh, of course not," I say flatteringly.  "I've got some other friends I can stay with.  And I might go down to Barcelona too."

"Really? Cool. A week here and a week there's fine then.  That I don't mind at all," she says finishing her wine.  "And oh! So my Romanian wants to take me to the countryside this weekend for his friend's birthday party. Should I go with him?"

"To where?"

"To this little village towards the coast."

I nod with an impressed face.  "Sounds intriguing," I say. "And exciting.  This guy's your boyfriend?"

"He's a boy," she says matter-of-factly. "He's fun."

"Well then, I say do it. Why not?  When's the next time you think someone's going to take you to Deauville or wherever the hell this place is.  I would definitely go if I were you."

"Yeah?"

"Yes. Do it."

She's excited and bubbly when we leave Cafe Constant, and she says she'll see if I can come too, which I'm all for.  I really want to see something over here.  Something grand and inspiring.  Some adventure.  Some something special that I hadn't seen before.  A countryside birthday bash sounds like just the ticket, and sure enough, the polite Romanian - an ambassador's son - invites me as well when he meets us that night in the grass on the Champs de Mars.

Lili and I had picked up a bottle of wine after dinner, and sat to the side so that the Tour looked down on us over the trees.  In the level grass that's not that dry.  It's not quite wet either though.  It's moist.  So that when I lean back on my hands the feel of the soft dampness leans back, and it reminds me of a towel that's been left out to dry but hasn't quite finished yet.  The guy's a gentleman though, so I wipe my hands quick with one swipe on my pants as I stand to greet him, "Bonjour."

"Bonjour, it's nice to meet you," he says holding out his hand.  His English is spot on.  He looks the way clean-cut native Parisians look with a sharp haircut and long-sleeved stripes and a scarf, but his accent isn't French. It's something more easterly.  "I'm Andrei, and this is Boris."

"Hello," says Boris.  The accent throws me.  I can't quite place it, and it's definitely not French.  But it's not exactly the same as Andre's either.

"It's a pleasure," I say, and I shake both their hands.  We drink the wine casually as Andrei tells us about his friend's house in the Normandy near Deauville.  It's in a small farming village about three hours out of Paris.  With a small stone church and a cemetery, and green autumn fields and old bombs from the War in the ancient backyard barn.

They're leaving tonight they tell us, and we'll be going with another friend tomorrow afternoon.  That sounds just swell to me, and it's exciting to think that my first weekend in France is going to be spend in the country. The next day we wake late and the morning turns to afternoon in a flash of scrambled eggs and french bread with salted butter.  I pry about grad school and Lili gives and talks papers and Parisian friends until it's time to meet Andre's friend Mircea.  We take the metro and rendezvous with Mircea above ground at the Montparnasse station.  He picks us up in his BMW chain-smoking Marlboro Reds, and tells us there's going to be one more passenger.