An American Girl in Paris

2007-04-04T12:00:00.000+01:00

Hi! Thanks for stopping by. I have moved this blog to our new website.

The whole thing can now be found HERE.

There are still some kinks to work out, but all new posts will be on the new site, so please update your bookmarks, and check in any time!!

XOXOXO
Caroline

Care Packages

2007-04-01T10:21:00.000+01:00

Remember in camp, when everyone would compare care packages? The cool girls were the ones whose parents smuggled in contraband, and at the other end of the spectrum were the girls who just got something lame like a sweater that they forgot to pack--or nothing at all.

Apparently, both Nick's mother and mine have learned a great deal from those years.

The gardienne really has to be sick of us by now: the day after she rang our bell to hand off one lovely framed engagement photo, she rang it again to give us the second (the first one took so long that Nick's mother told the company exactly what she thought of them, and they sent another, which arrived in just two days). And later that afternoon, the gardienne came back bearing more gifts: specifically, my mother's best care package to date.

Now, following the post in which I whined about tin foil, Nick's mother sent a box of it along in Blake's carry-on. And then Nick felt compelled to prove that he is perfectly capable of supplying me with foil on his own, and purchased more (don't worry; you're not the only one thinking that that's ridiculous). My mother, not to be outdone, sent us 200 yards of the stuff.

And super-fancy scissors.

And some cling wrap, just in case.

More to the point, she sent along Easter things: egg dye, candy, and, most importantly, these:

which I now grab any time Nick gets snippy. It's awfully hard to be moody and/or difficult when you can't keep a straight face.

When I called her to thank her, the Easter candy reminded me of something I've been seeing in shop windows lately: regular brown chicken eggs, hollowed out and filled with chocolate. Most of them leave an opening at the top, but the cleverest ones look like this:

"Oh," said my mother, sounding a tad wistful. "I knew it was just a matter of time before you'd find something cooler than what we have."

Okay. Look, I love my Cadbury. But...

Nick had to open it for me with the foil cutter on our corkscrew. The ones with open tops are probably a little more convenient--this one was filled completely with chocolate the texture of dry fudge:

And it was delicious.

There's still an appreciation for these artisinal things here," Nick says, "instead of just more, faster, cheaper."

And a day or two later, yet another box arrived: from Nick's mother this time, containing about ten presents for his birthday, for Easter, for me, for whatever.

What I'm saying is this:

It may have taken me 26 years, but I seem to have become a cool kid.

Pursuit

2007-03-27T17:02:00.000+01:00

Lately, a couple of well-meaning people have expressed concern to Nick that I may not be happy here.

First of all, respectfully: knock it off. I appreciate the spirit in which it is meant, but it has led Nick to suggest that there might be things that I'm not telling him, and that is a direction that this relationship will not be going in.

Secondly, and more to the point, it's made me think of a class that I took during undergrad that was all about happiness. One of our homework assignments--the best, to date, that I have ever done--was to spend half an hour or so trying to make ourselves happy, using nothing external.

The professor asked me to read my write-up aloud, and then asked a young man named Ethan to read his. We had both succeeded, but the similarities ended there: I created a specific visualization, and found that it reliably made me smile, reduced my tension, and raised my energy level. What I mean is this: I pictured something and got kinda bubbly (I had forgotten it for years until today, but it still works). Ethan, on the other hand, sat back and emptied his mind, and let satisfaction roll in. It was much quieter--sort of a sense of contentment.

We both said the same thing: "After hearing yours, I'm not sure I did it right" (and we both managed to get a little envy into the sentence). The professor suggested something different: it seemed to him like a state/trait issue. I had created a state of happiness, while Ethan had gotten in touch with it on the trait level--quieter, but deeper and more enduring.

My state happiness is on the fritz. It has been for a while, and moving to a foreign country was not likely to improve it much--certainly not at first, anyway. There are a million bright spots that make me laugh, and a million tiny pinprick frustrations that make me want to hide under the covers and never come out again. I don't sound any happier, is what I mean.

But I am.

My trait happiness--the steady baseline--has shot up, and most of that is undoubtedly being with Nick, but some of it is also being with Nick in Paris, because it's really cool.

Forget for a minute that the neurotic tics that were threatening to seriously invade my life (if anyone had taken my blood pressure in the subway during the last few months, they'd've been calling paramedics next thing, for example, and there are plenty of others) have all but vanished.

I spend half the day now restraining myself from asking people if I can take pictures of their children, or their dogs, or just of them, so that I can remember and write about what they said and what they wore and the silly thing they did or whatever. I have gariguettes on demand. I climbed the Eiffel Tower today--did you think I was kidding about the fitness plan?--and spotted my apartment from the second level.

Look:

There's me, because there's sort of an unwritten code among tourists in places like that that says you just offer to take pictures for people (and I did it, too). A couple of very nice Spanish girls took that for me when they saw me take out the camera to shoot this:

which I messed up because the sun was in my eyes. I meant to shoot a little further to the right, so the apartment's not in it, but since I had no intention of figuring out how to draw a big arrow or circle or whatever on the photo, you were just going to have to take my word for it, anyway.

Oh, and from earlier today, I've got a couple of shots of the market on our corner (Tuesdays and Fridays)--or of what was left of it, anyway, by the time I came back from shopping a few streets up. I liked the way it looked, half-struck.

Also, here's a French duck (Mary, I was strolling along the Seine for you):

And so, after my Eiffel Tower run, I hung out for a bit in the park underneath and people-watched. My camera wasn't working when the group of kids came by wearing bilingual signs that said "FREE HUGS" (people seemed charmed, and a bunch took them up on it--there really didn't seem to be a catch. It may be a French thing). But I couldn't help but smile when a 10-year-old American girl, strolling with classmates, looked over toward the tower and announced, "Oh! I love that tree!" As it turns out, I did, too, so here it is:

Branching Out

2007-03-23T12:12:00.000+01:00

Les Escargots

I ate my first snails last night. And it was fine. I mean, they were Cordon Bleu snails, so, really, how wrong can you go?

For Christmas this year, I gave Nick a food-and-wine pairing class at the Cordon Bleu, and since the first few focused on regions that he's not that interested in, I picked the one that happened last night. I swear, it was total coincidence that I moved here in the meantime (as some of you may recall, that part happened very suddenly) and could come along.

So. The blur in front of the mirror is the translator, a long-suffering and very British man who obviously disliked the sommelier:

I thought it was especially interesting that he didn't usually translate the jokes; he tended to make up his own. So half of the class would laugh at something that the chef or sommelier said, which would be translated to dead silence, or the other half would laugh at the translation of something that had gotten no response in the original.

He really was a bit on edge, though--he obviously knew a thing or two about cooking, himself (he was a chef, not a professional translator), and couldn't always resist adding his own $.02. "I've put a pâte brisée [savory crust] on the bottom, and a pâte feuilletée [puff pastry] on the top," said the chef (this blur at the bottom:)

"He's put a pâte brisée on the top, and a pâte feuilletée on the bottom," the translator announced (truth be told, I don't know if he mistranslated, or if the chef switched them by mistake, but this was quite visibly not the case either way). "His reasons for doing this are...mysterious."

It got cleared up. And it was sensational. Oh, and here are our snails (cooked two ways, and paired with a rosé that changed character according to which type of snail you had just eaten:

They were delicious, although the cabbage-wrapped ones were a bit too buttery for my taste (surprisingly, the other kind, the sauce for which the chef announced he would finish off by "just drop[ping] in a hunk of butter," were not).

Le Marché

In other news, I also made my first foray into our local farmer's market this morning, and was pleasantly surprised. I am, at the root of it, very shy, and it's a busy, noisy place where you have to really push yourself forward. And you have to be better with the metric system than I am (half of my browser's bookmarks now are conversion charts and translation pages). Plus, at the first (and last) one that I went to, I made just one purchase and my French got laughed at during it, so I kind of had a skewed impression.

But everyone was very nice, and I got exactly what I wanted (including gariguettes: thin, tart miracles of strawberries that I just can't seem to stop eating now). Even the one hitch (the butcher blatantly trying to oversell me) was something that Nick had warned me was likely, so I was prepared to firmly insist that he remove the extra veal from the scale.

Les Movers

Also, I don't think that I've mentioned this before, but French movers are really cool. They don't bother trying to get massive pieces of furniture in through ancient doorways; instead, they all come equipped with one of these:

They are these cool ladders that extend automatically, with a platform on top for whatever. Unfortunately, not all of the difficulty is avoided, especially when a person owns furniture that looks like this:

See it swivelling dangerously as they try to drag it through the window? So did the pedestrians on the sidewalk. The whole ladder was shaking. We were really relieved not to be on the sidewalk. So then this guy (in blue, on the left) got out there to help it along:

Suckiest job ever, right???? We were placing bets. But he eventually turned it upright:

And then they both disappeared:

And now our new neighbor and her armoire can live happily ever after. As can we, with our veal and strawberries and snail recipes and tiny digital cameras that make our fiancés complain that people will think that we're tourists even though the people who were taking pictures of the Cordon Bleu meals were just doing it so that they could cook them for themselves, and what tourists take pictures of their neighbors, anyway? They would have to be nuts.

The End.

The Sage

2007-03-22T13:24:00.000+01:00

Remember Penny, of "I thought it was a cat" fame? We spent the day together yesterday, and I already feel about a hundred times wiser.

Penny has lived in Paris for about five years now, and it's not the first new country to which she has uprooted (she reports, by the way, that Bostonians are much, much harsher to transplants than Parisians ever are). So she knows the city--and particularly our neighborhood, where she and Olivier lived for a while--and she also knows my frequent desire to just bang my head on the nearest hard surface and quit the day entirely.

Nick, darling, of course I am happy here. And I know that life here will be completely fabulous, and I wouldn't leave even if you offered me a plane ticket and movers and to come with me to New York tomorrow. But it's not all about that--or at least, it isn't yet.

"I think it takes about a year," she said.

Dear God.

She showed me dozens of little hidden spots near us--Mary, I told her that I was going to have to look impressively knowledgeable when you show up--including a tea shop that I could probably just stand in for an hour at a time. She taught me the different types of strawberries (the season just started here) and how to cook white asparagus (we're right in the middle), and gave me some language lessons.

For example, did you know that the French never say "I'm full"? It would be extremely gauche; you would shock people. They would think that you had behaved like a complete glutton, and now were bragging about it. Instead, they say "I am no longer hungry." And if you think about it, doesn't that just make so much sense? It's a huge cultural divide, summed up in an elegantly short phrase.

And she cleared up the small mystery from last week when, making dinner reservations, I asked for a table at "Half past twenty." I had been puzzling over the waiter's response ("Great! Twenty-thirty") ever since--it was obviously a correction (although a polite one; Penny and I discussed the difference), but I had no idea why. "It makes sense," she explained, "but no one would ever say it." Apparently, you can say "Half past eight," "Eight-thirty," "Half past eight in the evening," or "Twenty-thirty," but you cannot say "Half past twenty."

I mean, you can. But no one would.

Accidental

2007-03-20T08:07:00.000+01:00

This morning, as I was jiggling my fork around in our toaster, two things occurred to me: 1) at least someone would find me fairly quickly, and 2) I cannot be the girl who moved all the way to Paris only to be killed by a toaster.

I mean, if I died, you would eventually think to ask how, right? And Nick is a lousy liar, and probably wouldn't even try, and so the whole stupid truth would be out there: we got this tiny little loaf of bread that doesn't pop up over the sides of the toaster, and I don't know where to get those neat wooden toast-tong thingies my parents have, and I was too lazy to unplug the stupid machine (the plug being all of six inches away and completely accessible), so....

Toast with jam has a wonderful way of making you realize that you've been overly morbid, but the fact remains that if I do have to have a tragic accident here, I at least want it to be a cool one--like, say, falling off of the Eiffel Tower.

This brings me to my new fitness plan.

The way I see it, I have about fifteen more pounds that I would like to see gone--twenty, probably, what with the whole wedding thing. Unfortunately, this calculation was made in New York, where I had a gym. And a scale.

The French don't really do gyms, so I'm here with a few yoga DVD's and the promise of the alleged "French paradox" on my side, and I have to tell you, that is not really especially comforting. And, later, when I sit down to my habitual (but moderately-sized and carefully paced!) lunch of goat cheese on toast, I will feel even less clever.

I get why I'm supposed to be able to eat meat and rich dairy and bread all day, and the fact is that my eating habits are probably much healthier now than they were last month. But I've also got all these saved photos of wedding dresses on my laptop, and I'm not sure that eating beurre blanc at any pace--no matter how leisurely, and chased with whatever amount of red wine--is really going to work. And I can't help but think that it's a system that requires faith in order to work at all, like a roadrunner cartoon where you can do whatever you want--as long as you don't look down. Technically, without a scale, I can't look down, but I can want to, and that may be enough.

Not to mention...I found Pringles®, of all things, in our little corner grocery. And, as I have been known to tell others in an annoyingly wise tone, our vices follow us wherever we go. I've stopped nearly all snacking cold...for two weeks. Can I really say that I'm cured?

So here's the new deal: I'm thinking that I should head over to the Eiffel Tower (about a ten-minute walk) and climb it. Last I checked it cost about 3 euro, which is comparable to the daily rate at a Manhattan gym, except that I won't be paying for days that I don't use, because the Eiffel Tower doesn't have a membership fee (suckers!). I'll be coming out ahead.

An hour or so of stairs--with a view--should put my mind at ease, and raise my odds of a non-toaster-related death. So I like this plan, and I am going ahead with it.

Except, not today. Today is rainy and cold. Today is just a toast day.

The Seventh Day

2007-03-18T15:19:00.000+01:00

They take the whole "day of rest" thing really seriously around here. Even the people above us take a break from their loud sex and even louder vomiting to switch on a televised mass, but that's not the half of it.

I woke up to church bells this morning--that wonderfully presumptuous clamor that tells the world that it is time for services. And since then, there has been near silence from outside of our apartment (unless you count Blake knocking on the door with all of his suitcases, fresh from 24 hours at Charles de Gaulle--I hear that you people are having a bit of weather). Considering that we live near a playground and an ambiguous intersection that turns ordinary drivers into fuming, gridlocked madmen, this day truly is unlike all others.

None of this even begins to address the fact that everything outside of the Marais closes for the day. Okay--not everything. The French are smart: they make sure that a grocery store and a bakery near you is open Sundays, although they will typically be overpriced and underwhelming. It's kind of like with liquor stores in New York--except that it's everything.

I mean--imagine, say, Macy's closing for a full day each week. But not just them: every major departments store, 90% of the grocery stores, all the florists, candy shops, boutiques, restaurants. This isn't a thing where the local businesses have always traditionally shut down, but at least you can run out to Giant Chain Store for some milk and paper towels. Giant Chain Store is down, too.

I've decided that I like it. Nick and I run around like headless chickens on Saturday (this week it was mostly wedding-related errands--and hey, check out the real thing, although it's blurry:)

and then sit like cozy lumps on Sundays:

Speaking of which, how bourgeois are we, with this breakfast??

Anyway, the whole thing is just absurdly French-feeling. We wake up, we laze around, we clean a little, we watch TV, we make three full meals. Everything that could be done for the week has been done; no one has any expectations. There is no work, no stress, no guilty sense of what we could be doing right now, no time running out all too quickly before the whole thing starts all over again; it's a lost art on the East Coast, I think.

It's just...a day of rest. You should try it.

Terra Firma

2007-03-14T18:36:00.000+01:00

I made a quick visit to the U.S. yesterday. Yes, that's right: I'm being annoyingly coy. I took Blake to the American Embassy.

Happy now?

Oh my God, Passport Services is exactly like the DMV in Herald Square. I mean, I think they used the same decorator. And it had the same little holding pen where people wait while staring at the completely nonconsecutive numbers flashing up at various windows with no hope of predicting whether theirs might eventually come.

This is where being a U.S. citizen was a nice thing. First of all, the layout out front made it really look like we were just cutting to the front of the line. I felt a tad like Paris Hilton while all the non-Americans glared as we were waved through.

I was, of course, carrying this giant stupid computer thing that I don't even know what it does, because apparently Nick didn't know either before buying it, and I had to return the damn thing later that afternoon. Try explaining that to the security guards at any embassy. I dare you.

Really, we were whisked from line to line; it was no big deal. The cool part, though, was the eavesdropping. I started keeping a running translation for Blake, because we had front- (or eighth-, whatever) row seats to all of the windows. And apparently, if you're a non-citizen trying to get an extended U.S. visa, you're in for some very invasive questions.

"Do you work?" asked the woman who spoke French with a horribly Midwestern accent. I mean, it was like she wasn't even trying. "No," said the 20-something on the tiptoes of her fashionable shoes. "Then how do you plan to pay for this trip?" "My parents are paying." "Okay. So what do your parents do?"

I mean...right? She also asked that girl about 15 variations on "Why did you choose California?" because the girl clearly had no clue what she meant. No, she had no friends or family there. She finally settled on "For the sunshine," but Counter Lady was obviously skeptical. Because she kept asking.

The one I really felt for, though, was an elderly woman born in Somalia, who wanted to visit her friend in New York. She was turned down--loudly--by the same Counter Lady, who explained that she just did not have enough ties in France, and was a risk to overstay her visa. Like the U.S. should be worried? France has universal health care, and a list of social services that would make you dizzy. You can't be kicked out of your apartment in the winter, even if you don't pay your rent all winter. They have the best bread in the world, and anyone who disagrees should just come try the place down the block, and then you may make your "point."

Who the hell would want to leave?

This is all, of course, just a lovely foreshadow of what I can expect when I apply for my French visa in June. I wonder what they will think of me? I was trying to pick up pointers, but the thing is that my ties in the U.S. are not all that impressive. Between now and then, I will be spending an awful lot of time working on my spin.

And working on my French, of course--the last couple of days have not been impressive. Trying to return the aforementioned stupid huge unhelpful computer thing? I went to three counters before being told that I would have to actually exit the building and go somewhere around the block to make the return. I swear, by then I thought that they were just screwing with me. And the man I could understand was busy, and while I was waiting for him a man I could not understand at all--I mean, at all--came up and offered to help. And keep in mind that at no point during any of this did I actually know how the French say, "I would like to return this, please."

I think that we have a store credit, or something. Nick will have to use it--it's time-limited, and there is no way that I will be ready to face that place again in the next 90 days.

But this morning the guy at Chaumette taught me how to say "crowded"--apparently we're seating three at a table for two tonight. And he was very polite when I realized that I hadn't been using a 24-hour clock when trying to make my reservation. "It's okay!" he assured me anxiously. "We say 8:00, too, sometimes."

So things are looking up.

...Continued

2007-03-12T12:01:00.000+01:00

And another thing:

Blake has arrived, sans passport. It disappeared somewhere between the U.S. and French passport control, so Nick spent about an hour busting the poor kid out of the airport. U.S. Airways apparently completely abandoned him (after making him leave the gate, where he was waiting for the employee who promised to go check the plane and never returned), and, by the way, they never posted an arrival gate (on the website or at the airport, even though the plane docked at one--no shuttles required. So please all join me in a moment of glaring disapprovingly at U.S. Airways.

The passport office at the embassy is open Monday-Friday, 9am-12pm. Clearly, they have adapted to being French.

We live fairly near a soccer stadium. Getting to sleep at a decent hour on Sunday nights is simply impossible. I feel old for even thinking that.

The other night, when Olivier and Penny were here, we noticed something very small moving on the floor. Penny and I both jumped--I haven't been out of New York all that long, and it was approximately cockroach-sized. "I thought it was a cat," Penny said. "It seems like when something like that happens, it's always a cat." French neuroses are just so much cooler than New York ones. (The thing, by the way, was a Japanese rice cracker.)

Métro stations come with little recessed faucets with running water. We saw a homeless guy rinsing his hands in one; I can't imagine what else one might use them for.

They find different flavors appealing than we do. Like, it's easier to find mango yogurt in the grocery store than, say, strawberry. Chestnut yogurt is pretty popular, even. Sorry, Andrea: still no Mentos cassis. And Nick is getting increasingly snippy when I go off looking for it.

Now that I'm here for good, Nick has suddenly become much more comfortable making me ask people for stuff. Like, he put his monthly Métro pass through the washing machine, and today he shoved me forward to plead with the guy. "He washed his card," was the best that I had. "He really did," the guy said when he saw the faded-out scrap of cardboard. It was too damaged to replace, if you're curious.

We took Blake to Notre Dame, of which the coolest part is obviously the trained sparrows outside. There's just this massive flock of them in one of the rows of bushes, and if you bring over bread crumbs, they will swarm to sit on you and eat from your hand. I would never do this, of course--I just think it's cool.

We talked Blake into ordering frogs' legs when we stopped for an apératif. In the meantime, the waiter brought over a plate of very thinly sliced saucisson for us to nibble with our wine. I swear I thought that Blake knew that I was kidding when I implied that those were his frogs. He did not. He ate most of the plate under the impression that it was frogs' legs.

Oh, and Nick loved that the redeye went off when I took this shot on the stairs of a café:

Meanwhile...

2007-03-11T09:44:00.000+01:00

"You realize that your blog has become a cooking how-to, right?" Andrea asked the other day. And she's right. And it's not that there's nothing else here, of course, but rather that I haven't figured out how to turn those other things into a coherent entry.

So here goes.

Debit cards work differently here. For one thing, ATM's give you your card back before they give you your cash, which Nick is quite fond of telling anyone with a pulse (Aaron, I know I have you to thank for that). Far more frustrating for me, though, is the way that they work, well, everywhere. The card readers look just like their American equivalents, but quickly swiping and removing your card (my reflex, apparently) will invalidate the transaction. And it won't say why. They expect you to just know that you're supposed to leave the card in for the ages it takes until the machine says that you can take it back, and not doing so results in a line of angry people behind you, and a very cranky cashier.

Hey, you know what really pisses off French cashiers? Digging around trying to find 24 cents in a currency you really don't recognize well enough to do this on the fly with while the line behind you builds up.

Even better? Finally giving up and giving her 40 cents instead.

You have to press a button or turn a latch to make your subway car's doors open. Usually, someone else gets there first, and the buttons are fine, but the other day I seriously considered missing my stop because I was worried that I would mess up the latch, resulting in my having to go another stop anyway with a bunch of people whom I had just embarrassed myself in front of. I did get off, and it went just fine.

The Germans named syphilis "the French disease." That one was brought to you by Nick--of course.

There is no substitute for a local (or two). Olivier and Penny, Nick's boss and his wife, came over for dinner last night. While Nick slaved in the kitchen (but I won't mention over what, Andrea), I peppered them with questions: What is reasonable to pay for dry cleaning a sweater? How do you say "animal shelter" in French? How about "Just looking"? Where should we get bicycles? What is with all the vicious little old ladies in this district? When Nick returned, he proceeded to run down the same list, often verbatim.

We are overpaying dreadfully for our dry cleaning.

We saw a huge Shepherd-like dog in the fountain at St. Michel yesterday, splashing around. And then realized that the homeless guy off to the side had trained the dog to retrieve bottles and cans for him, and that was what it was doing in said fountain. Now that's entrepreneurial.

Paris has embarked on an anti-anti-social behavior campaign. There are ads up everywhere--on the roads they are stories of normal people killed by bad driving choices, and in the Métros they're aimed at people who are either careless or annoying. In other words, Paris has mounted an ad campaign against recklessness...and rudeness. Insert joke here.

We have the first draft of a wedding guest list, and yet the stupid store still has not gotten my ring back. I'm wearing the silly fake one we picked up, and probably will be for the rest of my life.

Nick's brother Blake is arriving as I write to visit Paris for a week. Ironically, although US Airways lists his flight as having landed 35 minutes ago, they still do not report an arrival gate. This is likely because Charles de Gaulle's roof fell in a while back, and so they no longer really have gates--and the remaining few are reserved mostly for smaller planes. Those of us who have just spent seven hours in coach not sleeping because the moron in front of us keeps thrashing around in his fully reclined seat while the moron behind us doesn't get the concept of a touch screen are loaded onto shuttle buses that can take half an hour to reach our "gate," aka: "the door they let us walk in through."

Nick, of all people, has developed a taste for rosé champagne. We're talking here about a man who categorically dislikes champagne. And anything rosé. Somehow, it works.

We have more or less agreed on a type of dog after I dragged Nick into the pet stores--seeing puppies is the surest way to fall in love. And he fell hard, for a scrappy little black English cocker spaniel who was being eaten alive by a bulldog and a black lab when we walked into the store, and had pinned the bulldog and completely won over the lab by the time that we left. Mom, if we get her, I'm pushing for "Molly Noir."

Day by Day

2007-03-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

We have turned into a '50's couple.

Actually, since half of the conversations that we have now sound exactly like ones our parents would have, it's possible that we have simply turned into a couple in our 50's. The baffling part is that we don't seem to mind.

Seriously. I have decided to see the bright side: it's not that we have become less interesting by moving in together; it's just that now there is someone around who is interested in all of the dull minutiae. I explore Paris and run errands while Nick works, he comes home and reads the paper while I make dinner, we eat and chat about the aforementioned activities, and then we rinse and repeat. For days so lacking in narrative potential, they're really an awful lot of fun.

What's especially nice is that neither of us has to navigate being here alone anymore. Which is doable, I'm sure, but often incredibly frustrating. Yesterday I felt absurdly proud of myself after getting two watches repaired, and dropping off a few sweaters at the dry cleaner I have selected (O'Pressing, just because I like the name).

Can you imagine being proud of that? Nick can.

But really: at the dry cleaner the woman tallied up the bill, and then frowned, and asked me to check her math. Which I did. In French. Okay, mostly I just said "Yes, that's right," and then worked it out for sure as I walked home, but math in a foreign language takes forever.

And in spite of the fact that I spent most of both encounters silently praying that whatever the salesperson was rattling on about didn't actually require a response beyond smiling and nodding, the prayer was not so urgent, because if I screwed something up horribly, I would just send Nick back to fix it. And vice versa.

In the meantime, I made my very first beurre blanc (without cream, of course) last night, and it actually came out. If only I had had similar luck with the rest of the meal--fortunately, Nick has discovered a source of very good bread.

And I have begun to chat with one neighbor: an elderly man who takes about 20 minutes to walk ten yards, and always worries that I would be taking the elevator if he weren't in my way (well...I might). So far our conversations have mostly consisted of me completely misunderstanding his muttered French, and answering his questions repeatedly and at random until he indicates that I have finally made sense. He does not seem to mind; it gives him something to do on the long walk through the hall.

He thought I was Spanish. I think that's kind of cool. So does Nick.

See what I mean?

Fairing la Cuisine

2007-03-07T07:45:00.001+01:00

Kill me now.

I spent the first few days trying to get past the fact that I have apparently chosen to live with a man who owns neither tin foil nor scissors, but the discovery that tin foil (along with plastic wrap and possibly Tupperware®) may not actually exist in France is something that will take much more getting used to. Apparently, they don't really do food-storage.

Or labor laws--this woman was on the fourth floor on a windy, rainy day:

You know what else the French don't do? Puff pastry.

You heard me.

See, I had dinner all planned out, because I'm kind of getting into this whole domestic thing (only worry if it lasts more than a week). I was going to make a version of the homemade pot pies I made in Washington Heights, which I imagined would be even more delicious with 1) forethought, and 2) fabulous French ingredients.

I searched every refrigerator and freezer case at least four times. No puff pastry (except for the kind with duck already in it), no ready-to-bake biscuits...nothing even close. And, apparently, somewhere along the way my entire self-worth had been staked on producing more than just a stew. I had the stupid Pyrex® baking dish (perfect size for two) in my grocery basket--I couldn't turn back now!

Finally, on the fifth pass, I came across the pie crusts. Even better: I came across four types of pie crust, including one labelled as "salée" (salted), and I refused to be deterred by such trivia as the picture of the apple tart on the front, or the fact that the French have not yet evolved to the crust-on-top phase of pie. Clearly, I have the vision that they lack, and I will be the one to use this salée crust for the purpose for which God intended it.

Damn, but it was a good stew. Chicken and vegetables, with red wine and veal stock ("fond de veau," my new favorite French phrase--it means "end of the calf" in much the same way that one might say "end of the hall"). Nice and thick, and seasoned perfectly. I poured it into the baking dish, and unrolled my crust on top. And nibbled a bit, of course, as I was cutting it down to size.

It was sweet.

It was really sweet.

It was my-mother-would-never-deign-to-bake-an-apple-tart-in-this sweet.

It was sweet in a way that was a million times more distressing than the way that it was dissolving rapidly into the stew. And I was too invested to just peel the thing off and throw it away--for added pressure, Nick had come home with no bread, possibly for the first time since he moved here.

Anyway.

Today I still have the bizarre taste of sugar and rosemary in the back of my throat, and I have decided that discretion is the better part of valor. I am strolling to the Eiffel Tower and taking a million pictures. I am dropping off Nick's watch at the horlogerie across the street, writing thank-you notes to the nice people who have sent cards (we feel that springing for international postage merits a written reply), and keeping my eyes peeled for tin foil.

And tortellini is fine for dinner, right?

L'Arriviste

2007-03-06T09:01:00.000+01:00

It feels a whole lot like just another visit.

I think that part of it is that Nick loathes my ability to see nothing wrong with living out of a suitcase for a week (or five). So, a while back, he proudly showed me the drawers that he had cleared out for me, and then proceeded to fume when I chose not to use them for the three days that I was there. Three days!

Anyway.

When I arrived for my last visit, he took matters into his own hands. I collapsed into bed with my backward jet-lag (I can't help that it makes no sense; if I jolt awake at 4am it is not just to be stubborn), and he went straight for my suitcases. And while I sleepily shared travel anecdotes, he unpacked every last item I had brought. That is love.

Fortunately for me, he established this pattern just in time: on that trip I had brought tons of extra things to leave behind, and this time I have certainly brought more. Since organization is not my strong suit (giving up and living with the mess is, in case you were curious about my compensatory strengths), his initiative prevented endless bickering and sulking.

It has also made it hard for me to recognize that this trip is not like the others: not only do I technically have a return ticket (during which return I need to, you know, get a visa), but the sight of my clothing folded neatly in his (our?) dresser is nothing new.

One thing that is, though, is that, for the first time, I am writing this on my own laptop from Paris. And I suspect that that has something to do with all of Blogger appearing in French, at least until I finally found the manual opt-out page.

That is a thing I noticed yesterday, though: everything being in French doesn't bother me nearly as much as I worried that it would. I switched into French just before landing in Zurich, in fact (if you haven't seen the Alps, go see them now), which made navigating the airport and my connecting flight a little odd.

I sneezed as the second plane was taking off. "Gesundheit," muttered the girl next to me--due to our unfortunate language barrier, she already suspected me of making a play for her sketchy boyfriend. "Merci," I chirped.

Why?

And it's probably entirely to do with my safety net--every evening Nick will come home, and I will get to speak English, so during the day I get to scoff at others who do so out in public.

Mostly.

I stopped in to buy flowers last night (Nick and I negotiated for fresh flowers every two weeks unless he's not paying attention, in which case I can probably sneak in some more), and--okay, well, first of all, the set-up of the shop made it really hard to hear the guy. And I had just spent the whole afternoon wandering around and speaking French (I fell in love with this:

but Nick spotted the price tag and told me that I need to learn the French word for "pound").

Anyway. Florist Guy comes up to me and obviously asks if he can help me, except that it didn't sound anything like the "Can I help you?" that I have become accustomed to. I tried to say, "Pardon?" but my throat was dry, and it came out far too softly. Then I thought that maybe he had heard it anyway, so I didn't say anything else, and the two of us just stood there looking at each other for a few painfully awkward second-years.

"I'm sorry; I hadn't heard you," I croaked out eventually.

"Just looking?" he guessed, in English, and I was so frustrated that I didn't think to ask him how to say that in French, because it would be really useful. Damnit.

The whole rest of the purchase limped along like that, but we now have a lovely bouquet on the table, where we ate our first real dinner here together last night (I made risotto, risking life and eyebrow on our treacherous stove).

I think that it will take more little things: when mail starts arriving in my name (I currently suspect the gardienne of squirreling it away somewhere, although she was very nice when Nick introduced us), when we host Blake and then Mary, when I have my own bank card, when my bizarre jet-lag eases up and I can sleep through a night. Or maybe I won't feel entirely at home until the visa issue is put to rest.

I do know that I'm glad to be here, and that's a start.

The Key

2007-02-28T21:48:00.000+01:00

I nearly threw up this morning.

It was not, unfortunately, the result of some wild party the night before--in fact, yesterday afternoon I gave away all of my alcohol (and my cast-iron skillets) to some guy who lives on the third floor. It was just that...

Okay.

The last couple of days, people have been coming to help. My mother came to cart off my paintings, HousingWorks came for everything they could carry, Elena showed up in the middle of the freezing rain last night for my television, and the movers were here at 6:50am this morning for whatever was left.

Realizing that I had, predictably, seriously underestimated the amount of time that it would take to truly clear out my apartment, I sent them on to New Canaan without me. And then, for about 90 seconds, I knew for sure that I needed to vomit. Emptying my empty stomach seemed like the only way to fix my head. I leaned out of my window, gasping for air. I kept thinking about this amazing woman I met ages ago, and how I finally get how she felt every day. Instead of calling her, I called Nick.

Nick is very good at times like those.

Four hours later (once I had decided not to do a half-assed job, I went seriously whole-assed on the place) I left Washington Heights for the last time.

I mean, really--when would I ever go back?

It was a gorgeous day for it, though: bright, sunny, not especially cold at all. I almost swung by the Cloisters, but above and beyond my ridiculously heavy bag and three hours of sleep, it just wouldn't have fit. I'd only been up there a tiny handful of times: my time here was more about the pounding music and the grime and the brilliant colors and the sudden smell of whatever it is those street vendors sell that nearly knocks me off of my feet every time.

If you live in real Manhattan, you are thinking of the acrid smoke from hot dog stands, or that maddeningly sweet scent that surrounds the disappointing roasted nuts. If you live in Philadelphia, you are thinking of something that simply smells like food. This is not that. This is some crazy, vicious hot oil smell that I don't even think of as food-like, but it sucker-punches me with a sudden craving for whatever it is, no matter how hungry I may not be just then.

Walking through, I got to be an outsider one last time, because I fit in far more easily in Paris's 16th than I ever did on 186th and Amsterdam. There was never any ambiguity: one night I had a cold, and decided to walk to the pharmacy two blocks away. Now, I know that the intersection one block away is a major drug corner. It's stoplightless and streetlightless, with the requisite sneakers hanging on the power lines and guys in puffy hooded coats just standing there--not to mention all the beaters and (go figure) minivans pulling up to them, pausing, and then U-turning away all night.

It was dark out, so I did think about going down a block and coming back up, but for crying out loud, it was, what, 7:30? 8:00? It's not the '80's anymore; we're supposed to be safe until at least 11pm or so.

One of the puffy guys, whose back was to me, obviously heard me coming. As he turned, he began with, "Hey mami, you need some--" and then saw me clearly. And said, I kid you not, "Oh. Sorry, Miss."

The dealer apologized for considering selling me drugs.

I've been stared at and pondered for over a year now--everyone is curious to know what I'm doing there, and where I really live. One girl used me as an example to her friend of what a "real white person" looks like. "She heard you!" the friend hissed, when I tried not to laugh. I was stared at and pondered on the way to the subway today. I don't know what it will be like when it no longer happens: when I am just another person who lives nearby, albeit one with an exotic accent.

I said "Hi" to the elevator guy at the 1 station. I think he knew what I meant.

I got to Grand Central and stopped off for my last Hot & Crusty bagel (whole wheat, with butter) for at least three months, which is probably about how long it has been since my last one, but that was not the point of the exercise. Miraculously, although it was nearly 1:00, it was the freshest one I have had in ages--perfect.

I got to New Canaan and discovered that international mail forwarding is a snap, but I'm starting to wish that I were moving to Milwaukee or something, because every time I tell someone where I'm going, they get all excited. Which is nice (don't get me wrong), but I wouldn't mind feeling less conspicuous every now and then--especially now, when it's getting so overwhelmingly real.

I kept playing with my key chain the whole way back to my parents' house. For the first time since I've had keys at all, I only have one. There is one lock in the entire world that I am entitled to open.

Now I just have to get there.

Poetry

2007-02-25T16:45:00.000+01:00

As you may recall, I was all relieved a couple of weeks ago to have chosen a bar for my last Bon Voyage party. And I was so sure of it that it didn't really bother me at first when they weren't answering their phone. It was a fairly new place, so it's not like they were all that busy; we could probably just show up if it came to that.

By Wednesday, though, I was getting testy. I mean, the place hasn't even made it onto citysearch yet; and if they print up cards with a phone number that they don't answer, they never will, right? Right?

So I swung by. The first of the two giant notices on the door was a general restraining order preventing anyone from removing anything from the property. The second announced that the place had been shut down for endangering the health and safety of a large number of people.

Cool.

I decided to go back to basics--I've been so concerned with putting together all of the pieces that I've been ignoring my favorite bar just because it's, well, tiny. I did call them, expecting to hear that they didn't do groups, and to be mocked a smidge just for asking. I was prepared for mocking; I was not prepared for the friendly manager to say, "Sure, we'll put reserved signs on a couple of the back tables." Especially since he then hung up without taking my name.

I mean--I know they don't do that, so he was obviously lying, but he did it so nicely that I didn't feel mocked. I didn't feel blown off enough to justify going somewhere else, is what I'm saying. And he did say that the crowd would be thin around 9:00, so....

We basically took over the back of the place, starting with one tiny table and expanding like one of those sponges that turn into dinosaurs.

It was wonderful--if you were there, thank you so much! I felt like an ADD kid for most of it; I spent the first hour or so without ever getting to finish a single conversation. People I haven't seen in years, people I'd just met, and Andrea bearing a red velvet cake from Buttercup Bakery, some of which ended up in Mary's hair (for symmetry) made it an amazing night. Actually, the cake got everywhere, but yes, Andrea, I did bring the last slice back with me. I called it "breakfast."

As a bonus, my team won both games of pool we played--one lamely, when Elena scratched on the eight-ball, but a later one for real, when I sank this incredibly elegant winning shot that no one actually saw.

It was really a nice way to go out. I highly recommend it. I also strongly suggest that everyone pester Mary about the appropriately-sideburned guy I left her with at the table. You know--after I got the icing out of her hair.

Fallout

2007-02-22T22:50:00.000+01:00

I am at that awkward stage of moving where the place just looks a million times more full. I mean, it doesn't look like I am ready to go at all.

There might be a reason for that: every twenty minutes or so I remember one last thing that I meant to do a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, most of those things require an initial step that I cannot do at the moment when I am remembering the secondary step, because I am clinically disorganized.

The big things are in place, I think. I have movers, for one thing, and Mary has promised to come get my DVD player on Sunday, which will not make the slightest dent in the amount of stuff that I still have, but is a nice thing to include on my mental checklist when I get stressed.

And HousingWorks is set to pick up everything but my ridiculous bookcase, which the movers have offered to take to Goodwill separately (although they sound really nervous about it). I have boxes, bubblewrap, tape, and a big black marker; the only thing I need now is some determination, and maybe Elena. She's really good with the whole organization thing. She's the one who always figures out how to split the bill, and what the tip should be.

But I have cleared off the bookcase (and cleared a path to the door), and that makes me feel obscurely better. I mean: I have some bona fide piles now, even if I am not entirely sure what I will do with them. Piles are a good start, right?

Meanwhile, my day planner is alarmingly full, especially given the angry head cold I feel coming on. I am so jealous of Nick, whose company just sent people over to pack up his stuff and cart it off to Paris for him. I need a company, or people, or maybe both.

I need to stop feeling sorry for myself, because this is going to be the coolest thing ever.

To that end, I have spent all the time that I have not spent fretting looking through wedding magazines and websites. I don't have a date, size, or location yet, but I sure as hell know what everyone will be wearing.

Come to think of it, my planning of our wedding is starting to sound alarmingly like my planning of my move.

Red Herring

2007-02-19T23:50:00.000+01:00

Today was the first time in a long time that I have not been tense on my way to the airport. I knew how to get there, I had plenty of time, my bags were all but empty, and since I will be coming back to Paris in two weeks, it doesn't much matter what I might have forgotten. Even the thick, dense fog couldn't put a crimp in my day.

But, hey, you know how, before you even get to the check-in counter, they have some "greeter" who asks you if you packed your own bags, gives you a customs form, and then waves you through the line? That woman had it in for me.

I have no idea what first set her off, although I did notice that she got a little more aggressive when she spotted the recent claim check stuck to my passport, and even more aggressive when she attempted to confirm my assertion that my luggage tag had my name and address (it actually had Nick's).

"How long have you known this person?" she sneered. I had referred to him as my fiancé. What kind of a girl did she take me for?

She walked away for a few minutes, during which other passengers were rerouted around me. "Now I just have to ask you some more security questions," she began, and we were off again. "Who packed the bags? Where did you pack them? Whom, exactly, do they belong to? How did you book the tickets? Why are you returning to the United States? Do you have any battery-operated items? Tell me about this iPod®--has anyone asked to borrow it?"

I was nice the whole time. My voice stayed level, I maintained eye contact, I was honest, and I was calm.

And the traitorous bitch red-flagged me anyway.

I mean that literally: she took three tiny red stickers, and attached one each to my passport and my checked bag. Then she walked me over to the check-in counter and stayed with me while I got my boarding pass, to which she attached the third sticker (discreetly, inside, so that I would not notice it easily). It occurred to me later that if I were a smuggler, her presence would also have prevented me from removing the sticker from my checked bag before actually checking it.

Clever.

So. At the X-ray machines, I was of course pulled aside and patted down as soon as security saw my stickered passport. And when I got to the gate, I was pulled aside again, and both my bags and my person were searched again, quite thoroughly.

You know--in case I had picked up some C4 between security and the gate.

Actually, what I had picked up was a bottle of water, because I dehydrate easily and it is not a pretty sight. As per recent international security regulations, I got it about three steps from the gate. "Is this okay?" my latest patter-downer asked her colleague. "She got it here."

"I don't think so," he sniffed.

"You'll have to leave your water," she told me.

Can you say "last straw"?

"Everyone here has a beverage they got at the gate," I snarled in French, waving at the sixty cleared passengers, all taking simultaneous sips. This only resulted in the confiscation of the Perrier® that the guy behind me was drinking. Sorry, sir.

In my head, I practiced I will leave it if you return my two euros; Am I a second-class citizen just because some Nazi at check-in put this sticker on my passport?; If I had bought perfume, liquor, or makeup at the duty-free shop would you have taken it?; I have the receipt right here--do you think that this is some elaborate scheme wherein I snuck one bottle through the first bag search, bought another, and switched them?; If I had removed this sticker before you saw it would I be allowed to keep my stupid Evian® like everyone else?

Out loud, I settled for "Can I please talk to a supervisor?" and that turned out to be all that I needed.

Because obviously you can keep the water that you buy once you are through security--I check the changing regulations before every trip. It's the morons who still don't know that you have to take off your shoes at the X-rays--and fail to notice that everyone ahead of them is doing it--who should be stickered, not we conscientious travellers.

The flight was so wonderful that the last hurdle completely blindsided me.

When I headed to the "Nothing to Declare" customs line at JFK, the agent glanced at my (still-stickered) passport. "Great!" he chirped. "Just step over here for a second and talk to this guy."

I've heard that before.

"I'm from the Department of Agriculture, and we're doing a survey today," he announced, with no hint of shame. "Do you happen to have any plants, animals, dairy products, or foods with you today?"

I couldn't stop it in time.

"That's a very unusual definition of the word 'survey,' since you have my written answer to the same question in your hand," I snapped.

Things deteriorated, obviously. "Well, I should warn you that we're going to scan your bag, and if you have anything that you haven't mentioned, we'll have to fine you."

"I would probably be concerned, then, if I had any of those things."

"You didn't happen to bring back any foie gras?"

"I barely brought back my own clothes."

"Did you hold onto any of the food from the plane?"

"Have you ever tried that stuff?"

"Did you--"

"I picked up a Toblerone® at the duty-free. I didn't think to declare it. If we're going to argue about it, I will sit down on this floor right now and eat the whole damn thing, and then you may scan my bags."

Three minutes later, my candy bar and I were in a cab.

Attitude Day

2007-02-18T12:29:00.000+01:00

I swear: for the most part, I think that travellers who complain about French rudeness are either reacting to unfamiliar customs, or had been a bit rude themselves, and were just witnessing retaliation.

Apparently, on Saturdays, I am wrong.

Admittedly, the first incident was partly my fault. Nick and I paused during a long, rambling walk to sit in a café overlooking the Luxembourg gardens (isn't that just how you picture us?), and the chairs were impossible. Not only did they have ridiculously long arms, but the armrests curved forward again as they went down to the seat, so that by the time they joined the seat, the two were the same length. And my chair was backed up against the wall. Getting up was enough of an adventure, but I misjudged when I sat back down, and managed to bump into the only full glass left on the table, which was my hot cinnamon milk (I'm trying all of their hot milks on this trip).

Milk and puns went all over the place, and the waiter was nowhere to be seen, leaving us staring across a milky table at each other for a few shocked minutes until Nick went for napkins himself. By the time the waiter returned, we had mostly cleaned it up ourselves, but Nick felt that the waiter was rather brusque all the same, throwing a towel and making faces.

Under those circumstances I might have been brusque, as well, but the incident turned out to be nothing but a foreshadow of our waiter at dinner.

There's this great little place up near the Sorbonne that has a wonderful fondue prix-fixe: you get a pre-dinner drink, fondue for two, and then either chocolate fondue, or a dessert of your choice (Nick's father is trying all of their ice cream sundaes on this trip). The first time that we went, Nick warned me that they would simply not bring anything else until we had both finished our appératifs--that is the sort of French service that Americans often feel is rude, but is actually expected and appropriate behavior here. Consequently, if you ever feel that you are being rushed out of a café or restaurant in France, it is appropriate to be disgusted, and never return.

Now, I know that we were early (7:00!), and I know that the waiter aspired to fit an extra seating in at our table, and I know that he heard us speaking English and figured that we wouldn't know any better. But my hackles were up as soon as he brought the wine out halfway through the appératifs, and when that was followed immediately by the meal, he had made some enemies.

To guarantee an insulting tip, he did not have to ask us, after we had paid, if we would like anything else, because he had another reservation. But he did it anyway.

Luckily, I have brought over most of the fondue set that Nick gave me last year, so we are completely prepared to boycott La Piano Muette until our feelings are no longer hurt. And I suggest that you do the same.

To round off the evening, the cab driver who brought us home did not even remotely acknowledge our quite generous tip (they really always do, here), so we have decided to spend our Saturdays in from now on. It might be catching, after all, and we rather enjoy being polite to each other.

Franglais

2007-02-17T11:11:00.001+01:00

I have been so preoccupied with improving my French that it had not really occurred to me until yesterday just how difficult it must be to come here without any. Nick's parents are very brave, is what I'm saying.

"I figured out why we never found the restaurant last night," his mother announced. "Your father finally confessed to thinking that gauche meant 'right.'" Seriously--that'll make for a long day.

Fortunately, the new lost city exhibit (they found an Egyptian city under a Greek bay, and brought it to Paris--wouldn't you?) had English translations. Unfortunately, it also had French people, so we were in for a bit of a cultural education.

You know how, in a crowded museum, you kind of stand back from what you want to look at, so that other people can stand at about the same distance, and everyone can see? The French take that as an invitation to step directly in front of you.

It happened to me at the airport, too--I stepped aside to let a woman pass through the line, and the guy behind me walked right around me. It was in JFK, so in theory I could have used the chance to expand his cultural horizons, but I chickened out. I'm definitely too timid, then, to try it in France, where this sort of thing is apparently completely normal.

Anyway.

After a few minutes at the Louvre's balcony café (lovely, by the way), we headed over to Chaumette, which a mild illness (mine) had prevented us from visiting the night before. And that was when the mess started.

Chaumette is run by two men, who spend the whole night running around like beheaded chickens. One remembered us from the other night, but since the other one seated us, we all ended up with English menus. The second man, noticing this, apologized profusely, and offered French menus...to Nick and me. There was a localized chaos of languages, translations, apologies, and repetitions, until it only seemed appropriate when the group next to us capped off the evening by accidentally lighting a napkin on fire.

Nick's father promptly made friends with them--mostly in English, but as the night wore on, he was more willing to try out his sporadic French words.

"Fiancés!" he crowed, pointing to us. And then, "Parents!" gesturing to himself and Nick's mother.

"With a little wine, he speaks French," I told the waiter.

"He should drink more," he deadpanned.

Valentine's Day

2007-02-15T05:46:00.001+01:00

For the most part, I think the French have started speaking more clearly. We got through a whole dinner last night without having to once resort to helpless "Pardon?"'s even once--although we still have some work to do, because we almost didn't get into the restaurant at all.

Nick tried to make a Valentine's Day reservation at La Chaumette, an unbelievably wonderful restaurant that is even more unbelievably located just down the street. Unfortunately, the language barrier prevented him from understanding exactly why the reservation was being refused, so we decided to simply go in person and try to straighten it out. We had a backup plan, of course, but there's really not much that can substitute for this place, so, fingers crossed, we headed over around 8:00.

The restaurant was almost entirely empty...and, apparently, entirely booked. "I'm so sorry," the host said. "There's really nothing."

I decided to go for broke, and pointed to Nick. "He asked me to marry him this morning. This is the only place that we want to eat."

The Digression

Oh, right.

Nick proposed almost as soon as I walked through the door. For those of you who know him and are scratching your heads, I have been asked to make it very clear that the fact that it was Valentine's Day had absolutely nothing to do with it.

In fact, he had planned to wait a bit. And he had probably planned to let me notice the ring myself, but he got so excited that when I lifted up the chocolate box to take a better look, he pulled it out of my hand. "There's a ring in it!" he all but shouted--and then did the one-knee thing.

"Ben and I had a very similar moment," my mother told me when I called with the news. Apparently, while she had helped to pick out her ring, they had planned a whole big "presentation," just to still have the moment. "When we got into the car on the way to dinner, he just burst out with 'Do you want the ring now?' and I shouted 'Yes!'"

And I remember that when my stepbrother had his proposal all planned and the reservations made, he found that he simply couldn't wait, and popped the question in the middle of an argument, instead. Somehow I have always thought that that was just about the most romantic thing I have ever heard.

And so, particularly in light of both of those marriages, I've decided to see this as an excellent omen.

Back at the Restaurant

The French are really, really into love. As soon as I offered to show the host the ring (it needs to be sized), he whipped out his seating chart and began talking a mile a minute. All we could catch was that they really were horribly full, but he could shift some things and seat us in an hour and a half, if that was okay.

Since the restaurant is so close to the apartment, that was fine with me, and I told him so, but as we left, Nick suggested that we just go somewhere else. We had gotten about 20 yards toward that goal when we heard shouting and turned to see the host sprinting after us.

"I was saying I can seat you now!" he called. The fact that he was still speaking French was the only thing that saved me from utter embarrassment--obviously he hadn't given up on us yet. "You thought I said wait an hour and a half," he guessed. "No, no--please eat now; it is just that we will need the table in an hour and a half, so I am sorry, but you may be a bit rushed."

That'll do.

Nick let himself be talked into pink champagne, and was stunned to discover that it was really quite good. And my veal nearly made my eyes pop out of my head on the first bite--and Nick's, as well, when I reluctantly offered him a taste. I know that I had a reason for leaving one bite on the plate, but try as I might this morning, I cannot think of any possible excuse for such an oversight.

At a certain point, we were told that one party had cancelled, and that we could stay as long as we liked, but by then we were so boxed in (it's a tiny place, and they are aggressive about using every inch of it) that we decided to skip dessert and call it a night. After making reservations for the next evening, of course--Nick's parents are in town.

"Wonderful!" crowed the host. "What is the name?"

Why, it's Nick's. Of course.

Couchless

2007-02-11T22:30:00.000+01:00

Last night, I discovered that four whole people could fit onto my couch if they were so inclined. This afternoon, I no longer have a couch. How's that for a paradigm shift?

My first Bon Voyage party went off nicely. Although I overbaked the first batch of cakes, the second batch oozed gratifyingly, so at least everyone got to see what was supposed to happen. And of the two things that can go wrong with those cakes, that is by far the lesser evil.

See, this recipe involves melting butter and chocolate, and then stirring the warm mixture into eggs and sugar. "Careful," my mother remarked when we first tested the recipe. "If you pour in too much hot liquid at once, the eggs will cook."

A couple of years down the road, apparently realizing only now what a neurotic adult I have become, her favorite thing to say to me is "Relax." Seriously? Because I'm the one standing there in the middle of the night without a handy extra dozen eggs praying that I am not about to make the nastiest omelette ever.

Anyway.

Although somehow I ended up with more alcohol than I had before the party, I believe that it has helped me to get rid of some much larger items, even if my current couchless state was predestined before the event was even planned. Electronics were claimed, and end tables were pitched, and we will wait to see how much I can get rid of before the end of the month (luckily, I am only a few blocks from a Goodwill).

The main problem is that while everyone lusts after my bookcase, no one is entirely sure that they are prepared to try to take it up my two steps, down four flights of stairs (no way it goes in the elevator), and into a van that no one has arranged for yet. Andrea, honey, you still have first dibs--make a plan and it is yours.

This afternoon, though, just as promised, Glenn arrived in his family's minivan, and we figured out how to reverse IKEA's brilliant assembly processes (thank God I saved the stupid hexagonal wrench thingies). And when I got back and saw the giant hole in my living room, I finally felt like something was really done.

Red Velvet

2007-02-10T03:31:00.000+01:00

I have finally been able to eliminate one major item from my to-do list: I have chosen the date and location of my second Bon Voyage party.

I get how people might not understand just what an accomplishment this is, but trust me: I am taking my victories where I find them at this point. I mean, seriously--I just checked my computer's calendar, and all this is getting just a little...close.

Anyway. Last night, Andrea introduced me to a fabulous newish bar with cheap and excellent drinks, space for a party, and a completely acceptable noise level. Plus, the bartender was French.

Actually, I need to take a minute to address that. Suddenly it turns out that everyone is French. My supervisor at my real job, I just discovered, was born there. "French is my mother tongue," she said. "Could you not hear my accent?" I checked around to make sure that I wasn't going crazy, and everyone agrees that while there is obviously something unusual about her speech, it does not remotely resemble a French accent. I mean--not even a little. Not even now that I know. But it's been a year and a half; how did I not know?

Mary's now-ex boss, who called me about the dream job a few weeks ago, was raised in France as well. And now this bartender. I know you notice something more when it is relevant to you, but is there anyone in this country who is not fluent in French?

"And we're right across from Buttercup!" Andrea realized at a certain point. She called it fate, since it has been her favorite forever and I have never actually been, although as it turns out I have had their work before--Andrea, do you remember when you rode to Boston with us, and brought us cupcakes? I had red velvet then, too, which makes this the third time, because the first was at Cliff's birthday party a few years back, when I was running on fumes and ended up falling asleep in a chair.

I woke up to a young man staring at me. "I feel like I should tell you," he said. "You have red velvet cake in your hair." And Nick, my dear, that was the man who was later called "smarmy," and paved the way for that fateful conversation in which Mary half-jokingly announced that you would be perfect for me. So, Nick, our relationship really began when someone brushed by me (because logistically it had to have happened that way, I swear) carrying a slice of red velvet cake.

My cupcake is now sitting on my coffee table as a kind of a promise. I have some baking to do, now, and it is well past time to get started. But if I do it tonight, then tomorrow all I have to do is roll out of bed, pick up a bit, and wait until people arrive to start eating my own signature dessert, which, while far simpler than it seems, carries an element of danger that I feel surpasses that of the cupcake. That cupcake, though, is what will keep me going: I refuse to put it back in the refrigerator, and I refuse to eat it before the batter and ice cream are done.

And I will certainly not go to sleep with it just sitting there. I have learned my lesson.

Chocolat

2007-02-08T06:09:00.000+01:00

Believe the hype: Max Brenner's is awesome. I mean, it is a little silly--the whole "chocolate culture" involve-all-the-senses glorification of their featured ingredient inspires some eye-rolling--but one sip of my choconut martini and I was sold.

Actually. If I were allowed one more tiny nitpick, it would be the service.

Our waiter was attentive and polite and all, but Melissa and I found our jaws on the floor over and over throughout the evening. It began when Melissa asked what the soup of the day was. "Oh, God," he said, and began hemming and hawing.

"It's okay if you need to go check; there's no rush," she assured him.

"No, I know what it is! I know what it is, I just hate saying it, because I hate this soup."

Oh.

"It's corn chowder. And, I mean, it's good and all, but I found out something about corn chowder recently, so now I hate it. I found out something was in it that I didn't know was in it."

"Bacon," I guessed. I mean, it wasn't a guess. Mary, I'm not trying to generalize or stereotype, but sometimes you really can tell.

"Yes!" he squeaked. "I just like it so much better when they have a really good soup, like broccoli and cheddar! Mmmmm." I am not making this up.

Deciding that it was just a charming quirk, I asked for a recommendation once I had narrowed the drink choices down to two. I knew that there was something off when he suggested one over the other because it was "too cold for a frozen drink" (they were both frozen), but I diplomatically held up my menu and pointed out the two possibilities.

"So wait, what's in those?" he asked, leaning closer. If I wanted a recommendation from someone who had never tried the drinks, I would take a recommendation from myself. "Ew, I don't like any of those things in there," he announced. "I mean, do you?"

In the grand scheme of things, it didn't even seem like such a big deal when he carefully set knives on napkins for each of us--and walked off with our forks. The additional squeaking when we pointed this out (after our forkless salads had arrived) was harder to ignore.

But look, the place was lovely. It smells better than Hershey Park, and the chocolate is the best I have had in this country. I mean, it's entirely sweet, but somehow it is not too much--it is balanced admirably against itself somehow. And their drink menu could keep me going there for months just to try...if that were an option.

"Don't you think you're being a little silly?" Nick asks, referring to the other half of my round-trip ticket. It is dated May 31st. The thing is that it doesn't feel like a round-trip. It feels like when my last graduation date was racing toward me, or like my mother described when she was planning her wedding. You don't think about the next day; there is no next Thursday, next week, next month. There is just a date when everything stops, and you are shocked to remember that the sun will rise the next morning, or that your heart will still remember how to beat.

On the other hand, both halves of my ticket include more than an hour each in Zurich. That can be a thing to focus my mind on, a mnemonic to ensure that I remember that time will continue in a linear and orderly fashion--because at the end of May, I will get to add one more country's chocolate into my comparison base.

Bloodthirsty

2007-02-06T05:19:00.000+01:00

I am starting to think that I am just a naturally difficult person.

There have been indications of this in the past, of course. For one thing, I got told so all the time when I was little--I thought that people were just intimidated by a bright child. And as I got older and people kept being "intimidated," I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Sure, plenty of other people seemed to all get along with each other, and sure, I got called variations on "sarcastic" just all the time, but what does that really prove?

In retrospect, there were a couple of clear road signs that I missed. One was the way I met Mary: during our first class together, I basically called her a liar. During the second one, she called me defensive, and a friendship was born. That may not be normal.

Nor were the events during a party that I attended with her during my single days. These two guys came over and were clearly making an effort to flirt, and we were just as clearly terrifying them. I mean, it was really painful to watch. They actually looked visibly frightened, and kept whispering and pointing for ages after they finally turned tail and ran.

And in our Group Dynamics class, we somehow ended up in the "fighting" group. The other group could not get over how "negative" we all were. There were only two groups, and they were fairly randomly selected; what are the odds that one would be singing "Kumbaya" while the other was essentially toxic?

Any of these moments might have tipped me off. Instead, I simply figured that it was something about Mary.

And indeed, she was there with me on Saturday, when we cleared out half of a massive apartment party near Union Square (I hear the place used to belong to Michael Douglas's son?). But she was being nice.

Honestly, I thought that I was being nice, too, but the fact is that ever since Nick sent me this link, I have been forced to come to terms with my inherently contentious spirit. The temptation to bicker is just too strong: I've closed the browser over and over again just to find myself checking just one last thing...about 30 seconds later. I have no idea how I will cope with being away from any Internet access tomorrow, although I suspect that my scheduled trip to Max Brenner's will ease the pain just a smidge.

The worst part is that Nick likes a good bicker as much as the next person--even assuming that I am said next person. And it's not so much fun when the debater isn't a stranger, as Andrea is discovering as she uncovers more and more of Eric's debates (my guess--my hope--is that he just likes playing devil's advocate). All of the arguments that you will ever have in the course of a lifetime with a person are condensed into a couple of days, and relationships aren't meant for that kind of pressure.

I am so lucky that I am not still trying to pick up Nick, because under the influence of this wretched site, I think that I could scare off even him.

Anyone care to argue the point?

Xfers

2007-02-03T21:41:00.000+01:00

Nick mocks me for compulsively checking my email. It's not that I'm waiting for anything specific, or that I just get so very much email that it makes sense for me to constantly refresh the page, and it's not like I think about checking it when I am out of the house. It's just a thing to do with my hands, is all.

I couldn't check yesterday, and came home to 15 emails. Take that, Nick.

Most of them, naturally, were from Andrea and Mary, who, unaware of the fact that I was not keeping up with the conversation, were busy planning dinner for three. They generously decided that I should choose the restaurant (since I won't get to choose them for much longer), conveniently forgetting that I somehow always get stuck choosing the restaurant.

And I was still a little shaken from the last time Andrea and I ate out, you know?

But after a flurry of phone calls (and some citysearch comparison shopping by Mary) I decided that it was time for a return visit to this great little Mexican place where Melissa had a birthday, oh, forever ago. Lovely atmosphere, wonderfully winey sangria, and freakishly good tiramisu. I don't get that last one, either.

So. I set out to make my way to Grammercy from Rockefeller Center, but I was clearly due for a stupid commute from the start. See, the man in front of me swiped his card and went through the turnstile so fast that his "OK 2.oo BAL 14.00" was still on the screen when I clumsily ran my own card through. And it stayed there.

Now. I generally buy one-day unlimited cards when I know I will be running around, so I was waiting for a simple "GO." Between the unchanged message and the awkward swipe, I didn't even bother to try the turnstile; I swiped my card again. "OK 2.00 BAL 12.00."

Damnit.

After waiting forever for a bus at 23rd Street (I love how it's always smokers who hog the best spots in the rain, and then of course they exhale all over the inferior spots, so that basically the rest of us have to stand in the rain, by the way), two came at once. As I climbed on, I absently looked at the Metrocard display, expecting the usual "1 XFER OKAY." "2 XFERS OKAY," I was told, and gritted my teeth as I considered offering the wasted transfer to the person behind me.

I decided that that would not make me feel any better.

Karma is alive and well, though, because after a series of miscalculations, I hopped off the bus two avenues early. By the time I made it to the restaurant (eight miraculous minutes before our 7:00 meeting time), my glasses were covered in raindrops. This ceased to matter the moment I stepped into the warm restaurant, as they promptly steamed over and effectively blinded me.

I explained to the host that I was waiting for friends. "Ah," he said sagely. "The bar!" After a difficult pause, he broke down and asked if I could see anything. Discovering that I could not, he took my arm and led me to the bar, explaining why to any patrons whom we passed along the way.

The bartender, who served up a margarita, showed me his wedding photos, and taught me to clean my glasses with Absolut® all within two minutes of my arrival, could not have come at a better time.

We had a lovely night; we did. We ended up hopping another bus up to DT-UT (I was bitter about using my Metrocard again once the extra transfer had expired, and a little cranky when we eventually noticed that we had been waiting for the wrong bus...but whatever) and mainlining processed sugar for a couple of hours, which is always a nice thing.

I headed over to 3rd Ave., where the bus that leaves me at my door eventually swung over to the curb. And as I climbed on, I happened to glance down.

"1 XFER OKAY."

Okay.

The Countdown

2007-02-02T01:10:00.000+01:00

When I was in elementary school, I had a principal with two defining habits: he got to know every child in the school, and he loved to sing. In fact, he tended to make up individualized songs for us (mine was adapted from "Carolina in the Morning" after he discovered that my last name is German for "morning"; my best friend Marissa got a version of "Maria"--but both were stripped of any romantic overtones, of course). He also came on the intercom every first of the month to tell us that he hoped that the first words that we had said that morning had been "Rabbit, rabbit," to ensure good luck for the rest of the month.

I always forget.

January ended with a whimper: I spent the day at my fake job, except for the lunch hour during which I raced over to my real job. I explained this schedule to Nick, except apparently he doesn't retain information all that well at 4am, so I stopped running for five minutes to talk him down. I picked up dry cleaning and got Jim and Kate's Christmas present (finally!--and it was lovely) from the post office, cooked a late dinner (an Asian sort of steamed thing), and January was over.

Now it is one month for real (the fateful tickets arrived tonight via a pissed-off UPS guy who rang the bell like a teenage punk and said "UPS" to sound like "Julio's," so really the fact that I refused to buzz him in for so long is just his very own fault). What can a person do in one month?

I have planned my very last NYC dessert party, aiming to accommodate people who have not been able to make any of the previous ones. Next weekend (next-next) I will butter my ramekins and start cooking up as many Winter-Spiced Molten Chocolate Cakes with Rum-Ginger Ice Cream as people can eat, and that is also approximately when Glenn will haul off my couch. My stepgrandmother will get my computer (my old one, Nick; yours is sketchy), I am hoping that Andrea will take my TONY subscription as well as my bookcase (which realistically will never make it out of here in one piece), and I am allegedly booking a full slate of doctor appointments for the transition week (I am thinking about it--I swear).

I am trying to make it to every place that I have loved, and to every place that I have always meant to go, and to make sure that I get to say all of my goodbyes. I am waxing nostalgic--that crazy first New Year's Eve with Melissa, Andrea's dedication to Restaurant Week, hauling Mary into a coffee shop when our professor almost caught us gossiping on the street, and Kevin (aside from that whole summer in the park) the number to The Place that you gave me to impress Nick on our first date (it did). Kevin, I have the new number, if you need it. Kevin, we should go before I go.

Everything, now, is "before I go."

Snarl

2007-01-31T00:26:00.000+01:00

I have a million and one things to do in the next 28 days (give or take two). It seems only right, then, that this surreal month would happen to contain the four least pleasant days of my year (more or less).

I am talking, of course, about my Hidy Hair Days. I have only barely started Day 2, and I am already wound as tight as a guitar string.

For those of you who don't know: I have naturally curly hair. For those of you who are now thinking, "Oh! That would look so good on you! Why don't you ever wear it that way?": talk to Andrea. Or, actually, to anyone who has seen the picture she took of me in seventh grade. We are not talking about pretty, curly hair; we are talking about a huge, frizzy, evil, unmanageable mess. So, every nine or ten months, I head down to 32nd Street to transform myself into the unremarkable wash-and-wear girl you know and love.

This is not as much fun as it sounds.

For one thing, it costs a small fortune. In fairness, the value saved in hair products to calm the insanity, salons that specialize in cutting curly hair, and even just prep time helps to make up the difference. However, when just paying cash saves me enough for quite a nice dinner out, it is hard to keep these arguments so firmly in mind.

For another, it is just a wretched experience. It takes about four hours, and the waiver I had to sign during my first consultation (promising that I was not pregnant, and would not sue them if I had lied and anything went wrong) does not inspire one to want to marinate in whatever the hell they use for those four hours.

Seriously: when I walked in yesterday and the woman asked me if I wanted a perm (waving her hands a foot away from her head in a rough approximation of what I actually used to look like) I almost just took it.

I am told that the first chemical breaks down the sulphur bonds in my hair, which only partially explains the way that it smells. Now, on Day 2, I am already contemplating creative measures such as Febreezing® my head. The problem is that there are really only two possible outcomes of such a plan:

1) My hair, which must remain bone-dry for at least 72 hours after thermal reconditioning, will take on the texture of steel wool, the way a small patch of it did when this rule was not fully explained the first time (I had to cut it out--and switch salons), or

2) My head will be engulfed in a giant fireball. Seriously. It feels possible.

It is that bone-dry rule, though, that makes me so cranky for those three days. It is even worse than the burns sustained when three people are using straightening irons on you simultaneously, one of them burns you, and you instinctively jerk away. If you should ever find yourself in this position, I do not recommend instinctively jerking away.

Anyway.

Do you know how impossible it is to avoid every source of moisture in this city for three days? It's bad enough that I can't wash off the chemical smell, or that the final straightironing (to give each strand the shape it will hold as the sulphur rebonds) will make me look like a seal in an oilslick by the time I finally can. It's so much worse that I must live in fear of water.

My shower head drips, it snows, ice melts--hell, it's New York: people spit. Or worse--I am only one disgruntled pigeon away from total disaster. I wash my hands and then have to remember not to run one through my hair. I wake up in a sweat in the middle of the night from fear that I will, well, sweat. And by the way, even if perspiration weren't a problem, would you want to work out when you can't wash your hair for two more days?

There are bright spots, though, to distract me from the time bomb on top of my head. Most of my preparations so far have been easy--apparently my story is just romantic enough to encourage people to smooth my way. And, as if working in parallel, France Telecom has finally come through for Nick, so when I do go, I can call the U.S. incessantly for no extra charge. And apparently a DVR comes standard with his cable (as does VH-1, oddly enough).

Everyone should move to Paris.

The Art of War

2007-01-28T17:30:00.000+01:00

Nick often remarks that no one talks to him when he is alone, but when I'm there we meet a steady stream of strangers at the next table. Apparently, this is a dangerous quality to bring into the mix with Melissa, around whom bizarre things happen on a regular basis anyway.

Last night, Melissa, Glenn and I went out to Uva--I got to tell them about Paris, and we had a lovely dinner. There came a point in the evening when Glenn decided to go home, and I swear I was almost right behind him, but Melissa and I were still awake, and we decided on one more drink.

One. I swear.

Shortly after that, Melissa left the table, and the two men next to us turned to me. "We kept your friend company while you were in the restroom," one of them announced. "Now it's your turn!"

Okay, then.

Of course, it's never simple. See, Rob was trying to get this girl, Amy, whom he spent New Year's Eve with but hasn't seen since. By the time I took over his cell phone, though (I can't stand it when guys can't figure out what women want to hear--it's not like it's that difficult), it was too late for her to come out. And Melissa thought Ed was into Rob, and Ed confessed that he thought Rob was flirting with him to get ahead at work, which did not thrill him. Ed was thrilled to hear that I was moving to Paris, which he adores, and Rob seemed cheerful as well, and around then his attention shifted from texting Amy to asking for advice about impressing Melissa. All good, right?

Machiavelli Rob was not.

Gentlemen, I'm going to lay down a few basic ground rules for you.

A woman who is about to move to Paris to be with another man is not going to kiss you.

It is even less likely if you have spent half the evening revealing just how short your romantic attention span is, and that doesn't even count the time you spent asking for her help to get her friend.

There are times when the better part of valor is going with your stated intention--in this case, that would be keeping your attention on Amy. Or Katherine, at the bar. Or Melissa, although she had as much opportunity to witness your maneuvering as I did, and I rather doubt that she was much more impressed by it.

Buying drinks is usually a good move. Shouting for shots immediately after being turned down is shady.

Which reminds me: anger in general is not attractive.

This sounds harsher than I really mean to be, though. He wasn't a bad guy, I don't think. He was funny and kind and generous and sweet, and if he hadn't crossed the line we might well have become friends--at least for the next few weeks, during which time I would have been happy to introduce him to any number of more appropriate matches. If I sound angry or unkind, it is just because there was a better way for things to have gone.

And, truth be told, not all of this was quite so clear at the time: a no-brainer this morning took some thought last night. It was not as obvious as I make it sound, although I like to think that the conclusion was inevitable at any time of day. It was just that I was so very flattered--it's been quite some time since a guy has worked that hard for me, unless you are inclined to count the day-to-day work of building a life with me.

It turns out, of course, that I do count that.

It may be I'm the one who is off-base. Maybe there is a world that works the way Rob believes, and my views on relationships are just hopelessly idealistic.

I will say that I am just fine with never knowing for sure.

Throwdown

2007-01-25T23:23:00.000+01:00

Iron Chef America, in addition to being one of the greatest shows ever, is also one of the only shows that Nick and I can easily agree on (the other two are Scrubs and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Anything else is a negotiation).

But Iron Chef America is the best. It is the perfect combination of tension, low stakes, exotic food, new ideas, and harmless fun. So just imagine my excited anticipation of my lunch today with Andrea: we were going to Mesa Grill. Not only does Mesa Grill have an excellent Restaurant Week menu, but it also has Iron Chef Bobby Flay, and while his incessant citrus-grilling grates on me a bit, he seems to be quite amazing. And I like amazing food.

Of course, things got off to a bad start when I was late. The worst part is that I was painfully conscious the whole time of the fact that Andrea would be on her lunch break. In retrospect, someone who leaves as little room for error as I do should never take the A or the L, much less plan to use both during the same trip. I darted out of the subway and pulled out my cell phone, which rang against my ear. I assured Andrea that I was only about a block away, which is just the kind of cockiness that I should have known that I would regret.

The restaurant wasn't there.

I walked a couple more blocks while calling Andrea frantically, because now not only was I late, but I would have to confess that I had the cross streets wrong, and that's pretty pathetic even for me. She curtly informed me that it was where I had originally thought, and after some backtracking, it did indeed magically appear (it had been across the street, and behind a truck, and looked like part of the store next to it, and I had been expecting something...bigger).

When I raced in more than 15 minutes late, Andrea was unimpressed, but the bread basket seemed to cheer her a bit (plus I gave her the formerly-liquor-filled ceramic houses that Nick got on a flight from Amsterdam, which she had grown quite attached to in the process of emptying them of said liquor).

And the food was indeed delicious--and my chicken came surrounded by swirling drips and drizzles of cool-looking sauces, just like on the show.

Trouble came, naturally, with dessert. Since Andrea's nut allergy prevented her from trying the flan (which involved pecans), I had chosen that, while she had ordered a chocolate cake in pineapple-tequila sauce that just looked lovely. Which is why I was surprised when she stopped after just a bite or two--I mean, the girl's got willpower, but, well, she doesn't usually stare at me quite that way while exercising it.

I missed what she said to me, but apparently my confusion looked enough like shock and concern (the appropriate responses) that she felt that the message got across. It did a second later, when she rounded on the waitress and announced, "This is not nut-free."

Oh, God.

Although I did not realize it until I stood to leave later, that was the moment when my lower back, ever sensitive to my stress level, decided to seize up. It wasn't the annoyed sharp warning shot I have grown accustomed to, either; it was a wide, shimmering, creeping wrongness that licked its lips as it promised my eventual paralysis.

While the waitress insisted she had been told that there were no nuts (before ordering, I had heard Andrea tell her that she was allergic to nuts, including coconut, but apparently not peanut oil--who knew?), Andrea headed for the ladies' room to stab herself with whatever it is that will keep her from dying.

The terrified waitress sidled up to me a few minutes later and asked if my friend might be allergic to anything else, because the kitchen really had told her it was nut-free (she had just gone and double-checked). "Pineapple?" she asked. No. She almost walked away, but then turned back. "There, um, is coconut in the sauce," she admitted. "Could that be it?"

I figured that she was having such a bad day already that "Remember at the beginning when she clearly said 'including coconuts'?" would be overkill. I settled for "That would absolutely be it."

For the record, everyone was very nice and very apologetic (we got a lot of practice in the art of graciously acknowledging an apology without saying anything like "It's okay," because it isn't). And Andrea came back after a bit mostly okay, although I am still waiting to hear that she really is well.

It was an ugly afternoon all around, but seriously? The 16-spice chicken is unbelievable. I'm just saying.

The Beginning of the End

2007-01-24T03:58:00.000+01:00

Three days after I decided to move to Paris, Mary's boss called to ask me to interview for a job.

The job, really. A phenomenal job: it combines everything that I have been looking for over this last evilly disappointing year. (It's been ten months, but the extra two are a bonus for pain and suffering.) And when I sent in my resume a month ago, it wasn't because I thought anything was about to change.

I am moving to Paris at the beginning of March, and I have just been called in to talk about a wonderful job in New York. "Oh," said Nick. "Will you meet with him?"

"Would you want me to do it?" I shrieked (in the middle of J. Crew).

"Of course not--if you wanted to, I would never tell you not to, but of course not."

That's better.

And the thing is that it's okay. This thing I have been waiting and hoping and fighting for--well, I would be lying if I said it wasn't tempting. This isn't one of those times when the light shines down and the world becomes incredibly easy. But it's not enough; not anymore.

It was a brutal day altogether, though, because I had to begin my goodbyes at my real job. I had to review everything I have done, and start selecting and preparing others to pick up where I will leave off, and it was...hours of that. And it was coming home to discover that a miscommunication will have me visiting Nick during the wrong week in February, putting an awkward strain on the timing of these endings that I am already torn up over, and....

And.

This morning, this decision was so simple, and now it's not, except that it is no less made for any of that.

This morning I was in denial, and now I have to put my lease termination in the mail first thing in the morning before I panic completely, because it is still what I want; it is just in my nature to unravel all at once, and the grace period is over.

There are upsides, of course.

The Upsides

The French are really cool. They understand chocolate (it's not about being sweet; it's about the vicious contrast between the sweetness and bite of something strong, like coffee or liqueur.

They also know how to put together a rhythmic and calming day, and even though Nick's blood pressure has shot up since he moved, I'm betting that both of ours will drop dramatically when I do.

French women all look like models. I'm not talking about anything like the most conspicuous of the girls I went to high school with, who were overtanned and over-made-up and highlighted and blowdried into creepy uniformity. I'm talking about something you would see on America's Next Top Model: women who quietly and subtly play to their own individual strengths, and now I am going to learn. In fact, today, inspired, I made a stop at Sephora, and although I left looking like I was not wearing makeup, I got hit on incessantly afterward, so I think I'm getting the hang of it already. Nick has mixed feelings about this development.

I like adventures.

On the phone tonight, after just a few questions beginning with "Wait; are you upset about ____, or ____?" Nick expertly diagnosed cold feet and talked me down, all at 6:30am his time. Just imagine what he could do if we were in the same time zone.

The Corrections

2007-01-22T04:29:00.000+01:00

I learned two interesting French facts during this most recent trip:

1) French people love to correct non-native speakers, and

2) the good people in charge of security at Charles de Gaulle have lost their minds.

Point 1

Nick swears that it happens to him, too, but I suspect that there is something about the way that I desperately try to come across as fluent that makes the French want to pounce.

It just so happened that I was visiting during the winter sales (there are two sales per year, and they really go all-out), so of course I had to check out the shopping.

It went well for the most part; my main focus was on reducing the percentage of times when I looked like a deer in headlights after being asked a question. We did have a cute little cultural moment after Nick (blushing and reluctant) followed me into a lingerie store. When I headed for the fitting room, a saleswoman stopped me and strongly suggested I use the one downstairs. "There is a larger one," she explained. When I questioned her about the open one straight ahead of me, she repeated herself, and added more. Although baffled, I complied, and Nick found a nearby bench where he could sit and stare at the floor.

Back on the street we compared notes (we often catch different words), and realized that she had been directing us to the larger changing room so that Nick could come in with me. Apparently we are not quite as progressive as we like to think, because our jaws hit the pavement as soon as the light bulb went off.

We had another little glitch on the way to Olivier and Penny's for dinner (that's Nick's boss and his wife). We had a bottle of wine to bring, but stopped off for flowers as well, and the florist said something incomprehensible. It didn't help that he was gesturing to me, since I was not involved in the transaction at all--and there was clearly some reference to the wine bottle in my hand, although we could not tell what. "You don't understand me," he suddenly said, appalled, and began apologizing profusely.

We got it eventually: he was jokingly asking if the bottle was for him. "French merchants joke a lot," Olivier confirmed. "They are very embarrassed if it does not work."

"The next one will be for you," I told the florist once we caught on. He laughed uproariously to show us that all was forgiven. "So now he thinks we are both witty and a bit stupid," I told Nick as we headed for the Métro. "Both kind of fit in this case," he pointed out.

The real frustration, though, naturally came when I felt that things were going unusually smoothly. At a shoe store off of Rue St.-Honoré, I was blissed to discover that 1) I did in fact know my correct French shoe size, and 2) French shoes fit me comfortably, which closed-toe American shoes virtually never do. So I was having a blast trying on both practical and silly shoes (all half-off!) while Nick tried not to fall asleep.

After a while, though, I started to notice that every time I tried to specify a pair of shoes, the saleswoman corrected me. "I would like to try these," I would say, pointing. "These-here?" she would ask. "May I see those in a 38?" "Those-there?"

Now. I acknowledge that there is a difference. And Olivier confirmed that the French are quite particular about the distinctions between these-here and those-there and these and those. But I was pointing to quite clearly indicate which pair I meant. There could be no doubt.

And around the tenth time she did it, I realized that it was deliberate, precisely because I was leaving no doubt as to my intent. She could only be doing it to make a point.

She was not the only one. As I headed off to Charles de Gaulle this afternoon, I chatted with the driver about the weather (freakishly warm still). "Terminal two?" he suddenly asked.

"Yes: 2E." I pronounced it somewhere between "eh" and "ay."

"E," he asked, pronouncing it more like "eu" (it's a sound we don't have in English). I would have thought that he was just clarifying, except that I glanced up just then and saw his half-smile in the rearview mirror as he glanced back.

Apparently, the moment I lose the deer-in-the-headlights thing, people pop out of the woodwork to tell me just what I'm doing wrong.

Point 2

But, speaking of Charles de Gaulle...well, the foreshadow was that my checked luggage was searched for the very first time. Which...fine. I don't think they really needed to roll my deodorant all the way up or snap the nozzle off my perfume bottle, but...fine.

Before the flight home, though, I had a first that was less fine--let me tell you, I would not have minded living out my whole life without ever getting patted down. My boarding pass was taken away and not returned until after the patting...and the bag searches (they asked if I had jewelry--why??)...and the wiping of my hands for explosives residue (I assume--they refused to answer when I asked).

I did eventually get to the gate, and just as everyone was lining up to board, we were told that, because of a plane change, we would be delayed by two hours. Eventually someone let it slip that it was a security issue, but they broke out free sandwiches and soft drinks, so I forgave them.

Temporarily.

When we finally began to board, I made a timing mistake, and ended up momentarily adrift just as the security agent doing body scans had released someone. And I accidentally made eye contact.

As he waved me over, I had this moment where I just wanted to refuse. I mean: I almost did. And then I thought of something better, and the best part was that I thought of it in French.

I stepped over to his table and set down my bags. "This is the second time today," I said a bit icily. "I would never have believed that I look dangerous."

"You speak French," he noted cordially, and even though the next thing he did was fire up his scanning wand, I think that that was the best news I had heard all week.

Take Two

2007-01-18T10:39:00.000+01:00

I arrived in Paris this morning here, but last night in New York. I hijacked Nick's neighbor's wireless (sometimes it works) and was promptly baffled as to why I would have gotten my daily listserv digest email in the middle of the morning. It usually comes after midnight, and I remember deleting it last night, so...right. I'll be doing that a lot, I expect. Not to mention the five minutes of pacing that followed an email from a coworker--when she says "I'll see [other person] tomorrow, so I'll ask her," just what the hell exactly does that mean to me?

I have just spent 13 hours travelling; my head is not where it should be.

Actually, that's a funny story.

Earlier this week, I made a contingency plan in case I got work in Midtown yest--um, Wednesday. I decided I should leave by 3:30 (or maybe 3:00, really) in order to get out to JFK in plenty of time for my flight--it takes about an hour from Midtown. And it seemed like the stars were aligning to place me there on Wednesday, so I began to think of that as The Plan.

When I realized (Tuesday night-ish) that I would, in fact, be leaving from my apartment after all, I quickly did the math. Two hours to JFK from my place, so subtract two hours from 3:00, and leave at 1:00 to make it with time to spare.

Recall that the 3:00 version already included an hour of travel time, and you'll be well ahead of where I was when I realized that I was on the wrong A train and began contemplating my options for a switch. I could just get out, wait for the next train, and finish the boring two-hour ride, or I could switch at 59th Street for an orange train, go to Rockefeller Center, pick up the bracelet that is being resized there that I would love to have for this trip (Nick gave it to me; he should get to see it on), and then take the V back up to the E, which is much, much shorter from there than the A is from where I was.

Still with me?

The problem was that I had plenty of time for that extra errand, and to save my life I could not figure out where it was coming from. I kept tapping my watch, and counting forward and backward. I looked like a--well, let's just say I looked like I really belonged on the A train. I decided to go with Plan B.

The bracelet, of course, was not ready. I suspected that it would not be, since I was told the following when I dropped it off:

"It'll be ready Thursday. Wed--Thursday. Wednesday, actually. Wednesday. You'll come back Wednesday?"

When the girl seemed to hurt that I had not remembered that she had told me Thursday, I just slid the slip bearing the large "Wednesday!" in her handwriting back into my pocket and lugged my suitcase away with me for another round of trains.

On the flight I sat next to this five-year-old girl who was exactly like a huge puppy--floppy and squirmy and desperate for attention. She kicked me. All. Night. Long.

I did, however, get enough sleep (just) to look into Nick's suggestion that I take the train instead of a cab (much cheaper, and much less frustrating during rush hour--and maybe even a bit faster, although reasonable people can disagree on that point).

Paris's Métro scares me. It's not the trains themselves--the RER express trains can be a little confusing, but mostly I caught on quickly. My problem is buying the ticket to get on in the first place.

First of all, have I mentioned that my French "r"'s just blatantly suck? So when Nick always urges me to get un carnet--a discount pack of ten tickets--there's part of me that always wants to tell him to go buy himself a stupid carnet, if he's so clever. My first instincts are not always constructive.

Above and beyond that, there are all these rules for tickets: there are zones, and some won't work for the RER, and some RER tickets don't work for some RER destinations, and unless I just show the ticket agent my directions and throw myself on his mercy, I cannot negotiate the transaction--I have no idea which information about my trip will be relevant, and I get far too nervous to understand rapid (and usually so-so) French through a speaker that makes the agent sound as though he's under water. Hell, I can't do that when I'm not nervous (probably. We'll never really know, because I always am).

When I got to Charles de Gaulle's Métro station, though, there was a ray of hope--it was an RER-only station, and Charles de Gaulle doesn't remotely count as "Paris" in the Métro's system. There had to be a million people a day doing exactly what I wanted to do.

I sidled up to one of the automated machines (a sibling of the one that had actually reduced me to tears on one memorable occasion), held my breath, and..."One ticket to Paris" was an option. I hit the button, counted out my change, repeated the whole sequence because the stupid thing timed out while I was counting out my change, and was off and running.

It's funny: in the airport proper, everyone spoke to me in English. From the moment I got to the subway platform, though, in spite of the fact that it's still technically in the airport, and I still had all my luggage, everyone addressed me in French. I got asked for directions three times in one hour; how's that for bizarre?

Practice it with me: "Je n'ai aucune idée; j'suis desolée." (That's desolé for you, gentlemen.)

I have to say, crossing the Seine right under the Eiffel Tower gave me chills. I started grinning like an idiot. I couldn't wait to get to the apartment, take a nap in the non-bed, a shower in the absurdly hard water, and then see what's out there for me today. Even if I get no farther than the café on the corner (it's outdoor weather here, more or less) and some grocery shopping (I just polished off the leftover baguette; now there really is no food), it will have been a wonderful day.

And when Nick's across-the-street neighbor came out onto his balcony just now in his underwear (as always) and carefully dropped something silver and black and roughly the size of a thermos onto the head of a passerby (that part's new), it just felt like another kind of being home.

OTC

2007-01-17T04:37:00.000+01:00

"So how much Sudafed® can I buy at once without setting off any red flags?" is a question I was sincerely looking forward to asking. "It'll be fine," Nick told me. "They'll see you're going out of the country right after the purchase, and they'll figure it's nothing."

Honestly, if sarcasm were out, I don't know that the two of us would ever be able to speak to each other at all.

Unfortunately, the fine State of New York has outwitted me once again. When I wandered into the pharmacy to stock up on American OTC meds for poor, sniffly Nick, I discovered pseudo-Sudafed® on the shelves, and stupid little "Please take this card to the pharmacy to purchase" cards where the real Sudafed® used to be.

As much as I was disinclined to take the stupid little card to the stupid little pharmacy window, I was about to do so when I noticed that Sudafed® has taken advantage of their supposed notoriety to jack up their prices enormously. I mean, maybe I'm just out of touch with the going rate, but I cannot imagine why real Sudafed® is more than twice the price of fake Sudafed® (not generic; it just uses a different active ingredient, which they swear is wonderfully effective).

Attention, Sudafed®: no one is fooled into thinking that your original product is behind the pharmacy counter now because it is such a terrifyingly potent nasal decongestant. It did not suddenly become worth more money just because it became more annoying to get; if anything, you should be dropping your prices. What you charge for your fake decongestant? That's about what a decongestant is supposed to cost.

Nick, honey, by the way: I'm bringing you fake Sudafed®. I'm sorry, but I'm taking a moral stand here.

So, off to Paris I go, OTC meds and Airborne® in tow. Hopefully Nick will have a phone line by Friday--it has been delayed for three months, but now that France Telecom has been sued for a fortune for just this sort of thing, they'll be happy to come take a look at his line. Come to think of it, there is absolutely no chance of a working phone by Friday. I'll be calling my boyfriend on calling cards for the rest of our natural lives.

And with the fake Sudafed®, I probably won't be able to understand a word through the congestion.

Old New York

2007-01-14T18:25:00.000+01:00

I was feeling very New Yorker-y on Friday. Elena and I went to Bloomingdale's (I refused to go to Herald Square again--you get this feeling like you could crowd-surf, but if you did you wouldn't get anywhere, since the 89 zillion people are all milling in random directions), and I took four buses and only one subway over the course of the day.

Also, to celebrate Mary's birthday on her birthday, I agreed to meet her at Gobo--an allegedly vegetarian restaurant that turned out to be largely vegan, as well. As a dedicated meat-eater, I normally might have gently given her a bit of a hard time, but the fact is that it was delicious, and now I want to go back and try the twenty other things on the menu I considered having.

In point of fact, after the most flawless scallion pancake (with the de rigueur mango salsa) I have ever had, I ended up with a giant mound of spinach. I had expected "spinach and orange saute with cashews" to be more of a balance of all three, but no--almost entirely just spinach. Delicious spinach, you understand (in a bit of this maddening savory ginger broth), but there's only so much spinach you can eat without interruption.

Mary, who is always vigilant about the possibility that I will loathe anything I have ordered at a restaurant that she has selected, assumed the worst about the half of the spinach that remained on my plate, but the fact is that I was already daydreaming about turning it into a side dish for something appropriately Asian-inspired the next day.

And so yesterday, realizing that I had all the necessary ingredients (and even some of the know-how) to make panko-encrusted chicken, that is what I decided to do. I got out the poaching pan Nick uses, even though it's a pain in the neck to wash, and set out little bowls of flour, egg, and panko crumbs, since most of the recipes I looked up a while back involved dipping the chicken into all three.

"Make sure the oil is nice and hot," was Nick's only recommendation. So I dropped about half an inch of oil into my pan and turned the burner on low-ish while I triple-dipped dipped my chicken. And imagine my dedication at this point, considering how much I hate touching icky things.

When I returned to my stove, the oil looked exactly the same, except for some sort of coil of texture that I ignored, because any way you slice it, this was not hot bubbling oil. So I began washing some dishes to kill time, which is what I was doing when the oil first exploded.

I'm talking about a four-foot-high jet of scalding oil, followed shortly by more of the same. I was able to dart in to turn down the burner a bit, but the eruptions continued, oil spattering everywhere. Now I know how Nick always makes such a wreckage of my kitchen, although I'm pretty sure I would have heard the gunshot-like reports if he had ever done anything quite this appallingly wrong.

I developed this idea that maybe the oil would settle down if it had something to focus its energy on, so I slid over to drop in some of the chicken. I got two pieces into the pan, but the second one set off a series of explosions so violent that I had to hide behind my refrigerator. "You probably overheated the oil," Nick mused today. "That happens."

I could kill him; I swear I could.

It was all smooth sailing from there, though, and the chicken was a perfect counterpoint to the still-excellent spinach. Unfortunately, this drama put me even further behind for my trek out to Brooklyn for Mary's birthday (observed).

It was a great party once I got there, though; everyone was having a great time, and there was grilled pineapple, which is always a bonus. My highlight was when Mary's coworker, Jerome, whipped out his digital camera. "How impressed you are will depend on where you're from and how long you've been here," he warned. Then he turned it around, and my jaw dropped as three or four photos slid by of a 4 train covered in a massive piece of graffiti--every car was tagged, and we're talking one of those thorough, full-color murals here.

The kind that isn't supposed to be possible anymore.

I have not lived here long enough to have ever seen such a thing, myself, but I know enough to know how incredibly special it is to see now. The party spent the next half-hour arguing about whether it was commissioned, how and where it had been done, whether Jerome's assertion that it was by some group of Europeans had any merit, and how it had ever been allowed to leave the train yard that way.

Ever feel nostalgic for a place you've never been?

Another of Mary's coworkers walked with me to the train, while his friend dropped back and lit a joint. The contrast to the pot-smokers I knew in college who thought they were so reckless and daring could not have been more palpable as the slightly sickening scent wafted along the deserted sidewalk. And the stories the two of them swapped about falling asleep on late-night trains and waking up in trainyards to the sound of seagulls made me feel like a New York dilettante for all the cabs I have given up and fallen into over the last three years.

When I eventually got to 96th St., the subway station was packed, and there was a 1 train heading in just behind the 2 I had arrived on. And while I had had every intention of taking a cab, people being around is what makes me feel safe, so how could I be so arbitrary as to say that just because it was 2:30am it was too dangerous to walk seven minutes in Washington Heights?

As I walked up wide, well-lit St. Nicholas with the restaurant/bars still hopping, and then turned onto 185th with the three Yeshiva security stations in two blocks, I felt sick, if only because I felt so safe. One more barrier between me and the real life of this city has come down; I no longer have to find a way to be surgically dropped at my doorstep just because it's dark out. I no longer have an excuse to "have to" drop money on a cab.

I am one step closer to waking up under seagulls.

The Singer

2007-01-11T20:21:00.000+01:00

After just a few days of living in Washington Heights, I came up with a basic rule that is now second nature: eye contact is bad. Actually, it's a little more complicated than that.

I do not make eye contact with most men in my neighborhood. The Yeshiva kids are largely exempt from this rule, if only because it's impossible to be too obnoxious while wearing a yarmulke. Hell, I've never even had to say "Back off or I'm calling your mother," but I'm 99% positive that it would work like a charm if I ever did.

Also in the "safe" category are men with small children, and anyone whose clothing would be appropriate in a Midtown law firm. On the other hand, any male wearing one of those puffy coats will be strictly ignored. This is because (although Mary will be skeptical) this rule is not about race; it's about culture. And the men around here who have bought into the dominant local culture are aggressive.

A lovely Southern woman I know who moved here and did not know this ended up terrified of the hallways in her own building after she made one minute of small talk with a man who lived there, who then got really creepy and insistent that she come in to his place and "get more comfortable." And some of the things that I hear from guys on the street are just obscene, and no one endears himself to me by jutting his chin out and staring as we pass each other, especially when he turns his head as we do so that it's about six inches from my face. Which happens far more often than you would imagine.

My personal understanding of what it means to be "polite" would triple the time (at least) that it takes me to walk to the subway, and would probably result in being followed a lot, if not outright stalked. My version of minimally "polite" (smiling when smiled at; responding to greetings in kind) is not appropriate in my neighborhood, at least not with the men.

So no eye contact; no change of expression.

Last night, the flaw in my plan was exposed: it only works for brief encounters.

As I left the subway station, I heard this guy singing to himself. Since I had to call Mary, I wasn't thinking much about it, until he drew even with me and began singing to me. He kept pace for four blocks, and I tried to keep up a normal conversation (although I did wish we were talking about something a little less silly than making plans and sharing gossip).

It quickly got ridiculous. I cannot describe how difficult it was to keep a straight face, especially when Mary suddenly asked, "Who is that singing?"

"I'm not talking about that," I said, hoping that would suffice.

"Okay, but there is someone, right? I'm not just making that up?"

"There really is."

"You're running up your minutes," the guy stopped singing long enough to inform me.

"Mobile-to-mobile" shot out of the side of my mouth, and although I tried to go right back to telling Mary that I wasn't sure if Elena would be up for a group thing on Friday but that I would totally let her know, my cover was blown.

Fortunately, my singer was, as his approach suggests, a bit unusual. When I paused to tell him a bit about Nick and my feelings on monogamy, compliment his singing voice, and firmly wish him goodnight, he did not exactly go gracefully, but his protestations were all made with a sense of humor, and he did go.

I do think, though, that this will make a lovely "How-We-Met" story for him and some single girl someday. It may take an awful lot of singing to strangers first, though....

Extra-Large

2007-01-10T03:38:00.000+01:00

I've signed up for events/offers/news listservs before. They sucked. I got tons of useless mail, and eventually dumped them all.

Andrea somehow does this much, much better than I do. Shocking, right?

Somehow this remarkable young woman manages to be in the middle of everything. Not only is she a Nielsen family, but there was this one awesome evening when we had $2 glasses of sangria at the Park East Grill, which, frankly, is not all that easy. And last night, my walking in-crowd of a friend broke into her kit of promotional materials and threw a party for the premiere of Gay, Straight, or Taken, Television for Women's foray into the world of vicious reality TV.

She had T-shirts, and paddles (so that we could wave them when we thought we knew a guy's status), and snacks. And although her being a Nielsen family might have had something to do with Lifetime's selection of her as the sort of person who should really throw a party to watch the premiere of their new show, somehow I suspect that she would have been on the list anyway. 'Cause she's just that cool.

And although we had previously commented on how bizarrely addictive Lifetime Original Movies are, we still got sucked into the one that began a minute after the dating show. And it was worth completely missing my bedtime to see Kaley Cuoco (who has apparently gotten younger since she played an obnoxious college student on Charmed) play an obnoxious high school student in a fat suit.

Of course, food and weight mean different things to all of us, and by that point in the evening, everyone was ready to be vicious and sarcastic. And nothing is calculated to produce more tension than four women of distinctly different builds, histories, and philosophies sitting around making fun of a movie about being nice to fat people. There will be surprises, is all I'm saying.

It gets especially thought-provoking when they are all sitting around in large or extra-large T-shirts, since that's the only kind the network sent out--apparently junior sizes are more cost-effective.

In other news, I have found a new and exciting way to take care of my health. Wary of rupturing another hip with yoga (stand and place your right foot in the socket of your left hip. Fold forward from the waist, keeping left leg straight, until your palms touch the ground. Shift weight forward, bending elbows, and carefully lift your left foot off the ground, resting each knee on each elbow. Then we can talk), I am taking a bit of a break and looking to care for myself nutritionally.

My solution?

Wheat grass.

I saw some in WholeFoods, and immediately fantasized about all the healthy shakes I could make. Then I envisioned a huge box of rotting wheat grass in my fridge, and walked away. Remembering that I have a blender and plenty of alcohol, I walked right back.

"When we live together, I'm in charge of the grocery shopping," Nick told me when he heard this reasoning.

Anyway. Now I'm sipping a wheat-grass-tangerine-juice-and-rum smoothie, which could use less ice and more tangerine, but really doesn't suck, especially once the rum kicks in. So the joke is on Nick.

I'm going to end up as a Lifetime Original Movie. I just know it.

Lost in Transit

2007-01-07T16:07:00.000+01:00

Ever have one of those days where you know from the moment you leave the house that it just cannot go well?

I wanted to turn around and go home before the first subway stop, when I learned that half of the 1 line between me and civilization was shut down. And while it's true that I stopped listening after I first heard the words "shuttle bus," I should point out that there would have been at least three more steps involved in picking up the 1 on the other side of the construction break.

I wanted to turn around. But I was on my way to meet Mary, and then rush over to meet Andrea, who was already (legitimately) skeptical of how much time it had taken me to walk out my door in the first place. And if I turned around now, I would never make it out to Tiffanie's birthday party later, and I really wanted to go.

Besides, I had just invested in an all-day Metro card.

What followed was an ugly snarl of subway lines, peppered with stupid mistakes of my own. It was in the high 70's in January, and it feels like I spent more than half the afternoon underground. To add insult to injury, what set this all in motion was that I need to get the lovely bracelet that Nick gave me for Christmas resized (I have freakishly small wrists). And that, as it turns out, will be quite a challenge, and I don't even know where I can get it done, so.... So I spent the evening fretting, with the thing still tucked safely in my purse.

And false starts were the order of the day: one of the reasons I was so adamant about going to Tiffanie's party (which, although far away, was at least easily accessible--by yet another line that was shut down) was that I hoped to see an old friend who had left me a mysterious voice mail the day before. Naturally, she did not attend, although she might have been the only 20-something in Manhattan who was not packed into Fat Baby last night.

To top off the evening, a giant rat jumped out at Andrea and me on 78th St. When I first saw it, I prayed that it was a cat, and when it bumped into her leg, and she said it felt a whole lot like her dog, but we saw it running away across the street. And it was just a giant rat. And although we both let out one heartfelt scream apiece, the two frat boys about fifty yards ahead of us didn't even flinch, much less turn around to make sure no one was, say, being raped. Thanks, guys.

Anyway. It was fine; everything was fine. I got lots of quality time with friends (some of whom I haven't seen in months), and I got to tell Andrea that I hadn't killed her hyacinth after all (my mother read my last entry and told me that that's what they do--they need to be propped up. She also implied that I really need to chill out a little).

And today I get to shake it off and start fresh, and that is even better news.

Thriving

2007-01-05T03:01:00.000+01:00

Last weekend, Andrea brought me a hyacinth. And I've been staring at it compulsively ever since.

I love hyacinth. The blossoms are perky and unique, and the perfume is amazing. And, it turns out, it is the perfect plant to raise in my apartment: it dislikes direct sunlight, and I have none to menace it with. Also, it suggests a somewhat laid-back watering schedule, at least before it blooms. "She knows you," Nick gloated.

The thing that terrifies me is that it bloomed almost right away. The thing is thriving. It loves it here, and I know that this cannot last.

When I was younger, my mother, who has a great green thumb, tried to get me excited about plants. She bought a mini cactus garden, and we tried really hard. A couple of weeks later, when I carelessly bumped it, all the cacti fell over, their roots lifting right out of the gravel.

I had killed a whole cactus garden. By underwatering. Seriously.

My mother, undaunted, gave me a patch of garden in the back yard. None of my plants did better than indifferently (and most did worse), except for the morning glories that quickly grew over the top of our eight-foot fence and vaguely resembled Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. This impression was in no way ameliorated by the sunflowers I planted one year, which grew to monstrous proportions and then promptly died, leaving their sagging heads to menace anyone who made it through the morning-gloried-over gate.

In high school I suffered through a reprise of the cactus garden incident when I brought an ivy plant in for extra credit in biology. Basically, we got points for keeping plants alive in the classroom, and my mother assured me that she had a plan. "This thing has been neglected for years," she said, thrusting the ivy at me. "There's just no way to kill it in two semesters."

I got the extra credit, but I'm quite positive that it was out of pity.

My mother threw away the poor brown plant as soon as I brought it home, and has learned to be wary of me, because in all of these cases, the problem was never neglect. I paid near-constant attention to all of these plants; I just suffered from some kind of mental block that prevented me from interpreting the care instructions correctly. (Except for the morning glories. Those were just weird.)

A few years ago in Philadelphia, I decided that I was ready to try again. I bought an African violet, and I bought plant food specifically for African violets. I read the instructions, and I called my mother and read them to her.

As it turns out, none of these precautions can make up for placing an African violet above a radiator, because although it initially flourished, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing began to discolor. And, because I did not know this then, I could only watch (and tear at my hair and face) as the leaves slowly drooped and died.

Now I own a hyacinth, and I love it, and I want it to be the plant that breaks my curse. And it has blossomed, and delicately scented every inch of my apartment, and this morning I woke up and something was wrong.

Okay; I know that plants grow toward sunlight. But when I glanced over this morning to see the three stalks completely flattened out, can you blame me for thinking that something was wrong? Would you have noticed right away that they were all flattened in the same direction?

And so now I sit here and fret, because even though it says it wants no direct sunlight, might it want more indirect sunlight than it is getting? Could the growing-to-light thing be a red herring? Is it languishing from lack of water while I complacently review photosynthesis? Am I killing it already??

I began doing yoga again tonight (my muscles are now jelly), but then I went right back to staring at the hyacinth. And now I'm sipping leftover New Year's champagne and typing and planning my dinner, but I cannot count the number of times that I have stopped to stare at the hyacinth. I turned it around this morning, but as of right now, it's still flat.

I need it to straighten back up; I really do.

Happy New Year

2007-01-02T22:59:00.000+01:00

We never did make it to Kevin's party, and I do feel bad about that. On the other hand, it feels like the whole thing has a touch of fate about it, because that makes three years in a row that I have entirely intended to check out this amazing party he throws, and three years that I haven't made it.

Two years ago, Melissa had just moved into her new place in the Bronx, and I promised to go out there for her combination housewarming/New Year's Eve party. I had every intention of going from there to Kevin's before midnight, but the people who were supposed to leave with me didn't, and I was pretty jumpy about heading back to the subway alone. And since her apartment is cool and the party was fun, I decided not to fret over what I was missing--not Kevin's party, and not Matt's, even though I found out later that Nick might have gone to Matt's with Mary if I had gone, and I could have met him 4.5 months earlier.

See? Fate is everywhere on New Year's Eve.

Last year was not my fault; Aaron and Langley appeared in Boston, so we hijacked Mary and Elon and the six of us went out there. We wound up eating pizza with champagne around 3am, and had a blast. I was simply outvoted, city-wise.

This year might have been the tipping point, though: now I am beginning to believe I might never see Kevin on New Year's Eve. The party was ridiculously close to me, considering how ridiculously far from most of the city I live, and we had an extra bottle of cherry champagne all ready to go. We had no other commitments, and we were in New York.

Five minutes after my apartment was clear of my New Year's Eve Eve guests, Nick wrapped me in a bear hug. "This is the first day you weren't sick, and you were cooking all day. How about tomorrow we go get some good champagne, cook a great meal, and spend New Year's on the couch?"

Kevin, I'm so sorry. I hear it's incredible every year, and I wish I had been there last year, and the year before, and known you better the year before that, when I went to Avalon before I knew the city and it took me almost as long to get home as I had spent in the club.

This year, though--this year I wouldn't trade for anything.

Cheesecakes

2006-12-31T17:25:00.000+01:00

In retrospect, the first mistake was not checking for nuts.

Ironically, this applies both to the cookies I planned to bake with, and to the friends who came to eat them, but first things first.

Upon realizing that the cookies I had dragged Nick to four grocery stores for would kill Andrea (I had planned to use them for the cheesecake I would offer to her as safely nutless), the ugliness started. It didn't help that I never got that early start I had wanted; instead I found myself baking two cheesecakes on the same day that I planned to serve them. Both of them instructed me to chill them overnight. Whatever.

I sent poor, sweet Nick out to my local Key Foods, deciding to blend the two crust recipes a bit to produce an Andrea-proof result that would still be in the spirit of the original. And it was even going kind of okay, although this was about the point when Nick, who had returned and was watching me curse and yell with great curiosity, informed me that I was not in fact making my crust in a completely stupid and nonfunctioning food processor. It turns out I don't have a food processor. I have a blender.

Apparently, it matters.

Anyway. So I'm taking a bit from recipe 1, a bit from recipe 2, and making up a bit in the middle to make them fit, and feeling very clever, even if it is taking a million times longer than I had hoped. But what do you do when recipe 1 advises you to "Freeze crust for 15 minutes," and recipe 2 suggests that you "Bake crust at 325 until set, about 8 minutes"?

This was also when Nick asked where I planned to put the crust, since my borrowed springform pan was currently in the refrigerator full of pumpkin-Frangelico® cheesecake, which had gone off without a hitch. It did not go so well that I could pull it out of the pan 20 minutes after it had come out of the oven.

I thought about just scrapping the second cheesecake, I did. But...what would I do with four packages of cream cheese, or a tub of cranberries? And what would I feed Andrea?

Nick quickly washed my single-serving ramekins, and I set about the appalling task of covering the bottom of each with crust that was just entirely the wrong texture, because improvising is not my strength. They looked pretty good after "setting" in the oven (we opted to bake), but I could not focus on that right then.

"I don't think I have enough sugar."

I always read the ingredients list thoroughly before I use a recipe, and this was no exception. I had sugar, but I never noticed how much the second recipe asked for (2 cups, all together, but it's broken up deceptively). I had about 1 cup left. I turned to Nick, who was trying to hide under his laptop.

Since it was much closer than the grocery store, and we needed some other things from there anyway, I sent him to RiteAid. He was noticeably less sympathetic this time. He returned as I was getting out of the shower into which I had opportunistically snuck, and announced that the RiteAid hadn't had sugar. They had baking Splenda®.

Good enough.

Baking Splenda®, by the way, is incredible stuff. It measures cup-for-cup like sugar, but weighs essentially nothing at all. I kept spilling it because I couldn't feel it moving in the box, but it was seriously cool.

So, as I had for the first, easy cheesecake, I dumped all the ingredients into the bowl, and glanced back at my cookbook. And discovered that I should have mixed the ingredients together in about eight distinct stages. Oh, and this one would allegedly have to cool for four hours before chilling overnight. Like hell.

I turned on my nifty new hand mixer and powered through, muttering the whole time about fats carrying taste, eggs for texture, and other random dire predictions about my reckless all-at-once mixing. Nick was visibly concerned, although you would have to know him really well to know he wasn't just worried about his game of Civilization®.

Oh, and six of the eight mini-cheesecakes that resulted from the weird mousse I produced cracked massively in the oven.

But.

I think the first one--the hitch-free one?--was a little undercooked. And the mini-cheesecakes turned out wonderfully. So go figure.

Anyway, worn out from all these battles, I was not as cautious about monitoring small talk as I should have been, and so there came a point in the evening when my guests spent nearly an hour discussing placentae. I know that this is the plural of "placenta" because I just looked it up, but last night we were really struggling to figure it out.

"Wait a minute, guys," Andrea said thoughtfully. "Just think: what's the plural of 'polenta'?"

The next time I bake, I'm keeping her on hand. Just in case.

Ode to Screens

2006-12-29T16:59:00.000+01:00

This should have been about how Nick's glasses fell out of the window Wednesday night. My drapes swished, we heard a woosh! and then a clattering, and all we could do was stare. Except for when Nick punched my wall, in a show of manly problem-solving.

The next morning I awoke to an empty bed and, leaning out my window, saw the top of my boyfriend's head. And all of this is made even more charming by the fact that the glasses never fell out of the window at all, but were discovered later between the bed and the wall.

This is not about that.

Nick and I have two key differences in our outlooks on life, you see, and it's driving us just a tiny bit crazy.

Cleaning

I hate cleaning, in ways that I cannot even describe. I do as little of it as humanly possible. Contrary to popular rumor spread by Nick, however, I do not enjoy living in squalor, so I try to avoid messing up the place to begin with. Particularly since I have a bit of an aversion to touching things once they are visibly dirty, I feel that this is an extremely clever plan.

Nick, aka Mr.-I-Scrub-My-Apartment-Thoroughly-Once-A-Week, does not cooperate.

We cleaned yesterday. Last night, I watched fish-poaching liquid spread evilly across the stove I had just spent over an hour returning to a high gloss (since Nick tends to use it, it had become too dirty for my casual spot-cleaning ages ago). "Just think how easy it will be to clean that up now!" Nick trilled, as I heroically refrained from strangling him.

He spills on my couch, apparently reasoning that I run the cushion covers through the laundry after each visit, as if I have time for such nonsense. He drops food on my floor and then looks at me like I'm crazy when I send him off for a damp paper towel--surely I was planning on mopping the whole place again soon anyway, right?

Actually, most of his worst trespasses involve food, which leads inevitably to the next conflict.

Vermin

I believe that mice have virtually supernatural powers. And Nick refuses to accept this obvious truth.

Wednesday, I nearly tripped over a bag of potatoes in the middle of my dining nook floor. When my head spun around, Exorcist-esque, to shoot a gently enquiring look at my boyfriend, he was exasperated. "Potatoes don't need to be refrigerated!" he insisted.

This was not the point. "Mice," I hissed.

"So put it in the cupboard. Put it on the top shelf!"

My God, he is so naive.

So. Last night, I heard what was definitely not a mouse. In fact, it was so soft and so infrequent that at first I was not sure I was hearing anything at all, but, predictably, my nerves refused to just drop it and let me sleep. At a slightly louder noise that was definitely in the apartment, I grabbed my glasses and sat up just in time to see a light gray shape bound from the dining-nook table to the sill of the open window.

Too big for a mouse or even a squirrel, too not-flying for a pigeon, too nimble for the rat I have nightmares about finding in here someday. What the...?

I shoved Nick. "Something's in here."

"Hello?" he called out sleepily.

"Something," I clarified. "On the table--" and I switched on the light, only to be momentarily struck dumb. How could he? Sitting on the table were the remains of the sweet Italian sausage pizza I had heated up for him after we had discovered that we suck at poaching fish, "--eating your pizza," I snarled.

"So go get rid of the pizza," he suggested cavalierly.

I chose to believe that he was still foggy from sleep, and stared at him until he got out of bed himself. He peered out the window, and announced, "A cat."

I live on the fifth floor, by the way.

When he returned from throwing out the pizza and closing the window, I snuggled my way across the bed and looked him in the eye.

"This is exactly what I've been talking about."

The Christmas Mouse

2006-12-27T21:46:00.000+01:00

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring but Caroline's mouse.

In other words, my parent's "cat" decided to get in on the gift-giving action this year.

See, my parents have two pets: a sweet and enthusiastic English cocker spaniel, and a psychotic cat who is approximately the same size as the dog. Most of the time, Toby (the cat) comes across as sweet: he cuddles, he purrs, he has retained his kittenish habit of suckling his own shoulder when he is especially happy, and he loves to stretch out on his back and beg for a belly-rub.

The trick is this: if you actually touch his belly, he will maim you.

And then there's what he does if you're not six times his size. See, when he was about three months old, he began going outside. We watched him at first, but when he seemed to have the hang of the cat door, we let him roam free, and we have regretted it for years, because one of the first things he did was bring in the leg of a rabbit.

"Roadkill," my mother declared authoritatively. "Something else killed it, and it decomposed for a while; there's no other way. He's just too tiny." And over the next few days, as he brought in rabbit pieces one by one, we prayed that she was right.

The years of headless (or bodiless) mice and birds that followed, along with the occasional live chipmunk and unidentifiable bit of who-knows-what have strained our optimism just a bit, but the fact remains that the cat is just adorable (even if it is clearly not all domestic medium-hair).

Until, that is, Christmas Eve, when I started hearing rumors of a field mouse loose on the second floor. And, sure enough, the moment I turned out my light, I heard "Click click click click click click click. Click click click. Click click click click click click." Switching the light back on, I peered over the edge of my bed just in time to see a tiny brown thing dart under my bed. It appeared again on the other side for a split second as I hopped off to go see my mother.

"Set Toby on it," was her first suggestion. Then: "Just sleep in the other room." Then: "Get out of my bed now."

I tried to share a room with it. And failing that, I tried to scare it back out into the hallway. I kept the light on, I waved and yelled every time it stuck its head out from under various furnishings. The problem was that the mouse was a masochist. It refused to even stay on the other side of the room, and although it frequently ducked out into the quiet, dark, safe hall, it always poked its stupid little nose back in within a couple of minutes. The last straw came nearly an hour later, when the noise got louder, and I sat up just in time to see the thing running over the top of the overstuffed armchair in the corner.

In other words, it was at eye level.

My artful screams and carefully calibrated flailing frightened it off the chair and out the door, only to return 30 seconds later. Which was when I left.

The evening was not without Christmas cheer, though: early in the morning, my mother went downstairs to check on the dog. And she sort of saw Toby in the hall as she went by (noting as she did that my light was still on--I hadn't wanted to flee across a dark room), and suspected something when he ignored her.

From one floor down, she heard bones crunching. And, when she came back up, there was no trace of the mouse.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Deck the Halls

2006-12-22T02:45:00.000+01:00

In case it isn't already abundantly clear, the holidays make me a smidge crazy. Standing in line at my friendly neighborhood Rite Aid this evening, I was struck by the sudden sinking conviction that I do not give nearly enough Chia® products as gifts (to date, I have done so approximately never). Even the sad line of harried-looking women hovering around the three or four sadder Barbie® dolls caused me a moment of panic, as I reconsidered my entire gift-giving strategy.

Even though my crazy has obviously reached a fever pitch, I have seen some ads recently that have convinced me that I am not entirely hopeless. Their implications for the rest of the world, unfortunately, are simply terrifying.

The Offenders

Honorable Mention

The good people at Glade® have gone in an interesting direction lately. One of their commercials opens on a woman sitting at a table and staring glumly at a few pillar candles. "Some candles just look too much alike," the sympathetic voice-over tells us, before cutting to the now-happy woman with a few tealight-esque candles in glass holders.

I mean...really? I can see picking up a candle because it's unusual/interesting/etc. However. "Some candles just look too much alike"? If this is your buying rationale, set down the candles, walk out your front door, and go find a place to volunteer your time, because a reality check is absolutely crucial for you.

Do it now.

Runner-Up

You know what I think my super would absolutely love this year instead of a Christmas tip? A McDonald's® gift card. Are they serious with this?

From what I saw of this ad, the premise was that they make great gifts for people you don't know well enough to buy real presents for. Take it from me: these people want cash. Gift certificates work in many situations, but if McDonald's® is the best you can come up with, then I repeat: the person wants cash.

If, on the other hand, you are trying to say: "You come off as trashy, your arteries are your own problem, and I don't want to give you money because you're the type to throw it away on alcohol or the dog track," then you've found the perfect gift. And at that point, don't you think that it would be more in the spirit of Christmas to just bite your tongue?

And the Grand Prize

Generally speaking, since I got my TiVo® I have not had to watch a single commercial, ever. Which I adore. In this instance, though, I began recording whatever show was on at the time after this ad aired, so that I could walk away, then watch it again after the shuddering stopped (not yet).

Apparently, there is a new collector's item out there: two-piece 9/11 memorial coins. They are made primarily of 24kt gold, but contain a piece shaped like the Twin Towers, made of .999 sterling silver. This silver, we are told, was recovered from the vaults under Ground Zero. (I found a website that casts some doubt on this claim--apparently there are investigations into other coins claiming to be cast from this silver, suggesting that they are, in fact, just regular silver. I'm not sure whether it's worse if it's true, or if it's false.)

But stop gaping. There's more.

This silver piece, shaped like the Towers? It is on a hinge of some kind, so that it can rise up out of the coin to form a "breathtaking standing sculpture."

This, we are told, will be "the most meaningful collectible [we] own." Which is one of those appalling truths that tempt you to slap the person who told it.

I am providing a link to the website I found for these coins, here. You are welcome to take a look.

If you consider purchasing one, though, don't bother coming back here, because you and I have nothing to say to each other.

Lucky Me

2006-12-20T00:14:00.000+01:00

Around 11:00 this morning, I was rushing around my apartment in a frenzy. I was already a tiny bit late, and still had an extra (read: unaccounted for in my lateness estimate) errand to run in my building's basement before heading out to a meeting for my real job, for which meeting I am habitually late as it is.

As I tore my coat from its hanger, the oversized hanger popped off the door where it had been oh-so-unsteadily hanging, and hit me squarely in the center of the forehead. Hard.

Clearly, the day had nowhere to go but up.

In the aforementioned basement, I ran into my super, who, I think, has been ducking me lately. "You said something about your closet?" he asked foggily. He was referencing my frantic phone call from over a month ago, when one of my huge hanging kitchen cabinet doors finally came off one of its sadly overpainted hinges. Given the size and position of the door, there is a better-than-even chance that when the top hinge inevitably follows suit, I will be killed--probably in the act of doing dishes, which is a sad way for anyone to go.

Mentally preparing to be even a bit later, I described the door, and offered the man my old television as a bribe for coming to see it tomorrow. "Oh! Should I go now?" He looked ten years younger. Now I'm thinking I need to work the TV for more leverage--my bathroom ceiling is still scary-looking where the water damage came through.

Anyway, after my meeting (after all that, I wasn't even especially late), I managed to finish my Christmas shopping. Since I have a toddler nephew to think of now, this, naturally, involved a trip to F.A.O. Schwartz.

I have been living in fear of that place for years, but am now starting to think that it was largely unwarranted. In fact, the most alarming part of the experience was the woman dressed as a toy dressed as a Buckingham Palace guard who nearly gave me a heart attack by popping out of the doorway to greet me as I arrived. Not okay.

Sure, it was a popular place, and there was the one family who insisted on taking pictures of and with everything, nearly causing an accident on the escalator ("Mommy! A polar bear!!" "Hang on; stay right there!!" Escalators move, people). And I did have to hide in another part of the store when a perky young woman announced that they were "about to recreate the famous scene from the movie..." and all the six-year-olds who have never seen it shriek "Big!!" But for the most part, it was actually a pleasant experience: not too crowded, no line at the checkout, and none of the claustrophobia or assault via soundwaves that I had braced myself to withstand.

I was so surprised that I called my mother, who, I now suspect, was the root of my phobia to start with. "Ah. The last time I went, it was traumatic. I brought you." Say no more.

This is a place to shop for children, masquerading as a place to bring them. Of course I was a miserable toddler when I couldn't play with everything, or get in the toy car, or whatever. The marketing people want children around to demand everything in sight, so they sell the store as an experience children must have, when that is frankly the worst idea I have ever heard. Go alone, buy a cute little plush toy, and then take your child to a petting zoo. Do not bring them to a "play place" unless you plan on spending at least a couple of hours there, unless you want your very own obscure cloud of guilt like the one that has haunted my mother for decades.

Confirming the reversal of my luck after the hanger incident, I lost one of my stepbrothers' presents on the subway. And it was returned to me, by a very nice woman whom I could not hear at all, so I hope that our conversation made sense. ("Returned to me" might be misleading. She picked the bag up off the floor and began peering into it, which was when I realized that I was no longer holding my bag from that store. But she was still very nice, and I like to think that, had I been able to hear her, she would have been saying something like, "I was hoping there would be a name on the inside, so I could ask around.")

And I found the cherry champagne, which is the key element in my New Year's Eve Eve party. And it was not even marked up from last year--still $4 per bottle. Nick will just be beside himself with glee. Or scorn. The glee might just be me.

The Holiday Spirit

2006-12-18T01:14:00.000+01:00

My life lately has become organized into quests. This is why I hate holidays.

But I am going to focus on the positives today:

I broke my decade-long abstinence regarding latkes. The last few times I ate them, I had gotten terrifically ill, but today I decided that I was ready to try again. And they are yummy.

I am only six gifts away from done with Christmas shopping. Assuming I can get the one that...damnit. Scratch this bullet. I am not even close, with a week to go.

I am now the proud owner of The Improvisational Chef, a book I think I remember lusting after in B&N one day. Apparently, word of my insatiable appetite for cookbooks has spread ("Oh, God. You read them, don't you?" my stepfather remarked when I opened it). Now I can impress Nick with my culinary "instincts."

Speaking of, I am committed to making my first-ever cheesecake for New Year's Eve, possibly followed closely by my second. This is very exciting; it's the first challenge I've taken on since I learned to make those molten chocolate non-souffles a few years ago. The fact that there might be about six pounds of cheesecake per person is something that I am not thinking about right now.

Hmm...and there's good news that is not yet internet-ready. No, Andrea, it's not what you're thinking. It's not about me at all, in fact: not mine to share, in other words.

I have a plan for every stressor, even if I have no idea when I will be able to execute any of them.

I will probably stop wanting to crawl out of my skin tomorrow, when I know more about what my week will be like.

These bullet points are getting weak.

I get to see Nick, soonish.

That last one helps, actually.

The Devil Wears La Perla

2006-12-16T05:48:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was surreal, and the comparisons to the similarly titled book began well before Andrea called me this afternoon, asking me to come by and watch the movie (which, by the way, fixed some of the things that bugged me about the book, but lost some ground in the adaptation, as well, and especially in the ending that made me want to claw my eyes out until Meryl Streep made it almost all better at the very last second, because she's awesome).

You're right: that whole paragraph was all one sentence.

Anyway.

Yesterday, I was dispatched to a lingerie store that is in the same price range as La Perla, but without the cloying sultriness. I was alarmed to discover, on arrival, that there would only be the two of us in the tiny store, because, when you think about it, having worked in my college bookstore for a year and owning an all-black work outfit does not remotely qualify me to be half of the sales force for a store I had never set foot in before.

Consider: I had no information about the product, didn't know where anything was, had no idea what their order process was or how to ring up a sale--I arrived entirely useless. And my very remote coworker showed no inclination to help much.

"What can I know to be more helpful?" I asked at the first opportunity.

"Well...fold these," she said. "Three times, into the bag, and make sure this side of the tag shows. Then...well, I'll just put them away." Which meant that any time someone tried on something she didn't buy, I would have about 30 seconds of work. Which was something, but I still couldn't answer questions--I knew nothing about size or color availability, and nothing about what might be better for long torsos or have less lace. Hell, I didn't even know which of the ten drawers behind us the things I was folding would go into.

So it was a tense few hours to start, but things began to look up. The highlight came when a woman cursed at me after I told her the price of a bikini top. She stormed out before I could check the tag on the bottom half, but I felt Coworker's appraisal when I didn't flinch, and her opinion went up further when I ran four blocks to catch the FedEx guy.

By the time the manager called, I was starting to think this place wasn't so horrible after all, which was just as well, since she was calling to ask me to stay longer. "I'm coming in to close; I need you two to go up to the Madison store. And can you tell Coworker to put some Fall catalog pieces into a shopping bag for me?"

Understand that there was never any indication of what we might be doing up there that would take us past both stores' closing time. And it's not like I didn't ask. So imagine my surprise when the store was packed with reasonably fabulous people sipping champagne (rosé or brut), and Coworker had to show her catalogs to the security guard to get us in.

Although I have never been more painfully conscious of my ridiculously dated black pants, I was obscenely flattered when a man practically demanded that I take some champagne, and a girl swooped in to ask for my coat. Suspecting that neither service would have been entirely appropriate, I stammered a bit and blindly followed Coworker, who got further ahead each time. But...it was nice to be asked.

It was only a matter of time, of course, before the PR woman for the French stores with the absurd red dye job crowned me the new coatcheck girl. It didn't work like that, precisely: she walked up and asked me if I was doing coatcheck. Not realizing that she was running the show (and apparently I was not alone in that), I perkily rattled off, "I'm actually not, but I'm sure I can find the person who is for you!"

"No, no," she said. "I'm saying: she's leaving. You're doing it now. Show her how!" and sailed off.

Old Coatcheck Girl gave me a guilty look as we headed into the back. "Sorry about that," she said. "You just...take coats. She just means for people as they come in."

And so then I mistakenly assumed that the woman whom La Redhead (and sometimes Old Coatcheck Girl!) had been talking to for ten minutes before I was drafted must have already been asked. So, I let her stand there for five more minutes without asking her myself. "Like her," hissed La Redhead, after abruptly excusing herself from the woman. "You have to go up to people; you can't just stand there!"

From then on, every time she saw a new person come in, La Redhead glared at me and jerked her head toward them (no matter that I was already visibly on my way each time).

It was nice to chat with some of the Madison employees, though, and the model who occasionally strutted through the throng in various swimsuits turned out to have a sense of humor about the whole scene. I became especially fond the woman who kept fussing that so few of the actual clients (who had received invitations and had RSVP'ed and had gift bags all ready and waiting for them) were showing up. "There are plenty of people here, sure," she fretted, "but no--just look at that pile of gift bags. No one's really coming."

I don't know why. It was a lovely party.

I do know that, when I finally was sent home (I told the woman who released me that I had been taking coats, but didn't bother to speak with La Redhead. Let her stew), a woman stopped me on my way out.

"Are they giving anything away?" she whispered. "I got an invitation, but I don't know if I really want to go."

"Oh! You're a client?"

She nodded.

"Gift bags. Ask the guy at the door; you won't even have to step in."

And I tried for the bus, but eventually fell into a cab, where I raced home to my kitchen where, at 9pm, I finally managed to push my calorie count above 200 for the day.

Just like in the book.

Footprints

2006-12-14T05:45:00.000+01:00

One

I was late to work today. It was 99% my fault: I forgot to write down the walking portion of my directions to the office in Lower Manhattan, which is an alternate universe that might as well be in another city for all the sense it makes to me. But I remembered the general idea, and the address was distinctive, and I could always ask someone, and I had plenty of time....

The MTA guy was wrong, was the real problem. "Wait, which part of Greenwich?" he asked. He confidently gave me directions that sounded nothing like mine--they were much longer, and none of the street names rang a bell. But...I was at the wrong subway exit, and he's the MTA guy pointing at the map....

When it was obviously wrong, I stopped to ask some UPS guys. "You're on the wrong part of Greenwich," they told me. "The one you want is that building," and pointed.

Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz where the Emerald City appears, rising out of nothing? It dominates the screen; it's unmistakable. There's really only one place you might be going, even if it's all kinds of far away, and this was just like that.

It took a moment to realize that it was so prominent because I was viewing it across a massive construction site. Wonder what's going there, I thought as I set off to circle it.

It took me a minute, you know?

You'd think that, since the address I was hunting for was "7 WTC #2," I'd've caught on faster, right? I'd think so, too. But. I'd never been.

I think I thought it would look like something, but it doesn't. It's too big to see. It creates this sudden attraction-repulsion that shorts out my brain. I don't feel overwhelmed, even, just...a prickly kind of nothing that is just like how three colors of light become white. It's a perfect tension.

Two

Um. Anyway. So I somehow find myself in the World Financial Center, well above street level. This is not the worst thing, since it looks like it has passageways that extend to exactly where I'm going.

It's not so easy from the inside, of course. Those buildings are designed to lead people in, not to let increasingly frantic temps slide through like salmon on their way to somewhere else entirely. It's certainly an interesting place, and I'm glad I got the tour. Palm trees made of lights, marble everywhere, elevated tunnels, and a giant window overlooking the Footprints. I don't think I wanted that good of a view, though, so it's probably lucky that there were about fifty tourists shielding it with their cameras.

Can we say "morbid"?

All in all, 15 minutes late instead of 5-10 minutes early. But they were very nice about it, and the window by me turned out to have a stunning view of the Statue of Liberty, which I only noticed, conveniently, as the sun slipped into the half-inch between the clouds and toward the water. Oh, my, stunning. Although...I think it must have looked bigger, before you could look down at it from the 40th floor.

Speaking of which, security is bizarre in that neck of the woods. I had no trouble getting through the turnstiles--I am learning that "I'm temping for [name of company in building]?" could get anyone in nearly anywhere. As long as the "anyone" is female, young, white, and cheerful, that is, and probably in that order. After years of searching, I finally feel like I have a cultural identity: my "group" is defined by only getting asked for ID about half as often as everyone else (unless it's by a bartender who suspects we will be flattered).

Anyway. They have other security measures. Most notably, the elevators are the type where you enter your floor number in the lobby, and then it sends you an elevator that will take you there. They have no buttons inside. I assume that this is to prevent anyone from setting into motion my plan for world domination, which is to send dedicated volunteers into elevators to hit all the buttons, then hop out at the first stop and run, preferrably cackling, down the stairs. With enough people in a coordinated attack, we could bring the city to its knees for a full five minutes.

Think of the implications, people!!

Three

After a grueling day of fake work (temping) followed by nearly an hour of real work (if I had more than a few hours a week of it it would be), I got to go see Melissa. And although I was too tired for my absolute favorite girls' night (a drink at the Dead Poet, dinner at Land, then many more drinks at the Dead Poet), we did at least manage dinner at Land.

Plum sake martinis + delicate yet complex brown sauce + Melissa = oh, God, I'm doing equations now?

See, normally, to be my friend, you have to be a deeply neurotic (but very high-functioning) human being. Nick is not especially neurotic, which I think is a nice balance, but Melissa is some kind of inversion of the entire concept. And it's great to be around someone who manages to be thoroughly unselfconscious without also being a criminal sociopath, which is a balance Melissa strikes with admirable poise.

Plus, she came up with an idea for a business we're going to open someday: Drunken Languages.

Stop snickering; this isn't some frat joke. We were reminiscing about the night we spent at the bar of Samba-Le, when we decided to sample each of their fabulous sangrias. After a few hours, one of the busboys started teaching me Portuguese, and I know this is the sort of thing one is likely to think after the ninth quart of sangria, but seriously: I picked it up right away. My French improves on a glass of wine, as well, and so does my Spanish. I think it's something about confidence and relaxation and inhibitions when you're sober enough to know intellectually that the sound you're hearing is not one you can make.

We've even got a financial plan worked out, but I'm keeping that quiet, because none of you have signed NDAs.

But just you wait. In a few years, you'll all be getting promo materials from Melissa, who will be our school's Supervising Manager of Drunken Spanish. That's right. We've got titles.

Chicken Soup for the...Oh, God, I Just Can't

2006-12-12T04:03:00.000+01:00

Normally, my favorite part of having dinner with Elena would be listening to her order her meal. Seriously. It usually goes something like this:

Elena: [pointing to item on menu] Is this like [obscure dish from a different type of Asian cuisine from that of the restaurant we're in]?

Waitress: [Obscure dish]?

Elena: The sauce sounds the same, and it's a little spicy with these wide, flat noodles, and--

Waitress: Oooh, this has thin rice noodles, but other than that....

Elena: Oh...well...I was really looking forward to the noodles.

[Long, awkward pause]

Waitress: [Other dish] has those.

Elena: Well...can you make [other dish] with shrimp instead, and without the curry, but more of a regular spicy brown sauce, and--does this one have peanuts? And--

Waitress: You want [first dish] with wide, flat noodles?

Elena: Oooh, could you?

I might have been a tad disappointed when she ordered right off the menu, but I haven't gotten to see her in so long that I didn't even miss the ritual; it was just great to catch up. And while I teased her about posting something else funny that she did say here, I find that I am disinclined to do so, because the story should be that I've missed her, not that I'm giving her a hard time.

Nick is having a reunion of his own: Aaron and Langley have flown out for the week, and are sampling life in Paris. And while I am terribly jealous, I almost feel as though I am there. The other night they went to my favorite restaurant (this cute little place near the Pantheon with a lovely fondue prix fixe), and now Langley is feeling a little under the weather.

See, for about a decade, I've gotten horrifically ill every time I've crossed the Atlantic. From my first trip to France, when my host sister pressed this noxious throat spray on me, to when I lost my voice in Greece, to hiking around Montjuic on the first leg of my Great Europe Trip while my fever brought me ever closer to full-blown delirium, I have spent a good chunk of every trip in abject misery. It only stopped this year, when I began to accept that my immune system just hates Europe. In that vein, I would like to take a moment to adamantly plug Airborne®, which, taken more or less constantly, has finally allowed me to travel comfortably.

Anyway.

When I reached Nick today, he was in the kitchen [look away, Mary] boiling down a chicken carcass [okay, you can look back] for soup stock for Langley. Which is just exactly what he would do for me, because, although I often accuse him of being inadequately sympathetic when I am sick, he manages to convey his kindness through that sort of gesture. Especially if said gesture allows him to be in another room while I'm sniffling.

While Langley is, I mean.

Home Again

2006-12-10T03:06:00.000+01:00

Now it feels like winter. It's not just that it's suddenly freezing, or that I got to break out my cute little white hat. It's not even that today I got to go through my yearly ritual: discovering year-old stuff in the pockets of my parka (I found a Lucky Star bus ticket, Nick, and got a teensy bit choked up).

No, no, the real reason that it feels like winter is that, yesterday, I worked a full day in Rockefeller Center without even thinking to take a look at the tree. It was just like old times.

In my defense, I no longer have a radio card, so getting in and out would have been a hassle, and I was running to meet my parents for dinner at the end of the day (by the way, El Charro, in spite of not actually being a Mexican restaurant, serves phenomenal guacamole, and the rioja was quite charming, as well, so fill up on both and don't bother with dessert). Besides that, resisting the urge to ask the security guy who used to flirt with me if I could just get in without the lame guest pass took a lot of energy--the front desk at 30 Rock sure doesn't hurry much at all, does it?

I did get to see a lovely sunset, and managed to avoid any awkward encounters with former coworkers. Plus, I think I will rather enjoy temping: it's much more like doing someone a favor than actually working. If nothing else, it suits my attention span. And, truth be told, my current commitment issues.

The day, however, was not without its fair bite of karma.

See, my former company (Company A) shares a set of elevators with one other, considerably larger, company (Company B). Given their size, they often use those elevators to move between their own floors, and given that they are located between Company A and the ground, getting in and out of the building could take us an absurdly long time. So there was a lot of eye-rolling (and even some cutting comments) that went on as we waited through, say, two Company B people causing four extra stops just so that we could get down to pick up a lousy cup of coffee. Since they had their own cafeteria, lunchtime was especially brutal.

Naturally, yesterday I spent the day with Company B (the cafeteria is so good, by the way). So I check in at reception on, say, the 28th floor. "Great;" says the receptionist, "just go down to 26, and 'Anna' is on her way to let you in." She pointed to the elevators. Anna was on her way. See how I couldn't ask about just taking the stairs? And, of course, when the elevator that was to take me down two floors opened, there was someone in it, and she did not look pleased.

"I'm sorry," I whispered. She refrained from throttling me.

Damnit! Now I'm craving rioja.

Older and...?

2006-12-07T23:35:00.000+01:00

Today I headed out to my sketchy grocery store to pick up some ground "veal." (Seriously: 1) it's cheaper than the ground beef, and 2) the store doesn't sell veal. What's a girl to think?) I was a bit at loose ends, because as late as 10:30 last night, I thought I would be heading to JFK at that particular moment, and grocery shopping is...dissimilar.

"Now that the weather is getting warmer," thought I, "I should start climbing the hill again." To clarify, I live across the island from Fort Tryon Park, and by descending and then ascending some rather punishing hills for about fifteen minutes, I can walk right to it. In addition to the park, there is Inwood, to which my neighborhood is the evil twin--or at least the ugly, bitter, and untalented twin. And, all in all, it's a rather charming trip on a fine spring afternoon.

It is harder to clarify how I managed to mentally skip winter.

As I do with most things, I blame Nick. It's all this planning ahead that comes--or should come--with what I euphemistically refer to as our "long-distance relationship." Unfortunately, between Nick's casual arrogance (in a good way!) and my general flakiness, I am feeling the strain of the future-mindedness without ever seeing the benefits.

A few weeks ago, we decided that I would come to Paris today, and stay for a bit over a week. Nick booked the tickets, and I was alarmed to see that the stay was longer than I had planned. I looked into changing the tickets, which cheaptickets.com (who can go screw) indicated was possible for a fee, and, imagining the fee, I dropped the idea.

Last week, Nick had this brilliant idea himself to change this trip, which was looking less and less convenient, for one over the holidays. "We'll go to Burgundy! We can stay in a chateau!!" The man knows I am helpless before chateaux.

And then the problems started. Cheaptickets.com (did I mention...?) had a seizure during which it told me that my tickets had been cancelled, and then firmly announced that the tickets, while still mine, were unchangeable. Naturally, they refused to send Nick any documentation to back up that improbable claim, which is good, because I had seen the (now missing) "Call this phone number to change your tickets" page with my own eyes, and lying is bad enough. There's no need to add a fraudulent cover-up. That sort of thing spawns conspiracy theorists.

Then we found that the over-the-holidays tickets were going to be ludicrously priced. "If you can find something tonight, send it to me. I have to book tomorrow morning," Nick said sadly.

I found something. Yay!

But, hey, did you know that travelocity has wildly different prices depending on where your server is located? The completely reasonable tickets I found in the U.S. were more than twice as expensive when Nick rolled out of bed in Europe. I looked again. He looked again. Same site, same flight number, same cursing and complaining as before, because by then he had already given up and decided to come here, instead, while I was sleeping comfortably, thinking that I had solved everything.

And, don't get me wrong, because I'm thrilled to see him anywhere--it's just that 1) I hate it when things don't work right, and 2) we don't have chateaux here.

We kept scheming (because we're like that), and, by the time Nick went to sleep last night, we had a plan. And I found that flight, too, and my hand was hovering over the "Complete Transaction" button (because now we knew it was best to buy tickets from here) when I realized that we were about to pay $1000 for two round trips so that I could spend a total of two days in Paris (and I would probably spend one of them sleeping).

See how crazy this stuff can make you? Do you think you would be able to tell your seasons apart during all this?

I promptly called him, and he thoughtfully agreed that we had, perhaps, lost perspective. Nick is the sort of man who can make that kind of determination at 4:30 in the morning--after I had already woken him up 15 minutes before to tell him I was buying tickets to leave today. I find that endlessly admirable, and only a tiny bit freakish.

Stupid maturity.

Coming Through

2006-12-06T04:41:00.000+01:00

When I was little, the whole ambulance thing completely baffled me. See, I was under the impression that, what with the emergency and all, they were going to go really, really fast no matter what. So the siren was really more for our safety than anything else; if we regular-car people weren't super-vigilant at every intersection, the thing would have no choice but to crash into us.

If you think about it, I actually came up with the idea for Speed at age six.

I see things differently now, of course. I really wasn't living here all that long before I stepped out in front of my first ambulance. My theory was that...well, the WALK sign was lit. Okay, but it sounded a lot better in my head.

The point here is that, having grown into my role as a New York City pedestrian, it simply no longer occurs to me that a situation might exist in which I do not have the right-of-way. Which is why it is probably good for my ego--and my health--that I am hardly ever out during rush hour.

This morning, of course, I rolled out of bed at 7am. By 8:00 I was underway on the 1, and then I got to sample the 3 and the shuttle. Mom, that theory that a reverse commute out to Purchase would have been a piece of cake? I beg to differ, because by the time I set foot in Grand Central I had seriously pissed off at least six people, yelled at a man who most likely had a gun on him right then, and still felt insignificant enough to just sink into the ground.

Does anyone remember the last time I got to act like a psycho to strangers and yet still felt completely invisible? It doesn't happen. I make a memorable psycho.

Seriously, by the time the clock struck 3:00, I kept having to fight the impulse to leap forward every time I heard a siren.

Just to prove that I still could.

First Saturday

2006-12-04T05:12:00.000+01:00

There are days when I feel like I might as well live out in the middle of rural Wyoming for all the advantage I take of the opportunities in this city. And there are people who, I am convinced, can sense that train of thought from miles away, and use it as leverage to convince me that I really want to go to Brooklyn.

Mary, I'm talking about you.

Now, I haven't missed a subway stop since the first week I lived here, and I'm still kicking myself for Saturday night's snafu--but hey, who doesn't like wandering through entirely foreign territory in the dark on the dubious instructions of a cop who was clearly at least somewhat baffled by the question?

So I got to see the Mueck people, which I frankly found troubling, if only because 1) they were all so real, and 2) they were all so sad. And the fact is that I am unsophisticated in many ways that I like to think are charming, and one way is that I like pretty, but more than that, I like happy endings. I feel like a tortured face or a depressing twist is a creator's easy way in to counting as an "artist"--if the last few minutes of Casablanca had gone the other way, the rest of it would still have been exactly the same caliber of film, but no one would even remember its title. You make it sad, you make it art. And it's not fair, and I refuse to contribute to the fraud, so...

...even so, when the guy behind me started whining that the models weren't pretty, and shouldn't art be beautiful? I had to mentally draw the line. It's true that the sculptures aren't pretty (or happy), but they are extremely attractive/compelling. They are art. I am glad that I got to see them in the museum, and just as pleased not to have them in my home, you know?

So maybe the guy had a point, after all.

And the Annie Liebovitz exhibit was a lot of fun--particularly the side-by-side portraits of W. and Michael Moore, both with their respective posses. I'm sure that I was happier about the placement than either of them would be, but even the lovely technique failed to make either man seem especially likable. The massive landscapes ("I feel seasick," a woman murmured) and discreet sprinkling of celebrities would have charmed me even if that hadn't been the point at which I discovered that Andrea and Eric's water bottle did not contain water.

No wonder they were so gung ho about checking out the "dance party" in the 3rd floor hall--and really, how many chances do you get to dance to hits of the 30's-70's until 11:00 in the middle of a museum?

Actually, it's not quite as much fun as you'd think. We decided we would rather debate stalking, homelessness, and eugenics over sushi instead.

That's harder to do in rural Wyoming, I think. And that was what I had to keep me warm once I realized just how far apart Brooklyn and Washington Heights are in the middle of the night.

Melons

2006-12-01T17:31:00.000+01:00

I got "stuck" in WholeFoods last night.

This is nothing new. I frequently freeze up when confronted by too many options, and it is most common at the grocery store, where one typically buys a large number of items, all of which come in multiple versions, brands, sizes.... So if you come across a 26-year-old brunette picking up and replacing the same three cartons of milk over and over, or just standing there in front of the bagged salad like a statue for a freakishly long period of time, that would be me.

This time, though, I got stuck because I saw something I recognized.

Ever have a Charentais melon? I had some about a decade ago, during my first trip to France, and they are about the most wonderful things ever. The outside looks like a small round watermelon, the inside looks like cantaloupe, and the taste is just...it's like the Platonic ideal of cantaloupe: that taste and texture you hope for with each bite, but never quite get. Actually, it's like that but sweeter.

So, ten years ago, my host sister cut into one of these luscious little things, and started the obsession. See, all she knew to call it was a "melon." Ever tried to Google "melon" to find an obscure type? I knew they came from southern France and Spain, and I knew how they looked, and for eight years I kept my eyes open. Then I went on my Great Europe Trip, when I knew them by sight in Barcelona. My mother agreed that they were...special. I spotted them again on the Paris leg of the trip; Nick was underwhelmed, but he's abnormal. Two years later, someone hacked into one on Iron Chef America, and I finally had a name.

Of course, when it came right down to it, I didn't need one last night. Even though the colors were reversed, like the negative of a melon, I knew what I was seeing immediately. Charentais melons, in the winter, right in my own grocery store, and for only about eight times what Nick would pay if he walked about a block this morning.

They were from San Juan, they looked pretty mutilated, and it was practically December--I had doubts. So I found the most intact one, and sniffed it, and then I was stuck. I stood there for a good long time, lost in the middle of two different summers in the middle of WholeFoods, and I felt the Earth turn for a while.

Conveniently forgetting how difficult it had been for Nick to open ours (Mom, remember when we brought the coconut back from Florida? Remember Ben, with the hammer and the cursing?), I found myself unwilling to let the thing go. I made a complete fool of myself to the cashier, who asked about it, but, in retrospect, probably wasn't curious enough for the amount of description I responded with. I spent the subway ride monitoring the air for any hint of melon smell--could it be a little overripe? Or was that just the guy across the aisle?

But I'm back, and it's perfect, but it really can't wait any longer. So I'm off to raise my biggest knife over my head, and hope for the best.

Naked

2006-11-29T18:23:00.000+01:00

I saw the Naked Cowboy in person for the first time yesterday. I didn't get too close a look, but I could have sworn that he was using his trademark briefs as advertising space. Naked Cowboy, presented by Charmin? What other symptoms of a sick society do we need to see before someone (other than Cameron Crowe) shuts down Times Square entirely? That place is what selling your soul would look like if it were embodied in city blocks (Legally Blonde is about to be a musical, by the way), and yet somehow I found myself in the middle of the day wandering through the place I typically avoid like the Plague.

The very well-lit, crowded Plague.

The thing is that, in addition to being a clear sign of the impending apocalypse, a trip through Times Square changes your day. At the very least, it changes mine, because it tends to break me of my habit of being oblivious to the absurdity around me.

Every time we walk down the street, Nick tries to point out interesting people. Being a polite man, he typically waits for a few moments after we have passed the person in question before sarcastically shredding them. In addition to making it slightly less likely that he is mocking someone who is right there, this ensures that I will have no idea what he is talking about. That's right: in the middle of one of the craziest cities in the world, I tend to notice none of it. I'm busy thinking, or some such nonsense.

After my pilgrimage through Times Square, though, I began to notice. Like the guy on the cell phone on a ritzy Midtown street who sounded like he might actually be having an aneurysm--apparently he had written the thing, then attached the wrong file, can't you FUCKING UNDERSTAND THAT?? He was seriously turning purple. And the woman in the trench coat leaning out to see if the train was coming (because we all do that, as if it will help) who managed to look just like an old photo of my mother when she was pretending to steal newspapers. And the two college students on the train who had both worked making cold calls, and were swapping horror stories that probably should have made me feel compassion, but mostly just made me wonder who first decided that it would be okay to call a total stranger and ask them for anything.

Seriously. The Do Not Call list is all that prevented me from becoming a raving sociopath.

Does the irony of resenting my hypothetically invaded privacy while eavesdropping on people and then writing about them on the Internet appeal to anyone else? Take a walk on 42nd Street, and all that pesky moral ambiguity will clear right up.

Déjà Vu

2006-11-27T13:01:00.000+01:00

Having Nick here makes everything a little different. Made. You know what I mean. I got to see the sun rise this morning; that's different. And I have the sudden extra floor space that seems to just appear whenever he's here for more than 20 minutes, as well as the massive pile of dishes that I am starting to suspect works in some kind of direct proportion--he has this mysterious way of straightening up while simultaneously destroying my kitchen. He does this all without my actually seeing it, but it happens like clockwork.

The one real surprise, actually, came on Saturday, when Nick--brace yourself--voluntarily stayed out late. We're talking, remember, about a man who is thrilled to have jet lag to blame for his habitual early bedtime. Not to mention that feeling that sets in at a certain point in the evening, when you can't imagine that anything will be compelling enough to be worth the effort of getting yourself out the door, which we are both highly prone to.

Naturally, then, I was quite impressed that we even made it out to dinner, much less to Mary's friend's band's gig at Ace of Clubs, about a million miles from my cozy Washington Heights nest. Considering that his head was actually nodding while we were waiting for a table (and given his visceral reaction when I played ten seconds of the band's music off their MySpace page), you would have been impressed, too.

And while they weren't bad (although they haven't really mastered playing to their strengths yet), it was the "Let's stay for a few minutes of the next band" that really floored me.

Who are you, and what have you done with my boyfriend?

Actually, staying turned out to be a very good idea, since said next band was called Big Baby Ernie, and they were awesome. Way too good to be playing to an empty house at a so-so venue, even (or especially) in a prime weekend time slot. We stayed until Nick nearly passed out; apparently that whole jet lag thing isn't just for show. Who knew?

And then he left, slightly before first thing this morning, and I am here with my freshly upgraded technology, my empty wine bottles and full trash, my cleaner floors and messier sink.

Just like usual.

"You're coming in a week and a half," he pointed out. "For twelve days, and then I'll be back a week after that. We'll be seeing each other more than if I still lived in the States," which, don't even get me started on where that argument breaks down.

Isn't it a comfort to know that we can still have the same points of contention?

Man of Leisure

2006-11-25T21:38:00.000+01:00

"Where did all these people come from?" Nick frets.

"This is where we keep them," I say, because otherwise I will be tempted to point out that it has been less than an hour since he was bragging about Paris's superior ability to draw tourists. Paris, however, has neither Fifth Avenue nor fallout from Black Friday to offer, so score one for New York. If you're into keeping score about incredibly annoying things, I mean.

Honestly, since he's gotten back, all he has wanted to do is shop. Following his amusing stint as The Foreign Guy at my family's Thanksgiving ("This is real wine. Nick, did you bring this?"), he has been on a consumer bender.

I get it, though. Snarky observations about the robust performance of the euro aside, there are some things that home (or even this rough approximation thereof) is just better for. Here, he can ask fifty questions about rolling garment bags; in France he has to think to remember "durable," and is entirely out of luck with, "Could you show me the thing with the snap over the zipper on that inside pocket again? And is that lined?" Not to mention that "Ou se trouve le Shuffle?" just sounds stupid. Throw in English-language books minus the 80% markup, and who wouldn't be sold?

The most memorable, of course, was the trip to CVS. In his new home country, Nick cannot buy NyQuil® without seeing a licensed pharmacist. Not aspirin, either. There is no such thing as OTC medication; the highly-trained professional listens to the list of symptoms, and then sells you whatever she feels is best. It is extremely disconcerting for someone like me--I pop ibuprofen like it's candy, and I am extremely choosy about what I take should I have the misfortune to actually fall ill.

Apparently, Nick feels similarly, because our basket was full to bursting by the time we reached the cashiers, where he rang up a total previously unheard of at CVS.

Whatever. It's probably, like, 73 cents in euros.

Parisian Roulette

2006-11-21T00:12:00.000+01:00

Now

Okay, brace yourselves: Nick is coming back. For three days, but still. ("Five days. You know it's five days, right?" he says anxiously, but his "accuracy" is not the point right now.)

Of course, we are forced to deal with logistics in a way that we never have been before. "So, when should I come in on Wednesday?" he asks. "As early as possible." He has to ask? But here's the punchline:

"So, you can pick me up at JFK whenever on Wednesday? Great."

Um.

What makes this weekend unlike all other weekends is a combination of factors, none of which would matter in the slightest if he hadn't gone jetting off to a foreign country in the first place. Because if he were still living in the U.S., Thanksgiving would still be a holiday, and he would be able to get time off more than about a second before it, and the shorter and earlier trip might 1) mean I could meet him in the city before I went to CT, and 2) make him more amenable to (gasp!) public transportation. And anyway, you can lay the blame wherever you like, but the simple truth is that it has never occurred to him to ask me for a ride from the airport before.

If nothing else, Paris has obviously made him more casual about his own death.

The main reason he has never asked is probably that I do not have a car. So say it with me: who asks someone who hasn't owned a car for over three years to drive them out of a major international airport the evening before Thanksgiving? Obviously the guy with the death wish; thanks for playing.

Actually, it wouldn't have been that smart even back when I had my sainted little Civic, and drove constantly. "You're a little hard on cars," my stepfather once tactfully observed, and that's not the half of it. The half is what happened the last time I drove through New York City on the day before Thanksgiving. I made the news.

Then

So picture it: there I am, in my tiny little Civic, heading over the upper level of the GW Bridge around 5:30 on Thanksgiving Eve. After an ill-advised lane change (I swear I didn't see the sign) just barely past the Bridge, I had to merge back into the stopped-dead traffic to my left. As any serious highway driver knows, semis are your best bet, merge-wise: they have huge following distances, take longer to start moving, and tend to be nice to girls in tiny Civics. So I found one, pulled over as far as I could in my empty lane, and waited for traffic to move.

Now, I did notice that the truck kept inching forward, and frankly, I thought the guy was being pretty rude. I obviously wasn't going anywhere, and by then I had clearly gotten almost half of my car out in front of him, so was the little macho display really necessary? It's not like any of us were one carlength from home; we might as well get along. So he inched, I inched; we had a grand old time.

Then the car in front of me moved.

And so did the semi behind me.

Apparently, he never thought to look down and to the right, since he had been stopped for so long. And he continued not to do so as his grille dug a six-foot gouge up the side of my car, coming to a rest about a foot from my face.

The best part was when he hopped out, scratched his head at the Honda fishhooked on his cab, and then figured it out. "You just drove right into me!" he declared. Yes sir. And then I reversed. For kicks.

The second best was my stepfather, who received one of my fifty hysterical phone calls once we had pulled over further down the road. "Yeah, the traffic is awful. I was just listening, and apparently there's something on the GW, a car and a semi, blocking two lanes. So it's not just you, kiddo." Not just, no.

And a sentimental honorable mention goes out to all the guys who stopped to stare at the wreckage and call out variations on, "Hey, baby...need a ride?" with a little leer to the girl who just had to climb out of her own passenger side door. You are special.

And Now Again

Anyone who asks me to drive during a holiday rush will get this story again. And then again.

Nick had hired a car service by the end of the second sentence, and we can add to the list of reasons why I adore him.

La Fourchette

2006-11-19T02:29:00.000+01:00

There is a very good reason why you will almost never bump into me in the Meatpacking District. It's not because it's overpriced, overcrowded, and over-pseudo-trendy in a very B&T sort of way. It's not that the easy access to Magnolia is a very real danger to my waistline. It's not even that I am one of those snarky sarcastic people who are skeptical of anything the moment it becomes popular.

It's because every time I go, something happens that I just can't bring myself to explain the next day. And now, for your entertainment, I am about to try.

Yesterday, a fabulous menu distracted me from checking the address, and I wound up at Vento, which was well worth any absurdity that followed. What followed, naturally, was that after about a gallon of truffle oil and some excellent pinot grigio, we did a foolish thing, and went out to find a bar.

After dismissing Too Empty, Too Crowded, Too Loud, and Too Over-Forty, we sidled up to the bar at the two-for-one special of Too Expensive & Way Too Much Attitude. The bartender sneeringly denied the existence of a wine list, which we later found multiple copies of at the tables, and the restroom attendant snapped at Andrea for not tipping her, and then lied about it. By the time Tina's food arrived, we were irretrievably snarky (even though the table staff were much better).

That's when Andrea started about the silverware. And that's when I jokingly slid the ornate fork up my sleeve. And left it there.

See what I mean about inexplicable? I'm the girl who once returned to a store because I noticed that I had been undercharged by ten cents. I have a conscience so hyperactive that I get made fun of for it, and not by people who are especially shady themselves, but rather by normal, ethical citizens. And now I'm the girl with someone else's fork in her purse.

To punctuate the absurdity, at our next stop we found ourselves in a bar with two obvious prostitutes, who, it turns out, were also promoting a vodka that had little to distinguish it from rubbing alcohol. When I say "obvious," I understand that people might be skeptical. But I am sure, and I can prove it.

1) I live in New York. I see women all tarted up all the time. I know clubwear. This was not that. ("I feel like I just walked into Pretty Woman," offered Andrea.)

2) Nick will verify that I never notice prostitutes. It has become sort of a staple of our relationship: walking through Pigalle (the district with Moulin Rouge and much, much more), he keeps up a constant stream of "To your left!" and "She just turned the corner, " and "That woman three seconds ago who asked me for money in exchange for sex while you were standing right next to me. How do you miss these things?"

I just don't notice, so if I do, you can be quite sure. And if you still have doubts, ask Tina for the photo.

I'm not judging, though. I'm too busy trying to figure out what to do with my new fork.

Other People's Blogs

2006-11-17T01:18:00.000+01:00

I have started using my iPod a lot less. It was starting to make me feel misanthropic, and that's Nick's job.

I get to notice a lot more now: the 90-year-old woman muttering about the 80-year-old woman in front of her ("Could we move it along, now? Sometime today?"), the two announcements on the 1 train stopped in the tunnel for 10 minutes (something about explosives at 72nd St.), and the anxious commuter who complained about how they never even make announcements (how do you politely suggest a hearing test?) and then commented that I was overpaying for groceries after seeing the WholeFoods purchases slowly spoiling at my feet (and then I felt less concerned about tact).

The point is that I'm feeling more and more curious about what other people are doing, and now that has naturally extended to what they are writing. So, lately, I've been spending some time hitting the "Next Blog" button up at the top of the page.

Stop.

Damnit.

Ignore the button until I'm done.

I have found a few distinct categories, and was surprised by most. There are informational blogs, which confused me. I'm talking about the ones with a couple of generalized entries about, say, fitness, or heart health, or astronomy, or what have you. I wonder if these are created by people who are working their way up to either the money or the design knowledge to create their own website, although I am the first to admit that there may be aspects of ecommerce that escape me. Either way, it's always jarring to see them next to the intensely personal poetry of depressed teenagers (not to mention middle-aged men who are just now realizing that they, too, have a vulnerable side).

Actually, that brings me to an announcement: there's someone out there with a blog with "Loneliness" in the title somewhere, with a black-and-white falling-feathers skin. There is a note telling us to click on the feathers to see more, but they aren't clickable. If you're out there and you're reading this, sir, that can't be helping with your loneliness.

There are blogs that are all images (personal snapshots or professional designs), and I'm still trying to figure out why they're not on flickr instead, because the one-long-column-with-no-thumbnails thing is not ideal for display. Also, blogger seems to have drawn a huge volume of highly religious people, a lot of very organized people (I found one that is essentially a date book), a couple of terrifying conspiracy theorists, a bunch of folks trying their hands at news analysis as well as movie/music/book reviews, and at least one site devoted entirely to photographs of and discussion about hot cops. More power to you, ma'am.

Many were interesting to glance through, and there was even one that made me want to read the whole thing. I won't say which, so that everyone can think it might be theirs, except for the Lees, who can know it.

It is a wonderful and relatively new phenomenon to be able to express so much of yourself, while retaining complete control over what form "you" take. And I think that part of my surprise was at seeing people reveal absolutely everything, while others chose to use their platform to shine the light elsewhere. And, inevitably (because an online community is much like any other kind), now I have this nagging worry that I won't fit in.

Nuance

2006-11-15T00:58:00.000+01:00

Then

The first time I traveled to France, I was sixteen. To make up for her various cruelties (or perhaps this was just another of them), my French teacher wrote such a glowing recommendation to the exchange program that they placed me with a family that spoke no English at all.

It was fine. My host sister and I could talk about differences, interests, families; we could go to the beach and to a heavy metal concert and to a bar with my host sister's friends. It was fine.

Well.

If I had one complaint, it might be that there is a substantial difference between being able to say things in a language and being able to speak it.

I couldn't get into the dynamics of my bizarrely blended family, and I still don't fully understand the deal with the gay couple living with her parents above their store while she stayed alone at their place on the beach.

I couldn't explain why "Hollywood Chewing Gum" wouldn't sell in the U.S.--at least, not on the jaded and sarcastic coasts (this, of course, was when just being U.S.-themed was still a big selling point practically everywhere else).

I couldn't explain why I nearly died laughing when the "heavy metal band"--which turned out to include a young man playing a saxophone--started playing Pink Floyd's "The Wall." Which they sang in heavily-accented English. Instead, my host sister's friends crowded around me to ask for a translation of the lyrics.

Which I also couldn't explain.

And Now

Nick is stranded in a country where he has no access to nuance.

Can you imagine trying to buy a full set of kitchen appliances without nuance? We went to get a toaster oven, and wound up with a mini-oven that, it turns out, has no toast feature. You have to turn the temperature dial and set the timer before it will heat up at all, and I have so much guilt over it (even though Nick swears that it is still very useful) that I was relieved to be out of the country for things like the refrigerator.

Would you want to be responsible for picking out a refrigerator in a country where you cannot for the life of you tell the difference between a shower curtain and a fabric shower liner? Or where an elderly woman off the street basically calls you a liar when you are unable to adequately explain that, while you understand her in general, you didn't catch the first thing she asked you? Or where you can say, "I turned the key and opened the door," but never "I unlocked the door?"

Think about it. Think about never saying "I unlocked the door." Then go price washer/dryer combos.

Domesticity

2006-11-12T21:37:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I found myself in the exciting position of having a few free hours and some leftover pizza dough.

Anticipating a nice meal, I inventory my fridge. So...it will be a little odd (cheeseless, with mushrooms and ground veal), but fine for people like me, who came to pizza later in life and are open to the unconventional.

I even remember to preheat the oven, noting that when I made the first half of the dough, it was a snap. Because I've been steadily getting better at it, right?

As soon as I take the dough out of the bag, I sense something wrong. I shake it off, and start stretching the dough--which promptly tears. And tears. And tears. I reflour, I reknead the dough, I'm doing everything I can think of, but all I have is flour everywhere, hands coated in sticky bits of dough, and a crust that just...isn't.

Wait, I think. This is only half the dough, but I'm trying to make it the same size as the last pizza. Shouldn't it only be half the size? I am cheered until I recall that the other pizza in question was made with the first half of the dough. By which I mean to say that both balls of dough were, well, the same. And it doesn't matter anyway, because the only thing I can create that doesn't have a hole in it is a giant round sphere of dough. The second it deviates from that shape, it tears.

After about 15 minutes and some increasingly inventive language, I drop the thing on the foil and roll it out by force with my hands--I'm not playing around anymore, particularly now that my entire apartment is rapidly approaching 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

I hastily spoon some marinara over the mess, using a too-small spoon for the nearly-empty jar, so that my hand gets covered in it. My hand is not alone: I manage to get sauce all over the foil I'm using as a pie pan.

Around then, it occurs to me that I have forgotten to pierce the dough to keep it from bubbling. This is particularly problematic since my stubborn crust is over an inch thick in places. I stab it half-heartedly through the sauce.

Next comes the veal (by the way, although I love that a supermarket near me sells ground veal, I am mildly terrified that they sell it for less than $3/pound). I almost pick up the bit that drops on the table before I recall that this is the Contaminated Table*.

*When something such as a pigeon flying into my apartment and sitting on my dining room table occurs, I cannot imagine that the table will ever really be clean again. The table has, of course, been disinfected. Repeatedly. In time, I might even be ready to eat off of it again.

Now for the mushrooms. This has already been such a disaster that I decide not to cause further stress by dragging out the cutting board for something as minor as a few mushrooms. Moments later, as I contemplate the tiny beads blood welling up on my thumb, I consider the possibility that my agitation made free-handing mushrooms unwise.

My subconscious concludes that the only way to round off this experience is to overcook the whole thing dramatically. Apparently, I am okay with turning dinner into a Frisbee®, but I would sooner starve than be inconsistent.

The 4:00am Thing

2006-11-10T18:07:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, I was wrapping up a conversation with my mother. "It's almost ten," I said. "I should call Nick, anyway."

I could hear the wheels turning--she travels. She knows. "Honey, it's...do you know what time it is there?"

See how parent-y that is? It's calculated underreaction; it's wonderful. I wanted to reward it by making it clear that her concern for Nick, while very sweet, is unnecessary. "It's four; I know. He asks me to call then, so that he can fall back asleep after." It sounded plausible.

"Oh. Well, that sounds..." (she's trying, she's trying) "...like torture." She's only human.

The thing is that Nick insists on this. Seriously! He gets all petulant when I don't call him in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, on nearly all of those occasions I did call, but he didn't wake up fully enough to remember it. This, of course, has led to an ugly escalation where I have been forced to find ways to make sure he registers the conversation. (Some might urge me to just refer him to his cell phone's call logs. Those people are clearly amateurs.)

What works best so far is drilling some random thing into his head. The next day, when he accuses me of not having called, I'll ask him about the thing, and bask in his confusion as recall kicks in. But we certainly experiment: the other night he wound up singing the alphabet to me for about five minutes. "I'm really glad I didn't just dream that," he said the next day. "That was a weird one."

The trouble is, I can never tell when he's just giving me a hard time. Don't bother asking him. He'll say he would never do such a thing. Then he will add that it's a shame that I feel compelled to spread rumors about him--like it's not bad enough that I constantly wake him in the dead of night.

"Why didn't you call me last night?" he demanded yesterday.

"I did. Remember? Your phone was having trouble?"

"What kind of trouble?" Even to my jaded ear, he sounds genuinely curious, rather than mischievous.

"The call kept connecting, but we couldn't hear each other. You woke up and called me back." I am not crazy. It's not my fault that he is an evil genius.

"Huh," he says. Blankly. Maddeningly.

But here's the payoff, a few minutes later: "You know, I'm really tired today. I don't know why."

Evil genius.

From the Migraine Files

2006-11-08T16:50:00.000+01:00

Nick: Apparently my cooking gas hasn't been turned on yet. I'll have to call the guardian.

Me: Huh?

Now I dimly recall seeing an on-site "guardien" as a selling point in most of the apartment listings.

Me: Oh. Honey, you mean the super?

Nick: Guardian.

Me: But there's no such thing, so there must be a different English word. Isn't it like the super?

Nick: Guardian. That's just what she's called.

Me: Honey, I think this might be one of those "cave" things, because "guardian" isn't an apartment thing.

An aside here: "cave," with an "ah" sound, is French for cellar. "Hey, this apartment has a cave!" Nick exclaimed early on in the search. Because this is how we are, I gave him a hard time about it, and now he constantly talks about caves in French buildings. And all I can do is seethe, because I just know that he's picturing something with bats.

Nick: Well, she's not a super. More like a concierge.

Now, I saw the trap here, I did. But...

Me: Okay, so the concierge.

Nick: Well, except that would be a concierge. So she's something else.

Damnit.

Nick: I see her outside sweeping leaves all the time, and she's the one who delivers all our mail. She's a lot like a doorman.

Me: Okay...so a doorman.

I am happy for about eight seconds, until I recall his building's dark, empty entryway.

Me: Except for the part about being near the door and letting people in. Which...is kind of a big part.

Nick: We can call her a doorman anyway, if it'll make you feel better.

Couldn't you just kill him?

No, YOU Go Vote

2006-11-07T22:47:00.000+01:00

I'm sorry. I think it's important, and I really intended to, and Eric, I know I promised. But then I got all worried that I would be arrested.

Last year, around this time, I found myself "between apartments." This is a Manhattan euphemism for "you will not believe what you will settle for by the time this is over." Particularly if your only recourse is to move in with my parents, a deceptively easy commute away in CT.

Now this is where it gets sticky.

A few months before my lease ended, I got a jury summons. And deferred it, because I was scheduled to appear on a day when my newly-purchased plane tickets said I should be in Barcelona. I did have a pang of guilt about deferring it until after my lease would end, since I didn't think I would renew, but only a small one. See, I believe in jury duty. I think it is a cornerstone of our democracy, and I had every intention of honoring my responsibility as a citizen, even if I had to do so from a bit further away.

But...Connecticut?

I did the math. I would have had to leave by 4:30am. Have they met me?

So my thinking went a bit like this: I had now moved out of state. Who cares that it was just the next state over--I could have moved to Iowa. What would they have done then? That is actually an interesting question, you see, because the you-have-already-deferred-once-and-huge-men-are-waiting-outside-your-door-to-escort-you-now notices are pretty terrifying. There are simply no options for not appearing; they do not even provide a phone number to call with questions. They are not interested in your questions. Just. Show. Up.

I did my best, you know. I circled the 100% genuine USPS forwarding label. I wrote "Moved Out of State" as large as I could. I mailed it back. Even so, no one seems to be able to say for certain that there is not currently a warrant out for my arrest.

Normally, I would have voted even so. I mean, I live yet somewhere else now: further proof, if any were required, that I was no longer a resident of my old apartment last November. Clearly, no big deal.

This morning, though, I realized the implications of never having changed my voter registration. I was about to trek over to my old neighborhood to cast my ballot in a district that my continued freedom may depend on my not having lived in for a year.

It's not as if I really believed that the police would be waiting for me at the polling place. But think about it for a minute: what if I were ever mistakenly accused of murder or something? They dig into crap like this; I've seen Law & Order.

Little Italians

2006-11-06T06:45:00.000+01:00

For the best pizza this side of the Atlantic, you must go to Giovanni's, on Arthur Avenue in the Bronx.

I am aware that this is a controversial statement, and I am not making it for the purpose of begin an argument. If you are inclined to argue, first go to Giovanni's. Then we can talk.

Even better, across the street is the Madonia Bros. Bakery, which sells "cannolis filled while you wait." The first time I saw that sign, I was with the wonderful friends who had just moved me into Washington Heights. We mocked it--wouldn't you? Until, that is, Andrea bought a cannoli, which they did, in fact, fill while she waited. And the thing is, everyone who tries one of these things is irrevocably converted. I personally have never much liked cannolis, and I adore these. The shells are flaky and buttery, and the filling is creamy, without the dull glueyness that sets in when the moisture starts leaching out into the shell. I would take them over Magnolia cupcakes; can you imagine?

The point of all this is that my relentlessly New York weekend continued on Arthur Avenue on Sunday. It was an integral part of Project: Diversion, the point of which was to keep Andrea away from the marathon she trained so hard for that she developed a stress fracture.

"I had pizza tonight, too!" said Nick, but I can't help but think that it had to be a little different.

I fret on Nick's behalf when he misses especially good episodes of Iron Chef America, which is one of the handful of shows we both enjoy. I sincerely appreciate living in a country where people stress over good customer service, even if I have to call out of my city area codes to talk to most of them. A country where you can find rabbit in any grocery store makes me tense, as does the ever-present danger that ignoring one unfamiliar word could be the difference between ordering a nice steak and ordering some kind of gland from a cow's brain stem. Seriously. It very nearly happened once.

More than that, I love subways that run all night, taking an attitude about the outer boroughs (except for the parts that have perfect pizza), having the number of an unlisted speakeasy, giving good directions, and venting about the absurd living conditions we all put up with just to be able to say we live here. I never expected to live in NYC forever, but what is long "enough" to live in the place you love?

Plus One

2006-11-05T08:54:00.000+01:00

Mr. Big's friend hit on me last night.

I'll back up.

I had an extremely New York night last night: I had VIP passes to Chris Noth's bar/lounge/club.

Naturally, none of this is nearly as glamorous as it sounds. My stepbrother's band, The Ruse (see left), was playing at the Cutting Room, guest-list only. So I hopped on the subway, which was a bona fide full-moon Saturday night ride, complete with random stops, sudden service changes, loud and inappropriate remarks, people all in my space, and a bottle opening that sounded like a gunshot, setting off a small panic. Apparently, Mary, coming from the opposite direction, had a very similar experience, so we suspect that the ugliness was widespread.

Fortunately, we ran into Jim (aka: my stepbrother) a few blocks from the bar--apparently, all three of us were looking for another bar to go to first. I say it was fortunate because the Cutting Room bouncer later confessed to me that he had lost the list; meeting Jim got us the nifty passes. More than that, it reminded me of just how much less neurotic he is than almost anyone I know. I got to see how a person could walk into a bar without trying to decide if it is really a good fit for them, find a place to dump coats before the rest of us are even inside, and be holding three beers before we're done setting the coats there. It's all very rock star.

So, after all the inevitable reunions and cattiness outside the Cutting Room (the cattiness was me--there was this bitch who...never mind), we wandered into the charming lounge, and within five minutes were bumped into by the famous owner. In fact, he bumped into me three times over the course of the night; swoon if you are so inclined. Adorably enough, the first time he walked by was right after Mary remarked that she never saw famous people in New York. The second time was as she was remarking that it is particularly pretentious to display massive photographs of oneself in one's own bar.

We don't think he heard.

Thinking that that would be our brush with fame for the night, we headed back to the bar just before the Ruse went on--and found ourselves right next to Mr. Noth and some friend of his named Julio, who was quite taken with the two of us. "Watch out for that guy," he yelled in my ear, pointing to his better-known half. "He's delusional...thinks he's some kind of actor or something."

"Probably thinks he owns the place, too," I deadpanned, making the poor man blink furiously. New York is not about seeing celebrities; it's about faking unphased by them. Which is why I will not mention that Mr. Noth is ridiculously attractive in person, nor will I ever admit that Mary and I giggled like schoolgirls every time he walked by. (Speaking of that--oh hell. Someone else was there, too, but it's too overeager to say so now. Never mind.)

Oh, and the show was great, too, although far too short. The last two shows have been, actually--at both, people were chanting for an encore for a good long time but never got one.

I blame Big.

The More Things Change...

2006-11-04T00:18:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking a lot about all the changes Nick faces--in fact, I have been thinking about them ever since the first time he called me as a Parisian. "No one will talk to me," he wailed. "I don't speak French!" Now, strictly speaking, this is not true. Although he never formally studied French until pretty recently, for as long as I've known him he could convey information well, and his comprehension is substantially better than mine.

I knew what he meant, though--it's different when you're thrown in to something entirely new without a net. All you can see is what is unfamiliar. Sooner or later, though, you start to notice that there really are universals. (Sorry, Andrea, but Mentos Cassis aren't on the list.)

Furniture Delivery

Okay, so in Nick's case, it's appliances, but the premise is the same--it's all one with getting cable installed, in a very Platonic sort of way. I'm sure that Nick had his own little shiver of genetically-coded recognition when he heard that his kitchen appliances would be delivered tomorrow. Between 8 and 1.

Neighbors

I have 2 1/2 problem neighbors. The half is the woman upstairs whose place I accidentally broke into last week (yes, both of our locks have now been changed). She wouldn't be a problem, except that my building (and, charmingly, Nick's as well) is built with super-solid walls, paper-thin ceilings, and creaky floors. So while we relax, trusting that the wall construction=great soundproofing, we are all driving the person below us insane. Plus, she uses something that sounds like a blender every night around 1 or 2am.

Unfortunately, I have no idea where the other two live (my windows open onto an echoing courtyard; they could be anywhere), which is inconvenient for sending the police their way. On the upside, I am now an friendly terms with my local graveyard-shift 311 guy. Actually, I have only ever called them about the person who blasts Spanish torch songs at 2am (only every so often, but with disturbing consistency--same music, same time, same duration). The porn star, on the other hand, is far too entertaining to shut down.

Nick has just the one, so far, and at least it isn't malicious: his upstairs neighbor is mostly deaf, and loves television. Remember what I said about the ceilings and floors? Every morning she creaks over to the TV, and turns it on loud enough to be heard in the lobby, three floors down. It's charming, say I, because it will make him less homesick.

Right?

Thugs

I came of age in one of those suburbs where we laughed at the kids with the baggy pants who listened to hip-hop and acted like it was their lives. I'm sorry, but we just don't have "hoods" in Connecticut, and the teenagers who pretend otherwise are just sad.

Apparently, they have those same teenagers in France.

"They must have some sketchier areas," I say, as some 16-year-old boys with piercings and chains harass a girl on the Metro.

"It's France," Nick argues.

But the thing is, I was sitting on the NYC subway the other day on the way out to Washington Heights, and I was watching this kid with a 4-karat chunk of plastic in his ear yo-yoing into his tricked-out cell phone (you get reception around 125th St.). And I caught myself thinking, "Who is he kidding?" And, really, if that isn't the place to find the real thing, then what is?

Is There an Electrician in the House?

2006-11-01T20:28:00.000+01:00

The Backstory

As I may have mentioned, French apartments come mostly without light fixtures. Nick's actually had three: two in the bathroom and one in the WC, plus three more hideous dangling bare bulbs where others might go. Naturally, we picked up some during our epic IKEA trip (I love any excuse to linger in the lighting section). And they were among the first of the things we unpacked to assemble.

And then the ugliness started.

Apparently, two of the fixtures required hooks. And two of the ceiling spaces where the fixtures would go already had hooks. Naturally, those two spaces were not the ones for which we intended those two fixtures, so we needed one new hook, and to get rid of another that was firmly embedded into the plaster.

And speaking of the plaster...

We bought a hook for the really cool kitchen fixture, and then learned some very unfortunate things about the ceiling composition. Specifically, it begins with plaster that flakes off in massive chunks under any stress, and it ends with something too solid for our drill. So we had plaster everywhere, and no way to drill a hole that was even deep enough, much less one that would grip the hook.

At the next spot, we couldn't get around the unnecessary hook, and at the third the wires were too short to thread into the fixture. As a bonus, the tired old wires made it impossible to reattach one of the aforementioned hideous dangling bulbs, so our efforts resulted in a darker apartment.

Nick did not take this well.

And Now

One of the bathroom fixtures burned out today. After two trips to the hardware store, he discovered that fraying on the old wires had caused them to cross, and so the light kept blowing its fuse.

Nick did not take that well, either.

On the plus side, the hardware store confirmed that wire extensions are a real thing (I had theorized them at some point during the frustration). As a result, Nick actually broke even on lighting, because while the bathroom fixture is dead for the time being, he was able to hang the one that he only agreed to get because I like it.

He did not consider that a fair trade.

The Question

Obviously, some of these issues are the direct result of the condition of the building. But other people live there, and they need light, too. In fact, there are old buildings all over the city, and it is hard to imagine that all of them have useless wires dangling from the lightless ceilings.

Has living 25+ years in the USA made us soft? Have we been taking our cushy equipped kitchens and installed lights for granted, and has it made us incapable of fending for ourselves? Is this something we should really learn to do, or something that should simply not be necessary?

In other words, would it be okay to call an electrician? Or would it be a character flaw?

Prelude

2006-10-31T03:07:00.000+01:00

I learned some rather disturbing things this weekend.

But there will be time for that.

Part I: The Departure

When someone offers you tickets to Paris, you go. When that person says things such as: "You can help me pick out stuff at IKEA," and only middle seats are left on the plane, and you have to watch, trembling, as the girl in front of you at the 3rd-Reich-inspired security checkpoint gets her Clinique taken away for being .4oz too large, you still go. And you are grateful for the opportunity.

For those of you who are being offered this trip by someone besides a significant other, solo international travel is an excellent way to meet men (so perhaps women, then, as well). In fact, based on last Thursday, I would strongly suggest that singles who do not wish to stay that way simply head out to JFK and ride around on the AirTrain between terminals for a while. If you are seeking an observant lover, perhaps you should bring a suitcase along, for show.

Disturbing Thing 1

When they tell you in 8th grade that kitchens in France don't come with appliances, it sounds all abstract and charming. In actuality, it means you are worse off than if you were in a hotel, because you don't even get a mini-bar. But that's not all.

The addendum--Thing 1.5, perhaps?--is that you generally don't get light fixtures, either. If you still think this sounds like a fun multicultural experience, you have issues.

Part II: The Apartment

You will be happy to know that Nick is now the proud tenant of a lovely, spacious, light-filled apartment in Paris's 16th Arrondissement. You can see the Eiffel Tower from parts of his street, there are excellent restaurants, markets, bakeries, and two Metro stops right nearby, and a bustling open-air market is half a block away every morning. The place is half of the third floor of the building and has tons of windows, and the walls are this lovely subtle cream with an unusual crosshatch texture, and it glows against the white trim. Even the nubby blue carpet grows on you after a bit.

There are occasional downsides, of course. Curtains of any kind tend to render the large windows completely unopenable, for one. The bathroom appears to have been last touched in 1971, for another. The uneven wall composition that makes hanging shelves a craps shoot, the dangling wires that are too outdated, overpainted, and poorly maintained to connect to the ceiling fixtures that the crumbling plaster ceiling will not support, and the terrifyingly stained bathtub with a shower attachment that fits perfectly into the adjustable holder that won't adjust, flooding the place every time one showers, are all part of the charm, right?

Disturbing Thing 2

IKEA is designed for people who don't see the big picture, but rather happily putter along, one step at a time, until the thing magically appears. Nick is not capable of that. I am perfect for it. Pick whichever one you find more troubling.

To be fair, I was not entirely thrilled to be spending my short time in Paris assembling cabinetry. But Nick is a hardcore nester, and seeing him light up every time a completed piece went into place and it became a tiny bit more of a home was enough to make it a wonderful trip. The fact that I was bribed with rich and buttery dinners every night was just a bonus.

Part III: The Project

Speaking of rich and buttery, my stepbrother and his wife very thoughtfully gave me The French Chef Cookbook, for my birthday. Having been sucked into the Julia Child cult by intrepid blogger/author Julie Powell, I was blissed. So here's my thinking, now that Nick, who likes to cook, will live in France and have a dishwasher: we should make stuff from this book. It has these crazy complicated recipes with incredibly long cooking times, tons of butter/cream, and troublingly explicit butchering instructions. It should be fun.

Disturbing Thing 3

I don't understand French.

Oh, I know what you're thinking: "But, Caroline, I know you! You speak lovely French!" Now, that is true. I can tell funny stories, and make fairly complex points, with a delivery that satisfies even Parisians. But, in every American apologist's nightmare, I can speak, but not understand.

It's not just that people don't always go out of their way to express themselves in my eclectic vocabulary. It's mostly that some kind of Dostoevskyan fog descends on me whenever someone actually responds to me. There is a rushing in my ears, and I can't even think to listen for any familiar words: it's all gibberish. So I order steak frites, and then stare blankly at the waiter who asks me how I want it cooked. Even though they all ask that. Every time. How depressing is that?

Disturbing Thing 4

I hate Americans. It is tough to say whether this is a function of being in Paris (where they do that), or of being with Nick (who does that), but the tourists who comment loudly on all things French in English, which everyone speaks, while wearing neon fanny packs...I have not the words.

We had dinner on Saturday night at a wonderful brasserie--one of those places where even the mushroom soup has sex appeal. (Incidentally, it was the 3rd restaurant we went to. At the first two, Nick announced "Two persons*," and they announced that they were full. At the third, I elbowed him out of the way and used the expression the Parisians do: "We are two." There is something to be said for faking native.) On the downside, we ended up next to four drunken American flight attendants, who shrieked through the whole meal, and confused the poor waitress by demanding to take home the leftover side dishes (the French do not do doggy bags). So here's where it gets messy:

Part IV: The Messy Part

"I smell mushrooms," squeals one of the flight attendants--actually, she was clearly French, so we had hoped that she would be a mellowing influence. It was soon clear that she was just as shrill as the other three.

They all started obsessing about mushrooms, so I quickly devised a plan to shut them up while not inviting any further conversation. "It's me," I say. Now, I can fool Americans into thinking I am French. I speak quickly and complexly, and I can look convincingly blank when they speak English. I cannot, however, fool French people. I give myself away whenever I say an "r," so "Hello," "Thank you," "Pardon me," and "Goodbye" all win me pitying looks. "It's me," however, contains no "r's," and so I had hope.

Until I realized that "I smell mushrooms" was in English.

They didn't like me much after that.

Part V: The Moment

Lest you think it was all backbreaking labor and awkward faux pas, there was a very sweet moment with the couple at the table on the other side of us. It didn't hurt that they initially asked if we were British (the best of the English-speaking hierarchy, on which "American" ranks lowest these days). We began chatting in French, and, by some miracle of wine and relaxation, I actually understood enough to hold up my end of the conversation. At one point, I spontaneously announced that I was trying to learn to cook French food (it could be true--see Part III).

The woman began lamenting the fact that young women in France didn't cook anymore--"It's the way to keep a husband," she claimed.

"How on Earth do you find one?" I asked.

After a while, Nick wandered off to the restroom. The woman leaned over. "He's a good one to learn to cook for," she whispered. I could only agree.

*In italics=in French