Bienvenue à New York

Secretly (more on this below) arriving at JFK airport at 6pm on a Tuesday, I pass through customs with barely a glance from the official guarding the entry to my homeland, grab my 50 lb suitcase and lumber my way to the Manhattan-bound A train.

I take my seat, whereupon I immediately start Murphy's Law-laughing as I realize I've just sat in something that I fervently hope isn't pee. Welcome back to NYC, kK!

****

Two hours later I am bumping my baggage up the steps of St. James Gate, a bar down the street from my sister's apartment. I order a Guinness, half of which goes down the hatch in one sweet gulp. Five minutes later an unsuspecting Willis walks in, thinking her boyfriend is taking her for drinks with one of his old college buddies. Cue majestic orchestral music, slo mo running, and a grunt from my admittedly strong sis as she tries to pick me up over my cries of "too many croissants! too many croissants!"

I am now back in America, land of great crap tv, verbs created out of nouns, and that greatest of all inventions, Goo Gone.

I will not miss:

*Insincere apologies.

GAH! You know, not everything is 'just bien' if you smash into me and spill my hot wine all over my jacket as long as you say "oh, pardon..."in a fake-contrition laden voice...no! It's NOT bien! GET ME A NAPKIN you **bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep**

*Bedrooms so cold I'm forced to sleep in a scarf and long underwear

*Never quite belonging

*Bread not on a bread plate. I'm just sayin'.

*Oddly enough, coffee. OK, so the George V made a mean cafe creme, but at the price of my firstborn child, well, I'll just take Pain Quotidien bowl o' lait any day, and OH YEAH, there are about 800 PQs in New York City, so there! 

I will miss:

*BREAD: Croissants and baguettes

*FOOD: Eggs, vegetables

*Falafal

*Morning coffee and chats with Madame

*Loving America (why is it easier when you're away?)

*Perfect lighting, in that more-shadows-than-light way

*Being an exotic dinner party commodity for la noblesse (LOL!)

*20 Euro-a-month for ALL YOU CAN SEE MOVIES. Including new releases! Sneriously, WTF, and why is that not in play HERE.

***

As Dr. Dumber so aptly documented earlier this year: "Number 1 on my 2010 to-do list: Figure out my life plan!" Well, if anybody has any suggestions for me...hahahaha! Yar, as much as we all know how well-suited I am to
teaching, I think I might prefer to be a hermit. (Do you get paid for that? I guess only if you're someone whose initials are JD Salinger...)

I thought, and I know many of my friends and family thought, that Paris would be "it" for me, that I would never go back to America, at least not in the foreseeable future. I was sort of broadsided by the realization that I actually want, and am ready, to live in America (specifically Seattle, of course). It will rip out my heart to leave, but Paris is in my system for now and always, just like it should be. Paris has given me myself, and I don't think any other place in the world could have done that at this perfectly timed moment in my strange life.

Living in Paris has helped me find a very welcome balance--I know now what I want my life to be like and, more importantly, I know how to make that happen. Letting go of even the silliest thing, like guilt over not going out with friends and instead staying inside to watch an entire season of 30 Rock. Roasting some sweet potatoes and brussels sprouts for dinner. Saying 'yes' to an occasional night of dancing. Reading lots of library books, in an actual library. Watching the rain. Baking with spices that make the kitchen smell like magic. Listening to NPR music podcasts. Weekly acupuncture. The 86-year-old-man Club. Rubbing soft kitty bellies. Walking in the rain. Working a job, dealing with the stress, drinking coffee, surrounding myself with only the best, genuinely good people I have met/will meet. Listening to the rain.

Life is not perfect, bad times are usually lurking and waiting for their opportunity to jump up and drag us down. Sometimes it's good to wallow in the muck, the horrible misery, the deep dark nothing of numbness. But I always know, somewhere in my depths, that left to their own devices, goodness and light will rise up again, cleaning away the slime of sadness and dispersing into invisible mist the unbearable weight of despair.

I know I will suffer some of the usual anxieties, sometimes waste too much energy worrying about something stressful, but I have cut down on the amount of times I let these feelings overwhelm me.

I will remember to breathe.
I will eat foods that make me happy.
I will feel alone without feeling lonely.
I will throw back my head and laugh.
I will not feel guilty.
I will watch fabulous late night movies like Scorpion King Part Deux.
I will feel in my blood every single moment for the rest of my life the play of shadows on the Hotel de Ville at night. The glint of gold off Les Invalides. The smell of the best baguette in Paris. The melting of the gooey chocolate as I pour in hot milk at the cafe on Ile St Louis. The coldness of the beer at the Hash stop at Versailles and my burning legs wrapped in a red dress running through the streets of Paris. The taste of my first dish of root veggies and glass of raw milk.

I will enjoy the rain.

kK

Bien joué: Paris

Ahem. Lights, please.

A picture sometimes really IS worth 1,000 words, but most of the time I think my voice is specialer.

This time, however, I will let my vocal chords take a backseat to my (sometimes piece of sh*t) camera in all its (mostly accidental) glory. This is organized semi-chronologically, although me being kK sometimes there's just randomness that is never explainable to anyone not in my head, and sometimes not even then.

(Dinner on Parisian rooftop patio)

(First hash in Fontainebleau)

(Champagne toast at Montmartre wine festival)

(Sacre Coeur)

La vie quotidienne: One of many days waiting five minutes (or less!) for a train in the awesome-except-for-its-ridiculous-1-to-6-am-closure metro system:

(Parisian Hot Dog. Erm, riiiiiiiight. But of course I ate it anyway.)

(Versailles hash -- OnOn!)

And on one fine day:

(La glace de Bertillon!)

Happiness-in-a-can-baby! However, sacrilegious as it might seem, I am still convinced that Haagen-Daaz is The Best. Ice Cream. Evah.

Speaking of THE BEST:

L'As du Falafal! (Officially endorsed by Lenny Kravtiz. 

Seriously, there's a shrine to him inside and everything.)

And, BEST all around feel-at-home-in-a-café with, rarity among rarities in France, good coffee:

(Visit #16,482 to Pain Quotidien!)

At one point I acquired ...

(Monsieur Le Hot Pink Juicer!)

Later in our French tenure, an unexpected cherry on top:

(Who just saw Greaser rock l'Assassymphonie! LIVE IN CONCERT.)

(Don't worry, I would never deprive you of another chance
to witness the bizarre fabulousness of French music: play on!)

Of course, let's not forget what I was really supposed to be doing:

Raaahahahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

...

In October, there was the hash Halloween Red Dress Run:

And then it was the end of November, time for a very rainy Hash Thanksgiving:

... and ...

Thanksgiving Internationale à la Squash and kK!

Which was followed by a visit to the Christmas market on the Champs with The Pollock and Oxford Comma:

(Hot spiced wine...can anybody say DRUNK ON SUNDAY.)

After Thanksgiving there was:

...where we...

(no, I don't need any more than that! Also read: BRING IT ON.)

...and got all...

And the unforgettable trip to Munchen, where I ...

... and, with the bobsled team ...

... and got all ...

A few weeks later I went home for Christmas, where I got to hang out with these:

And this:

And, of course, this:

(Who doesn't love hashbrowns "all the way" at WaHo!)

Which I promptly:

I can't believe I'm still alive.

Anyway, back in Paris we found:

(Dive café!)

(Elf-ears paging best PIZZA in gai Paris)

I settled in to a new apartment...

(Room with a view) 

...with new housemates:

...got a horizontal-striped shirt:

...was mocked by an amused drunk nearby...

... was co-hare for a hash through the 15th and 16th arrondissements:

(On In!)

...and was welcomed back by my babysitter club:

Of course, there's always an excuse to have a dinner party:

...or a masquerade...

Of course, it's wine o'clock all day on your birthday (or really, let's face it, any other day ending with 'y'):

Besides Munchen, there was the trip to Champagne:

...and let's not forget the 'that can't be real' château...

...or the once-a-decade pilgrimage to Aix:

(TGV to Aix)

(Adorable street musicians on Cours Mirabeau)

Now, there are certain things one must do while living abroad:

(Don't forget to send your family les cartes postales!)

Visit the Musée D'Orsay at least 242 times...

... drink loads of raw milk ...

... hang out with Oscar Wilde ...

... in the best cemetery in the world:

(Père Lachaise!)

... never miss an opportunity to climb to Montmartre in the snow:

... and, if you ever feel ridiculous while trying to speak French, it's necessary to go home to the 86-year-old-man club and sip out of a recycled nutella glass:

Now, when it comes to social activities, never leave home without your quotebook:

1. "Google 'French Military Victories.'"

2. "I can't tell the difference between boy scouts and British people apparently."

3. "Cheers to having big feet and being more stable than the French!"

4. "If you get a juicer, a dog and a baby you're never going back."

5. "My arms must be too tired from lifting all those sandwiches to my face today."

6. "Yeah, he seems like the type that would die."

7. "Unless those sheets are made of chocolate, they can just kiss my ass."

8. "So, you have to go eat head on Saturday?"

9. "That was the fattest baby I've ever seen. It didn't even have kneecaps, just thighs down to its ankles."

10. "Mon phone est plus smart que ton phone."

11. "It's annoying that pathetic people like that get to exist in this world and I have to put up with it."

12. "I couldn't have made a worse stew if I'd invited anarchists to draw up a constitution."

13. "If I wanted to see an exact replica of oranges, I'd eat a fucking orange."

14. "I'm a Virgin addict."

15. "You go ahead and do that, I'm going to sit here and eat some vegetables."

**Quote notes**
1. *[NB: It's not doing it now, but at one point this took you to a google page that said "Your search did not match any documents. Did you mean 'French military defeats'?"]

2. kK, after stone cold soberly misidentifying a group of safari-type clad youngsters with King's English accents.

3. PTPO, concluding a discussion wherein three of us American chicks horrified a few French femmes with the size of our gigantic feet.
4. kK, on what you need to acquire in France to live there the rest of your life.
5. PTPO, on why she was having trouble getting the train door open.

6. The Mermaid, on why she wasn't surprised that some artist or other had died at a young age. 

7. kK, upon finding out the price of a hotel room Squash found pictures of online.

8. PTPO, in reference to my tête de veau dinner with Madame.

9. PTPO, on a coworker's baby.

10. French newspaper ad for smart phones. 

11. PTPO, on whether a particular fellow human being was either pathetic or annoying.

12. Some book somewhere about something.

13. Squash, on why she likes Monet.

14. PTPO, as we stood outside the store under the Louvre. It sank in for her midway through my burst of cackles loud enough to crack La Joconde's smirk to a full on smile.

15. kK, on what I will do as other people spend their time angry or worried or otherwise being shitty.

**End Quote notes**

And now I'd like to take a moment of silence to properly toast the trip with Ageless that started it all, New Year's 2009:

(huh-LO it's called waterproof mascara. Buy some, ya cheap ho.)

And that, folks, is the end of Chapter 29. Commencing Chapter 30 with a bang, as I work part time at a doggie day care in New York City (more on that later), head to Ithaca for the wedding of The Pollock and Oxford Comma, be honorary bridesmaid for Dr. Dumber in her Sikh-style wedding party in Chicago, and then somehow make my way to the Holy Land of Rain, a.k.a. kK's final resting place: Seattle.

woohoo!

kK