I have been trying to

I have been trying to find a book on the history of the Israeli Palestinian conflict for the past few days and have been getting really disheartened. There are no books listed on amazon that aren’t called biased by an angry someone.

I figured i’d have to put myself down for two books then.

One deemed a damn lie by Jews, and one deemed a damn lie by Palestinians. I definitely don’t know enough about the history of the region to be able to have a defensible opinion, but the thing is, i don’t believe *anyone* who talks, reports, writes, pontificates, or anything else on it. I can’t help but be suspicious of all them and their motives. So it’s hard to decide where to start. I mostly went for the ones’ whose writing samples didn’t put me to sleep. I don’t read too much book length non-fiction these days, so i need to be charmed back into the genre.

  • Nov 26
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So it’s sorta been a

So it’s sorta been a bum weekend as weekends go. Sunday evenings are always difficult, what with staring down another week of work like it’s the barrel of a gun, and the added difficulty of how little daylight the winters provide here. Retribution for the 10pm sunsets in july i suppose.

I went for some exploration in Pigalle and Montmarte today. There are certain streets that i am just sort of drawn too. I was pondering what was it about these certain streets, and i realized they are the streets that are narrow and have trash on the sidewalks and in the gutters. I also remember pointing out one such street to my mom when she was here, and she said “That’s cause this street looks like it could be in New York”. Hmm.

Otherwise, it was just sort of grey and gloomy, and i’m beginning to feel a bit apprehensive about how much time i spend online. I mean i like the web, i really like it. But is it kind of unhealthy? Isolating maybe? Am i missing some sort of life-changing Paris experience by spending so many evenings a week with my head in my laptop? There must be others out there that have had a similar dilemma. I waffle between thinking that the connection it provides me to my old life in New York keeps me from getting too lonely, and then having the sneaking suspicion that maybe this connection to my old life is keeping me at arms length from my new one. Hmm.. I really don’t know. What do you think? Then again, i think to myself, i do do quite a bit here. I have this gnawing need for deeper relationships than i’ve found here so far, but of course i’ve had that feeling in New York many many times. Right. Right?

I didn’t come here for a life-changing experience. I mostly came so i wouldn’t have to face being unemployed in the dwindling economy of New York. And from that angle, it’s proved to be the right decision. I don’t handle indefinite unemployment very well. Anyway life changing, and the thrill of living in Paris weren’t really part of it. But this is hard to convey to most people i know. Most people have the totally understandable reaction of “You lucky bitch.” And to be honest, there are certainly those moments where i look around me, and something particularly french and beautiful strikes me and i *am* utterly amazed at my luck. Those moments happened a lot in the beginning, but they are sort of few now. I guess the novelty’s worn off. Mostly i am just trudging along with life now. Everyone says the period between the novelty and the fitting-in are truly difficult. Knowing this helps a little, but it is a very real fear for me that the fitting-in is just never going to happen.

And i do feel this certain pressure to have a life-changing experience. I asked my friend Ethan if it would ruin my street cred’ if i came back before a year was up. He said no but i didn’t believe him. Anyway it would ruin my street cred’ with myself which is what counts, right? And more to the point, i ain’t goin back without either a job or at least 10 grand in the bank. Neither of which could plausibly happen before March. And then i have a few excursions planned for April. And by that point maybe i’ll fit in, and if i don’t i can certainly suck it up for 2 more months for the sake of my reputation. Well there’s the rationalization anyway. I feel better already. Really, i do feel better. Who needs a shrink when you have a blog?

  • Nov 25
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i can’t say it better

i can’t say it better than peter did about this.

  • Nov 25
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New pics! Fall in NYC

New pics! Fall in NYC

  • Nov 24
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I missed an excursion to

I missed an excursion to the catacombs tonight due to the totally ridiculous amount of drinking i did last night. Originally i wasn’t even planning on going out last night. This past week has kicked my ass big time. All i wanted to do this weekend was sleep, move my website to another server, and generally regroup. But much to my dismay i woke up at noon with a pounding headache and longing to talk-to-john-on-the-big-white-phone (trans: barf). I spent half the day in bed cuddling with a can of coke and a magazine. And the other half getting lost in my own neighborhood. I did buy a new hat since my last one got burned during a fire performance at a halloween party (note: i’m almost finished cropping all the pics from ny).

So yeah i suck. No errands, no catacombs. And the key to this city is to target your hungover-do-nothing-but-veg-all-day days to sunday because *nothing* is open on sunday. No dept stores, no supermarket, no boulangerie even (at least not the good one). If you have anything you need to do or buy, ya better do it saturday or wait a whole nother week. Thus i pushed myself outta the apt to get the hat. It’s a cute hat. See:

Yeah i left the flash on, i’m hungover ok? Oh and yes my hair is strait, just got a haircut. Fear not, it won’t last.

So then a total hottie on a bicycle, in a cute hat himself, stopped to ask me for directions to St. Michel. I know where it is but couldn’t think of the word for across (as in “across the seine” – it’s “à travers”). I pulled out the standard “excuse me for my lousy french”. And he said “ok, in english?” His english was quite good, like everyone’s here. Mastering another language is proving to be one of the most difficult things i’ve ever attempted, harder than calculus. All these people, like my entire family, who know 4 or 5 amaze me. Anyway I was hoping cute hat boy would invite me along to wherever he was going, but no dice. This is an indication of where i am on the love life scale here: That was the highlight of my day.

So it’s saturday night and i am going to stay in, listen to stevie nicks, write some embarrassingly tardy emails and maybe watch a DVD. Getting the hosting service is going to have to be rescheduled. I’m having a leftover beer from my party and for the first time today i am feeling like a normal person.

  • Nov 24
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I joined the weblogger secret

I joined the weblogger secret santa gift exchange today. This is good for a few reasons. One being that i will prolly get stiffed on the xmas/birthday presents this year considering i’m so far away from from everyone who loves me. I can’t complain too much though because in return it will relieve my bank account which took quite a beating from 12 days (of doing not all that much) in new york city. Also because it gave me a chance to update my wish list. Check it out. Of course buy me any or all of it, but more importantly i *love* browsing people’s wish lists. It tells you tons about ‘em.

As an added note, i’m also listening to a lionel richie mp3 at the moment. I shudder to think what that might say about me.

  • Nov 23
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Last night i saw The

Last night i saw The Man Who Wasn’t There. It was fantastic. At one point in the movie i could only think to myself, “How is it that the Coen brothers always make such great movies?”

I completely forgot it was thanksgiving until yesterday. As everyone is off watching football and eating turkey (or just laying around smoking cigarettes as is probably the case with my friends), here in the old world it’s business as usual. There is a big commotion in the office today as all the windows machines’ hard drives have been forcibly shared on the network. Angry e-mails in all caps are bouncing around. Here’s a taste:

Je trouve ca tout simplement SCANDALEUX

I like these angry e-mails, not just for the drama, but for the fact that their indignant tones are written in a very simple present tense, for which i need not even use the BabelFish Translator even once. If i were a lesser employee i would send an e-mail saying something to the effect of, “Nya nya nya, too bad you don’t have a mac, sucka.” I’d need the translator for that though.

More later folks…

So, while i was in

So, while i was in New York, a bunch of New Yorker magazines and a Harper’s piled up in my mailbox. A few of them were very late, due to the anthrax scares i can only surmise. The others just piled. Anyway, it’s interesting to read “current” writing a few weeks late. I really suggest everyone try it. One can get a feeling for which writers actually think about how their pieces might stand the test of events, and which just go for the high drama. But of course, the high drama is way more fun to read. Go figure.

High drama here? Not much, unfortunately, i think. I just did three loads of laundry. That qualifies as drama for me. Every time i do laundry at a laundromat i have a Scarlett O’hara moment: Picture a girl, kinda well dressed (because all her other clothes are dirty) “As god is my witness, i will have a washer-dryer of my very own someday”. It must be my quasi-suburban upper-middle class upbringing, but i loathe thinking of laundry as something that you do on it’s own. It should be something you do while you do something else. While you’re cleaning, while you’re hungover, while you’re watching moesha. You get my drift.

Since the cops came and

Since the cops came and my place was trashed, i think i will call my soiree a success. We were a small group but rowdy nonetheless, and the food went over great. Only a few baked dried apricots stuffed with goat cheese and walnuts left. (yes i’m showing off – i took pictures of all the food too).

Today was my first metro strike. When i got to my platform and saw a lot of people waiting, of course i took it as a good sign. That meant a train was just about to come. But no. A few minutes later a woman made a recorded announcement on the loudspeaker. I didn’t really understand any of it the first time except for the mention of the name of the station before mine, Chatelet. About half the people in the station left. That leaving half got replaced by a new swarm of commuters and the message came on again. This time i strained to pay attention. What i understood was, “As a result of a social situation at Chatelet the 11 train is being delayed”. I was sure there was some idiomatic usage i wasn’t getting because i could only conjure up a train full of parisians spontaneously erupting into a love-in or something. Forgetting it was fucking freezing, i decided to take the bus, since it would give me a chance to get a coffee i hadn’t had yet. Me and ten others watched our bus stalled for 10 minutes behind a truck that had simply been parked in the center of the road coming out of the busiest intersection in my neighborhood. This was causing not only the delay of bus 75, but an enormous bottleneck behind it. No one was grumbling at the bus stop, there was just sort of a collective disbelief. After what seemed like an eternity (but was only like 10 minutes), the owner of the truck casually walked back to his vehicle. When i got to work i found everyone at the cafe. The marketing folks were booting up their laptops, everyone else was playing cards. An electrician over the weekend had accidentally cut the wires which controlled the magnets on the doors. We were locked out. It could be funny, but between the strike, the painful bus ride, and the electrician i calculated about 2 hours of sleep that was denied me for absolutely no reason this morning.

Other than that, i’m at about 10 on the PMS scale so i’m going to spare anyone who’s still reading the pages of crabbiness i’d come up with if i continued on this here post today. First on my list would be the unending damp coldness here. See you don’t want to read about that do you? You oughta read some adolescent boy comments on fark instead.

The Star Wars Episode II

The Star Wars Episode II trailer is up. The acting looks atrocious but if anyone hasn’t fallen in love with Natalie Portman yet, there’s no saving you now.

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