"Red wine on paint", 2008.

I am as accident-prone and as unable to tolerate wine as a 4 year-old. The only way I even got into kindergarten was sleeping my way in. I won the Best Napper award in Pre-K!

So, I have had bad experiences with red wine in the past. But typically this involves over-ingestion and embarrassing dancing. For example, the night this picture was taken. The look of drunken pain on my face pretty much sums it up:


I inflicted that pain, in vomit form, all over Richard's flat in the 15th arrondissement, and about 12 pairs of shoes. Sorry, guys.

Tonight though, red wine and I had an even more unfortunate encounter.

It had been a bad day. I had to investigate my visa status, and visit the bank. Both involved kowtowing to mean French bureaucrats. Who eat puppies. Lest we forget.

Coming home in a storm, I decide I could use some red wine, pick up the bottle of Bourgeuil, and realise I don't have a corkscrew. And neither does the flat I'm staying in.

Building up steam, I decide to take a small knife, and start jabbing it into the cork.
"This is a bad idea," I think. I keep going.

No, no. I'll ask the neighbors for one. Sure, my next door neighbor tends to fall asleep with the door open, passed out onto his bed (I'm convinced he's a heroin addict, after watching too much Intervention). So, I knock on his door.

"Hi, it's your neighbor!"

"No."

(I pause). "It's your neighbor who lives next door?"

(he pauses, realising you can't deny fact. Although I think he's trying)

He says he doesn't have a corkscrew. What kind of French person DOESN'T HAVE A CORKSCREW. Creepy motherf**** I think, and go back the 1/2 step to my apartment.

I pick up the knife, then go for the carving fork. This seems like an excellent improvement over the paring knife.

So I'm pushing desperately when all of a sudden, the cork gives, and out comes a GEYSER of red wine, all over my face, my Reiss sweater, and, most unfortunately of all, the wall of my friend's flat.

It wasn't just a spill. At least I don't have to re-paint my friend's kitchen for just a measly spill. This was a work to make Pollack jealous. I can't wait until I'm famous. I can just see the interview:

"Well my inspiration really was my frustration. Not merely my own, but society's frustration with its own bureaucratic constraints. What this red wine-on-paint study really represents is the brutal force we have in all of us; the violence of life."

I'm half-laughing, half-crying when I hear a knock on the door. It's my neighbor.

"I found a corkscrew."

Ergo, frigo

Maybe it's my roommate's Atkins diet, maybe it's nostalgia, but I've been getting pretty sad looking at our fridge recently. Then it occured to me what a freakishly perfect microcosm of our life in Paris the door is.

Without further ado, the contents of our
fridge door:

-Not 1, but 2 noise violation notices from the police, for "Tapage nocturne; cris, chants, et musique enregistrée." This has launched a not so subtle war with the neighbors, which climaxed in The Pear Incident, in which a neighbor threw a pear at Cesi out their window. They threw. A pear. On purpose.

1 label from a tan of unidentifiable Southeast Asian fruit. Reads:
MANGO STEEN IN SYRUP "COCK" (we are approximately 12 years old)

- 7 Marie Antoinette magnets, courtesy of Andrea Mack. We liked Versailles a lot, we preferred the fridge magnets.

- 1 rejection letter from large law firm.

- Various notes on pink pads. Notably:

- "BE CAREFUL OPENING FREEZER, VODKA WILL FALL."
(we have subsisted on a few litres of Vodka from Miami International Apartment all semester. I would have legally adopted them if it were legally possible for man and alcohol to share that sort of bond.)

-"THINGS BROKEN": (this is a sad, sad list)
The list of glasses broken is so long, we have started attributing financial responsibility to the dog.

...It will be tough to leave this flat. But all I know is I'm investing in plastic cups and insulation wherever I move next.

Pas tes oignons

This is what I opened the door to, recently:



French garbage man's jacket: 3 euros

Pants : 8 USD

Staying on Francescas' couch: 0 euros

10 Kilos of Onions, brought by foot from North Paris: 5 euros

5.614 Kilos of Quinoa (not pictured): 19.8 Euros

Being told the stove doesn't work: priceless.


...Those onions are rotting in our kitchen as we speak.

Gestion de colère

It's been difficult to respond to the question "How's Paris?" of late. Paris is amazing. Of course. Everyone knows that. Paris could be completely charming under 9 out of the 10 biblical plagues. Raining locusts? Why, locusts would compliment the muted greys of Parisian buildings just splendidly!

But, Paris is largely irrelevant to my quotidien. Sciences Po is not Paris, Sciences Po is a crock pot of simmering academic rage at the moment. I didn't think it had gotten to me until yesterday.

I kicked someone. A stranger.

And she totally deserved it.

I delivered a (gentle) kick to the shins to an American girl eating a tuna and egg sandwich across from me in the library yesterday.

In my defense, I wouldn't have kicked her if:

1) This had been her first offense (she was eating a panini last time)
2) The library weren't so crowded that I was practically face-first in her egg baguette. (EGG, people, EGGs in the library)
3) I hadn't been in the library for 6 hours in a row already.


I passed it off as an accident. But I don't regret it. Not only is it stinky; she's in FRANCE. The only place where public social norms are stronger than in Britain. Whereas in London people just look away uncomfortably, in Paris they will MAKE YOU PAY. I consider my foot merely an instrument of public opinion.

To the anonymous library glutton, I offer this warning: If I have to follow social norms, so don't you, my pudgy compatriote. Don't MAKE me kick you again.

Prescott v. Sarkozy

Say what you like about France, but you can't beat French politics.

France, bless, has had more than its fair share of mistresses, illegitimate children, and displays of public drunkenness from the Presidents and the Prime Ministers, and this was all before Nicolas Sarkozy.

A look at this week in French Politics:

Briefly put, noone likes Sarkozy. But, let's give him some slack. He's had a busy past 9 weeks. In that period of time, lest we forget, he has
-Starting dating a woman (Carla Bruni)
-Married her
-Lost like a couple dozen percentage points in popularity.

And, in possibly my favorite presidential move of all time, ze...'ow do you say, ze cherry on ze cake:

Essentially, Sarkozy was flesh-pressing at the Salon de L'agriculture (conference center in Paris, chock-a-block with French farmers, their cows, and their cheese, etc.)

When some man gets upset that Sarkozy is, well, pressing his flesh.

Le dude: Don't touch me.

Sarkozy: Piss off.

Le dude: You dirty me.

Sarkozy: Piss off then, you pathetic ass.

There's nothing not hilarious about this. 'Pauvre con' (pathetic ass) has been the catchphrase for the past week, and will continue to be so for say, the next 6 months.

But let's not forget second favorite act of political violence, from (gasp)...a Brit. John Prescott, deputy prime minister, had a slight issue with a farmer as well:



Man, I'm sorry, bring on the fights. Surely, we need more verbal and physical abuse from our elected leaders. The U.S. just needs to catch up. I'm sure Hilary Clinton could definitely hurt a bitch if forced to do so...

An Open Letter to Paris, France on Valentine's Day

Mon cher Paris,

Baby I'm sorry. Take me back. I know, I know, I haven't called. And I've been spending a lot of time with your older, more successful sister. But she's not nearly as pretty as you are. London? London means nothing to me.

I mean, who needs politeness. London's polite, but you, my dear are sexy. And you know it.
I'll take you back, warts (fonctionnaires) and all, if you'll let me cuddle up to you again, because....

Baby, I love you even though your garbage cans look like used condoms:



I love you even though most of your male inhabitants look like they've been attacked by an evil squid master race, disguised as scarves:

(unsuspecting Parisian male victim)

And Baby, I love you because of vignettes like this: Today I was in my local tabac, standing up at the bar drinking a coffee, like an old man, because it's 1 euro cheaper. Excellent. I am brought back to attention from a little Parisian daydream by snippets of the following conversation:

"Baiser (To fuck, in French)...Fuck...Baiser....fuck..."


[This conversation is taking place between the two owners of the café, and the old guy sitting at the counter. I immediately tune in.]


"Oui, les phoques......" (aha! not fuck, but phoques, which means seal)

"...quand ils reproduisent, c'est de la folie! C'est pour ça qu'on dit 'Baiser comme une phoque'"
(When they reproduce, it's madness! That's why they say, 'To fuck like a seal')

(Seals, really?! I think to myself. Is this why they, you know, club them? Moralizing Canadians on a rampage? I mean, look at this: Does this look like a rapaciously sexual animal?)

'Oui, même les petites phoques ont des besoins...'

Then, partially inebriated old man interjects. Mais non!

"Non, non! Pas une phoque, mais un foc, f-o-c...."

(So, not fuck, not phoque, but, rather, foc, which apparently means sail, like a sailboat: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foc)

[We all stare. How could you have sex like an inanimate object?]

"Le foc, it goes wherever the wind takes it, to right and to left....you know...."

[He gesticulatres wildly, showing the fluidity of a sail, and someone whose pants are similarly loose...]

'I never knew that,' we all agree. Linguistic enlightenment in a dank tabac-café; oh, Paris.

So, a happy belated Valentine's day to you, Paris, and to all you out there.

May your date have the morals of a sailboat.

The Sisterhood of the Granny Pants

Surrounded by 7 naked aging New Yorkers, it occured to me how weird South Florida can be. I have enjoyed my time here so far, despite all the gnashing of teeth before leaving London. I mean, Delray Beach is a lovely place; there's a reason this town is best known for rehab and hospice. It's about the comfort level of, and the temperature of, the womb:

(East Delray Beach, darling:)



But, I digress.
On that Thursday, I had gathered a few hundred pounds of discounted designer clothing and was corralled into the changing room. A massive, communal changing room.

There's something sort of comforting by being surrounded by pudgy naked old women. Mainly, the obvious Schadenfreude (My life may be a mess, but at least I don't look like cottage cheese).

Everything was fine until I tried on a formal dress. An obviously Marilyn Monroe-styled dress (empire waist, two separate boob restraints.) I'm admiring myself in the mirror when the fitting room attendant comes in and addresses all of us:

"DON'T FORGET TO HANG UP THAH ITEMS THATCHA DON'T PURCHASE..."

Then, she looks at me.

" OH HONEY, THAT'S TOO OPEN, CLOSE UP YOUR TOP"

All 12 grannies stare at me. I can see the look of 'My grandson is never marrying a Shiksa like you," on their vicious, shriveled faces.

Mortified, I look in the mirror. I thought that was Acceptable-Cleavage, not You-Should-Be- Ashamed-Of-Yourself-Cleavage. None of them being maternally related to me, I don't recall them having the right to make me feel so inadequate. I blush and immediately start clutching the dress to my chest.

Then, the woman next to me turns me and offers,

"Dahlink, don't vorry about it, it's in fvashion at ze moment."

"Thank you..." I stammer. Conversing with naked old women is beginning to seem normal at this point.

My hero. She's not a day under 85 years old, and (quite seriously, considering I was in Boca Raton and considering her accent) could very well have been a Holocaust survivor. She's now wearing naught but big white granny pants and gold platform sandals. Having survived an atrocity, she's definitely earned the right to wear atrociously inappropriate sandals. Amen, sistah.

I give her an appreciative look, grab all my clothes and flee the changing room.

I'm not sure how I grew up here, but I kind of love that I did.