It's decided. Without a word, we beeline to the two open spots.

There we meet the bar "bouncer" of sorts. Maybe he's the owner. Or maybe he's just the master of the pimp ring so obviously running out of the joint. The place is crawling with 20- or 30-something women in superbly small, tight black skirts and any sort of shirt that allows for as much exposed midriff as possible. Current Parisian fashion calls for an Incredible-Hulk-like ripped look, so many of these skanky girlies have clothes that make it seem as if they have just come out victorious after a bar brawl. Their smiling, empty faces are accompanied by the scraps of clothing left hanging on their bodies. But really, just tiny little scraps.

K and I have been giggling about the general atmosphere for the last fifteen minutes, when the short, slightly round older Asian man with big, thick glasses asks us in perfect English with a slight accent, "Where are you from?"

K doesn't miss a minute. "Australia."
"Oh really? Where about?"
"Sydney."

From our little interaction we learn that this silly little man's name is Tony, that he stopped in Paris for a vacation of two weeks and has lived here ever since (35 years). He also knows everybody in the bar, and regularly gets up to kiss the girls on their cheeks or to shake the boys' hands.

K and I go back to our giggling and useless chatter. It's a pleasant night, and the harmless hos make for excellent conversation pieces. One just walked away with that funny-looking tall guy. And why is that man that is wearing a hat that says "Le Photographe" sweeping the sidewalk so obsessively? He has a camera dangling from his neck. A man with ugly silver pants walks in with one of the whores. K suggests he just got a quickie from her. I suggest he just hasn't accepted his true sexual orientation yet and he uses whores as a means of compensation.

K pulls out the little baby chick from the front pocket with her quirky little smile.

"She really needs a name," she says, getting back to business. She props the birdie down on the back of the chair in front of us, on the opposite side of our table. The yellow, soft thing is staring unabashedly and its two orange legs are defiantly sticking out towards us.

Tony comes back over and sits down in the chair next to the chick. He doesn't seem bothered by the fact that two grown women have just pulled out a tiny stuffed animal and sat it on the back of a bar chair.

I lean to K and say, "Do you dare me to ask Tony what we should name her?"

"Do it."

"So, Tony. Can you help us? We have this chick here, you see. But we can't figure out what to call her. And we know it's a her because we just know that she's a girl. So, would you happen to have any idea what her name might be?"

Tony turns his head to his right and stares down at the little chick. A thought or two might run through his head: why is this thing on the back of this chair? Who are these weird Australian girls that are asking me such a ridiculous question? And why are they bothering me about this at three am when I am so obviously just trying to run my business?

He looks up at both of us.

"Jessica?" he offers, and gets up to say hello to someone else.

No questions asked. K and I look at one another wide-eyed. How did Tony know? That was the perfect name.

If interested, you can find the rest here.

With her entrance came the commotion. In a voice that made me think someone was dying right there on bus 89, she cried "I have to get to the back of the bus!" as she rammed her way through the sardine-like mob of commuters. She continued proclaming at an uncomfortable volume, "Please, move! I have to get to the back! Oooh!" Her final yelp was like a whimpering ghost as it makes its final exit: the urgent voice that echoes through corridors and haunts children in nightmares.

In her wake she left mixed stares and stifled giggles. The young, boisterous woman in front of me made some smart remark. The old man in tweed to my left looked at me with a curious combination of bewilderment and concern. The elderly pair of sisters to the right just chuckled to one another.

Once this wildly dressed misfit reached the back of the bus, she began incoherently explaining the state of things to those around her. A soapbox psychobabble flowed from her at an astonishing rate and volume. Her gestures and manner were a bit violent, which concerned a young mother sitting with her small child next to where the woman was barking out some bus-related story. The mother switched seats with her son as gracefully as possible.

The gushing river of words continued for two stops. As the bus driver pressed the gas as if to pull away from the second stop, he was halted by another harrowing cry from the Back of the Bus. "No!!!! No!!!! I must get off the bus!!!"

She literally began flinging people - old, young, weak, strong - as she groped her way down the small bus aisle. She grabbed the arm of the young woman in front of me (making smart remarks again) and pushed her backwards into me. We were both surprised at the force with which those wrinkly, spotted hands propelled the startled young woman. As I helped her recover, she yelled "Good riddance!" just as Ms. Back of the Bus jumped expertly and disturbingly gracefully off the step.

When she landed, she did a dramatic and exagerated half-turn on her heel, snapped her arm into the air like a flamenco dancer, tossed her head back in exultation and catapulted herself toward her future.

As the doors closed, the entire bus laughed - hesitatingly at first and then uproariously. Strangers commented to one another, a few mumbled sentences exploring the extent of the woman's insanity.

I just smiled. Something about that red and black flurry of psychotic energy just reminded me how much I love living in the city - and all its inhabitants.

The glumness always, without fail, sets in when I have far too much time ahead of me, alone, with nothing in particular with which I wish to fill it. So yes, maybe it's true, maybe I am just filling my life with small, useless activities to avoid confronting the deep-rooted depression that surfaces whenever I am forced to pause for a moment. That could be true. But you know what, I really don't care. Because if that's the case, it's really fucking deep/ I mean, it's way the fuck down there. And there's no chance I'm going to look that far inside of myself regularly enough to get in touch with it.

So today I had a panic moment of impending glumness. Already I posted about the smog this morning. And then I went to class and the teacher's friend had died. Then I went and got some tea because I didn't have any money to do anything else, so I just sat with my tea and stared. And then I came home and read about the war and wanted to curl up in bed. My homework was unappealing. My concentration level was low. I was tired and bored and had nobody to talk to. That tends to make me glum.

And so for the first time in my life, I just up and decided to go to an evening movie by myself. I've done this before during the daytime. Somehow it seemed so much more odd to do it at night.

It was superbly entertaining. I settled into my seat, only two down from a woman in her mid-sixties that was also in the theater by herself. I found that reassuring. I streched my legs, and giggled ad the advertisements before the film (they have ads and previews here befoehand, but more ads than previews). Mostly, I pondered why I don't go to movies alone more often.

Then a big fat man came and sat next to me. Of all the empty seats. He smelled like booze. Everytime he wanted to change positions, he had to sort of life himself out of the seat entirely because his body took up the entire seat. I had to lean to the far right to avoid the imposing mass on my left. And he must have burped his boozy breath my way at least thirteen times throughout the movie.

That's really not appropriate behavior.

But still, I had a great time. One piece of advice: if you're in a glum mood, and you're thinking a movie might cheer you up, just don't go see "The Hours."

However, I have officially declared this week Crazy Movie Week due to my realization that going to movies randomly is an excellent form of entertainment. I regularly forget how much I enjoy going to the cinema. Who cares that I didn't even like the movie? I still had a dandy time. So later in the week, I will go see "25th Hour," "The Magdalene Sisters" and "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (going to movies here is cheaper than renting them sometimes. A daytime showing costs me four euros, and an evening showing is set at 5.50 with my student idea.)

Dp you have any other suggestions for Crazy Movie Week?

I had a flourescent orange dress. It hung close to my body, and called a lot of attention to it like cones on the street around construction areas. It clashed in just the right way with my moonboots - big, black Marilyn Manson-esque machines that crawled up to my knees in a space-age leathered contraption. My pale white skin was also emphasized in a particularly uncomplimentary way.

A friend and I went to Switzerland and I found myself a pair of low-riding sailor pants. I wore them everyday for the next eight months with any new, slightly off combination I could find from one of the local second-hand stores. I madly combed the city for cowboy boots.

But then things slowly began to change. It started with a new coat. It was grey, hooded, and long. I had to admit it looked cute and school-girlish compared to my bulky, wild hippie machine from the previous year. Plain black buttons replaced the strange little hooks. It came in at the waist, creating a sleeker look. A more respectable one.

And then more changes came. And more.

Americans wear white socks. If you're ever in Europe and doubting if someone is American from a distance, just look at the socks. I suppose as I traded in my white athletic tube socks for the more refined European black knee-highs, I also gave up a part of myself that felt it needed to stick out in a crowd. For four years, I had always looked for the eccentric. And slowly, I found myself searching out the simple.

Once I realized what sort of fashion change I was making, I dove in at once. My wardrobe was in a sort of schizophrenic state for about a year as the changes began taking place: sleek, gray pants, button-down fitted collared shirts, strappy sandals, classic v-neck sweaters.

Eventually, I thought I had gathered a wardrobe more in synch with my Parisian self. One that went more with my new state of mind: upon arriving in France I had been a 19-year-old fan of Parliament that had spent all summer cocktail waitressing in the sun. After two years, I felt more adult, more cosmopolitan, more calm.

And one day, I decided to clear out the wardrobe, doing away with anything that had not been worn in the last six months. It was strange, almost a cleansing. I felt as if I was packing away my former self, not so much throwing it away as recognizing that I had changed. I know superficial appearances are only just that: superficial. But there had been memories tied up to most of those clothes that I had long since decided were now too outrageous, or simply too tacky, for me to wear around town.

I tossed the orange dress, the horrific jacket, the moonboots. I only kept one thing, one very special pair of bellbottoms that I wore to the Lenny Kravitz concert in 1998 when I was 18. They have studs running all up and down the legs on both sides, studs that yell out "I am a funk machine, babycakes! You better watch out for this funky bunny!" I just couldn't part with it.

I sometimes wonder who has some of my t-shirts.

I had one that was particularly form-fitting that I had worn to work one day. My friend and coworker Tim stopped by with his two year old daughter. The two of them came into the back office as I was talking to my bosses and we got to chatting. As he was holding her in his right arm, she leaned over and grabbed my boob and said, "What that?" The four of us squeemishly tried to pretend the scene before us wasn't unravelling as it so obviously was, but little Zoe only became more insistent. She grabbed my left breast to the point of pain and said, "What IS that?" as I reeled back in pain. Tim blushed and said, "Apparently this is the age where toddlers are a little more interested in the...um...the female bosom." Even my ears turned red and my boss made some sort of crack.

Another shirt said along the front "If you can't take a joke..." and nothing more. Curious customers would always ask me what the rest of it was. There was nothing on the backside, and I would often overhear people casually discussing what they thought it meant. The problem was that the rest of the joke was on the inside of the shirt, and I would have to pull up the bottom part to reveal the punchline: "...FUCK YOU!" It wasn't really funny, and I knew that. But it was a comfortable t-shirt - long and stretchy and just the right size without being bulky and unattractive. With some customers - those that were my age and were just in the restaurant to have a beer or some nachos - I would show them the rest of it if asked. They would always say something like, "Duuuudde. Can I just ask you something?" After approval, the elected speaker would continue, "Yeah...well, dude, we were just wondering. Like, your shirt. What's the joke?" But it was always problematic when more respectable clients would ask me about it. I would lie and say, "I don't know. It's not my shirt. I just borrowed it really quickly." But I'm a horrible liar and would get all flustered and would end up spilling the water or something. Without fail.

One of my favorite shirts came straight out of the early 80's. It sported an Apple logo, but old-school style in a rainbow that crossed from my right shoulder down to the left hip across my entire front. The little apple sign that is still used was at the end of the rainbow, but it was just cut out of the greater rainbow image. It was a beautiful shirt. I decided to wear it to my first day of work at a bar that had live jazz on the outside terrace. Before going into work in the afternoon, I spent the morning moving some of my stuff into a storage space outside of town. Driving into work, I noticed a huge grease mark that covered most of my right breast that I must have gotten while unloading my truck's trunk. Horrified, I called into work and said I was on my way, but that I needed to pick up a t-shirt because I had gotten a stain on my clothes. Crawling into Capitola, where I worked, traffic was in a jam and I couldn't find a place to park. By the time I got settled, I was already 10 minutes late to my first day - the 4th of July. It was supposedly the restaurant's busiest day of the year because it was the only restaurant at the end of the pier - ideal for watching fireworks. I hurriedly popped into the first shop I could find selling t-shirts, and I bought a large strappy tank top without even trying it on. I ran down to the pier, switched my shirts, and checked myself out in the mirror. I was a cleavage machine, and the minsicule little tank left little room for the imagination. I was mortiifed, but between a clementine-sized grease spot and excessive cleavage, I decided to go with the cleave. Even worse, when I waited tables at that restaurant, I was forced to do a lot of bending down in order to hear the customers because the music was so loud. But hey, I made over $200 in tips that day.

Clothes have stories, too, you see. And to throw them all away was in its own little way heartbreaking.

I just found my yellow studded bellbottoms. The special ones I saved just because I couldn't part. I put them on, and miraculously still fit in the pants I bought when I was 18. That's good news. But even better news is that I looked at myself in the mirror, recognized a part of myself from my past, and smiled.

These pants aren't me anymore. But it was fun to feel my old self, to remember where I was just a few years back, and to think about how many changes I have made since. I'm still the same old funky bunny. I've just grown up a little bit. But only a little.

Not seconds after writing that last paragraph, I heard sudden, more frantic cries from the crowds. It was the sound of what was obviously groups of people reacting to a brusque movement or unpleasant turn of events. I hopped up to my window and looked down below to see that half the people had fled the plaza, and that they were frantically running up my tiny little one-way street, shooting out snot rockets and hacking as they trampled one another to get to fresher air. I'm assuming pepper gas was used. The plaza is now hazy and crazy and the mood has obviously changed - there now seems to be a sort of urgency to their protest. I had been planning on walking down to ask a few people some details about the from wheres and where tos, but I think I'll now just peacefully observe the whole thing from my sixth/seventh floor window.

I just saw the riot police beat down on someone from up here. They chased him as he ran away in their little helmeted heads and their big club sticks. I only take solace in the fact that somebody clearly caught the whole thing on film; I saw several camera flashes go off at the time of the assault. It was like that beginning scene from "La Haine."

Someone threw a large firecracker or something like that - it let off a blast of light and some sort of smoke that sent people running. Nevertheless, the ruthless protestors are still pouring in from the main street they have been coming from since this all started almost an hour ago.

Their chants are now accompanied by drum beats, and those that have just come upon the plaza and those that have decided to stay have taken to singing up in unison.

An occasionally loud booing comes from he crowd; I assume this is from when the riot police go after someone new. My window is open and whatever they had let loose in the plaza is seeping in - I'm going to have to go close it. I don't know how the people below can stand it - it is so thick I can see it hovering above the entire plaza in a hazy, orange cloud above the crowd.

Over an hour into the protest: I have to stop looking out my window - or at least watch the action in small doses - the air hurts my eyes and they tear immediately, and I can't see what is going on. The people below seem alright, I guess it has just worked its way upwards. All my neighbors that had jumped to look out have now shut both the windows and the volets. Maybe they just want to eat their dinner in peace. There is a group of Spanish-speaking tourists at the hotel next to me that have gotten the entire thing on video. I regret that my little camera is out of batteries.

I turned on RFI (French radio channel that I listen to via the website) to see if I could hear anything. They began talking about an unexpected protest, thousands of people, freaking the government out, what have you. It turns out it had been in Cairo, but for a brief moment I was excited that I was watching live an event that was being reported on internationally.

There is a homeless man who sits shivering every day on the corner of my street and the plaza, right in front of the pharmacy. He has not yet left his spot, even during the exodus of people right after the riot control stuff was dropped. The guy in the apartment across the street from me (not the guy who sees me naked) is watching CNN. I can see it through his window.

The world is going crazy.

**editorial note: a few minutes after posting this, I saw from a far distance what looked like an enormous black snake inching its way (horizontally) along the street. It turned out to be the little men in helmets that had formed a human wall walking forward so as to contain the protestors. Backing them were at least 15 police cars. Sometimes they would lash out at people, but mainly they are just standing there. And have been for the last half hour or so. Just cutting the plaza entirely in half with their little helmeted heads.

**second editorial note: crazy stuff. The helmet-heads pushed everyone onto my tiny street. They started running and hollering and jumping on all the cars. Then they started charging, and people ran into nearby restaurants and corner stores. The nice guy who sells me Mentos every day got a few of his oranges and bananas stolen. The guy that runs the sex shop across the street filled his store with as many people as possible and then shut the grill so that the riot police would think he was closed. I saw at least twenty people go in there. It's a very small store. I like to think about them all standing uncomfortably around the sex toys and pornographic movies. It ended with a showdown on Odessa Street. I counted - a total of 15 police cars stopped took over my street. Well, police vans, because they're vans in Paris. Most people agreed to disperse once the hemet-types started beating on a few innocent people. I had to write a paper this evening, but who can resist a live protest with beatings happening just six floors below?

Good friends are the greatest thing in the world. They keep me in check, they remind me of who I really am, they pull me up when I feel weak, they yank me down when I am too proud. If I could tell all of my beautiful, wonderful supportive friends how much they mean to me in words that would do their friendship justice, I would. But I can't. I just hope my actions as a friend speak as words sometimes can't. I have been truly blessed with the most phenomenal of friends.

Keeping my days full has kept me happy. I try to pack them with as much activity as possible. I hate having a moment in the day where the tick-tocking slows down and I drag my sleepy eyes towards the clock in prayer that the minutes pass. That's no way to live. I've come to realize that keeping busy doing things I love is how I function best. I have always been afraid of overcomitting. No more. I love being a busy, busy bee.

You never know yourself as well as you think you do

I saw "The Pianist" today. I urge everybody to go see it. It was a holocaust film, sure. And we're all sort of tired of them. "Schindler's List" probably pushed us over the top. But "The Pianist" is still with me now, almost 12 hours after I saw it. And a whole pitcher's worth of margaritas later, I still see some of the scenes of it clear as day.

Riding home on the train tonight, I started thinking about how ugly human beings can be. Maybe I can be ugly along with them. I'm judgemental, I can probably unknowingly be cruel. But, I cannot see myself acting as some of the German soldiers in the film did today. Yet, just as I thought that, I watched myself walk past the three men sleeping along the benches at the Chatelet metro station. They have nowhere to go, and are utterly alone. They fight everyday to eat. How can I know how hard it is for them? And how can I not have compassion for them? I do - I give when I can. But I can never give enough. Some humans are angels. I want to be one of them. What's stopping me?

It's all just a crazy process - learning about yourself and everything around you at once. Somtimes it's too much. But today, amongst news of the war, amongst the most horrifying images of the wars of the past, I remain optimistic despite my fears. I think this coming war is going to end up being a terrifying one. Call me paranoid, but I think there is far more to it than Mr. Bush has planned. I think there are still plenty of tricks up a certain You-Know-Who's sleeve. I hope for those that have loved ones in Iraq that all works out for the best - and I wish that upon Americans and Iraqis both.

Still, I fear the worst. Overall, I am disturbed by what is an apparently selfish and disgusting side of human nature. Cover your own ass. Don't help others if it puts you out at all. Be a selfish dick. Hurt others to promote yourself. I don't see how this ugly side of us cannot be more evident than in the case of war.

Strangely, I feel that I don't belong amongst those people. Is that naive? I just want to listen to my music, hang out with my friends, read my books, and occasionally aspire to being capable of holding an intellectual conversation from time to time. Violence repulses me. I wanted to vomit in the movie theater today. The current world political scene makes me similarly as sick. Where are all of us that just want to help others? Are we just weaker than those that prefer to walk all over anyone that gets in their way? Maybe we are more numerous, but just less organized?

Nothing beats listening to your headphones on the metro at midnight. When I was a teenager, I used to feel so badass. It was a regular thing. I drove my car fast. I listened to loud music. I rebelled in a variety of ways far too extensive to explore in one sole post. The only remnant I have of that epoque is my music. One song can take me back to that time in a heartbeat. I feel young and alive and crazy and curious all over again. So please, blast it in my ears while the scragglers ride the metro home with me. The doors sound before they close. I still bop to my beat. Stop after stop after stop, until I pop off my train and hop up the steps. One, two, three.

Go see the movie. Call a good friend and tell them you appreciate them. Take some time to do something crazy. Life is passing us by. Live it while you can.

And now, since I have been up for over 20 hours, I am off to my peaceful sleep.

1. Barbie is based on a German sex toy named Lilli. Lilli had been featured in German comic strips since 1952 (Barbie came out in 1959) as a sexually provacative lady who used her allure to get money from rich men. (I believe we call those people whores nowadays). Weirdly enough, Lilli was a doll intended for men, not for women. They would place it on their dashboards or, even more strangely, would give their girlfriends Lilli dolls instead of flowers or chocolate. I guess it beats a paperweight.

2. Were all the Barbies ever sold put head to toe in a straight line, she could circumnavigate her way around the earth more than four times (this statistic is from 1999 - we might be up to five by now!)

3. Cindy Jackson has done over 20 plastic surgery operations to look like a "human Barbie doll."

4. Barbie's younger sister, Skipper, was originally sold in 1975 as an "educational" toy for young girls not yet mature enough for Barbie.

So, um...how educational is that? Was Mattel trying to tell me that one day my arm would turn and I would have boobs? Because I recall it being a bit messier than that.

5. Barbie recently had a pregnant friend, Midge. She was pulled from the shelves because people thought it might promote teenage pregnancy (even though Midge was married in 1991 and, if she isn't living in Virginia, I believe she has to be 18 to do that. Which means, yeah, she's gotta be at least 29 by now). I'm still trying to figure out how silent Midge is running around town promoting teen pregnancy.

6. Barbie has had a bizarre collection of props over the years. One of which was a book. Its front cover displayed its title - "How to Lose Weight" and its back cover summarized its content and oh-so-subtle message - "Don't Eat." She also came once with a bathroom scale set permanently to 110 pounds. Were Barbie to be blown up to life-size, she would be 5'11, although I'm not sure if that's with or without the heels. Either which way, that's just not enough pounds. She must have been doing some really thorough reading of that book of hers.

7. Cindy Sherman, one of my favorite artists, made a really groovy art piece where she suddenly made Barbie have genitalia and do naughty things with Ken.

8. In 1989 - the Barbie Liberation Organization set out to do a sneaky trick. Both GI Joe and Barbie came out with talking dolls around the same time of year. But the BLO was not very happy with the three sentences Barbie repeated: "I love shopping," "Will we ever have enough clothes?" and their particular favorite "Math is hard!" The BLO went in and did a midnight toy store operation and managed to switch GI Joe and Barbie's voiceboxes. Little boys were going home with GI Joes that said in a high, whiny voice "Math is hard!" and little girls showed their friends their innocent-looking Barbies that cried out "VENGEANCE IS MINE!!!" (The mega group that did this is RTMark, a really groovy group. Check it out when you get a chance. They've got some crazy ideas and have done some crazy things.)

9. Ruth Handler, the "inventor" of the Barbie doll, had two children. Their names were, yes, that's right, Barbara and Ken.

10. 1968- Ten years after the first Barbie was released came Christi, "the first African-American friend for Barbie. She has ethnically correct curcly brown hair, large brown eyes and light brown skin." She was retired before the year was up because nobody wanted to buy her. It was the same fate for a similar attempt made at ethnic diversity in 1975 with Cara, although she managed to stay on the shelves until 1978. The "ethnically correct" hair of those dolls turned orange over time (oxidation).

11. The highest selling Barbie of all time was "Totally Hair Barbie" (1992). Her hair went all the way to the floor. "Totally Hair Ken" had the most frightening head of hair I have ever seen. I don't care that he's a doll. That should be a crime.

12. Mattel's official slogan for Barbie is "Be Anything." I would like to add my own personal thought as to what exactly they meant by that. Mattel's underhanded slogan is "Be Anything, as long as you're not fat, ugly, flat-chested, unfashionable, or non-white."

13. Then again, there is a Rosie O'Donnel Barbie. She has a microphone in her right hand and is wearing a "stylish red pantsuit." So I guess anything is possible.

No, that's not it at all. But today I was walking through the Luxembourg gardens yet again. It's been just lovely here over the last few days - cool enough to need a coat but warm enough to sit comfortably on a terrace or in the gardens provided you find a spot in the sun. Naturally, my "commute" through the gardens has changed a bit because of this - my usually solitary walks have become rather crowded. This does not make them any less pleasant, as I enjoy seeing people happy, and they usually are in the gardens.

Today I am passing through and I see an older couple sitting on a park bench. They're a bit off of the main paths - away from the fountains, the tennis courts, the playgrounds, or the petanque land. Her: slender, rather stylish, late 60's, early 70's, hair up in a loose, light brown bun. Him: mild belly, mid-70's, a bit frumpy in a comfortable grandfatherly way, full head of very white hair. Them: sitting as close as possible to one another on the far left side of the bench, each reading a different book - him at a few pages to the end and her just within the first chapter, her left arm crossing his lap, her left hand falling on his left knee.

And I think to myself, "How beautiful is that? I wonder how many times they have come here and sat like this. Do they do this every year when it turns nice? Have they been together for years and years? Or did they just meet one another in the last ten or so, and are accompanying one another in old age?"

I keep on walking through the rest of the gardens. A little kid runs into me because she is suddenly in a hurry to go somewhere and hasn't looked for possible obstacles along the path. I notice a really attractive haircut on one of the young mothers. The usual men are crowding around the petanque "field" as they expertly toss their heavy, metal balls despite their slow, arthritic movements.

And all the while, I can't stop thinking of that couple. Dreaming of how lovely it must be to grow old with someone.

Within fifteen minutes, I'm home. Mom's voice comes echoing through one of those corridors of thoughts, telling me it was all just a leap of faith. Her marriage was just a leap of faith just happened to work out. A leap of faith that can change forever. A huge risk.

And suddenly, all I could think was, "Anybody that gets married must be fucking crazy. Leap of faith my ass."

So although seeing an older lady alone on a bench reading provides a bit less food for thought than seeing an adorable older couple, I'll be sure to wear a really eccentric hat or something to make up for it.

1. Men should not fake bake. It's never attractive.
2. Coconut flavored yogurt is just the most delicious thing ever.
3. Paris is actually quiet on Sundays despite the masses. I walked past a square that was filled with people sitting out on the cafe terraces surrounding it, and it was as if everyone had mutually decided to speak in hushed tones. Their collective conversation amounted to little more than a low hum, only to be broken occasionally by a crying child or a motorcycle going by. Precious, really. Almost like a library, except with hundreds of people drinking coffee and beer and far fewer books.
4. Learning Arabic is quickly becoming frighteningly complicated. I am determined to rise to the challenge. I don't remember learning to read in school - Mom told me that we all (meaning my brother, sister and I) just sort of "figured it out" at home sometime before or around kindergarten. I am getting to have the experience now, 17 years later. Mouthing out the phonemes and using my finger to guide me, I go at a snail's pace through four words: a true test of patience (something I have never had enough of). Reading really is so arbitrary. Random symbols join to form random words. We forget how miraculous it is that it even makes any sense.
5. No more bookstores for me for awhile. Books beckon me to buy them and I put up the weakest of fights. My credit card and a bookstore are a dangerous, dangerous combination. There should be warning signs at the entrance.
6. Never talk to a man while he's trying to fix something.
7. Headphones and music change everything around you. Bus rides go much faster. No matter what you do, you always end up walking to the beat.
8. If it is two am, you're drunk and covered in blood, you should stop trying to stop individual cars by jumping into oncoming traffic. Not only are you doing something you'll regret in the morning, you're also scaring the shit out of me.
9. The "N" has totally disappeared from my keyboard. Not the button, just the "N."
10. If you start a Paul Auster book at night, be sure you don't have any homework to do (thanks for the "Leviathan" recommendation Matt - I read it in one shot. Excellent.)
11. Champagne goes straight to your head on an empty stomach.
12. Modern medicine is a wonderful thing. Not only does it enable you to function, but it lets you go out and see springtime - something everyone should have the good fortune of experiencing.

A paperweight with a duck inside.

This is not a joke. Three years into the relationship, and he got me a paperweight. A friggin paperweight. With a duck inside.

I've kept the damn paperweight on my desk for almost a year now. I'm not really sure what to think of it. First of all, why the hell did the duck-filled paperweight make him think of me? (This brings up mediocre memories of a boy in middle school that was head-over-heels for me - his best friend told me so - for two years, and he called me "The Duck" because, for some reason, I guess I reminded him of a duck. How exactly that conjured up romantic feelings for him is something I still have yet to understand). Second of all, did he not realize the kind of reception this paperweight would have? Let's look at the facts: He doesn't get me anything for years, literally YEARS. Not for a single, damn holiday. And all that time I'm hearing stories of my sister's husband who, in an attempt to save money on Valentine's Day, made an entire bouquet of hand-colored plastic bendy-straw flowers put together by him when she wasn't around. A big bouquet of 'em. Or another story of a boyfriend who wrote friggin' SONGS to one of my friends because he wanted her to have something special, unique, not available in stores.

So sure, I'm not complaining that instead of getting plastic bendy straw bouquets or love serenades I get a 24/7 fart parade. I accepted that long ago when we decided to move in together. What I am saying here is that all of those moments of holding my breath - of not saying "Jesus Christ, I've only "celebrated" three birthday's with you now, is it really that hard to remember?" and instead just laughing it off (I will take the opportunity to point out that my birthday is very easy to remember - October 8. Oct, like an octagon or an octapus, means eight. So he only has to remember the friggin' MONTH and everything is hey-howdy handy), of getting him presents for Christmas and knowing I wouldn't get anything in return, of seeing the boys in the lingerie shops around Valentine's Day nervously shopping for their girlfriend's panties and thinking how cute it is that they put themselves in such an uncomfortable position for their girl - all of those little moments were somehow all bundled up in that one little tissue-paper filled bag. And that bag suddenly became extremely important. Excessively so.

I think I've been clear : my Boy is not at all romantic. I knew this from the get-go. He told me this on our fourth date when he, in perhaps what was the most romantic thing he has done yet, said, "So, I'm sort of thinking that I want a real relationship with you, something committed and stuff" and then clarified the terms and conditions of our relationship contract. One of said terms was that, hell, he just isn't that romantic of a guy, and it was better that I understand that early on. And knowing this, I still jumped aboard. So I can't be angry that he's not romantic - he was honest about that side of himself from square one.

He thinks boys that make plastic bendy flower bouquets are pansies (not yours specifically, Kari). He whispers nothing in my ear instead of sweet nothings. The romantic way he looked towards the future with me was by suggesting we get a joint bank account.

This is all ok by me. But he didn't have to prove himself to be totally romantically hopeless by means of a pathetic paperweight. Don't all men know that a girl just doesn't want a paperweight? That's something a boss gets a secretary, or a co-worker gets another during "Secret Santa" in the office.

What I am trying to say is that a girl who has no expectations whatsoever is even more floored the moment a gift comes her way. And so at that moment, the gift she receives - whatever it is - better be one helluva gift.

That's my advice to you men. If you're going to get her a paperweight, just don't get her anything at all.

1. The radio - I don't have one. But it doesn't matter; I have the internet. All my language teachers say you have to listen to the radio in another language, even if you can't follow. Just to get used to different voices, different sounds, different accents. I sort of think it's fun to do half an hour of each language on a graduated scale - first doing half an hour of Arabic on Radio Monte Carlo Moyen-Orient (can't understand a damn word), followed by a half an hour of Spanish on RFI (requires full concentration to get between half and three-quarters of the info; it helps that half to three-quarters of the time on any given station is dedicated to Irak). Then, it's onto French on the same channel (understand everything if listening more or less attentively), to wind everything up with a relaxing half-hour to hour (depending on my availability, of course) on NPR. I read on someone's site once that there's something about turning 30 that makes you want to listen to NPR. So I was eight years ahead of schedule.

2. Oatmeal - My entire life I only semi-liked oatmeal because I had the luxury of a microwave. Microwaved oatmeal in no way competes with the glory of a quality stove-made bowl of hearty oats. Something absolutely delicious for those that have already accepted that oatmeal is the best breakfast food ever: try substituting the regular milk with vanilla soy milk. Amazing.

3. Books - On Monday night I started Paul Auster's The Music of Chance. It was finished before noon on Tuesday. As I plan on spending the majority of the next three-to-four days in a reclined position as much as possible, I have stocked up a pile of books to entertain me outside of my two-to-three hour daily "radio" requirement. I would love to go hunt down some of the books on the Master List (every time I write "Master List" with capital letters, I feel like someone has said it in a big, booming voice and it is echoing down a hallway in my mind. I like that), but I fear that would require unnecessary movement to and fro the bookstore. This is to be avoided at all costs over the next few days. I'm still (psychotically) planning on attending the essential classes, but I have no guilt about missing those that do not matter.

4. Codeine - I know, it's really bad to say that painkillers help when things suck big donkey balls, but they really do. I had never taken painkillers before, but when the Boy got into his motorcycle accident last year, the doctors doped him up for several weeks. He eventually decided to take the pain like a man, and so we have a little thing of them left over. When I had a pretty painful "situation" happen last year, I took them at night so that I could sleep without waking up in tears (at the time, I was taking entrance exams for schools, and sleep was vital). I did the same last night. The dose of codeine they gave him is not very strong, but enough to knock you out for a few hours. Particularly amusing is the moment you know you're going to go off to la-la-land, but you're still hanging on to your surroundings for a few more seconds. It's the same feeling - except the opposite - as when you wake up in the morning and you are still half-dreaming, but are about to come to. Usually you manage to realize that whatever you are thinking/dreaming is absolutely insane. With the codeine, this just happens in the reverse order: you start thinking absolutely insane things, but then just allow yourself to go there because, hey, you're really damn tired. Last night, the last thing I remember thinking before going to the darkside was how great it would be if we could write on air, and the letters would just hang suspended wherever they were written. I had a vision: I was on a bus, trying to explain something, and I pulled out a pen and started writing on the air. The ink was a thick brown color that resulted in very sturdy letters. Instead of having to erase, I just grabbed the letters with my hands and threw them on the floor like garbage. I crumpled them up like a wad of paper. Then I started over again, writing on the air. I guess if that was really the way it was, we would have a letter-pollution problem (people not throwing away their letters after writing) in much the same way we have a paper-pollution problem today. Graffiti would also taken on an entirely different meaning.

5. Tea - Nothing is more soothing than a hot cup of tea. Even if it doesn't necessarily soothe physical discomfort, it somehow calms the brain. Which, right now, is honestly in as much pain as my bod.

6. Flashcards - Sure, it's very junior high. But that doesn't mean I'm above it. If I've got something to learn and lots of free hours to do it in, I think flashcards kick ass. The Frenchies tell me that only Americans do this. And it's true - during my brief stay in the French journalism school, I never once saw those people pull out flashcards. They do, however, all take notes with a ruler and multi-colored pens. You cannot possibly imagine how bizarre it is to be in an auditorium with a hundred people that are taking history notes as if doing geometry. They're very anal about it: headings and subheadings are underlined in the approiately color-coded system, and margins are to be fully respected. Even some of the really sloppy, lazy boys had the most precise, organized notes. I really couldn't understand it. And they didn't understand my system: take all notes for all subjects in one notebook, all on the right-hand page. When all the right-hand pages have been completed, flip the notebook over and start from the other side. My notebooks have no lines, either. Lines make my writing all messy. Without lines, my notes are quite neat. Well, as neat as they can be without using a ruler, I suppose. Anyway, flashcards. So I make myself a bunch of verb flashcards, and then I can pass away at least an hour or so (in a reclined position) while feeling as if I am advancing in some way. I actually do a fair amount of homework when I am home "sick" - but I do an excessive amount of flashcarding.

Still with me?

Ok.

I'm not going to give out graphic details, because not only do I think they are beside the point, but I think they are very graphic.

But I am going to tell you that I have been having my share of gynelogical problems. I went to see the doctor last week for your regular ole check up, and am waiting to get tests results back from the lab for a little something she noticed. Could be serious, could just be a little something. So that's tripping me out. Meanwhile, another problem pops up over the weekend, and I just now got back from the ER (not where my normal gynecologist is) where I have plenty of little vials of stuff waiting to be analyzed as well. Next week, I go back to the gyno to rehash the test results from the first set of lab work. And we'll take it from there.

I am getting very, very upset about this. I have been told that I can have anything from a slight infection coupled with a minor, normal condition for woman (why the hell haven't I ever heard of it before?) to a serious friggin' disease (albeit a treatable one).

"But don't panic about it, try not to think about it, we'll know when we get the test results back in a week to ten days."

A week to ten days? Are you fucking kidding me? So I'm supposed to waddle around like this for a week to ten days pretending that I'm feeling dandy?

The frustration has nothing to do with the fact that I might have some icky problem that needs medical attention. I can deal with that - and I'm even going through some of the not-so-pleasant processes before the test results come back because the good, cross-eyed doctor is oh-so-sure about the "situation." Problem is, I had the same "situation" happen last year, they ran the same damn tests, and everything came up null. In retrospect, they chalked it all up to "sensitive skin and perhaps particularly violent sex." I'm not kidding.

No, the frustration is that I have been going in and out of various phases of the same problems coming up again and again, and nobody seems to take my history into account. They just keep shooing me out of their offices once the 20-miutes-per-patient time span has been exhausted. I'm thinking there must be something chronic going on here, or something that needs to be blasted away with some serious-ass medication, none of this rinky-dink cream shit they keep tossing my way.

Ok fine, maybe they're handling it the right way. But I don't know any other woman who has been through as much of this shit as I have. I just don't get it. Why can't they seem to find the answer? Why the hell is it so complicated? I'm a 23-year-old that has been in a monogamous relationship (so he says, and I believe him, naive as it may be) for almost four years. Compared to most people I know my age, my prior sexual history is clean as a friggin' whistle. In other words, I'm not an "at-risk" case. And ever since I was 18, I've always taken care of problems as soon as they arise, have gotten blood tests done annually, and have gone in for check-ups every six months. I take better care of my reproductive health than I do of my teeth, but I haven't had a cavity in years whereas I have had plenty of emergency trips to the Lady Doctor's. So what the fuck is going on?

My trip to the hospital today put me out two hundred euros. My medication in total has thus far cost me eighty-four. These fuckers better come up with an answer as to what the hell is wrong with me, or I'm asking for my money back.

You wanna know what I'm like in a bad mood? This is it, right here. This post.

1. Written on the Body - Jeanette Winterson
2. I Capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
3. Fermat's Enigma - Simon Singh
4. Cracking India - Bapsi Sidhwa
5. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
6. The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
7. Memoirs of an Invisible Man - H.F. Saint
8. Blindness - Jose Saramago
9. Jitterbug Perfume - Tom Robbins
10. Choke - Chuck Palahniuk
11. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
12. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
13. Basque History of the World - Mark Kurlansky
14. Shutterbabe - Deborah Copaken Kogan
15. The Long Walk - Stephen King
16. Sometimes A Great Notion - Ken Kesey
17. The Trial - Kafka
18. Jesus' Son - Denis Johnson
19. Glass Bead Game - Hesse
20. Tumble Home - Amy Hempel
21. Stones from the River - Ursula Hegi
22. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
23. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
24. Drown - Junot Diaz
25. Feast of Snakes - Crews
26. Godric - Frederick Buechner

The following books were taken off the list because I have already read them. But they came recommended by others (not necessarily by me along with them, though):

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
The Westing Game - Ellen Raskin
Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
A Wrinkle in Time - Madeline L'Engle
The Red Tent - Anita Diamant
The Secret Garden - Francis Hodgson Burnett

My personal selection would go like this... (although this is just due to recent inflluences). I like books that don't take me two weeks to read. I like books that stay with me forever. And I like books that use big words from time to time. That said, I also like cheesy books like The Poisonwood Bible. And sometimes I dig a good epic novel like Roots.

Right now I am looking for enjoyable reading. I am also starting The Name of the Rose right now, which doesn't look so enjoyable. But everybody kept on talking about it, I figured why not?

Still, here's my personal selection (although this could change depending on the day):

1. The Color Purple - Alice Walker (a classic - read it in a day and have read it at least five times since. Probably my favorite book.)
2. Any Human Heart - William Boyd (lighthearted and fun, interesting mix of history, art, literature. Very easy reading but not dumbed down or anything)
3. The Woman Who Walked Into Doors - Roddy Doyle ('cause I just read it last month and I am still thinking about it. It's been haunting me.)
4. A Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ('cause I read it in high school, thought it spoke to me, and think of it every time I sit down in a movie theater today - eight years later)
5. Roots - Alex Haley (it's a good one. It just is)

There you go. On my list for this month are William Borrough's Naked Lunch, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five (can you believe I haven't read it yet?) and Paul Auster's (I'm on a Paul Auster kick) The Music of Change (couldn't find it on Amazon.com). Otherwise, I have four plays to read in French ("Ruy Blas," "La guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu," "Antigone" and "La machine infernale") as well as a few linguistics books (starting with "Alice au pays du langage"). And then I am sort of half-reading a few Spanish books - the "simplified" reading books for people at my level of Spanish. It's rather difficult, but I learned that reading is one of the best ways to improve language comprehension outside of the classroom. That, and, you know, living in Spain.

Some of the books you suggest might have to go on my Amazon wishlist, because English books are not impossible to get here, but they are a little bit more limited in selection. Books get shipped to my parents' house - it's just easier that way. Feel free to show me some love.

Otherwise, just show your love by contributing a few ideas of your favorite books. It might take me all year, if I get enough recommendations. But I promise I'll read them all eventually.

I know this is a dangerous proposition. What can I say? I live on the edge.

"readies" - Prepared for what one is about to do or experience; equipped or supplied with what is needed for some act or event; prepared for immediate movement or action; as, the troops are ready to march; ready for the journey.

"prospect" - Something expected; a possibility

"imminent" - Threatening to occur immediately; near at hand; impending; -- said especially of misfortune or peril

Wouldn't something like "US Readies for Possible War" seem better? Or "Presidents Prepares Public for War"? Or something else? It just seems over the top.

Meanwhile, whistle-blower Colleen Riley, who called out the Minnesota FBI bureau's shortcomings when it came to the requested and denied permission to investigate Zacarias Moussaoui before the Sept 11 attacks, said that the FBI has not shaped up its game since. In a very reassuring article, the NY Times said that:

Yay.

In totally unrelated news, I made a book page. Nothing special, but something nonetheless.

All in all, we were stuffed and exhausted by the time we got home. My gut probably hung over the opposite side of the bed (my side is along the wall) into much of the night. Before going to bed, I saw a few messages on the site, responded with my champagne-infested prose, and hit the sack. (I would like to point out that I still do love all of you that visit and comment. You all really do make my day, almost every day. It's great. Thank you all.)

This morning I refused to get out of bed. The Boy got up at 8.00, the poor crazy workaholic. He kept trying to talk to me and I kept trying to fend him off. I managed to coerce myself into going to my afternoon class, but I really almost gave into my body's cries to let me sleep through it.

I was roughly ten minutes late because I had stopped to buy a water bottle on the way. The stupid American bitches in line in front of me took for friggin' ever 'cause they were trying to figure out how to pay the guy in exact change. Just when I thought they're little exercise in patience was over, one of them said, "Oh...look...Mahtza." (sp?) and the other one said, "Oh, that stuff is soooo good for you." "Should we get some?" "I don't know. That's a bbbiiig box." "Yeah, but it's good for you." "Yeah. Ok, let's get it." and they plunked it down and went through the whole change-figuring-out scene again. None of that would have been nearly as annoying if they hadn't had extreme California accents and hadn't both been wearing bright, bright colors (one yellow, one green). They struck me as the kind of girls that would do yoga just because it's now fashionable to say "Wait, no, Tuesday? I can't. I have yoga." Or the kinds of girls that listen to Cristina Aguilera in hiding but dis her in front of their friends.

So I wander into class a bit late and the professor isn't there. Weird. Handy, actually. No big deal that I'm a few minutes late. Things might just be turning out alright today after all. I look for my friends. They're not there. Maybe they're skipping today? I take a seat. I pull out my work and start looking it over. Still no prof. I look up at the girl next to me. Her textbook is not the same as mine. Huh. And now that I'm looking around, I don't recognize a damn person in the place. But they all seem to know one another pretty well.

I jump out of my seat and run out of the auditorium just as the professor starts walking down the aisles to get up on the lecture podium. He wasn't my professor.

I had missed the notice Wednesday. Class was cancelled today. I should have stayed in my luscious bed.

See, I started French when I was 11 years old, and stopped when I was 16 because my high school didn't have high enough French classes after that point. To my recollection, I never had any frustration learning French - it always was rather simple for me, a matter of memorizing a few things and remembering a few rules. Of course, the rules get more complicated and the language itself more complex, but I have no memory of ever seeing something that I just could not understand in the classroom. Nor do I remember slaving away while just trying to write a paragraph or two. All of my assignments fell perfectly within my level, and I recognized the patterns and flow of the language with respect to whatever grammar point or vocabulary we had worked on that day in class (I always had, I might point out, excellent French teachers).

By the time I got to Paris, my French was at a level where I could communicate most things with only a mild amount of trouble, but occasionally I wouldn't know a crucial adjective or noun. I believe this is because I had a strong grammatical base, a well-defined foundation upon which I began adding more and more bits of the language until I eventually spoke it rather well. At first, I would just drop topics if I didn't know how to express myself, but after a month or two I found that I could always find ways of getting around missing words. Learning French for me was therefore never an overwhelming process. To the contrary - it was extremely enjoyable and I always felt that it was a subject in which I excelled.

I started learning Spanish when I was 17 - I took an intensive beginning course just two months before I left for France. I promptly forgot all of it once I arrived in France, as my efforts to concentrate on communicating with those around me knocked out whatever Spanish I had learned the summer before (non-native languages are all stored in the same part of the brain. Hence why, when I am speaking Spanish, French occasionally pops out but English never does). I started over again a year later in college, where I had the best language professor I have ever had in my life (Hola Senor Sejas!). Sadly, that school (which was an American school in France) only had beginner's levels of all the languages except French, because the language department was inondated with foreign students wanting to learn French more so than it was with students wanting to learn German or Italian (it's a very small school).

So my Spanish love ended there. Two summers later, I picked up yet another intensive Spanish course, where I got placed in advanced beginner (second on a ladder of six courses). That class ended last July, and I just picked up my Spanish studies again last week, where I was placed in advanced intermediate (fourth on that six-part ladder) at the same school. This means I essentially skipped over that entire period (step three on the six-rung ladder) where you slowly learn and affirm your understanding of verbs and basic structures of the language.

The thing is, I know I know these things. Collectively, were I ideally able to access everything I have learned over the years, I was placed in the right level. My written test placed me there, and so I must have the information in there somewhere. But when speaking, I find I am overwhelmed with a bunch of verb tenses that I know I learned, but were never fully locked into my memory forever. I have a strong understanding of when I should use which tenses and why, but I just can't remember how to form the right verb.

And then there's Arabic, which is just a crazy, crazy language. Keep in mind, I am starting at square one. I only learned the alphabet last week, so things are obviously slow-moving. But it is amazing how frustrating the sheer foreigness of the language can be. I can look at a word in French or Spanish that I have never seen before, and can often figure out the meaning. And my pronunciation is often close, if not exactly correct. I can sometimes take an English word, add a typical French ending to it, and find a word they actually use in French. This means that for me, both French and Spanish are rather malleable: I can play with them as I like, bend them in certain ways so that what I am saying or trying to say can eventually come to make sense. But I don't ever foresee that happening in Arabic because the words feel so incredibly foreign. And that's going to be really, really weird. How can you learn a language if you can't play with it?

I remember my first day of Spanish, ever. My professor spoke entirely in Spanish, and I was appalled to realize that I understood what she was saying just by the little Spanish English-speaking Americans are just randomly familiar with. The exact same thing happened last Saturday in Arabic - my professor just started speaking in Arabic without warning, and God help me, it was Alien Speak. Just pure jibberish in my ears.

The professor obviously knows we can't understand a damn word. He told us not to listen to the language but to just hear it. Once I stopped trying to listen and just tried to hear, the experience became an awful lot more pleasant.

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out the phonetic differences between some of the letters of the alphabet (if you're curious, you can go here, and click on "alphabet" - nevermind that the page is in French. While it loads, turn on your speakers and click on some of the letters to hear what they sound like. There are a few that have the most subtle differences - very difficult sounds for an anglophone to recognize). There's a letter that sounds a little bit like "thel" (written "dhal" on the site page), and I like to laugh as the Frenchies try and make the "th" sound. There's another letter with an "r" sound, and there, too, they have a hard time. They're cute about it - the people in my class seem really laid-back and silly - so it's all in fun. But I can't imagine the frustration they must be having with just the sounds alone.

So yeah, this is all just to say that I am discovering a lot about my ability to just buckle down and do this shit. While cooking my oatmeal this morning, I was thinking to myself that maybe the very reason why I like learning languages so much is for a purely selfish reason: no matter what you do, when you leave class, you KNOW you have learned something. That whole "you learn something new every day" feels like it rings far more true for me when it comes to learning languages than it does for anything else.

Still. I am frustrated at how long my Spanish homework takes me. Languages have always come naturally and easily for me. I think I am just going to have to stare at these papers I have tacked up all over the place for a few more days before I can start whipping out the complex sentences I have the mental blueprint for in my head. If I could just get these conjugations memorized, things would fly. And learning conjugations is really just about discipline, about listing them over and over again and about testing your familiarity with them.

This is the first time I am experiencing the frustration I always saw people in my classes struggling with, but I never understood myself. It's incredilbly eye-opening, and I think it will prove to be extremely useful when I start teaching English to French students this fall.

2) Am I the only one bothered by the beginning of the video to/song "You Rock My World" (yes, Michael Jackson again) when MJ says "She's good." with a little laugh. It's slimy. And that chick would never give MJ the light of day in a dance club - why he is so confident that he's gonna "get her"? Well, I know, it's cause he's a multi-millionaire, so he can be pretty confident about it. But I find his voice really creepy when he talks about it. Like it's wrong to think about Michael as having any sort of sexual desire whatsoever.

3) Jay-Z made a song using a loop from Tupac's "Me and My Girlfriend." (Side note on that song: I sort of half-listened to it, oh, thirty times thinking that Tupac was being so cute. You know, how cute! A rap song about his girlfriend that he can't stand being seperated from! It was only the thirty-first or thirty-second time that I realized he was talking about his gun. Not anywhere near as cute, really.) Isn't it sort of wrong to take a loop from a song that is under ten years old? You're supposed to sample from the generation before you, are you not? Jay-Z's a dickwad anyway, so I don't see why I should expect great things from the man, but a little RESPECT isn't too much to ask. Really.

Now for a few questions, because I am not in the US:

1) Why is everybody so obsessed with Coldplay? Sounds kinda like Matchbox 20 to me.

2) Why is everybody so obsessed with Norah Jones? Sounds kinda like your typical bird to me.

3) What's the big song of the moment? The one that keeps playing on the speakers in the grocery store? We're behind, so I want to get ahead. Here, it's still "Lose Yourself." Still.

Now, to end on a positive note - something that is done right. A few words of wisdom from Outkast (I'm in an Outkast period. They come and go every four months or so, and this seems to be the appropriate moment to bring them up):

- If the dealer dealt a fucked up hand of cards you've gotta play 'em ("Humble Mumble" from Stankonia)

- Make a business for yourself, boy, set some goals. Make a fair diamond out of dusty coals ("B.O.B -Bombs Over Baghdad" from Stankonia)

- You focus on the past your ass'll be a has what ("Rosa Parks" from Aquemini)

A short while later, I moved to California, where I lived with three other women. At our "getting-to-know-one-another" meeting, where we discussed important household things like who will take care of trash and under whose name we should put the phone bill, Julie said, "Just to let you all know, I walk around naked. Is that going to be a problem?" So, no need for habit-changing there; the prancing and dancing continued. The following year, I moved in with my best friend. In my mind, female best-friendhood is official if one girl is naked, the other walks in on accident and doesn't go "Oh, shit! Dude, I'm so sorry!" but instead just says, "Hey, I'm making some coffee. Want some?" So again, naked was the norm.

In other words, a lot of people have seen me naked - and most of them have not been bedmates. In fact, I can't even know how many people have seen me naked. But I do know that no nameless faceless type has seen as much of my nakedness as my front neighbors in my current apartment. As I am on the sixth floor (seventh in US terms), it really doesn't make a difference: there are two apartments where you can see me - the people living there are not about to come all the way down their stairs, cross the street, and walk up all six of my flights just to let me know they're peeping toms.

The other side of my apartment looks out onto the center "courtyard." No, there are no trees or greenage of any sort - by "courtyard" I just mean a big hole in the middle of a building with two sections. Very French. Mine is very gray, ugly, and generally dismal. On the opposite side of the courtyard is a hotel. I see naked people in there all the time. I sometimes wonder if they realize that those of us on the opposite side of the courtyard can see them. There's something about being in a hotel...as if they all believe they're wearing special only-in-a-hotel protective shields that allow them to be naked all the time with the curtains open. Either that, or more people than I ever thought possible walk around naked just as much - if not more - than I do.

One time, I saw the guy across the street give a strip tease to his girlfriend/wife/mistress. And then I saw the two of them stumble into the bedroom, where the curtains were closed and the lights were off. And then I saw them come back out five minutes later. She promptly started mopping.

So whatever - I'm comfortable with seeing other people in the buff, as long as we don't have to confront one another about it. Don't act like you're any less of a voyeur than I am - you would totally look, too. Maybe not with binoculars (NO, I don't own any...) but you would at least take a peak.

I'm also comfortable with people seeing me in the buff, as long as I'm not aware of it, and that none of the pictures are later used for blackmailing or sold to porn magazines.

However, it really does kinda freak me out when I see two adolescent boys waiting across the way at their windowsill for the act to begin. If they just happen to stumble across it, fine. But waiting? Should I start charging admission?

Maybe I am the only person on earth who loves being tired. To me it means that I am active, up and at 'em, living my life and not sitting on my ass at home. It means my body has been moving and streching and hopping on buses and going from a to z and back again. My brain has been exercizing and flexing and getting stronger. My life has been collecting new experiences and storing them away in my highly selective memory bank (it's very prestigious, you see).

These are all good things to be doing. They exhaust me, but I love it.

I hate being home at midnight and not being tired. It means I haven't done anything with my day. Or that I did something, but that I could have done more.

Of course, it's inconvenient to be tired at the wrong moment - say, fifteen minutes into that lecture on Baudelaire or half an hour into dinner with the in-laws - but this is due not to living each day to its fullest in excess; it is instead just a result of poor planning.

If plotted out correctly, the day should end at one (or so) am and start at eight (or so) in the morning. You can adjust this schedule to your needs, as long as you see more daylight than starlight. This means seven hours of sleep per night, with the occasional sleep-in 'til nine or the early crash at midnight. This is plenty of sleep for your average Joe. I believe firmly that 95% of people staying up past two am are not really doing anything efficient anyway (the other 5% are those people that genuinely DO work better at night. But the original 95% of people are just saying this cause they hate waking up early). Sure, there is the occasional worthwhile cram session or last-minute paper-writing festival, but those that make a habit of their late night endeavors are most often just tinkering away on the computer or watching really bad television. It's all about screens. They're evil and can lure you into the wee hours.

Anyway. All of this is to say that in recent days I have come to realize that I love to go to bed with sore feet, a buzzing brain, and droopy eyelids. If I don't fall asleep within the first fifteen minutes after I turn out the light, I might as well give into the evil no-sleep gods 'cause that means I'm not getting a wink before six am. So I better be knackered when I hit the sack.

There is something to be said about just wanting to fall into your bed at night. Something about being so beat, so dogtired that you just can't think anymore. Something about having filled your day with so much activity, so much movement and production and relaxation and here and there and everywhere that when you finally come to your own luscious, fluffy pillow you can rest your weary head on it, look back on your day and say, "Whoa. I did all that in one day. Shit. Man, I'm tired."

That's the right time to say it.

Goodnight.

"They were the last lovers in New York City - th