Sleeping and Eating

I got my new "banquette/clic clac" which looks like a normal (denim blue) sofa but *pouf* clics itself into a bed for my sleeping comfort. And it is comfortable. Enough. For the time being. Which is all I care about.

As for eating . . . for some reason last weekend I decided to take myself out for meals whenever the fancy struck me. I went back to Le Reveil du Xeme and again had a delightful meal -- a mashed potato/fish dish. On Saturday -- before and after the Juliet Mitchell lecture at Le Musée de l'Homme -- I breezed my way through restaurants spending money I really shouldn't have. But Kristina and I went for a really nice dinner up in Montmartre at a cute little bar/resto. I got pasta bolognese -- which I was scolded for, since I can apparently make such a thing at home -- but I order what the baby demands. And he loves pasta. (and mashed potatoes. and probably nachoes if such a thing existed here.)
So, in an effort to make up all that money I spent on meals last weekend, I've been going to the "Restaurants Universitaire" (aka RestoU) -- a series of cafeterias for college students. It costs a mere 2e85 and you get a healthy, square meal which includes a crudité, a main dish, and a cheese or yogurt course/or a dessert tart. And a free piece of bread. Not bad. The only drawback is that everyone is sooo young, and I just feel like a lame, old pregnant lady eating a cheap meal. Who cares, right? I don't really, not for that price! But I think after my penance this week, I might re-consider.

Journée du Patrimoine

This weekend France opened up many of its governmental, religious, historically important buildings and archives for the (annual?) "days of patrimony." I had a list of places I wanted to visit, including the Museum of Hunting and Nature. I only got to two. The National Library (or BNF), where I went on a one hour guided tour which ended in the audiovisual room with a demonstration of Wii (SuperMario Wii). I then had lunch on a cute corner of rue Montorgeuil -- I wanted beef, so I got a French hamburger -- which is ground beef topped off with a fried egg. But my doctor said I can only eat meat "bien cuîte," so my burger was dry and eh. Anyway, after that I went to the Musée des Arts et Métiers (the "Industrial Arts Museum") and listened to a 15-min "flash" tour in the Communications Hall on the birth of the motion picture. I need to go back though.

Update on my torn feelings

I feel both totally happy about living in Paris and walking through my increasingly familiar neighborhood and totally bummed about the condition of my studio. I sleep on mats on the floor, but the weather outside is perfect right now. I can hear every drunken word my neighbor says at 3 in the morning, but I found a quiet little library and I started writing! My toilet drips and makes grumbling noises, but my weekly yoga class is really great (why didn't I ever really get into yoga when I wasn't pregnant?)

Along the same lines -- I am both totally depressed about what's going on right now in the US (Palin + economy) but also totally loving American media (NPR + Lost episodes + Project Runway + Hollywood movies [*Tropic Thunder* opens next week]).

I'm two things at once! I'm a fucking walking Whitman poem.

Busy Sunday and the end of pleasure

After a cold, drizzly Saturday and an awful night where my neighbor and his friend sang U2, shouted in incomprehensible French, and drank until 4 AM, I woke up thinking that today would suck.
And it looked like it might, as I waited in line at the grocery store stuck in front of yet more French drunks who just talk incessantly about anything and break into song and, in general, make everyone around them feel uncomfortable.
But it was so beautiful out today -- just like an early Fall day. Sunny, slightly crisp, but also warm in the sun.
And it's "rentrée" at the cinema for the next three days, meaning that each showing only costs 3.5 euros. So I decided to see "Mama Mia." Wow, what a movie. It reminded me of Laura Mulvey's essay in which she calls for the end of narrative pleasure in cinema, a pleasure that for her arises out of a male (or masculine -- since both men and women occupy it) gaze of the female body. This movie was definitely unpleasurable, but only because it was sooooo ecstatically joyous and insanely celebratory of female pleasure. It was totally weird and I wanted to leave every second I was watching it, but I was also curious about how this awful movie was celebrating and reveling in different kinds of feminine "jouissance," as they say. The movie ended with a burst of water that sprang, not from a fountain, but from a gash -- a gash, I say -- in the concrete. There was singing, and melodrama, and giggling, and dancing and it was totally stupid -- but this might be what Mulvey meant, after all. I hated it.
Anyway, after that I met with my landlord's daughter, who recently gave birth to her second son. I was totally petrified about going over to her house and chatting with her in French about god knows what. But she was really nice, and my French wasn't that bad -- or it was, but I decided not to care too much. She talked about "accouchement" in France and walked me past the hospital that, in case it was necessary, I could get treated.
And then I took myself out to dinner at a Korean restaurant called Seoul 88 (in honor of the 88 Olympics). The food was pretty good -- I got duk mandoo gook -- and the pan chan was delicious. The service was kind of bad, only because they seemed overwhelmed, even though there weren't that many of us in the restaurant. And weird, again drunk, French people would randomly walk into to tease the patrons. Seriously -- there are way too many drunks in Paris (which has even become a topic on the news recently). But the other patrons were enjoying themselves and sometimes, even though I don't know exactly what they're saying, it's really nice to hear people speak Korean.

Paris might hate me

I'm getting used to my life here. Instead of wide-eyed wonder, I react to the goings-on in the neighborhood with either indignation or a sigh of resignation. One sunny morning two days ago, I was whistling my way down the boulevard only to run into a drunken old man with his trousers about his ankles, finishing up his business on the sidewalk. All I saw really was his flat ass clothed in nasty black underwear, but that was enough to stop my whistling.

It's not that bad, though. I really like my gross neighborhood, more or less. It's affordable and hides little cute treasures in random corners -- like this café/brasserie around the corner with the coziest interior and what seems like a "Cheers"-like camaraderie with the clientele.

But I think this city might not like me too much. I've never had more problems just living, getting by, as I've had here. When I lived here 11 years ago, I was young, new to the single-life in the big city, free from any real parental or adult supervision -- things were bound to go wrong somewhere. I lost my key and my old bourgeoise landlady (Mme de la Guerronière) freaked out and was convinced one of my thug friends stole it, made a copy of it and was scheming to steal everything she owned. So I moved out and into a more modest neighborhood -- above a pharmacie in the 15th, owned by the father of the woman whose children I was taking care of. Well, he was a crazy grouch too who would abide not a peep of noise after 10pm, not even the sound of the toilet flushing. And when my friend from the States stayed with me for a few weeks, he threated to kick me out.

I'm rid of old French people. I don't have to deal with them, or pay them money, or creep up and down their creaky steps. Now, however, I have a toilet that explodes and refuses to stop exploding. Well, it doesn't literally "explode," but it made my life this past week much stinkier than I prefer. And I convinced myself that the gods (or saints?) of Paris would really prefer it if I were elsewhere. I wonder why and where.

My Visit to the French Doctor ("Docteur")

First off, I went to this doctor -- who is incredibly, incredibly expensive -- because my insurance recommended him as "english speaking." Which didn't actually turn out to be true. I mean, I'm sure he speaks English as well as any average Joe in France. He knows a few words, like that we call them "sonograms" instead of "échographs." My insurance also recommended doctors in the Passy district, all really expensive places. So these rich doctors must be in cahoots somehow with American Health Insurance companies. I paid 120e just for a consultation, without an "echograph." But I called a place closer to home and they charged 110e for a consultation and echograph. After shedding tears upon learning that I'm spending money needlessly (which I didn't realize would upset me so much), I decided to buck up. If my insurance wants to reimburse me (which they will, by god) for overpriced French consultation, it's all ultimately the same to me.
That said, he was nice enough. I mean, he wasn't charming or accommodating or even English-speaking. He was just no nonsense which is somehow more reassuring to me (esp. since I think he may be the first male gyno I've ever seen). I'm healthy, the baby's growing at a healthy pace, it's heartrate is also healthy. All good.
But let me start at the beginning, if I may. He does everything. He checks my blood pressure. He weighs me. He takes my urine sample. All things a nurse would do in the States. He does have a "secretary," but what she seems to do is to take down appointments, answer the door when I ring, show me to the elaborately furnished and decorated waiting room (which lies on one side of a huge private apartment that takes up an entire floor), and when I search for the bathroom she leads me to it, and when I'm done she escorts me back to the waiting room and shuts the door behind her.
There were two other women waiting when I arrived. I chatted a bit with one of them, since the doctor was about an hour behind schedule. That extra hour, though, really calmed me down and helped me talk myself through the price gap between faubourg St. Germain (the "old" aristocratic hang out) and my own faubourg St. Martin (the "old" working class neighborhood) which was still upsetting me. I finally get called in and am asked to sit at his desk to answer some introductory questions. He's very tan (probably from a recent August vacation) and dressed in a navy blazer (which may or may not have had gold buttons). The first thing he discusses is the concern in France for toxoplasmos (sp?) -- a bacteria carried by cats and un-zapped, undercooked meat. Stay away from both. And get another blood test to make sure you don't have it. At the end of the thorough but swift exam he asked me for the 120e and gave me a receipt for my insurance. All went well, and I feel fine about the whole experience. Although I really, really wanted to finally learn the sex of the baby but I have to wait two more weeks until I can go to an echographist, who will probably charge me more money. But that's okay, no big deal, stop worrying about it, I tell myself, because my insurance is going to pay me back for everything.

À Dejeuner

I've been trying to take part in the French thing of big lunches, small dinners. A habit that makes sense, really -- even though I love a nice big dinner. But so far this ladies-who-lunch thing has been successful.
On Tuesday I met a friend at Le Loir Dans La Théière in the Marais, which is a cozy place with wooden tables and a kind of coffeehouse feel to it. I ordered a creamy/zesty linguini dish that was yummy and my friend got a zucchini tart that was FULL of zucchini. The best though was dessert -- a lemon meringue which consisted of 10% really tart lemon and 90% huge, really dense and sweet and yummy meringue. I never liked meringue pies, the kind offered at my church cafeteria -- the meringue was airy and tasteless, I thought. But this stuff was so good and I am thus converted.
Today we went to a local place called Le Reveil du Xème which is a modest little bistro around the corner. The people there are super nice and the food is no nonsense. Most of the dishes were incomprehensible to me and I was too scared to order something called "Tête persilée" (parsleyed head?), which made me believe that this must be "real" french cuisine. I ordered the saucisse dish which came on a mound of dense mashed potatoes with not a green veggie in sight. It was really good. My one friend ordered the duck confit with sauteéd potatoes -- really moist and yummy. And the other ordered the salad with chevre chaud that came with two huge mounds of chevre. We also ordered escargot to start and what I suppose was a modestly priced pôt of beaujolais (since our "addition" wasn't that overwhelming, about 20e/person). And we got an eggy (kinda quich-ey) peach dessert (i forgot what the kind of tart is called). I liked it.

Foundation Cartier

This museum is free on Wednesday afternoons. They were exhibiting pieces by César, a sculptor who seemed to have enjoyed some popular and populist fame in the late sixties.

Toby

I wonder what is sold under this name . . .