Four-Day Week

My family flew in this past weekend and had me swirling around Paris until I was nearly in tears. They left for a train tour of the Alps on Monday and I was left to nurse my itchy throat that became a full-blown cold the morning of their departure.
Before they get back to Paris on Friday, I have four days to myself to get things organized. I'm here, in case we've all forgotten, to get some progress made on my dissertation. I should get going on that before D. gets here in early Nov. (btw - he received a rejection call yesterday and is, of course, totally bummed. f**k. something will turn up, right?)
So, here's what i need to do:
-- finish grading student midterms (finished it yesterday. i just wanted to check one thing off)
-- apply for some diss fellowships
-- apply for a family leave of absence
-- apply for california state "disability" funding (since being pregnant and a nursing mother disables me from working)
-- um, finish my stupid chapter on freud.
I'm going to get myself to the Pompidou library today to get started on some of this.

Hancock

I just watched the Will Smith movie Hancock. It's really bad. But what had me laughing at the end is that the black man has to stay away from the white woman for the good of the world.

Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

On Sunday, after twisting my ankle, falling on the cobblestone, and getting a run in my new tights, I walked to the Museum of Hunting and Nature. This is the single-weirdest Paris museum I've visited. Here's a fuzzy photo of the ceiling of staring owls as proof:

It's really a museum that presents the history of man's fascination with animals. Its rooms are organized by animal: there's a room of wild boar, fox and stag, unicorns, birds, and of course dogs. Some rooms include a little cabinet that provide both biographical information on the animal, and poems dedicated to the animal. And of course each room is covered in paintings and tapestries:


It's not a big museum -- I think it took me less than an hour to see everything. But it's really great, how the museum intentionally mixes its messages. The ceiling of owls is crazy/silly but then it will give you scientific data to remind you that these animals are not for entertainment, they have a life outside human perception.
It's highlight is the big game room --

Which is followed, if one goes to the unfinished upstairs portion, with a general question of the actual scientific difference between human/animal. So, here we're made to feel bad, but of course not too bad (it's not like in the States where every natural science exhibit must be accompanied by a moralizing guilt trip, where you are made to confront the evils of your car-driving, plastic-consuming, tuna-eating ways. Not that I disagree with these evils, I'm just impressed by the America's ability to turn everything into a personal moral issue -- smoking, recycling, gas guzzling -- rather than a wider political-ethical concern.) In fact, the finale of the museum doesn't even make you feel bad. The punchline -- animals are like us (I almost wrote humans are animals, but I don't think the museum went there) -- maybe was the running theme throughout the museum as you look at all the different ways humans have occupied themselves with thinking and writing about, killing and painting animals.
Go visit.

Born and Raised

I didn't realize how much of a St. Louisan I was until this morning:
Nachos Story.
(I disagree with rule #1 and #4, as well as the general tone of the whole thing.)

Prenatal Yoga in Paris and Toni&Guy

First off, if you happen to be English-speaking, pregnant, living in Paris and interested in yoga -- then you should check out Centre de Yoga du Marais. Michelle, the instructor, is really great -- she's easy on us, but not too much. We do adaptations of standard yoga poses, focusing on stretching out the hips and the back, but also working on balance. I'm not sure what balancing is supposed to help, but I find I'm better at it as a pregnant person than I ever was "unencumbered."

Secondly -- I got a free haircut today at the Toni&Guy Academy (whose new number is 01 43 14 02 28). It was a totally strange experience that lasted over three hours. And in the end, I got a strange "fashion" do that was "asymmetrical" and pretty short. They are meticulous technicians, it would seem, that work on thinning out your hair via a number of different razoring movements. A fast-talking Swiss dude cute my hair. I barely understood a word he said, but he didn't seem to mind. The students are actual stylists who come to the academy for three days to get updated on the latest trends (I'm piecing this together from what I understood Fabrice, my stylist, to have been saying). I would provide a picture of my head, but I'm a bit vain. I came home and de-asymmetrized my head (it was just too weird, and my mom will be here on Saturday and I already know what she'd say: nothing at first, just stare at me with a slight smirk and then ask, "You like your hair? It looks weird to me."). But I think I like the shortness. I mean, I think I'll like it more in a couple of weeks when it does a bit of growing out. But the thinning out thing, it's cute.

Une chambre à soi

I went to see a stage production of A Room of One's Own last night. The good thing about it was that it was really nice to go out and see a play in Paris. The bad thing was that it was boring -- it was just Woolf's text read out loud and kind of acted out. The actress, Edith Scob, stood in the middle of a set designed to look like a cozy old British study with wooden desks, book shelves that reach to the ceiling and a really nice leather sofa. But, as my friend pointed out, she didn't do anything with this room of hers. She just walked around in it and made us imagine other rooms and other places (Oxbridge, British Museum, etc.). Scob's version of Woolf was also really annoying -- she made her shrill, fragile, and annoying. And finally, I wish the playwrights and the director could have imagined someway to make this text -- which is still relevant today -- actually appear relevant. They had us approach the text -- which dated itself Oct. 26, 1928 -- as an historical artifact, but the problem was that it (the text and the play) was trying to make universal claims about what men do (use women as mirrors) and how women should write (androgynously). But there is a way to make Woolf's text speak to a post-feminist audience. But it would probably require actual writing, not just transcription (ooh, damn).

Cookies and Crafts

I splurged today for lunch. After a decadent week-and-a-half of eating out at French Bistros I had promised myself to make all my meals at home. But I had such a craving for Vietnamese noodles this afternoon. What could I do? And then after my (actually Cambodian) lunch, I had a hankering for something sweet. So I bought a chocolate cookie. And I ate it. And now I feel awful. But also completely satisfied. C'mon. Cut me some slack. I'm pregnant.
I've started knitting a Super Easy Baby Blanket with some yarn I got at the Bon Marche, which was having a sale. My mother is already making a baby blanket, but I couldn't resist. Babies can have more than one blanket, I'm pretty sure. Might as well both be hand-made. However, knitting is an activity that indulges my procrastinating desires -- which may be a problem since I really, honestly should get some work done while I'm here.
I went and saw Tropic Thuder (or "Tonnerre sous les tropiques") last night. I thought it was funny, but not as hilarious as the man sitting next to me, crying into his popcorn everytime Ben Stiller played "Simple Jack." Perhaps Stiller's performance was too reminiscent of Jerry Lewis not to provoke the Frenchman's hysterical convulsions.

More Pictures

Diana thinks about rock

Christina's belly in the hall of mirrors

Mannequin Ghost

French Antiques Dealer

Debates

I'm listening to last night's debates. I'm about to turn it off cause it's just annoying. McCain's tactic, here, is so obvious and so childish. First he throws accusations Obama's way, then he quickly switches subjects so that the little comma separating two parts of a sentence also apparently allows for a complete change of logic. "He has terrorist friends, but I really think that tax cuts is the way to go"::"You have stinky feet, but I think unicorns are neat."

The Last Week and a Half

I've had visitors -- and actual things to do for the past week and a half:


My lovely visitors


Père Lachaise on a beautiful autumn morning


The picnic spread at the garden in Versailles


Shopping at the flea market