Work

So, I am about to embark upon my first exam in the british system. And I have a complaint.

Classes ended March 23.

Then, a month passed.

Next week, exams begin. And they continue until the beginning of July. I have about a week to study for each exam and one to write a paper.

How is it possible that people can complain about not having had enough time to revise? You had Six Weeks! I was traipsing around europe, so I'm screwed, but you live here--you can traipse any old weekend you want! There's a tone of voice that goes with this whingeing, and it makes my skin crawl. It is actually like nails on a chalkboard.

I'm used to having five days, and one of them is after slope day, i.e., recovery day.

Part of me feels like a marine, someone's one-eyed grandpa sitting at the table at the family party, all 'Yeah, I was in the shit...five exams and a paper in six days, and I had to move out before the paper was due. You pansies wouldn't last one minute out there...' and making your friends uncomfortable, because he's blocking the dip and talking about charlie.

But in six weeks I could memorize the class. In six weeks I could teach the class. In six weeks I could cure cancer. I could solve a rubik's cube.

I know that in reality I'd spend the first five weeks drinking, watching tv, playing with my hair, and panic as usual during the last one. But still, at least CU knows that's how it is and gets it over with quickly.

Down and Out in Paris

Cafe with dragon tables. Pissed off Lisa and Corinne.

C'est la vie.

Epilogue: Lisa bought me another ticket. No one checked it on the train, so it was still valid when I got to the airport. Lisa found my ticket right where I dropped it. And then when she came to London, I gave her the other one. She is set for a free train journey to luxurious Charles de Gaulle. And the last coffee in Paris was good.

More

Lisa, I say, stomach tight and hands cold. Which ticket was I supposed to hold onto?

Lisa, examining my tickets: You dropped it. Oh my god. You dropped it.

Big Sigh.

Adorable. Unlike my dropping of the ticket.

Last Hours in Paris

Huuuuge glasses, like beacons in the night.

This lady!

This is the bar where I opened my mouth and a sentence later they were all laughing because 'She talks like an arab!!!' Momma Brenz is proud.

One time, I made lisa take me to montmartre mere hours before my plane took off.

OK, she said, but let me buy your train ticket to the airport first.

I am A Tourist.

OK, says I. Sounds good. I shuffle around in my pockets, thumbing old, used tickets, as Lisa buys the new one.

Hold on to this, she says. Don't drop it.

I take the ticket.

She carte oranges and motions me to follow, as I no longer have a carte orange.

I drop the real ticket and put the used ones back in my pocket.

And we go to montmartre.

one last Big Head, some Bar Strangers

biiiiig head

I'll eat your face?

One time, we were walking around in paris, and some strangers waved us into a bar.

They had huge glasses in that bar. So we went in, and did not look back.

You want pictures?

May I suggest http://www.tshirtexmachina.blogspot.com/ ?

Commentary to follow.

Monday, April 23rd

Ryan is now at the airport, waiting for a plane.

It didn't rain the whole time he was here. Remarkable.

Tomorrow I have to converse about a paper I haven't written yet. Having already fainted in front of this prof, I feel that, if I'm really getting stuck, I can probably just drop to the floor and call it a day.

I am coming back to the US on May 27th. Get ready.

More on Spain and Ireland later, but the thing about Ireland is that it's pretty great, and the people are so nice, and the history is very sad. And the whole thing kind of makes you hate England, if you didn't already.

Also, KT and Cait, was Mary the Irish Psychic operating out of a tiny red storefront on O'Connell Street, Dublin?

Now is a time for napping.

Goings-on

Ryan is here.

Lisa is here, and oh my god. Stories.

I'm going to Spain and then Ireland on Tuesday-Sunday

And then I have exams and such.

I'm going to try and backtrack and fill in stuff that's happened.

Lisa forgot to bring the CD of my pictures, so hopefully she'll get that to me sometime or post them for me. She remembered the pastries, though.

I forgot to post this on Sunday.

I like easter, because tomorrow chocolates in many shapes and with various fillings will go on sale.

The last time I remember hearing my uncle donald was on an easter phone call. He told me about roman traditions, and egg dyes, and goddesses for about 20 minutes before taking a measured pause and asking if my father was around.

This was before he faked his death to evade the CIA. Also before he died for real.

But it was years after he had baptised his grand-nephew--and 3 or four other unsuspecting infants-- uninvited and under false pretenses, pretending to be 'Father Donald' (in the vestments, and all) , when the jesuits had, in actual fact, kicked him out many years previously.

Also after he got off illegal possesion of a firearm due to a technicality in search procedure.

Oh man. The cops had to commandeer a bus, because Uncle Donald was in a wheelchair and they couldn't get him to a station any other way.

Oh, they were taking him to a station because he pulled a gun on a parking lot attendant who was giving Donald's nephew and future niece-in-law a hard time. Like, making them follow the rules of the parking garage.

The technicality in search procedure came into play because, after producing the gun, Donald put it away in its silver, locking briefcase home, and put it in a closet. Did I mention he did not have a license for this firearm? Anyway, the cops did not have a warrant when they searched his home. And they did not have just cause for searching his home because the man was in a wheelchair, and thus, not in danger of escaping or reaching the locked, hidden gun.

Know your search procedure, guys. I can not stress this enough.

We have the briefcase in my house. We do not have the gun, though. The state kept it.

You can bet your life on the fact that the punchline to all of this is the image of unflappable, ex-jesuit, debarred-lawyer, part-time swindler and full-time paranoid Uncle Donald rolling out of the courtroom and asking my harassed father 'So do I get the gun back?'

And that is the story we tell every Easter, chez cjb.

I wish i were making this up. Happy Easter!

Tristan and Big Head

Wandering through the paris metro, a pack of beautiful people carrying saxophones and luggage.





Lisa's friend tristan is all the way to the right; he learned half his english from american movies, which is awesome. he is also awesome. Anne-Sophie is to his right, and she is the sweetest thing in the world. Florent has the face of a cherub. And I have the face of a jerk.





Shortly after this picture was taken, a blast of air wrenched my carte orange (weekly metro ticket) from my hands, into gate apparatus.





Me: (Screaming, wearing a saxophone case, trying to reach into the machinery to rescue the stupid little ticket and also keep the gate doors from closing, by throwing my shoulders against them.) NOoooooOOOO!! My carte hebdo!!!





Everyone else in the station: wtf?





Lisa: Your head's stuck in the thing.





Indeed, it was. Nobody understood how or why I had become entangled in the gate, and the ticket was definitely gone. And I was wearing a saxophone.





One way to cheat the metro is to have two people squeeze through while the gate is open for one ticket. So some nice french passer-by ran his ticket through and swept me through the other side. I was still very sad about the ticket; more the loss of ticket than the loss of dignity.

Also, 4 out of 5 of this group slept in Lisa's one person apartment that night. We are adorable, like puppies.

I'm sad I don't have pictures of it, but the next day Tristan and AnSo took me to his school to work on a project of his--painting the damn saxophone on backdrops. So I was at Paris tech crew all day. I didn't have any idea how to do anything or what was going on, it was just like high school tech crew. Also, AnSo is the most adorable person you will ever meet, and pretty (perfect bangs, no joke) , and very understanding of your limited knowledge of french art and set design.

On my last night in paris, I climbed a big head.

Florent came up, too.

We were between bars, and it just seemed like a good idea.

Made some phone calls from the somatosensory cortex.

And then just chilled out on the orbito-frontal region.

My goodness, that is a big church behind us.

Lisa needs some climbin' time too. My foot is in Head's ear, gross.

She's up!

Florent: face of a cherub, apartment of an art student.

So much of paris was walking around...

Sometimes, in Paris, you walk around all morning and it's nice, and then as you're supposed to meet Lisa at a metro stop, it gets rainy and gross, so you go in it to get out of the rain and become entangled in conversation with a homeless guy. And the conversation uses literally every weather-related vocabulary word you know, so it fizzles out once you've exhausted them all. And so you watch emo girls glissent and fall on their fesses on the stairs. And you wonder where Lisa is. And then, lo and behold, elle est revenue! And it turns out she was upstairs in the rain, talking to a dude about SIDA (AIDS) and he ends up asking her out. So to get over the stressful hour, you stop in a pub, like any good british lass.

Pas de CB? shut up no way.

A 'pub' in which an MTV special about twins was playing in the background as The Doors alternated with Fergie on the soundtrack. Our bartender seemed to be from everywhere, including, New Jersey, (he was a bit vague on the deets) and flirted with everything in the bar, including his fellow bartenderess's shirt strings, a jolly old man holding a bucket of ice, and the bucket. But he made Lisa take this dumb picture, and now it's on my blog, so I guess Bien Joue, Casey. Wherever you are.

While discussing the lack of trashy gossip magazines in her life, I spot a pile of them on the street and hand one to Lisa. What a windfall. It's a british one, too!
Furthermore, after two pints, Lisa is drunk and wants to find a toilet.

A toilet on the sidewalk suddenly appears. how convenient.

Unfortunately we were not specific enough in our thinking-out-loud, so it was not connected to any plumbing. Ours is a charmed life, for real.


We stumble off into the sunset, towards her SIDA friend (alias: The Corsican) and his friend (aka He Who Shops at Hot Topic).

The Direction in which We Walked. p.s. this was at, like 9 pm, I have no idea why it's so light out.

Topical!

As I return and reflect on Paris, here comes asofterworld in (quebecois) french.

As you may know, asofterworld is a comic that comes out every friday, and is written by Joey Comeau (Q: Joey of this blog's title? A: The very same!)

They are here for now; supposedly a french main page is supposed to come up soon.

http://www.asofterworld.com/francais/

Tower?

One day, I went for a walk in Paris and decided I would take a picture of the tower...you know, the cliche one...every time I saw it.

There are more. But I like this one:

And then I turned to my left and took this one: