ha! am back. have no clear idea as of yet where i´ve been in the interim, either, in manner of high school year books where theres just too much to say to the kid youve known since 1tst grade, so all you can write is "what a long strange trip its been", or similar. except later, at some quiet moment down the road when youve had a minute or two to digest the implications of the time that has gone by and time to process the events and symbols and hidden secrets and beauties, then (then!) you write another, much more eloquent letter to that kid youve known from 1st grade (only in your head,though, cause hes off at college somewhere, dating and lerning and working for some Republican senator from South Carolina and just in a totally other world by now, and maybe at thanksgiving youll run into him at the Back Porch or something, which will pretty much be the only thing yall have in comon anymore besides shared playground experiences and we-were-both-in-the-assembly-in-the-marietta-high-school-gym-when-we-got-the-announcement-on-9\11, etc)and you say, hey, that time we got in trouble for popping the chocolate milk bags with those pointy capri sun-style straws in the lunch room in 5th grade? that was fun. thanks. because in the end, its those tiny, funny memories that make up our lives and give us pause.
i am not on drugs, i promise. but alot has happened and i feel very at peace about it all.
so, i believe i left you, dear reader, on my second night in paris. i had found quinn, we had made it back to our hotel, a long well deserved nap was taken...frederic called and woke me up, and we made plans to meet latish for more dancing. quinn and i dressed in our best urban-chic american-girl-in-paris-when-it´s-negative 2 degrees celcius-wear and took a rather complicated stroll through the parisian subway system. quinn, btw, was a native new yorker in her past life and is a mad genius at navigating subway trains and maps, and got us to the stop for the eiffel tower, pretty much the only thing quinn had an inclination to see is this great city, in about 20 minutes flat. we emerged from the underground with instructions to turn left, walk around a corner, and the eiffel tower should be somewhere in sight. i was walkng ahead of quinn, and when i turned the corner and saw it i grinned, i knew this was going to be good: i motioned to quinn with my pointer finger, a gentle "this way darling, look here...", and she walked up, turned the corner, and had an absolute spastic fit. the eiffel tower was huge, gigantic, looming up bright blue and shimmering before us. quinn screamed and flapped her arms and startled the nigerians selling miniature eiffel tower key chains and the pigeons that are often times their only customers. hopping up and down in ecstacy, quinn bounded to the edge of the railing and sighed a completely contented sigh (v. v. rare for this child). we stood and gazed and waited for its on-the-hour sparkle-fest. is miraculous, when it sparkles, the light bounces and shimmers on the grass, on the water, and in the windows of all the surrounding building, giving the impression of being in outer space at hyper speed with stars and comets flying all about and the great planet parisiana rushing toward you in some speed related to light years.
around midnight we met up with frederic and his friend, another boy named vincent, who looked like the cartoon character speed racer and was terribly adorable in a strictly parisian scarf-thrown-nonchalantly-over-the-shoudler-arrogant-grin-and-hand-rolled-cigarettes kind of way. we went to a club and met up with frederics other two friends from the night before. this night was incredible and impossible to describe, really. just madness. and margharitas. and the DJ played ´twist and shout´ and quinn and i talked about funny things grant use to do (she remembers alot!) and the french boys were all too cute and funny for words and taught me french phrases which i promptly forgot and quinn took about 150 photos which will all be on facebook someday. at 5am the club closed, and we wandered out into the streets. the consensus was that we were all hungry, and speed racer said he knew a place. we piled into 2 different taxis and sped off into the night, quinn and i singing twist and shout for the ammusement of the taxi driver. "the place" was not waffle house, not by a long shot. the place was Au Pied de Cocbon (google it) an all night parisian landmark that specialized in (?) pork products. they had guys in fancy suits opening the door for you and plush red velvet chairs and mirrored walls. the clientelle was the hippest-of-the-hip, all obviously wealthy, women dressed in sequined dresses with their hair boufonted high looking like they stepped out of Vogue, and guys in slightly rumpled tuxedos laughing into their champagne flutes. the air hung with the light smoke of expensive french cigarettes and tinkling conversation bounced through the chandeliers, and i felt right at home. i ordered froi gras and a diet coke, pascal had the beef tartar, quinn had french fries ("pooooom-frites!"). by the time we left the subways had reopened, so we made our way back to the hotel. 3 hours later (10am) i got a call from the front desk wanting me to verify that i knew a ms. angela jackson and that, if so, she was waiting in the lobby for me to come retreive her. considered telling him "i have no idea what you´re talking about, leave me alone" and going back to sleep, but figured would be mean to leave angela in the lobby just because i was unable to move my legs. pulled myself up and crawled into the lobby and embraced my darling angela and without more than 5 words to each other we went back to sleep.
several hours later the sweet frederic called and said, so even though its pouring rain, would anyone like to go to Montemarte? could not imagine a nicer place to see in the rain (v. optomistic because is paris), and we toured that famous neighborhood on the hill in a beautiful drizzle, and then took a warm cup of cider at a sidewalk cafe (inside, though, not on the sidewalk). that night quinn and angela and i took a long dnner of french onion soup and red wine and fresh bagguette and camembert and talked and listened to music and caught up. we found a little bar down the street that was open, and the boy working there was, quinn will back me up on this, the cutest boy in france, and he talked to us about tattoos and wrote me a map to a tattoo parlour which we did not patronize, and angela made quinn and i laugh till we almost peed our pants, and then we all came home and pushed our beds together and snuggled and watched ´home for the holdiays´ and fell asleep dreaming of america...
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