Saturday, February 14, 2009

Looking up & the hippy-jiggy-boogy (it's a long one...)

DATELINE: 14.02.09 PARIS, FRANCE

I'm free! I'M FREE!!! Yes freeeeeeeedom has beeeeeeeecome a reality!!

I'm done with the crazy lady. I moved out this morning. The departure was ugly. She is a nasty nasty lady. I'm so glad to not be living there anymore. I'm trying to tap into my yoga peace loving self and resist the urge to do something vindictive and nasty to her.

I had thought telling her I was moving out had gone fairly well and would be fairly amicable. But then suddenly she got nasty nasty nasty. She decided I'd lied to her about money (to be fair, as I may have said before, I had avoided paying her the rent when I first moved in because she wasn't delivering on the things she had said were part of the rent... ie: a bed, and internet). Then she somehow decided that I was going to steal her house while she wasn't looking.

I woke up on Friday morning to find a note asking me to leave on Saturday morning (today) - while I had paid her for two weeks and she had already agreed to my leaving on Sunday late afternoon. I can't move into the new place until tomorrow afternoon, otherwise I gladly would have left sooner. I was out last night at a concert (more about that in a moment) and didn't get back to the apt until 10:30 this morning.

I arrived to find all of my food taken out of the refrigerator and put in a trash bag in the hall. Nasty nasty witchy lady. I packed up all my belongings. She stood by the door as I headed out and when she requested the key, I requested the two days of rent back - since she was kicking me out two days early. She started shouting that I had lied to her about money, that she had paid for the internet, and that in the states you pay on the first day of the month. I retorted that we are not in the states and that she had lied about what was included in the rent. I threw the keys into the apt and stormed out (yeah, it was not one of my most shining moments, but I was angry). I wish i'd left an egg to rot under the bed. Maybe I'll pull that old college trick of filling the ziplock baggy with some stinky substance and exploding it under the door. ha.

Maybe I'll just indulge in the fantasy of it, because I believe in karma and don't want karma to bite me in the arse. As Gary said: karma and fate are two sisters you don't mess with, because they will cut you!

But I am so relieved to be done with her and so excited to move into my new pad. I've been told that my new landlord actually _thanked_ the friend who referred me to her for referring me. Can you believe the difference? Amazing. Anne, my friend who lives two floors below my new home, has already been amazingly hospitable. And her teenage daughter so kind, and seems also fairly enthusiastic about me moving in upstairs. It'll be a bit like having a little sister. =) I can dig it.

Things are really looking up.

So let's talk about the hippy-jiggy-boogy. You know the hippy-jiggy-boogy. It's what happens when there is a band jamming out with some funky good grooves and you just can't help but get up out of your seat and shake your butt and then next thing you know your arms are going and your feet are going and you have to smile. You have to because your whole body is smiling and you are just happy and loving every minute of it. And who cares what you look like because at first maybe you are the only one brave enough to get up and get your groove on but you quickly notice that all the sudden there are tons of people around you doing the same thing. You know they were just itching to do it but needed someone to give them permission. You are having a great time, the music is great, you're shakin' yo' thang, and loving that you could be the person to give them the permission to break out and shake it! That's the hippy-jiggy-boogy. But I don't know how to say that in French...

Last night I went to a concert with Dené & Jacob in one of the burbs of Paris, an area called Cretiel. The venue is called the Maison des Arts. The venue was really cool, really attractive with a large stone plaza in front (kind of like the Met in NYC has - but larger). The area around the venue, really awful. It's concrete everywhere. It feels like an industrial wasteland - that is, what we saw between the metro and the venue. The entire distance between the two can be traversed without ever touching ground. You pass through the second level of a large shopping mall. It leaves you feeling rather gross.

The concert was Saul Williams, opening band was Anthony Joseph & the Spasm Band (from Trinidad). It was a great show. I was kicking myself much of the time because I had left my camera at home, assuming that like concerts in the States we would be frisked before going in and without a bag to stash my camera in (didn't want to bring my bag) they wouldn't let me in or it would get confiscated - something like that. That may have been a slightly irrational assumption, but in any case I thought it best to simply not bring it.

I also didn't imagine that I would get close enough to take any worth while pics. Well... as it turned out they don't frisk you or even seem to check bags, and I spent the whole show shakin' my butt right at the edge of the stage, front and center! I could have kissed Saul Williams' feet, many many times over. I could have pulled his pants down if I were taller. I could have groped his crotch if I actually felt like getting kicked in the head. The spot where we were was unbelievable. I haven't had a spot that good since I shot for PFC in Denver. Everyone on either side of me was shooting and filming, and by that point security had utterly abandoned any hope of stopping them so wasn't even bothering them. Sigh...

It was a fantastic show and was *just* what the doctor ordered. Thanks, Dené, for putting the idea in my head and inviting me!!

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