J'habite a Paris, en France

DATELINE: 12.02.09 PARIS, FRANCE

Slowly, very slowly, high school french is coming back to me - with the help of Rosetta Stone. I'm far from conversational but I am working on it.

So the big news is that I am moving again!!  This sunday. I'm actually quite excited.  I am moving into a *small* studio apartment, on the 6th floor (that is up 7 flights), sans ascensor. My legs are going to be super-fly after 5 months of those stairs!  I'll also have to learn to not forget things when I leave the house.  

The apartment is small, but is really "just enough".  Small kitchen (sadly, no oven), small bath (with the toilet inside the apt!!) and shower with a small bathtub.  Small bed.  BIG window overlooking the courtyard and another in the kitchen opening skyward.  The bed is still essentially child sized but is actually appropriate for this space and at this price, it's acceptable. The space is so cute... It's really so terribly French it's a bit amazing. 

The neighborhood is great - really active, full of people, and great stuff.  Good cafes, little markets all over the place, grocery store on the corner a block down, and only a 15 minute walk from the royal Opera house.  As I was exploring the neighborhood two things caught my eye and I took them to be good omens about my new apt (and it turned out, rightly so!): about 5 doors down is the largest pro photo supply shop in Paris.  It's huge (for a Parisian store)!  A few stops before that, I think it was maybe one block further away from my building, is a buddhist meditation center.  Ahhhhhh... home. 

To top it off, my new landlady is a profession photographer who has been shooting solely for the French professional theater for the last 30 years.  Seriously?  The fates did not have to hit me over the head - clearly, this is the place I am supposed to be!  She owns the apartment on the floor below the studio I will be renting, but uses it only as her office so is never there at night - so if I feel like I want to dance a jig in my undies at midnight, not a problem!  ;)  I'll be able to use her washing machine during the day if I need to (thank god... can you imagine hauling laundry up and down 7 flights of stairs??), and maybe I'll be able to use her oven to bake in sometimes.  If not, on the floor below her is my friend Anne and her daughter Rosa.  I'm looking forward to joining then for episodes of Lost on DVD, along with other such indulgences.  I am going to bribe them with fresh cookies so that I can use the oven sometimes... =)  

I've been trying to draw more since I got here.  Been shooting some too, mostly with my Lumix p&s cam, but have been inspired to try to do more drawing.  I'm convinced that it will make my photos better.  Drawing, specifically drawing people, has always been really challenging for me. I'm always trying to make my drawings look like what I see and to be really detailed and lively - like the work of my friends and older brother who are much better than I am.  I get caught up in that - trying to make it perfect.  So I've forced myself to draw what there is no time to perfect - people on the subway or in cafes.  Drawing them without them noticing is a challenge to be sure.  It generally means I have only a few minutes to work in, and I can't stare at them to try to get things just right.  Somehow this combination seems to be serving me well.  I'm happy with a few of the drawings I did yesterday.  Happy with a sketch I did of the broken remains of a statue in St. Germain de Pres.  It's a good feeling.  I admittedly am also getting a kick out of what a spectacle I become for people who notice I am drawing.  Through it, I've also noticed that big hats are still very popular among a certain age group of Parisian women.  =)

Speaking of - tonight I saw a hair coat.  Not a fur coat.  No.  Literally, a hair coat.  I think this woman skinned a yak to make this coat.  She was very proud, fluttering around on tiny little shoes and wearing the most obscene coat... she looked like a caricature.  Amazing.

I leave you to picture me rockin' out in my undies in a tiny studio apt at the very top of an old french building, and to picture a women in her tiny shoes and enormous shaggy coat of yak hair.... 

Son manteau de cheveux.

a tout la monde de Paris... A plus!