Notes from Paris

From the Paris journal:

Friday, 15 December
Dear Jana,
I sit in a Greek restaurant in Paris, nearly empty, staring at a decrepit boar's head hanging from the wall. The maître d'/waiter is busy outside trying to lure customers. He says, "François, Español, English?" "Oui, anglais," I reply.

To my left, over the stairs, hang a variety of masks and plates from Malaysia, Buenos Aires, Martinique. The dolmades have come. They are not impressive. Neither is the wine. Tomorrow I have to eat in a French cafe. . . I should have listened to David Sedaris' Paris episode of This American Life before I left. I think I chose this restaurant because I felt confident the waiter would be nice to me.

This pen says 'Paris' on it, with a picture of the Eiffel Tower. When I bought it, the man in the empty souvenir shop tricked me into kissing him twice. Then he said, "In France, we kiss three times -- here, here, and here," pointing once to each cheek and finally to his lips. "Uh huh. Pardon, au revoir." I remember a time years ago, at a party very drunk and very high, a college boy pulled a similar trick. The Frenchman stank of cologne. I felt dirty, but only for a minute. On my way out, a handsome man asked for money for some children's charity. "I'm sorry, I have no money to give you." "But it's for the chiiiiiiiiildren," he whined as I walked away.

At the Eiffel Tower I decided the lines were too long. I walked along the Seine and thought of "Before Sunrise." Then I walked down the Blvd. Saint Germaine and felt a bit warm and satisfied.

The music in this restaurant is nice, and so is the wine, even though it isn't.
In Paris, couples are constantly kissing. There were two handsome young people climbing on one another to make out on a bench under the Eiffel Tower.

Here is the main . . . The pork is bland and fatty. The rice is cold. The potato isn't even good. How do you screw up a potato? People walk by and stop, contemplating coming in, reading the menu. I try to send them telepathic messages: "Don't be fooled. Keep walking. What you've heard is wrong; you can find lousy food in Paris." Ah, the boar's head should have been a dead give-away. Maybe the baklava will be good anyway.

This waiter -- slicked back hair, big mustache, soul patch. A piece of work. Would I . . . No, probably not. Too greasy.
More plates: Guatemala, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, New Orleans, Hawaii, Australia, Singapore, Canada, London, New York-2000, Trinidad, Stockholm, Thailand.

Look at the waiter leering at the evening strollers. He is feeling desperate, I can sense it. The winter is hard. His business might fail. Better food would help. Word of mouth is important.

The weather is beautiful. Fog in the morning burned off by noon, sunny day, warm, perfect, global warming, perfect.
Waiting for my baklava and coffee. At least I am in no hurry, soaking up the bricolage atmosphere of this sub-par Parisian Greek establishment. If I were Parisian I would have demanded my dessert by now. I'm not even a decent American – too meek. C'est la vie. C'est moi.

Half hour. Oh wow, the baklava isn't even good. I think I’m actually impressed. They survive quite well for being so across-the-board lousy.


Saturday, 16 December
Dear Me,
[penned while enjoying onion soup and Perrier in a charming French café hidden behind a winter market in an out-of-the-way courtyard] The rain today has made me feel ill. That, and the crowds, and the scratchy socks I'm wearing, and the fact that all I've eaten is a pain au chocolat and a can of coke. The crowds in department stores today, this rainy Saturday two weeks before Christmas, were enormous. Of course. The one – what was it called? [Printemps] Went up 9 floors, had window displays with expertly choreographed dancing teapots and table settings, and crowds, no, hordes of families – little children, couples, tourists – were gathered staring. I guess it must be the same in New York, London.
On the metro a couple danced while a busker sang 'Imagine' in a thick and nasally French accent, with an amp pumping out karaoke accompaniment.

Sunday, 17 December

My maternal grandmother makes an infinite amount of sense in the context of Paris. Did she take extravagant shopping vacations here as a young woman? Or . . . maybe this is what New York high society was like in the 1950s. The chain mail clutch purses, fancy mahjong sets, old women with impossible hats impossibly balanced on impossible coiffures, above impossibly painted-up faces, and outfits so gaudy they've come back around to the height of fashion, teetering on the thimble-size points of dangerously high heels, every blue curl in place, spooning raspberry parfait into their violently red mouths. My grandmother would have loved this. This is the world she was so desperately trying to recreate with each passing year, to locate within the decaying walls and sunken faces of Catskill resorts in the 1990s.

The 21 year old Mexican tango dancer from Monterrey staying in my hostel, called Andrés, is reading, "Los Hombres son de Marte, Los Mujeres son de Venus." He has a baby face, is useless on his own, but when I close my eyes and listen to him speaking to his mother on the phone in Spanish, in that deep Mexican accent, he is the most beautiful man I have ever known. There is something about a Latin accent that gets me every time. And I miss my baker, my sweet man, mi hombre impossible, mi novio incomprehensible. Funny what Paris does to the loins.