HELLO FRIENDS!

This morning I was getting coffee at Place de Clichy, the place in Paris where you are least likely to find an American. Paris is crawling with Americans, I hear our brassy voices ringing all over town, but you will not find them in my neighborhood.

Remember when teenagers were burning cars in scummy Parisian neighborhoods on the news? Yea, it's that kind of neighborhood. Unless you're looking to purchase some questionable fun, you do not what to hang around at night. My place is juste a côté, at Porte de Clignancourt. I receive many wide eyes and much disbelief when I tell others where I live. When I moved here I was afraid to walk around at night. Upon seeing the Porte de Clignancourt for the first time on a Sunday afternoon I was struck by the cafe terraces, which were populated with men only. Oily looking men with leathery skin, glaring at women's bodies like a curious but unmotivated wolf. I saw few women walking around this particular day. Otherwise these are the different types of women that dominate the quartier:

-covered from head to toe, gazing downward, with a cart of groceries or a child in a stroller.

-3 inch long glistening nails and neon colored weaves sculpted in elaborate, sky-high shapes. polyurethane covered asses jiggling on top of polyurethane covered legs, teeter tottering on top of polyurethane heels. These women gossip and complain with loud scratchy voices like a cat in heat.

-of course there are less remarkable typical women but the other two types are so numerous you don't notice them. There are also drug addicts and little dirty (physically- that wasn't a remark on their character!) children digging in the garbage at MacDo and men hanging around on corners whispering codes to women they think might be able to provide them a service. Let's just say I know my value because it's been whispered in my ear. Icky. Icky. Poo. Poo. It's hard not to hate men sometimes. The Sorbonne also has a center near by so at certain times of the day on certain days you see typical french/international students moving in giant crowds from the metro to the school. You definitely don't see them sticking around to "hang out." I'm suspicious the government made the school put a building there to shift reputation of the area and encourage it to grow more culturally/intellectually.

Anyway, so I'm drinking my 1 euro coffee and reading my kindle which is probably really stupid because some greedy kid could just walk off with it, and I hear loud, booming southern women. I turn around and see FIVE hugely obese blond women wearing bright blue matching NEW YORK CITY tee-shirts and those therapeutic shoes. Above middle age. There was feathered hair and perms. There were fanny packs. They were talking about squeezing your eyes shut during an MRI. Talk about out of place.- Around us were glossy-haired, hard eyed boys in leather jackets and distressed denim with way too many pockets and a couple middle aged bollywood like men with silvery porn moustaches. These women were an enigma for everyone. Me included. It's been ages since I've heard a southern accent. They could have been plucked straight out of a greencastle hair salon. Completely oblivious of everyone around them. Shrieking with laughter, babbling all sing-songy in that southern way. i wanted to take them to the Eiffel tower, to the louvre, to all those places and revel in their reactions. They were SO funny and charming and husky and full of life.

I'm reading Anna Karenina right now (didn't that re-become popular recently thanks to Oprah?) People constantly make references to her jumping under a train at the end, so that's kind of annoying to be aware of while reading. I'm surprised at how fully Tolstoy gets into the heads of diverse people. His characters are complex, real, defying categorization. People describe great novelists like that all the time and I always find it to be true in modern books taht I love, but I'm completely unaccustomed to classic literature (other than some novels I read in high school, which honestly I couldn't imagine having a conversation wtih the characters), especially giant russian novels. I was expecting big, sweeping romantic characters that fit concisely into "types." Tolstoy, to me a Brahmsian type with his giant white beard and furrowed brow (in the pictures Ive seen), depicts so perfectly the full and contradictory interior lives of people that could easily have been shown as "the drunk," "the teenage socialite," "the broody, bookish, plain girl," "the adulterer." I shouldn't have been surprised since Tolstoy is constantly referenced as the greatest novelist.....anyway I love it and I feel like I'm watching a great TV serie.

MAD MEN IS COMING BACK SOON!!!!1

I'm in a serious relationship. We met 10 months ago and our 6 month anniversary is on April Fools Day. Ouai (pronounced "way"). It's emotionally cozy.

My roommates daughter is playing outside my door, rapping "c'est quoi Caaaaaa, c'est quoi caaaaa" and pushing Matisse pictures she pulled off an old calendar under my door.

I'm attaching a picture of my cheri. We met at a housewarming party last summer just before I left Paris. I was SO OVER men and turned off sex. Had been for months. Neither of us wanted to be at the party and neither of us was interested in meeting anybody. He blended into the wall like a plank. In my memory he was dressed in such dull colors that his cothes blended into his skin whcih blended into his hair which all blended into the wall. When he heard I played the flute though his eyeballs popped with fireworks and we turned into that couple in the corner, chatting animatedly about music, name dropping composers, operas and being overall pretentious and enjoying it. He played piano from age 4-21. He invited me to his place at 3 am to listen to 15th century Italian love song (i know...) and I said "i don't do that, sorry" I'd left out "I don't do that anymore" :) lol. He convinced me to go to Versailles (his home) to walk in the parks of the Chateau during my last free moment before leaving Paris. A Wednesday morning. It poured rain and we had the park all to ourselves. I was all weird about being physically close and walked awkwardly far from his side, which would end up with him holding the umbrella out at arms reach to keep it over my head (but not over his...) I'm such a ditz sometimes. Yea you all know it. My feet of course got uber muddy so we had to go to his place anyway. He didn't lay a hand on me. We spent the summer writing eachother very seriously, 4 times a day. There were no romantic intentions from either side. Fast forward to October first and he's held a party for me to meet his friends. I'm unknowingly in a dress that flashes all of his friends repeatedly throughout the night. They've all seen my breasts. he won't let me live that one down. Anyway we played bump bump that night and the rest is history.

He was ill when I met him, which I didn't know a the time. He's well now and getting healthier and healthier. It's fun to see the progression concretely, in his body. His face changes, his build too.

So now I'm moving to Versailles. This is a town of anti-birth control families with von-trapp like armies of children in matching knee-high socks. The town it's self is adorable, clean, beautiful, well-maintained. OLD. so many DOGS and bent, old couples holding hands. There's a lack of nannies. Parisien children are always being pushed around by (most often) hard working Filipino women or (less often) self-conscious/fashion-conscious 18-25 year old brits and americans. My rent right now at Porte de Clignancourt is 500 euro. Rent in Versailles is only going to cost 300 euro (Guillaume's going to pay 600 because he's not a starving musician)!! Crazy considering how much more upscale the place is. But it is 35 minutes on the RER outside of Paris and not ideal for party crazy young folk.

It's funny to me that I'm going to find myself in a conservative town, as I am far from conservative in comportment and in political views. but I am a sucker for well-behaved children running around in tall socks and suspenders! Guillaume has fallen in love with the place because of it's historical significance. I am drawn in by walks in the sprawling parks of the Chateau de Versailles, picnics by the fountains and the beautiful calm, quiet, safe feeling walking down the streets. Serenity=low blood pressure= good. Cat also =low blood pressure. Cat does not always =serenity... Do I vaguely remember there being symbols for "not always equals" in math?

The open air market that is on the square. < That was a complete sentence if you just believe. Pot bellied bearded men announce the rpice of their poulet roti as if they were shouting obscenities. Perfect, natural veggies and fruits that actually have their own unique shape unlike grocery store style genetically engineered produce. Flowers exploding with life like exotic bacteria in a petri dish. Huge, cold, open air shops at the corners of the spquare with shiny octopus, piles of mini squid, turbot (a delicious flat-like paper fish with eyes on his sides), eel, you name it....on the other side you'll see rabbits hanging by their feet and a baby pig sliced cleanly in half through it's stomach A LA DEXTER, laying legless on a bed of lettuce, eyes glassy and half open. It's like you can still see the baby pigs soul in his eyes. Quiail eggs. giant gelatin-meat-random-colors-cube concoctions (i'd google it for a picture but i can't remebmer what those are called.) So many wonderful regional products. Large crystalled grey or pink salt from Normandy, honey from bretagne, coucroute frmo Alsace. My dream for next year is to practice my flute all day long in our happy apartment, have a flute studio at home in the afternoons with students back to back, eat whole foods from the market and go on evening walks with guillaume. flowers on teh table, a cat to scratch up the furniture.

We're going to toilet train our cat.

His name will be Ludwig.

We're going to have a piano and guillaume will learn to play the boogie-woogie (Chopin is sooo overdone. It's also ALL he and I have ever learned.)

I have about 5 million jobs to keep up with rent. i'm almost done with the 1st year of a musicology masters but it's incredibly boring (JUST like kellys experience) but I'm not going to continue next year. I'm auditioning for the Conservatoire de Rayonnement de Paris for a post-grad orchestral training program (2 years long). The other flutists in my orchestra go to that school. i figure if they can, so can i! I miht play the Ibert for my audition. I haven't played it since freshman year bah bummmm badadadabadabadabadadadabadabadaDA!

My orchestra is also going on a European tour later next month. Yay! We're playing Gershwin and I think the Poulenc mass and the carmen overture or something? We've played American in Paris a million times this year. I love it because it feels like a clin d'oeil (wink of an eye).

DOESN'T MY HOMEWORK LOOK FUN???

Me and Guillaumes apartment will be in a floating orb just above the pond in this picture:

I have to go prepare the solfege lesson I'm teaching later. Allez-Crocodiles!

Guillaumes family is Corsican. They have a big museum like home with this little church near the property. It's so FREAKING CUTE I can't avoid having little-girl daydreams about it. you just have to ask the mayor for a key to get in.