Romain and I started our goodbyes

we started saying goodbye. It still feels early, we still have 3 weeks and 2 days before we leave, but they'll pass by way too fast.

I'm too lazy to upload the pictures one by one, it keeps crashing. so you'll just have to click on the picture to see the larger version.

He said goodbye to Laetitia by eating a shawarma.
the picture of the back of his head is just posted for my health.


I said goodbye to erin by having her tell a story while holding Romain's breast from when he was 17; and hiding behind the staircase she decorated in montmartre; and drinking wine out of a baby bottle; and kissing by the metro; and picking up a random orange clock with a missing hand on the side of the street.

JULIETTE WALKED!!!

she did she did!!!
yesterday, she was standing there crying and trying to hold on to my legs while i needed to go get her food, so I backed up quickly, out of her reach, and she followed!!!! 3 whole steps before she sat (fell) down!! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!
3 whole steps!! i'm good to leave this continent now.

p.s.

ANYBODY WANT MY JOB FROM NOW TO JULY 31ST???
it's fun, pays well, and you barely do ANYTHING!!

take my job!

Ever since the beginning of may, I've been waiting anxiously for the end of june, my imaginary cut off date with the family. not that I don't like working for them, but it's really a pain in the ass (and every other muscle and bone in my body, physically) to simply even go to work.

I spend 2 dagnammed hours to commute; if I take my computer, I discover a loose screw in my body by the 4th step; if I don't take my computer, I waste all the time that I spend at the house and all my existing pains still start by the 10th step.

The dread of going to work amplified 16 times when I found out 5 days ago that they need me until the end of eternity (july)!!! I thought they only needed me until school vacation, but they actually meant whenever the parents wanted to take their vacation. There's no way will I be able to board the train to Chaville for another month; or lug my 5 ton computer in the forest; or cook with nothing I like in the fridge; or order cereal only to have it all be eaten the day after it arrives; or hear to ariane's voice for another month of my life.

I am wasting so much of the time that I don't have left in Paris, am not paid jack, totally over both of the kids, (ok fine, not juliette I would pack her in my Florida bags if I could, I just wanted to hear myself say out of spite that I was over her ).

But still, I can't bring myself to just leave. The family has been too good to me, the only reason it's not rewarding now is because I've chosen no longer live there.

decisions

they used to be so easy! what happend? now my brain makes every step deeper and heavier than they are in reality. like where to go for the next couple of years...what difference does it make where we go? neither is a wrong choice... why can't i just pick up my ass and go anymore. why am I so indecisive?

even retouching pictures...editing was always a problem, but my selections were definitely tighter before; and I NEVER had different versions one image. I don't know what I want in my life, but can't I at least have an aesthetic preference??

misplaced

where did my independence go? hmmm... i hope it will, like my glasses, show up when i'm not searching. but not at eileen's house

tumblers R us

Juliette's tumbling down the stairs has nothing to do with this, but it just so happens that that was when my emotional tumbling action started, and I started a blog entry called "tumblers R us" and then didn't feel like posting it because i was not tumbling by the time i half finished the entry. Well, that little tumbly period lasted a few days, meaning I would hit the bottom, and then bounce up high, and then come back down. But this time around, the bouncing is lasting ridiculously long.

I feel like a giant tennis ball bouncing on the moon, no, on a spatial body where gravity changes all the time, so I could be rising or falling for hours or seconds, with no predictable pattern.

jess, sunshine, and van

pictures from our vacation in Nice.


what jess did all weekend.




a necklace that I really really really wanted, and it wasn't even THAT expensive...being with a group that wanted to keep moving helped.
maybe I thought I could steal it.


dead fish in the ocean


lionel's littlest baby.

we liked leaning in high places; and I swear we are not about to orgasm from altitude change in that one photo.

I like to eat nicoise flowers
I was bored; Van was super stressed out; at least jess had fun at the golf course.

us in Nathalie's studio jess in car.
us attempting to jump many times
scaling walls


and sitting in walls

van spying on me while i was doing yoga/dance/taichi poses and flexing my ultra-muscular arms.

beeeeeeeeeaaach

jessica groping me accidentally on purpose made me grow a beard


boohooo...she left.

no more fighting

My aupair job just got much easier as of a few minutes ago.
Even before I arrived, Sabine told me that Ariane had a difficult personality, and that we needed to be firm with her and stand our ground. That's why I always went out of my way to contribute to her education as a human being - I felt that I owed it to her parents who are so good to me, and I would hate to see Ariane become an adult being the way she is.
However, I just realized that I really don't owe it to Sabine and Amaury to install order in their kids brain if they don't even do it themselves. I have never seen them win a power contest against Ariane--they would yell back and forth, send her to her room and ground her, but then give her what she wanted the a few hours a days later. They win the skirmishes, but she always wins the war.
so....I'm just going to just going to save my gunpowder and just stop caring. no more forcing her to do anything that's good for her; no more correcting her when she does or says something wrong; no more fun things with her either, because then I'd just start to like her again (despite everything, she's actually a pleasant kid when you're just playing).

spring birthdays and babies

8pm view from my front door.

I've started numerous entries when not on the internet but never finished or posted them; because everytime I had internet, my mood changed and I didn't feel like posting them anymore.
eventually I guess I should finished them, when my internal rollercoaster starts rolling again.
But for now, all I think about is spring in paris-- it keeps teasing me; one day it's here, then next day it snows, but the it's impossible to escape the tulips that are blooming ubiquitously.
juliette is growing hair but no teeth.
romain and I are growing serious.
here's the evidence from my iphone.

i invented a game involving juliette's hair and paul mitchell hair glue

here there's no hair glue involved, just her rolling out of bed.

she loves to eat bread before growing out any teeth.

and she has no idea her hair looks like a chicken's butt.

juliette trying to eat the bracelet her sister made me.

she's into putting her fingures into holes, such as broken chairs...

..and Erin's cleavage

juliette giving erin a uculele lesson

this photo has nothing to do with anything but erin is so ridiculously gorgeous here that I had to post it.

juliette's scarf is a bit big on my baby, but the color suits him so well.

menacing babies R us

...sleeping babies R us

he carved me a vampire out of a lime!!!

I love the ice baton in my glass

pwesent time!!! (for the fake birthday)

he went all the way to Neuilly to by the boxes and paper and then went all the way to the 18th to get the cherry blossoms! just for a fake birthday!

his mother brought me beautiful jewelry from morocco for my real birthday

pwesents for the real birthday

ROMAIN MADE ME AN IPHONE CASE OUT OF A KIMONO!!! AAAAAHH he didn't even know how to thread the needle into the machine before this!

we had a sudden identity crisis one day and thought we were kangaroo-penguins.

lookin all gangstah on the train.

tulips EVERYWHERE!!

latenight intruder

All my childhood, everytime a water drop leaked into the sink or a popping noise came from the wood in the roof, or a pigeon scratched at my window, I imagined someone breaking in. It never actually happened, but I envisioned the scenes at at least 836 times-- daddy armed with our cleaver going at the intruder, me phoning the police under the blankets (on a cellphone of course, the burglar would've cut the telephone lines).

Last night, just before 4am, Romain and I were in afterplay, when suddenly, we hear loud and suspended coughing just outside the door. First we thought it was Monsieur Wong not-so-subtly telling us to be quiet, since there's only 2 feet between our doors and the walls act as amplifiers between our apartments. But then an almost inaudible shuffling starts, and now we are almost sure that we aren't overreacting-- it is indeed coming from just outside the door.

Romain gets dressed, makes me put on a t-shirt, and proceeds to the door, kitchen knife in hand, and doesn't forget to tell me to hide under the covers before opening the door.

He opens the door and studies the ground for half a minute, by which time I conclude that we had overreacted--how long does it take to survey a 2 by 1.5-foot space? but then he says "What are you doing there?"
That's when I realize that there is a shapeless bundle on the ground.
"mmbrtheubp" says the bundle.
"You have to go somewhere else."
"I don't have anywhere else"
"Well you can't just invite yourself to other people's corridors"
The bundle reluctantly walks/craws/tumbles down the staircase.

He tried calling the police then, but never succeeded, I suppose it got too complicated with the automated systems (which I'd always imagined --if your house is on fire, press 1; if you're being raped press too; stay on the line if you're dying).

first snow in paris-- april 6th!

I never imagined it would snow after one of my birthdays, nor that I would ever live to see snow in Paris, but last night IT SNOOOOOOOOWWWWWED!!!!!!!!

Romain and I were at Mel's place, he sat facing the window and I sat across from him, and all of a sudden, he went: "holly shit!!" and his jaw stayed open as if I did his laundry again, and remained open until he could finally utter "is that snow???"

all 3 of us ran to the window. I took some pics with my brand spanking new birthday iPhone.

Thank god Baharak picks queer couchsurfers to meet up with in paris, otherwise I wouldn't have met Mel, and wouldn't have ended up at her place a couple hours later. I would probably have been eating or in the middle of foreplay with romain at his place with the curtains closed.

In fact, I owe thanks to a lot of things:
Mel's need to transport a tree across Paris on the metro;

the need for a granny cart on which to put the tree;
having brought the granny cartful of laundry back from my place even though Romain told me not to that same morning (just shows i should make all decisions in the world for us, obviously, I'm the much wiser of the two);
Baharak's obsession with meeting queer couchsurfers, which was how I met Mel at musee picasso that afternoon, where Mel started talking about needing to get a little ficus plant (which turned out to be a giant tree);
oh and finally Romain's sudden (and rare) observantness, because the snow didn't last for longer than 5 minutes.

I am grateful for having these in life.

SWISS VACASH

switzerland is soooooooo cool!!!!!!
where else do you...
eat all the chococolate you want;
buy fresh milk from a vending machine with cows standing next to you;
go to the swimming pool and stand under a massaging waterfall;
walk around a lake in short and t-shirt because it's warmer than socal even though there's still snow;
ski, fall and UNbreak a leg that had been hurting for 10 days;
go iceskating with a leg that no longer hurts (see above);
play with juliette whenever we both feel like playing (read: not babysit);
plenty of veg and meat (not the potatoe and sausage diet Sabine had apologized for in advance);
not kill my eyes by staring at the computer for hours.
not cook;
not clean;

news strike

As always, I'm on the groundfloor of the my house at 8am to print out the transcript of my favorite french news podcast so I can read it on the train.
I open the website, low and behold, they are on strike!! no easy french news for me today.
I open itunes, and not only is the easy french news not casted today, nor is my african news, middle east news, and world news. (all same station)
crossing my fingers before I reopen itunes to see if other radio stations are on strike too.

i love her and i hate her

sounds like family right?
except not really....at least not right now, because I really can't stand her right now.
it's Ariane.
I started feeling a bit sick friday; she knew.
Yesterday (saturday) morning I had a fever and I stayed in bed all day.
Today I'm all better, so when I ran into her in the living room for the first time all weekend, she came over with a huge grin on her face (even I'm not naive enough to believe for a nanosecond that it was out of excitement of seeing me).
"Are you going to your friend* tonight??"
"no, even though my body temperature isn't setting off the fire alarm, i'm still not ready to leave the house" I should have answered "f-off i'm sick and your existence makes me feel sicker" but I didn't really feel that way about her until her latter comments.
She pouted a bit and asked if i would see him tomorrow, I said I didn't know; then tuesday? I still didn't know, but hoped that I would be well by then.

She seemed to never hear the part of my answer regarding my health, and but only that I wasn't seeing my friend! She then proceeded to argue and whine about how I promised to see my friend every weekend** and how unfair life is to her.

If she had even just pretended to care about anyone other than herself for a second, if she had just asked me "how are you feeling?" or even "do you feel well enough to see your friend anytime soon?", then I might have been tempted to give her the next dvd hidden in my closet***. but as it is, I'm definitely going to tell her he's busy all week. even though I'm hoping to see him on tuesday.

Since there's been a huge lapse in communication between me and cyperspace the last 2 months, (oops) I figured the only way to patch up is not try to catch up! but obviously there's bits of the story missing, so here are the footnotes:
*friend: Romain, owner of all 7 seasons of Buffy; to Ariane, he is the owner of the universe.
** to see Romain every weekend: If Ariane behaves well during the week, I borrow a Buffy disc from Romain every weekend for her.
***DVDs in my closet: Ariane doesn't know that I already got the entire season 3 from Romain in our first Buffy/Soul exchange.

characters of my new novel

I spent the last 3 wonderfully hectic days with Mark Edward Harris and his people. This is what I think of them-- I'll start the gossip with the youngest person in this crowd.

Océan Spiess-- cutest boy I've ever met! He shared his room with me the last 2 nights when the metro strike kept me from going home. He celebrated his 5th birthday yesterday. He's well-behaved and mature (other than his favorite conversation being of poop! ha!)

Laurent Spiess-- Océan's dad, whom I didn't think much of him the first time we met--he was simply Nahoko's husband. But yesterday morning, he really impressed me and I don't think he even knew it. He's the best dad I've ever met (other than my own of course), besides his day-to-day parenting methods, it's really special when he's traveling for work: he makes Océan a video for everyday that he's gone, and sometimes hides treasures around the house and gives clues to those treasures on those videos; so everyday, Océan would be able to see his dad on screen.

Nahoko Spiess-- I adore this woman! well I already knew that before, but now even more than before after having chatted for hours last night. [content of conversation not to be disclosed, wink wink]. she just landed an ad (I think) job on tuesday--yay!!

Kayshonne-- Nahoko's muse, she's the model in the last picture in this blog from september: http://cherpar.blogspot.com/2007/09/my-other-career.html She seems very creative herself. I wish I had a chance to talk to her more, but we had a large table and she sat far away.

Romain-- super friendly; has ghetto-ish American accent; has family in Morocco (yay!); business partner of Kayshonne's boyfriend; sat too far away from me, but hopefully I'll make it to his birthday this friday.

Tatsuki Takino-- Kayshonne's fashion designer boyfriend, whom I did sit next to and had a chance to talk to. He blew me away as soon as he started talking. He's Japanese French, spent the last 14 years in France and has a British accent (when speaking English). Oh AND he's friends with Daisuke Takahashi, subject of my last blog in October.
I learned from him: "thank you" in Japanese, "arigato" came from "obrigado"--who would've thought!! and many such language-culture-history links.
also learned: you don't say the subject in Japanese!! so "I love you" "he loves you" "do you love me?" "do you love her?"... are all the same sentence but said in a different tone! The last of the above created a most awkward silence during which I should've said "of course! everyone in the world is in love with me! it's to be expected!"; but with all hope of comic relief resting upon my shoulders, I only managed "err...awkward turtle" which Mark turned into a political debate over the feelings of turtles being called awkward. I feel so verbally inferior amongst these masters of the rhetoric.

Mark Edward Harris-- He was one of my favorite teachers at Art Center; is an AHMYCING photographer; and is a wonderful person. He is so passionate about life and really believes that everything is attainable for the tireless. I have nothing but the greatest admiration for him. Although sometimes I wish he wouldn't confuse Nahoko so much with all his joking around!

eating more than an american

While busy feeling guilty about eating at midnight instead of sleeping, I observed some packages from Amaury's after-dinner snack:

1 wedge of comté(cheese, almost 1LB (375g))
5 yoplait yogurts
1 box of Special K Apple Crumble
1 large bottle (1.5 liter) Coke Light Lime
1/2 loaf of chocolate walnut cake
1 package of Krab (fake crab) sticks with cream center (350g, still almost 1LB)
these packages were sealed in this morning, and are things that Sabine and Ariane never eat.

No wonder Ariane never eats any produce!

Now I feel worse about being in the kitchen, because I just wasted time doing this instead of eating my carrot and humous (french pronunciation: oo-moo-ce) so i could go to sleep.

EXPENSIVE FLEAS

I went to the very famous flea market today at Porte de Clignancourt; for the size of it, it should be called a flea city!

The clothing of course, was mostly crap, I didn't expect otherwise, but there were a couple of stores with the skirt/pants that I wanted (the ones with the crotch on the floor) but they were 50 euros, and I can't buy unnecessary clothing for $75 right now, I'd rather buy a book.

The section of the flea city that I fell in love with, which I didn't expect at all, was the antique section. I never even knew that I had an weakness for antiques and I wanted everything in every store! fortunately, I'm poor enough that I don't even have the price of any one object in my french bank account, so I couldn't commit any rash acts of acquisition.

Newly roused desires aside, I could write a novel on those; I've been searching for the perfect cardholder and chainmaille purse since I was in NY, and today, I saw THE purse of my dreams: hallmarked-sterling 945-ruby clasps-fine maille-ornate frame-perfect in every aspect except the price tag: 950 euros. I went back to the store 4 times! the proprietress was nice enough to take it out of the case and let me examine the hallmark with a loupe even though I wasn't going to come home with it. I took a picture of it on my cellphone. I also came across quite a few cigarette holders that I wanted to use as a cardholder. They ranged from 200-500 euros. yea my budget for a cardholder is 10% that.

I wish I were an antique dealer, then I could buy all these things without feeling guilty.

forecast: LIGHT SNOW

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! according to weather.com, it is currently 36 deg. Farh; feels like 27; light snow! althought it's actually currently raining, not snowing, it's means that Sabine and Amaury are right! there should be snow this year because it's only november and already freezing! YAY!!! I saw frost for the first time the day before yesterday, it was like someone took a can of glitter graffiti and sprayed it all over the lawns and cars and rooftops.
lawn chair

lawn chair detail

looking out of my front door

car in front of my house

a bamboo leaf in my yard

my kids

It's so horrible and selfish of me to feel a slight tinge of pleasure when I see Juliette cry in other people's arms and smile when I take her.

No matter what I tell her, she still thinks my hand is food. But then so is everything else in the world.

She likes having her feet in the air.

Ariane has the worst ADD I've ever seen. She can never do one thing or talk about one subject for more than 1 whole minute.

Ariane hides Kinderbars in her drawer so that 1) her dad doesn't eat them, 2) she can eat them while we do yoga.

Yes, Ariane is cross-eyed all the time. except when I'm not taking pictures.

model language

I just realized a technical difficulty with my photoshoot tomorrow.....(other than the fact that nothing really is working)
--I'd already decided to talk in French and only in French. so how am I going to direct my model?? how will I direct models in the future???
ugh... and my french friend Van is helping me with the shoot, and I'd already denounced all use of English with him, and if i talk to the model in English, that's going to loosen our French Only Pact, which was made yesterday and already broken today, no need to break it further tomorrow.

Daisuke Takahashi

he's AHMAICING! coolest skater of the moment, if not ever!
i wish things were as exciting on the ladies side! i guess we'll just have to wait until caroline and mirai grow up.

I quit dancing--I drum now!

aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! so excited i no longer know english or french! nor even remember that i'm hungry! i got my darbouka/doumbek/tabla/thing!! got up at 6:30 am so i could go to gare St. Lazare to meet the ebay guy who sold it to me. and the entire way back on the train, my fingers were turning purple from their yearning to start playing it. but its a bit moist right now, so i need to wait a few seconds for the top to dry and get more taught.
... now if only i knew how to play it.

--------------
2.5 hours later
grrrr!! I can't play a clean KA no matter what I do!! if I don't stop and take a nap now, I'll be remembered as "the girl who used to have a middle finger and a ring finger on her left hand until she decided to become a tabla player"

--------------
14 minutes more
ugh......right hand hurts from the TEKs, which sounds half ok, but the KA die KA! I think it's louder from my palm slapping the rim than my finger tapping it.
on the other hand (hehe) my DOUM sounds good! and the PA sounds ok when I remember to do it. =)

--------------
14 hours later
YAEA! I rock at this! my tek ka's feel like I've been doing them all my life! and I can play all of 4 different rhythms.

no muscle-soreness has occurred...BUT

interestingly enough, the prophecy was not fulfilled, and my muscles were not at all sore which is strange because I'm never not right ;). It either means that I either didn't really get that much workout and was only tired because I'm way out of shape...boo! OR I'm in much better shape than I thought and the bit of work out just didn't make any difference on my body of steel--ha!
backtrack: I should've been sore because....
... I made 50 euros by skating with 2 wobbly kids the height, after 5 minutes of which I started feeling my ab muscles squeezing lemon juice out of themselves. this lasted 1 hour. I skated2 more hours on my own after that.
... the next morning, Ariane, 3 of her friends to Aquaboulevard and I went to a half indoor, half outdoor water park. We left the house at 8:10AM (sunrise forecasted at 8:43AM). It felt like a refrigerator when we first got in, but this was soon cured by going OUTSIDE to get a 3-person float (for us 5). It was 1-degree outside, which was 1 DEGREE FROM FREEZING! what adult in their right mind would go OUTSIDE WET IN A BIKINI BEFORE SUNRISE?!! (yours truly, thank you). Needless to say, the refrigerator immediately felt like the the Bahamas when we returned with the raft. Little did I know that we were only in transit in the Bahamas, it was just a path to another door which led to the outside again! only this time, we were had to run up 5 FLIGHTS OF ALUMINUM STAIRS STILL WET STILL IN BIKINIS AND STILL MORE FREEZING to get to the ride for which we got the raft in the first place.
5 flights of stairs in a bikini at 0-degree weather (it was literally forecasted to be 1 degree--not exaggerating!!) my brain was too congealed to remember the ride, but---- I do remember us getting another floating device at the end of the ride (indoors), and we took that device to none other place than that aluminum freezer, for yet another ride. If you think that certainly by now I'd come to my senses and that once this second ride ended, I would stay inside..well I guess brain gelato isn't that quick to make decisions because we REPEATED THIS 5 TIMES UNTIL WE DID ALL THE RIDES!
After the 5th, we went to the jacuzzi, which, after 2 minutes we realized was just lukewarm-4-hour-old-tea MASQUERADING AS JACUZZI! it actually had the nerves to eject COLD WATER!
so when the jacuzzi got too cold, we swam in the cold pool to warm up. and when that got too warm/cold/boring/iCouldn'tFeelAnymore we went outside to do the rides and the cycle went on until I bribed Ariane to go start leaving at 2:45pm.

oh but I WAS SORE! I just remembered! one muscle on the left side of my neck was sore the first part of the week, it was v. difficult to drink out of a bottle. good thing I'm don't converse much with my ceiling.

So I never got to the "no muscle soreness...BUT all this other stuff happened" part, just the prelude. so I might as well change the title of this blog entry.

I'll do that tomorrow, too tired now, picking up my drum in paris at 7:40am, which gives me 3 hours to sleep, if I sleep now, which I won't. It's ok, I'll come home and sleep during the day. I have the week off...yes!!

skate america

I just checked the lineup for Skate America and it's going to be so exciting this year! a lot of amazing skaters! it's saturday night in the US. Icenetwork.com is going to do a webcast it in the US, and have it available later here...boo..I have to wait...and by the time I watch it, I'll probably already know the results.

I feel really good about the US team:
Caroline Zhang won the Jr. World's, earning her a place to compete in senior's for the first time, which I'm excited about. I have high hopes for her--she's technically perfect (minus the hammer-foot toe jumps, which is minor anyway), plus she's from my rink back home, so of course I take full credit for her victory. But seriously though, she's my fav in the competition not because I think she's the best yet, but she's only 13 and most def. has the potential to mature.
Kimmie Meissner won World's last year, but I hated that performance, so stiff and bland. I did see her skate another competition this year, which I liked much better, so I hope that good style wasn't a fluke.
Emily Hughes is the one US skater that I don't care for at all.... but then I didn't like her sis much either and she won the Olympic gold...so...... I dunno. I wish the 3rd US skater were Mirai Nagasu...

Mai Asada and Miki Ando from Japan are both AMAZING (pronounced ah-my-cing)!! they're the only ones that could take medals away from the US..and I think they will, which I don't mind because they're AHMYCING.....but even if they do, we'll still place. (like how I say we? as if I had anything to do with them)

TURKEY!!! no turkey.....OLAF!!! yes grief!!

I woke up at 2:33am with the a sudden, unbearable surge of warmth and excitement.
Warmth because the heater was on at about 2.82 instead of about 2.76 where I normally estimate it to be.
and excitement because I suddenly had the great idea to go to Turkey next week for my All Saints vacation!

I don't know which of the 2 actually woke me up, but going to Turkey definitely kept me up until about 7:21am! I went on every budget travel website you could think of, and 27 more that I didn't know of, plus every link, to find the cheapest flights to Istanbul. but the earliest flight under 900 euros would be leaving next Friday, and coming back whenever.

For some reason, maybe it was the reminant heat making me delirius (the excitement couldn't possibly have been the culprit!), I thought that would be ok to leave on Friday and come back Tuesday--since Ariane has 2 weeks off and is at her grandma's in Switzerland until Wednesday!

I was living in a perfect bubble! I immediately announced my departure on Bhuz.com (bellydance forum), and had a whole bunch of people email me about getting them Sim and Bella costumes. and I was going to get myself a doumbek and some cheapo costumes to sell on ebay to offset the 240-euro plane tickets.

When I woke up for the second time this morning, at 10:28am, I remembered that I'm responsible for 2 kids! not just Ariane! and at the age of ~120 days, Juliette doesn't go to school and I still have to be home once Sabine's week-long vacation is over! so that leaves me a day and a half in Istabul--leaving friday and returning sunday...which I might as well do any weekend BUT the next one! which means I'm never going to Turkey because I would never want to be there for JUST 1 weekend anyway!

I was totally bummed--but when you're a shopaholic, there's always Retail Therapy to the rescue!
I dragged Ryan and his friend Charlotte to Centre Pompidou with me to buy the Erwin Olaf limited edition book, Grief, which I'd been lusting after since I got here.
I prayed to every book goddess that I knew by name to let there be a copy left. and held my breath for an entire 17 minutes while I took the one remaining store demo to the counter to have them search for it and held my breath some more when they searched through a cabinet in the back and couldn't find it and then held it even longer when they went to another cabinet...and FOUND THE LAST COPY!! whew... I just almost fainted again (my 1st fainting experience blogged in september).

I have Erwin Olaf...the Turkey can wait.

aaaah! kids everywhere!

oh so tired...fingers and brain equally frozen.

but I thought I would come here and announce my prophecy of the near future: muscle soreness will occur throughout the land! land as in er..the amount of space I occupy.

I thought I'd have sore abs and arms after teaching a full hour of ice skating to 2 kids whose collective age was 10. but I didn't know "going swimming" with 4 12-year olds would be 40 times more exhausting! if the age to energy-required ratio keeps going, I'm glad I don't work at a nursing home!

must sleep now....

10 hour journey/ 2 hour class

a regular school day can be such an adventure in a city with over-active worker's unions!

Normally it takes about 30 minutes of train & metro to get to class. but thanks to the wonderful transportation strike, I spent 10 hours out AND came home on a seatless bicycle.

My class was to start at 10:30am. I had signed up for language lab at 9:00am, so I got up at 6am. (1 hour yoga, 1/2 hour getting ready, 1.5 hour enroute). For the first time, I rode my bike (well Sabine's bike) to the train station because I wasn't sure which train out of which station would actually function. The train delay wasn't too bad, 15-minute wait instead of the usual 5; the metro wait from Paris Montparnasse station was about 30 minutes instead of the usual 3.

...and the language lab was closed, the teacher probably didn't have any way of getting there; i got up at 6am so that I could sit and pick my nose for an hour and half.

After class, it took 1 hour for the metro to arrive, and I was starving, because of all days, this was one day I chose to forget my wallet at home. Of course I was excited to get to the train station, which would've been 20 minutes away from home (food).

...except the trains weren't going to start running for another 3 hours! so I went to fnac the bookstore and read travel books in french, while trying to not be tempted by the ubiquitous cooking books.

Back to the train station at 5pm, the 5:07 and the 5:28 trains were both canceled, so I read magazines until 5:38.

of course it was a slow train, which got to my station just after 6. I was too happy to unlock my bike; but I stopped in my tracks and stared at my bike for a second trying to figure out how to ride it--it suddenly felt all too foreign to me, like staring at that 6-inch slug in my bathroom! then I realized that all the other bikes parked next to me had a seat..........

I scooted the first half of the way home, when that got too slow, I rode the bike standing.

at least Sabine didn't go to work that day due to the strike, so the kids didn't fall out of any cribs or starve. and at least I still had some of the veal jalfrezi that I had made the night before.

paris fashion week - Ivana Helsinki

Ivana Helsinki's designer is Paola Suhonen, from well, Helsinki. I loved the whole Bambi theme, their invites were Bambi shaped, they had these paper Bambi sculptures outside, Bambi print on the clothes. and I like how the show had a progression of color--from neutrals to all pink a the end.
out of the 19 models there were 2 non-blondes! all Finnish, and all the crew was Finnish too. a photog team was photographing with a 4x5 for Glamour. I wish someone would hire me to shoot something backstage with 4x5! but then...I guess I would have to market myself as a 4x5 shooter, which I don't...so i need to stop complaining.

she reminds me of Jessica Lorraine Peterson. =)



Outside after the show, everyone carrying the cavanvas bags.

I looooooooooooooooove this model! I'd have been happy to just shoot her all night. She looks like a Gemma-Vlada hybrid!

I love Paola's haircolor on her! it's white with just a hint of pink/purple....ok that's clown color really, but it looks good!

This is my fav. pic from this show, and of course it features my Gemma-Vlada

Fashion week pictures --Fatima Guerrout

Here's the show that Nahoko took me to. It was such a difference from Mina Perhonen, and definitely not a bit like Rick Owens! It was a much more intimate and friendly atmosphere, not at all pretentious. Fatima was backstage a lot arranging the clothes and chatting and having fun with the models! If all of Paris fashion week were like this, everyone would have a better time.


here's Fatima dressing Amandine

Fatima dressing herself.


The following pictures are an exercise at getting Nahoko on film (well..CF card), I can't have normal pictures because she hates pictures of her. even though we did take a few hundred the first time we met!

here she's testing out a possible career change from Photographer to Fish. =)....awww....Nahoko asked me to take off the fish photo, so whoever got here too late...sorry it's gone!

Nahokoteaching a model how to use her V. complicated 1DS Mark II

Fashion week pictures --Rick Owens

RICK OWENS I was really bummed about not being able to photograph at Rick Owens. I was supposed to meet their PR Olivier an hour before scheduled show starting time. Olivier never came out, but sent Charles; Charles didn't know who I was, and my magazines weren't on the list which was the reason why I needed to see Olivier in the first place. I saw Sasha Pivovarova though; she didn't look that much like Gemma Ward in person, but still alien-ishly tall and insect-like.

and then I saw monsieur Jacques Chirac! so random! he was just walking out in this picture.

.....then I had an incident of:
Bee flying in floor-length skirt
Bee panicking a little too much
thigh feeling immense pain
Bee flopping around on the ground.
I took the picture before moving one inch from where I was stung. within a minute.

nuit blanche photos

The fire installations at Tuilerie garden.

View of Champs Elysee from on top of a ferris wheel! my first ferris wheel ride in ages!~
directly under the ferris wheel.
I can eat the Notre Dame, it's not that big

The poi dancer at Notre Dame , I finally had my camera with me!

nuit blanche

I got up 2 hours ago yesterday! and now I'm going to bed--I'm so behind!
I just went out to Paris with my boss's co-worker Van, because it was Nuit Blanche, it was so much fun!!! I just got home not long ago. Jardin des Tuilerie was so beautiful with all the fire stuff! will post pictures. wow, I'm behind not just in my sleep but with all the picture uploading too! so must upload fashion week pics, baby pics, forest pics. and study 6 units today because I skipped to the next level because the first day of french class turned out to be way too easy, but this one is probably way too hard. well ok let's not forget about the sleep now..I tend to forget too often. good morning to me.

Mina Perhonen Fashion Week Paris

Yesterday was my first day of shooting at fashion week. I was afraid to talk about fashion week this whole month for fear of Jinxing it. and I was sooooooooooooooooooooooo excited about Rick Owens~!! but then I told someone about it, and it fell through. and then I got stung by a bee. and my left heel hurt when I was walking to Rick Owens.

Mina Perhonen show was really good. I'm happy with the results. Fatima Guerrout today with Nahoko was awesome too, but I haven't processed the photos yet, so here's Mina Perhonen by Akira Minagawa.

oh crap, bridge crashing again, so I'm just going to post the contacts that I made earlier. they're not my fav, but I'll change them later.

for love of woods

the real perk in living in the woods here is that you can randomly go into the bathroom, brush your teeth, and THEN see a slug the girth of 2 fingers and the length of your entire hand standing next to you on the bathroom floor.

I'm too tired to face the slug right now, so I'll just let it stay there, and if it makes into my wordrobe by the morning..oh well too bad for me.
I just got home from hanging out with a chinese-speaking, Jewish Alaskan-Angeleno, and a chinese-speaking Parisian orginally from Ile de la Reunion, both messaged me from Couchsurfing last week. After 10 hours at the prefecture in Versaille to get my carte de sejour, (only I still don't have it), I'm surprised I even made it through ballet classes and socializing with multilingual humans let alone battling a crawling slimy creature.

paris fashion week preparations are pretty stressful, but definitely real, which is why I'm not afraid to post the words here now.

ICE SKATING COACH

I'm going to be one!! hahaha!!!
I finally took Ariane ice skating, after not having skated for over a month!
I was teaching Ariane, which must have fooled some people into thinking that I was actually good, little did they know I was only pretending. I always can act like I know what I'm doing. =)

so 2 people asked me to teach their kids, I turned one down because she's about my level, her posture and control isn't that good, but I'm definitely not qualified to teach her. I agreed to teach the other 2 kids because they're little, they're 3-5 ish, one of them is semi-blind though, so I with the language barrier, I don't know how well that's gonna go. but we'll see.

I'm most def. going to skate more! it's so cheap compared to the States! only 5 euros! and the winter, the outdoor ones are free!!! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Ariane was a really fun bunch to hang out with today, yes, a BUNCH--being with her is like being with 20 kids, she's that entertaining/difficult/exhausting!

TODAY I HAVE....

EATEN musqat! or I think it was, I never wouldn't imagined the grape would be so big from tasting the wine, but when I ate the grapes, I thought they had to be musqat, so I asked Sabine what they grapes were called, and she said "well..uh...grapes?". Amaury guesses that they're musqat and I agreed.

SEEN a poi performance in front of Notre Dame! It made me want to learn poi again (want again, not learn again, since have never done in life)! He ended it with the poi being fireworks! I sooo wish I had a camera! ok, I'm buying a small camera in 3 hours and 38 minutes. and I will bringit with me everywhere I go! but I saw the same guy last year at the exact same spot, so I'm sure I'll see him again.......oh crap...now that I've said that I'll surely face the curse of Murphy's law! grrrr....

MADE a globe puzzle with Ariane; she loves round puzzles. this is her 4th one.

SWANS in the SEINE

Last night I went to an art exhibition with Sabines coworker Van. The exhibition was on 3 boats, Van's friend Yann lives in one of those boats--so cool!!. The work wasn't amazing, but the place was sooo cool! The ambience reminded me of Ernie's shows in his loft, with friends-artists, except the Seine is prettier than downtown LA. The view from the boat's rooftop was beautiful with all the lights of the city reflecting in the water. and a SWAN SWAM BY US!! I wish I'd brought my camera. I should really start bringing cameras around with me. Yann says there are fish in the river that are a meter long, he fishes sometimes. I didn't know there was one living creature in such an industrial river before this!

---commerical break---Ariane is chucking corn flakes at me, and I'm throwing them back in her mouth, well...trying to... have mostly hit air....

my other career

When I'm not changing diapers or bargaining with Ariane to eat veggies, I'm still a photographer!

Did a shoot with Gloria Piedmont for Theme magazine in NYC.

Also went on a shoot with Nahoko Spiess shooting for Rene Dherby.

baby bottles and diapers

TONIGHT I just changed my first caca-filled diaper. it was green!! thank god they have this super high-tech diaper dispenser, where you push the diaper in the whole, twist the top, and it seals that diaper in the bag and rolls down more bag as it releases a gast of perfumed air.

MONDAY I baby sat for for the forst time. Finally felt like I was getting paid for a reason, other than just eating. It was really difficult but exciting! The parents had their band rehearsal down in the basement from 6pm to 10pm, which is the crankiest time for Juliette. I held her and cooked dinner for Ariane at the same time. I thought having Ariane around would make things easier as Juliette started crying, but it was actually harder! Ariane wouldn't hold Juliette whenever Juliette isn't smiling, and she was annoyed with me for not listening to her tell me about her gazelle having a baby in her video game! all the while I was juggling a real-life, human baby in my arm, a real pot of boiling pasta, real onions in a real pan, real tomatoes being cut with my free had, real baby formula to mix with my 5th hand, and another hand to feed the real baby.
But everything calmed down after I cooked: the real baby fell asleep; the video game baby died. Ariane even ate the speghetti with the sauce I put on her plate! (she normally eats plain naked pasta with bread)

Bathroom Break with a Bang!

Paris bathrooms must really enjoy my company!

I'd already spent a calm 3 hours and 46 minutes in my own bathroom on Wednesday, and tonight I had a lovely 1 second speed nap in a restaurant during dinner!

Brigitte, a lovely girl whom I'd met last year, finally met up with me and had dinner. We had sushi (though I don't think that's the culprit, because I eat raw fish all the time). However, for some reason during dinner, I started feeling a bit sick at my 9th piece of sashimi, and by the 10th piece, it was really hard to swallow, and just before the 11th piece, my stomach hurt without warning as if it had suddenly imploded.

I got up to go to the bathroom, just at the end of the hallway, no more than 15 steps away. I started feeling dizzy at the 5th step, and I was 2 steps away from the bathroom door when I could barely see, and knew it was the bathroom only because I had been there 10 minutes before.

I must have plunged into the door thinking that I would be safe once there, but next thing I knew, a waiter was hovered over me saying "c'est bon? c'est bon? c'est bon?" and I became completely alert and with the 2 bangs of my fall replaying in my ears, I replied "oui oui, c'est bon, je vais à les toilettes". The banging sounds must of been when I plunged into the door and when I fell. I'd probably hit my head, either on the door or on the sink because my neck hurt, but there wasn't a spot on the exterior where I could locate the impact; then a small piece of flesh hanging on my lip told me that I'd either bitten my upper lip or hit my lip on the door/sink.

When I sat on the toilet, I was shaking and still a bit half dreaming(yes I dreamed the instant I was unconscious), and the waiter was still asking me outside "ça va?". For a minute I didn't dare lock the toilet door, if I'd fainted again, nobody would've been able to get me, and that would've been very different from being locked in own bathroom a few days ago. I wondered how I was able to even get inside the bathroom door; I wondered whether I'd fallen on the ground or just caught myself on the sink, because I didn't remember getting up from the floor at all after waking up; I wondered how I'd even fainted in the first place!

I came out of the bathroom feeling completely normal! When a woman advised me that my shirt was inside out, I'd even been alert enough to explain to her in French that it was a joke--a Dyslexic shirt (my old roommate's label), like I don't know how to put on a shirt.

When I returned to my table, it felt like a century ago when I left, but Brigitte still had the same amount of food on her plate, and didn't seem to notice that I was gone. I felt a century away from feeling sick! When I told her I'd fallen, she didn't believe me, and neither did I. Thank goddess I have my battered and now swollen lip as evidence.

Bathroom Break

Between the hours of 11:26 am and 3:10pmg, if anyone was trying to get a hold of me by phoning/messaging/emailing to get me to see you/feed you/talk to you, I'm sorry I couldn't answer your requests. I was too busy doing yoga in the Bathroom.

the importance of buying tights

I'm Here!
When I first stepped out of the Metro at St. Michel this evening, it was the first time it occurred to me that I'm in Paris! Whatever gave me such a bizzare idea! Maybe it was that perfect combination of cool air and the heavy sky and touchable clouds with the setting sun just spilling out of them onto ile de la cite; just like when I first fell in love with the city last year. Only this time, I can really own this place.

Or maybe I was just giddy because I'd been having such a great day...

Nahoko Spiess
I went to Mark's friend Nahoko's house for lunch today. She has a beautiful 4-year-old son whose name is Ocean. He drew me a blue train, cute huh! Nahoko is super cool and funny, no wonder she comes highly recommended by Mark. We have a lot in common--like eating rockets (arugula in america and france, rucola in italie, I don't know why the english call it rocket) and grapefruit/green tea sorbet (1 flavor)!!! well not that I'd ever had grapefruit/green tea, but it's something I'd be into and it's really heaven! and her cups are humpty-dumpty with a point at the bottom! so funny! and all her furnishing has a lot of flavor.

We had a great chat about how she moved here, and she gave me a lot of useful information, just for the logistics of living/working here.

After lunch, we did a photoshoot!

Mark wrote an article about her in American Photo, and needed a portrait, and the ONLY photos she had of herself were from her wedding (in gown) and pregnancy (in own skin), and she wasn't going to use either of those, so I shot the 3rd bunch of photos of her life! amazing! I genuinely thought she was a fun subject to shoot, but she still thinks I was just being nice.

After Nahoko's, I went back to the city, which was when I realized where in the world I was.

All in the Tights
I walked from St. Michel to Les Halles in search tights. I felt like I was treading time as I walked past the pole in front of Shakespeare&Co where Michelle and I posed for our romance novel cover photo, and past the cafe where I had the banane/raspberry crepe one morning and Kristoffer had his usual cappucino and croissant, and the tattoo parlor where Meris took me to pierce my nose (which has closed since the S&Mother incident, my nose--the place is still open).
I saw my favorite crepe cart (fav. because fresh and not paper masquerading as food), but it was closed. And so was Les Halles.

I went into the mall anyway, just so I could look at the window of Sock Shop where my tights were (hopefully) housed. These were special tights-- THE cat tights that I so wanted last year but that had run out by the time I decided to spend $20 on a tube to cover my feet. I found Sock Shop easily this time, and screaming for me in the window (on some bimbo manequin leg with it's foot in the air) were my tights!!

If anything is a sign, the tights have to be an uber-sign that Paris and I are meant to be! It's maktoub.

pre-ex-aupair

It is the evening of my 4th night now in Paris (well Vélizy-Villacoublay). A lot has happened, and I am still not fluent in French, I really wish the language would just hurry up and enter my brain, or my brain would just hurry up and suck it in, because being a deaf mute is not so fun.

Since am v. stubborn, I refuse to (or try to not) talk to anyone in English besides Ariane and Juliette, which makes me as talkative as a cherry tree in dead winter. The family is so awesome and does so much for me I wish I could be more animated (as in talk), but everytime I talk, it's either to ask a question or answer one, there's not much other conversation. I did talk to Ariane quite a bit when we went to the forest, and found out that there's a sound that she can't pronounce in her otherwise perfect English accent. she says "red" "wed" and "road" "woad", it's really quite cute.

Last night we went to dinner with Ariane's best friend Natasha's family at Hippopotumus. Isn't it cool or the kids' families just get together to have dinner? instead of the kid bumming along with the parents, it's the other way around! on the way home, Ariane showed me her cellphone/mp3player/camera, and played something by Amel Bent, which Sabine said made her want to vomit; so Sabine put on "Highway to Hell" by ACDC on the car stereo, and so started the mother-daughter fight to shut off the other's music player. Later they compromised on French hiphop, which was actually pretty cool, even though i normally loathe hiphop. Amaury told me that Sabine started dancing hiphop a few months before Juliette was born. I wish MY mom would dance hiphop during pregancy!

This morning Ariane was sad because the ex-owner of the house took away her cat. That and she had to go to piano class.

Amaury and Sabine took me to the Latin Quarter today--one of my favorite areas in the city! It's really cool to see the same streets I walked on last year, even the cool jewelry stores I saw with Michelle and Kristoffer. but the 300 euro tibetan necklace was gone. I'll just have to go to tibet soon. oh and they bought me the prettiest postcards for my room! well...I chose them, so obviously i think they're pretty. They wanted to buy me some posters, but the poster were all too big, and I didn't want them to spend so much money, so I went the other extreme and bought postcards. I did see some posters of Miles Davis and BB King by Jeff Sedlik! I shall email and tell him.

We all had pizza for dinner except Juliette and Ariane--Juliette, well, doesn't have teeth and doesn't know anything but baby formula; Ariane was not in a good mood, and threw a tantrum when Amaury tried to make her eat. I wish we were closer already so I would know what's going on. Actually, I wish I were Jessamyn. I'm sure Ariane misses her a lot. I'm a bit nervous about how it's going to go with Ariane, who's not quite comfortable with me yet. Well she needs time, of course, especially at age 12, and with so many changes in her life. I'm really glad/excited/relieved/worried that Jess is coming tomorrow to stay for a week. I'm looking forward to talkint to her; but I don't know if that'll make it even harder for Ariane to move on. well we'll see. I'm trying to sleep early so I can go to Mark's friend Nahoko's house tomorrow.

below is my first email before I started the blog:

I'm got in France in one piece, yay!

I have an internet phone with a US number, it works great but isn't plugged in all the time. the number: 562-239-4908 my US cell also forwards to this number.

my family is fantastique!

baby juliette is tres adorable, she smiles and makes baby noises a lot, but she refuses to lie there when she's awake, you have to hold her so she's sitting up, otherwise she cries. Ariane talks in a perfect british accent, because her last aupair (and all her teachers i think, are english) but I have trouble understanding her most of the time because she talks way too fast. Her parents tell me they don't understand her french either! The parents are so cool, Sabine is on maternity leave still, so she's been helping me a lot with settling in and driving me around; Amaury doesn't have paternity leave, and comes home quite late.
The house is super cute! my room is painted a beautiful light peach/yellow. It's a tiny room but i did manage to fit all my stuff (including my clothes!) Apples fall on my roof every few seconds and it feels like being caught in a cross fire in compton (have had none such experience, pure speculation). My room has a separate entrance from the rest of the house, the house is pretty big, lots of rooms on different floors (seems like 1 room per floor or half). The basement is their music room with drumset and electric guitars and giant alien sound equipment; the parents' rock band has rehearsals there.

I went to Paris yesterday to register for my french classes, 10 hours a week, but it doesn't start for another month...booo... The train ride home from paris took 15 minutes, but this being my first time not being driven, I had a nice long walk getting lost in the forest; and it didn't help that 2 people gave me bad directions and sent me to another lake that was not near my house. Luckily I found 2 joggers that knew my street.

I'm going to try to meet up with Joanna and Ryan from school (art center) tomorrow. I'll post some photos later.

bises!

Cherry
p.s. I was in NY for a bit before coming here, and that was awesome, met with some photo editors, visited friends, randomly ran into some friends, did a couple of shoots, and lined up some work for here! yay NY!