A List

Profuse, profound apologies for not updating, and nod to Shang for reminding me of my blogging duties :)

What have I been doing these last few weeks? Besides coloring a rouge-like shade of red after one sip of wine, besides becoming entangled in yarn-like twists of would-be homo sapiens interactions, besides burning two pots of jasmine rice, besides losing my Chinese, English, already rudimentary Spanish and somehow regressing in my spoken French...and not to mention acquiring abominable black caresses of pollution that my painfully white coats betray so blithely only 1 day after the dry cleaners...

My adoration, an adoration of folly for Paris, somewhat akin to irrational, fatalistic love of the Chevalier for his beloved in Manon Lescaut (which I am reading and heartily recommend), is as strong as ever, but mingled with a slight pain. While I speak French with a passable accent, while I do not dress conspiciously in the prototypically "American" way (at least to the minds of many French, where American dress = sweats, sweats...and sweats)...I realize every time I hear a native French speaker, every time I see a chic Parisienne, that I am very far away from even stepping into the suburbs of what in my eyes is the Mount Olympus of the civilized world. Don't reproach me for my ignorance of all that is not lovely here, I know it well. O Pascal, ce que vous dites, c'est vrai: «Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.»

But yes, the list. Of French literature. To read. So long. I wish I had started earlier. Being thesis-free (don't hit me, please), my thesis replacement will be a frenzied burrowing into the long, illuminated, diamond-studded passageway of French literature.


Currently reading: Manon Lescaut de l'Abbé Prévost


Currently needing to finish: Les Liaisons Dangereuses de Choderlos de Laclos


Random things that have happened to me recently:

1) Being accosted by a Chinese couple near the Arc de Triomphe trying to trick me into buying a Louis Vuitton bag for them so they can make fakes in China.
2) Almost getting into a heated argument with the aforesaid couple by accusing them of trying to make a fool out of me, and telling them I knew exactly what hanky-panky they were up to. Thanks to my mother, who got rid of them before I could say anything more damaging.
3) Eating the most sublime mini gâteau Saint-Honoré à la rose with a broken plastic spoon on the Champs -Elysees (after which aforementioned incident occurred)
4) Seeing an old man on a bus near Versailles winking at my mother
5) Developing a crush on dead white men *see note below
6) Staring unabashedly at comely young strangers in the subway and being caught by my vigilant mother
7) Sniffing 100 perfumes at Sephora in the quest for my second perfect scent (almost there, narrowed down to about 10)
8) Conversing with an old Christian missionary outside Notre Dame, who claimed that Jewish people are doomed to hell because they don't believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
9) Being catcalled at by some high schoolers while walking through the Jardin de Luxembourg
10) Realizing that I have made a very good and true French friend : )

*note: I have a penchant for dead white men...at the Louvre on Monday, I saw the classic portrait of Louis XV and thought, well, I certainly wouldn't have minded being Madame de Pompadour or la Comtesse du Barry (well, the latter had him during the wrinkly corrupt years, so mayhaps not). At Versailles, I swooned over portraits of several dead white princes and dukes in various habiliments of royal glory. But really, Louis XV was terribly handsome...more so than Louis XIV I should think.