Parislog 23
May 28, 2006

Continuing on with last Friday, I had gone to the African neighborhood in search of some coconut oil for my hair. I couldn’t find it in the regular grocery stores. So I figured that being as it is grown in Africa, I might have better luck. The first store I went into gave me that look that said, “What are you nuts?” but at another grocery store I hit the jackpot. Not only did I find it, but also it is in an old water bottle. I suspect that it is fresh off the boat. There is even brown residue at the bottom like it is really home made. Good thing I don’t plan on eating it. Ha ha.

It was quite an exciting day all in all. I also came across an entire street of Muslims praying towards Mecca. I wish I had popped my camera out when they all had their heads down but I was a little chicken. It was an amazing sight though, all those bums up in the air. No, really. Seeing all those people at prayer in the street on the prayer rugs really was amazing. The only consternation that I felt was that there were no women except 2 that were by themselves at the end of all the men.

After finding my oil, I started to hear the sounds of some sort of fracas and so, of course, I had to go and see. It was a whole group of people, blacks, yelling at the cops, white, because they were ticketing and towing some guy’s car. I didn’t understand what the issue was but a lady who was standing with me under my umbrella was trying to explain it to me. Unfortunately I didn’t understand her. I think I was one of maybe three white people in the whole mob. It was cool because there was no sense of anyone seeing me as an intruder. The lady who was explaining to me was very conspiratorial with me even though I had no clue what it was about. I liked the sense of it not being us versus them.

It was also my birthday and I was invited to a cocktail party by H* for my birthday. Unfortunately, I was having a rough go of it because I was turning the same age as my mother was when she died and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I made it over to H*’s house only to find that I had written down the wrong door code. I don’t yet have a cell phone so I couldn’t call up and it was a 45-minute trip back home. I tried to yell up to her window a couple of times with no luck. I felt very ghetto. I stood by the door hoping that someone else would show up and I could get it. Nope. I thought I was going to start crying again. I went back to the window and tried one more time but I told myself, ghetto or not, to not hold back and really holler. She heard me and I got in. Whew. Then I had a glass of wine and started to feel a little more stable for the rest of the evening.

I have also been trying to work on the clothing designs that I have been coming up with. I have been stymied endlessly. I am trying to work with t-shirt fabric on a regular sewing machine and it just ain’t pretty. I ruined one total piece but I just consider it as part of my school fee. I got on the internet and started researching solutions and have hopefully found one but haven’t tested it out yet. My roommate has been home again for the last 10 days and I felt uncomfortable using the living room as my atelier (work space). He just left today for Gabon for 2 months so I guess I will give it a shot again. Funny what things stop me from moving.

Sat. night A*, myself, and some of her friends went to the Louvre in the evening and looked through the Denon wing. This is where the action in The Da Vinci Code took place. It was positively stunning. The architectural detail is absolutely mind-boggling. We actually managed to get up to the front of the pile to look at the Mona Lisa. The last time I was there that was just not happening. One of the excellent things about seeing the Louvre at night was looking out the windows at Paris. I had no difficulty imagining myself having breakfast on the terrace or seeing across the Seine from my sofa in an evening. Sigh. The next day we tried to see the movie but poor A* got stuck behind some manifestation and couldn’t make it to where we were at. Instead we caught a metro and went to a place closer to her and she finally made it but the show was sold out. Instead we had a lovely visit at a café and then walked through the Bercy Village gardens that were stunning. There is a walkway that is up on a viaduct with trees. There is a great skateboard park that we stopped and watched for a while. Then we walked back on the ground level in what appeared to be originally perhaps a vineyard and now is an amazing series of garden rooms. There is a rose garden and a water garden among others. And these dancers came wending their way down the paths.