Diary of an adult runaway

Wheeeeeeee!!!

So yesterday, I did 2 things I've never done before. 1, I finished writing 50,000 words (220 ms pages) in a month, making me a NaNoWriMo 2008 winner. And 2, I went to dinner with a French friend and spoke only French--OMG!!!!

Let me tell you, #1 was a lot easier than #2. Except I took Elizabeth to Les Temps, where the ambience is relaxed, especially after the shot of vodka Jean Paul delivered with the salmon crêpes. Although they've lived in the same neighborhood for almost 20 years, last night was the first time Elizabeth and Madeleine have ever spoken, but they were tutoyering (using informal French) within minutes, much to their mutual surprise. (Me, I tu people I've just met and vous those I've known for years, so I'm obviously no guide.)

After dinner, Elizabeth took me to see her apartment. We've lived kitty corner for almost 4 years (and strangely, only ever seen each other on the Montmartrobus or at the bus stop) but I thought her building was your average charming Montmartre former farmhouse turned apartments. Except you go through that building and out into a massive terraced courtyard surrounded by charming apartment buildings with Sacré-Coeur looming beyond. And no noise. No noise. It's like being in the countryside.

Lovely night but I left holding back tears because Elizabeth's husband died in the summer and she can't afford the rent so she's moving in a few weeks. She gave me a little gift and it was just so sweet. I love my neighborhood.

And my neighborhood loves me! Yes it does! I woke up this morning and it was SNOOOOWING!! So I got dressed ASAP and ran out to catch some on my tongue. As soon as I descended to the flatlands, the snow turned into rain, thus reinforcing my belief that the butte of Montmartre is the most magical place in all of Paris.

Some of that magic is flowing through the Nano book. There's snow in that, too, it's set in Maine at Christmas. Of course it's first draft but it's just working. There's stuff to be added and lots of research to do (why, God, why must I insist on giving my characters professions I know nothing about?) and there's one chapter that sucks so I just went past it because I need the stuff that comes after it to be able to balance it, but apart from that I'm rapt.

And let me tell you my secret. No internet at home, which also means no TV. When it went out for some stupid France Telecom technical reason, I decided to let it stay out for November. Amazing the amount of writing you can get done when you're forced to write your own TV show. The plan is to keep motoring on and hopefully get the first draft finished by Christmas, when work gives us 1, 2, 3....11 days off!! That's right, 11.

Fingers crossed, it will snow the whole time :-)

That's very kind of you

I don't think helping a body out was really what was on the mind of the guy who came up to me at the bus stop this morning, but you know, I was partially raised by a grandma who DRILLED politeness into us (oh, my, am I glad she doesn't read this blog!) so I played along with him.

"Is your leg injured?" he asked as he crossed the street. "I see you're limping. I have a car, I can take you wherever you need to go."

"You're very kind," I said. "But I'm waiting for a friend on the bus." (Except here you say in the bus, because if you say on the bus then they think you're going to climb onto the roof.)

"Are you sure? Because I have a car."

"Very kind but no thanks. Have a good day."

And it's not like I was lying. I do have a friend on the bus. We're friends for the full 5-10 minutes it takes to get off The Hill and onto the next bus. I don't know her name, but I know where she works, I know that she has 3 Baccarat rings--pink, green and red--and I know that she has a shitsu called Socrates. In this town, that means we're tight. I'll discover her name in another 2 years, I'm sure.

Speaking of friends, another serendipitous dining experience last night. At 7, Jenny called to say she'd called Madeleine and Le Temps wasn't open so we'd go to the Tibetan place I've been wanting to try. "What the hell?" I spluttered. "I just passed them 5 minutes ago and they're open and their lights are on and the folding doors are open and I saw people eating!" It's fair to say I was indignant~nay, mightily pissed~at the thought of someone else eating my crêpe. We agreed to meet there in an hour and I kept an eye out the window. Yep, lights still on, good deal. But when I got there, Madeleine, Jean Paul and 2 guys were enjoying a "hit" of champagne and were obviously not in work mode. But they were determined to make me join them for champagne. I'd just reluctantly (!!) agreed when Jenny, John and Karen arrived. And Cherry the Wonderdog, of course, hopping along on her back paws because she knows what a sucker Jean Paul is for her.

"Come in at least for a kir," Madeleine says.

"No, no, you're not working! We'll go somewhere else."

"Yes, yes, it's fine." 10 minutes later: "Chef says if you just choose from the crêpes, no pasta, then you're welcome to stay."

Score! I had a goat's cheese and white asparagus crêpe and then while I was trying to decide what sweet crêpe to have for dessert, Madeleine let it drop that JP had made chocolate mousse that day, though it's only really ready 2 days later but then gave us one to share and decide. We rolled around like pigs in mud for a few minutes then we girls split a cherry crêpe that had us moaning even louder. Dee-vine. Madeleine and JP, you ROCK!

Yours to try:

Le Temps des Cerises
108 rue Lepic
tel: 01.42.59.54.79
(take the Montmartrobus to the Rue Norvins/Place du Tertre stop and walk back down Lepic about 2 minutes)

Usually open Fridays and weekends, though you could get luckier in summer. And here's a pic I scored off this fabbo site. That's JP out front, making sure everything's calm and correct in the neighborhood. (Yes, they sell paintings as well~as Karen said, it's like eating in a gallery. And last night it was so sublimely gorgeous that the windows/doors you can see there were wide open. This town is like a different country in warm weather. Did I mention I love love love Paris?)

And here's a pic that, well, quite frankly, I don't know how I feel about:

Where can you select this lovely casket? Why, at Costco, of course! Now, I associate Costco with massive bags of popcorn and 24 steaks in the one shrinkwrap pack, not to mention all the Advil I could ever possibly want in two lifetimes. Not coffins. Okay, I guess you gotta get them somewhere...although, no, not really. When I'm done, you can just wrap me in a sheet and pop me in the toaster, thanks very much, I don't care. Or even better, I could have a green burial, like Nate in 6 Feet Under. Certainly--CERTAINLY--not in some contraption with portholes filled with plastic flowers. This = biggest frigging waste of money and fossil feuls EVER, IMOSHO.

Oh, and speaking of that (I am on such a roll today, I'm having an absolute blast! And no chemicals involved!), what's up with people feeling they have to censor their own blogs because people are going all apeshit in the comments section? Your blog is your own personal space, you can say whatever you like and if people don't like it, well, they don't need to be there. I've only ever had 1 nasty comment~well, no, a rash of them from the 1 person pretending he wasn't that 1 person~but you know, whatever. If I don't like what someone's got to say I just move on. I never ever have left an anonymous comment and I never will. Either stand behind your words or shut up, that's what I think.

Yeah. So there.

Um, um...I was sure I had something else to say but.... Oh yeah:

"We probably could have saved ourselves, but we were too damned lazy to try very hard... and too damn cheap," he [Vonnegut] once suggested carving into a wall on the Grand Canyon, as a message for flying-saucer creatures.

Vale, Mr. Vonnegut.