Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Wednesday, Aug. 16, 2006 - 12:23 p.m.

I had Chinese an hour ago, and I'm totally hungry, yo.

It was really yummy, but you'd think it could stick around longer than an hour. I'm not kidding, I'm totally starving, and when I finished it, I was stuffed.

Paris weather continues to screw with me. At least dragging around the umbrella paid off today when it started pouring on the way home.

Out of desperation, I went to a used english language bookstore today and paid a ridiculous sum of money for 2 books, both of which, while yellow, still cost more beatup and broken than they did new. Fannie Flagg's "Standing in the Rainbow" came out in 2002 and cost 6.30 euros, while Arthur C. Clarke's "Ghost From the Grand Banks" came out in 1990 and cost 5.50. That's about $8.20 and $7.15, respectively. But I really need a book to read, especially when I want to eat somewhere, because if I have to eat by myself, I really need a book in front of me.

Am I the only one who has to sing "Desperado" in order to correctly type the word 'desperation'? Crap. Now I have to google it, coz I'm not sure that's right, even though I know it is.

I did not go to l'Orangerie today, because either I forgot to turn my alarm on last night - possible, because I was pretty tired, or I turned it off without really waking up this morning...also possible. I have figured out that the bed is so supremely uncomfortable that I wake up constantly and toss and turn all night long, which is why every single morning, without fail, when my alarm goes off, I feel like I've had all of maybe 2 hours of sleep. Doesn't matter if it's been 5 or 10, I seriously am completely and utterly exhausted every single time that alarm goes off. I thought it was because I felt crummy and was coming down with something, but now I think I got sick for the lack of sleep. I realized yesterday when I woke up that I had woken up incessantly throught the night and that my back hurt from the slat running across the bed right above diaphragm level. Same thing today.

Things #3 and 4 that I have learned about myself here in Paris:
3. I refuse to use F5 as a verb. EVER. I'm sorry, but that's just dorky beyond all reasonable dorkiness. Bygones.

4. I can not stand to be dependent on other people. I'm not kidding you guys, to not be able to do something for myself and to have to wait for someone else to do it fucking makes me insane on a level heretofore incomprehensible to me. I seriously can not fucking stand it and really want to do damage to something. I figure this is my karma fully biting me on the ass and God having a good, long laugh of the guffaw variety at my expense. I just hope I am never stricken with some sort of injury or malady that causes me to have to have physical help from others, because I would really rather be struck dead than to ever be in this position again. And if I can help it, I never, ever will be.

I watched a Depeche Mode concert on tv last night before bed, and I have to say, it's really scary to watch Dave Gahan work the same schtick he worked when he was in his 20s, only amped up to the nth degree, to the point where he out-Morrisons Morrison. I read that he's been clean for the last 10 years, but I find that hard to believe after seeing that concert, although for all I know, it was produced in 1996; I haven't been a die-hard Depeche fan since around 1987. The last solidly great album they did was Some Great Reward, though I also bought Black Celebration. I have 4 of their first 5 albums (I skipped Construction Time Again), the first ones on vinyl and the 5th on cd. I can't find a thing wrong with SGR, and it remains to this day one of my favorite albums, but Black Celebration was rather a disappointment, and all their subsequent releases have mostly left me pretty flat, though I confess to digging "Personal Jesus". But I digress. Gahan has obviously worked hard to channel Morrison, and if it were less overtly Me-Me-Me, Look-at-ME, Aren't-I-Totally-HOTT, I might be able to handle it, but I spent the whole concert alternating between wondering if he was that obnoxious in my youth (I don't remember him being so) and being really turned off by it and also remembering the time I reached out at the Starck Club without thinking and grabbed Martin Gore by the sleeve of his military surplus coat with all the pins and medals and the look on his face when I did so. Seriously, the guy went into tharn. And it's not like I gripped it, I only lightly pinched the fabric. But I guess he was this notoriously shy person who shunned fan contact, and there I was bouncing up to him with Runi and grabbing his sleeve for the whole of about 15 seconds. To this day, my friends give me shit about it, thanks to his reaction, which was kind of priceless.

After dinner on the way home, I told a lady on the Metro her scarf was pretty, and after thanking me and waiting a beat, she asked me in french if I was American. Yes, I say in french, I'm sorry; I did not vote for Bush, which is what I tell everyone who asks me if I'm American, and she laughs and says well, a lot of people from America did not vote for Bush. True, I say. Then she says the problem is bigger than Bush, that it's really everyone who believes as he does, and I say true, then think wait, did I understand that, because it was said at normal speed (ie. at superspeed) and was a complicated sentence, so I struggle to ask her in french to repeat herself, and she does - in absolutely flawless english. So my mouth falls open, and I go, you speak english?! WHY are you making me struggle with my terrible french, then? And she goes, "Because you have to practice, or you will not learn."

How can you argue with that? :)

All right. I got nothin' else.

Peace out,
Katie

ps. go look at this gorgeous picture of a sunflower by the obviously multiply-talented sundry. i am beside myself with jealousy. the light alone is enough to make me want to weep. not to mention, sun. she has sun. ::sigh::

pps. Have you seen the video for Justin Timberlake's "Sexyback"? The mere ludicrousness of the words/phrases "Justin Timberlake" and "Sexyback" both occypying the same sentence is a clue in and of itself, but I have had 3 opportunities to watch the entire video now, and I have to say that not only is it utterly lacking in being in anyway comprehensible, it's beyond ludicrous to cast the forever boyman that is Justin Timberlake as a sexy, 007 kinda guy. He's a boybander, for Pete's sake. They just don't fly.

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