Hi.

I’m in Paris.

Some initial reflections:

• There are lots of spiral staircases. Like there might be an ordinance when constructing buildings? I haven’t fallen down any.
• I should know more French. Though I just now remembered I have a translate app I could use to prep for retail interactions. I could have used “change room” today. But also pointing worked in this situation
• The metro is just like any other public transport anywhere and I like it.
• No one here cares, maybe even less than they do in London. But two people one two separate occasions apologized to me after running into me – or kindof just brushing by me- on the street.

The airplane ride here was long and agonizing and I’ll say no more on the matter in hopes that the memory is repressed before I have to fly home again. (Note: by “agonizing” I mean I was bored and impatient. I was in no way in pain, or anxious. I wasn’t hungry either! Vegan airplane food!)

Louvre Day

Today I went on a tour of the Louvre. I’m not typically keen on tours of art galleries because I have my own system of navigating these (I.e. “Weee!”). But the Louvre is ginormous and I thought some assistance would be helpful. Mostly I wanted to be sure to see the popular stuff right away. It turns out the tour was a good intro for be because there are so many people at the Louvre and had I attempted it the first time on my own I would have been frightened off.

It was cool to see the big arts there (Armless Venus, Mona Lisa) but i found that how I usually look at art was a little awkward? Like, me standing at the barrier and inspecting the details, looking for evidence of craftsmanship was in the way of a whole crowd of people trying to take selfies. I even almost forgot: after clicking a bunch of photos of Armless Venus I realized I hadn’t actually looked at here. Lucky that our guide gave us a while in that part of the gallery so I could get a good look at her folds and such.

In conclusion, too many people and just massive. I’ll go back because there’s more to see – but at my own pace. (I have a couple spare days this trip, but more likely during a future trip. Paris is pretty close to London.)

Some phots from my days.

My chest/ribs area hurt today so I thought I had a lung infection or something dire. As the hours went on, however, the pain developed and now I’m pretty sure I’ve strained my muscles doing a new Pilates exercise.

#thisiswhyishouldstayinbed

I texted with chums today. Susan and Amber, and also Mum. We are all dealing. Back in the regular times if I wanted to text someone I’d be all worried that my chosen recipient might be busy and I wouldn’t want to disturb them. And oh and fret. Not so lately. And we all commiserate.

List of things to do tomorrow:

• Go to work
• Do not go shopping at breaks or lunch
• Come home, without stopping for groceries on the way
• Phone Mum at 7pm because it will be Wednesday

I miss my routine. On Fridays for the past lots of years I should have a dance class. For a long time it was floor barre. This year and last it’s been flamenco. Friday evening at 5pm right after work is a lovely time for a dance class – especially flamenco where I can stomp my week away. (Also floor barre, which was a nice stretch for the end of the week.)

Precious Thing.

The last couple times I visited my parents house I cleared out a bunch of my old junk and brought it home with me for consideration of what to do with it next. One of the things is this little metal file box,

The stickers on it are garbage. The top one is a “not to be removed until delivered to customer” label that I think I peeled off the bottom of the folding chair I used to use at my desk. The blue Pet Shop Boys sticker was on the front of a CD. “Hunting Humans” was a show at the Duncan Fringe Festival in 1993 or 1994. Not pictured is a price label from my copy of “The Cunning Man” by Robertson Davies (a fave in my later teenage years), purchased at Book Warehouse.

The box is meant to hold 3×5 inch index cards. And so it does!

Between approximately 1991 through 2002ish I wrote the details of every book I read on an index card and kept it here. There used to be tabs of the alphabet, sorting the cards by author. And, admittedly, there were two boxes for a while, divided at the Mc/Macs because that’s a lot of card and they’re hard to flip through when they’re packed in so tight like that. And also for some reason I had two boxes- the other one was also metal but had a red plaid pattern and has currently been appropriated to collect money from the egg sales dad has set up next to the garage. I’m not sure where the alphabet cards got to.

As pictured above you can see “The Blind Assassin” by Margaret Atwood. I would include the publication date, as well, because that seems like something that should be included on an index card. On the right hand side is the genre, with a little note below noting that it’s “mine” – I own a copy. The rest of the card might sometimes be dedicated to a copy of the blurb on the back of the book, copied verbatim, occasionally edited for space, as a reminder of what the book is about. Sometimes there would be a note somewhere saying that I really liked it. I would write the date I finished each book on the back of the card– on some cards there are multiple dates. I finished “The Blind Assassin” on July 25, 2003 (although I don’t think that’s the first time I read it, because I bought it when it was published in 2000.)

It would have been super cute now if I could tell you exactly when I read “The Cunning Man” that I mentioned buying before, however, there’s no card for that so I wasn’t consistent. I can tell you that the first time I finished reading “Pride and Prejudice” was February 4, 1994. I always knew this datakeeping would come in handy some day.