la fille en rose

Last night I responded to an ad on craigslist, offering a free backpack. It's from LLBean, and looks perfect for day trips, and much better than the crappy one I bought for 10€ last year at Decathlon. I met the woman at her metro stop, and we chatted for a few minutes. It turns out that we're both children's book editors, and have worked at the same company!

She's a bit older than I am, so we worked there at different times, and know different people, but we ended up getting coffee and exchanging story ideas. It's just such a small world! I can't believe that this random woman and I are from the same, relatively obscure, field.

So, Louise, if you're reading this, hi! It was lovely to meet you, and I'll be sure to take the bag on many grand adventures. And I think I might actually start working on that story finally . . .

When guys use extraordinarily flattering photos on dating sites, so that you literally do not recognize them on the street, despite being the only two people on the appointed corner at the appointed time.

I truly don't understand it. Do you think you're going to trick me into being attracted to you?

I do not like creepy-crawlies. I kill bugs left, right, and center. I don't feel any qualms about it. They freak me out, and I want them gone.

And yet, I have been totally unbothered by the night visitors I get in my new place.

In New York, my apartment had screens on the windows. I had the occasional small spider in the summer (which I would kill. I know they supposedly eat other bugs, but they also eat me. Dead.) but I never had anything flying around.

Here, I have two beautiful, big windows that open into my apartment and give me a view of the courtyard, with its grey roofs and rust-colored chimney pots. These windows, that make my apartment look a lot bigger than it is, have no screens. I can't recall seeing any screens on friends' windows, either. If I had screens, I couldn't water my plants or pluck basil for dinner from my lovely window boxes. And I couldn't shake out my bathmat or kitchen rug into the courtyard below. And I couldn't make my friends lean ALL the way out the window when they smoke at my housewarming party.

But these screenless windows let in lots of winged creatures. I have what looks like miniature mosquitoes that don't seem to bite, flies, big flies, bigger flies, microscopic flying things, ladybuggish things, and even a big-assed moth once. I only notice they're here cause I can hear them beating their gross wings against my ceiling. And it just doesn't bother me.

Okay, the flies bother me. But those are here during the day, not at night. And I have a lot fewer now that I bought a pitcher plant. I wonder if it's because, somewhere in my New Yorker mind, bugs are more acceptable in Europe? Is nature invading your space an "old-country" thing to anyone else?

My dad just sent me scans of a couple of photos of him and my mom from 1967, two years before they were married. This summer, August 31st, will be their 40th wedding anniversary. Which is insane. Forty years!!!

When they married, my mom was 19 and my dad was 25. When they started dating, my mom was in high school and my dad was in law school. My sister and I make fun of our dad all the time for being a creepy old man.

He likes to tell a story of how one day he borrowed his movie director friend's fancy sports car to pick up my mom from school. My mom was kind of a quiet girl, and despite the fact that she was prom queen (she maintains that her friends stuffed the ballot box), not overly popular.

So when she walked down the steps of Fairfax High and there was my dad, who was really quite gorgeous (dad, you're still extremely handsome, I'm not saying you're not!), leaning against this red convertible*, you can imagine the looks she got!

Anyway, here's them, two years before they got married. I've never seen this picture before, as an old friend just found it and gave it to them. People who know my mom well say that I look just like her. I wish!

ELLEN AND STANLEY 1967

Weren't they just amazing?
 
I'm sure I'm biased, just like parents who think their baby is the cutest thing in the world, but I can't stop looking at this photo!
 
*I'm not actually positive the car was red OR a convertible, but in my imagination it is.

EDIT: My dad just corrected me, saying: "it was a black convertible Jaguar XKE and my friend Tom Pollack, a law school classmate (later chairman of Universal Pictures) was driving, but it's true I was leaning against it waiting for mom." I think a black Jaguar convertible is just as good as a red one!

I went to Lisbon for a long weekend a few weeks back, and met a guy in my hostel. We hit it off, and spent the whole time together. Aaron took two months to travel around Europe and take a break from his normal life in northern California, where he's going through some changes. Now that he's back to the usual, he's kind of taking stock and considering a greater shift.

So we just got off the phone, and he asked if I think it would be crazy for him to sell all his shit and move to Berlin to get a bartender job. I said no, but you're talking to a girl who sold all her shit and moved to Paris for a teaching job.

And then I realized, wow. I did that. I sold all my shit: bed, bookshelves, couch, rugs, kitchen appliances, electronics. I boxed up books and vintage dishes. I gave away bags of clothes. I bought a one-way ticket. I live in Paris.

This might seem incredibly obvious to you. I have, after all, lived here for over two and a half years now. I am in my fourth Parisian apartment. But every so often I'll have a moment where it hits me: Oh. Right. I live in Paris. Huh, how'd that happen?

Aaron asked if the romance has worn off, if I regret my decision. But I really don't. I love that I can go to Portugal for the weekend. I love that in the past week I've been to one of Napoleon's castles and the cathedral where all the monarchs of France are buried. I love that I buy my produce in a market from the 1700s. I just, every once in a while, wonder how I got here.

The last time I felt this way was about six months ago. I was in Monoprix, buying groceries. I had chosen some spices, to help with my advancing cooking skills. And as my cart was rolling up the automatic ramp next to my escalator, I looked over and saw my bags of flour and my jars of spices and the new cake pan I was buying. And something about the spices, their longevity, made me aware that I'm building a life here. Cause you don't buy oregano unless you mean it.

Ella, a 9 year-old that I tutor on Thursdays, has been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory aloud to me for months. We've worked on stresses, italics, punctuation, vocabulary, really anything that comes up during our reading.

Since Roald Dahl has a pretty wicked sense of humor, I sometimes have to explain rather adult jokes. In the most recent chapter, Charlie and the other kids see a storage room door with a sign announcing that it contains all sorts of beans, including has beans.

I laughed when Ella read that part, so I had to explain the idea of a has-been. I asked if she could think of anyone who was famous 20 years ago, but hasn't really done anything great since.

Her first thought?

Queen Elizabeth.

I just fit into a pair of size 0 pants that I have not been able to get past my thighs for the past 4+ years. I am awesome.

I guess living on the 6th floor has its benefits!

So apparently my April Fool's day joke post was a big piece of shit this year. People not only believed it (which I suppose actually makes it successful), but they don't think it's funny at all. I just thought that it would be funny if after the hellish search I went through, and how excited I was about this place, if it just sucked and I was stuck here for 3 years.

I guess I have a sick sense of humor.

So, to clarify, my apartment is not a disaster. I've slept incredibly well, without ear plugs, the past two nights. The only grain of truth to the post is that I'm not a huge fan of the sanibroyeur toilet, but I'm guessing I'll get used to it. I've only met one neighbor, an incredibly nice man who insisted on helping with the move when he came across us lugging boxes up the stairs.

So far, so good! If you're curious about my past April Fool's day posts, find them here and here. And next year, people, check the tags. ;)

So last night was my first night in my new apartment, and it was an absolute disaster. Sandra, the girl who lived here before me, had said that the neighbors are really great, that there were no real problems, and she was just leaving to move in with her boyfriend.

Well, no way in hell was that true. I was kept up ALL night by shouting in some obscure language from the couple next door, and then the guys across the hall came home at like 3 am, smoking so much that my apartment still smells today.

On top of all that, when I flushed the weird "sanibroyeur" toilet, it dumped water all over the floor. And the refrigerator's motor is unbearably loud.

Basically, I'm going to need to wear earplugs constantly. I'm so bummed.

My trip to Spain was excellent. With the exception of my last two days, I had clear blue skies during the day, and cool nights. I extended my time in Granada, which I don't regret in the slightest, and loved Seville. I definitely hope to go back to both Granada and Seville at some point.

Cordoba was nice, but the only thing I felt was worth seeing was the mezquita. And I've done that, so now I don't need to go back. The two nights I spent there were the only nights I was bored in the slightest, or lonely. The hostels I stayed at in both Granada and Seville were awesome, and I met tons of new friends.

I might eventually get around to posting pictures, and more information about the trip, but that's not really why I'm writing. Since getting back from Spain, on March 1st, I've had a really bad month. Normally February is my tough time, but this year February creeped into March.

When I got back, I immediately had to step up my apartment search. I had started beforehand, but my cough kept me in bed a lot. There were days I visited four apartments, I was making dozens of phone calls, sending out masses of emails, living on apartment search sites, and setting up as many appointments as possible. I saw lots of nice places, some laughably small ones, a few roommate dealies that were okay but overpriced, and then I saw The One.

I walked into this apartment on March 11th, and immediately thought it was the nicest apartment I'd seen. One of the nicest studios I've seen in Paris, period. Clean, airy, bright, renovated, and in a great neighborhood. Even the price was totally reasonable. The only possible downside could be that it's on the 5th floor of a walk-up. That's the 6th floor to Americans. But I could even find a way to spin that into goodness, since lord knows I could use some more exercise.

The landlord said he would only contact the one person he chose for the apartment, and I came very, very close to not bothering to fill out the information sheet, thinking that there was no way this guy would pick me out of the 25 people there. But I filled it out, and told him that if he picked me I would be really happy. I left, and thought no more about it.

Until the next night, while tutoring Ella. I got a phone call, and the caller ID was from the landlord! Holy shit. I told Ella I had to take it, and almost blew a gasket when the landlord, Mr. W, told me he hadn't made his choice yet. He was down to four people, and couldn't decide between them. So, he was asking us each to write a motivation letter. For the apartment.

Part of me thought "you have got to be kidding me," but with Pauline's help, I whipped up a brilliant letter. As I sent it off, I told Pauline "I'm going to be really sad when I don't get this apartment." Oh, I forgot to mention that while I was on the phone, Mr. W decided to just ask two of us to write a letter, and so therefore I had a 50/50 shot.

About 15 minutes after sending the letter, I got a call saying that I was the One. And there began two and a half weeks of stressing that he would figure out I don't have a carte de sejour, and I would lose it. The worry was for naught, however. Although it took FOREVER, I signed the lease Saturday morning. Two and a half weeks after first seeing the apartment! 

All of the stress definitely got to me, and I got bronchitis. The cough I had before Spain lingered and evolved. I've gotten bronchitis at least once a winter since I was in 8th grade, when I had walking pneumonia. So the search and the bronchitis and the antibiotics all combined to make a rather sad Sophie. But all of this is really just the preamble to the real reason I had such a bad month. It's just hard to write about.

I lost a dear friend to cancer. Sylvia, who some of you will know as Benjamin's mother, died about two weeks ago. Over the years I've become close to the whole family, and have spent a lot of time with Sylvia. She had had breast cancer years ago, but it was in remission. Last year, though, she started having serious stomach problems, and was often unable to eat. In June the doctors confirmed that it was cancer. I got the email while I was in Santorini, and was really upset. But I felt optimistic, cause she was at the best cancer hospital in the country.

The first thing I did when my plane landed in Paris after Greece was call. And same thing when I had two days in town between New York and Ile de Ré. I visited for a few hours at home, and while I was sad to see how skinny she'd gotten, I was relieved that her personality was very much intact. And so began her second round of chemo. It went pretty well, and we had a lovely family dinner this fall. But shortly after, Sylvia was back in the hospital for more treatments.

I visited her a few times in the hospital, and as it turns out I never saw her at home again. Christophe and I had lunch the day before I went to Spain, and while I was away the cancer spread again, to her kidneys. About a week after my return I got a call from Christophe, saying that if I wanted to say goodbye I had to come then.

The doctors had given her a few hours, maybe a couple of days. But Sylvia held on for a week. It was awful, watching her get weaker and less and less aware. But I am so grateful that I was there. The first night I went, the night Christophe called, was the last time Sylvia knew who I was. She couldn't really talk, but she knew I was there.

I told her I loved her, and would miss her, and would watch out for Ben and Juliette. I told her that I would never forget her, and that our friendship would not end. I promised to continue telling her the crazy stories of trying to make my life work in France. And so far I've kept that promise. I still talk to her, and I still miss her.

I don't know how much she understood of what I said, but she must have felt my love for her. She brushed the tears off my cheeks, and looked into my eyes. I am just so grateful to Christophe for giving me the chance to properly say goodbye. Because over the next week, each time I visited she was less and less Sylvia.

I've never lost a friend before. A friend's sister, a great-grandmother . . . no one that close. I loved my great-grandmother very much, and I was 13 or so when she died. But while I can still hear her voice in head, and am so happy I got her hair (on my head, not in a drawer somewhere), I didn't truly know her. And she was in her 90s when she died, after having met most of her great-grandchildren. Sylvia was not ready to go. She had so much to live for, and so many people who love her.

Most of last year I was tutoring her in English. The French word toujours has two meanings in English, still and always. In French it's very easy to know which is meant, from the context. But Sylvia could NEVER get it right in English. I'm sad that I can't tease her about it anymore. I'm sad that she won't have the chance to get it right. I'm sad that she had to stop learning.

So, Sylvia, thank you. I miss you, and haven't really realized that you're gone forever. I Iove you, still and always. Thank you for being my friend.

Christophe, Sylvia, Juliette, Ben 2007