Though back for four days, I am still swimming in a clogged universe of errands and administrative nightmares made worse by jet lag. I had very little of “the lag” in Paris but I guess a new city, friends, and conference can override your screwed up circadian rhythm while an endlessly long “to-do” list has no such positive effect except exhaust me so mcuh that I am in bed by 9 pm. I guess that is what I get for leaving home for nearly one month when there were clearly things to be done. I could go off for a long time about these quagmires but I refrain for it is a serious bore but I will offer one piece of advice: when and if you give away a large possession, like a car, do keep a paper trail of all exchanges. 2 years after giving, YES, giving my car to my ‘good’ Christian neighbors, I found out they never sent in the title to the CA DMV, and thus after disposing of the car on the side of the road, the paper trail leads to me, with a big fat $2600 bill along with it. Uggh, in one instant, I have ruined my credit for a 1978 Celica that I paid $750 for. To get this fixed, I will first have to appeal to these ex-neighbors on some lofty bed of Christain ethics before moving to the “American way”, that is, the threat of lawsuit (which might be a bluff unless I find some cheap lawyer) and ultimately move to paying it off over months.
Anyways, keep paper trails of it *all. *
Now that I am thousands of miles away from Paris, here are some initial and sporadic impressions of the city. Yes, yes, the architecture, gardens, food are supposed to be (and pretty much are) stunning, golden, brilliant, manicured and such. What they say is pretty much true, Paris is insanely nice. It must cost a pretty penny to upkeep the city for the gazillion tourists that frequent her streets. Clearly, Parisians have such a stong awareness of the visual uniqueness of the city, they push the structural and social ecology of the city into that direction of striking beauty.
The city performs like no other city I have seen. Paris is in a nutshell is a city of great surplus; its main goods of surplus being drama, perfomance, and beauty, so much so even the doogies know how to perform for interested parties with full drama in front of a Parisian cafe:
Its a city that compels you to keep walking and gawking even if your legs are burning and your eyes are stinging from fatigue. You keep going because you know that around the corner you will be assualted by something astonishing. Its charm and beauty spans the extravangantly ornate to the simplistically quaint, flowers of all colors mediating the various forms that beauty can take:
