Wine

Ya know, wine is the same all over the world. Some wine is better than other wine. Some wine you have to spit back in the glass and lick your tongue out a few times to get the idea of it out of you head.

But not in Paris. You can buy wine from the grocery store and it's delicious. You know how I know. Well padawan, I know cause I've done it. I've walked that line and came out ahead. I also eat seafood when everyone else is shaking their heads and threatening not to take care of airplane shrimp's vomitous return. I'm a risk taker.

But buying and drinking grocery store wine for 5 euros is not a risk. The French drink wine all the time. It would be cost prohibitive of them as a culture to make wine unaffordable. I'm an American. Our beer is cheap. That's why we all weigh almost 200lbs each. But beer is delicious and after being in Copenhagen where there's the delicious Carlsburg (and little else) I saw the detriments of beer.

1.) You don't get drunk. Unless you purposely go in on an empty stomach. Then you get really drunk, really fast and sick a second after you realize you're drunk. No Fun.

2.) All the clothes I packed shrank in my suitcase after a few nights of beer. I wasn't going to bootcamp and spin class. I was walking around one of the dullest towns I'd ever seen to go present a paper to people who were rolling around in the ground in newspaper. Then it rained and was cold and beer doesn't warm you up.

3.) And this is one I learned at home by living over a bar. Beer drunk makes me evil and sleepy.

Therefore, the world should be made out of wine. And whisky. Cause wine makes you go to sleep and whisky makes you forget all the bad things you did to your friends when you drank it.

Wine is great.

Paris 1

I love this town. I love everything about it.

Yesterday I sat at Café Flore where Baldwin finished Go Tell it on the Mountain and where he had his infamous falling out with Richard Wright. I had a glass of wine for Jimmy. Then had several more for myself. We went to Bar and had several more glasses of champagne. I talked to some locals- in French (I'm apparently fluent with a little wine in me).

Earlier in the day we'd gone to Notre Dame and Museé d'Orsay. I'm more Manet than Monet people and I can finally tell the difference. I also got to see the strokes on the Van Gogh's and he was totally dropping his basket.

We walked around St. Germaine de Pres and it's mad expensive and cool as hell though. I have to find a way to live here. I haven't done much writing, but when my traveling companions leave me tomorrow I'll have more time.

Right now they went to the Folies Bergere to do a little Josephine Baker hunting. I'm going to meet them at the Louvre in a little bit and we have a salon to attend tonight.

I love Paris.

Denmark

What a bore. I've never seen so many dry people in my life.

The cheese was good though. Christiania was amazing, but only cause there were all these stoners and people were smoking hash in the street. That was the only fly part. It's a dull little town.

Don't smell like roses

I got sunflowers for my birthday and I had them on my table/ desk to inspire me to write. Every little girl loves flowers right? Right. Only what I didn't have any idea about was that my beautiful sunflowers would start smelling like a sack of assholes.

Seriously. I was looking under my shoes, even took another shower (the inhumanity). After convincing myself that my computer wasn't farting (I've been drinking for like 2 weeks straight) went to smell the flowers.

Whew! I then told them, aloud, that they didn't smell like roses. Then I laughed the way crazy people who talk to flowers alone in their homes do.

Then I wrote this:

These sunflowers I got for my birthday smells like assholes. I just told them they don’t smell like roses, but I guess that’s an old joke to them. They didn’t laugh.

What is it about the American mind that insists that all inanimate objects must be infused with some sort of soul or personality? Have you watched that Tom and Jerry lately? It’s a horror show. It’s also my favorite, particularly during the Tex Avery era. Such exquisite violence. Watching it now makes me whence and understand where I get a ton of my violent fantasies from.


That's when I thought maybe I should ask my therapist if I might need to commit myself for a while.

The real answer is that I need more fresh flowers in my house. Despite the fact that my allergies have been a nightmare since the jack the ripper of pollen lived in my house stinking it to high hell.

Maybe I'll try daisies.

Synchronized Swimming is the shit

Man, how do these little dudes do that? Do they live inside of each other's minds? Do they have to sleep together in a cocoon like pre-butterflies? That spinning and hitting at the same time is just amazing.

But I've gotta tell you, those Canadian girls were thick as hell. I would have gone into their lockers and took their clothes if I was there. But their Canadian athletes, so I'm sure it would be all sweatpants and ugly shoes.

Oh, my favorite quote from the woman's freestyle relay was:

"And she's one of the best breaststrokers around." Tee Hee. That made me laugh out loud and wonder if they have any idea how idiotic they sound.

As for gymnastics, what can I say? That little Sacrimoni girl needs to be on suicide watch cause she didn't make one HUGE mistake that literally cost them the gold- BUT 2! She looked like she was about to lose it on camera. That's too much pressure for little girls, but we're Americans and while we like to coddle, we also like to criticize. And no they're no Dream Team. No Nadia's, No Kerry's, No Dominique's. A bunch of weird looking little dudettes who have destroyed their young bodies and will never recover from the punishment they've suffered. No boobs for you ladies. You'll never have the smoky quality of my voice unless you smoke as much as I do... but I doubt you could keep up. I have breasts... and a period. Bye- Bye period and children ladies. I hope it was worth it for a silver medal.

Olympics 1- These will continue in the coming days

I'm going to start collecting the stupid quotes from the Olympic commentators. Tonight it's men's gymnastics after the Chinese clenched the gold medal:

"There's a new China Syndrome- and it's called China Gold."

I don't even know the name of the dude who said it. The commentators are less than talking heads, they're just disconnected voices creating a narrative Americans can follow so we'll watch. Capitalizing on nationalism and creating rivalries where there are none.

What's up with the crazy lady talking to the athletes seconds after they've won. Dude, they just got Olympic Gold Medals... leave them alone. This is why we have no interiority.

34

I'm sitting, listening to All Blues and remembering the first time I was aware of it. Aware of Miles. It was my sixteenth birthday and I was with Wyatt. He's made me a tape of Kind of Blue and told me it would change my life. He was right. He's dead now. OD'd when we were still in the blush of our youth. He was really funny and quite beautiful. I hated him when he died. Thought he was a bastard, he was a bastard, but.... anyway.

It always reminds me of sex. Reminds me of an intimacy one loses with each loss. It still makes me cry sometimes, like now. I think I cried the first time I really listened to it, but then I might have been crying cause Wyatt had just gone down on me. It was a hell of a great birthday. Then I went to see the Bolshoi dance Swan Lake.

Birthdays are funny like that. I always think they're such a big deal and do some kind of reflection or spiritual thing. Going diving, swimming with sharks, having some experience I think will add authenticity to my life, but this year, this quiet birthday year I'm taking a different approach.

This year I'm grown-up. This year I've finally figured out that life is life. Really figured it out. There is no magic pill, there is no story, there is nothing but the day to day and the practice of staying alive. Or the practice of killing yourself. I'm straddling that line and there's no judgment on it.

Everyday is practice. Everything is practice. I've been practicing drinking and watching TV and I'm brilliant at both. that's authentic. admission of flaws with no judgment. I've never felt so good in my life. and so crummy at the same time. life's not good or bad, it just is. i know that's not some big secret of nimh moment, but for me it's priceless right now. i feel like I've actually become free. the freedom I've claimed all this time i finally have.

birthdays aren't so bad.