la france, je t'adore

i am in paris, france. it is a most enjoyable city, called "the city of lights," and the boulevards are bustling with frenchmen, baguettes, and cigarette smoke; the air smells of sugar coated on pastries, espresso comes when you order "cafe," stone fountains adorned with sculpted angels, heroes, or Joan D'Arc are found on most corners, the facades on most apartment buildings put the finest brownstones in the city to crying shame, the saliva produced from the populace uttering the french language collects in the gutters and surges into turbulent rivers that carry small children and farm animals away, never to be seen again. a small casualty for a tongue of such exquisite aestheticism. it has made me swoon countless times, almost straight to the ground, where still-burning cigarette butts and half-eaten crepes wait to sully my face.

kevin and i have been on two free tours -- the first with a charming young chap from smalltown texas whose knowledge of parisian history was not only surprising but highly improbable, almost to the point that he must have been lying. however, i believed it all, as this was more attractive than denial, since he talked of van gogh, picasso, bloody battles, beheaded kings, and revolutions. today we walked for four hours with a girl from boston named mary who i fell for completely, mainly because of her unbridaled comedic reposes amidst a fury of historical speech, humor that kept me laughing and stories of revolution after revolution, beheading after beheading, dethroning after rethroning after revolution again, accompanied by a seine that seemed to flow with blood on a constant basis for a good five hundred years. she warned us not to drink from it.

tomorrow we journey to the louvre perhaps, or the tour eiffel. regardless of where we go, i know we shall have a splendid time, and i shall eat at least one pan au chocolat. and a crepe avec creme de marron. and three more assorted pastries. and then five more pastries.

oh, so at peace

i cannot be more at peace. unless i was dead. but then i could not enjoy it. so blog, let me tell you. i forced my boss to fire me to collect unemployment compensation, and once fired realized i could not collect it because of time technicalities, although i potentially could if i am still unemployed by (shudder) april, and i have spent my days traveling azeroth and seeing friends. my dear friend misha has come to work a stint for a fashion company and we have been seeing much of each other. tonight i will traverse the subterranean tunnel below the east river in a clanging car of metal to arrive at the west village, where complimentary ale is being divvied out and humble works of art are presented to weary travelers. it shall prove to be a festive occasion that shall burn long and hard in the lantern of my memory. my belly is full with textured vegetable protein, left over from the other night, and my stomach will be hard pressed to generate an acid potent enough to coax it to cease resisting metabolization.

let whatever brings you light shine brightly tonight, my compatriots.

angry again

so the superiors are away and some people ring the doorbell. the kiwi buzzes them in as usual now, as the receptionist just quit. there have been a number of interviews these days and the designer and i are always wondering what positions they're applying for. so naturally we were curious who these visitors were. she bolts down the stairs in her usual blustering way and plants herself back down in her chair and locks her gaze on her monitor. with the slightest hesitation, i ask who they are. she answers back sharply that she doesn't know, and why don't i check if i want to know so bad. so i do. i dash up the stairs with a childish fascination and find two east asian women, one a translator for the other. they are here to interview the executive director for a magazine article, i am told. oh, so no one is interviewing her? i ask, gesturing toward the woman not fluent in english. no, says the smiling interpreter. well, i was just checking... sorry! i say, then return downstairs. when i take my seat and tell them what i learned, the kiwi remarks smartly that she already knew. you already knew? i am surprised. of course i did, she says with an undercut of disgust, i am completely competent to handle situations like that. i don't know why you went up in the first place. because i was curious, i say. this is a professional environment, she reminds me staring at her screen still typing, and that wasn't very professional at all. you know what, i say, i guess i just don't give a shit... and that's it. yeah, i guess you don't, she finishes last.
some people just can't release themselves from the boundaries that have been created around them, either by themselves or by outside forces. they are to be pitied. who can hold such a rigid and uncompromising ethic about a workplace even they are set on leaving?

my jar of genmaicha

my Ball jar of genmaicha looks like a beaker of settled pond water. yet it remarkably tastes like toasted brown rice, macha, and green tea. the tea leaves and rice have precipitated to the bottom of the jar, creating a deep green textured surface where all manner of creatures may hide, and the algae-soaked layers above pale to a cloudy yellow until they reach the surface, where a light green froth gathers around the rim, certainly brimming with frogs' eggs.