Before any more times passes I want to recall the things about Paris and my
Paris trip that stood out for me--not ideas, impressions, and the like, but
things, events, moments. Here are some. These are things that stuck
out--not necessarily all good nor all bad. Just memorable. (Forgive the misspellings--I haven't the energy to look these things up.)

I loved walking around in the Louvre. What a great place to wander through. It beats any other musuem.

Drinking a caraffe of wine and eating a plate of cheeses while talking with Ann at a cafe near Notre Dame.
I love cafes, sitting and talking, drinking coffee, or in this case, wine.
It was on a corner of two busy but narrow streets. Nice.

Ahhhh, touching Sartre's grave. It's silly of me, but touching it was
special. Being there, and paying respect. Moving, really.

Walking on the Champs Eleysees late at night and going into the big Virgin
Records store near the Arch De Triumph. It was the night of our arrival,
and all was before us and exciting. Ann wanted to go into a perfume shop, so we did that too. It was late by the time we finished, so we had to walk back. And to think she was going to stay in that night and rest.

Walking along the Seine on our way to the meeting place (the Eiffel Tower)
for the bike tour. The view along the river is stunning. Stunning.

Walking around the outside market at Montparnasse alone, and reveling in the
fact that I was wandering amongst strangers in a strange land. And eating
the apple pastry I'd bought as I surveyed the map for the luminaries buried
within the cemetary there, Sartre among them.

Buying our pastries and juice in the morning and walking through the street
outside our hotel as we started a new day. I loved how it felt like we were
not amongst tourists, but mingled with people starting their regular work
day.

Hearing the organ at St. Germain des Pres. And then very shortly after
that, watching a service at Notre Dame and again hearing its organ.

Walking around the Sorbonne and the Univ. of Paris, the Pantheon, and the
Latin Quarter at night. We walked our asses off that day, and man did I
have a good time.

Walking home late at night after a night with the boys. It was 2 or 2:30,
and I walked for about 40 minutes. Except for the area around St. Germain,
the streets were empty. It was eerie and cool. It was nice coming back to a friendly face too, and chatting for a few moments.

Oh, man... looking out upon the canal at Versailles at the close of the day,
a soft cool rain falling from a gray, embracing sky, the expanse of water,
the seeming miles of green grass, and the most exquisite melancholy I've
ever enjoyed. Oh, I could have savored that moment forever... but people
were tired, wet, cranky. For me, none of that mattered. It was a perfect
moment. A rare and beautiful moment that comes so infrequently in life.
I'm a sentimental fool, perhaps, but it was truly special. I'm reminded of
it by the picture I got, which is pretty good. The rain was perfect. We
couldn't have asked for better weather. Perhaps it was good that it was
fleeting, that people were hurried by the rain. Aren't all special moments
fleeting and snatched from an instant?

Walking around the outside of Notre Dame both times we were there was inspiring. There are so many great views of that church, each different than the one before. I wonder about who lives on the street beside it. There's a small street beside it with a few cafes on the corner, but then lots of apartments. What a location to pass one's days. Imagine if you could look outside your window and see Notre Dame right across the street.

I remember our walk to the hotel where Gerry and Brian were the day we arrived. I was so tired and loopy from the long plane ride, and the long ride from the airport. But it was exciting being out on the streets. We didn't know where we were going, and we took quite a long way around, it seems in retrospect. But we saw lots. We went past the sex district, to which we never returned. We passed by the Moulin Rouge uncerimoneously. It was a strange and exciting walk.

Gosh, how about the three-hour ride in a van from the airport to the hotel. Traffic was jammed due to a transit strike. Mostly I remember the harrowing ride through the streets after we'd gotten off the highway. I've been in cabs in New York City. That doesn't even compare. I liked the jazz musicians who shared the ride, worring about missing their "gig."

Riding through the streets of Paris at dusk in the rain on bicycles was fun. Paris was beautiful then. Mostly I remember riding around the Lourve, St. Chappelle, St. Dominque, and the military grounds (I've forgotten what it was now, but stunning none the less hahah).

A couple of times I was approached by someone speaking to me in French, in the subway, or on the street. I'd stammer and say "Je ne parle Fransaise." Not sure if that was coorect grammer for "I don't speak French" but it always got my meaning across immediately. One guy immediately asked, "English?" and I smiled and said yes. But that was it. Obviously he didn't know English. It was nice trying to converse, even sometimes actually communicating. The awkwardness of it was fun. It seemed to be commonplace for them to come across those who spoke foreign languages, and they were good-humored about it. I so wish I know more French so I could have tried to speak a little. I think it'd be so much fun to know just a little French.

There's much more, but I'm tired, so this will have to suffice. It's enough to give you the idea that I loved Paris, the Parisians, and my Paris vacation.

I've recently bought cans of unsalted peas. I saw them at the grocery store the other day and it occurred to me that yes, I should buy those. Who needs all that extra salt that's normally added to canned goods? Yes, well... I'm sure it's just a matter of getting used to the taste, but for now the peas really seem to need ... salt. So I've taken to salting my chicken generously, and then taking a bite of peas, with a quick chaser of salted chicken. Cheater.

Today I had nothing much to do at work, so I decided to attend one of the "communication" meetings that the larger group that I'm a part of has on occasion. This is mostly a presentation by the overall manager/VP regarding how Xerox is doing, and how our group is doing, what our group is doing. I work in the research division within Xerox, so it's not your normal corporate work. There are serious people, very intelligent people, holders of PhDs, doing real research in some cases, but in most all cases, they are not jerf-offs, slackers, or 'ner-do wells. But I digress. I was listening to the VP, who is new to the company--arrived just a handful of months ago. And it suddenly occurred to me that he's actually trying to do good work, taking it seriously, giving himself to his work, etc. He's thinking about the larger issues of the group, vision, direction. It's good to see, and I wondered about the types of people and their levels of devotion to their work. There are those, like him, who really immerse themselves in their work, spend much of their mental lives on work, think about problems when at work and at home and are always thinking of how to improve, thinking beyond their immediate tasks and their jobs to the larger context. Problem solvers and visionary types. These people are successful at their jobs, they're good at their jobs, they're happy at their jobs. Their jobs are perhaps the most important part of their lives. They probably don't have a lot of other, private pursuits. They don't have hobbies, other interests, other passions. And then there are those who are good at their jobs, competent, and happy enough, but also have outside hobbies and interests. They are serious joggers, they sing in local choral groups and bands, they travel extensively, they volunteer, they garden. Their professional and private lives are more evenly divided or balanced. I can't decide which I like better, which is better, which I want to be. I know that I'm clearing in the latter group now, but I used to be in the former. Both have virtues. The career-driven types have passion, and that's huge. They're invested; they're committed. The others know there's more to life than work. Who can deny it. Lately I find myself favoring the first group. Passion and committment are more important than anything else, I think. For the same reason I also like a third group--those who work merely as a means to support their true passion. Maybe he's an insurance salesman or taxi driver by day, and a composer by night. He makes not pretenses about caring for his job--he doesn't. He cares about composing. But enough on that. I dismiss you, topic. You bore me suddenly. hahah

Frank told me today of a friend of his who's moving to Paris. How is that done?

I was looking at my pictures from Paris today, and it dawns on me, really I'm just reminded of what I already knew--pictures of vacations are boring and should not be taken except as they include people. Pictures of a church... boring. Your memories are far more important and alive. But pictures of a friend in front of the same church... that's the picture that should be taken. When I'm experiencing something wonderful, like a beautiful church, I'm totally absorbed by it, it's a solitary, private thing for me. That can't be captured on film. What can be captured are the people in your life. I'm thirsty. I'll go get some water.

I've just returned from a trip to Paris. The experience has made me almost contemptuous of the U.S. I'm sure that will pass, but for now I hold tightly to still vivid memories of the charmed city, and of the life lived by Parisians. With so little time to gain perspective, it's difficult to separate the virtues of Paris from the inherent excitement one feels for all things new--new surroundings, a new language, new perspectives and people, a different aesthetic altogether. I perhaps too easily become enamored of new places. But Paris really does seem to be special. The Parisians, and perhaps the French at large (I only saw Paris), seem to have a wonderful sense of beauty, and perhaps even more important, the importance of beauty within their daily lives. Am I being too dramatic? Perhaps. But everywhere I looked I saw beauty--in the way they build their streets and homes, in the way they work and do business, the way they dress, the way they eat, the way they interact with one another. Where were the ugly, brutish parts of Paris? Where was the crass, the ugly, the profane, the distasteful, the foul, the cruel? Every street had virtue. Every sight had context and reason.

History seemed to be a part of their daily lives. There is a continuity in Paris. They recognize and embrace their past and fold it into their ongoing lives. Of course there are museums dedicated to displaying their history as spectacle, but they also live among it. They attend mass in the same venerable medieval churches as they have for centuries. They seem to add to and augment, but do not supplant or excise their history, which it seems to me that Americans often are too inclined to do. They seem to be able to control crass commercialism in ways Americans are not so inclined. Why? Americans like to make spectacle of things to unnatural degrees. They crave the new and marginalize the old by compartmentalizing it as history, as spectacle. Americans worship and then sin. The French sin, but just a little every day. I think Americans need to venerate and exhault less, and internalize their own history more. It's all so much "otherness" in America, otherness as alienation. I think maybe the French have developed such a profound sense of beauty in their daily lives because of their relationship to their past, and to the things around them. They see themselves in others, in their surroundings, in their past. It should be no surprise, I guess, that existentialism florished as it did in France. They understood long before Sartre told them, that one can know oneself only through the "other." The other is to be embraced as reflecting ourselves, and so it must be valued and preserved.

Well, I've quickly gotten too philosophical. Let me explain in other ways what I loved about Paris. It is not peculiar to Paris, of course, but I love cities. I love always seeing new things. I love being absorbed in culture--other ethnic faces and languages, shops, papers, events, a million unexplored streets and corners, the oddities of other people, the joy shared by being immersed in the unfamiliar. I need to live in a city. I loved what I believed I sensed in Paris--a balance in the lives of Parisians between their life during the day, their work and the pursuit of a living, and their lives otherwise. It wasn't so much a balance as it was a blurring of the distinction. Maybe I imagined it, but I felt as though they were friends and neighbors, Frenchmen, lovers, and diners, as much as they were workers, merchants, bankers, and salesmen. The dicotomy between professional and the private life which one understands and respects in America was not as apparent, I thought. I loved walking among the shops outside the hotel in the morning, seeing people visit the pastisseries (sp?), and in the evenings seeing people walking from work carrying their bagettes and other food. I loved all of the cafes, the endless cafes, and the people in them sharing a bottle or wine, perhaps, drinking a beer, and talking, just sitting and talking. My god! Yes! We don't do enough of that in the U.S. I loved the history. I loved walking along the Seine and seeing the staggeringly beautiful buildings. I loved the medieval churches. I venerate the old so much. A church like Notre Dame, the immense beauty, the centuries, the stained class, the cloisters, the organs, the music, the rows and rows of small wooden chairs.... it all makes me want to drop to my knees and worship, pray. This is the best that mankind has produced; this beauty is the best that mankind has to offer. So I loved Paris. I want to go back. I want to see the rest of Europe. I want to see new places. I want a larger context, larger than the one I have in Rochester, NY, larger even than the U.S.

I'm a bit drunk right now. But I had the best time tonight. Let's see, where to begin.... Well, not at the beginning--too boring. I just got home from a night out with my two friends, Gerry and Brian. I got a call at about 8 from Gerry saying that they'd like to go out to Java's for a coffee before they go to a concert at the local music school. I'd already spoken to Brian at lunch about their evening plans--they were going to a concert tonight. A guitarist was giving his undergraduate recital, and I should come along. Well, I thought that I might, but then later I decided, no, I really wanted a quiet evening of reading at a coffee shop. So when my friend phoned me up about coffee beforehand, my plans suddenly changed again. I guess I was going to the concert afterall. 'Twas a good concert. It turns out that the only reason we really went was because the guitarist was really hot according to Gerry, and well, as it turns out, he was! We heard great Spanish guitar, a concerto with an orchestra, and then flamenco dancing with the guitarist accompanying a really good young woman dancer. And of course lots of pictures of everyone after the concert by Gerry, meeting the guitarist, and lots of friends and acquaintances of Gerry's. And then we decided to stop in at the Pink Elephant (you guessed it--a gay bar, new to Rochester). We each ordered cosmopolitans, had fun talking it up with some guys from Binghamton (one was a look alike of Dennis Quaid, not that that's a good thing). Then someone I work with came in with his partner. A second round was om there somewhere--a white Russian for me, a chocholate martini for Gerry, and another martini drink for Brian. Gettting drunker and having more fun. A white Russian for Brian too. Chatting with the very cute violinst from the concert and other incomers. Then free sample drinks from the bartender--a new lime martini drink. When my co-worker left we finished their drinks. hahhaha Getting drunker. More loud talk, laughing, etc. Then the bartender gave us another round of free white Russians. By now Gerry is quite drunk, and we're all having lots of fun. Too bad it had to end. Alas, here I am, not yet tired enough to go to bed... but getting there. Must remember to get bagettes to take to Gerry's dinner tomorrow.

Today at work my quiet workplace was suddenly disturbed by hordes of people moving into previously empty locations all around me. It sucks. I hate them all. Of course I have no basis for that, but who needs that? Not only were they too noisy, but more importantly, they all seemed so boring. Just what I need--middle-aged guys with bellies and long hair excpet for bald spots on the backs of their heads, attitudes of superiority. You're so boring. You bore me. I have a point to all this but suddenly I'm getting sleepy. It must wait. Or more likely, it'll pass. Pesky points. To sleep.