The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

WHY 2 Cents?

"Hey, it's just my 2 cents." An expression we (myself included) use to justify our opinions, it's what we interject when contributing something to a conversation that we fear might be criticized or disagreed with. Picture it: You're standing around the office water cooler talking with a few co-workers about the latest reality show or the boss's latest ridiculous request, or you're at a bar watching a baseball game with your friends, and you decide to voice an opinion. As the words are leaving your lips, it suddenly occurs to you that your opinion might NOT be a popular one, so you quickly add: "Well, that's just my 2 cents". Your hope, as you utter that low-budget phrase, is that it will take the edge off in the event someone else happens to be offended by your point of view. Google "my 2 cents" and you'll get over 5.1 MILLION entries. Everyone uses this expression from time to time, at least in the English-speaking world (I have no idea -- does this expression translate?) A little research more, and I discovered that the expression comes from POKER of all things, as in "Put your two cents in" when players ante... Read more →

I'm from outer space. But then, you already knew that.

I was doing some work today and needed to visit my own website, but instead of typing the full URL in the browser (lisataylorhuff.com), I accidentally typed just "lisa" and hit enter before I finished what I wanted to key in. Imagine my delighted surprise to discover that I, Lisa, am "opening a new window on the Universe". Because LISA is NASA's acronym for Laser Interferometer Space Antennae! It's a project co-sponsored by the European Space Agency and involving scientists from around the world, intended to detect and observe gravitational waves in space. So, apparently, not only will I be writing to you from Paris some day, but I will also be studying the death spirals of stars, ripples in space-time, and echoes from the early Universe. My mission -- should I choose to accept it -- will be to answer these very important questions: How did the Universe begin? Does time have a beginning and an end? Does space have edges? They even had a symposium about me last month (hey... did someone forget to notify the guest of honor, because I don't recall getting my invite!) If my mission is approved and funded, I am expected to launch... Read more →

Just now in Paris...

Just now, in Paris (10:05 pm/20.05 local time), captured from this panoramic webcam. It may be hot enough to fry an oeuf on the sidewalk there tonight, but it's still so beautiful. Yes, that's the Eiffel on the left and Sacre Coeur on the right, with La Défense in the distance in the center. On the left you can just make out the curved lights of the big ferris wheel at the Place de la Concorde. Read more →

Getting sucked into the vortex where time begins to lose all meaning

Time is slipping away from me. I'm realizing that I'm so caught up in the minor details of my life that I'm forgetting things... like posting something to this blog every day. I didn't even notice that I forgot to post yesterday, and I had the same thing happen to me on Monday when I discovered I'd not posted a blessed word all weekend (usually I get around to writing something at least one day on the weekends). I'm lucky I remembered to put on clean underwear today (but damn... did I remember to brush my teeth?) It's not like I'm busy doing anything that interesting, and there's nothing "wrong", either. I think it's just that my energy has been sucked away by a variety of "life stuff": Starting a new weight management program a week ago (first weigh-in is tomorrow) and dealing with all the necessary lifestyle adjustments. Then realizing we are having a family birthday dinner for my niece Beth, who turns 14 tomorrow, and not only can't I eat the cake but I can't freaking have one of my sister's delicious margaritas cuz it's not on the plan. As I've only just started on this program AND... Read more →

Overcomplicating

This morning I had to take my car in for a long-overdue service, and there was so much to do I knew it would take 3-4 hours. And I had to wait for the car, the dealer being in a very inconvenient location and there being no one I could ask to take me there and back again, twice in one day. So, up I got at 6:30am, knowing that with traffic in this congested section of North Jersey I was doomed to a 45-60 minute commute. I was not mistaken, either. Determined to make good use of the waiting time, I made a very simple, uncomplicated plan: I brought with me two books; my breakfast and a snack in case I was stuck there longer than expected; and I decided to get in my daily exercise by walking to some nearby shops that I remembered seeing the last time I was in that area. I nearly brought my laptop, but realized if I did that then I couldn't go shopping because I would not want to lug my laptop with me as I trudged along the highway to the nearest strip mall. (I did discover the dealership has installed... Read more →

Waiting for the other shoe

I just passed through the living room on my way back from the kitchen and the TV was tuned to FoxNews. And let me state for the record that this not MY choice of news programming -- "fair and impartial", my ass! O'Reilly and friends can just bite me. But I digress. Of course, the big news is the same as it has been every day for the past couple of weeks: the escalating problems between Israel and Lebanon (or really, between Israel and pretty much all of its neighbors). And my thought was: "I wonder how long it's going to take before I turn on the news one day and hear that the worst has finally happened: that someone has actually dropped a nuke on someone else?" I mean, I was blindsided by September 11th, and that was horrific enough; but the thought of learning that some crazy government or terrorist group actually used a nuclear weapon is about the worst possible thing I can imagine, short of being the target of said nuke. (I do live less than 50 miles from New York, you know.) After the cold war ended, I think that for those of us old... Read more →

Thief!

When I read the Sunday Scribblings prompt this week, my first thought was the time I got pickpocketed in Paris. But since I already wrote about that, and it was my only experience of being the victim of a crime, for a moment I was stumped. Then I remembered it: the time I was 17 and stole nail polish from a local store. And got busted for it. I was with Marion, the youngest sister of my friend Nancy. Marion was fun to hang around with, and we were both in the marching band and had a lot of friends in common. But I don't recall why we were hanging out together on that particular day, because we didn't really spend time together socially outside of the larger "band clique". We were in this one discount store (a notch lower than K-Mart) and Marion decided to shoplift some makeup, and I did the same. The details are fuzzy now, about what motivated me to do this. Did I want Marion to think I was "cool"? If so, why the hell would I care what she thought about me? I was a senior and she was a sophomore, and at that... Read more →

Doing it the easy way this time

You know how there are things going on in your life that aren't working all that well and you know damn well you need to do something about it, but you keep putting it off; or you ignore the situation in the faint hope it will just go away on its own (like, how often does THAT ever happen)? And then usually something bad will happen to force you to change the situation anyway because you've ignored it so long that the Universe is all, "Enough already, you big baby. DEAL with it!" I'm a firm believer that when you know you need to make a change, you have two choices: you can do it the easy way, or you can do it the hard way. The easy way is to learn from someone else's mistakes. There is virtually no problem or situation any of us can experience that someone else hasn't already had to deal with, and very painfully, before. We KNOW this. So when your next-door neighbor tells you she has had a lump in her breast she was ignoring for six months and then she finds out it's cancer, then if a month later you find a... Read more →

Scrutinized

Today, my mother and I were the subjects of a "home visit" because we are trying to adopt a Sheltie from a rescue group. Shelties, or Shetland Sheepdogs, are small-medium sized dogs who are very agile and bossy and are usually excellent family pets as well as great herding dogs. They are extremely intelligent and alert animals, which is why they make good herding dogs. Many people call them "miniature Collies" but that's a misnomer. We had another Sheltie years ago and he was just a wonderful dog, so we know this is a good breed for us to adopt. Shelties come in a variety of color variations but the ones we like most are the 'sable' color, that red-brown fur with a white chest and undercoat. For those that don't know how dog rescue groups usually work, they are a lot more strict about placing their dogs than the average pet shelter, breeders, and pet stores. Breeders and pet stores -- even the good, conscientious ones -- are mainly concerned with making money so they will sell a dog to anyone with the money to pay. Pet shelters, while well-intentioned, are so overwhelmed with abandoned or mistreated animals that... Read more →

A nickel for your thoughts... ?

As if there aren't far more pressing and important matters for our government to worry about -- what with Bush using the "S" word at the G8 summit and all -- now there's a congressman who has made it his life's work to eliminate.... the penny. Does the penny matter? Or is it just a nuisance, as he seems to think it is? Granted, with inflation being what it is, you can't buy penny candy at the store anymore, and no one wants to hear your 2 cents' worth about anything these days. A penny won't even buy your thoughts nowadays. But again, I think the point is that we are paying this congressman WAY more than a damned penny in salary and this is how he's spending his days? Dreaming up legislation to eliminate an annoying but harmless piece of metal from our monetary system after over 200 years? I think Congressman Kolbe's constituents in Arizona ought to demand his resignation, because they clearly got ripped off when they elected him. And they can pay him a penny as part of his severance package. Read more →