The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Unexpected blessings

For this Thanksgiving, I find myself in a very unusual, unpleasant, and unexpected situation, where as much as I wish I was anywhere but where I actually am, I am also filled with gratitude for so much of what I am experiencing. I am in a French hospital. Although I am not yet prepared to share all détails -- so if you ask questions I might not reply -- I can say that there is a serious situation with one of my kidneys. There is pain. There are still some unknowns although more pieces are falling into place, and I am very happy with the care I am receiving. It began a week ago when, out of nowhere, I experienced debilitating pain in my right side, followed by uncontrollable vomiting and blood in my urine. My gall bladder is long gone and the pain was too high to be the appendixes. An hour later I was on my way to the ER with Georges at my side. Tests there seemed to indicate kidney stones. I left the ER at 2:30am with prescriptions for some meds and for a sonogram and more lab work. Sonogram, next day, showed a rather sizable... Read more →

How to move a Parisian piano

Having now moved in Paris FOUR times (and that's not counting when I moved here in the first place), I have become something of an expert in how to orchestrate a household move. But I never knew how one might move, say, a large PIANO into a Parisian apartment, given that the staircases are usually narrow and the elevators, if they do exist, probably only have space for 2 or 3 human beings. And that's without luggage or shopping carts. A few days ago, I looked out our living room window because some idiot down below kept repeatedly beeping his car horn. There's a small supermarket across the way, and it is normal for delivery trucks to block the street over there, so I figured that's what the fuss was all about. Well, there WAS a delivery taking place, but not the type I anticipated: Because of the weight of the piano, this delivery truck with its built-in crane also had stabilizing "feet" (not pictured), so once the crane was in motion, there was NO moving this truck until the job was finished. The horn-beeper's car was just below my window, sandwiched in between the sidewalk, this truck and vehicles... Read more →

At random

If I weren't so sleep deprived (experiencing a wave of insomnia the past 4 or 5 nights, where I wake up at different times during the night and then can't get back to sleep again for hours, dammit), I might have more energy for writing, and I do have a few longer posts in the works, but in the meantime here are some random images I've taken recently with my new iPhone 6. Got to say, I am LOVING the improved image quality (I already thought the iPhone 4's camera was pretty awesome, but this is even better!) At a restaurant we like near our home. We arrived early, but the place filled up very quickly. It's always full. The patron/chef makes a point to come out and shake everyone's hand; he always wears one of those flat-top straw hats. It's a lovely family business where his wife and adult kids all work there. I was on my way to meet a friend the other day, but my bus was blocked on Rue de 4 Septembre near Opéra. As I walked down that street trying to find an alternate bus, I saw WHY the street was blocked: a fire at... Read more →

Eight going on nine

Yesterday was the 8th anniversary of my move to Paris! I got caught up in other things yesterday, and though I intended to blog about it, at the end of the day it just didn't happen. Ironically, it's been very fresh in my mind of late, what it felt like to arrive here in Paris and to know I wasn't only staying for a few short days. I've been editing the hell out of my memoir (pleased to say I'm right on track to get it all done by the end of the month!) and just finished the "arrival" chapter a couple of days ago. So help you refresh your own memories (or if this is the first time you're going that far back in blog history), here's what happened: First, I found a great apartment in the suburb of Vincennes. Then, I booked a flight and got to use my frequent flyer miles, so it was FREE. Then the apartment fell through, and I had to figure out another plan. I had to tell people close to me that I was moving to Paris. I had to figure out what to pack and what to do with everything else... Read more →

Golden

The Opéra Garnier at sunset... I took these yesterday with my iPhone 4. Today I got a new iPhone 6 and wow, I wish I could retake the same shots with the better camera. But still, with the late afternoon sun on this stunning structure, how can you really go wrong? Read more →

Novemberish

I still can't believe it's November already. Again. Here in Paris we did the clock roll-back two weekends ago, and the day after it was dark at 5:30 in the afternoon. Ugh. Now I will spend the next 4 months in the dark; the winter days are very short here in Paris (although we make up for it in summer with super-long days with sunset around 10:30pm!) Lots on my plate at the moment: finding a year-round tenant for our rental apartment (we may have a winner, I'll know later today) searching for a new apartment for me and Georges and the Garçon - yes, we're on the hunt for something roomier and also cheaper dipping my toes into the French unemployment system - my first interview at the Pôle Emploi is tomorrow afternoon using NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) as inspiration to complete the edits on my memoir manuscript The writing project has been working out well so far. One of my colleagues from the tour company is also a writer and we've teamed up to keep each other accountable. I have a big bulletin board set up with Post-It notes on it, one for each chapter. With 16... Read more →