Dear children of my future self,

These are the pillow cases that you will be taking a nap on when I come into the living room and you will look so cute, but I have to tell you to stop drooling on my pillowcases, and that these pillows are not for sleeping and I will explain to you as I go to your bedroom to get your pillow, that I bought these 10-15 years ago while I was in France. 10-15 years ago will mean nothing to you, and you won't understand why I would have pillows that are not for sleeping, and why it's such a big deal that there is a small drool spot on the pillow, because it will dry. Then later, I will come into the living room and tell you to stop hitting your sister/brother with the pillows, and that they are not for hitting either. A while later, perhaps you will be at school, or maybe you will be watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (I am not making this up) and you will recognize one of these tapestries (Gryffindor common room decorations are the red tapestries.) and tell all of your friends insistently that you have those tapestries at home! Then your teacher will look really confused, and when your friends come over to play, you'll show them where the Harry Potter decorators got the design. And then we will go to France and to the Cluny Museum and see La Dame à la Licorne Tapestry, and to Bayeux to see the Bayeux Tapestry, and I will show you the little store that I went to to buy those pillows I made such a big fuss about.

Perhaps by then, I will need a few replacements.

Pictures I like but didn't use in my photography assignment:

i like bikes and motorcycles and little kids and old people.

This week's photo essay. You are right--it IS long. You can read the whole thing, or you can read the whole thing. Either way I won't be offended.

This assignment was supposed to be on architecture, or religion, or culture, or change. I went to the market outside of my apartment because it's like architecture and change every thursday and sunday! I took pictures there, and then I tried to take pictures of traffic at huge roundabouts to show how the french just circle around their huge monuments without looking at them, and when a street would almost go through a monument, they would just build the street around the monument. That didn't work either. Then I took pictures of people waiting. Because you do that a lot in Paris--or any big city. Waiting for crossing the street, for trains, in obnoxiously long lines because there is only one person working at a cash register, and three other workers standing around doing nothing, and other times too. This led me to think about people being bored in Paris. Because you can't get bored in Paris, right? It's Paris.

Riiiiiiiight...well, I kept thinking about things I blogged about a few days ago, about everything being different when you live somewhere, and if you can really do everything that you wish you could do, blah blah blah, and well, this is kind of a response.

So then I asked myself, where is the greatest concentration of bored people in front of ridiculously famous things? And immediately, the answer came.

The Louvre.

here is my post on my class' blog:

I went to the Louvre yesterday to take pictures. I know, maybe it doesn't really make sense with the assignment, because most of the Louvre's collection hasn't changed for decades. What I wanted to show, however, was people's reactions to one of the most important art museums in the world. I wanted to show a part of culture that sometimes is looked down on, but that I think is ironic, funny, and human. So, here is what I see as part of the culture of the Louvre. (Excuse me. LU-vrah.)

The idea for this stemmed from the way I have been feeling these first few weeks here. It is hard to simultaneously take advantage of every opportunity in Paris, and not keel over. It is hard to know what will help me have the best experience while I am here, and at the same time, not have an American attitude of self-improvement--going somewhere to see what I can get out of it. So I went to the Louvre to see how people felt to be in the most famous art museum in the world, because somehow, it seems that no one should be bored in Paris with so many important, photogenic monuments to see, right? Shouldn't there never be a time where one is so tired that they can't see and appreciate the most famous painting in the world? I decided to show another point of view. Most people are mortal, and can't stay on their feet all day, even if they're looking at art that changed the world. So it's normal. Relax, everyone can get bored, or tired. It's part of traveling, and learning, and whether or not you want it to be, it's part of art museum culture.

These students are studying, facing the pyramid, and the Louvre. It's a chance that I know many people would do a great deal for. And still students are bored, looking around, looking at the camera, and talking to each other. It's impossible to stay completely attentive even in this world-famous place.

Red shirt has been at the Louvre way too long, and he probably hasn't even been here for more than a few hours. The sheer massiveness of the Louvre can be seen in his expression.

I took this picture in front of a covered window. These students aren't even looking at any art at all, while some of the most talented Italian artists from the 15th century's works are displayed behind them. But, they are here, they want to, or at least are being forced to see things that changed our world, and fatigue is getting the better of them.

The Victory of Samothrace is behind these bustling visitors, who don't look at this priceless piece of sculpture. Not that I condemn what they are doing (especially because they were all polite, apologizing for getting in my picture), just that it really isn't possible to take in all of the art in the Louvre all at once. But doesn't it seem that a work as precious as this, people should be gaping, open-mouthed and eyed and dead-silent at this ancient piece of work, reveling in the sheer glory and beauty, and antiquity of it? But they are not, because they are human. Perhaps these people have taken considerable time before to observe, and now a glance is only needed to remind them, or maybe they will do that later. Or maybe they won't.

This picture displays the popularity of the Mona Lisa with all of the camera screens and the backs of heads. But as one looks at this photo, the eyes drift to the two security workers at the left, who have really no interest in seeing the most famous painting in the world. They have seen it before, they have seen it everyday, and it is commonplace. How interesting that even the most important painting, the most sought after, the whole reason some people come to this enormous museum, can be commonplace enough that guards do not stand behind the security band, staring at the woman's mysterious smile. Does that cheapen the remarkableness of the painting? Isn't it the same piece, the same brushstrokes, the same colors, the same artist that people are taking photographs of?

A mother, letting one of her children rest on her lap, asks someone next to her a question about the layout of the Louvre in her map. Her children are not interested in paintings painted by the masters. It could be possible that they could care less about these paintings at the moment, and would rather be eating or sleeping right now. I remember as a child running through the halls of this very museum, racing to the next gallery to win the only available seat in the room, and telling my mom that these were all "just paintings" and I was hungry and my feet hurt, and that it was so boring to look at just art for four hours straight.

I am not writing this essay and taking these pictures to show the frailty of men, or condemning their inability to appreciate art in its full measure, or saying that people need to be completely focused on these important works of art for the entirety of their visit. I'm not saying that at all. It's just that, when these people return to their homes to tell their friends about their visit to Paris, (which I think to a certain extent is for basically universal reasons. Everyone here is paying a lot of money to visit Paris. We are all here for the same reasons as all of those tourists, and admit it, we all use maps, we all want to feel what we've read and heard and dreamed about Paris, just like the rest of the people visiting here. We're just lucky enough to be here longer...) they can tell everyone they visited the Louvre, they saw famous paintings, and perhaps they felt a connection, or maybe they didn't. But while they were there, it really was impossible to appreciate every single work of art to the extent of their fame. It's okay to rest while we are here, it's okay for things to be commonplace, it's okay to be hungry and need to use the toilets, these things are all human things, and lest we forget, the masters of art whose works are displayed in the Louvre were humans too.

I heard this song playing in the grocery store YESTERDAY MORNING

PLEASE watch the back up dancers. Especially my favorite--
the girl on the right in the front.

And I woke up STILL SINGING it this morning. Spending the majority of my day by myself, doing stressful/annoying/necessary things, I translated it into French unconsciously. This is not supposed to be impressive, because I couldn't translate it right, and the words didn't quite fit, so I started using words that did fit and they didn't make sense so I was SO annoyed with myself. And this dumb song won't leave me alone.


Also, I had a dream for probably the dozenth time in my life where I am Harry Potter and I am fighting Lord Voldemort.

sort of a combination, per say, of these two scenes...

This particular time, I was wading through hot lava that actually wasn't hot, and Lord Voldemort attacked me with a sword, so quickly I pulled out the sword of Gryffindor from underneath the lava and started to fight back, and he said "you will never get into the vault!" and I remembered that there was a dragon I needed to fight, and I told Voldemort to hold off, and that I wasn't attacking him, and he shouldn't fight me just now. He thought about it, and decided he would let me try to defeat the dragon, but that did NOT mean I would win any treasure. So then I got out of the lava pit, and was walking with a faceless friend, following Lord Voldemort, and all of the sudden I couldn't understand how this would end, and all of the sudden I couldn't remember what happened in the 7th book at all, even though I remembered that I read it. I was excited to find out how it ended though, because I remembered that Harry was still alive by the end, so there was no need to be scared. Then Cami came into my room and woke me up, so I never found out what happened. But when I went back to sleep, I oriented my body into a better position for flying, because that's what I was doing. I am such a dork.

I wrote this last week. Still true,

except for the not having been to the Louvre yet part. More on that later...

I have been in Paris for a week now. Just a week. And I haven’t been in the Louvre, or the Musée D’Orsay, or the Musée Rodin, or the Saint Chappelle. Instead I am walking. Walking along the Seine with my roommate, but I can’t talk to her. I have cramps and all I can think about is getting back to our apartment and having some tea and sitting on my bed and checking various things on the internet for an absurd amount of time. We know there is a metro stop somewhere around here, but neither of us knows exactly where, so we walk to the next closest stop, Hôtel de Ville. The same stop we use everyday.

The cars are honking as usual, and some places on the side walks smell like urine, and I am constantly avoiding French people who wouldn’t change their sidewalk course if--well, they just never would. But the dirty Seine flows next to me, and a riverboat tour is passing, and I can see the white towers of the Notre Dame through a gap in buildings. I see past Notre Dame, and farther up the Seine to L’Ile de St. Louis, and they are all hazy and beautiful, and I freeze that in my mind for the hundredth time and put a Paris label on it.

My stomach reminds me that I am in pain, and I focus again on getting to the metro. Everything feels normal already after only a week. It is normal to look at a metro map to figure out how to get to school, to go shopping, to go to a museum, to go home. Yesterday I went running with Ericka Sohlberg, my best friend from high school. She goes to school in California. A thousand miles away from me in Utah, but we went running yesterday, and talked about the new gym she joined, and I told her about my art history teacher. That isn't normal at all. But we're both in Paris, in some alternate life. And the way my bedroom has windows that open inward and I can lean out on the iron railing. That's normal. A mix of books and papers and old teacups and notebooks and journals and some pens litter my desk, because I live here. I live here.

It’s just, this isn’t normal. It's not, but it is. Last fall, when I was dying to be in Paris, if I were here, and knew I was only here for a day, I wonder if I would still want to go back and have that cup of tea, or would I want to go to the Notre Dame, or somewhere else? Why am I not doing that now? I don’t know, I guess I could, I tell myself. Maybe I should go to the Musée D’Orsay right now. But I don’t.

It’s like how sometimes I wonder why I don’t eat ice cream all the time. Or only chocolate or kinder buenos. If I say I love ice cream, why am I not having it at every hour of my life? And this is totally beside the point that I would inflate like Aunt Marge. It just wouldn’t taste that good anymore. Why does having one thing, even if it’s absolutely wonderful, having it too much, make it not that good anymore? When I was in Rome in June, I ate gelato almost everyday, or twice a day, and I was so done with gelato when I went on a family trip a few weeks later and they were always wanting gelato. I have always loved gelato, but I was done, I didn’t want it anymore. I don’t understand why something I loved or still love, I can’t eat all of the time and still love it. I’m sure people will tell me when they read this that they could eat gelato every hour of their life and still be totally in love with it. So, good. I guess I’m not a real gelato lover.

If I only did my “favorite things” all of the time, I would constantly be eating kinder buenos, cookies and cream ice cream, be shopping at anthropologie, listening to Harry Potter, playing guitar, and talking to a bunch of people that I love. But for some reason, the only thing that really seems appealing from that list is talking to a bunch of people. Maybe I’m lonely right now. Or maybe I’ve had the best crepe of my life three days in a row and so I don’t want food right now. I just don’t really know why I’m not doing my favorite things all of the time. Why is it that I get sick of going on my favorite run everyday? Why would I stop enjoying the scent of dense leaves and damp trail and the up hills that make me stronger and the down hills that make me feel awesome? Why does doing things less often make me love them more when I do do them? Why would Paris be absolutely normal if I just lived here my whole life? It’s the same place, it has all of the same things. Why is something staying new, or rare, like a luxury, make it so I can’t have my favorite things all of the time or else they’re not my favorite anymore? Or does it mean that my real real favorites include sleeping, washing myself, and having clean teeth? Why don’t I do only things that I love to do? Why do I get sick of things I love doing? I obviously don’t love them then, right? Why is it that I never get sick of petting my dog, and playing with her, never get tired of the way her ears flop up and down as she trots in front of me? Why do I never get sick of lying down and going to sleep? Why am I so spoiled that it isn’t my favorite things I demand at all times, but even more than that—new things, and old things, new food and a new place to live and new information and more and more and more. I can’t understand why I am not satisfied with favorites. I can’t understand why I’ve been in Paris for a week and it feels normal. I don’t understand why I have to adjust and make things normal to be able to function. Why can't everything feel like a treat, a special treat all the time? If I were dropped at any point of my life, into this instant, I would be so happy and excited that I would literally have a smile nailed to my face and go running across the bridge to the Notre Dame. Why am I not doing that now? Why am I content to just go home, and sit on my cute, French bed. Why do I have to adjust? Why is it okay that I step outside of my room and see a petite, old woman who cooks me French dinners? Why do I not think that it is abnormal for me to walk down the hall, doing my best not to creak on the uneven wooden floors, to know that she has a gorgeous grand piano that’s light brown and that at this moment I could be sticking my head out the window looking at the monument to the Bastille, or the skeletons of the booths that appear there for market on Sundays and Thursdays. Instead, I am cleaning my room, which is absolutely terrible. And I don’t understand any of this at all.

Madame Des Mazarey

The key to Mme Des Mazarey's apartment has six prongs on it; the door is blue, and in the center of the door, the round, silver handle. The stairwell smells like old books and dusty carpets and peeling wallpaper. Just like the rest of the furniture in the apartment, the wooden floor is old, and it squeaks every time I walk, and it squeaked consistently that one time when I tried to do an ab workout on the floor next to my bed.

The first night we ate dinner with her was a disaster, but since then it has gotten better. Last night she told us about how her son's french chairs with wide seats and skinny arms need to be reupholstered, and that it is difficult to find fabric that will look good. Oh, yes, difficult. I said.

Her living room has a yellow couch, and a light brown beautiful grand piano, and blue and white porcelain near the old fireplace and her hallway has a shelf full of old, beautiful leather-bound books. Later I told her that I went to Versailles. Very beautiful. We rode bikes. Yes, very pretty. Versailles is so pretty. Yes, just in the garden. Too expensive for the chateau. She told us she would do our laundry. I said, you will do it? thank you, where should we put our clothes? And she told us.

There are some pretty good spans of time where I look at Cami, and back at my food, and at Madame, and none of us say anything. Madame looks over the table with concerned eyes to make sure that both of us are enjoying our food, and if we are running low, she continually asks to replace it. No thank you, is all we say, and we smile and give awkward trying-to-be-polite laughs. I remember when she gave us our keys to the apartment, and the code to the building. "Here is your key to your house," she said. Here is a key to everything I own, and you will be living in my house and sleeping in my house, and I will cook for you three times a week, and dinner is at eight. Merci, Madame I answered. And I tried to squeeze every bit of gratitude I could into those two words.

Yes! Thank you! It's delicious. Thank you! Yes! Very beautiful. That's too bad. Yes, it works. Very good. That's good. Yes! Very pretty. Good weather. That's good. That's very funny. We had macaroons. Thank you so much! Thank you! Thank you! Thanks! Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes thank you, yes.

Last week, during one of those great pauses, Cami turned to me and asked how to ask if Madame wanted to go on a walk with us after dinner. I told her, and she repeated it to Madame, who responded saying, "oh, you are going for a walk tonight?" and I said, do you want to come with us? And her eyes lit up behind her gracefully sagging skin and the bags under her eyes, and she rubbed her face, considering if she could come, and told us it is much more fun to go out and see Paris in the car, and she called her friend and the next night her friend came over for dinner, and also her daughter, Claude. Cami and I were so happy that we only had to say a few things to be polite. Claude was kind but brisk, and helped out in English when our lack of french deterred the flow of conversation. And I listened as Claude and Madame's friend shifted from talking of the differing times between train stations, and swine flu. They talked over each other, and at the same time, like they were playing a duet, instead of having a conversation. And Madame sat between them, hardly entering the conversation, but she held out food for her friend, and for Claude, and she made sure we each had enough to eat, and she got more plates for everyone for fruit, and she crouched under the other french women's arms and conversation to make sure that we had enough salad. And I finally realized something. Madame Des Mazarey is quiet. She lives alone, and talks to herself while she's cooking, and she invites college girls to stay at her apartment every semester, and we struggle to converse, like we're wading through wet concrete, but she still asked us to put our laundry outside of our doors tonight, so that she doesn't wake us tomorrow when she plans to wash our dirty clothes. I liked it when she took us on a ride through Paris at night. She called her friend because her friend did most of the talking, because Madame is not a tour-guide type, and she knows that, and so she asked her friend. And tonight she showed us the fabric she picked out for her son's chairs to be reupholstered, and it was classic, and french, and linen and cotton, and she said "it suits a man's apartment, doesn't it?" and I agreed. It was perfectly beautiful for a single man living alone, like her son Pascal. I imagined her going today by the Montmartre to pick it out, and going to the boulangerie around the corner where I bought bread yesterday, and she bought the bread for dinner tonight. And I thought of how she prepares dinner by herself in the kitchen, talking to herself, and banging pots and pans, and that she will be doing all of my laundry tomorrow, and that she wades through my terrible french with me everyday. And I say, "merci beaucoup, Madame," because that's all I can say, and she says, "il n'y a pas de quoi." It's nothing.

I want to be her:

Saturday and yesterday, a bunch of museums were free, including the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages, where these six tapestries are displayed. I sat in that dark room looking at them for about an hour yesterday.

Then I caught up with my trying-to-be-artsy journal:

The front/binding that I bought in Scotland for a few pounds. Made an alternate title, which I admit is kind of tacky, but I actually really like it, and I found those letters in my mom's crafting area, and
Mason Jennings says it in one of my favorite songs of his. Anyway...



Title page: Before I left, I spent a long time prepainting all of these pages so that I could just pull them out, glue stuff to them, and glue them into the book I bought. I mixed acrylic paints with glaze, painted on to the page that was prepared with some gesso, and then wiped some of the paint off with a paper towel to texturize the page. (I didn't make up how to do this.)



The day I got to Paris--totally jetlagged, but we did a river tour:



My favorite page so far:



After last night's outing:



Ladurée is apparantly some ultra-uppity pastry place that has beautiful pastries and beautiful boxes and bags for the pastries. We got macaroons there. I got a rose petal macaroon and a blackcurrant/violet macaroon. Both miniature. Cami got a coconut one and an orange one and we shared all of them. Cami decided she wants to have macaroons at her wedding. We're trying to figure out how we could possibly get them shipped from here.

Just bought those block-letter stamps last week...yep, glad that's what I'm spending my money on here. At least Cami had a good laugh. That time, and every time I use my glue stick.

for those of you who ever made fun of the way I parallel park...

tell it to the parisian woman i just saw from my appartment window give the audi behind her three love taps whilst parking. and the man who got out of the spot before her was so close that he had to do about a twelve point turn to get out.

Dear Future Husband,

I hope you don't mind that I bought these dish towels for our future home. Don't worry, all six of them only costed 5 euros. I think they will look great hanging on the cute hooks that I will buy soon to match. Also, I almost bought a round table cloth with a Provence pattern on it, but I realized that I should probably not get married with a big fat zero in my bank account. On the other hand, maybe now is the time to really invest in our future home, right? I hope you like french decor!

P.S. If you ever think something I buy seems a little, you know, dramatic, or you come across an album full of a blond girl taking pictures:

Cami is my roommate, takes really good pictures, hate her, and helps me pick things out for our future home. And eats beautiful, good food... Yesterday, she almost bought a silky gold suit thing with a saggy crotch.


P.P.S. These are the children who I took about thirty pictures of at Luxembourg Palace today, because I hardly ever see children. That is the mother who I am sure got totally weirded out. Aren't they adorable though?

P.P.P.S. Megan, my mom and I were SO on with the whole Paris theme at your wedding=yellow dahlias. Look what I found in front of Luxembourg Palace:

This was the final choice (ps click on it to get the whole view). Katie is the only one who won! Good job Katie. And Lauren, I wish this one would have had the puff of smoke, but alas. It did not. And this is the one that fitted what I wanted to write about more. And Cami (ultimate authority) said she liked this one the best. Here is the photo and essay I wrote about it...we'll see if I followed the assignment. Don't make fun of me trying to be artsy and photography-ish and everything.

If I had it my way, I would give you more pictures to put this one in context. But I will do it with words. While walking on the Champs Élysée, I saw a whole line of former soldiers holding English flags and French flags. They were waiting to march up to L'Arc de Triomphe. As I took pictures, I noticed the three men in the left side of the picture, who were relaxed, and simply talking to one another as if they were strolling in their native English countryside. As I looked closer at them, each had medals hanging on their coats. I imagined the heroic acts they had performed in battle, bringing Lady Liberty to victory, just as the relief on L'Arc de Triomphe on the top right. But unlike those timeless soldiers, frozen forever in stone, I was looking at living, breathing soldiers. Old soldiers, yes, but soldiers who were alive. I think sometimes we tend to believe that being a hero, living so that you are remembered forever, so you are immortally more beautiful and perhaps more courageous than you ever were, is the ultimate way to be remembered. I think sometimes we get caught up in trying to be famous, trying to leave our mark on the world; that mark then becomes who we are, our identity. Soldiers, politicians, poets, writers, musicians become something so amazing that we place them above being a human. Instead they are beautifully manipulated stone. It is even more wonderful and beautiful to realize that the people who are heroes and geniuses, who have done all of these great things, really are men and women. The men in this photo have worn faces and crinkly eyes, and the man with a pipe has a cane on his left arm. They are really living and breathing, and worthy, I'm sure, of the honors they receive, because they are the ones who performed those deeds in the past. Not stagnant marble. And now, they stand and are balding, and like to smoke pipes, and find it strange that a twenty year-old girl is taking pictures of them.

I also like the way the bus was stopped as I took this picture, and the ad reinforces this idea of eternally frozen, versus real life. The different ways all of the men in this picture are looking also helps to keep the viewers eye moving. This is the type of picture that the more I look at it, the more I like it, trying to catch something in each of the three pairs of eyes looking toward my camera. The man half cut-off on the left also makes the viewer feel as if they are right on the Champs-Élysée, a part of the crowd, and also peaking into each of the groups of people.

i love americans.

Today I walked from L'Eglise Madeleine to Concorde, and from there to L'Arc de Triomphe via the Champs Élysée to try to take pictures for my Photography in Paris class. I wanted to do something artsy like compare the beggars to the shoppers passing them with Louis Vuitton bags. Instead I found a huge line of old British people (perfect), mostly men, who had British and French flags and they were getting ready to march up to L'Arc. Some kind of military thing. I have no idea. Anyway, it was my first time trying to take kind of legit photos, and it was pretty uncomfortable taking the pictures, even though I tried to make it look like I was an official, or a family member, or something. I have to choose ONE of these to post on my class' photography blog, and I need help choosing. He'll grade on composition, and interesting subjects, and all that crap. Also, Cami has informed me that it is NOT cheating to make photos into black and white (even though it feels like kind of a cop-out) and neither is it cheating to CROP. She has given me leave to do whatever I want. Love her.

Obviously these are all in black and white, but I just thought it looked more fitting with all of these old men/that one funny old woman.

Which one? I seriously need help. Also, you may tell me if I should throw all of them away.

Also, on the metro ride home, I was by myself and the metro was crowded, and I was standing next to some american girls who were sitting down with their shopping bags, and I noticed the girl closest to me looking at my clothes and purse, down to my shoes and back up at my scarf and she turned to her friend and said, "I like her rings."

THAT my friends, is the reward for all of the work we do to try to blend into this city of hyper appearance-conscious people.

tell me if you think this isn't just a little hilarious/gross/original/pushing it:

in my reading of chapter 23 of the count of monte cristo tonight:

"Thus at length, by one of those unexpected strokes of fortune which sometimes occur to those on whom an evil destiny has for a long time vented its spleen, Dantès was about to arrive at his wished-for opportunity..."

Vingt.

Today is the first day that I am twenty years old. I am in my twenties. My mom had been dating my dad for a year when she was my age. That's weird. I am the same age as Elizabeth Bennet. She is supposed to be older and have a level of maturity that i will not attain until fifteen years from now. And now anything I accomplish seems like it will be expected, because I am twenty, and no longer a teenager. It feels like there aren't really excuses anymore.

This morning I awoke from my bed that leans against a wall facing my wardrobe where my clothes face me, instead of facing the sides of the wardrobe. "It's my birthday today," I told myself, and I smiled. Because it really didn't feel like my birthday. Last week felt like my birthday when my family went to the coast

and then a few days later my mother made an ice cream cake with the smoothest real banana-ey flavored ice cream and brownie chunks. possibly my favorite ice cream in the world. They sang happy birthday and I got a camera to take to Paris, and they wrote me beautiful cards. But today was my real birthday, and I knew that the situation was less than ideal, even though many girls felt jealous that I was spending my birthday in Paris. Angela even told me she almost came to Paris next semester just so she could spend her birthday here.

But alas, it is the curse of having a birthday within the first week of school that really makes this all so strange. Birthdays in the past, I have invited people to my party whom I would like to be friends with, whom I think I will be friend with, and then by the end of the year, it's awkward that they were at my birthday party. Especially when I wasn't invited to theirs. I have since given up raising my expectations, and things usually are great! Last year I planned my birthday party at the tumbling gym, and I made people dress up like super-heroes and do embarrassing things.

This morning I smiled, looking around at my old wardrobe that requires an old key (that will be REALLY hard for me not to take with me and make into a necklace), to old wood dressers (one of which requires a key as well), an old desk with wooden drawers that have holes between the slats, and my favorite part--a window that overlooks the street, and a market area which was filled with people and food and clothes this morning. Wearing my white, cotton pajamas, I walked to the window, slid open the curtains, and stuck my head out into the street, leaning on the iron rail, looking at the huge monument of the Bastille that marks the place where the revolution started, and feeling a nice, cool breeze on my face. I felt like Lucy Honeychurch in the adaptation of A Room With a View with Maggie Smith, and I almost wanted someone to come tell me to get dressed dear, or the better part of the day will be gone.

I decided that a beautiful picnic at Versailles and bike rides would be a beautiful birthday. But alas, no one brought a change of clothes to church, so we decided to go to the gay bakery (and I am not just saying that, they are proud of it, with rainbow balloons, and wedding cake toppers of two men or two women, and "baguettes magique" that are pretty much the grossest shaped bread I've ever seen.) and then to the Eiffel Tower for a picnic. On the metro on the way there, there was a girl dressed in the most ridiculous pink dress, and a huge pink bow on top of her head, and her friend wore a black dress and cat ears. I heard them talking with american accents, and I wondered if there was a party, or a special bar they were going to, and hearing people speaking english after three hours of straight french, I was bold.

I leaned over because I was standing right next to her, and said, "Why are you dressed up like that?"

And she looked at my with an annoyed face and said, "I always dress like this."

All I could do was say, "oh! that's cool." And I looked away, spawning responses from my future friends such as, "way to go, Emma." I didn't look at the pink girl the rest of the time, and almost changed to the car behind us.

There was another mishap, where no one got off at the stop that someone at church told us to get off at, and so it was just me and Amelia walking to the Eiffel Tower by ourselves. I felt a little bit angry, the way I always do when I believe people when they say everything should be perfect on my birthday. This was not what I planned, and neither were the ominous clouds above the eiffel tower. I struggled to find something to talk about with her, until I found out she was also an English Major. We ended up talking about her advanced writing class--Technical Writing, which I didn't really know about, and it turns out it is the most boring thing on the planet. I was intrigued by her taking a whole class on it just because it was so boring. She said she had thought about doing it as a career. People, technical writing=writing manuals, not manuals for writing, but actually writing a manual. And I remembered all those directions I've read for my camera, computer, everything, and that is what technical writing is. I imagined Amelia revising, "Place camera lens cap on lens by squeezing the the tabs on the sides of the cap," over and over until it was perfectly clear, precise, and direct. It baffled my that any english major would want to make that a career. Apparently, she figured out what seemed obvious to me after taking the class and doing an internship. And that's what I did while I ate my birthday lunch--three fourths of a baguette, next to the eiffel tower.

After about a half hour, I wondered why the rest of the twelve or so people were not looking for me. I reminded them in my head that we were only here because it was MY birthday. Finally Amelia and I got up and they were sitting just fifty yards away, not having the slightest inkling to look for me. I was annoyed, but you can't get mad at people you've met three days before, or else they hate you for the rest of your life.

When Cami, my roommate and I, got back from this, we both took two and a half hour naps, which was one of my favorite parts of today. And I don't mean that sarcastically at all. Other parts of the day were great, or normal, but I really do love napping, and I have been jetlagged. I closed the curtains again and then opened them when I woke up, and heard the bells from Notre Dame ringing out across the old buildings and markets and pidgeons and probably that girl dressed as a giant pink toddler. We walked around and got egg, ham and cheese crêpes, and a gelato-filled pastry. All of this was right next to our metro stop. Dangerous. We walked around and found that a street next to ours is a very popular place for bars, and we found some ghetto super markets.

I don't think I have ever not cried on my birthday. I didn't mean to, I really didn't want to, but I did. While I was video chatting with Lauren, and she was talking to my mom on the phone, and my mom told me there was a heat wave in Eugene, so their internet hasn't worked at all since I left. That explains why they have not yet responded to the three emails I have sent them since I have been here, and that I haven't heard from them at all today. It's okay. I really really am not wanting you to feel bad for me, or anything, and I don't mean to say that I am a spoiled brat either. And I don't want you to try to comfort me, or tell me that you understand but that I'm in Paris in a lofty tone people usually adopt. I really am fine. It was a good day. It's just another birthday.

And instead of going to the tumbling gym, or the coast, or having a swim party and a cereal bar, I went to the Eiffel Tower with some people I basically met last week, and ate delicious food. Cami insisted on buying my dessert after dinner, and it was fun to walk around and talk to her. But birthdays are weird. And I don't know if I'm ready to stop being a teenager.

favorite things today.

watching a girl get on the metro and get her backpack squished in the doors. 

listening to our african-french taxi driver hum to madonna on the radio.

sticking my head out of my apartment window and being able to see the bastille monument.

one more thing.

I'm here.

better pictures of megan's wedding.

so pretty.



yeah...you could blame mine on just a less professional camera...

bless the inventors of data-recovery programs; bless them and their posterity, even unto the seventh generation.

MY. PICTURES. FROM. ENGLAND. ARE. COMING. BACK.

If you ever wondered what I've been doing this summer...

here it is.

That is 144 letter pieces. I played Bananagrams by myself. It's like speed scrabble except without the numbers on the corners. I played by myself. And won. Thanks

Just kidding. I only did that for about a week. This was one of my big projects this summer:

Helping with Megan Barnes' wedding! We've been going to the same Sunday School class since I was seven, and we heard all of the same lessons about marriage and families and everything, and now she's actually married! To Matt Morgan.

My mom enjoys saying Megan Morgan Megan Morgan over and over again.

They're cute. But now for the important stuff. just kidding...but really. direct your attention to what she is holding. Megan and her mom Debbie trusted me with all of the flower arrangements.

Her colors were black and yellow with a Paris theme (because her husband and her fell in love in Paris...what??), so my mom and I decided on many colors of yellow dahlias, yellow roses, and other cute flowers like pincushion flowers, and daisy mums, and we cut wildflowers and my mom tore up her hands picking blackberry branches. (and my hands...and every person who helped carry arrangements...totally worth it.)

These are my pride and joys:

The vase is filled with wild grasses and flowers we picked two mornings before this, and each arrangement at the bottom took about an hour. Then I put a plastic dish thing on top of the vase, filled it with soaked flower foam, and made the top part of the arrangements. The top for each arrangement also took about an hour.

The cause of Rachel's almost early death:

(The arrangement was actually in the middle of the table originally...and that roll of tape wasn't there either...) Rachel and I spent all day Friday working on these arrangements. We watched a lot of movies. I couldn't believe how well Rachel was able to pick up doing this stuff. She's never arranged flowers in her life, and she made boutonnieres, and arrangements like this with only a little bit of my help! I definitely would not have finished on time without Rachel. My mom had the idea for these arrangements. We put lemons in the bottom of the vase, and used plastic dish things on top to put the foam in and arrange the flowers. Cool right?

My mother's lovely boutonnieres:

Michael, Megan's brother on the left, and Matt, the groom on the right.

Other things we did with flowers:

My mom and I weren't too accurate on the amount of roses we would need...we ordered a few too many. Rachel and I put them in the cupcake holders and the chairs and any place we could find to put them. The bottom pictures are the cake (on a hat box) and a picture and flowers flanking the path to the reception area at Mt Pisgah.

And...my mother dreamed all of this up:

I wish the pictures did justice to all of her decorating, but my camera was not that great. Anyway, it was a beautiful night, a beautiful setting, and a beautiful reception. I'll put more pictures up if I get more of the details that my mom worked so hard putting together.

Good luck to Megan and Matt!

*ps photo credit from the temple goes to Calleagh Brown's facebook album...