Thursday, 11 March 2010
It Happened to Me
Down, But Not Out in Paris & London

boulangerieI turned left into the Rue de Rodier fingering the change in my pocket, last nights Bordeaux flowed through my veins and kicked me in the head. 50 centimes, half a Euro left, I hadn’t eaten since, well a long time. I joined the queue forming outside the Boulangerie.

Half a Euro. I’d done my first days work in a month two weeks ago tending bar in Paris. The head waiter had shouted like crazy, ‘I’m just going to serve those two gentlemen over there,’ I expressed, ‘Say it in English’ he retorted, in English, ‘those two gentleman’ I repeated, ‘enough of your gangster slang’ he screamed, stuffed 50€ in my pocket and shoved me out the door.

 
It Happened to Me (Issue #28)
image00001girl_who_told_it.jpgMy colleague was a bitch. There were no two ways about it. I liked her the very first day I saw her, and hated her a few weeks after. I?'m American. She?'s American. I automatically thought we'?d be the best of friends here in this sometimes God-forsaken city of lights.
Boy, was I ever wrong.
 
It Happened to Me (Issue #27)

It Happened to MeI had been married for ten years to my high school sweetheart when the itch to leave my wife started.
It?s not that she wasn?t sexy, smart, or attractive. I just felt the need to be single, free. We were both 35 and had been together since we were 16! We didn?t have kids, so I thought it would be easy. I honestly didn?t think ?Alice? would mind. She hadn?t seemed happy in years and I know the promotion I got which moved us to France made her miserable. She wanted to be back in Texas with all our friends and family. Quite understandable. I felt she would start over, find another husband and have the family she always dreamt of, and that we could even remain friends. Man was I ever wrong.

 
It Happened to Me (Issue #24)
01issue_24_ithappme.jpgI wanted him. I wanted him and I knew I shouldn?t but damnit, I couldn?t help it. He?s married but I am not. We?d met years ago when we took the same French class at La Sorbonne. I was instantly attracted to him. I'm white, blond hair and blue eyes, and he's a strapping black man from NY. Where I come from back in South Carolina, my daddy would have beat me blind for dating a black man. I had to come all the way to Paris to do it, and now I can't get enough.
 
It Happened to Me (Issue# 23)
00007issue_23.jpgEarning enough money to live on in Paris can be a huge stress for Americans. That's a stress that can sometimes drive us away, but the problem I ran into when returning to the States was finding a place/niche to slip back into when I returned after all those years. My French experience didn't do me any good...or at least i wasn't in the right place, perhaps for it to do me any good...Americans don't have the best opinion of the French, as you know.
 
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