still not over it

a week ago, i was in paris for the first time. believe it or not, i'd never been. it was a bit like how long it took me to visit new york. maybe i just don't do big, famous western cities. rome is still on the list as well. it was a quick visit, for work, so i didn't get to wander around that much, tho' i did walk down to the eiffel tower on my first night there, and we were shooting a night video here, at the place de la concorde and i got a few shots.  i'd like to go back to paris and visit museums and stroll around a bit more at a more leisurely pace, but i know already now that i'm not a paris person. it didn't make my molecules hum in alignment like say moscow or london do. you walk around there, feeling the history and you can understand a little bit why the french don't realize that they're not a significant player on the world stage anymore. there is a grandeur and a beauty that must be quite unsurpassed, but i didn't fall in love. 

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i found myself still weepy today over the election. i heard tales of the nastiness of one of my cousins, who delighted in spreading white nationalist bigotry around a post-thanksgiving gathering yesterday. and reading about the recount that will happen in wisconsin thanks to jill stein (who knew we would thank her for anything?), and the slim chances it has in keeping that monster from the white house. and encountering issues myself over sailing on a freight ship to the uk on my american passport makes me more resolved than ever to seek danish citizenship. the day after the election, i downloaded the forms, now i just need to get them filled out and jump the last of the necessary hoops. 

i attended a cultural café today at the library, held by some of the good souls in my community, to welcome the refugee families who are in town. i met a lovely and brave young woman from syria and she and her children would like to have one of our kittens when they (the kittens) are old enough. those kittens bring me a lot of joy and it would be wonderful if they also brought joy to a family who has fled from war. that gives me happy tears. but i also had sad tears in my eyes as a couple of these sweet families told me a tale of a mentally unbalanced young woman in the community who is harassing them, loudly shouting racist statements at their children as they walk to school and accosting the families on the street and in the local grocery stores, publicly screaming at them to go back where they came from. she's a person with problems of her own, but it's so distressing to hear. and the police have been contacted, but unfortunately can't do anything about her unless she actually physically attacks them. as if the verbal attacks aren't bad in and of themselves. it seems these days, such people think they can spread their racism and bigotry without consequence. and it seems that they actually can. 

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if any of you have any recommendations for fiction or non-fiction on the topic of alzheimer's,
i would be most grateful to hear them.

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winter is coming, make your own tonic syrups.

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a very interesting map to ponder.

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how to get just the figs you want from the new batman movie set.

we'll always have paris

my throat is raw. i was walking across paris, back to my hotel in the 6th arrondissement, from the eiffel tower, talking to my mother, who finally actually answered the phone after weeks of trying her and never getting her. mom started in on how it was good that hillary didn't win the election because she had received a letter from her, in which hillary threatened to take away my mother's right to be a good christian. she went on to say that it was because hillary had spent too much time with barack obama, so she had become evil. and i was outraged. i screamed at her that those were fucking outrageous lies and she should stop saying them. and she said she sure wished she hadn't thrown it away, because she'd show me that it was true. and i screamed some more about outrageous lies and that it must have been the first piece of mail she'd thrown away in years, which seemed ironic. (not to mention, who sends these things?) and i was shaking so badly, i almost had to sit down right there on a paris street. and i thought, "this is it, this is the last conversation i will ever have with my mother and i always remember that it took place in paris." and i didn't know whether to be jubilant or devastated. life is like that right now. emotions run so close to the surface it's hard to grab onto what you really feel. and i was a little surprised at the heat of my own reaction. my throat is so sore - i must have really screamed. and then i calmed down and mom admitted that she didn't like trump either and that she didn't want to vote for either of them. but she didn't remember who she had voted for, but she did vote early. and she would have to ask her friend who she voted for. i asked her to lie to me if it was trump and she said, cheerfully, and perhaps a bit too readily, "i can do that."

and we ended up ok and she said, "i love you, honey" before we hung up and i said, "i wuv," which is our family way of ducking the real words.

and i have to wonder if my yelling at her didn't scare her lucid, for just a few minutes. because she seemed ok after i did it. and i told her that i was sure that dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what she said about hillary and obama. and i almost hung up. and i thought for a minute that she hung up on me. and i was shaking in anger, throat raw, heart pounding, livid.

and now this is what i have imprinted on my first trip to paris. and i don't know what i think about that.  but my throat sure is sore.

lacking words

i don't seem to be able to find many words about the events in paris on friday evening. the horror seems at once too great and too commonplace to articulate. we grow numb from the frequency of these things, from them happening in the places where we work or play or go to school or go to relax and have fun. we could easily end up afraid to leave our homes. doors locked, minds closed, alone only with those we love and that which we know, afraid to let anything and anyone new in, lest they harm us. i don't think such a world would be that much fun. and i hope it doesn't come to that. so, we do what we can - symbolic gestures, like changing our profile picture in solidarity with those who lost their lives - to say that we stand with paris, feel for them, our hearts bleeding for them. i'm not sure if it means that much and i only left mine for a little while. it suddenly felt disingenuous. i've only ever been at the airport in paris and frankly, it's not my favorite place - so what business do i have standing in solidarity? i can't even really imagine how those people felt - how frightened they were, how panicked, how horrible it must have been. on some level, i just can't relate. i feel a bit numb about it. but, i hope that people will defiantly return to the cafés and concert halls and streets and football stadiums - that they will go about their lives, that they will not live in fear, because living in fear means those terrorists have won. hmm, maybe it's time to finally go see paris.

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and on a happier and better-smelling note - a story of the last perfumer in belgrade.

makes me want to go to belgrade.

with thanks to bill for sending me the link.