Whomever Wrote That Song Should Be Shot

You know, the one that starts with, "I love Paris in springtime..."

Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole are already dead, so I'm putting out a hit on the tunesmith who came up with this brutal lie.

I'm keeping this post short not because I'm having any issues with my shiny new iMac's AZERTY keyboard (the French way of thumbing their nose at QWERTY standards) but because this sleek aluminum beauty is FREAKING COLD.

I'm looking out at the layer of snow settled on the roofs and windshields of the cars parked beneath my window, all the while trying to maintain as little physical contact as possible with the thin sheet of ice under my fingertips.

The only joy I'm getting this morning is watching kids make snowballs to chuck at their friends, and I'm wishing I could be out there with them. You know, packing one of those super-tight, lethal, compressed ice balls to bean the asshole who wrote that song. False advertising should be punishable by cold, icy death.

Domestic Sunday

Ah, April in Paris!

The way you envision it: Whiling away the day at a sidewalk cafe, sipping espresso, scrawling away, and whistling at the girls in short skirts who walk by.

The reality: Temperatures in the low 40s (single digits if you're of the celsius persuasion), icy cold bursts of rain, and planning for yet another day of demonstrations as the Olympic torch is set to make its way through the city. In other words, best find a way to spend the day indoors.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. I had tentatively planned to join some friends and explore the Musée d'Orsay today, but it didn't materialize. Largely because I'd spent another late night watching basketball and slept in. I had another option of joining some other friends checking out a new sports complex nearby: Track, pool, gym, etc. etc. Only in my minimal packing, the only athletic gear I've got with me are a well-worn pair of Adidas trail shoes. And so it goes...

The Incredible Shrinking Man
Maybe I don't need a gym. Despite the fact that the lowest common denominator in my diet is butter (the next lowest being meat of all sorts, followed by copious amounts of bread), I'm shrinking. Rapidly. While I'm by no means svelte, I've definitely shed more and more weight as my time in Paris has gone by. I'm a shadow of my former beer-bellied self, and my clothes are starting to get a gangsta-like bagginess to them as a result.

The solution? Laundry! By drying my clothes for more than the prescribed time, I've been able to shrink my clothes to better fit my slimmer bod. Last week, I took my woolen overcoat for a tumble, and it now fits much better. Today, I gave my hoodies the treatment and they're much more form-fitting. I look less like a kid with a bunch of hand-me-down clothes, and more like a shoddily dressed American who could at least find his way to the fitting room.

Even still, I look like an NFL linebacker compared to most of the locals. While I'm certainly outnumbered by tall and gangly types, the other Parisians still look like scrawny little stick figures next to me. This is definitely an advantage when muscling for space on a crowded Métro train or working my way to the bar to order a drink. Waifish I am not, though I have confidence that once the weather gets better, I might actually try to buy some fashionable new clothes and - god forbid - fit in them.

Cleaning Products
My bottle of Palmolive dishwashing liquid says "Dur avec la graisse, doux avec la mains." It's a direct translation of their English "Tough on grease, soft on hands" slogan. And while my hands have taken on an effeminately soft feel, my dishes and pots and pans just aren't getting clean. I washed one of my pots at least three times today, trying over and over to get the film of grease off of every surface, finding that instead, my sink was just getting greasier.

Either the dish soap here isn't as strong as the super-ultra-concentrated stuff I bought in the States, or all that butter and animal fat are sloughing off onto my crockery instead of into my veins.

I'll take the weight loss over clean pots any ol' day.

The Boob Tube
Unfortunately, unlike past weeks, the prodigious amount of walking I do hasn't been as big a factor in my fitness as I'd previously thought. What with the lousy weather, the college hoops, and general laziness I've been feeling, I haven't been getting in my weekend urban hikes as much as I'd like.

Instead, I've been watching a lot of TV.

I keep telling myself it's good for my French. I haven't turned on any of the few English-language channels I have in weeks. Instead, I've been watching the news (often repeatedly, just to get it all) in French. And I love the quiz shows. And most of all, I love the Simpsons. Or Les Simpson as it's called here.

What amazes me is that it's consistently hilarious, even when dubbed in French. Part of it is because the principle characters sound exactly like they do in the American originals. Homer sounds like Homer. Marge sounds like Marge. Bart sounds like Bart. But they're speaking French. It's fantastic, really. The French counterparts to Dan Castalenta, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardly Smith, and Harry Shearer do an amazing job of recreating the voices and audible quirks of the original cast - the dubbing is a work of art. Homer still manages to sound like a slovenly idiot. Marge has the same perpetual frog in her throat. Apu has the same heavy-handed, stereotypical Indian accent... in French.

I was wondering if this magic applies to everything. As I was taking in an episode last night, I thought, "Hmm, I wonder what the Aussies sound like in that episode where they go to Australia." As if the gods of W9 (the network that runs Les Simpson) had read my thoughts, it was the next episode to come on. (I swear, I didn't look at a TV Guide, or whatever the local equivalent of it is.)

I'm not sure of the last time I laughed so hard. Maybe it was all the wine I was drinking with dinner, but hearing French spoken with a thick Australian accent nearly had me gagging with laughter.

Unfortunately, this magic doesn't work on every level. I just finished watching an episode of one of my favorite shows, the unjustly canceled Dead Like Me. It's truly a character-driven show, and while I'm sure the translators have done a great job with the scripts, the dubbing just doesn't work. Mandy Patinkin's "Rube" character's fatherly sagacity and quiet authority came from his measured gruffness. The French overdub is smooth and all too eloquent. Ellen Muth's main character "Georgia" is the perfect outcast not only because of her funny looks, but her masculine, scratchy voice. The French version of Georgia sounds too sweet and girly.

It's for this reason that I've never liked dubbed movies. It's not a lack of synchronization or anything that puts me off, but so much of delivering a line has to do with the inflections and uniqueness of the voices of those cast to do so. With an animated series, it's different. But with live-action pieces, you need real voices to match the real people behind them. Maybe that's why so many theatres here advertise "VO" (version originale) runs of American and British movies - the original soundtrack is maintained, and subtitles are thrown on. As it should be.

Perhaps once I'm an official resident paying French taxes and voting on French laws, I'll become an activist for the eradication of dubbing. It's not that I want to hear the movies and TV shows in English - I'm perfectly fine following along in French thankyouverymuch. But for the same reason foreign movies back home are ruined by English overdubs, American stuff (though often not nearly as artful) is butchered by the local voice talent.

Hmm... the French are really into protests and strikes. Maybe by starting one, I'll get a fast track to residency. Yes, indeed, I think I may have just found myself a cause célèbre.

Les Francophones Contre le Dubbing!

Weather Report

After brilliant midday and early afternoon sunshine and blue skies...

IT'S HAILING.

There's freakin' ice falling out of the sky.

[passage of a few minutes]

It's lightened up into a coarse snow, that's beginning to collect on the window sills and on the cars parked below.

Awesome.

Thank goodness I remembered my beanie today.

IM N UR CONTINENT, IMPORTING MY WEATHERZ

I'm just finishing off my post-dessert coffee (yes, I'm back to dining French style), hearing quite the ruckus outside. When it started, I could've sworn someone was out there powerwashing my windows. Then I realized - it's the wind.

Hurricane force winds are battering the English Channel right now. For those of you who went to high school in the US, that's the body of water between England and France.

They've been at it all day, sending lamp posts outside my office window swinging, and rattling the roll-up blinds, also outside my window. These blinds are a pretty widespread phenomenon here, one that I don't quite get. Instead of having blinds on the inside, many buildings have rubber or fabric window coverings that are raised or lowered by a mechanical crank inside. Storm shutters or louvers being on the outside I understand. But what amounts to very heavy curtains? When the wind whips up, these things bang and rattle against the window, making a racket that irritates pretty much anyone who still has their hearing.

Of course, this usually isn't a problem. It's only since I've been here that the weather's been so... unsettled.

The same goes for the ground.

Less than a week after arrived, an earthquake rocked England, only a few hours from where I am.

Just a little gift from the west coast, kids.

And from my Cajun basket of goodies, I followed the earthquake with Hurricane Emma, which rocked England, the Czech Republic, and everything in between.

Despite being totally unprepared, despite causing billions of Euros in destruction (that'd be brazilians of dollars in Bush parlance) and despite the loss of lives, it hasn't been a humanitarian disaster. But nobody's bothered to tell the Minister of Holy-Shit-This-is-Fucked - or whatever the head of the FEMA-equivalent here is called - that they're doing "a heckuva job." European ministers are looking at the aftermath as largely a financial and administrative burden, so no one's asked Sean Penn to come over with a film crew to fix things. If the lack of media outcry is any indication, things are actually moving along fairly well.

Apparently, I'm not doing a good enough job of importing American-style disasters to Europe.

I need to step up my game.

Unless the French bureaucracy hurries up and gives me my Carte de Sejour, I'm calling in the tornadoes.

Gloom, Interrupted

I was so satisfied with my book and my copious amounts of coffee. So much so that I took time out to write about my day. Yadda yadda yadda. So after going back to my book and coffee, I hardly noticed that my living room had started to become brighter.

"No!" I thought. "The new bulbs!"

I had just had the super-expensive light bulbs in my living room replaced. The first round was on the rental agency, being that everything was supposed to be in working order when I moved in. But as soon as I noticed the room getting intensely brighter, I was gripped with the fear that my brand-new halogens were already burning out, and that I'd be out 20€ a pop in new bulbs.

Then I realized the lights are fine. It was... THE SUN!

Not only was the sky lighting up, but it was a beautiful, vibrant blue. Warm rays of sunshine came in through the windows. To me, this screamed "Walk!" So I scrambled to put on my shoes and a hoodie. As I was lacing up, I could hear doors slamming and the stampede-like rumble of feet running down the wooden stairwell of my apartment building. Apparently, everyone had the same idea. One bit of sunshine, and it was a mass exodus out on to the street.

It was like one of those scenes out of a melodramatic sci-fi movie. The drab people, living their drab existence, are liberated from the evil overlord and his evil weather machine. Cast off into a pit of fire by the triumphant hero, his weather machine is shut down, the clouds part, and people walk outside, holding small childern and staring in awe, at that thing called "the sun" that they hadn't seen since childhood... or ever.

There are those caught unaware. Those who refuse to believe something good when it's happening to them. Still walking in their overcoats and mufflers, cursing the cold, not realizing that the rays of light are real, and life-affirmingly beneficial. In fact, it's uniquely Parisian (ok, maybe Soviet, as well) to be in denial of these things. You can just read on these scarf-wrapped faces, the wrinkles of their scowls saying, "Yeah. You keep wearing that hoodie. You'll be sorry when the gloom comes back. You'll freeze to death." There's a pessimism and resignation when it comes to the weather here.

But today, in my day of bucking Paris-ness, I wasn't buying it. I was in my San Francisco uniform (hoodie, jeans, sneakers, sunglasses) and eating up this 180 in the weather for all it was worth.

I explored some streets in my neighborhood I hadn't checked out yet. Scoped out what stores and bakeries and bars might be on them. I made random circles around various blocks. I made my way toward the crowds of the Place Bastille and enjoyed the wide-open vista of the sky. I made my way back home, unconcerned with the slowpokes on the narrow footpaths, or the morons still walking with their umbrellas open, or -- anything, really.

I came home, once again recharged, all upbeat on Paris and everything it has to offer.

Then it started to rain again.

Dress Like a Parisian: Wear a Scarf

I had an impromptu visit from one of my US coworkers yesterday, a social call at the office as he was on the starting end of a vacation in France. I'm not homesick (yet), but I do miss my family, friends, and of course officemates, so it was a pleasure having him stop by for a part of the day.

As we were at lunch, my coworker made the observation that "everybody here wears scarves!"

"It's true," I said. "It's part of a layering strategy that allows you to un-layer on the steamin' metro, be warm enough in your office, be able to strip off easily if the sun decides to come out, and to bulk it all back on for the sub-zero wind chill."

"Is the weather really that crazy?" he asked.

Had I had an iPhone, I would've shown him my last blog entry.

(Appeal to faithful readers everywhere: Pool your money together and get me an iPhone! Even an old 4-gig model would be fine...)

Had I had some sort of holographic memory recording device implanted in my brain, I would've shown him the conversation Alannah and I had recently. Upon being presented with a lovely Celine scarf, she panicked thinking, "Oh my god! How am I going to tie it and make it look good? Those women in Paris have, like, a million ways to tie scarves, and look GREAT! How am I supposed to do it!?"

Hmm... I guess you had to be there. (She ties it beautifully now, by the way.)

So only hours after this discussion, I decided to spend my evening running errands. Not so exciting for a Friday night, but one of them included stopping by the local for a drink - you know, to make myself familiar to the bartenders. Figuring that everything was only within a few blocks of my apartment, I decided to do so... without a scarf!

"No big deal," I thought. "I'll just button my coat up all the way if I get cold."

Hah! Take that, Parisian fashionistas!

Fast forward to this morning, when I woke up with a small but highly nagging chest cold. I had to down cough medicine like crazy and sleep it off, thereby wasting an otherwise lovely Saturday.

Lesson learned: Wear a scarf!

The Forecast for Today...

44º(F), sunny, with scattered snow showers.

Yes, it's snowing outside my window.

No, I don't get it either.

I had one of those inevitable discussions about the weather with my coworker on Monday, saying, "Yeah, according to my Mac OS X weather widget, it's going to snow on Wednesday."

"That's wrong," he said. "They need to start using a new source."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right. I'm not exactly how it's going to snow at this elevation [or lack thereof] when it's going to be well above freezing," I said, my hopes of seeing snow dashed.

Well all I have to say now is: HAH!!! THE WIDGET WAS RIGHT!!! YOU WERE WRONG!!!

And the loser is... ME. I'm screwed. I thought I had mastered inclement weather in San Francisco. Over years of being a powderhound (as in snowboarder, not as a cokehead), I learned weather patterns in quirky, miroclimate-riddled Northern California so well that I could apply my knowledge practically anywhere and have a good handle on the weather.

Not here. Whereas in San Francisco we were privy to four seasons in a day (most of the day being winter), Paris gets four seasons about every fifteen minutes. For instance, the snow outside my window has given way to blue skies and brilliant sunshine, prompting me to lower the blinds so as not to bake nor get sunburned. The light is that intense right now. Moments ago, the windshields of the cars parked below were starting to get a dusting of white probably last seen under some club kid's nose.

The unpredictability of weather here is awesome in some ways. You see Paris in every shade of light possible as you walk through it, then you see the lit-up version at night. It's all good. But it also means that you get on the stuffy Métro with your bottom layer, a middle layer, and a heavy coat, all to be able to deal with whatever mother nature throws at you. Wear too much, and you'll suffocate while you're underground. Wear too little, and you'll die of hypothermia when you come up out of the station.

This is the kind of stuff that toughens you up. Or as a certain American presidential candidate would call it, "vetted."