Blue Hawaii

And Paris without you.

God damn it.

I’m still pissed at you.

Granted I have my own self to blame for that.

I should not have gone on social media.

I had you blocked.

Not because I was worried about you seeing me, no.

I didn’t want to be looking at your photos.

And I did it anyway.

I looked last night.

I know you’re in Hawaii and I knew you were going to be there and I had to look.

Ugh.

Wrong.

Wrong.

Wrong.

It doesn’t help that I want to go to Hawaii with you and that the trip I have tentatively planned for July has your name written all over it.

Or that I have thoughts about you in the ocean, swimming, your eyes wet and blue.

I’m so angry still and I’m still so damn sad.

Not as much.

Not every day.

And so, of course, the person to be angry with is me, I know better than to go onto social and look up your photos.

It hurts.

No more of that.

Although, why?

I can’t figure it out, a photo of us pops up every day, every day on my computer despite closing the photo app.

Every day your blue, blue, bluest eyes stare out at me as I see us on the red leather couch in the Air BnB we rented in D.C.  My eyes are closed, I’m kissing the side of your face and you have your arm wrapped around me.

Sometimes the photo makes me jump.

Sometimes I forget it’s there.

I have shut down the computer, restarted the computer, closed the app, and it just randomly pops back up.

Can’t get away from it and I use my computer all the time.

I mean.

Fuck.

I am working on a PhD I drag the damn thing around like it’s a security blanket.

And there you are, sweet face and dreamy and I know that we were in front of a fire and the color of your eyes and the shape of my face, and my hair tumbled down around my shoulders.

Ugh.

It hurts.

Not as bad.

I will admit that.

Things haven’t hurt so awful in the day-to-day.

Get me in my therapy sessions and I’m a fucking mess, but hey, that’s therapy and I leave it there in the wet balls of crumpled tissues streaked with mascara.

I joked with my therapist this past session that my tears must be some kind of napalm right now as I have tried three different kinds of waterproof mascara and the shit just slides off my eyelashes when I cry.

I yelled at you tonight.

In the car.

On the way home.

Thinking about you on an island and me here and then I’ll be going to Paris and well, fuck, you’re supposed to be in Paris with me.

Damn it.

We were supposed to do Paris.

You know it.

I know it.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Paris, baby.

You were supposed to go to Paris with me.

I hella splurged too.

I mean.

I got a place to stay, cute, bohemian, arty, obviously someone who was an avid flea market shopper, and I got a great deal, super cheap, $1,000 less than most of the other places I was looking at.

So I booked it.

And alas.

The woman got back to me and said she wasn’t able to let me rent it as she was going to be in Paris for Christmas.

Oh well.

I went back and looked some more and I looked at hotels and I really had to think about where I wanted to stay and why.

I wanted to make sure I was in the Marais, my best friend lives there and it’s my favorite part of the city and very central.

Hotels were not cheap and I went back to looking at Air BnB.

This one place kept calling me back and it was more than I wanted to spend, but then again, I knew I had the money in savings to cover it, I’d have nine months to save up more, I deserve to stay somewhere nice, the last two times I stayed in Paris I stayed with friends and didn’t pay for accommodations and the time before that I stayed in a hella cheap place and regretted it almost immediately.

I kept going back to this listing and then I said, fuck it.

I’m booking it.

It’s where I’m supposed to be and I’m going to let myself stay there.

Gorgeous tapestry wall paper.

Fireplace!

Full kitchen.

Dining area.

Plus red velvet chairs.

Couch with a red velvet throw.

Separate bedroom up this sweet curving stair case.

Big huge bed under the eaves.

Gigantic bathtub in the room!

Bathtubs are a rarity in French apartments, so to get one and it’s big, huge luxury.

It’s super pretty and I’m super grateful I booked it and I paid for the whole thing up front.

Done and done.

I was so excited when I booked it the night before last.

And then.

Tonight.

I wasn’t.

I was hurt and angry and thinking about you and your vacation pictures and I just yelled at you in the car, how we’re supposed to be in Paris together, walking the streets, eating all the food, cheese, chacuterie, drinking all the coffee, snuggling on the red velvet couch, having sex on the red velvet couch, the bed, the floor in front of the fire-place, the bathtub, meeting fellows in church basements, seeing all the sites, making out in public, holding hands.

I wanted to take you to the one cafe I know about in the 11th that’s super good and order food for you in French and then happy and replete I would walk you along the Seine to look at the Eiffel Tower when it lights up with glitter lights.

Damn it.

We were supposed to do Paris together.

I know that the sting will wear off, I mean, my trip is not until December, but right now, I feel hurt and sad and yes, angry at you.

Oh God.

The places I wanted to take you.

A walk in Pere LaChaise cemetary.

And the L’ile des Cygnetes, Island of the Swans, in the middle of the Seine, that has one of Statue of Liberty models on it that the artist did as he worked on the scale for the one sent to Americar.

Oh.

And all the outdoor markets, buying cheese and fruit and bread for you.

I wanted to take you to the amazing restaurant in Belleville that my friend took me to last summer and then go to Le Chat Noir and do the Paris Open Mic and recite you poems I have written about you.

But I won’t.

I won’t be doing any of those things.

I’ll be taking a bath under the eaves of a mansion on Rue de Parc Royale.

A bath with bubbles.

And I will sit in front of the fire and fingers crossed, not be sad to be alone, again, in Paris, without you.

 

Letting Myself Get Excited

I think today it finally sunk in that I am really going to go to Paris soon.

Like I fly out next Thursday.

It has a lot to do with the being done with my papers.

It also has to do with clearing up some housing issues and having all my places situated.

One of the spots I’ll be staying in is actually a place I have stayed in before.

Mama Shelter.

I stayed there when the hotel first opened in 2007.

I got a stellar deal on it since it was new and in a somewhat, not now, but at the time, dodgy neighborhood.

But it was perfect for me.

It reminded me a lot of the area of the Mission that I lived in, dodgy, but charming, easy to navigate and really not a tourist spot.

A bit off the beaten track.

But a very lovely part of off the beaten track.

109 Rue Bagnolet.

It’s in the 20th arrondissement, predominately still a very working class neighborhood.

Not really central, but two, three blocks, five-minute walk to the Metro line 2 and near Pere LaChaise and my very favorite books store Le Merle Moqueuer.

There’s also Le Chat Noir, where I have done open mics, and Rue Denoyez which has some fantastic graffiti and mural art.  I mean there’s some fantastic artists in the 20th, I have a lot of photographs of murals and graffiti from my many walks through the area.

I’m only there one night, though, then staying with a friend in a more central location.

So I’ll get my gritty “real” Paris feel for my first night and rendezvous with my old haunts and cafes and libriaries  before heading toward central Paris for the rest of the trip.

I am so excited.

I was talking about my trip today with my therapist and how it came about and challenges I have had in the past with female friendships and how excited it was to have planned this trip with my French friend in the cohort, how happy I am to have her as a friend and how I have a tough time saying what I need in relationships with women.

I didn’t exactly have the best modeling around female relationships.

We talked about how important my friendships are and how I often feel a bit lonely, so many of my friends have moved out of San Francisco and I have said goodbye to many precious ladies.

I will say good-bye to more as the school year wraps up this weekend and I won’t see some faces until next fall.

And.

Some faces I won’t see at all.

I am sad for that, I will be crushed when my dear friend moves back to Paris, but then again, what a fabulous excuse to get me to go back.

I assure you I will be visiting her a lot.

We have already tentatively talked about next May and I am sure there will be many other trips to Paris to see her sweet face.

And there will be this trip to Paris.

I decided to even let myself do the super uber touristy thing.

Something I have disdained from doing, but um, actually sort of want.

A Paris black zip hoodie.

My friend that I lived with in Paris had one and I secretly loved it but I couldn’t ever bring myself to buy one, somehow it just felt too hokey.

But I realize.

I want one.

So.

Heh.

Expect to see some photograph of me in the near future sporting a black, zip hoodie with Paris emblazoned across the chest.

Fuck it.

I’m only going to live once.

I have also gotten an idea of what I want for my Paris tattoo.

Anticonformiste. 

In script on my left forearm.

I definitely am not someone who conforms much.

Whether physically, emotionally, or spiritually.

I often find myself doing things differently.

I am also smitten with a monologue on the Bon Entendeur music app that I have on my phone which has actors speaking about moments in their lives, scripts, films, revealing moments, then it’s woven into the tracks, deep house, chill, electro, and one of my favorites that I have been listening to a lot is Astier, Anticonformisme.

The track list is so good.

Astier starts out talking, in French, about how his mother was always drawn to certain people, neither rich or poor, of a certain temperament, that tend to buck the system, to be artists, lovers, musicians, humans, and how he admired this trait in his mother and how she brought him up to appreciate the creative.

I love the monologue and the music is just so good, I’ve been listening to it a lot to have French in my head for the trip.

I will probably queue up Amelie as well as Je t’aime Paris, soon, they are sort of my go to movies to get my ears back into French.

I digress.

Back to my tattoo.

I just thought, what a fucking awesome idea for a tattoo, which is anti-conformist thing to do, getting a tattoo, and it speaks to me, speaks to me of my love for French house music and electro, of being an artist, of doing things outside the box.

I am pretty sure that’s what I am going to get, but I’ll leave it open.

I am going to get a tattoo though.

And yes.

Ha.

My sweatshirt.

Hey, I live in the Outer Sunset, often a land of heavy chilly fogs, I need another hoodie.

I only have three.

Heh.

Oh Paris.

All the things we shall do together.

I am counting down the days.

I am watching the weather forecast.

I am planning my outfits.

I am greedy for you, my love.

I shall be seeing you soon.

Oh.

So.

Soon.

Yes.