NUMBER FIFTEEN: Paris Alone

Victoria has been pissing me off lately. It comes and goes; one minute I'll be furious with her, and the next I'll be fine. This morning I was furious. I woke up at 9 a.m., because I'm not going to waste what little time I had in Paris, got ready, and waited for her to wake up. Ten o'clock rolled around and she was still asleep, andalthough I wanted he r to wake up, I didn't want to do it myself, so I took my breakfast outside, into the courtyard. A little girl approached me and I had to talk to her a while, which was actually really cute. She called me "vous," which was weird for me. I go back in the apartment. She is still asleep. I go for a walk, call Adrianne (whos e phone was OFF, today was the day she was coming to Montmartre and we were supposed to meet), come back. She's still asleep. I go for another walk, come back. She's STILL asleep. It's eleven. She didn't end up waking up until about noon. I came back into the apartment and she was cleaning the tiny kitchen. Really cleaning it.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. The constant, "Isa, est-ce que tu as besoin d'aide?" every time Isabelle does anything to the point where it is truly obnoxious, even to Isabelle I think, the constant ass-kissing. I understand that Isabelle is being really nice by letting us stay in her house, but was bringing her gifts, cleaning up after myself, and helping when help was needed too little? Should I have scrubbed Victoria's house raw? Does Victoria think I'm rude, ungrateful? She probably thinks she's better than me because she cleans the kitchen, because sometimes she acts that way. Am I rude and ungrateful?

I couldn't stand to wait for her to finish over-cleaning the goddamn kitchen then take a shower and get ready, and I couldn't help in the kitchen myself because a) kitchen is too small, and b) then it would look like I thought that was a good idea and I wanted to like, even the tables or something. So I cleaned up the room we sleep in, as I did yesterday (rearranging the furniture, putting away the sheets, futon, etc), and then got the fuck out of the house.

Fucked around Paris for a while, which was cool, and ended up in a McDonalds near the Opera/Printemps/Galeries Lafeyette watching Mika sing about "big girls" on a million different screens lined up on the walls. This Mickey D's was pimped OUT. It was made to look like a restaurant, with an upstairs and a downstairs, booths, dark colors, fancy-fancy this and that so that you don't feel like you're eating in a public restroom (McDo's on Haight, for instance), and television screens lining the walls.

I have come to the conclusion that Mika will not ever be worth my time. What a two-bit act, he can't even think of his own ideas except to flame up Freddy Mercury (even more). Here he is, singing the 21st century's "Fat Bottom Girls" and singing in a high voice and dressing funny.

The next video they showed was shocking. It was a long, drawn-out, horribly violent video game fight scene. The only reason the creators got away with being able to show the thing on many, many television screens in McDonald's is because it was a computer generated thing. Literally, one of the guys jump onto the other's chest and trampled all over it while the guy was standing-and the trampler was wearing shoes with BLADES on the bottom. The next thing I remember is the two of them, back-to-stomach, a sword through the both of them, writhing and writhing on the blade. I'm not usually one to nag about video games and violence, but it was kind of obscene having it pumped into your brain at McDonald's.

Oh and by the way, if you're ever in Paris, make sure to bring some Feist for the daytime, Man Man for nighttime, and MGMT for whenever you wish Feist made more songs.