The Man in the Phone Booth

My alarm is going off again, how? It's 7:15 and I drag myself out of bed, quickly get ready, and head for the métro with a snack in hand. Every lurch of the train gives me anxiety since we were trapped in the tunnel for 2 hours last weekend. At Saint Lazare I switch to the 3. An RATP worker stands at each door and together they do a choreographed dance as soon as the buzzer sounds to turn and block the crowd of people pushing to get in. Once on the second train, I work my obliques by trying not to fall on any of the strangers also crammed into the car. This and the flights of stairs to my apartment and to the girls' will be my exercise for the day.

The women wear red lipstick and knee-high boots with 3-inch heels and the men carry intricate leather briefcases. I wear jeans and Sperrys. Everyone wears a scarf. There's no room to read a book so we all just stare at each others' reflections in the windows like zombies. In the mornings there are no interesting people to watch. 

"Porte de Champerret! Porte de Champerret." It's a woman's voice and the intonation is the exact same as it is for every other stop. Upwards the first time and downwards the second, even the announcements are artistic in this city. "Attention à la marche en descendant du train." Thank you, friend.

I never notice the man in the phone booth on the way to the girls. Sometimes I take a different train that drops me closer to their school, and sometimes I'm just too tired.

Their mom is already gone by the time I get there. Éléonore tells me she's only been sick one time in her entire life because she only eats vitamins for breakfast. I don't believe her but I do see Sam's herbal teas around the kitchen and her energetic personality when she comes home at night and wonder if I'm not doing myself a disservice by eating real food for breakfast. Jean-Baptiste puts his suit coat on and heads to work with his baguette and nutella, wishing us all a bonne journée. The girls aren't allowed to eat candy, but a "milk product" (i.e. nutella, kinder bar, flambée etc.) is required at each meal of the day, for health.

We play queen for a while and then we play cat for a while and then I make an excuse to not play cat any more and go make myself a coffee. Éléonore brings out the Mikado sticks and proceeds to cheat for an hour and then claim herself the victor. All of my other sides have to tell my competitive side to shut up. I excuse myself to start making lunch. I can use anything in the frigo to make them lunch or dinner, although the girls only like chicken nuggets and pasta with ketchup. Lunch is much more relaxed than dinner because I don't care if they take 2 hours to eat. In fact I prefer it because it means less time for me to entertain them. In the afternoon we go to the park. I'm freezing but they're having fun so we stay for hours. My feet hurt from walking so many miles over the weekend and I long for an adult to talk to. But we're the only ones at the park these days. 

Back at home the exhaustion sets in deep. The girls have their snack. I fall asleep while reading a story and Valentine slaps me in the face. I fall asleep again. She slaps me again. They beg me to use their tablets and I have to say no, although I wish I could say yes and take a nap. I am the slave of the possibility of the nanny cam, whether or not it actually exists is irrelevant.

Finally it's shower time. This is always a struggle. First they don't want to get into the shower. Then they don't want to actually wash themselves. And finally they don't want to get out of the shower. I always get sprayed with the removable shower head at least 5 times and threaten not to have a bedtime story at least 10. 

The girls play a bit longer while I make more chicken nuggets. Dinner time makes Éléonore rowdy for some reason. She always ends up yelling about a revolution and standing on her chair. I use the little energy that remains to ask her to stop, and then to tell her to stop. Valentine takes forever to eat and I have to threaten the story several more times, but eventually they both take their milk product and their chocolate square and go to brush their teeth, which will take another 20 minutes.

The story ends and then the bed time rituals begin. Counting the doudous, making sure they're all in place at the head of the bed (except that one, he goes on the floor), des bisous for every day of the week, for every hour of the day, for every year of my life (I'm glad Valentine can't multiply yet), and finally the lights are out. I wait downstairs, just trying to stay awake, until Sam comes home. She asks me how the day was while she removes her knee-high boots. I wonder if she reapplies the red lipstick during the day or if she's just superwoman. 

On the way back to the métro I finally see the man in the phone booth. I had forgotten about him since yesterday but he'll stay in my mind at least until I'm boarding the second train. He never asks for anything, he just sits there on his garbage bag of belongings. Some days he has friends over. Sometimes he has a beer. He seems to be happy. I wonder if he wishes his home had a bathroom that wasn't actually the Subway bathroom next door. Or walls that weren't made of glass. In a way he has more than I do--he has a space that is his (nobody uses a phone booth these days), he has friends who visit, he has time to do as he pleases. In many more ways he has much, much less. 

Once down in the métro the people-watching can commence. Some days it's a well-dressed but extraordinarily drunk older person yelling philosophy. Some days it's a young foreigner doing card tricks on his friend's lap. Eventually I hear my cue: "Gaîté! Gaîté." Walking home from the stop I pass the police station and several sushi restaurants I've been meaning to try. I climb the stairs and enter the flat and my room. If I'm lucky it's not 10 o'clock yet. Time to check my email and take a shower before collapsing in bed. A few hours later the alarm is ringing again.

Soon vacation will be over and we'll get back to a more regular schedule. I hope I'll still be breathing. 

10 More Foot Muscles You Didn't Know You Had

Walking to the dance store I had a feeling like today was going to be great. The sun was shining, the cold had retreated just enough that I was comfortable with my jacket unzipped (still wearing my écharpe though, we must remain civilized).

I stopped at the bank along the way to pick up my new bank card. After 1.5 years in Switzerland I still hadn't succeeded in opening a bank account. I was laughed at, lied to, given paperwork and false hope. In France it took one try. I went into the bank, I got an account. That easy.

The dance store was filled with experts. Four of them for one of me. They got me all set up for my first class and showed me how to stitch the élastique on my chaussons. The woman who rang me up (with a 10% discount, might I add) walked me to the door and wished me luck. Smiling like a fool, I walked on to the dance school. While crossing a bridge by the Louvre I was passed by two policemen on rollerblades (the first of at least 10 people I saw on rollerblades today, I can not get enough of this city). I walked down by the Seine as long as I could before turning toward the school.

Once at the front desk, signing up for the class was straightforward. The school was in a cute little courtyard in an exciting district. Afterwards I walked by the Centre Pompidou and even listened to a few people from Greenpeace asking for monthly donations (I normally run away from those people as fast as I possibly can). I had a latte in a Costa while getting a bit of work done, then took the métro to the climbing gym.

After climbing I picked up some avocados (I am all about avocados these days, they are freaking tasty) and headed back toward the métro to go home. My ticket wasn't working and before I could figure out what was wrong, the woman entering the turnstile next to me had pushed one of her tickets into my hand, "tiens!"

1st position? I would soon learn, no

At home I made some dinner and got excited for my dance class. Maybe I took a few selfies with my chaussons, maybe I didn't. That's for me (and the NSA) to know. When it was time to leave I put my dance stuff in a bag and headed for the Vélib station outside my apartment. I biked leisurely about 20 minutes to the studio, where I easily found a free Vélib station to park the bike.

I went to reception to ask where the class would be held. The man there directed me where to go and told me that the locations are normally posted in the vestiaire. As I was walking out he yelled, "attends!" and gave me a coupon for a free spa day (what?!?? I've never been to a spa) "because I have a nice face" (naturellement en français).

Throughout the class we all played musical Evian bottles and were verbally abused by an impressively flexible aging woman. At one point she pretended to hang herself with a sweatshirt when one of the men in the class got the choreography wrong. It was marketed as a class for "débutants" but either I'm naturally horrible at dancing or the other students had been doing it for a while. As with most things, the truth probably lies somewhere between the two.

I can lift my leg about a foot off the ground at most when it and my body stay straight. I can stand on my toes for about 15 seconds until my calves start seizing. 3 moves in a row is already way too many for me to remember.

At several points during the class I remember thinking, I am so bad at this it's an insult to the art for me to continue. Just as I would finally start to get the hang of one exercise we would move on to something equally difficult and confusing. By the end of class my legs felt like they had been run through a meat grinder. Just standing was painful, not to mention prancing around on my toes.

On the bike ride home I laughed about how terrible I was. Normally if I'm not good at something naturally I give up and try something else. But lately I've been realizing that even though this makes me really good at the things I'm good at, it also makes me really bad at the things I'm bad at. So I've been seeking out activities that push me out of my comfort zone, like learning to play the guitar. Anyway I'm determined to stick with this ballet thing until the teacher asks me to stop. And then I'll find another teacher.

I hope you guys are living your dreams because I certainly am and let me just tell you it is amazing. The world is so huge and diverse there's no reason you can't find something that makes you happy.

au bord de la Seine