My normal routine was interrupted today when the restaurant where I usually sit to work was booked out by some Google event.
The guys offered to let me sit on the terrasse with a cappuccino but the kitchen was closed and I was hungry. Maybe I should have gone home to get back into my pyjamas but I felt certain that I wouldn’t get any work done if I did that.
And this is Paris afterall, there is no shortage of restaurants and cafes where one can sit and do work. I do actually have a backup place that I don’t come to often because the servers are less friendly with me. But maybe that’s because I don’t come as often.
The vibes outside today are horrible. It’s grey, there’s lots of construction going on, it’s cold again after a week of sunshine and warmth. I’m struggling a bit to keep my energy high enough to do the work that needs to get done.
But despite the shitty vibes, I am encouraged by the support I’ve been receiving for the reels I’ve made on instagram and the new substack I started.
So I’m at the backup place, enjoying my food and still considering going home to take a nap. I don’t have anything profound to say or share, I just didn’t want to neglect this space.
Night
It’s late, and I find myself unable to focus on the work I’m supposed to be doing.
I feel like the energy around me in my community, in the world in general is deeply, profoundly sad and upset.
Despite this deep “knowing,” for whatever reason, I seem to only be able to express myself through words that don’t feel like enough. Through limited thoughts and ideas of what to say and how to act.
I want to scream! I want to cry. But there is no one here to hear me or console me. The only tool I have to cope is my phone. And so I keep picking it up. Peeking through my little portal into the world in the hopes that I will receive some good news by message. Or that I will be able to find some solution while sifting through the sludge that is social media.
I made a video. In it, I’m upbeat, but really it’s a call for help.
It’s a cry for attention because I live alone and everyone is busy and has their own problems that are so much bigger than what I can help with. I offer up my kind words because that’s all I have to give.
I feel simultaneously wise and insightful and plagued with childlike ignorance.
Last week I met up with a friend from University who I haven’t seen since 2017.
She booked a trip to Paris from NYC on a whim, and it just so happened that we had a chance to meet up on a Thursday afternoon.
When we were at school together, I used to regale her with tales of my encounters with men, and since she’s 10 years my junior she’d always listen with rapt attention and curiosity.
We’ve kept up on social media here and there, but a lot has happened in the last eight years since we’ve seen each other. So when she asked me what’s happened, I asked her,
“Did I tell you about the young man I had during Covid??”
And this is what I told her:
I met him when I first moved into the (neighborhood where I now live). It was the beginning of September 2020, maybe a week since I’d moved in, and I went for a walk to clear my mind, because I’d loaned money to a friend and I needed it back, but she was avoiding me. I’d just fired off a bunch of angry text messages to her, and was returning home fuming over the whole situation.
He was putting his bike back into the Velib station, and as I passed by him he looked up at me with big eyes as I gave him a curt, “Bonsoir”. He replied with, “You’re so beautiful”, and caught off guard I gave him a softer, “Merci” and kept walking without slowing down to chat further.
He ran after me and caught up as I was approaching the door to my building. In French he said something along the lines of, “I don’t do this often, as you can tell because I’m a little out of breath. But you’re so beautiful and I had to take a chance that you would let me take you out sometime?”
I looked him up and down before responding. I wasn’t immediately attracted to him, but he had big, soft eyes that exuded sincerity. It was his eyes that made me agree to give him my number.
I asked him how old he was, and he told me he was 24. At the time I was 33, so he was a bit young for me, but by this time I was kind of used to younger men approaching me so I figured why not.
We went out once, to a lackluster dinner while the weather was still nice. I found him a little boring, the conversation wasn’t really flowing. We texted a few times after that but then he just disappeared. Typical.
I didn’t hear from him again until months later, towards the end of January 2021, after another couple months of curfew in Paris. For those of you not in Paris, we had a 6pm curfew from November 2020 to June 2021.
When he reached out, I was not inclined to give him a second chance, but he promised not to ghost me a second time (lol) and honestly I was craving some affection. After a week of persistently texting me every day, his opening came.
I was at the office that day, and didn’t have any of my preferred coping mechanism left to smoke. I told him that if he could obtain some and bring it to mine around 7pm, he could come over. He accepted the challenge.
He showed up that night as my knight in shining armour, with the requested materials for us to smoke together. From the moment he stepped into my apartment, everything was great. He came with great humor and kept me entertained.
And he was polite. The first time I invited him to lay on the bed with me he asked if he could take his pants off. That became our joke together in the future.
He started coming over to Netflix and chill with me five nights a week, heavy on the Netflix…we conversed and cuddled more than sex. He became like a real confidant to me. Since he lived down the block, our relationship was convenient for both of us and we would smoke and bake cookies and be silly together between 7pm and 1am when he would leave to sleep in his own bed.
I nicknamed him Squish, and I told him it was because he was squishy like a teddy bear, but really it’s because I had a joke with a friend of mine how anyone under 25 has a squishy brain since their frontal lobe is not fully developed.
At the end of February 2021 I took a trip back to the US to visit my mom and brother, and all the friends I’d left behind five years before in California. During this time I visited my ex, the guy I’d dated immediately before leaving the country. We were still attracted to each other, and I planned to sleep with him on the trip. It’s important for me to note that we were the same age, both 33 years old.
Except, after hanging out and catching up for a couple hours at his house, I walked into his bedroom ready for some foreplay only to find…no sheets on his bed.
No. Sheets. On. His. Bed.
I was immediately turned off never to be turned back on again.
Something about his lack of preparedness and effort, because he KNEW I was coming, my being there was not a surprise. I just expected better treatment than that. Some respect from a grown man to a grown woman.
So I let him put sheets on the bed and I went to sleep. I thought about leaving right then and there, but I had planned on getting my favorite breakfast burrito near his place in the morning and I couldn’t let his lack of effort ruin that for me.
Would you believe, this man had the NERVE to be upset with me for not having sex with him.
I told him, “There’s a young French man in Paris who knows how to treat me better than this. You should be embarrassed”.
When I got back to Paris after nearly two weeks in the US, I couldn’t wait to see Squish. I texted him in the car on the way home, and he came over immediately. I think he missed me during that time too.
We happily continued our routine, and on my 34th birthday at the beginning of April he came over to celebrate with me so that I wouldn’t be alone. That day he’d had a job interview, so when he arrived I asked him how it went. He started to recount the interview, and then he got to a part where he was quoting himself responding to the interviewers perceived lack of interest in hiring him.
He said, “I know I’m only 20, but I am a fast learner and I work hard”.
I stopped him and asked, “Wait. You’re HOW old?!”
He looked at me with those big, sincere eyes that had attracted me to him in the first place frozen, unsure of how to proceed, knowing he’d let his secret slip.
I asked him again, mildly amused at this point, “You’re 20 or 24?!”
“I was going to tell you…”
At this I lost it and dissolved into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. I wasn’t mad. How could I be? As a teenager I used to lie about my age to men all the time. It felt like a hilarious turn of karma and I was relieved that at the very least he was not underage, because that would have been truly horrifying.
In that moment, while I was doubled over dying of laughter, the friend I had been upset with when we met called me to apologize for never paying me back. It was a very strange moment.
Relieved that I hadn’t immediately kicked him out, he waited patiently while I finished my call with her, (smart man) and after explaining himself and agreeing to bring over two forms of ID next time he came over, we had the best sex we’d had so far while listening to FKJ.
After the curfew ended, we didn’t see each other as much. But he came back every winter for the next couple of years until he eventually got into a relationship during the summer.
I think he’s 24 now…
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It’s another beautiful sunny Sunday in Paris and it seems that spring is on its way to us.
If this were another time without social media and 24 hour news, one could almost be fooled into thinking that all is right with the world.
I’m in my favorite place, having my classic cappuccino, which is funny because I only started drinking them recently and I’m not entirely sure what inspired the change from my previously classic “allonge”.
But all is NOT right with the world. I woke up this morning full of anxiety about what’s coming next.
Thursday night I felt a tickle in the back of my throat, so Friday I stayed indoors with the exception of an academic talk in the evening that I’d been looking forward to for all of February.
When I returned home after midnight I made the mistake of checking the news and saw what had just occurred in the White House between the current administration and the president of Ukraine. Needless to say but I will say it anyways, I was horrified. And I have remained horrified for all of Saturday into this morning.
Like many others I am wondering, “What now?!” Will we look back on this moment as the beginning of WWIII?
Before leaving the house I spoke to a dear (French) friend who tried to reassure me that everything would be fine. But really just living in Paris doesn’t protect us from anything.
I’m scared about so many things right now, and living alone doesn’t help.
I’m scared for my family who lives in the US, I’m scared for the whole of the United States and that so many people still seem ignorant to the fact that they elected a fascist leader despite all of the evidence.
I’m scared for myself because I am not yet a citizen of the country I’ve called home for the last nine years. I’m scared for the whole world really because it doesn’t seem like anywhere is safe and if you’ve been paying attention even a little bit it seems like we are falling into some very well documented patterns.
Doux Comme Miel 