Stories

Contrails from somewhere to somewhere.

1. I have things I want to do. Arrived to a mini-heat wave (80-ish) after a ten-and-a-half hour flight from Los Angeles, and when my head hit the pillow, it felt good. Oh, man, it felt good.

A lot has changed in the past six months. The transit workers are on strike, all the Paris Velib bikes are new (gray with green skirtguards), and I'm living off Place Victor Hugo in the sedate 16th arrondissement, which is, how shall I put this, far less cosmopolitan than where I was billeted in October, with nary a nascent terrorist on the hustle. The apartment is eight square meters, which I'm willing to live with for views like the one above.

2. On the subway, I saw a guy open his shirt and spit on his chest. Some days it's hard to express how sketchy Paris is.