Things I Miss, Part 1

riding on trains
valuable, heavy coins
not getting mocked for wearing a scarf at all times
cheap flights
sensuous badoit bottles
walking quickly
my apricot body wash
kirs
the cool graffiti
monthly transit passes
intimate movie theaters
agrum
going to paris
cheap strawberries

more as i miss it

Political Figures By Whom I Am Inappropriately Charmed:

1. Richard Nixon
2. Pat Buchanan

In other news, I said this blog would be more than just study abroad, but there are probably still some frenchified wrap-up thoughts in weeks to come that might trickle out. Bear with me. Or don't.

NOT his man

I just read on Perez Hilton that Leonard Cohen is being inducted in to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Madonna and several others. Odd as it was to be getting my Leonard Cohen fix from Perez, and not, say, anywhere with even a slight scrap of dignity, I was fairly excited.

In a morbid conversation - or maybe just a realistic and useful one, depending on how Daria you feel - late this summer, Jess, Lauren and I narrowed down the songs we thought we would have played at our funerals. I think this was mostly an exercise in using the ultimate end-all-be-all criteria for narrowing down our favorite songs.

Jess went with These Days by Jackson Browne
Lauren went with Like a Prayer by Madonna
I went with Chelsea Hotel No. 2 by Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen is a fantastic songwriter, but save a very very few instances, I have tended to like covers of his songs better. He occasionally has too dolorous a voice, to great a faith in the power of synth. Chelsea Hotel No. 2 is the greatest exception to the rule. Cohen's rough voice is just exactly right, and it hardly seems right for anyone else to sing about a one night stand with Janis Joplin other than the man himself.

Here's the only catch in his Hall of Fame induction: with so many amazing covers with so many amazing artists, couldn't they have found someone slightly better than Damien Rice to perform in tribute to him?

And now for something completely different...

A post having nothing at all to do with France!

I have a pretty (un)healthy affection for Agatha Christie-penned books. It is probably not one of my better features. Usually they leave me feeling warm and fuzzy about the quaintness of England, and even murder. They are also an insane ego boost to charge through as they are written essentially for slightly slow fifth graders, and I make no qualms about small victories. Anyway. The only exception to this rule is, in fact, And Then There Were None, a book I read when I actually was, rather approximately, a slightly slow fifth grader*.

It scared the proverbial bejeezus out of me, as books about mulitple suicides will tend to do, mid-family-vacation-slash-camping trip. We wandered around Yosemite, which was very lovely, and ate Dinty Moore beef stew cooked over a campfire, which was also lovely, though probably only for me as it was my favorite camping food, but not actually good. Less lovely was when I noticed all the bear signage. Usually this wouldn't bother me, but post-mystery scare, I couldn't sleep. I became convinced I heard bear noises outside the tent. Just exactly what constitutes a bear noise, I could not tell you.

Within a few minutes, my paranoia had built and I became pretty well convinced that the bear had made it into our permanent tent platform thingy, and was, in fact, engaged in eating my little brother on the bunk below me.

I'm not sure exactly what the point to this story is other than that I was totally unconcerned by Chris' demise. Not that I don't love him, but I'm fairly certain all of my energy went into playing dead for my imaginary attacker for the rest of the night. Perhaps the moral of the story is that I am self-centered and not all that awesome of a person. Perhaps the moral of the story is that bears really are a threat. No wonder Stephen Colbert has them at number one.

EDIT: This picture is acutally an old Smokey the Bear anti-forest fire ad. How entirely terrifying! Smokey is much more cuddly.



*I was actually so slow I was put in a special remedial pencil holding class. I failed. But at that point in time it was just too depressing to let me down further, so they gave me stickers anyway and doomed me to illegibility forever.

The Bitch is Back

If only I could post a little Elton John for you right now. Was gone fishing to Scotland and London, and now I'm back. I really will have to follow up on promises of trip updates I suppose. But here's what you neet to know for now:
a. Glasgow > Edinburgh like woah.
b. British food isn't half bad. But it is all fat.
c. I have been to London twice and still failed to see: Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, Tower Bridge, The Tower of London, or the inside of Saint Paul's. What exactly have I done?