Nights Like These

              Yesterday evening, after spending an exhausting 9 hours working my now-nine-year old girl charge's insane birthday party, I had a rendez-vous with E at 22h to take a river cruise of the Seine. He'd out of the blue messaged me on Saturday.

               ¨Have you ever taken a river cruise on the Seine?¨

               ¨Nope, never.¨

               ¨Are you free this afternoon, this evening, tomorrow afternoon, or tomorrow evening?¨

               ¨I have to babysit tonight, and then I'm working a kiddo birthday party all Sunday. So Sunday evening. Probably won't be off until about 20h30.¨

               ¨That's fine, the last cruise is at 22h30.¨

               And so, as I predicted, I was released from nannying at around 20h30, dashed home, changed, ate because I hadn't eaten all day, and hopped onto the metro to meet E at Bir Hakeim to walk down to the Bateaux Parisiens. Did I mention it is nearly May and still effing cold out at night? In the forties. I was a popsicle.

                I've also deliberately avoided doing most touristy things here, mostly because I do not have the time, but also because my inner ounce of snob feels like it is ever so slightly beneath her. And the gimmicks annoy the hell out of me. For instance, the second E and I set foot on the damn bateau, a corny photographer insisted on taking our photo so that, for the sake of capitalism, we had the option of purchasing it afterwards. Ugh.

                That aside, we sat ourselves down on the bateau at 22h30 when it also unsettingly occured to me that most people on the boat at this time were male-female couples in a clearly romantic context. This wouldn't be so unsettingly to me if I knew what we were.

                 The best thing I have to describe E and I is that he is my ¨non-boyfriend.¨ In other words, the friend I'll go on ¨dates¨ with and with whom there will always be a certain amount of sexual tension and flirtation, but whom I would never date and whom I do not want to date....though sometimes with him I wonder. Occasionally he does things that make me thing he wants  to be more. Like call me and invite me out of the blue to go on a bateau when he could be asking anyone else on the planet. And other times I think this is loneliness.

                 I was pondering this when the boat took off.

*  *  * 

                Paris by night is pure magic, the kind of mise en scène that makes foreigners dream. When the bateau left the port the Eiffel Tower was illuminated in a rich gold light beneath a round moon smiling behind it, a mere two hundred meters from the dock on the Seine. 

                Nights like these remind me why I love this city, this country. The flittering reflection of the bridges on the water as we passed under the Pont Alexandre III, the way from the river below the buildings I felt like I was in a Disneyland theme park ride. There is nothing but beauty and awe. Add to this my ever growing personal connection to this city; when we passed, for example, the Académie Française, I gleefully pointed out to E that I'd spent much of last year in the library there. I smiled to myself when we passed by the pont de la Tournelle and the Ile Saint Louis thinking how, just a few afternoons prior, I'd walked across to enjoy Berthillon sorbet with a friend. This city is no longer an impersonal, cold mass of stones and imposing statues: I can map a personal geography upon it, recall memories. I no longer need a metro map to navigate the network of lines to go from point A to B. This city is no longer foreign in the way this country is no longer foreign and in the way I am slowly no shedding all about me that is ¨foreign¨ to France...I am assimilating. 

                 And on nights like these I take sheer and utter joy in that. In others, I tremble under the fear and terror of what it might be like to be torn from this piece of me. 

*  *  * 

                  In a skype conversation a few weeks ago, my brother asked when I was coming back to the US of A for good. 

                  ¨I don't know, maybe never.¨ All I can say right now are maybes. 

                  ¨You know you're not French, right?¨ he blurt out. ¨You're American. An American who belongs in AMURICA.¨ He was half joking and half concerned in that loving, I-miss-you-you -are-really-far-from-family-I-love-you-please-come-home sort of way. 

                   But it got me thinking. 

                  Oh really? I'm not French? 

                  Am I or am I not? 

                  Because honest to God somedays I truly feel like I am. 

*  *  * 

                 I heard from the FWB again. I wanted to know how his move went. He's nice and settled in a beautiful area of France even further South from his village, so he'll be tanning nicely this summer. He's in charge of sales and export for a property down there and I am convinced he'll do well. 

                 We're on good terms and friendly, which is how I like to keep it. Who the hell knows? 

                 It is hard not to miss him, but I've been keeping myself busy, and for the time being, I have bigger fish to fry. 

                  Especially this one called ¨what the hell am i doing with my life i need to figure this out and OH SWEET BABY JESUS DO NOT RIP ME FROM THIS COUNTRY.¨

*  *  *

                  Nights like the one I had last night remind me not to give up, to dig in. But I'm going to have to fight for it, especially since I was officially just turned down for job with a visa. Now I'm backpedaling and on to Plan B. 

                  I'm also doing everything I can not to get all déprimée but instead to get fired up and angry and fight even harder. 

                   It's not going to be easy. Then again, I never do like to do easy things. 

                  But nights like these, beautiful clear spring nights, remind me that I should never believe I do not deserve what I want, if I am willing to work for it. 

                  Here we go. 

Of Jobs and Men

      Today is the last day of my trial period at potential new job. Thank goodness, as I'm hitting real exhaustion now. Gluttony struck this morning in the form of coffee and I downed two thick cups of it as the morning hours rolled smoothly onward. The girls in planning left me alone for a bit to look for open time slots for new classes, and so I sat alone in a room on the 4th floor facing the boulevard Haussmann, two  minutes walk from the Gare Saint Lazare of Monet's painting.

       Mechnical pencil in mouth, eyes squinting at the computer, hair a mess because I didn't care about how I looked today, in that ¨I-have-to-go-play-mommy-starting-at-16h-this-afternoon-I-won't-bother¨ sort of way, hardly dolled up with one coat of mascara, and sporting a pair of brown Converse and jeans, I glared at the screen when he walked by. Yes, the hot as hell English Teacher.

        Apparently, I've learned, teachers have a strict dress code at this place. For men, this means button downs, slacks, and a tie, no exception....I'm not complaining, and I admit I'm being entirely shallow here. It's a two way street, fellas.

         The English Teacher stopped, looked in the doorway at me, I looked up from my screen, and he said hello very amicably. We then got to chatting a bit, in French. He asked how things were going and if they weren't too hard, as planning is known to be a tough thing to do here. I told him I was ¨m'en sortir¨-ing ok and that I had possibly given him two classes on Wednesdays, but we'd see, since I'd been warned not to touch his schedule too much.

           He laughed, smiled above a pair of clear-sky-spring-blue eyes, said he wouldn't mind the work. I laughed and said I heard he was a crazy worker and took nearly any class offered him.

           This is on top of playing semi-pro soccer, which you don't know I know about...holy cow.

          I could've kept talking to him for a long while, but he had things to do, I had things to do, but alas, flirtation ceded way to business, and he walked down the hall toward the teachers lounge.

          However, I'm a pathetic little girl and that made my Friday morning. It's the little things, I swear....but when you are this exhausted and run down and have no time to do anything alone or for yourself, it's the little stupid things. And I know I've brought it all on myself. Le sigh.

          We'll see if I actually get this job.

          Friday afternoon before I left they told me they weren't going to offer it to me right away and needed a few weeks to consider so now I am in serious doubt of an offer and panicking.

          I am trying to be all que sera sera about it and I do have a backup plan, but alas. It's certainly not my forte. And it's leaving me feeling like I do about men sometimes: that I am an academic headcase whom no one wants to keep around.

           I apologize if I'm going to what I call the dark place of my inner psyche, but I am.

          I'll come out eventually.

          And que sera sera, for jobs and men.