Sometimes I'm Afraid To Leave The House

Okay, let me be perfectly honest with you. Paris is a very intimidating city. It's like the prettiest girl in school who really doesn't really REQUIRE your EXISTENCE and therefore is highly unlikely to be nice to you or tell you where the Science room is or play tether ball with you. It's not that she's mean. She's just busy, important and extraordinarily beautiful.

Yesterday with Angry Metro Lady was a perfect example. This Metro lady sits in a tiny Plexiglas box all day. No one talks to her. While that is actually a very miserable sounding experience, she makes it work for her and, at the end of the day, she doesn't WANT people to talk to her. Because invariably that will mean "putting in some effort" which someone who lives in a box should not have to do.

So stupid Canadian women who cannot speak French and therefore will take up A LOT of Life Energy Tokens by forcing her to explain, demonstrate, re-demonstrate and explain one more time how the Metro pass works...are beyond the pale.

Adding insult to injury, this particular Canadian woman will try to squeeze her massive suitcase through the Metro turnstiles instead of going through the gate thing. The result of this is total suitcase sausage machine entrapment, forcing the customer who has been waiting not-so-patiently-or-quietly for the Metro lady's attention to yank the suitcase free and haul its 45 pounds up and over the turnstile, swearing all the way.

FYI? Paris, as a city and as a people, does not CARE if you have traveled 4,500 miles in one day just to see her. She has bigger problems.

So because of that and because I have an intense fear of STARTING anything – relationships, writing projects, conversations, jobs, the exploration of foreign cities with 5,691 baffling cultural RULES all of which are learned by the French People Yelling At You method – I am sometimes afraid to leave the house. Or answer the phone.

THIS IS NOT AGORAPHOBIA.

I don't think.

And so, today's To-Do list was modest, but terrifying in its own right:

• Figure out how to work my hard-won Metro pass
  
• Go to La Fourmi (my cafe from before) for dirt-cheap lunch and possible tranny sightings
• Get groceries at cute little supermarket across from La Fourmi
• Call burlesque dancer
• Maybe – if very, very brave – look at first draft of book
  

It's just before 6 p.m. and I've accomplished all but the last. I also read two graphic sort-of-novels, journalled, Skyped x 3, drew a fun Stuff I Want To Do In My Life thing (pictured), questioned the water quality in Paris, remembered that article which chided: "Why does everyone ask about the drinking water in Paris?!" and took a nap.

I also totally screwed up at the grocery store, but I will have to save that for another post because it's a quarter past cocktail hour.