La Coquette

Overheard at the Tour de France

To explain why I have no pictures for you, I was, in fact, on my way to the English bookstore for my monthly magazine glutfest.  On my way to read about Lindsay’s luscious new locks when I run into the Tour de France!  I don't know what the crowd was like on the Champs Elysées, but the rue de Rivoli was a delightful little gang, so I stayed!  And hey, I totally got to see Lance Armstrong!  (The story for the grand kids is that I waited all day in the rain so I could be front row, okay?)  Overheard:

On the approach to rue de Rivoli:
“What are all these people?”
“They’re probably filming The Da Vinci Code.”

As the second batch of cyclists passes,  a little American girl to her Lacrosse coach-esque mother:
“We’re clapping for them so they wont feel bad for losing?”

Yes, little Violet, but Mommy says that still doesn’t make losing okay. 

Also, in fact, pleased to make your acquaintance

Have I ever mentioned that every month or so, a jet setting couple jets off and leaves me in charge of their blind dog?  They do. 

Meet Bianca, miniature greyhound.  She eats sweet potatoes and hamburger and loves to walk all over you when you are trying to sleep.  You have to encourage her to go #1  (rubbing her back and saying “goodgirlgopotty”), but she’ll #2 in the litterbox on her own accord.  You’ll know she has #2’ed because she’ll run out and furiously claw the carpet, and folks, it’s amazing what happens next.  She’s all proud and scratchity-scratch and I’m all, Oh!  Clap! Clap!, and then my lips open and a strange, false voice, the same voice that I’ve heard some of you use when speaking to the wee bald humans, that voice sings, “Good GIIIRL!”  I haven’t always been the “Good GIIIIRL!” type, it just came upon me one day, in early 2004.  I guess it’s official, my heart is not a lump of granite. 

The squeaky turkey leg is Bianca’s favorite toy and she knows when I am going to leave her because she hears me putting on makeup.  This is when she gets all affectionate and curious, sidling up as if to say, “Did I ever mention that you’re pretty and smell nice?  What a fetching blouse!  My, green is your color...DON’T LEAVE ME!”   

Generally, she’s a goddess, but she is always running into things.  She’s blind you know.

Her owners live just off the lovely pedestrian rue Lévis by métro Villiers in the 17th.  It’s nice there.  Last time, I bought a kilo of cherries at the street market and ate them until I had a massive stomachache.  I also looked at a lot of depot ventes.  I tried on a YSL jacket, white with black bow pattern.  There was a matching dress, 50 euro-ish, but both were a tish snug.  My gym has a branch in that neighborhood with funny egg-timer lights in the bathroom; it’s like peeing to the 60 Minutes clock. 

I run at the Parc Monceau on weekends and marvel at the teenage girls playing cards on the lawn (wrap your brains around THAT, mallrats!) and also, the roses, which are as big as heads of cabbage, sweartogod.  Once, I saw a group of school-children walking in a line, each clutching a scribbled drawing in his (or her) chubby fist.  With their bright cardigans and leather French-kid shoes, I just wanted to string their rotund bodies from a tree and admire their shiny faces.  Preferably with some hot cocoa.  It reminded me of the Madeline books, seeing those school-children.  Parc Monceau is her park you know, the park of Madeline and Proust (in no special order of importance). 

Okay, let me tell you all the negative stuff about this job now. 

*crickets*

Pleased to meetcha

I enjoyed being anonymous. 

Fun times:
*A reader delurks with a lengthy email decoding my identity in eight "clues."  Colonel Mustard in the kitchen, were his exact words.  Funny and flattering.

*Responding to emails, I sign my real name, and people write back only to say, “Whoa!” as if my name is the answer to a very important question they forgot they’d even asked.  This happens a lot. 

*A few internet buddies track down my picture on flickr after a Paris blog meet.  “Gotcha,” reads the subject line in my inbox the next morning.  I feel like I should have wires curled in my ear and a microphone in my pen.   Or at least a Where’s Waldo shirt. 

Good fun, being all mysterious-like.  And oh, do I milk it. 

I show pictures of my boobs, legs, feet, and feet.  I am being cute; you are cute in return.  Let’s see a full pic, eh?  That’s when I start feeling like a carny running a peep show.  I tell you I’m a short little fat man.

Still, it's totally fun. 

Then the San Diego Reader invites me to write as their July blogger, a piece from Paris each week this month, and I am thrilled.  “Of course you can stay anonymous," they tell me.  But I begin thinking, I'm not bound to corporate contract, I don’t gossip about my old job or current jobs...Why am I anonymous again?  And also, my name could be in print!

*tap tap tap*

Is this thing on?  Where’d everybody..?  Oh, right, you’ve gone there already.  Fair enough. 

But hey, one last thing!  Bonjour!  Howdy everyone!

Francosexual

Just a few things straight men said to me at the Eiffel Tower mixed company picnic (there were bloggers, there were non-bloggers!) Sunday night:

"Flower shirts are sort of my signature.  I try to find one in every city I visit.  Paul Smith does really nice ones."

"Everyone’s wearing white now.  I was wearing all white yesterday and thought, this has to change.  White has become so mainstream."

"Gucci?  That’s the name of my cat."

And here I was in Paris, feeling very Vox clamantis in deserto.  Sheesh.  Thanks New York Times!

P.S.  I am making fun of the NYtimes, you see, for being such masters of the obvious trend. 
P.P.S.  While at the same time, part of me feels like, "Boy!  It is so hard to tell these days!  Especially if you live in France!"

In case you were wondering, they're DEFINITELY straight.  And my, can they dress! 

Confucious say, Woman who move to France must carry toilet paper in bag

I just used the ladies at a Place Maubert café where there was no toilet paper.  Normally, you must feed the door a coin to get in, but a nice woman let me in for free as she was leaving.  When I thanked her saying, “You saved me 50 centimes” she waved her arm as if to say, "It's nothing."  Then she hopped back into the bathroom, her eyes twinkling like Santa, and placed a finger on a button above the toilet.  With a loud whir, the protective plastic covering the seat began rotating.  I thanked her for demonstrating.  She waved her hands again, "It's nothing," and left. 

That's when I saw there was no toilet paper.  She hadn't mentioned that.  Maybe she thought she could compensate with the toilet seat tutorial.

When I left the stall, I saw that there was no soap.  Or paper towels.  I bet you’re going to think I threw my hands up and said, “That’s Paris for you,” and you would be right.  As I dripped them dry.  After a soapless rinsing.  Under cold water. 

Coup de pub

I spent the good part of my adolescence backstage.  The theater made my heart hum.  Heck, my best friend is an actress.  So, when an acquaintance mentioned his girlfriend’s musical, a project that she co-created and stars in, I said not only will I be there, but I will tell the Internet about it.  Mostly because--Parisians, I’m talking to you--I think the project sounds awesome and worthy of your time.  Voila, ma pub:

Where will I be this Friday night?  Why I’ll be at "Coups de Foudre," thanks for asking.  It's a musical that tells its story using popular french songs.  The artists covered?  They range from Kurt Weil to Gainsbourg to Lio to Les Rita Mitsouko to...Lorie.  As you can see, the show, it has a sense of humor. 

So come on down, y’all.  Hum along, and tap your feet.   If you feel so inclined, send me an email and we can arrange a pre/post show coucou.  Or not.  Wont bother me one bit either way.  Hi, I’m Coquette and I was a child actor--I’m totally accustomed to rejection.  See the press release.

Coups de Foudre
le Vendredi 20 mai a 21h
au Theatre Victor Hugo a Bagneux
TP 15 euros/ TR 10 euros
01.40.39.92.91

Occasionally, she reads this blog, so the answer would be NO*

Hypothetically speaking, if you were dog-sitting at the home of someone chic, a fashion editor for example, and she had things of supreme chicness in her closet--things that exist naturally in Barneys and Frank & Fils, but appear only rarely in actual home wardrobes--if, hypothetically speaking, she had told you to "make yourself at home," would that include trying on her Christian Louboutin and Pierre Hardy shoes?

*And by "no," I mean, only because she wears a 37 and I'm a 39. 

Sweet spring, I give in

I just saw a kiss transpire at metro Odeon, where the girl actually lifted her foot in the air, old Hollywood style.  And I didn't even gag.

Fall is the king of all seasons.  Don't try to argue with me on this one, because I've got all sorts of dogma to back that story up.  (Bouquets of sharpened pencils and, hello?  I'm a redhead.  My colors are so totally "autumn.")

Paris has been rainy these last few weeks, and occasionally downright cold, but the spaces in between?  Seductive.  Beguiling.  Splendid.

Hi, I'm Coquette, and I'm sort of having a spring moment.

Crocus outside La Sorbonne, rue des Ecoles.

Latin Quarter, across from Notre Dame. 

Tulips, Jardin du Luxembourg.

Yeah, baby

I’ve been interviewed by a smelly Scottish letch for Dublin’s premier blogging journal, Blathmac Blather. 

Might I suggest visiting Bluepoppy for the transcript?

SHAZAM! Hey, unto you

Yippee!  We’ve been nominated for Best Personal Web Site in what the New York Times calls “The Oscars of the Internet.”  And what Vanity Fair calls--we’re just dying to hear what the context was--“Better than the Oscars.” 

It's called the Webby Awards.  We can count on you to vote for People's Voice, right?  Right?  Thank you.   

P.S.  Webby Academy people, (that includes you Mr. David Bowie), I don’t mean to sound blithe--this means a lot.  And if I win, I'm going to buy a fancy new pair of pj’s to go with that bouncy trophy.

UPDATE:
When I found out about this nomination, I immediately offered to withdraw, being that I hadn't paid a cent in entry fees.  (Trust me, if I had 195 bucks in the slush fund, it would sooo be going towards shoes.)  Background:  All Bloggie nominees could enter the blog category for free, but here I've been nominated for a different category entirely.  I sent an email stating this information (minus the "shoe slush fund" part).  Their response?  “Dude, chill out!” 

Their exact words were, “the judges wanted to see [your site] in ‘Personal,’ so that’s where it went.”  No, DDJ, I did not have a sugar sponsor, although that’s not such a bad idea.  Bowie, you interested?