Monday 22 April 2013

Yesterday was a Sunday, which is why there was no post. (That's a joke. Sorry)

Yesterday was a fantastic day. After teaching, I went into Paris to further explore the bookstores I'd found on Saturday. I had a notebook, I had a pen, I had pages of research: I was ready to make a list of 100 books that I wanted in my mediatheque.

Almost all the shops were shut. It was a Sunday. Obviously. Sometimes I forget that to the French, the capitalist spirit is anathema. This city-wide closure was probably not aided by the fact that there was yet another march against gay marriage. Say what you like about the ignorant and homophobic, but you must admit that they are tenacious and single-minded. If that were harnessed to a desire for equality, think how quickly we could all find ourselves in a better world.

Instead it's not. It's harnessed towards bigotry. Which kind of sucks.

In any case, Shakespeare and Company was open, and I snagged a copy of the sonnets. While he is an incredible author, a poet and a playwright, his sonnets make it so wonderfully clear that he was a man who struggled with love and rejection and, above all, mortality. It's so easy to give him the status of a god, but realising he was human is better and worse - he was human, and since I am human too, I am capable of such astonishing feats.

Mind you, I used to feel the same about Richard Feynman, and it turns out he was light years beyond most everyone in terms of intellect. So perhaps it's not entirely true.

The rest of the day passed without incident; in glorious sunshine I strolled about the city and for a while read and trailed a finger in the waters of the Seine. I got drawn into a conversation with some Americans and, after a couple of drinks, blearily realised that it was terribly late and, gathering myself, staggered to the RER station and made it somehow home. I didn't manage to write anything last night. I barely even managed to get up this morning, but get up I did, and the headache is just now starting to recede.

Tonight my class has been cancelled, as has my private student, and so I can finally get a haircut! It's not as interesting as I'd like this blog to be, but sometimes even such a life as mine has dips of dull minutiae, like haircuts. A bowl of soup and a long sleep should have me feeling far better for tomorrow morning, but for now, light is agonising, noise is painful, and I've still got the shakes - so that's all for today.

Thank you to those who suggested titles to me; they're brilliant ideas, every one, and have been added to the list.

GEGS, by the way, is "EGGS" but with the letters mixed up - or scrambled. The answer is "scrambled eggs."

Isn't it a beauty?

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