9. Scarves, beer, and other essentials

Dudes and dudettes. The most awesome thing just happened. Let me tell you about it. But first, let's talk about laundry and the weather.

It's getting cold in France. It's not freezing, there's no rain or snow or sleet. It's not even very windy. But it's cold, and this is- according to all signs, tales, and portents- merely a harbinger of the winter to come.

When we first got here it was hot. Only around 80 degrees (Farenheit, of course; I still haven't gotten the mental switch to understanding what, for instance, 20 degrees Celsius is supposed to feel like), but the humidity, the lack of air conditioning (except in grocery stores which is more the refrigerated section leaking out) and the overall citiness of it made it feel like more.

But even so, people wore jackets. They wore a sweater or a scarf wrapped around their neck. It's like a racial trait or geographical adaptation; Nordic people have pale skin and hair, African folks have dark skin and hair, French people have a tail that sprouts from their neck and only appears to be made of patterned wool or silk. It's that common.

I couldn't believe it. I hadn't brought any shorts since everyone who offered me advice said that no one wore them. They were mostly right; one notable exception is that a lot of girls wear shorts (denim cutoffs, hemmed, short shorts) over black stockings. But I was sweltering my jeans. I had been told no one wore jeans in France, either (Lies! by the way), but I'd be gorrammed if I was going to go without jeans for a year. I finally broke down and paid way too much for a pair of shorts and felt much better.

But the Parisians (I'll say that instead of the French) seem immune to heat. And now they seem largely immune to cold. With perhaps the addition of a light jacket, people are dressed for 50-degree weather much the same as they were for 80-degree weather. And it's dark by 5:30, which makes it seem much colder.

You know, scratch that. Or rather, amend that. In the summer the coats and sweaters stood out because of their craziness, and while there were a lot of them, they probably weren't the majority (scarves were and are everywhere, though). Similarly, the number of people ignoring the cold are fewer than it probably seemed to me initially. People are wearing coats. My peacoat blends in perfectly; I would say maybe one in five people has something you could call a peacoat even if it's red or cut small and tight.

And their neck-tails have molted and are now in their winter plumage. I see scarves of a length and width to make Tom Baker jealous. The girls still wear their shorts-and-stockings, though.

In the cafes, les terrasses (the tiny outside tables where you can sit and watch people stream by) aren't as heavily populated; more people want to sit inside than out in the cold. Lots of cafes have heat lamps set up over their terrasses, though, and if they're good enough and you can sit right beneath one it's downright cozy.

The foot traffic on the streets doesn't seem any less, and you can still just sit and watch people go by and not get bored. This people-watching is what changed my mind about the Parisians and their disdain for falling mercury.

The rule of dress seems to be layers, a good rule for any climate. For instance, there're a couple girls sitting next to me in this cafe. One is wearing a little silk camisole and a skimpy hoodie over that. She'd still be freezing except that she's sitting beneath a heat lamp. She has a fuzzy-lined sheepskin coat that she's taken off and is sitting on. She's wearing jeans, almost as rampant here as they are in the US, and ankle-length go-go boots covered in metal studs. Her friend also has on jeans, but she hasn't taken her coat off. Or her scarf.  

Now let's talk about laundry, and I swear I'll get around to that awesome thing eventually.

Periodically laundry needs doing. There's a laundromat about a ten-minute walk from Le Petit Bateau. About every week and  a half or so we need to wash our shirts and pants and towels and unmentionables. I have to taken to undertaking this task. Megan's got stuff to do, and it's good for me to get out of Le Petit Bateau or le bibliotheque and immerse myself in some biomass.

I go down and get our hots and colds going and then walk up about a half block to this cafe called Borghese. They have a long happy hour where I can get a pint of beer for cheap (Parisially speaking) and write and watch people go by. Being close to several schools it also attracts a lot of high school and (I think) college kids, and it's fun to try to figure out what they're talking about by their tone. I don't think I'm ever very successful. I've seen a trio of students who are American, and they come in and talk abut typical college stuff: their classes and how intelligent they are, their professors and how dumb/inadequate/annoying they are, who is dating who and how that's a great/terrible idea, etcetera etcetera. So I assume the French students are saying similar things, but I don't know. I'm separated by language and age from them. Once I asked the American kids for one of the napkins on their table. They had been sitting right next to me, going on and on about things, secure in the knowledge of their secret language code. When I leaned over and said, “Excuse me; could I use one of your napkins?” It startled them but they took it in stride. But they also didn't say, “Oh! An American! What are you doing in France?” and all that. Because American or not, I was an old guy. And with my current unfettered coiffure's excess I imagine I might look a little sketchy, as well. I haven't had a haircut in a while because I can't tell a barber what I'd want done, and I left my clippers for the beard in the US because the outlets here would make them blow up. So:

This is my head.

This is my head on France.

This cafe is where I honed my “asking for something” French. “Je pourrais avoir” and “Je voudrais avoir” (“Could I have” and “I would like to have”, respectively) are the phrases I use in France more than anything else by interstellar distances. Every morning I go to this bakery across the street from us and it's “Je voudrais avoir deux croissants et une baguette s'il vous plait” all over the place. And I got comfortable saying that here at Cafe Borghese. “Je voudrais une Amstel cinquante” gets me my pint/ half liter.

After coming for a while, one of the waiters asked me something one day. I threw out my other old standby, “Je suis desolee mais je ne parle pas beaucoup francais” (I'm sorry but I don't speak much French). He asked again, gesturing at my notebook, and I figured out he was asking me if I was a writer. I said yes. Heh.

I always get the same thing (that Amstel cinquante), and if I come later in the evening I get snacks. There's another cafe nearby, that Megan and I stop at sometimes on the way home from a day out in the city to get a vin chaud (mulled wine), and they serve peanuts and olives as a little snack. At Cafe Borghese it's cheese pizza cut up into little squares. I think they start serving them around six; at least, I don't get them when I come early in the afternoon, and I do when I come later.

Anyway, today I came in while the laundry was laundering and sat down in the partially enclosed terrasse, getting a table right under one of the heat lamps. It's cold, dearies. Won't get over 45 degrees today, they say. I put down my empty laundry bags, took off my coat, arrayed my notebook and cellphone and sat down to wait for one of the waiters to notice me.

After only about a minute one of the guys came out and put my beer on my table. I must have looked surprised; I hadn't ordered yet. He smiled and said, “Voila.”

I don't really know these guys. I can't converse with them the way the kids here do (by kids I mean teenagers and young twenties, not the clientele at La Dinette). I feel kind of invisible here in France in general. This is of course my own doing; I don't/can't really talk to anyone unless I want to buy something from them (which is fairly seldom due to our cash-strapped state).

But I've been noticed here! My halting attempts to speak French- in contrast to the anglais-speaking tourists and American exchange students- notwithstanding, all I've done here is sit and write and have a beer. But they noticed that and for whatever reason liked me enough to save me the trouble of ordering. I imagine that waiter heading out to see if there are any new customers, seeing me, and turning back around to the bar and drawing my beer, knowing that's what I want. It feels – perhaps unreasonably- nice to be recognized and presumably liked.

It only goes so far, of course. After he put down my beer he put down the little tray that holds the receipt telling how much you owe. I haven't earned one on the house yet.

Yet.