A middle aged French woman just erupted in hysterics in the Air France terminal at JFK. Crying out, flailing, weeping. She does not seem crazy. Something awful happened in her world. I can't tell what, but her reaction was on the heels of the airline woman announcing over the loud speaker that the plane would begin boarding fifteen minutes late. Exactly at midnight.
My anxiety about going to Paris alone has dissolved. I am lying in my temporary loft bed in my temporary small plaster and wood beam flat atop five flights of stairs which spiral, steepen, and narrow with the climb. Down a pitch black hall with low ceilings and only the most subtle disconcerting signs of life, a toilet in a closet, the light sometimes on, sometimes off. Behind a green door, bolted and locked, up a glorified ladder to here. My temporary nest. I'm 6000 miles from my own slightly less temporary (in the scheme of things) bed, not afraid or lonely, any more or less then usual. Paris alone, is LA alone, is NY alone. No wolves at the door. No one at the door, and I sleep soundly.
For this travel diary I think I'm gonna go with dark, poetic and painful. Just know that I'm actually having an amazing time and eating cheesy potatoes whenever possible. I mean, I could write about how I had the best duck confit of my life tonight and got driven in a car along the banks of the Seine by a native Parisian, who when I asked, "is this legal? To, you know, be driving on what is clearly a walking path," just kind of shrugged and continued pointing out landmarks while letting the car drift backwards in neutral regardless of the river, or the drunken teens, couples, and night prowlers.
Big props to me today for ordering breakfast and speaking to everyone in the cafe only in French. I can order and ask for the check like a pro now. I think people keep thinking I'm French because I blend well with the natives. I wear their traditional garb, boots (not sneakers, EVER) tight dark pants or jeans, a huge scarf and a leather jacket. When I have my camera I tend to get addressed in English, but without it I'm flying by the seat of my pantalons. Let's see what else, went to Notre Dame today. It was all clouds and wind when I started out, belly full of cheese (Croque Monsieur at Favorite), but the sun started to come out after my tour around the Cathedral. I took many more pictures on my real camera, but remembered to take a few iPhone ones for Le Instagram. I am going to a show tonight that is part of the Paris Burlesque Festival. A friend is performing and was kind enough to put me on the list. And even though burlesque is to me now what cheese will be in two weeks, I can't stay away. The chance to meet people is high and I am not so good at that in general. I realize this post isn't dark poetic, or sardonic. Sorry. I will try harder later. Oh, fun fact? When my bat-shit crazy ex drunk texts me from LA it's like 10am Paris time. I'm sending him the bill for the message fees. Au revior!
Fuck a duck. Is this jet lag or drunk lag? Lets call it both. I'm still up. Can't sleep tonight for some reason. I noticed this knot in one of the wooden beams above my little loft bed. It's a one inch hole that seems to go straight through the wood. OF COURSE, I am now convinced there is a camera in there. There must be. If this were a movie it would be a series of shots getting closer and closer to the hole, and closer and closer on my face as the horror set in. I mean, it's fucking aiming right at the bed. I was considering masturbating tonight for good measure just so the pervs who ARE CLEARLY WATCHING ME can get their money's worth. I'll take a picture of it and show you guys when it gets light. The hole. In the wall! Not that... Anyway, I woke up feeling like pond scum on Saturday morning around 11am. It's not that didn't deserve it, I was drinking like a teenager with nothing in my stomach but cheese. My friend and guide, let's call him Monsieur F___, was also running a bit behind but finally arrived at my place on the Rue du Roi de Sicile. I was hungover and wanted a fucking Stabucks. I told Monsieur F___ this and he agreed, doing his very best to suppress his disgust at having to stand in line with me as I made excuses. "Sorry, but if I don't get my Starcrack, you won't want to be around me today." As it turns out, calling attention to your American-ness and laughing at it, does not help in situations like this. They still think you're a classless bell end. There was this whole cluster fuck regarding the definition of simple syrup, it's boring, anyway... Unsweetened coffee in hand Monsieur F___ and I headed off to browse the kinky sex shops of La Marais. As you may have guessed, Monsieur F___ is a man of certain tastes and I always appreciate a good pervert when I meet one. I was introduced to him through a friend, Mistress A____, who assured me that being a native Parisian, Monsieur F___ would be a great resource. (He was the one who drove us down by the Seine on my first night, a wild ride on a pedestrian path.) He's a bit older, very sweet, very kind, and has a love of cats and photography, namely Helmut Newton, which resulted in that picture of me posing in the same spot as his model on a side street. (Instagram: adriabomb) We visited two places, the first being my favorite by far. Phylea, amazing corsetry and fetish wear, and a second spot just up the block that felt a little more Hollywood Blvd then Paris. The Phylea stuff was amazing. As was its owner, the most fabulous, punk rock, old gay dude I have ever met. Finger tattoos and gold and black silk patterned suit, just fucking cool as shit and an old friend of M. F___, so he was nice to me. The dresses were over a thousand dollars. All of them. Most way over. I suppose I could have tried a few on, but I could feel the alcohol seeping out of my pores and decide to skip the embarrassment of not being able to fit into couture samples. There was this one dress that I was sure would fit me (still dreaming about it), but instead I took pictures and drank my bitter coffee like a champ. Monsieur F____ and I had lunch and got our tickets for the fetish party -- OH YEAH, so like, a couple of weeks before I came to Paris M.F. and I were writing, and planning and shit and he saw this picture of me on the internet in, you know, a German Police Officers hat corset, and black gloves, smoking a cigarette on a chain spiderweb. As you do, no bigs. It was then that he asked if I would care to join him at said fetish party, to which I replied, "why not?" I mean, again, I am as sick of fetish parties as I will be of cheese by the end of this holiday, but I figured it would be a good way to connect with an international and generally likeminded crowd, AND it was on a boat! A boat, you ask? Yes. A boat. On the Seine River. A stationary boat, mind you, but still... Look, most of my Facebook friends are having babies, but none of them, NONE, are going to fetish parties on boats. This is clearly a good idea. To be continued...
PS--There is a charming detail to this first part of the story I forgot to mention. When Monsieur F____ was checking me out on the Interwebs, as you do (?) he found a rando picture of myself and my dear friend Heather Domhoff. It was captioned, "me and my wifey". For the past 10 or so years Heather and I have been referring to one another as "wife" or "wifey" a term of endearment that was born out of a crazy trip to New Orleans. Monsieur F____ naturally assumed after seeing this, and "many cat pictures" that I was a lesbian and kindly compiled a list of girl bars, all written out on a sheet of paper that he handed to me in the street. He had actually gone out of his way to enquire with a lesbian coworker who pointed out the hottest spots. I told him I wasn't gay, not exactly, but that part didn't seem to sink in. I still have the list. Maybe I'll check some of them out. You would love that post wouldn't you?
I'm way over due for a maudlin update, but I've been too busy adventuring. This weekend was one long crazy party, I am looking forward to a week of culture and solitude. Friday night was the Paris Burlesque Festival and although I am as sick of burlesque as I will be of cheese come the 30th, I figured it would be a good way to connect with an international and generally likeminded crowd. The invite was courtesy of German bombshell Xarah Von Den Vielenregen and her consort Herr Dokter who I had only just met while performing in Jamaica. While waiting in the bar I was lucky enough to meet and get to know the lovely Stephanie May a vixen photographer and performer from Nashville who is friendly with Kisa von Teasa another darling performer I met in the caribbean. We caught the late show and I will admit to being somewhat entertained (wink). Especially fantastic were the Murakami Babydolls, a troupe from Japan who do choreographed dance numbers in pastel wigs. And the French Burlesque girls sure can shake it. So very Hot Club of France. Not boring. I was having fun in spite of myself and I missed the last Metro accidentally on purpose with adventure in my heart and decided I would make friends. You know, that rely on the kindness of strangers, Joie de vivre horse shit. This kind of experiment, fueled by alcohol, is never a good idea for me. I am terrible at small talk and never come off right when meeting new people for some reason. I ended up leaving the club annoyed (why do the French keep asking me how old I am? Fuck you, that's how old I am). I started down the street having no idea where I was, with no wi-fi, in the middle of the night in a short dress and heels. About two blocks from the club I started to realize how fucked I was. Paris, unlike NY, isn't big on taxis. I walked another block or so when a few French rastafarians started to shout at me. I feigned a smile, maybe, if things went south, I could explain how much I love Jamaica and they wouldn't like, rob me or whatever. I picked up the pace, stumbled on a cobblestone and almost fell. I steadied myself and looked down the street towards the light of the next intersection where more shady characters were lurking, a group of drunk dudes. Not cool. Okay. I would go back to the club, I decided. I would wait it out in a corner somewhere till the Metro started running again, and accept that this fucking terrible end to a fine night was all my fault and that I was an idiot for not taking the train, and that I'm FAR to old to for this shit, and that the best laid plans, and so on and so fourth and downward fucking spiral. But then, by some kind of magic, a cab pulled up right in front of me. The door opened and a couple got out. I could hardly believe my luck. I got in and gave my address to the driver who got me home for around ten euros. Tragedy avoided, lesson learned--okay fine, tragedy avoided. And here's the part where I go off the rails on a crazy train. Earlier, that day, I had lit a candle in Notre Dame for the soul of my beloved Nonnie who died in 2009. I know she sent that damn cab. I'm going to bed now. Maybe if you leave nice encouraging comments, I will post about the fetish party I went to the following night on a boat. What has been seen can not be unseen... xoxo
So, a fetish party on a boat, could be, theoretically, a cool and exciting thing. For one, the boat really ought to be moving. Maybe off shore somewhere on the brink of international waters. And, said boat should be large enough to capacitate its guests as well as having proper ventilation. I'm thinking a yacht, multi-levels, various rooms, various themes, black tie till midnight when all hell breaks loose... This was not that party. Imagine, if you will, a narrow barge with an upper deck. These types of boats regularly line the Seine, some of them are tricked out residences, some restaurants, but they're fairly small, max capacity being maybe 50 to 75 people, if that. I could smell trouble as soon as we arrived, and by trouble I mean pee. The walkway down to the river reeked of hobo urine, and not stale hobo urine like NY, this was like, a lot of fresh hobo urine right under our feet. Monsieur F___ laughed at me for being so grossed out. Apparently it smells like this often. I imagined for a second that it was 300 years earlier... the whole city must have smelled this way all the time. (Note to self* Scratch and Sniff history books.) Anyway, as we approached the water the smell of pee lifted away with the night breeze. The boat, the Henti, was docked right past The Pont des Arts, the bridge with all the little love locks on it. This is a major tourist spot, day and night. And while the event organizers were smart enough to put up dividers blocking the antics on the boat from the riverside, there was little they could do to stop tourists on the bridge from leering down on the S.S. Freakshow. I was feeling apprehensive from the beginning. We boarded the boat and entered the fray. There was a coat check and white plastic tarps set up as dividers so people could change. In France many people chose to change into their outfits after they arrive so as not to offend on the street. I wore my latex dress with a coat over it, but Monsieur F___ had to change into his NYPD uniform there. As I waited, I watched as people showed up and the one thing I realized, is that kids, there is no such thing as an amazing fetish party on a yacht. There just isn't. And if there is, please, someone clue me in because no matter how far I've roamed all these things are exactly the fucking same. Same cast of characters, almost to the tee, as NY, LA, Prague, Berlin... okay maybe not Berlin, but you get the idea. Middle-aged guy in a shitty french maid outfit? Check! Perfectly quaffed bitchy pro-Dommes? Check! Oddly attractive young D/s couple who seem too hipster to be there at all? Check! Super Dom dude flogging away at a parade of hot women whilst simultaneously whacking passers by with his whips? Check! Guy offering to massage my feet? Completely hooded mystery gimp? Dude with blow-up tits? Check, check, and... check. So not much new there, but what was bat-shit crazy (a term I taught Monsieur F___), was that it was all happening in a space the size of my living room. The hull of the boat was 30ft wide and maybe 150ft long, fucking TINY. And there was no ventilation--at all. I pictured myself on a ship 300 years ago it must have smelled exactly like this! Oh, and I think they had a smoke machine, um, really? It was FOGGY in there from the sheer mass of people, not to mention the natural humidity that comes from being half submerged. The place was a sauna of nasty and they had a SMOKE MACHINE. The music was the usual fare, dark, electronic, loud as shit, and people were dancing hard. I kept imagining the next days headline, "300 Perverts Drowned in Kinky River Disaster!" After about ten minutes, Monsieur F___ and I decided to flee and take our chances with the gawking tourists on the upper deck, at least there was air. We stayed for another little while then pulled an Irish exit, another new term for Monsieur F___. We wrapped up the night at Au pied de Cochon, where I had the best onion soup in the world and tried a pigs foot stuffed with foie gras as Monsieur F___ regaled me with stories of the cities many districts. Oh, and lots of wine. Sublime. Next installment, the Paris Flea, a hail storm and my hunt for real French bread. Tomorrow I see the Eiffel Tower. Bon Nuit!
Rain on my skylight. I'm so tired. I must have walked 20 miles today, at least. Versailles was a dream. Tomorrow's agenda consists of NOTHING except maybe evening plans. And a possible Metro ride to Saint Germain for cafe writing and inspiration. I'll post a proper update then!
Just woke from a terrible nightmare. I had killed a bunch of people some who, in the dream, were family. Then, remorseless, I sat down and watched a movie.
Hit a wall today. Weariness has set in. I'm longing for flowing communication and the company of friends and family--not to mention salad, normal size showers, and coffee that doesn't cost $8. Also, I'm PMS-ing my tits off and would really like to kill somebody.
A scooter ride around Paris with Francois, lunch at the Cafe du Flore--for all you Midnight in Paris fans--a walk in Le Jardin de Loxembourg, and wine by the Bastille. All in all a perfect day. Out of slump, I love Paris again! Nothing kills the homesick blues like splitting lanes on the back of an Italian bike while holding on to a Frenchman for dear life, Paris a blur all around, shimmering in the mid-day sun.
Eating at Chartier tonight, Monsieur F___ told me that Lou Reed died. Rest in peace you wild, wild heart.
Au Revoir, Paris... Merci
