August 22

Yesterday I turned 30. Was it an epiphanal first day of the rest of my life? Or am I entering some nightmarish alternate reality of "30 and The Single Woman?" The jury is still out, leaning away from nightmarish alternate reality, but it's true that the initial euphoria did wear off a little in the days that followed. However, at least the actual day was amazingly pleasant.

Some of the highlights of yesterday were suddenly being struck by every sign that had 30 in it—lots of 30 km speed limit signs in my neighborhood that I never noticed until yesterday. Another highlight was a French karaoke singer busking on the metro who serenaded me with Dock of the Bay (it’s about San Francisco) and sounded very little like Otis Redding—instead of a bluesman growl he had a French accent and exaggeratedly perfect annunciation: "SittinG on zee duck of zee baie..." I felt like that was a good metaphor for my recent trip to CA and seeing that my friends were happy but also that we’d changed a lot in different ways, which wasn’t bad, it was just that my old California doesn’t exist anymore. I haven't heard the American version of the Dock of the SF bay recently, but that’s ok, since my inspiration doesn’t lie there anymore. This is the cultural hybrid French version of California on the Paris metro and it’s my version of it now.

I feel good about 30, oddly enough, possibly because I’ve spent the whole rest of my life having existential crises. That has to count for something and give you a pass for what is arguably the most stereotypically traumatic age for a single woman.

To celebrate yesterday evening, I went out for drinks and dinner with some of my favorite people in the entire world, a lovely international group of ex-pats who struggle to make their lives here like I do, and I thought, there’s nowhere I’d rather be and no one I’d rather be with.

We had drinks and went out for Indian food near La Chapelle and then had 1 more glass of wine in Montmartre. It was really the perfect way to celebrate and I know after my trip to the states that I don’t want to live anywhere else; I’m glad Paris is my home. I texted my friends the day after to thank them for a perfect birthday evening and they texted back that it yes, it HAD been perfect, hadn’t it? This is why I love them all. They brought me thoughtful quirky presents (they absolutely didn’t have to) that were all things I realized I wanted without even knowing it until then-- from books about the metro to a French translation of a Dutch novel set in California to green eye shadow and they even smuggled a birthday muffin into the Indian restaurant and lit a candle on top.

I brought them each a rose the color of a sunset just to say that I’m so glad we’re all friends under the soleil-challenged gray Parisian skies. If you can’t be sentimental on your 30th birthday, when can you be?

Viva Las Vegas

In the Vegas airport you can do the following:

-Gamble your entire life away as the airport is littered with slot machines and seems more like a casino where airplanes occasionally land.

-Work out. They have a gym there. Here's what their website says about it:

"Fitness Center: The first of its kind located inside a major U.S. airport, 24 Hour Fitness offers shower and locker room facilities, steam room and dry sauna, a cardiovascular workout area complete with big screen TVs, and a full compliment of exercise equipment. For more information, call 702/261-3971. Location: Terminal 1, Level 2, above north Baggage Claim. Hours: 24 hours, Monday - Thursday 12 a.m. - 11 p.m., Friday 6 a.m. - 9 a.m., Saturday & Sunday."

-The usual shopping, eating, checking your email.

-Shoot a machine gun. In all fairness, this is advertised in the airport but you have to take a taxi to get there. Even gun-happy America doesn't have shooting ranges in the airport. At least not while we are waging the so-called war on terrorism, anyway.

Read My Shirt

The main advantage to wearing t-shirts with words printed on them in France is that no one attempts to read them aloud, since their English isn't good enough and strangers rarely ever talk to you. No such luck in the US. Everyone here seems to read my t-shirt aloud within 3 seconds of seeing it. Maybe it's the American relational strike-up-a-conversation-about-any-old-thing mentality or simply the perfect justification for staring at a woman's upper body...

Only men seem to be the t-shirt readers and they always do it in a slow, evenly-measured, puzzled voice with obvious quotation marks. They also always just start reading, no "what does your shirt say?" or introductory framing question. Implicit in their reading is the need for an explanation or Funny Story Behind This Shirt. I should also point out that while never a fashionplate, most of my real clothes are in France and I mainly have my high school wardrobe available to me at the moment, which includes its fair share of shirts featuring complete English sentences. Here are some recent t-shirt reading experiences.

Stranger, shouting from across the sidewalk in San Francisco: "'The reason the world loves
me?'"
T-shirt actually says "The man who sold the world" and even those who read it correctly often try to strike up a conversation about Nirvana only to meet with polite yet withering scorn, as this is in fact a brilliant David Bowie song that Nirvana once covered.

Stranger, selling me fruit at the farmer's market in Delaware: "'Happy dreams opium den?' Do you go there often, ha ha?"
Shirt continues, explaining that this obviously fictional place is "where good fiends like to meet." I mean, really, who would advertise an actual crack den?

Stranger, drug store cashier who looks about 16, ringing up nail polish: "'Tears for fears?' Is that a movie?"