2 burners and a microwave

Like that song that goes "2 turntables and a microphone," 2 burners and a microwave describes my new kitchen. How musical it will be remains to be seen. We also have no kitchen sink so it's back to doing dishes in the bathroom, as it was for my first 2 years in France. Oh, Paris, how I long for luxuries like kitchen sinks and mailboxes. I've never had a proper mailbox here.

I have almost sans exageration ZERO euros in the old checking account and breathlessly await my salaries for the month of May as well as the end of the interminable moving process which I've been casually indulging in for the past 2 weeks.

The university is ridiculous and makes no sense anymore. Everyone is just going through the motions and none of the professors do what they say they do and the students are all dropping out. I can't get excited about going there EVER and wish the semester were already over. I still prefer and enjoy my other job, but teaching 7 hours straight and consuming countless cups of coffee at all hours of the day are both taking their toll... I'm mainly just a compulsive coffee drinker there because it's free. Which is a big advantage considering my current penniless state.

To be more positive, the new apartment is on the canal and should be lovely. I will get paid-- it should be any minute now-- and it'll be a bigger salary than usual since I had a lot of hours in my second job this month and should be paid twice as much as usual. The semester is almost over at Disney Land U, so even though it's ridiculous, it can't continue its ridiculousness for that much longer. I also cancelled my afternoon classes with the twins tomorrow, so I'll be free after 11 am and should finally AT LAST finish moving. If I have the time, also hoping to run along the canal for the first time ever. Which makes you ask yourself who really needs a kitchen sink or a mailbox anyway.

Moving on

Moving, like breaking up or like meeting someone new, is hard to do. Especially when it's just to move again in 3 months. So I'm trying to go through my stuff, decide what's a necessity and what isn't, give some of it away and then pack some of it up, only to be unpacked months later if and when I manage to find a permanent and legal Paris studio.

I've always seen moving apartments as a metaphor for life-- at one point in my life when I was a recent college grad, I spent a whole year moving every 3 months to avoid a real apartment lease that would Tie Me Down. I didn't like living in Washington, DC enough to make anything permanent there. A decade later, I find Paris an easier city to commit to.

I'm quick to over-interpret life's banal details and make literal things symbolic, but deciding what you want to take with you and what you don't, what weighs you down and what doesn't, what baggage you want to leave behind, etc., well, it all sounds a bit like a U2 song.

As Clive Owen says in the film Croupier-- the best movie ever made about casino sleaze, writing and roulette-- when he sells his rolex for maybe $30, hang on tightly, let go lightly.

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