I can see every obstacle in my way

My, it was an awful trip getting here; I'm boycotting France for awhile, I think, although Carmen kindly offered the loan of her apartment during her next holiday and we'll probably accept, being fond of lovely, tastefully furnished Parisian lofts and handsome neighborhoods with more patisseries than yoga - erm - what do you call a yoga gym? A depot? I don't know - than yoga depots.

So many things have been so trying that last night, after finally getting to bed in my brother's vermin-infested Donlands basement (which is no reflection on his family's housekeeping as Toronto is full of vermin - I hope Charlie and Minou like eating bugs, Sugarplum), despite my extreme exhaustion I couldn't sleep with frustration and tears of unwarranted self pity until I took fifteen minutes to take stock of each of the problems I was currently facing and think up three or four solutions for each. Then I felt good. I've been under a mischievous star which hasn't interfered with the overall good qualities of my life but has been making almost every small thing that could go wrong go wrong - one of those situations where the temptation is to stamp your feet but the only solution is taking control.

In any case, it's lovely to be with my family now - everybody but Elvis is here - and while I'm not in the thralls of ecstatic return because frankly, Toronto is a lot uglier than Brussels, it was great this morning to speed around on Luke Duke's big manly bike on the wide roads where I wasn't flipping over tram tracks or atmospherically quaint cobblestones, and then getting epilated by those nice Indochinese ladies up the street from my old apartment and buying enough Burt's Bees cosmetics to see me through until an understanding friend or relative visits Brussels.

Every Stygian stench of the rainbow

Just a quick note to say I'm in Paris. Getting off Thalys at that post-apocalyptic stinkhole, the Gare de Nord, made me hate the French for mocking the intelligence of Belgians, who at least have public transportation that doesn't smell like incontinent corpses.

Stormed to the filthy metro station and had an internal debate over which underground line here is sketchiest. I think it's probably the magenta line, though the navy blue line and the provençal orange line are also both unsettling in terms of violence. The forest green line is fine, but there are too many shitty buskers on it due to the Montmartre stops and security being intimidated by the Marx Dormoy crowd. And the space age Tyrian purple line goes through Madeleine, which smells like stewed shit. It ties with the magenta line for nasal offensiveness.

When it comes to the RER, the lapus lazuli line wins the stench, violence and sketch factor hands down. That's magnifique because as it goes to the aeroports and a couple of the train stations, it's how most unsuspecting tourists are introduced to the city. The seemingly inoffensive beige line, however, is the only public tranport line here where I've seen purse snatchers or muggers in action. Besides the magenta line, of course, which only sort of counts as the victim was a bellowing American who was silly enough to keep his cash in his sock, where it made a big cash-shaped lump.

Also, the magenta line has the benefit of being the one that takes me to Carmen's house in the south, where I'm very happy to be, not having seen her for a year, how ridiculous. This is where I realized I was obliged to move back to Europe after I'd finished my thesis. Because of people like her and the human beauty of this continent - even though bits of its public transport smell like a sweaty giant's ass crack - this is where I realize now that that's so fucking awesome I could weep.

Seems like folks turn into things that they'd never want

Starting to get a really put-upon feeling about the events of the next week or so. I wonder when I started not being able to handle stress all that well. I blame the thesis, or just Paris in general. Just robbed me of my ability to let things slide. Or it could be that things matter more these days. I don't know. Anyways, I'm going to Paris tomorrow night, and Canada the next morning, and then running around like a chicken that's just lost its head. Thank god I love the people involved. As I get older I realize more and more how fucking lazy I am and have less and less of a problem with it.

Old colleagues came to visit from shithole school and brought box of books I'd had shipped to it. Finally get to read City of Glass. Also got the shoes for Sugar's wedding, just in the nick of time. And now to work.