OK, my first friday night in Paris. Scanning through the Lylo(Les Yeux, Les Oreilles) I noticed that there was some drum and bass in the cave below Zorba. And when I say cave, that’s exactly what I mean. All over the city are venues like this. It could be a basement or a storage room, but instead the owners have fashioned them into caverns of sound and mayhem! The Cave.

Now, since I’ve been here, I’ve been trying to be careful about not falling into old habits. I found a (bunch of) healthy organicky type store and stocked up on veggies, quinoa, buckwheat pasta, non caffeinated tea. I even bought a water filter, more to save me buying water every couple of days than anything else, but the benefits don’t stop there, obviously, what with drinking water being very good for you or something.  So all the elements are there for little miss clean living to thrive her month in the city of (de)light.

And it started so innocuously. I was running late to meet my fantastic friend Remi and didn’t have time to make myself  a salad, so  I deked into a patissierie and grabbed a pain au chocolat. And it was very good. Very, very good. And then I had a beer. Just casual, no excess here. And then there was that criossant aux amandes (I am powerless to resist your flaky textured almondy goodness sometimes with chocolate thrown in and icing sugar dashed liberally across your delectable self) and those madelines that were certainly not resembling anything good for me and and and…okay. So here I am, friday night, thinking I’ll go out, have a few drinks, dance a little, where’s the harm? No harm anywhere I could see, short of the 2 shots of bourbon(I totally thought I only ordered one) the shots of tequila(I met a mexican girl who insisted we drink to our new friendship) and the inhibitionlessness after 5 months of being very very tempered. Granted, choosing between vice and thumb is really no contest and it was never a chore to be moderate, but it’s been a long while since I had at’er. And darlings, I had at’er like a champ. I made numberous friends! There was the masseuse who wants to travel canada with me or at least give me a massage before I leave Paris, the aforementioned Mexican woman who lives in Sweden and invited me to sleep on her floor anytime, a drum and bass dj who wore 2 pairs of sunglasses all night and was very patient with my drunken attempts to speak french, some girls in the bathroom, which as everyone knows is the place where lasting friendships are made..just ask soo-z if you don’t believe me…a man who either asked me for or offered me cocaine, a young cutie I latched onto in an alley on the way home to shake the drunken dude who was following me and a man who gave me a lollipop. Yes I realize there are no names attached to these friends of mine. Our bond goes beyond labels. And yes I have no idea what those labels are.

There was a period of what the french call je ne sais quoi between 5 and 630 am where, according to the evidence found the next afternoon when I woke up, I wandered to Republique, bought a grec and frites(sooooo bad it’s almost good) and took the metro home, which was apparently running again. I k now this because of the time stamp on the pictures of republique I don’t remember taking, the almost empty styrofoam container on the salon floor and a metro ticket in a place in my purse that wouldn’t have been there unless I was not in my “normal” sense of things.

The upside of all this mayhem is that I felt sooooo utterly wretched all day today that it’s highly unlikely I’ll do it again. I’ll never say never because I am prone to bouts of completely irrational behaviour at times, with great gusto and excitement, but I think it will be a long time. A long long long time.

And the rest of the day, once I had showered, eaten something, was fabulous!

I met the righteous radiance that is Toune for the a la menthe(you have to imagine the accent agieu(i don’t know how to spell agieu) over the e in the, otherwise instead of being french for tea, it’s just the.) which I love regardless of the sugar content. I will never give up the a la menthe. It is served in ornate little gilt edged glasses with mint leaves and pinons(pine nuts) floating in it. I love it so. It’s decadence that feels somewhat healthy. A happy medium, as far as I am concerned.And a fantastic visit, a good precursor to some surely sweet bontemps ahead for us ladies.

And after I had some dinner(salad and tuna. Definitely jumpin on the salad bandwagon) I went and met up with the lusciousness that is Aidje. There are relatively few words that would describe accurately how I feel about Aidje. He has saved me more times than he can imagine, and I can’t imagine a better human to have as a friend. Plus he’s totally hot and it’s never hard to hang with someone infinitely easy on the eyes.  Actually, same kinda goes with Toune…and Remi…hmm, I seem to have exemplary taste in friends….

Meeting Aidje at a couscous resto that has music I met some lovely ladies there, from Italy and Finland. And one of them, Sylvana takes tango lessons and will call me so I can go too!! Oh yes, the shoe store is called Avalon where I got my tango shoes. It’s on Main Street. I don’t know that they need to be resoled, I think they just need that clasp thing replaced. And then ship them! Overnight! COD! I could just buy another pair, but I love those ones so. And Janice and Liz(likely a little more liz than janice, nothing against janice, it’s just that when it comes to organizational aspects, my money’s on Liz everytime ) were so sweet to send them before I left Canada, even if I didn’t take them then. Tango in Paris!! Oh lala! But that’s not all!
So we leave this wonderful little resto/bar after hearing some friends play bossanova, a singer and guitarist..Bellisimo! Oh! And there was a guitarist of the second band that played, I immediately fell in love with him. His hair, his shoulders, the cleft in his chin..perfect..a l’amour. Paris dans printemps… Aidje says I will need to find a french lover while I am here. Who am I to disagree with wisdom? I dragged myself away and we wandered a short distance away to L’hermitage. (sorry I didn’t get any pics, but it’s nothing like the hotel, unless the hotel frequently has 12 piece latin bands playing in the lobby. 2 female clarinettes, 2 men on trombones, an amazing percussionist, bongo player, guitarist, drummer, bass player, a woman with a baritone sax, 2 trumpet players, one of whom plays in quinte-et-sens with Aidje. And the house was rockin all night. We danced and when they stopped we screamed for more and they gave it and we danced and when it was over I was so satisfied. And then the guitarist was tango dancing with a girl while people chatted and drank. Everywhere is tango. It’s meant to be.

The other thing that is meant to be is me going to sleep right now as it’s late (3am!) and I have yoga tomorrow. I found a studio literally two blocks away that has an unlimited monthly deal. Which is excellent in light of me preferring to be healthy and balanced. I hope there’s no patisserie between here and there.But like Midi said at the detox, it’s about choices. But one could argue that with pain au chocolat, there’s no choice. It’s mandatory…

However, it is nice for me to see that I can balance going out and having a good time (and 2 glasses of wine, no tequila) being out late and not being insane.  And now to balance the awake with the sleep. Tout a l’heure darlings. Dormir bien.