My date with a dead man.

I stood him up yesterday. I said bye to mom, came back to the condo to clean, laundry, listen to music, apartment hunt, etc. Somehow the time got away from me, and the thought of traipsing back up north for "my date with a dead man" was too taxing, so I decided to go out for my first night on the town. Alone. This is always an interesting experience, no matter how many times I do it in a new city. This particular trip, out to rue Oberkampf, was suggested to me by Lonely Planet. Now why the hell I listened to LP and didn't use it as kindling is beyond me, but it led me astray. Its lofty promises were reduced to drunk youths (I mean, like youths), a few drunk bums, and drunk tourists. And sober Paige. A bad combination. Apparently french men have adopted a new curious habit. I don't remember this happening to me when I lived south, but three men veered into my path to intentionally run into me. If the purpose of this social experiment is to pick up women, it doesn't work. Even if I HAD been interested, they are walking the other direction. Bizarre. It soon began to rain, and after a beer at a packed bar, I called it a night.
Today was my day though. I took the metro way the hell up and gone north of the city to the Marches aux puces de st-ouen, a massive antiques flea market. (This metro trip's soundtrack has been brought to me by- Paul Simon, Arcade Fire, Fela Kuti.) I didn't bring my camera. These kind of world famous flea markets are plastered with "Pas de Photos, SVP", so I'll walk you through what I saw. Old bearded men sharing their lunches with old bearded dogs. The distinctive pop of a wine bottle draws my attention to a family of (at least) five generations having an extravagant lunch. Theres nothing quite like a store filled with classic 50 year old Dior and Yves Saint Laurent to cause me to tug self-consciously at my 50 cent yard sale finds. One dress had more fabric than all the clothes I was wearing at the time- and remember, Paris in winter. I saw a store selling only spectacular ballroom type chandeliers, one six feet in diameter, the ground of the floor completely bare. I bought a small paper cone of chesnuts, charred slightly over a fire housed in an old metal trashcan. A lot of the stalls on the outskirts of the flea market were run by men playing french rap, which I cannot for the life of me take seriously (thats not really fair though, I don't take most rap seriously, but seeing two men trying their best to look tough give each other kisses kinda deflates the image a bit). I saw a lot of crap we sell at the auction house, whose technical names and descriptions I fear have been engraved permanently into my brain. I fell across a wicked maze of life and larger than life sized metal garden statues of various animals. I took notes in my little black notebook as I walked, and one woman, lubricated by her daily ration of french wine, asked me if I was a reporter. Before I could answer, she began to tell me about what she thought of the market, offering me her name, you know, so I could print if for my paper. I played along, scribbling squiggles in my book. She seemed very pleased with herself. I saw old women chatting, their cigarettes bouncing along with their lips.
At two, I made it to la Chope de Puces, where, on the weekends, play live gypsy jazz. The place is a Django Reinhardt mecca, and arriving late, I held up the bar with my rouge with the rest of the grizzly head-nodding, foot-tapping men. It felt like I had returned to the age of the beatniks, but no one was snapping. Its Django's birthday on Monday, so I enjoyed his memory while watching a weathered musician bend over his guitar. Pretty nice way to spend my day before classes start tommorow.