simple pleasures

I like taking my tea, mildly sweetened, on the front steps overlooking the fields at sunset after a summer thunderstorm.

I like waking up without an alarm clock, and rolling around under crisp white linen sheets for a good hour or so before actually getting up. Hey, I've got nothing to do today but smile.

I like giving dogs belly rubs and watching them snort with pleasure as they roll around in the grass.

I like reading good books in the sunshine for hours, floppy hat, and praying for freckles.

I love a good tomato.

i love you

So I was flipping through my phone earlier today, as I usually do when I'm bored and/or feel awkward, and I stumbled upon the templates for text messages. There are, of course, the "I'm going to be late" and "In a meeting" templates, but the last one on the list particularly floored me.

"I Love You." That's a template? Really? If you love someone you should be able to (and should want to) take the time to type that out...I mean, what is it, eight buttons to press if you're using T9? Is that too much effort if you love someone?

Who knows. Are we really too busy to stop and tell someone how we feel?

birthday

It's my twentieth birthday
& it's raining in Paris

Oh well. It's nice somewhere =]


EDIT: The sun came out!!!

highlights

This weekend...

Thursday
night:

The Pont des Arts is where Parisians, young and old (but mostly young), go on warm spring and summer nights. This bridge, for pedestrians only, turns into one big party. Everyone is picnicking, with lots and lots of wine, bien sûr, and there is music and dancing! Joie de vivre, f'sho.

Friday:

I went on a photo date by myself, and got some decent pictures for my Paris Je T'aime (60 Things I'll Miss About Paris) album. At one point I was waiting to cross the street when I was surrounded by a group of high school boys from a tour group, and was serenaded with a very lively rendition of "Manamana." I almost peed my pants laughing. I then waited in line for about an hour behind a PDA-heavy couple to see the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Grand Palais. I thought I was going to die. Friday night: Casablanca reunion, complete with couscous, thé à la menthe, and watching the movie! Here's lookin' at you, kid.

Saturday:

Although we picked a terrible day for our excursion (train maintenance resulting in ridiculous detours), Giverny was beautiful. If I was talented artistically I would definitely never want to leave Monet's home and just paintpaintpaint the days away. So many flowers! So many smells! So many colors!

Sunday:

Got up bright and early and ventured slightly outside the borders of Paris to the marché aux puces, or the flea market. Lots of antiques and knick-knacks and kooky things, like doll heads and broken clocks and crazy hats. After that I walked around Montmartre for a little bit, en profitant du soleil, and found the mur d'amour, or the love wall: a mosaic-type thing in which "I Love You" is written in every single language imaginable. I was standing there for a while, trying to find the Polish equivalent (epic fail), and had to take the picture of about five sickeningly in-love couples. And then I came home and got a hothothot baguette from the boulangerie and all was right with the world again.

I can't believe I'm leaving in four days!!

look how they shine for you

"I know nothing with any certainty,
but the sight of stars makes me dream."
-Vincent Van Gogh

One thing (among many) that Paris can lord over New York City is that one can actually see stars at night here. In New York I was constantly wishing on unseen stars. Here I can be inspired. Funny that I can feel both really tiny and really big when I look up at the stars. The star-studded sky is a vast expanse, but it is part of the universe in which I exist.

I could look at the night sky for hours and hours. I've been talking a lot about my bucket list lately, and it is my goal to learn the constellations and the stories embedded in them. I would also like to name a star. But would I ever be able to find it?

I'm excited to drink some wine on the Pont des Arts tonight and look up at the stars and dream. It's going to be lovely.

in the crowd

I often wonder how many photographs I've been caught in, simply for being in the right place at the right time; or the wrong place, depending on how you look at it. I mean, think about it: I go to school in two cities that are heavily photographed, both by tourists and by artists. I'm bound to have walked into someone's shot, right?

And then I wonder if anyone ever notices me in their pictures and wonders about me, or creates a little history for me in his or her head. I mean, that's what I do. But perhaps I just have an overactive imagination...

simplicity.

i yearn for it.