Rimbaud and The Flowers of Evil

Friday I slept in, packed up some things, and was off.  My apartment was ice cold so I made sure to layer, but when I got outside the sun was shining and I was sweating.  I got off the metro at Chatelet-Les Halles and made my way over the bridge to Notre Dame.  Over the Seine and I was in the Latin Quarter, took a turn east and popped out on Rue Dante (a literal inferno that particular afternoon) and made my way into the building where my classes were to be held.  Up to the third floor, a little nervous, with class about to start (an ever increasing habit of mine) I reached for the handle on the door and pulled.  It came off in my hands.  I looked around to see if anyone had seen me (this wasn't a good start) and then proceeded to try and screw it back on.  After a couple of turns I thought I'd gotten it, but after giving it a tug there I was with a broken handle and a stripped screw sticking out of this impenetrable door.  Was this a trick?  Perhaps the first of many tests meant to weed out the less intelligent students?  Probably.  Either way I wasn't having it, so I slide the handle back on and pulled at an angle this time and got the door to prop open wide enough for me to slip my hand in get it the rest of the way.  In the hallway (which was rather small) were a whole group of students standing around holding those little white cards they'd distributed the other day marking where our class was to be held and who our teacher would be.  I found an empty slice of wall and leaned against it.  Empty probably because it was right next to the bathroom door where people kept squeezing in and out of with regularity.  An American came in through the door I had just entered holding a door handle in her hand and looking a quite worried.  She went up to the classroom door and peaked in to see it was full of students from the previous class and she panicked, checking her card to be sure this was the right room, and then trying to get into the bathroom only to realize that wasn't the door she'd come from and maybe it was best if she stood where she was and wait like the rest of us.  After a few minutes had passed and the students of the previous class filled out we were ushered in by a very cheerful 38-year-old French woman.  I found a seat near the back.
The rest of class went smoothly, speaking only in French, we were stressed with the importance of etre and avoir (those two verbs I'd spent three hours on a couple of nights ago) and made introductions - Je m'appelle John.  Je suis americain.  J'ai vight ans.  And that's all I got.  Even in France I wasn't the only John in the room, but I was one of only a handful of Americans.  We had people from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, Norway, Korea, Japan, Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Guatemala, and England of course.  From what I could tell we all spoke some English and no French, and then a mix of everything else.  Most people were in their late twenties, some in their thirties, a couple of eighteen and nineteen year olds and then some lady in her forties who looked more like she was in her fifties either through the heavy intake of cigarettes or sunlight or both.  Class ran for two hours from noon until two and then we were out.
It was nice, easy going, we were told to buy some books from Gilbert Joseph on Saint Michel for next week and that was it.  Simple.  I can do this.  I walked around the block and took off my jacket and sweatshirt and rolled up my sleeves and then checked out the bookstore.  It wasn't hard to find the language section as it was overrun with foreigners buying up all the textbooks in sight.  The one I was looking for was labeled for my level "Niveau Debutant".  I never thought I would be considered a debutant ever in my life, and I mean ever.  But I guess that's what I get for not learning more French.  On the way down (after elbowing my way to get a copy of my textbooks, which were incredibly cheap) I decided to stop on the literature floor.
Online I'd been reading and painfully translating some of Rimbaud's work (A season in hell) and I thought I'd get myself a copy in French.  Here's something I don't get about French bookstores: Why are all the bindings white?  The entire floor for literature was shelved in white bound books, I literally felt the life draining from me when I got off the escalator.  And it wasn't just that bookstore, this is something that I've noticed of bookstores around the city as well.  The covers aren't white but the bindings are, and when you line them all up like that it's not only unpleasant, it's unsettling.  If the French ever find that their literacy rate has started to plummet I think one cause could be attributed to the hospital-like atmosphere produced by the bindings of their books all shining their bald monk heads from the shelves like boring little death rays.  This also suggests that there is some kind of law or standard set where all books of literature must have this white binding, which to me is even more puzzling, because who wants a bookshelf with all white books?  Racists do, but not many other people, not me.
I kept my head down and wandered over to the poesy and shivered as I glanced around for names I recognized.  The complete works of Rimbaud (not very big, he died young and didn't think much of his work) and Les fleurs du mal by Baudelaire.  Okay, all done, time to leave.  The line was immense - or so it appeared, but as it turns out everyone had formed a line around one register which was causing the other registers (nearly empty) to be blocked off.  Don't worry, the French didn't stand for this very long and they started pushing each other and things got figured out.
I was feeling a bit hungry so I wandered around and found a nice off the beaten path Creperie and stopped in.  I ordered some baked "thing" (I don't know, they said it was the house special) with pork and chicken and potatoes and a thick layer of cheese overtop and an egg.  A glass of Chardonnay and I was feeling pretty full.  But, being that I was at my first of what will be many Creperies, I decided to eat a Nutella crepe for desert to top off that already way-too-heavy lunch, and then hemorrhage internally and collapse beneath the table where the EMTs would find me in a food coma, smiling, and muttering incoherently about cheese (not brie this time) and Nutella.
Back on my feet I waddled off to the train station at Chatelet and went home.  Lying on my bed I decided to (moving only my arms) reach for my bag and pull out that little yellow card I was given about a week ago telling me when I was supposed to go in for my phonetics exam.  Oh, look at that.  My test was scheduled for that very morning.  And look at that.  The school's offices closed ten minutes ago and wouldn't open until Monday.  Bravo, me!  Just when you thought you were doing so well you managed to screw up.  A recent memory popped into my head of my teacher holding some one's yellow card up for the class and saying something about it being tres tres important.
I tried looking on the bright side, which was that I wouldn't have to eat for at least another six hours and that phonetics classes don't start until the 21st so I had a week to get this figured out.  I still didn't and don't completely understand how these whole lectures are supposed to work, but I know they have something to do with the phonetics exam I just missed.  All I really know is I haven't signed up for any lectures yet, and I don't know when they start or how they work or where they're held.  Basically I know very little about it, and everyone I've posed the question to hasn't given a straight answer either.  "Just take the phonetics test," one lady said.  "Sure no problem, or I'll maybe just sleep right through it" (you see at the time of that conversation I hadn't decided whether I was going to be a good student or just my regular old self - guess I went with the latter).

Okay, so today's Saturday...what did I do today?  Slept till one o'clock. Check.  Ate another chicken curry sandwich from that place around the corner that knows my order so well the guy has stopped bothering to ask me what I want (and I've only been here for two weeks).  Check.  Watched an episode of Fringe.  Check.  Written half a page.  Check.  Showered!  Check....
Guess that's it really.  But if it makes anyone feel better (I know it does wonders for my self esteem) I was planning on going to the Musee d'Orsay today.  I really was.  Even thought of stopping by the Eiffel Tower just cause.  And both are open tomorrow, so screw you Thomas Jefferson, I don't need your fancy phrases and sage-like wisdom.  I'll just do it tomorrow.  And if not tomorrow than maybe Monday or Tuesday or if it's raining or something there's nothing wrong with Wednesday or Thursday that Friday can't fix or Saturday for that matter.  Besides I have at least a year and ten months before the world ends, so really there's time.

Okie Dokie (like the cheese powdered popcorn).  That's all I got.

-John