Miss Joy’s Neighborhood

Snail

He and his family are on the grass of my tiny garden. Because 'tis rainy season they prefer to have their rainy holiday here.

Show us what you hope to like in five years.

Mashed Potatoes

It's not that I'm "looking forward" to like it, but I might like it by then. I didn't like milk and egg yolks since I was a kid until recently, so I might like mashed potatoes someday :)

October 08, 2008 23:42 GMT +1

I have been in Paris for four days. Although I am in the most visited city in the world, I am not happy, and though I was not happy in Tokyo, I miss my life there; totally free, doing whatever I wanted, no responsibilities besides my own body. I didn’t pay for anything, I made more money than I have ever made in my life, and I was having a lot of fun. I met so many different kinds of people and I had people who didn’t really know me calling me everyday to see what’s up.

Here, I sit and read Plato and Proust while ignoring the city’s famous beauty. I look past every French man who stares at me. I haven’t the fire I once had in Tokyo. I feel like a candle ceasing to glow, dying slowly in its own wax, devoured by its own hot, spilling blood, the wax, the interior of what I am, inside my perfumed, decorated, and glittering outer-shell, I am just a bookish nerd who gets excited at the Republic’s dismissal of tragic and comedic poetry, the concept mimesis, and the idea that we artists are in fact out of control, crazy, insane, possessed by the muses or gods— that our expressions are in fact divine and not our own.

Time is the force that will destroy me. It’s only a matter of time, time, that blazing inextinguishable fire that lights our lifespan threads, that short wick which is quickly disappearing, but which without its existence, our lives would not commence, our purposes never served, our aromas never unleashed, our fragrances never enjoyed by any others, until it all ends.

So I will persevere, because I think there’s a lot in this unpredictable candle. The Parisian layer is just beginning.

00:06

October 11, 2008 01:26 GMT +1

It’s a warm day for the eleventh of October. She broke a sweat on her way home from the library, walking with a warm overcoat and a bit of impediment, wearing her still new heels.

Reading uninteresting assignments stomach down on her bed; she’s been in Paris less than a week. It’s Friday night and she’s looking forward to visiting the Champs-Elysees.

Dinner made her sluggish; she has a cup of tea and does some bookkeeping; she decides to get dressed and go out. It’s half past ten.

She gets out of the train at Charles de Gaulle Etoile, the beginning of the Champs-Elysees. The road is not as lively as last time she visited during July; tourist season is year-long in the city of lights, but summers are always the busiest. She walks briskly, trying to appear as unimpressed as she is. Tokyo’s streets are much more appealing to her now.

There are still beggars and cheap souvenir vendors.  There are more etrangers than French and all sorts of languages can be heard. Groups of friends and couples fill the sidewalk, walking from one shop to the other, or they can be seen sitting at one of the restaurants having drinks en terrasse.

She sits down on a bench to smoke a cigarette and people-watch. It only takes a minute before a man sits down beside her and starts speaking Arabic.

“You’re very pretty, you’re Lebanese?”
“No, I’m Iraqi,” she replies in Arabic, confirming her race.
“Oh, Iraq.”
“But I’m American.”
“You live in America?”
“No, I was born there.”
“Oh, you were born there.”
“Yes.”
“I’m Egyptian, life in France is good though.”
“I prefer Japan.” She doesn’t care.
“But the Japanese are so racist,” he tells her. It makes her smile because this man should be aware that the French are just as racist, if not more racist than the Japanese, and especially towards his own kind. “How long have you been here?” he continues.
“I’m studying here,” she avoids the question.
“Oh what are you studying?”
“French and literature.”
“That’s great, so you can speak Arabic, English and French.”
“Japanese too.”
“Heh. You lived in Japan then? How was it?”
 “Very nice; I prefer Tokyo over Paris. There’s nothing to do here,” she tells him, motioning to the street. “There are mostly Arab tourists.”
“Yeah there are a lot of Gulf guys around here, ‘searching,’” he educates her, giving her a wide-eyed look.
“I know.”
“But you know, you could do quite well in Egypt.”
“I’ve never been there.” She doesn’t catch on quickly.
“You know what I mean?” he asks.

She stares blankly and doesn’t reply.

“Sorry,” he says. “View me like a brother then.”

She continues to ignore him. He suddenly gets up and walks away. She finishes her cigarette then continues to walk down the street. She sees the Egyptian man, who appears to have repositioned himself in a previous spot of his, standing on the sidewalk.

She walks past him. After a bit, she smokes another cigarette; she passes a few night clubs, queues reaching the street. The bouncers look at her, expecting her to step in line, but she walks away.

Continuing to roam the streets, she once again is approached, this time by a youngish, pale, French blonde. He asks her for a light. What he is smoking obviously contains something other than tobacco, so she gives him the lighter. He tells her that she’s pretty and he was watching her smoke her cigarette earlier.

She asks him what he’s smoking, and he says it’s just a bit of shit.

It’s a good thing she made friends with that French girl in Japan because she learned all the slang before going to France. He’s smoking hash. He asks her if she wants to go have a smoke for a few minutes. She obliges, fully aware of his desires; they’re all the same anyway. She doesn’t care though—she hasn’t gotten high in weeks.

They walk a bit farther then sit down in a small park, not far from the road, there are people loitering in the area surrounding them. He asks for a cigarette, breaks it and sticks it behind his ear. He takes a bit of hash, breaks it apart, and then rolls it along with tobacco.

He asks for the lighter again and starts smoking. They’ve been having small talk the entire time, his name is Nicolas. She’s patient with him; she’s so happy to get high that neither his unattractiveness nor cheesy conversation bother her. He’s asking her about where she lives, what she wants to do tonight, if he can accompany her. She tells him that she’s going to take the metro home.

02:41

October 11, 2008 12:05

He smokes about half of the cigarette then hands it to her. At last, something to take her out of her normal senses, to remove her from her realities. She smokes as deeply as possible, and then tells him that she’s going to catch the train. He, of course, follows her, saying he needs to take the train home too.

They walk back up the Champs-Elysees. She doesn’t mind walking with him because it means no one new will start talking to her. She is ignoring him, trying to enjoy her high, and he doesn’t leave her side. He spots a friend on the street. The two boys are suddenly smiling and the friend is wide-eyed in disbelief. She lets him have a minute of pride as it appears that she's "with" him.

She finally finds a metro stop and goes into it. He continues walking, then stops when he realises she’s disappeared. He spots her going underground, and quickly catches up to her. He doesn’t buy a ticket and rushes through the gates at the same time as her. He’s gotten in.

She stands in close proximity to other men waiting for the train, for security. He continues to ask her things, “At least you should give me a cigarette.”

She gives it to him thinking he will leave her alone. That doesn’t happen; he asks for a light for his cigarette. It's prohibited to smoke on the metro platforms; then she remembers—“In France, they say the woman who lights your cigarette will sleep with you.” If only Victoire was there with her at that moment.

She doesn’t give him the lighter, and stops paying attention to him. 13:56

October 12, 2008 11:54
When they train arrives, she seats herself close to as many people as possible. He wedges himself in too, continuing to question her. She realises now what sort of problem she has on her hands; this man isn’t going to give up so quickly.

She gets off at Charles de Gaulle Etoile again, and he follows her. She tries to hasten her steps; she needs to change lines. In such a rush and in her state of mind, she gets on the wrong train, heading to the outskirts of town. He’s still following her. She’s sitting beside a French couple. He can’t talk to her because of the other people on the train, but he is staring at her with such fierce eyes; she can see his reflection in the windows. The train passes two stops before she realises she’s on the wrong line. He knew she was heading the wrong direction, and smiles when she gets up to get out of the train.

She’s afraid that the trains will stop running soon, unaware of the time. He starts taunting her, following her to the next platform.

“Are you sure of what you’re doing?”
“…”
“Do you know the right way?”
“…”

She’s taken these trains before, but in her state, she is suddenly unsure of her every move. She checks the metro map a thousand times and stares at the lines for longer than it normally would take to figure out a route, until she is sure.

The platform is empty besides the two of them. She starts imagining horrors. Late at night, she could be thrown in front of the train by him, he could do anything, and the train doesn’t arrive for another 4 minutes. In those four minutes, he could do so much.

“Hey, did I make you angry? I was nothing but nice to you! Don’t be angry. I always respect girls.”
“Laisse moi.”

He keeps asking her for a "little" light for his cigarette, almost begging. She is ignoring him. She’s afraid that he’s getting more angry.

“I know exactly what your game is,” he tells her, “but, again, are you sure of what you’re doing?”
“Laisse moi.” She takes out her metro map again and pretends to read it.

The train finally comes and she sits beside a man. He’s still staring at her,  still pursuing her. She still needs to make one more transfer. She gets out at Villiers. This time, running up the escalator to catch the next train, he starts speeding up too, chasing her.

At the platform, she stands awkwardly close to two girls her age. There’s no way he can bother her if she’s beside a couple French girls, she thinks. But he continues to hover beside her, asking her for a light. She continues to ignore him.

When the train comes, she rushes in to sit next to people. This time he almost misses it, but jumps on at the last moment. He sits a bit farther away from her because of this. She gets off at Pereire, her station, at last. But now she’s afraid he’s going to follow her home. She rushes up the stairs and out of the underground. He follows her out. In a state of panic, she turns to walk left, the incorrect direction. He walks forward with her, to get ahead of her, but it’s the wrong direction so she quickly turns around and heads right. He continues for a bit in the wrong direction.

Running quickly to the intersection, she continually checks behind her.

The bistros and restaurants are still open, and customers still having late night chats. At the crosswalk, she looks back and he’s returned, looking around for her. The light turns green and she speeds across the street. She runs down the road, she’s not far from home. She sees him from a distance, but never stops walking.

Two young men are walking in her direction. She rushes up to them, asking for help. One of them stops to listen to her, but his friend keeps walking.

“Aide moi, il y a un—”
“Speak English,” the concerned one says.
“Oh thank god, there’s a man, and he’s following me, he’s been following me through the metro and I’m afraid.”
“Where, where!?” he asks, looking around.
“I don’t know; he’s near the intersection. Can you please walk with me for a minute to my house, I live really close by here, it’s only two minutes. Please!”

The concerned one looks to his friend and tells him to come over, but the friend is not staying to listen.

“It’s a prostitute,” says the friend, smiling, and motions him to continue walking. .
12:38

If you were stranded on an island, what five books would you bring?
submitted by CJP

The Holy Bible

God

Traveler's Diary: A Planner Journal and Scrapbook (Diary)

The Purpose Driven Life

Extreme Survival: Simple Rules for Staying Alive

Simple Survival: A Family Outdoors Guide

More so than usual anyways.

Have you ever had a dream that was just about normal everyday stuff. But it was something that you thought couldn't have been about you. Then MONTHS later the thing you dreamt about actually happened.

I think that happened to me.

Basically my dream was that I was playing Guitar Hero at my place, my sister and her kid were over. The kid was loving the rock blaring, and my sister is not much of a rock gal, she likes her hip hop and rnb. So I was teasing her that when her kid gets to her teens she'll be rocker like her uncle instead. Nothing bizarre. No pink giraffes or having my own arm trying to stab me.

And tonight thats exactly what happened. Me teasing my sister about her kid being a rock chick. After I said it I thought weirdly deja vu. Then I remembered the dream. Which is even more bizarre.

But the dream was months ago, before we knew it was going to be a girl.  But it was so long ago I'm not sure if I even actually dreamt it or just thought I did. But why in the world would I think I dreamt about something so mundane as that?

So I'm either crazy or I can predict the future... Occam's razor would definitely point us to the former. And since I'm not much for the paranormal, I mean I want to believe, but lacking any sort of evidence, other than the mess thats in my head which I wouldn't trust even if it swore on a bible, I tend to be a skeptic about these things.

So guys I'm going crazy... If I start babbling about the end of the world... ignore me and call the guys in the white coats.

Show us your friends.

Vess (& her family), Joerg, & Ali are the only friends i have pictures of that i talk to outside of vox.   phone, myspace, email, etc.