distilled

Ah the smells of Paris. To be fair, I wasn't smelling so hot when I arrived: 2 days of travel, sleeping awkwardly in the plane, not really eating but nibbling. But there's no competition with Paris.

While I may not love the smell of the metro, it's pretty unique and always brings back happy memories. That said, however, the offensively pungent stench of whatever the "clochards" have left behind is something I could do without. It goes so far beyond a quizzically tangy urine smell: it's almost as if the clochards are embarking on some secretive distillation of bodily essences. It's like the walls themselves have absorbed years and years of vagrant piss and are now giving it back. It's like karma: for all the years we have ignored the homeless, now we have to suffer the consequences.

But it's not just the homeless. Lots of people do it. I learned that public drinking is not technically legal but is tolerated in certain areas. One of those places must be on the westernmost point of Ile de la cité. There, I saw at least a dozen couples romantically picnicing on the banks of the Seine, a couple groups, and, of course, some drunks. (the problem
in France isn't so much public drinking so much as public alcoholism.) All those festivities were on the south side of the island, being in the sun, but as soon as I turned the corner, in the shade, I found several fresh pungent puddles.

This tolerance is instilled in the French very young. As I was typing this, sitting in a public park called "Square René Legall", I saw several nannies, all of African descent, take their toddlers over to the grass to piss. "Tu dois faire peepee?"

And then there's body odor, which I don't yet understand. All I know is that my own body seems to be more vulgar than usual. Maybe it's and infectious disease? Maybe it's the fromage "puant"? Maybe it's part of my continuing effort to fit in.

And there's also the pollution which is pretty much how I rememeber it but so much worse than Chicago. And smoking. Which is no longer legal in cafes and bars (and has caused a decline in frequentation) but is still all over: on the teraces of cafes, the apartments of friends, at open-air picnics. Neither is good for this pestering cough that I've been fighting for a couple days now.