Welcome to Paris: A Post Largely About Urinating

I am sitting at my hotel desk in beautiful Paris, The City of Lights, gazing longingly out the window at the clothesline of my fat French neighbor across the way whose underpants (and the subsequent holes in them) are bigger than London, bigger than France. I am thankfully not drunk any longer, which is good because last night was the type of night you only want to repeat when you've moved to Montmartre with your trust fund to retire from life and become an actor/tour guide.

A not-so-quick note: Before I arrived at the hotel, I used the bathroom at Gare du Nord (the train station), which you have to pay 1 Euro to use for "sitting" and only 60 cents if you are "not sitting." The best part about this (other than the fact that the bathrooms are sparkling clean and it gives people jobs) is that if you are "not sitting" then you are using the "pissoir."

Can we just stop this whole line of thought right now and dwell on the fact that a pisser in French is called a PISSOIR? I am (totally) going to use that in (like) everyday conversation from now on. People who return from Europe with their Continental aphorisms and pretentions bother me to no end, but I will break this idealogical taboo if I can go around life referencing urinals as pissoires. And don't think I would use this word sparingly.

Instead of excusing myself to go to the bathroom, I will from now on be Off to the PISSOIR! (picture an accompanying dramatic arm lift). Instead of doing my homework and going to sleep, I will do my homework, go to sleep, and probably hit the pissoir on the way. I am breaking headfirst (no pun) into the too-much-information section of my life with this new word. Welcome friends. As my loyal readers, I hope you will endorse this.

Of course, the pissoir seemed all the more of a life-altering discovery as I balanced myself last night, too drunk and weary from sitting on the train, with my huge backpack and computer case wrapped around me in the bathroom of the Gare du Nord, with the bathroom attendant glaring at me (as a deterrent against poor aim..which is ironic since he's French) and I'm whistling and whizzing around in circles like a little kid singing Pissssss-WAHHH....Piiiiiiiis-WAAAH...piz-wah-yah-yah (that last one was during the final shakes).

I hope you've stomached the post this long because I actually have more wholesome things to say. If you didn't, may all your future journeys to the pissoir be slippery. Anyway, I arrived at my hotel and cautiously approached the front desk clerk who looked instantly suspicious of me. I asked if he spoke any English and he looked ceaselessly confused by the question and eventually said Englis? A leetle.

My last name is Chandler, I have a reservation. Like a flushing pissoir, he suddenly broke into rivulets of perfect Franglish. Oh! Monseiur SHANDLERRRE! Yes, we have been patiently anticipating your arrival myea at the Pari Orleans! My name is Francois and if you need anything, I am here for you! Please put your bags down! Do you need the pissoir perchance?

Obviously, he didn't really tell me to put my bags down, I was checking in. He checked me in (and probably checked me out cause he's French) and I went to my room, which in the pinnacle city of art and fashion turned out to have bright orange walls and red chairs and a purple bathroom door. It might even be magenta. Seriously.

This may be the ugliest place I have ever inhabited, which includes my former apartment on West 21st Street with the beige Pier One pots with the white synthetic filling right out of bad porno movie set. God I miss those pots.

At midnight, I went for a walk to the nearby City University of Paris (or Cite Universtaiteeee), which looked a lot like Columbia's campus but with gardening done by the groundskeepers at Versailles instead of the exploited immigrant workers whose rights their heady students claim to aspire to defend. The weather was shockingly cool for August, not even 20 degrees (in Celcius, of course, colder than all the pissoir water in France). I walked for an hour, finishing my Edith Piaf catalogue and tossing a half-Euro at the accordian player outside the Metro where I had a decaf cafe au lait so I could still not manage to sleep until 4 A.M. I did hit the pissoir a few times though.