It’s hard to quantify experiences, but to coin someone else's
original phrase, ‘you know it when you feel it.’

Now that I’m living in Paris, at my Grandmère’s 76-room ‘hôtel particulier,’ I find myself on the itchy edge of wealth, influence and power and while I don’t consider myself necessarily of that class, I’m certainly exposed to attempts to drag me into it.

Many afternoons, as I come home wearied by classes and braced for hours of study, there are these silver trays with little white, gold embossed envelopes (invitations), casually placed where they’re unavoidable, and it’s not unusual to find that one of the CMs has laid out a dress for me and a suit for Peter - though we seldom attend these events.

I find myself vociferously defending my schedule (for the thousandth time) - and I’ve only been in school three weeks:
“Grandmère, I’m in med-school, I have homework.”

Let’s wax freeversely of the upper-class (as if I belonged)..

In elegant but confined houses
where lives unfold in drawing rooms
and the inhabitants are sharp and snobbish.
They struggle against social and ****** constraints -
frustrations essential to the drama and pathos of wealth.

Let the rabble be messily heterogeneous
and agenda-set “inclusivity.” It’s nothing to us.
It hardly foregrounds harmony or authenticity.

Civilized people are more reticent and buttoned-up.
it’s sexier and more romantic, to drive toward marriage,
where lovers work to deserve each other,
and individuals integrate into couples.

Failing this urbane integration, love degenerates
into solipsist libertinism and eventually, these
sad outcasts catch their deaths - apart and alone.
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Songs for this:
Am I the Same Girl? by Swing Out Sister
It Hasn't Happened Yet by William Shatner

kisses.
feel them
the tension and aliveness
they’re loaded with psychology and social context

its an intense observation
mouths connect our inner and outer worlds
they cross the exterior-interior divide
they’re simple forms of passion and expression
but they’re drastic and emphatic

I wrestle with wildness
I desire less breathing room, less layering
I riot with instinctive response
I long to obliterate feminine’ restraint
and share inner experience
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A song for this:
Only Love Can Break Your Heart by Saint Etienne
Fly Into Your Arms (a cappella) by X-Cetra
As Above So Below by Fievel Is Glauque

we live behind palace walls

“I’m in love,”  I said, sighing into the fall-like, Paris afternoon, “I have to admit it.”

My 85 year old uncle Remy, gently stirring a pitcher of American martini he was conjuring, said, “You should marry an insignificant lawyer - if you’re going to have a cross-class love affair.”
Uncle Remy was a lawyer, of sorts, once.

“I think you’re leading the witness,” I said, looking down at my shoes.
“I’m in love with my Havaianas,” I clarified - my new, white, square-toed flip-flops.
“Besides, no one thinks in terms of class any more - and Peter and I are NOT an asymmetrical match or relationship or whatever.”

But it got me thinking. Half, or more, of what Uncle Remy says is politically incorrect. And I don’t judge him harshly..

I wrote, last week, about a guy who
(gasp) told me he found me attractive
like it was some crisis.

Hadn’t I schemed to get with Peter? (my bf).
And hadn’t he admitted that he’d schemed to get with me?

Was I ready to diagnose this guy as a walking red flag
- for a gentle admission of interest?
Because he's a big, intimidating guy?

What are the small, social rituals
we’re allowed to use - to signal desire?
Sure, buying someone a drink at a bar
- but what else? It’s a Catch-22.

Must every comment face the court of
public opinion, verbal consent protocols,
uni regulations and the behavior authorities?
Should we ban serendipity and spontaneity too?

Monday morning came and I didn’t ask to change seats
I moved my pencil back - a little.
He actually could use a bit more room than me.

I smiled a little, asked him about his weekend,
there’s no use in being unfriendly.
His name is Jacques (Jack).
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Songs for this:
So Sorry by Lola Young [E]
The Hardest Part by Olivia Dean

One of my classes has theater seating with little desks that two people share. I’m sitting by this huge man, who really should have a little desk all to himself. I don’t want to seem ungenerous but he just sprawls out like I’m not there.

So in a profoundly machismo gesture, this morning, I marked my territory with a pencil. It was carnal, feral, aggressive, and distinctly unfeminine gesture - more than a mere assertion of "First come, first serve" etiquette.

I’m familiar with life’s overlapping territories, like sidewalks, movie armrests and overhead bins and the subtle, shared space social negotiations when someone, say, introduces a laptop to a crowded library table and we all must  shuffle our stuff around or when someone desperately needs the only charger.

THEN, Friday morning big-guy starts this SUPER awkward conversation. To be clear - up until then - our ‘relationship’ had been blessedly non-verbal.

Let me tell it poetically..

He said he saw me signing in and timed it so I sat by him
he hoped to get to know me, and perhaps to ask me out.
They pass around these student info sheets, so we can form study cliques
and after a little bit, he smirkingly mentioned that he’d memorized my number.

Now, I’d barely even noticed him, I thought seating was left up to whim
before he could ask me out - I pointedly told him all about my boyfriend.
Now I’m sitting by a refrigerator-size guy who’s subtly giving me the eye
and as for his excessive use of space, I think he’s being passive possessive.

Monday morning before class, I’m going to catch the TA with her coffee and ask,
to change my seat to somewhere, anywhere, with someone, less transgressive.
I’ve been in classes, for years on end, I’ve been hit on and I’m not against making friends
but you have to know how to begin and not be so open, sneaky and aggressive.

I feel no enmity, just an awful awkward-ity and I don’t want him next to me.
Like the air-head I can pretend to be, I took a pic of him, disguised as a selfie of me.
If I’m ever concerned or slightly alarmed, I always manage to send a selfie to Charles.
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Songs for this:
Messy by Lola Young
Every Breath You Take by Committed
Walk Like an Egyptian by Awaken A Cappella
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Charles, a 55-year-old 6'4" retired NYC cop, has been my escort, driver, security and surrogate parent since I was 9 years old.

Tense audience members, in active learning auditorium classes,
all crammed together.
In the first few days there were times that I felt genuinely lost.
I wasn’t used to processing everything,
especially technical things, in French.
On day two, one guy, looking askance, said,
‘That was confusing, right?’ Which was a relief.
On day three, Charles, watching me via the rear-view mirror,
said, “Trust the process, kid-0.”
And eventually, around day four, I started to find my footing.

Shall we wax, free-versely, poetic?

Who has it worse than a physician?
There’s no sleeping in that business,
and the physician’s wisdom, press'd with caution, is seldom desired or given careful attention.
Surely, I’ve heard it reasoned, those who applaud pristine health are but abusing God's patience.
But what else remains, for learned men - the priesthood, with its beguiling, terrestrial proverbs?
​​That idea’s a purgative. And I am female.
Besides, they’ve erased much of the good will that came out of Nazareth.
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Songs for this
Welcome to the Jungle (808 Remix) by Freedom Dub
Easy Way Out (version française) by Mariama

I am a student in Paris, a med-school freshman, one of the crowd.
This week is all introductions, orientation functions and instructions.
“Settle in, get your books, parking passes and find your classes.”
I got my ID - I’m a Vip in the bourgeoisie - does that look like me?

Freshmen join a ‘buddy program’ so things seem less hostile
I met my buddy last week, she’s the consummate boss - effortlessly busy.
She’s got my folder (oh my), full of check-lists. I’ve yet to see her smile.
She’s a third year, from Chamonix, a town in the jagged Alps, near Italy.

If you want me, right after classes, I’ll be at Les Deux Parisiens,
a shaded coffee shop across from school that feels like a garden.
They have everything - from coffee to pizza and martinis - it’s awesome.
For 17€ : try the ‘La Campione,’ pizza with beef and chorizo (sausage)

I am a student in the misty rain, stepping carefully on cobblestones
- they pool water geometrically - I’m heading home (6 Av.) walking alone.
Nothing’s still, classes end at noon - it’s the city, sidewalk’s are full, Ubers uber, mopeds mope, bikers bike, people scatter, umbrellaless commuters.

I haven’t made any new friends yet - I’m not worried - I’m just beginning.
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Songs for this:
Day Tripper by MonaLisa Twins
Café Europa by Quadro Nuevo
Count Contessa by Azealia Banks & Lone [E]
Robinson Crusoe by Art of Noise

The labouring art of poetry
is in true sense, senseless.

It corrupts judgment, strains credit
and prostitutes' self-esteem.

**** the unhappy day you start it.
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A song for this:
This Place Hotel (a.k.a. Heartbreak Hotel) by The Jacksons