please turn off the bollywood music.

(thanks to angela for our power animals! they're seeing the world...)

today is bea-utiful. beautiful.

after a couple days of grey drizzle, things seem to be shaping up weather-wise for a sunny 17C, or 71F for all you at home.  it makes it hard to concentrate of work instead of simply spending everyday going for walks and eating croissants. very difficult indeed.

(this is the little park closest to our apartment)

besides school, however, things seem to be going well.  when i'm in the sunshine, i do like this city quite a bit, the little streets, the canal and river, thousands of boulangeries, and the language too.  this is somewhat of a relief.  however, it's difficult to explain how much i'm looking forward to the end of school.  travel plans are solidifying and it looks like i'll be train-tripping through france to barcelona (gaudi!) then flying to morocco and doing who knows what. i am so so so excited.  and finally, summer is turning into something real, filling with plans and maybe a few pipe-dreams. elaboration on this would take pages and pages.

here, recently we haven't done too many crazy things, but annie's looking fierce with a new hair color and new glasses.  when we're not pretending to try to do work, we've eaten ice cream and seen an amazing show of William Blake. good art and good food.

(William Blake = great)

(Annie Stephens = foxy)

(Berthillon ice cream = delicious)

That's pretty much the summary (i almost wrote "summery." this probably indicates something.)  

i keep wanting to do cartwheels

We have been hit by the spring jitters lately. The sun is shining, flowers have popped up everywhere and l'herbe n'est plus au repos. which means there are most likely some french babies playing on it, and some open-air pda from the jeunes.  ah, par-ee.

but it's that feeling in my stomach that makes us not able to keep still, a build-up of slowly accumulating momentum so now we can't stop moving. (except to watch more seasons of sex and the city..)  I am finally feeling in a good place with thoughts correlating to making, and am excited to transfer that back home.  there are some projects being thought out, and a few just starting, and I love the feeling of the last projects of the semester, because when they're done, you are too.  and hooray for that. i welcome summer and the end of professors who suggest you put band-aids and zippers on drawings.

recent happenings:

-we went to a talk with Jenny Holzer at the Louvre and saw her projections on the buildings in the courtyard

-i went to the Buttes de Chaumont, which made me breathe a sigh of relief with all the grass to walk on and trees to sit under

-we celebrated easter in our secular way with Flexifizz, Twix, and Rochers de chocolat noir

it's probably seasonal, but optimism comes with the sunshine.

and now i have about as many weeks of school as i have postcards left to write. which is... not a lot. but in the mean time, i'm going to go play outside.

wisdom gleaned via Michel de Certeau

"...we can divert the time owed to the institution; we can make textual objects that signify an art and solidarities; we can play the game of free exchange... we can create networks of connivances and slights of hand; we can exchange gifts; and in these ways we can subvert the law that, in the scientific factory, puts work at the service of the machine and, by a similar logic, progressively destroys the requirement of creation and the 'obligation to give.'"

he's talking about specifics, but i like to think of it generally.

also:

ice cream, wine, and bats on the seine.