Blue Dress Hot Mess

Series: The Paris Diaries: 09/03/25-10/03/25

Notes for the confused reader: Gabriel (Gabe) is a dog, not a child. This is a collection of pieces from my notebook, typed up; as such, some is written in real-time, some with the benefit of hindsight. It is fragmentary, but so is my mind. If something says (FA) in brackets, read: French Accent.

09/03/25:

I opened half an eye in trepidation. I knew my head would feel like the internal organs of a volcano, because this was the kind of hangover that starts halfway through your final drink of the night before. It was the kind of hangover that is already by your side (or more specifically, behind your eyes) as you get into bed (fall might be a better adjective), and it likes to draw zigzags on your eyeballs which make the room feel like an ocean, and your bed feel like a dingy boat, spinning round and round. It was the kind of hangover that means you close your eyes knowing (in those few parts of your brain which are still functioning rationally) that you will not be feeling very happy come the morning. You dread the morning; you have every reason to do so. There is another kind of hangover; one that is perhaps more cruel in its intentions, but equally painful in its searing poker-hot reality. This second kind of hangover is the one that sneaks up on you; the one that makes you feel like an indignant child, unable (until you run a list through your head of exactly what you drank last night) to explain your pain. You wonder what you did to deserve this; this incurable (except – perhaps – I’ve found, by cheese) plight of drum-beat pain which dances like a monkey between your ears. But mine was not that kind of hangover; no, mine was the first kind of hangover, one borne of white wine and cassis over lunch outside the Palais-Royal, of Norwegian liqueur which coated one’s tongue in a vodka-like licorice, of champagne when sitting with Lucy in front of the open widow of my flat talking about being hopeless romantics, and, finally – as far as I can recall – of a gin-based cocktail outside a bar in 7me talking to a French boy wearing double-denim who sounded like he was from Croydon because his girlfriend (who wasn’t present, since she happens (conveniently it seemed to me) to be at university in Stockholm) is from South London. (Note to self: listing back the alcohol consumed the day before is a mistake when that self-same alcohol is still churning in your stomach. Don’t do it again, or you’ll see said alcohol in reverse).

Lucy has left; we are alone once more. I am hungover and grumpy and sore from too much walking and too little sleep, and I need to brave the threat of a thunder cloud to find a fiber-optic cable and an electrical shop on a Sunday in Paris because the dog (curse him) has chewed through mine, which means no WiFi (again).

I am so glad Lucy came; I know her – I love her – just that bit better now.

The catacombs were not at all what I had expected. I felt queasy throughout; I think that 20m underground must be the only hallowed place of silence in the whole of Paris at 1pm on a Sunday, and I cannot tell if it was my drink-induced queasiness which seemed to emphasise very starkly the reality of these bones, or whether that is how everyone feels when they realise they are looking at about 6 million people’s non-fleshy remains neatly stacked and arranged in the occasional decorative pattern for the benefit, partly, of the public. Real bodies. Real lives. It felt holy to me, sacred. I felt like an intruder. I couldn’t understand – and still cannot, even a day later; the feeling of unease has not yet left my soul – how people were taking photos; posing; wearing cheap perfume that pervaded like incongruous incense through the old mining chambers which weave deep below the city’s parquet floor. I could find no words to describe my unease, but felt anyway that I should remain silent. I felt like a tomb-raider with a turning stomach, and I felt very much like these souls were still living, and that I had no right to be staring into their hollow eyes.

I am glad we went; Halloween feels very real now, beneath the witch’s veil of commercialism and sweeties. The Day of the Dead is at hand. My uneasiness has dogged me like a spectre all afternoon, and I still have no proper words to describe these banks of bones which lie 20 metres beneath this city’s heart.

10/03/25:

I am standing in my shower in my flat in Paris. The rain is falling noisily on the skylight the same way the honey-scented shower water is running down my back. The thought it unoriginal but it makes me smile. I think: There is nowhere in this earth I would rather be.

It is Monday morning. I used to be so anxious about Monday mornings that I could never fall asleep on a Sunday night. Now I descend my winding stairs with no make-up on and wet hair, and am greeted by a spaniel’s head resting on the lowest step, eyes drawn upwards like the Madonna’s towards God, waiting for me (and therefore his impending breakfast) with an occasional mouse-like whine. He has heard me in the shower, and has watched (from below) as I dress and dry my hair. Our morning routine is mutually accepted and revered, and ends only when we have both been fed (me after Gabriel’s first walk, which conveniently takes us by a boulangerie). I see my posters on the wall – Jane Birkin kissing Serge’s cheek, a blue croissant on a yellow background with ‘Bonjour Paris‘ scrawled above it on a postcard, the caricature of Gabriel and me we had done in Montmartre on that perfect day almost three weeks ago which I will openly, if dramatically, name the happiest day of my life. There is no where I’d rather be. I am going to get breakfast; I have delayed Gabriel’s first walk in order to write, and he is looking reproachfully out of the window.

I am beginning to be less fearful(-petrified-dismissive? I cannot find the word, I cannot describe how I felt) of the comforts which will be mine again when I go home. It is a good sign. I cannot stay here forever, not like this; this is Paris For A Month (nearer two), that was how I planned my year, how I pitched it to my boss when asking for holiday leave. (I have had to leave my job, because I extended Paris For A Month by 8 days. I have not thought, yet, about what I will do when I get back. That is far away). It cannot be the rest of my life. Writing that feels wrong; but words are not binding. Gabe and I walked in the rain (along the Seine, still singing ABBA) up to the Tour d’Argent, and I tried hard to think of nothing because I think that every so often it’s good for me to stop observing this city and just to inhabit it. Being thought-less on purpose is a mental task; it makes me feel like I’m exercising my brain.

I pull my cap down over my head because the rain is heavier now, and I try to think of just-one-thing instead: there’s no where else I’d rather be. Perhaps I’m the 21st century’s answer to Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.