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rue-madame's Diaryland Diary

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Brother, can you spare a couple thousand francs for some new shoes?

Ok, I�m back on the horse, albeit with some network bugs, but some online connection is better than none. What the hell did I do before all of this? I can�t even imagine.

So yesterday, after I squared away my project with the client, I gorged myself on pastries and went shopping. Here in France, when your work is mainly geared towards bill-paying (work that you don�t like to do, but that you must do to survive,) the work is called �travail alimentaire�--work for feeding yourself. I was talking to Nadia about this, and I told her how most of my work is not at all �alimentaire,� it�s �vestimentaire� (clothing.) It�s not that I�m that high up there on Maslow�s hierarchy that I don�t need to worry about food, rent, utilities, student loans etc�I worry just enough about that stuff to always have the money set aside for that. It�s just that work that you don�t want to do�that you are tempted to turn down�is like a bonus check. You weren�t planning on having that money, you were almost decided to live without it, so if you agree to go ahead, that money can be spent frivolously with zero guilt.

I suppose with all of this yoga and chanting, you would expect me to have more of a Zen attitude towards work: do it well for the pleasure and satisfaction of doing it well, etc. But that�s not me. I�m goal-oriented and not ashamed to admit it.

So after my pastry binge, I went over to the rue de Grenelle which is fancy schmancy shopping territory. I was going to walk all the way down to Raspail, where the shopping sort of ends, but I never made it past Iris, my new favorite shoe store. They had the most Marc Jacobs shoes I�ve ever seen outside of a Marc Jacobs store. I was in heaven. On top of that, the saleswoman who helped me was so damn nice, I could not believe it. She actually took my name and number so that she could call me when the next shipment of tiny sizes arrives�my new best friend! I love her! Ok, so I tried on 2 pairs, one fit, the other didn�t, but basically each pair represented the entire check (and then some...eek!) for that stupide little flyer I just finished. So now I just have to decide if I *really* need 2 pairs of shoes. As my friend Hilary always says, �At a dollar a day, they could be paid off in [fill in price] days! You�ll wear them at least 300 times, right? And special occasions count double.� One pair is practically free (check from job,) the other would be an early birthday present? (Ha! my birthday�s in May.)

Yesterday I also dragged Nadia to see �It�s a Wonderful Life.� She�d never seen it before, and she said she was a Capra fan. How can this be? Anyway, I gave her some kleenex before the film started, and at the end of the movie, her kleenex was soaked. So was mine. I�ve seen that movie at least 10 times, and it makes me ball like a baby. After that, we recouped with some japanese food, then wine at Chez Georges, a divey very Saint Germain des Pres circa 1960 wine bar. My new favorite hangout!

So all is right with the world now: I have an internet connection, I finished a dumb project, I�ve got a favorite shoe store AND wine bar and now�s it�s sunny and life is grand.

12:35 p.m. - 2001-09-01

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