28 August 2014: (Way) More than Skin Deep

(way) more than skin deep

Warning: if you are a person who finds talk of skincare soul-crushingly boring (or who has never counted the number of blackheads on their noses—not that I'm speaking from experience), this post might send you into a mind-numbing spiral.

If, however, you are someone who's curious about the massive amounts of French skincare that's stocked just steps away in every pharmacie you enter, then this post is definitely for you.

I'll start with a brief history of my descent into product junkie-ism. When we were living here in Paris in 2010, there were many gray, stormy days where we couldn't brave the icy streets for fear of slip 'n' sliding our way to a shattered patella, so we spent days on end inside our tiny studio apartment doing indoor activities. (Get your minds out of the gutter.) These activities included reading, writing, drawing, cooking, singing (I was rehearing for a show back in Sacramento that would start up the month after we returned) and staring out the window at the bleak but beautiful rooftops from our tenth-floor aerie. Then I discovered YouTube.

While I was already familiar with the internet video site for its compilations of silly cats and human fails (I laugh like a loon at slapstick, painful comedy—there might be something wrong with me), I happened to stumble upon a YouTube niche of beauty tutorials when I searched "stage makeup" on a whim. Cue the angelic voices and shaft of light: I was in Heaven.

Four years on, I'm a devoted viewer of at least 10 or more YouTube "beauty gurus," who mostly eschew the guru title but who really have it down in the makeup-application and skincare-testing arenas. This latter category is how I came to be a frequent visitor (I would go so far as to say "stalker") of the French pharmacies that dot this city with their shining green crosses like the glowing green light at the end of Daisy's dock. (Yes, that was a shameful literary allusion. My English degree has to count for something, right?)

The thing that moving to Paris has taught me is that not only do the French love skincare more than most else (except maybe their dogs...and wine), but also that they must use something magical on their faces—almost every woman has good skin despite the massive amounts of smoking, drinking and (as mentioned in a previous post) strategic dehydration.

If you take a gander at the aisles and aisles of products crammed into the tiny pharmacies that pop up every two meters on the street, you'll probably generate some assumptions about French females. One is that they love to be bronzed. Not tan, "bronzed." There's a plethora of products that promise to add a touch of soleil to your skin—despite Northern Europe's decidedly un-sunny climate. You can apply fake tanning solution in a mousse, in an oil, in a spray—pretty much any way you'd like to achieve that particular orange-y brown look that screams "sunless tanner" more than "sunshine."

The other trend you'll notice is that almost every brand boasts water from a particular source that is deemed the "best" for your complexion. Evian makes tiny bottles of water to spray on your face (no joke). Avène adds "thermal spring water" into almost all of its products, as does La Roche Posay. You'd think Paris was surrounded by gushing mineral geysers rather than split by a filthy river and an even filthier canal.

The last thing that the walls and walls of gleaming cool-colored bottles will tell you (every brand seems dominated by spa-like colors: blue and white, green and white, pink and white, etc.) is that no matter what condition your skin is in, you will be able to find a customized product made exactly for your face. (I'm kind of surprised the bottles don't come inscribed with one's name.) Dry skin? There are about twenty different face washes and twice as many creams that can help. Dry skin with blemishes? Same. Acne-prone young skin? There's a cream for that. Acne-prone aging skin? There's a toner for that. It's no wonder that my husband wanders into the book section of our local Monoprix when I disappear into the skincare. It's like quicksand: once I'm in, I can't get out until Joshua hands me one end of a large branch and pulls me to safety.

Seeing as how I went from a soap-and-water kind of gal to a "I might as well try every face mask from this brand, since they all do different things" kind of junkie, I'm consistently surprised by my own interest, but it never wanes. It's like the siren call of skincare: if you try just one more product—find that perfect bottle of goo—you will have good skin forever. Or at least until you decide to try that new moisturizer.

The French are also frighteningly good at marketing to facial fanatics like myself. None of these American "teen splashes water on her cheeks and remarkably looks like she has a full face of makeup on" ads (you're not fooling anyone, Neutrogena). French ads are sensual, classy, featuring impeccably-dressed, beautifully-coiffed women who take almost the entire 30 seconds of airtime to massage a lotion into their stunningly bronzed skin. By the time that half-a-minute is up, you need that cream. Never mind that you can tell she's also wearing one of those afore-mentioned faux tans—who wouldn't want to look that classy rubbing on lotion?

Because of this marketing malarky (and because I live within walking distance of at least fourteen pharmacies, each with slightly different stock), my skincare "collection" has grown since we moved here from a couple of bottles and pots to an actual arsenal that takes up our tiny counter as well as precious real estate under the sink. Does my skin look any better? I'd like to think so. (There really must be something to that thermal spring water.) And when I get tired of my current routine, I can always go shopping...

21 August 2014: Uh Oh...It's Août!

uh oh...it's août!

A wise woman once said, "During the summer in Paris, you ask for cigarettes in English, and in French the rest of the year." (That wise woman happens to be Joshua's cousin Elizabeth, who lived in Paris for five years.)

Guidebooks warn you that Parisians flee the city in August (or août) and travel to more temperate climes to escape the sticky city heat. Shops shut down for the entire month, and the city is overrun with foreign tourists who clog the streets and stores with their awkward backpacks and wide-eyed awe. (The guidebooks don't usually add that last part, considering they're catering to those very tourists.)

Having moved to Paris at the beginning of July and seeing the massive shift in the cityscape with my very own eyes, I can confirm that the guidebooks have it right—it's frightening. I can remember the day at the beginning of August when Joshua and I set out for a walk around the Champ de Mars (the park surrounding the Eiffel Tower) and I suddenly noticed that not a single person around us was speaking French. English, yes. Spanish, yes. Cantonese, Japanese, German, Dutch, Arabic, yes. But no French. Rien.

The visual landscape had also changed. Instead of intimidatingly stylish waifs traipsing through the streets in entirely non-sensible shoes—and yet looking like they'd never broken a sweat or a nail in their glamorous lives—there was an overabundance of sensible running shoes, khaki shorts, ball caps and the aforementioned backpacks.

I like to think that I don't stick out as a tourist when I wander around, but the truth is, I'm probably wearing or doing about fifty different things that mark me out as "non-native." I get self-conscious if I wear comfortable shoes—which I bought right here in Paris—or any clothes with even a hint of Spandex in them. (Farewell, comfy yoga pants.) But it seems that the folks who visit Paris during the tourist high season are not only unconcerned with looking tourist-y, they in fact relish the role and dress the part from top to toe.

The outfit of choice seems to be the following: a hat of some kind with either a bill or a brim (bonus points for carrying an umbrella on a sunny day); Ray Ban sunglasses (no joke: EVERYONE wears these, which explains why the Ray Ban counter at the shopping center is like a scene from Lord of the Flies); casual cotton T-shirt or gauzy button-down (men or women); utilitarian shorts in khaki or a bright-colored cotton or skinny jeans that look like they're transforming the wearer's internal organs to a paste; chunky athletic sneakers or flat sandals. Accessories include: large backpack with which to hit unsuspecting passersby as you back into oncoming traffic on the sidewalk to get the perfect picture; giant multi-lens camera hanging around the neck; unfolded map held up to the nose; an assortment of shopping bags that signal to the casual onlooker that you have dropped a lot of money in the past four hours and that your arms apparently never get tired of schlepping. (Maybe it's all that effort you're saving by toting everything you own in that ginormous backpack.)

The funniest part about this vision of top-to-toe tourism is that the outfit remains consistent throughout cultures, ages and language groups. Sure, you have the occasional perfectly dressed tourist turned out in their finest designer duds to walk the gravel path around the Tower (I definitely saw a woman pushing a stroller in high-heeled mules that would have looked more at home in a red-light district) or the traditionally-garbed visitors from the Middle East. But for the most part, every single tourist is decked out in as close to a uniform of comfort and consumerism as possible.

And then there's the spatial awareness. As I mentioned before, backpack wearers seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they're an extra two feet deep or wide when they try to squeeze down grocery store aisles or whip around in a crowd—it's especially odd to see said backpack being worn on the front of the body, like a kind of unwieldy pregnant belly, as though that will make the wearer less obtrusive and less accessible to criminals (neither of which are true). Tourists also seem to have left their ability to empathize with their fellow human beings at home—never have I almost been tripped, crushed, whacked, smacked and trampled on more than when I'm trying to navigate the narrow sidewalks and pathways around a group of tourists. Which are everywhere. Like an infestation of fire ants.

As for the guidebooks' warnings that the city shuts down in August, it most certainly takes on an air of quiet that makes me anxious for rentrée (the start of school and return to normal work schedules). The building across from us boasts one set of shuttered windows after another, making the structure look like dozens of wooden-lidded eyes on the face of a sleeping monster. The restaurant on the corner closed up at the beginning of the month and it, like many others in the neighborhood, is undergoing a massive repainting and remodeling while its owners vacation somewhere delightful.

That's why August actually strikes me as a lovely idea in a busy metropolis like Paris. The shops that are shuttered all have little hand-lettered signs in the windows addressed to their "Chers clients" ("Dear clients") letting everyone know when the owners intend to return from their vacation. Each sign is a reminder to me not that the city is closed down, but that France holds an appreciation for relaxation and rejuvenation in its very governmental structure, where families are encouraged to take time off and be together before coming back to work refreshed and renewed. That's the benefit of having so many independently-owned shops, isn't it? That each individual shop owner is a real person with real needs—one of those being to take some time to just chill.

But it might strike one as odd that shopkeepers would choose to shut down during such an influx of new customers. Suddenly your run-of-the-mill pharmacy is an exotic oasis of products that will have a line out the door full of tourists (or, ahem, recent Paris transplants) who can't wait to get their hands on your merchandise. Why wouldn't you want to stay and rake in all that foreign dough?

One look at those marauding gaggles of backpacks, though, and I suddenly understand why.

18 August 2014: To Pee or Not to Pee

to pee or not to pee

True story.

This will come as no surprise to those of you who know me (and if you don't know me, prepare for TMI): I have to pee a lot. Like, a lot. Like, I've probably spent more time in bathrooms than I have in bed during my lifetime.

I'd like to believe this is because I drink so much water—which I do—but the truth is that I've been a frequent pee-er since I was a kid. My aunt actually suggested that my mom have me tested for diabetes when I was a toddler since I always seemed to have to go to the bathroom. Thankfully, I don't have diabetes, just very healthy kidneys.

My husband suggested I call this blog, "Big Dreams, Tiny Bathrooms," which should tell you where I'm going with this. Moving to a big city like New York or Paris is as exciting as it sounds, but never more so than when you're playing potty roulette.

It seems that the bigger the city, the more inaccessible its toilets. In places like Sacramento and its surrounding suburbs, there's a plethora of big-name, big-box stores like Target, TJ Maxx, Safeway, Rite Aid, etc. that have large, multi-stall bathrooms to use at will and practically anonymously, which is like a free-for-all for frequent urinators like myself. But as soon as you start getting into a more urban, densely populated area, the bathrooms seem to disappear.

Living in a large city where it takes a long time to commute on foot or on public transport means that once you leave the safety of your home throne, you can be out for hours without immediate access to a clean, available toilet. Take New York: I lived at least 45 minutes away by subway from all of my activities, which meant that once I left our tiny studio apartment, I was subject to the vagaries of semi-public, never-clean and impossible-to-access-unless-you-buy-a-sandwich bathrooms that made me yearn for the privacy of my little pee palace farther up the island.

Due to the lack of public restrooms in a city overrun by people, I can understand why businesses plaster their windows with "Restrooms for Customers Only" or employ the ever-so-frustrating key or code combo. I understand that business owners are trying to keep "undesirable" people from using their bathrooms (whether for voiding or for grooming), but where else are we supposed to go? The public bathrooms in the parks are atrocious and often locked, and unless you sit down to a meal at an expensive restaurant, you're apparently not fit to use a toilet that looks like someone may have cleaned it sometime during the last century.

Then take Paris: a whole new level of bladder-baiting. Because there are very few large stores, there's no anonymous Target toilet to duck into. Even in the large shopping centers, the bathrooms are out of the way, rarely cleaned and often COST MONEY. Yes. If you need to pee (or, heaven help you, anything else), you have to scrounge up 50 cents for a chance to squat above a toilet that thousands before you have barely even aimed at. The train stations fare no better, the metro stations have no public restroom access (makes me wonder where the employees pee, or if they just employ bladder-less robots) and the restaurants that do have bathrooms have them tucked away underground (literally) and you better hope they have toilet paper. I've never been so thankful for purse-sized tissue packs in my life.

So why this decidedly hostile excretory environment? A grad school colleague of Joshua's described it perfectly: "It's strategic dehydration." Apparently, the French have it down to a science. They have a cup of coffee in the morning to clean everything out, they drink no water all day, then they sip some of wine when they get home to make up for the hours upon hours of thirst. Thus, they rarely—if ever—have to brave the lavatory land mines that populate Paris.

On a recent excursion to London, we found that the English are equally stingy with their stalls. Once we left the comforts of our comically tiny hotel bathroom, we were subject to the vagaries of big-city bathrooms once again. With the sooty city air making it nigh impossible not to guzzle water at an alarming rate, we found ourselves staking out Starbucks bathrooms like stranded desert nomads seeking a wellspring—only to find said wellspring covered in all sorts of mystery liquids, discarded paper products and other assorted odds and ends, then to have someone knock on the door four times to remind us that it was a single bathroom in a coffeehouse full of clearly not-strategically-dehydrated Londoners.

European toilets themselves also deserve a mention here. Never have I encountered so many different bowls, handles, instructions and sounds to accomplish roughly the same task (and you better believe that after my years of urinary desperation, I'm a toilet connoisseuse). Parisian toilets are very deep with very little water in the bowl so as to conserve resources, with specific buttons to press for liquid-only waste and all other waste (the latter is always a bigger button, which both makes sense and makes me laugh). According to plumbing websites—we recently had our water shut off unannounced, which sent me scrambling to Google—the French have particularly superior pipe works and plumbing systems, making them the envy of the water-pressure-challenged Brits. I saw this first-hand when the London hotel toilet could barely handle a light load and seemed to give up partway through out of principle, which may have been meant to save water but only led to frantic multiple flushes. (I told you this post would be TMI.)

By far the strangest toilet I've ever encountered was in Lannemezan, a tiny French town near the Pyrenees Mountains where we stayed briefly in between a teaching job and moving to Paris the last time, in 2010. The toilet had an electric shredder built into the bowl—announced with a warning label in multiple languages (to the left)—to dispose of paper before it joined the sewer system, presumably to keep everything running smoothly. Whenever we flushed, it sounded like someone was carving meat in our bathroom. Needless to say, we were very careful with our appendages and accessories during that stay.

So does this sordid tale of pee and punishment have a happy ending? Did we succumb to the strategies of our fellow Parisians and relegate ourselves to a single cup of coffee in the morning, a dry day and a relieved reunion with our own bathroom come nightfall?

Well, as I'm writing this, I'm having an afternoon cup of coffee with a large glass of water, I had a full glass of iced tea with lunch and I definitely don't plan on slowing down before we go out this evening. I also saw an ad on a fashion website for a device called GoGirl that lets you stand up to pee. I seriously considered buying it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go pee.

8 August 2014: Introducing...Rainy Day Moose!

introducing...

rainy day moose!

For those of you who follow me on Facebook, you've probably noticed a particular yellow-rain-coat-clad travel companion who pops up in some of my pictures. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook, you'll find his mugshot to the right.

I figured he deserved a formal introduction, considering he's been with me now for longer than I can remember. I present to you: Rainy Day Moose.

Rainy Day Moose came into my life many years ago during a shopping trip to a Sacramento gift boutique on 24th and K Streets called Mixed Bag. Mixed Bag is just what it sounds like: a mishmash of gift items, some gimmicky, some seasonal, some edible, and mostly all kitschy (in the best way possible). Rainy Day Moose was part of a line of tiny toy stuffed bears in various garb, but here was "Rainy Day Moose," as he was identified on his tag—definitely not a bear, and in the cutest yellow slicker I'd ever seen.

Rainy Day Moose and yours truly.

If you look closely under his raincoat (though I'm sure he hates it when I do that—and those photos would most certainly be NSFW), he has the same body as those stuffed bears: bear paws, bear belly, even a tiny bear tail. But then there are those antlers and that moose schnoz (for those of you non-Yiddish speakers, that's a nose). Rainy Day Moose had to come home with me.

Through the years, Rainy Day Moose has held a very special spot in my car(s), in the little divot by the gear shift that mostly collects trash, but he doesn't mind. He's kind of my good luck charm—I like to think that he gets me particularly good parking spots, or helps ward off stupid drivers. (Couldn't we all use a charm like that?) He's also become somewhat of a tiny moose-lebrity to my close friends who visit him often. (Kelly and Ann, I'm talkin' to you.)

Naturally, when I moved back to Paris, Rainy Day Moose had to come along and have a Francophone adventure of his very own. I try to tote him with me every day so he can see the sights and pose for tourist-y photos—which mostly end up being blurry close-ups of his furry schnoz in front of a variety of monuments.

So now that you've been formally introduced, I hope you enjoy this brief chronicle of Rainy Day Moose's travels thus far. The Moose is on the loose!

Rainy Day Moose sets off on his Parisian adventure.

The Moose has landed!

The view from Rainy Day Moose's new digs.

First up: see the sights!

A little shopping never hurt anyone...

Rainy Day Moose roots for Argentina at the World Cup.

Rainy Day Moose visits the Senate building in the Luxembourg Garden. 

Rainy Day Moose at the scene of the crime: where Dad proposed to Mom!

Rainy Day Moose found a tiny moose-sized Panthéon!

Rainy Day Moose watches the end of the Tour de France.

4 August 2014: Pardon

Pardon

So many people...Such narrow sidewalks...

"Pardon."
"Pardon."
"Pardon."
"PARDON."

Four times, and the girl on the sidewalk still hadn't moved. She hadn't even looked up from her phone to acknowledge my presence, and my repeated and increasingly loud pleas did nothing to break her oblivion, nor did the sight of my bulging grocery caddy teetering on the curb to edge around her as she stood in the middle of the sidewalk make her scoot even an inch to one side to let me pass. She didn't even flinch.

Now, I am not a small person. At 5-foot-9 and significantly more solid than most of these rail-thin French people—seriously, where do all those baguettes go?—I'm not exactly easy to ignore. But I find that my personal space is constantly being violated by pedestrians of all shapes, sizes, colors and creeds here in Paris. I might as well be wearing a sign that says, "Please, aggressively walk toward me so fast that I have no recourse but to dive out of your way and hope that my shoulder doesn't hit yours when you finally breeze past me." 

I don't think that would all fit on one sign.

Personal space has been an interesting social cue in the big cities I've lived in. Being from California, there's an innate courtesy that imbues our social interactions with a sense of, "You're a human, I'm a human." (Which is not to say there aren't rude Californians, but I'm generalizing in our favor.) When I moved to the metropolis of New York City, where the sidewalks teem with humanity at all hours of the day, it made sense that there would be a lot of jostling and space-sharing and accidental toe stomping. Same with Paris. What's different is the attitude with which disparate cultures share such limited space.

In New York, the number of people who walked straight out of a shop and onto the sidewalk without looking, thereby making it necessary for the pedestrian already on the sidewalk to stop short or dive around them lest a collision occur was mind-boggling. And frustrating, especially for someone—a Californian someone—who spends a lot of brain energy trying to figure out how not to be in the way. Equally egregious were the number of tourists who would stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk to aim a cell phone or camera at a particularly "New York-y" sight, oblivious to the line of people behind them who just had to alter their flight paths so suddenly they nearly spilled all 17 of their Starbucks. But almost always there was a chirped, "Sorry!" or "'Scuse me!" or a quick smile to dispel the tension even after someone had nearly lost an eye to an arrant umbrella spoke.

In Paris, the same thing happens, but there's an added nonchalant aggression that I find fascinating—and frightening. Because Paris is an equally busy metropolis with even narrower streets (tiny smart cars aren't a fad, they're a necessity), body overlap is inevitable. But instead of making room for each other with a nod of the head or the flash of a smile as you pass close enough that you can smell the other person's deodorant (if they're wearing it, of course—more on that in a previous post), there's a competitive glint that overtakes the eyes, a setting of the jaw, a hunch of the shoulders that says, "This sidewalk ain't big enough for the both of us." (I'm sure it sounds better in French.)

And you know what? It isn't. It damn well isn't. But it's especially tight when you (I'm looking at you, hipster couple latched at the waist) don't fall into a single-file line to allow the other—equally harried, equally there—human being coming toward you to pass without crashing into the side of a building or falling into the gutter. I've lost count the number of times that Joshua and I have been walking side by side, having a conversation, and when we spot someone approaching us on the sidewalk up ahead, we instinctively stop talking and one or the other falls behind to allow our fellow pedestrian passage. We do not continue walking as though the other person coming toward us will suddenly vanish into thin air, jump into the street or, better yet, parcour up the building to allow us to continue on our merry way.

We seem to be the only people in this city who think that way.

I've accidentally "held hands" with several people by this point (people who try and pass from behind, which is a particularly irritating study in how to make your fellow primates freak out and think they're being attacked), I've had my wrist cracked by swinging fists, taken several handbags to the gut, nearly chest-bumped a good number of people (or, again considering my height, shoulder-checked them in the face) and encountered countless other forms of physical violation because no one knows how to freakin' share. (Seriously, French preschools, lesson number one. What have you been doing instead? Teaching three-year-olds how to spot the best foie gras?)

But the most remarkable part of all of these encounters is the number of times I don't get hit. In about 85% of the cases (an entirely un-scientific estimate), I see the impending crash, hold my breath...and nothing. I've even tested various attitudes—smiling, not smiling, bowing my head, clenching my jaw—and none of them seem to matter. A person approaches, he/she doesn't move one iota, I hold my ground and continue to walk toward them and at the last possible second a shoulder is moved, a bag is tugged, and we pass without incident.

When I finally start breathing again, I start to wonder: why is it that people here are so reluctant to acknowledge their fellow human being? Would a nod of the head and a slight smile to say, "Hey, I see you, we want the same smidgeon of sidewalk, let's share" really ruin the I'm-so-Parisian-I-don't-care-if-I-get-my-ankle-broken-by-a-fellow-citizen-because-I-refuse-to-look-them-in-the-eye attitude they seem to have so carefully adopted? Would it really muss their perfectly coiffed-not-coiffed hair or smudge their lipstick or hurt their cigarette-drenched soul to show a glimmer of humanity at a moment when you're all but certain to come into contact with a fellow earthling? I have to believe that the answer is no.

Maybe they're all aliens.

Maybe I just miss California.

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