What am I up to? On a day-to-day basis, not a whole heck of a lot. But I just got back from my daily lunch on the Champ de Mars, where today a brass band was playing "Build Me Up Buttercup," inspiring me to write an entry. The best moments in Paris are those little random ones.
Not so random moments from this past weekend:

Subcontinent's Visit
Subcontinent and her parents were passing through Paris and we grabbed dinner with them Friday and an ice cream lunch and shopping session with them on Saturday after I got off work. It was all kinds of fun, and it reminded me of how much fun we had when we were in Paris together last time two years ago.

The Trip to Bruges
We rented a car (and that was quite a to-do, since the usually amiable if a little slow National was this time just slooooow and then they ran out of cars even though we had a reservation and then we went over to Avis and then...but you know what, we got one in the end so I'm not telling that whole story) and drove up to Bruges on Sunday with Mom driving and me navigating. We decided that Lille is a black hole, since we got lost around there on the way up and on the way back for unrelated reasons, neither of which were our fault. Finally we made it and our hotel was clean and pretty and, most importantly, had an ENORMOUS bathtub. If you've ever talked to me about bathtubs (not exactly the most scintillating topic, but oh well), you'll know that I love them, and put up with showers because I like to be clean. But tubs I really love and since, nowadays, I only get to enjoy a nice soak when I'm at home in Damn-Big-Midwestern-University Town, I was very happy to find one waiting for me in Bruges.
We spent the afternoon wandering around town. We took a boat ride on the canals and the river (which, for comparison's sake, cost the same amount as a ride on the Ferris wheel in Paris but while the Ferris wheel ride lasts five minutes, this lasted half an hour and included a spoken tour). We visited the Gruuthuse. We had drinks at the 400 beers bar that Dad insisted we go to on his behalf. For dinner, we ate the best mussels I have ever had in my life. I'm never eating mussels again, because these were so good.

Dear God.
After dinner we headed back to the hotel and made an early night of it, since we were both so exhausted from our rental car fiasco. The next day, though, we got a lot in. We climbed the bell tower, made famous by the movie In Bruges, saw many churches and medieval/Renaissance houses and even touched a relic said to contain a bit of Jesus Christ's blood. Yes. We also ate ice cream, had tea, and saw the béguinage before starting to drive home at three. We were supposed to get the car back my nine and we thought that would give us an hour and a half safety cushion. We ended up getting the car in at 8:20, thanks to the Lille Black Hole of Doom, which on this end manifested itself through framers on tractors spread out across the auto route, protesting something or other. We had to take surface roads for several miles, and we had to find these roads ourselves, since no one has thought to set up a detour.
We made it back to the apartment tired, but happy on the whole with our quick trip into Belgium.

Bastille Day
The day following our return was Bastille Day, so neither of us had to work and we had the chance to relax a bit. Relaxation in this case meant going to see Public Enemies, which brings me to three things:
1) Johnny Depp can actually exist in a movie without making me crack up and/or roll my eyes. Well done Johnny. You actually freaked me out a little bit.
2) Chicago films SO WELL. Love it.
3) Baby Face Nelson. Was he this nuts in real life? In both this movie and in O Brother, Where Art Thou he was portrayed as nutso and trigger-happy. Compared to his antics, all the other random violence in the film looked positively rational.
After the movie we relaxed some more, ate dinner, and then went for a walk by the Seine to watch the fireworks.

All right. Happy 4th everyone! I'm kind of ambivalent about this holiday as a whole, mostly because when you're a kid in the summer it's just another day of vacation, punctuated by things like watermelon and turning your skin blue with crepe paper. Then, supposedly, you become an adult and you start working and the 4th of July means a day off!
Well, last year that was a no-go because the senior citizens liked to see their plays, even on holidays. This year it's a no-go because, yes, I am in France. I'll get the 14th off, though, which is even better since that will be a full day off and this would have been just a half day off since I only work 10-2 on Saturdays anyway.
So, in order to try and get myself in a patriotic mood (which I have attained once, from about October 2008 to February 2009), I present you with a list.

Ten Things I Love About the United States:
1) The fact that I can have this blog at all. And that on it, if I so desired, I could complain all the live long day about the government, my friends, neighbors, other countries, the weather, etc. without getting shut down.
2) The fact that we elected Obama. Good job, us. The man's administration is far from perfect, but I'm still a huge fan.
3) Five Guys, Steak 'n' Shake, In 'n' Out Burger. You see where I'm going with this. I.e. a delicious way to find your way to an early death.
4) Entertainment. I talk enough about TV shows, movies, and books on here without going into more detail. Still, this is one of my quality of life things and watching horribly depressing and sometimes violent shows on HBO makes me proud to be an American.
5) Princeton, Damn Big Midwestern University Town, Iowa City, and (so the on-campus signs informed us upon our visit) Baltimore: College towns.
6) Chicago, L.A., New York: the big three.
7) The Midwest. Seriously. I love having grown up there (albeit growing up in a college town is a must; see #5), and not just because it gives me the coveted ability to bash it and defend it at the same time. More and more I believe in the cringingly trite saying, "In the Midwest it's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice." I hate that phrase--hate it, hate it, hate it--because it makes us sound like yokels. But, I also have found it to be true. As true as any generalization that broad can be.
8) A history of trying to correct mistakes. See #2.
9) The melting pot.
10) The thing I love most about the United States is that that is where the people I love (with a handful of exceptions) live. So I'm glad that I live in the United States, but (Mom, Dad, Subcontinent, HarvardGirl, Ex-Neighbors, Roommate J, CC, HaHa, CornellBoy, StOlafBoy, BrandeisGirl, Interns T & N, Flatmate M, Neighbor C, and all the rest of you) I'm glad I live with you more.

I have five rather hefty writing projects up in the air at once, I just realized. How did this happen? I used to be a one-story-at-a-time kind of girl. But now...NOW I have: 1) The Play revisions (which I've been working on for five years)
2) The U.N. Show (a fairly recent development,all told)
3) The detective reboot (which, oh my word, I've been working on in one form or another for like eight years)
4) The Forster pastiche (which I've been working on for four years and is really just for me)
5) The NaNoWriMo tale of the French godfathers (which I've been working on for just over a year and a half and which I hope to make a lot of headway on this summer)
Therefore, I have come to the realization that there's one thing I really, really, really hate about life after high school: lack of free time. And trust me, I make more free time for myself than my roommates, Subcontinent, HarvardGirl, practically everyone I know. The fact remains, though, that when that carefully cultivated and shaped free time rolls around, all I want to do is watch stuff on my computer, or go for a jog. Using my brain is a no-go. But then there's this vicious cycle, because when I start watching The West Wing, or Six Feet Under, or The Wire, or Homicide, or (more recently; man, I love Alan Ball) True Blood, all I can think about is how great it would be to work on the U.N. show in a meaningful way so that it could be that good.

This is all a precursor to going home and making pasta and watching Pride & Prejudice before I go to bed, by the way. Being a grownup isn't that great.