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A good 50% of my Facebook feed this week has been photos of Notre Dame on fire, photos of people in front of Notre Dame on their honeymoons/vacations, and general mourning re: Notre Dame. From the few articles I’ve read, it sounds like a) no one died, b) a lot of important/valuable stuff was saved, and c) there’s a TON of money available to rebuild it. Which is great news! (Even if it’s frustrating to see so much coverage of, and public grief over, one damaged church and… crickets about the fact that at least three black churches in the U.S. have been set on fire in the last couple weeks.)
A friend and I were talking yesterday about how people romanticize Paris and their memories of it. Then she asked me if I’d ever been to Notre Dame.
I could only answer “probably.” To explain, a quick story:
I spent spring break in Paris when I was 19 or 20 years old. Two high school friends were doing her junior years abroad there (so I had a place to stay), another friend was flying over for that same week, and Paris sounded way more exciting South Padre, where my college roommates were going.
I’m sure we went to many of the major tourist attractions, but my memories are mostly of us being American Tourists from Hell. At first, we tried to be good, smiling and “merci”-ing and apologetically using our limited high school French. Our efforts were NOT appreciated. It felt like we were being ignored/rudely dismissed because we were American tourists, so we gave in – and gave them our best (worst) American Tourist. This included cutting up loudly and drunkenly on the subway (if there was a drinking age there, it sure as hell wasn’t enforced); going to a disco and dancing so hard to Naughty By Nature’s “O.P.P.” (it was a top 40 hit at the time, OK?) that I literally fell down on the dance floor while my friends were off chasing French boys; yelling “HEY BABY” at the hot guys in uniform guarding the Arc de Triomphe; and, because it seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, reenacting the Egoiste commercial at maximum volume from my friend’s dorm room (it had similar windows). At three o’clock in the morning.
Not all of my Paris memories are about me making an ass out of myself. I remember thinking it was weird that the “ghettos” were outside the city – something that would eventually start happening in the U.S. I remember making my friends go to a ska show in the red-light district, where a bunch of mod boys, seeing an American girl in an army parka, invited me to go on a scooter ride with them the next day. I remember how greasy the white French girls’ hair seemed, and how they all seemed to wear it the same way, pinned up with what looked like chopsticks. I remember the dorm’s café au lait because it was served in giant soup bowls. I remember my friends and I using “SACRE COEUR!” as a joke swear word every ten minutes, with maximum phlegmy accents. I remember feeling like Andre the Giant when I couldn’t fit into any clothes in the stores, because apparently all French women were a size 2. And because of all the signs in the windows, I remember learning the French word for “sale” – “soldes” – a word my friends and I pronounce “soul-dez” and still use 25+ years later when we talk about recent purchases.
But I don’t remember going to Notre Dame.
Good stuff
I’m going to try to remember to put in sources from now on, in case anyone is bumping up against paywalls.
- How to find out who has your data on Facebook. (Buzzfeed) Related: AHP’s latest piece on how private groups are the one thing keeping many women on the platform. (Buzzfeed)
- A week in the life of my depression. (Man Repeller)
- Why your cotton tote bag is a bad substitute for a plastic bag. (Quartz)
- Women share solo travel safety tips. (NYT)
- I look just like every black woman you’ve ever seen. (McSweeney’s)
- A long and fun thread on surreal encounters with celebrities. (Twitter)
- “If you’re single and dating, angry is normal. It’s happy that’s the real surprise.” (Refinery29)
- This vintage Debbie Reynolds workout tape. Especially Shelley Winters in the back. (YouTube)
- Cartoon of the week. (Twitter)
- I’m completely sucked into The Bold Type (Hulu). It’s like a younger, more diverse Sex and the City. The plots are utterly absurd – 25-year-olds as department heads! who have daily supportive and encouraging encounters with a female boss/mother figure! – but it’s a fun distraction.
- David Brooks is generally full of it, and the title of this piece is misleading, but I love this concept of two mountains to describe people’s life experiences. (NYT)
- I just finished Becoming Ms. Burton. She’s the ultimate example of what Brooks is talking about. Cannot recommend this book enough. (The New Press)
For next week
I’m stealing this idea from a friend who recently asked me a similar question. Tell me about the time, in the last several days or weeks, when you laughed the hardest. Basically, what’s the funniest thing you’ve experienced recently? I suppose it could be something you read or saw on TV, but the best answers are probably going to be things that happened in real life. As always, you can reply directly to this email and anything I share will be anonymous.
Pass it on
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