minke: adventure in paris

So, another night, another dyke bar. I've never gone to one alone as a stranger before, well, not for years, anyway. Last night was great, tonight could be called 'interesting'.

Dyke bars are safest if you're travelling, and want to have a drink without being bothered - no-one ever tries to pick you up in a dyke bar. When I realised this, I cracked up, and was still laughing a few minutes later. Even now, I've got a smile on my face and a giggle in my throat.

Fucking lesbian mafia - the last bar was like a French Glasshouse. I bought a drink downstairs, using a 50ff note, and the bartender made a big production of holding it up to the light to make sure it was real.

So, backtracking. Got back to the hostel, metro was too hot, and I was flustered, and couldn't find my receipt, so even more so. I don't know what time I got back but I was talking to the American girl in my room until 11.

I'm sure I put my foot in it a million ways - she's probably a lawyer, cos I made a derogatory comment about lawyers. She lives alone, so my talk of living alone and being broken into so many times went down a treat.

We were talking about travelling by yourself and how people treat you, especially when eating by yourself. I was saying that I thought you became invisible, but she said that you could be the centre of attention. There's a couple staring at me now, so maybe that's true.

But in the last bar (oh, a segue!) everyone was desperately trying to avoid looking at me in case they were trapped into pity, like light desperately escaping a black hole.

I'm eavesdropping on the table in front of me. The American-stuck-in-Paris-since-1952 talking to the English guy from some-oddly-accented-county has been stuck on the same anecdote for five minutes. I feel like giving him a thump so he can jump to the next track.

I'd feel sorry for the Englander except that earlier he said with gravitas, "it's usually the actors that make or break a [film] script". Fatuous dickhead.

Mr American-stuck-in-Paris-since-1952's anecdote involves the night on which he got to sit with someone famous at the 'special kings and heads of state table and be served by charles someotherfamous-guy himself' in the restaurant at the Paris Hilton. Not only was it a really boring anecdote a long time before it hit the ten minute mark, namedropping just doesn't work if you have to explain it by saying, "ask anyone in Paris who blah is".

[I considered dropping this story when I ran into Mr American-stuck-in-Paris-since-1952 on a tram in Amsterdam, because if the world is that coincidental, what's to say he wouldn't read this? On reflection, however, I realised I'd be kidding myself if I thought that more than three people would ever read this. And if you're Mr American-stuck-in-Paris-since-1952 or the English guy from some-oddly-accented-county, don't feel bad, you're both perfectly nice people, I'm just a bitch.]

The English guy from some-oddly-accented-county got his revenge for the precious moments of his life he wasted listening to the story by agreeing that the experience may have been the pinnacle of his life, and it's certainly not one that most people would ever get, then adding that therefore 'there's only one way to go from there, you've been in freefall ever since'.

Mr American-stuck-in-Paris-since-1952 must be in the hotel biz, or at least have a serious obsession with them. When they got talking to the Australian couple from the next table (who were also from Melbourne), the first thing he said was 'oh, Melbourne, I've stayed at the Southern Cross there'. Or maybe he was trying to lead into a story about sitting at a table with Bruce, the famous waiter.