1. Creepy Neighbor smells so bad that when I encountered him in the stairwell, my nose started running uncontrollably, probably as feeble protest for being continually subjected to this torture.  It’s hard to unlock the door to our apartment while trying simultaneously to stifle a rivulet of snot and as well as the natural inclination to, you know, breathe.  Seriously, can smells be carcinogenic?
2. A brief summary of CN, for the heretofore-uncomplained-to:
   • He smells really bad.
   • He lives in a single bedroom on the same floor as us. His bathroom/kitchen/stankhole is across the tiny landing. Thus, he crosses the landing in front of our door approximately 54,008 times a day.
   • Said landing is consequently always covered in his filth, as well as broken glass, mysterious brownish leaks from the bathroom, occasional red wine stains.
   • Did I mention he stinks? Sweat, piss, tobacco, generalized trash. It occasionally invades our apartment, so we have stooped to buying scented candles.
     • Although there is an air freshener in the lobby, all the way open, that does nothing to freshen the air.
   • He is probably unemployed.
   • He may be alcoholic or mentally unstable, or both.
   • He yells gibberish–or possibly a language we don’t understand–at people who don’t exist. Conveniently, he also usually waits until the middle of the night to practice this charming hobby.
   • He occasionally slams the bathroom door so hard–perhaps in anger?–that our interphone falls off the wall.
   • I am terrified of him. Every now and then, when the cleaning people come and it doesn’t reek so much, I also feel a little pity for him. These feelings, as well as a lack of confidence in French, work together to make me not want to confront him about the Nast.
3. This might be worse than the time Joe and I found human shit in the stairwell in Madison. If we had more than four months left, I would give serious consideration to moving.
4. It is the season of les soldes. I wandered around a little this afternoon, but didn’t feel much like buying anything. This is probably because all I want to wear every day for the rest of my life, regardless of weather or occasion, is anthropologie dresses.
5. Also, the clothes I already own, which I somehow keep managing to lose or tear or stain or wear to shreds. I left a glove on the bus this morning and later when I picked up my favorite sweater from le pressing, they said they were unable to remove the stain, which was the only reason I gave it to them in the first place. Alas.
6. I went into school today prepared for battle with my rowdiest class. I want to say girded my loins, so I will. And then, of course, they were quiet. I was totally ready to yell and jump up and down or whatever. Sigh. Somehow, they still managed to make me crazy, even without the racket they made last time.
7. Not only is Det snurrar i min skalle a good song, it also gave me a great deal of pleasure when I realized that “i min skalle” means “in my skull.” Then I felt silly for not having seen it early, since it’s so obvious. FedExed. I love Indo-European languages.
8. Familjen redeems Sweden for having produced Jens Lekman. Yeah, I said it.

Posted in France, blahblahblah, funny, music, oy vey, shopping, whining by rachel