Where does my time go? How is it that it’s already 4:30 and I’ve accomplished nothing yet today? Every day is uniquely unproductive but today: I slept until 10:37 instead of ten because it took me so long to fall asleep last night. Now I know that, yes, coffee éclairs have caffeine in them. It took me an hour to get ready because I’m slow and then I went to the pharmacy to pick up something for Ader. That part was actually pretty speedy. I showed the pharmacist the receipt, she handed me the filled prescription, I said “merci, bonne journée” and left. Oh the horrors of socialized medicine! But that’s a discussion for another time.

I got back to our building and found the elevator broken so I had to walk up six flights of stairs. I’m out of shape my own standards so that took a few more minutes than it should have. Then I had to change clothes because my desire for a hot sunny day has little to no effect on reality and I was freezing. I had some emails to send in French (easy) and German (hard and time consuming). I checked my voice mail hoping someone had left a message with a job offer but all four messages were from Agathe. Agathe is a fifty-something French lady who contacted me through Conversation Exchange. It’s not that I’m opposed to hanging out with people a generation older than me, in fact just about all of my friends are older than me. But Agathe vouvoyers me and just seems really stuffy and old.

Back when I was a self-forcer I agreed to meet her, but then I admitted to myself that I didn’t really want to. I sent her an apologetic text to cancel and then spent the evening making guacamole and watching Secret Story with Ader, which was all I really felt like doing. Four times now Agathe has called me at nine a.m. asking if we could try and meet again. I never answer, I never call her back, and yet she just doesn’t get it. But people like this are also a discussion for another time.

So now I was dressed appropriately and my bag of books was packed and I headed off to the library in the Mairie of the seventh arrondissement. I took the metro all the way to Varenne and then it was still a bit of a walk. So I had plenty of time to remember that all the public libraries in Paris are closed on Mondays, a fact that I have lamented to anyone who will listen. But I didn’t before I got to the door and pulled on the handle a few times. Then I went to try and find the supposedly very nice Jardin Atlantique. I finally found it but it’s not that great after all plus it started raining. So now I’m home sitting on the floor using the coffee table as a desk. And that’s what happened to Monday, July eighteenth.