Bonjour!
Well, here I am in Paris, and it's predictably beatiful and all that yadda yadda. My anxiety has mostly gone away, though not entirely. My mood is always good on vacation in Europe because I do nothing but walk all day, after a good night's sleep and several good meals. I'm staying in my own little apartment within an apartment on the Ile St. Louis, thanks to the incredible good will of my mother's friend and business associate, and sleeping in a large bed with the best linens I've evern known. The comfort of the bed, and the cozy room, and the fact that I can sleep a full 10 hours, which is what my body really requires for maximum functionality, means I wake up recharged and ready to go. I have felt zero fatigue since I've been here, and in Philly I limp along like a noodle. Today we walked and walked and walked for five hours, and I plan to go out and walk some more in another hour. I've been to Paris several times, so it's not just the newness of a place. It's the sleep!
Plus, I'm not torturning myself about food and weight while I'm here. I'm eating what I want to, but finding that I'm not having wild cravings. It's so important to get out of your everyday patterns to realize what is and isn't non-negotiable. I think stress makes me obsess about eating, and I'm going to fight back. The migraines, on the other hand, have not gotten the memo that we're on vacation. One a day, right one schedule, my dear headache friends. See? If I anthropomorphize them, it'll make them seem cute.
Other thoughts: Air France might as well be Aeroflot, which I flew when Russia was still the USSR. It sucks, and I don't care how much frommage they throw at me. CNN Europe version is better than American CNN. I miss my hamster.
But as far as mental health news, well, I got an email from Philip Dawdy about some astronomical numbers from a Harvard researcher, basically claiming that something like half of the population has a mental illness. Obviously, Philip has some thoughts on this. Moi? Not right now. I'm too busy being someone else.
[Photo of a Paris scene by Delgoff]
Comments
Bonjour! You're right down the street from the Joan of Arc shrine at Notre Dame, one of my favorite places. Then there's Parc Montsouris, small and relaxing, and croque monsuier sandwiches and pommes frites and pastries and the little shops with puppies for sale on the sidewalk (and bunnies and chickens too but try not to think about that. Have a great trip. Paris rocks.
Posted by: Sally | September 4, 2007 02:37 PM
Bonjour to you, Liz!
Inexplicably, my favorite ITALIAN restaurant is in Paris. It's called "La Comedia," and is located in (I think) the Fifth Arrondisment.
Au Revoir!
Dennis
Posted by: Dennis | September 4, 2007 04:39 PM
This sounds like a wonderful trip! I'm glad you're enjoying it (except for the headaches). It must be interesting to look at Les Etats Unis from the outside. I think I read somewhere that Paris was founded beside the ruins of an ancient Roman town, and was named after a Celtic tribe living in the area called the Parisinni, or something like that. Maybe you could arrange some kind of a video conference involving the hamster.
I've always wanted to go to someplace where they spoke a little French just so I could feel that the three semesters I spent trying to learn it in college weren't entirely wasted. But I think a place like Paris where the language was exclusively French would be a little too much for me. I need to visit one of those places where they just use French for very common, everyday things, and use English for all the more complicated stuff.
Your statement about needing ten hours of sleep to feel fully rested makes me wonder how common that is. I usually need a little more sleep than average myself, about nine hours I think, and I wonder if it's common among people who've had ECT to need more sleep than average?
Bonjour.
Posted by: Kent | September 5, 2007 06:27 PM