Eryka Badu comes out of my speakers singing how he’s moving to Hollywood (random playlist).
My computers are on PST, my phone is on GMT and Southern California pictures show up from time to time, all the time.
I feel like it’s late though it’s 9am and I can’t say that it’s jetlag’s fault.
I’m often confused waking up, was it a dream or am I really here or there or am I dreaming now?
Taking the same trains again reminds me of myself in my 20s, full of hope for this country. lol. I did my best.
When it’s sunny my restless legs want to pedal or skateboard because I think of L.A. but then I remember that I’m in Paris and actually, it will only be sunny for 20 minutes before some massive rain so…
Everybody’s late. In LA I show up on time, I’m the last one. In Paris I show up on time, I’m always the first one arrived and wait another hour before we start whatever. It’s always been this way, it just gets more and more annoying.
I can’t stand how people look down constantly, I hate the lack of eye contact. 20,000 people/km² will make you forget to be human. There are the most obnoxious and insufferable motherfuckers I have ever seen in this city, at some point it’s even funny.
My though process is way too global/American now to get a real sense of what’s going on politically or socially. It sounds useless or completely nuts (über and taxi cabs, Europe’s political decisions). It’s the weirdest thing to be a native and *snaps* you’re not. I wasn’t the typical French dude before CA but now I really am not.
I see more than ever how interracial relationships are non-existent in France. In another amazing blog post from Ta-Nehisi he writes:
If you begin from the proposition that African-Americans are fundamentally American, in a way that the Afro-French are not; and that America is, itself, a black country in a way that the other European countries are not, Barack Obama’s election strikes you somewhat differently.
“Afro-French are not French”. He’s right. We’re just around raising babies or helping grandmas, cleaning up streets and metros or selling cannabis but we are not welcome more than that and trust me, born and raised by white people I see all that xenophobia and racism in HDR/X-Ray/WireFrame. I have seen it grow. I have seen it change, become nastier, even more hidden and it’s sad how as an individual I can’t do anything about it. I avoid it like a master ninja, disengaging conversations that could lead to pain or avoiding resentment because if I’m the Angry Black Man then I probably want to Keep It Real and then it Goes Wrong.
The good thing is, it made me prescient and in control.
I was born in Paris and I will not stay.