This November my blog will be 16 years old. To celebrate I am asking you my readers to submit a Guest Post for my blog as a way of celebrating our connectedness as a community through social media.
I hope you will send me your story or at least a glimpse into your life (please send your story and JPEG photos to my email then I will post them to my blog. This will introduce you to one another.
Many of you are feeling shy, or worse not worthy as if there is a prize for the best life lived. I hope, truly hope, you will take a leap of faith in telling me and my readers about yourself, a cherished memory, a recipe, a hobby, what inspires you, what you dream about, and more importantly how are you? What are you living with or through right now?
Your story, as all of our stories, are one, interconnected by the weaver, the river, the dreamer, the wind, the path as we are on moving forward to the light. Please consider sharing a bit of yourself with me.
Thank you in advance for being part of French la Vie / Tongue in Cheek.
Corey said that she wants to host guest bloggers on her blog, French la Vie. I considered it, but Corey's blog is so positive, so beautiful. Her blog encompasses history and the collecting of that history. She writes about family and babies, home, and heart. My blog is about me and my travails in life. Not always so beautiful. But what the hell, here's a story about my partner in life Mark, and I visit Paris. Oh, and don't get me wrong. I loved Paris. It's a big city and I'm a big city boy from Chicago.
While paging through the photo album of our trip to Paris some years ago, I wondered what the hell is wrong with some Americans? Why do so many of us speak ill of the French? Why the name-calling? The truth is that we are a lot like the French. We should appreciate that both they and we are nationalistic, patriotic, and think our shit doesn't stink. In some other ways, the French are different from us. For instance, most Parisians speak two or more languages, with the second one usually being English. That, I think, is so that they can make fun of Americans like Mark and me in a language that we would understand. Yes, it did happen that they mocked us on occasion. Which was expected. We were just a couple of rubes from America after all. There were some Parisians however, who were very nice and treated us well. But that might have been because we were paying to stay at their hotel.
While we were in Paris we visited an area known as Les Halles. We should have known something was up when the cab driver refused to drop us off in front of the club we were going to. He stopped at a corner and pointed, telling us in French to walk "Deux rues". After strolling past prostitutes, drug dealers, and all sorts of sketchy types, we finally found the little club we were looking for. We entered the front door and were stopped by the doorman who then pointed us toward what looked like a coat check room. The man at the coat check room told us that there would be a cover charge as he handed us two black, plastic garbage bags. I stood there with the bags in my hand and asked him,
"What are these for?"
"Oh, gentlemen.
Tonight is a naked night!
The bags are for your clothes."
Mark and I looked at each other, knowing what the answer would be,
"No Thanks, not for us." and I handed the bags back to him.
Though, just to be sure, I reached over and pulled the little black curtain to see if maybe it might be interesting. What I saw has been permanently
burned into my memory.
There sat two, old, wrinkle-assed men, stark naked on bar stools. They were casually having a conversation, smoking cigarettes, and sipping their drinks. I grabbed Mark by the arm and assured him that we weren't missing anything as we hastily made our exit.
It made me love Paris even more.
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