Devour? Really?

So, we all knew that the whole thing about me trying to stop bitching wasn't really going to last, right? Bitching is pretty much my natural way of life, and who am I to try to deny Mother Nature what is rightfully hers? Exactly. I'm glad you followed me on that one.

This weekend felt good. The short, shocking version of the story is that I went clubbing on Saturday until five in the morning and woke up in a guy's bed in the 12th.

Don't worry, Mom, there's more. Here's the long version.

Saturday morning I woke up feeling revived and decided to take on the city. I wanted, like I do so often, to discover something new, and I came up with a plan that would have me exploring a new part of Paris every weekend. After I lay around in bed for another hour and decided to scrap that unrealistic, idealistic piece of crap plan, I thought I'd go see a free photo exhibit at the Hotel de Ville with Stephanie. Saturday was a beautiful day. A bit cold, but hey, this is Paris. If the sun is out and the rain's not falling, you should be very grateful, and I was. We walked around Tuileries for a while, avoiding the Romanian girls who ask you if you speak English, then hold up cards with pleas for money scrawled out in rather exact penmanship. Angelina's was next on the menu, but it was still only two - an ungodly hour for hot chocolate, mind you, so we headed to the Orangerie for some Monet and other early 20th century art. All in all, it was kind of meh. Once you've seen all the major works in the Musée d'Orsay, other museums just pale in comparison. And yes, I know art people reading this are going, "sacrilege!" But please. I studied art history, I took impressionism here, I know what I'm talking about. If you're going to pay some hard-earned Euros to see some good ol' toiles, best fork it over at Orsay and get some good architecture as well. Finally, after the Orangerie and a twenty-minute line at Angelina, we sipped our chocolat à l'africain with much gusto and split a pistachio réligieuse, which was good, but not unforgettable. After that, we both went home to take a nap in preparation for the night ahead.

Steph ended up not coming. This was the first problem. This meant that, at a stoplight party - to be explained in a minute - I was going to be the only one of my friends not coupled up. First, we headed for dinner - one of those sushi train restaurants at the behest of my friend's boyfriend. It was pretty good, although I did rip my tights on the eight-foot high chairs. We killed time in a cafe, where my friend and I got 10Euro Irish coffees that were two parts whiskey to one drop coffee, which warmed us up in anticipation of venturing back into the Siberian wasteland that is Paris in February. Now, observation number one: three guys were waiting in line before us, and the guy at the door said there wasn't any room. We go up and get right in. Later, my friend's boyfriend tells us that this is a regular occurrence, and that usually, bouncers won't let guys in who aren't accompanied by at least one girl. He said that he loved it in the States because he could get in wherever he wanted, regardless of who he was with. Interesting. Also, the cover charge was 10E for girls, 20E for guys. And the plot thickens. So now, not only will the guys you meet in the club be sketchy, but they may be wealthy and will definitely expect to get what they paid for. More of that later. For now, let me explain this stoplight party nonsense. I'd never been to one of these things, so maybe they're a weekly thing, maybe everyone's been to one but me, but I'm still going to explain. You walk in and get a bracelet. Red if you're taken, green if you're single, and yellow if you don't know. How can you not know? Whatever. I took a yellow because I figured red would be flat out lying and green would invite unwanted sketchy drunkards. Yellow seemed safe and gave me an easy way out of hairy situations. Oh, if only the bracelet had been enough...

Almost four hours of dancing later, I still found myself toute seule in the middle of the dancefloor, surrounded by my coupled-up friends and newly coupled-up strangers. Over the course of the night, I'd gotten to experience true Parisian clubbing - people feeling me up on their way through the crowd, guys spilling their drinks all over my shoes, people knocking their elbows into my head. Oh, it was a blast. And then I met Stanislas. I never actually got his name, but that's what I'm going to call him; he just had a Stanislas air about him. Obviously drunk and definitely sketchy, he came up to me smiling and kept trying to dance with me. My friends succeeded in sending him off a couple times, but when he came back a third time and started grabbing my arms and leaning in to say things into my ears, I said "fuck this" and went over to the first guy I saw leaning against the wall. I'd also noticed this guy hanging around us for a while, looking at me like he was going to come over and ask me to dance. Even though this was the least attractive guy I've ever seen in France, I thought it was better than being badgered by Stan. So I thought it would be a win-win situation, and actually, I'd be doing him a favor (not because of the unattractive thing, because of the shy thing). But, in my fleeting moment of ballsy awesomeness, I forgot that in France, when a girl asks a guy to dance, she's really asking if he wants to sleep with her. Silly me, I forgot that the women's rights movement didn't really cross the Atlantic. Five minutes of the most awkward, horrible dancing - I mean ridiculously awkward 7th grade dancing, no contact, looking around to avoid eye contact, dancing - went by, and I couldn't do it any more. I told him I was getting back to my friends and that he should go keep his friend company. Pretty pimp if I do say so myself. Such a tease. A few minutes later and we were waiting for someone to get back from the bathroom when he came back, after a lot of coercion from his friends, and started dancing behind me. He put his hand on my hip and I turned around, just in time for him to say something to me I didn't quite get. I told him, no thanks, I'm leaving in a few minutes. "Oh, you want to leave?!" He looked so excited, like a dog when you go to get the leash off the wall. I said, "No, I'm leaving with some friends." I turned away, and then we left. I ended up at a friend's boyfriend's place and slept in his bed while they went back to my friend's place.

And so, nothing of real import happened this weekend. But the next day I realized what the guy in the club had said. "Tu veux que je t'engouffre?" I wasn't aware that you could say "do you want me to devour you?" in the middle of a crowded club to a girl you don't know. But then again, this is France, and I did ask the guy to dance with me in the first place, so I guess I deserved that one, right?

More updates on school and such at some point...