I have been in my house cleaning (kind of), lounging (lots of), and reflecting since. New Year's Day.  The phone hasn't rung...

That's not really different from before but I feel different.  I feel like, well, I don't know, but I feel a little like I did back in Paris when I never knew what was going to happen next.  It's just a little less extreme.  

I am working on my new blog now, wanting to start it off with a review of a couple of books. I am also realizing that I'm probably going to have to come up with my own design for the site that will be home to another project I'm working on, because things don't feel right with the current arrangement.  I don't want to end up in a similar situation to one that thrust the new project entirely on my shoulders in the first place.

I have three articles on tap with two completed holdovers from 2008 that should be published in the coming weeks.  I'm hoping to get at least one pitch out the door every other week or so and get creative about work.

It's good to be motivated and focused on the inside again now I just have to channel it to the keyboard of my trusty MacBook.  

PR saves my Soul...

I ran across this on youtube after doing a search for Pete Rock:



I had never purchased any of his solo material because, well, I don't know why. But PR is the most amazing hip hop producer. I would say that he could easily produce across genres if he so desired. He is a true artist.

No other producer comes close, there was Dilla (R.I.P.), 9th Wonder, and of course, Premo, but Pete still reigns supreme.

His work is complex and subtle. I have been inspired to develop some sort of tarte in his honor. Don't know what I will call it, but I'm envisioning chocolate, textures, a hint of salt, caramel, maybe hazelnut...to the kitchen. With PR playing in the background, of course.

Paris, mon amour...

I think that I have made the decision to stay put one more year, as much as I want to go back to Paris tout de suite.  I came back for love and to get my mind right.  Now that my mind's right I feel like the rest will follow or maybe not and if not, that's alright, because, of course, my mind's right. 

What I am trying to do is build my writing business so that I can live like I live here there, if that makes sense.  It's going slowly and right now I'm feeling not so surely, and boy I miss my spot.  

I miss the smells and the sounds of Paris.  I miss the neighborhoods where I hung out and my soul opened up again.  I miss walking around Chateau Rouge trying to find a place to get my hair braided.  I miss my mint tea and my patisseries.  I miss my movies any time of day or night.  I miss my favorite cafe off the boulevard Saint Michel, surprisingly devoid of tourists. I miss my walks through Pere Lachaise where I could reflect undisturbed.  The dead generally mind their own business...

I miss the fine men, the flirting, the hustle and bustle, the sophistication of it all that makes Chicago look like a podunk backwater and even New York (a little bit).  I miss it.  I miss eating scrambled eggs sprinkled with a bit of Emmenthaler that taste like heaven.  Like no other eggs anywhere.  I miss my cafe creme and my cafe haunts.  I miss my favorite bookstore on rue Saint Maur and I miss eating the ambrosial mammoul found at La Grande Mosquee de Paris.  

I miss going to the Louvre at night and that stretch on the metro ligne 6 (that's Charles de Gaulle Etoile and Nation) between the Dupleix and Bir Hakeim stops at night. Each time you ride at night and reach that point and see the Eiffel Tower lit up you lose your breath, you forget how beautiful, how seductive it all is.  You are reminded at that point each time of where you are, not that you could ever forget.

God.  I have to get back home.

Patisseries Algeriennes

Oh la la.  Comme je pense des patisseries.  Ca semble un peu bizarre je suis sure, mais c'est la verite.  Une vie sans ces patisseries...je ne peux pas l'imaginer.  

It's all true.  I am feeling the pull of the cakes that seduced me in Paris.  It's so difficult for me being away from all of that.  Just look at them....

Can you blame me?