Life is skittles and life is beer

Okay maybe it's not, but this is the traditional song to sing when Spring has arrived. Although you really couldn't tell. It's a balmy 50 degrees outside, but it's rainy. I was really motivated to hit up the markets this morning, but I am officially over it.

Anyway, my week of distraction officially culminated on Friday with a birthday party for someone I've never met before, as is one of the great joys of having friends who go to different schools, and then them having friends all over the world as well. After a few shots of the worst whisky ever to come out of Scotland, we headed over to the birthday girl's apartment (Molly), who had decorated her door with a George Bush poster and declared it an America-only zone, so we could properly celebrate her 21st birthday in spite of the fact that here she's just another year older. But there were three French people there, all guys, and one of them sang us some songs on the guitar. And then Richard played "What I Got" and "American Pie" (we'll overlook the fact that Richard is, actually, Canadian). Ohhh the nostalgia. And at one point about five of us stood in a circle and shared a bottle of warm champagne while having a heated argument about whether marijuana actually ruins your life. At around 2 we headed back to Stephanie's because Matt and Joe had to catch a flight at 6, which meant they had to catch a bus to Orly around 3. But since everyone was of a varying degree of drunk/stoned/horny, it was more like 4 by the time we left. So they caught a cab to the airport, and I caught one home from Montparnasse. That's the second time I've taken a cab in two weeks, but I can't help it. To get home from Montparnasse takes wo night buses, or one bus and an unpleasant walk from Gobelins. It doesn't help that Parisian taxes are just so nice. Pretty much the only place I've ever taken taxis is Las Vegas, and it's always cheesy Ford Queen Victoria's with overly squishy tan seats. In Paris they're always shiny and clean with black leather interior, like a town car. And they line up at the taxi stands all nice and neat (as opposed to every other line-up situation in Europe) and it's just too easy. Anyway, it was very romantic, that cab, probably because I was drunk.

Sadly, all of those fun and games are over now and for the next three weeks I have to keep my head down and work my ass off. This is made more grim by my still as-yet-unsolved housing issues. My property manager never got back to me on Friday, and my landlady hasn't emailed me back (either she REALLY hates me more than I thought, or she died. Honestly this woman wouldn't stop checking her Blackberry if she was deep-sea diving). So I brainstormed a couple of options: one is to find a sublet for two weeks at the beginning of June. The other is to pray that two of my professors will give the finals the first week of June. Then I would move out on the 31st, stay somewhere for a few days, and then change my flight and go home a week early. Shit like this is always happening to me, man. The problem is that it's so up in the air right now that I can't do anything but wait. I need an absolution and then I'll go about fixing the problem, although for all I know there might not be a problem. Gah. I'm already shifting into full-swing for a San Francisco apartment, I don't need this crap as well.

On the other hand, all of this nervous energy is making me really motivated. Yesterday I emailed Madame LeMarchand to check up on my graduation credits so I can figure out if I need to a take a French class in the fall. My schedule is going to be packed. I don't know when/if I'm going to work. Or if I can get some sort of internship. Or if my mom would be willing give me more money so I could intern. Or if I could even get an internship since I don't have any clips right now. We need to have a phone conference. And I need to make an appointment with my journalism adviser this summer. And I need to find a good vet to clean my cat's teeth. A load of crap awaits me in San Francisco, but what doesn't await me is a well-paying job. For all the crap this assistant job has put me through, it's totally worth the 750 euros a month, no doubt.