Should I feel insulted or complimented?

Y'know, I haven't totally gotten back on track with this blog, and I think it's because I've tried to get back to normal posting even though I still have lots of things to yap about that happened during my looooong absence.  So, clearly I'm going to have to backtrack and talk about those before I can get back into the regular swing of things.  Okay?  Okay.  

So, one of the things that happened is that I was apparently mistaken for a gay man.  On one of the few nights out I had in July (when I wasn't busy packing like a demon, working like a demon, or generally stressing out like a demon - there were a lot of demons involved, is what I'm saying), two friends of mine were celebrating their impending move to Berlin.  It was one of those evenings that start out with nice, civilized cocktails and end up with stumbling home at 6am.  Anyway, one of our merry group was a very nice Austrian guy, let's call him Herr Wienerschnitzel - he was cute and charming, but I immediately pegged him as gay and thought no more about it.  So we all caroused from bar to bar and ended up in a skeevy nightclub, which is where we remained until 6am.  At that point, our group scattered in various directions, and it turned out that Herr Wienerschnitzel and I were going in the same direction, as he lived a block away from me in the Marais.  So he and I strolled home from St Michel to the Hotel de Ville, passing Notre Dame  along the way (and here's a little tip for you - if you ever want to get a photo of yourself in front of Notre Dame with absolutely NO ONE else around, 6am is the time to do it), until we arrived at my door.  I started to say goodnight, when, with no warning whatsoever, he suddenly pounced on my face and started smooching the hell out of me.  Gentle readers, not much surprises Miss K anymore, but I did not see that one coming!  I lived in the Marais for five months, so I do have a tendency to assume that every handsome, well-groomed and well-dressed man I see is gay, but even after Herr Wienerschnitzel snogged my face off and claimed he was straight, I'm still not convinced about him.  I think I know what happened - as I've told you before, I'm tall and have shoulders like a lumberjack, plus I also have a deep voice.  The pickings were mighty slim in that nightclub, so if he ignored my cleavage and long hair, I was probably the closest thing to an attractive man that he could find.  So I'm still trying to decide if that's an insult or a compliment to me...

Let's try that again

Sorry about yesterday - as I said, I'm really going to try to finally achieve a perfect record of posting every day this month, but as I ended up going out with Tiny Dancer and English Rose for a drink yesterday afternoon, it kind of turned into an all-day-and-all-evening sort of thing and I had to blog from the bar on my iPhone just to make the deadline.  (And yes, I felt like a pretentious idiot for doing it - the things I do for you, gentle readers...)

So, as I said, I was at Rosa Bonheur in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont last night - it's  a famous bar in Paris, but you may not have heard of it as it doesn't seem to be in the guidebooks.  It's an interesting combination of outside (picnic tables, everyone chilled out and relaxing) and inside (full-on disco nightclub), not to mention that the park is high up, so you get a spectacular view of the sun setting over the rooftops of Paris.  Highly recommended for a summer evening...

Why the Belgians are better than the French (Pt 3)

11.  The Belgians make about 8000 kinds of beer.  Miss K is not a fan of beer, but I appreciate a) the inventiveness and b) the names.  Like Kwak, for example.  Just say it a few times: Kwak, Kwak, Kwak.  Hee!

12.  The Segway tour in Bruges.  There are Segway tours in other cities, but this one is fabulous.  You go all over town, which is a great thing when you are short on time (we were only there for a day, so this was ideal).  Plus - fun!  The Segway is just about the most fun you can have standing up...

13.  The Belgians are not afraid to let you know they have a kinky side.  This little shop was right along one of the main tourist streets in Bruges - yes, you can buy linens and chocolates and postcards and chain-and-leather lingerie all on the same block.  Hey, you just never know when you might need to get all those things at once...

14.  They have a museum entirely dedicated to frites.  And why not?  The frites in Belgium deserve their own museum.  French frites should hide their little frite faces in shame at the vast superiority of the Belgian version.  Oh yeah, them's fighting words, but I'm not wrong.

15.  Deckchairs outside a Brussels city centre bar on a cold night in September.  This is so awesomely freaky that you would never see it in Paris. 

 

To be continued...

Nightlife

Sorry about not posting yesterday - I did intend to, but it's getting toward the end of January and my hermit-like tendencies are beginning to erode away, so my landlady and her boyfriend and her fabulously gay cousin were able to drag me out again last night.  It went a little something like this:

Around 10pm, my landlady knocks on my door and asks if I want to go out with them in about half an hour to a nightclub where some friend of theirs is DJing.  I decide that the good people at Amex can damn well wait for my next payment in favour of me having a little fun right now, so I throw on some nightclub-appropriate garb and stroll out of my room, only to discover that everyone else is in sharp suits and that it's not a nightclub we're off to, it's some ridiculously posh bar - eek!!!  So I dive back into my room and change outfits faster than anyone you've ever seen - seriously, I was like frickin' Wonder Woman, it was that quick.  Biker boots off, fabulous boots on.  Skirt and top off, little black dress on.  Grabbed a tasteful necklace on the way out the door and I was done - seriously, less than a minute.  (And the only reason this was possible is that the perfect LBD happened to be hanging in my closet and for that I must thank my friend, the Glam Miss R.  Not only does she have an uncanny nose for a bargain, we have similar hourglass figures (admittedly, hers is due to a fabulous rack and mine is due to being built like a linebacker with a small waist, but whatever, tomayto, tomahto), and I know that what looks good on her usually also looks good on me, so when she found the perfect LBD in an upscale Toronto boutique for half-price, I promptly purchased one for myself as well.  So, thank you Miss R!)

Anyway, we turned up at this private party at the bar and all of fashionable Paris was there.  Here are just a few of the things I observed:

• Off-duty models (there to make the rest of us feel bad about ourselves - mission accomplished, ladies!).
  

• Intellectuals air-kissing and then back-stabbing each other.
  

• A long-haired guy in a white cable-knit sweater and (I swear to you) a kilt.  And I'm pretty sure he wasn't Scottish, so I honestly have no idea what that was about, other than some low-rent homage to Highlander? 

• A white-haired, very rich-looking tycoon type who couldn't have been a day under 60, who was there with his girlfriend, who couldn't have been a day over 20.  Of course.  I'm sure they're both in that relationship for the great conversation...

• Gay men cruising anything that moved.  

Speaking of gay men, I must say the French ones are some biiiiiitchy queens (and as a card-carrying member of Bitches International, I say that with nothing but admiration, I assure you).  This is a conversation I had with one of them:

Him: That guy Pierre over there?  He thinks he's that writer - what's his name?  New York in the 60s, bald, short, glasses?

Me: Truman Capote?

Him: Oui.  Except Pierre is tall, French and has no talent.

 Meow!  

It was a great opportunity to people-watch and eavesdrop (two of my favourite things), and I will leave you with another conversation, which I overheard in the lounge area outside the bar (where it was quiet enough to eavesdrop properly, luckily):

Man 1 - You okay?

Man 2 -  No, my girlfriend dumped me.

Man 1 - Oh, too bad, sorry to hear that.  [Pause.]  How's your wife?

Man 2 - Yeah, yeah, she's good.

Me: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!