— Isn’t raw cauliflower toxic?

— No, and it’s good.

— What am I confusing it with then?

— Dunno.

— I bought a pack of Florette cauliflower, to eat it raw, and right at the time I was biting into a piece I had a flashback of “you shouldn’t eat xxxx raw, they’re toxic.”

In any case, Florette cauliflower is good, fresh, convenient, and more fun to nibble at that celery. And thank heavens Wikipedia is there to tell you that it’s low in saturated fat — you could have had doubts.

• “They closed the Sainte-Croix street, there’s a bomb.”
  Evidently, when I got back from the bank, the Marais hadn’t exploded yet. I’ve only been there for six months, so I’d rather they waited a bit longer before they blow it up. (On the other hand, living in Paris does tend to build up some misanthropy, so I might be just the one to bomb it, a few years from now.)

• “Do you want to be able to withdraw money with the card? The default is to deactivate that, so that you can trust an employee with your card for errands, but if you’re sure you won’t be tempted…”
  Little did he warn me that the Business Card was sexy and shiny and silver and would whisper to my ear: “Ooh yeah, use me and abuse me, I’m all yours, let’s go to the Bahamas together and I’ll let you do me in every way you want.” There you go, card, into the drawer, or I’d be inviting everyone and anyone to dinner until I end up in jail.

• I think I’m basically back to my regular weight, hurray for walking (I think I am because I don’t use scales, it’s against my religion). Of course, my normal weight is just what allows me to look alright when I’m clothed, but not to roam nightclubs or webcam chatrooms bare-chested (or worse), but (1) that’s not necessarily such a bad thing and (2) in order to get a flat abdomen and defined biceps, diet won’t be enough, it’s either bulimia or the gym.

• Ooh, I’d forgotten I had forked over the money for our webservers in May. Yippee, I’m rich. Well, right now I’m more in the red, but virtually, once every expense is reimbursed, I’m rich.

• Not sure whether the whole building is trembling every time France scores because of the bar below, or it’s just my next-door neighbors stomping. I mean, why would they be stomping to celebrate a goal?

• God likes the Gay Pride better than the Fête de la musique.

• A Gay Pride in Paris is like Valentine’s Day in a bathhouse: you’ve never felt so alone, and old, and alone, and ugly, and alone, and dirty, but you can’t not go.

• Okay, next year I’ll be muscular enough to walk with Pride and a bare chest. Yeah, yeah, better believe it. I can’t wait until I’m 45 to do that.

• I’m afraid I might be sorry for my very first exposure to afternoon sun this year.

• I saw surprisingly few people I know — I even didn’t run into many faces seen on the internet at all. Did everyone I ever knew die, and people roaming internet chatrooms stay at home rather than parade? (And, in that case, where is it again you can meet all the cute guys — and, no doubt, absolutely uninteresting and stupid and not to dwell over — you can see marching?)

• Judging by the amount of people connected to gay sites this late afternoon, yeah, it must be a totally distinct crowd. I have to spend more time in the Marais. And in a gym. But how can one start going to the gym while living in the third arrondissement? I can’t, it’ll be shameful!

• It’s almost hard to imagine there was a time when I has lots of friends… well, pals… actually, tolerable people, that I could march with and have drinks with afterwards and all that. I wonder what’s more improbable: having muscles of my own to display next year, or a crowd to be with.

Flick. Flack. God doesn’t love the Fête de la musique very much. Neither do I, and that’s a good excuse for me to skip it.

Isn’t it pathetic, really. There are enough amateur musicians and would-be singers to spot a guitar in every bar and at every street corner… once a year. What are they doing on other days?!

• I’m in love with the Daily Monop (a mini supermarket open until midnight). When I grow up I want to live right across the street. Well, actually, when I grow up I want to live across from a huge 24/7 store right on the Hôtel de Ville plaza.

• Is the smell of cannabis indissociable from the active chemicals? In other words, should you, whenever you sense a suspect smell in the air, stop in your tracks and enjoy it for a while, or can it be solely a smell? Should they arrest anyone seen not running away from the scent of cannabis? Well, this is all hypothetical — I have no idea what it smells like, of course.

Yay, I finally finished my reserve of marshmallow bears. They had huge boxes at the supermarket in January, and I’d taken one in anticipation of my housewarming party, but considering I’m never going to host one, and they wouldn’t survive the summer, I had to do something with them — like, eat them. A couple bears makes for a great breakfast.

But then, if I’m gonna spend the whole Saturday night playing Tomb Raider at J.’s place, I guess I might as well stop worrying about which day it is and how I’m not enjoying the last weeks of over-crowded Marais…

Doesn’t anyone have a website to have made by next week and pay me in time for me to pay the rent? I swear I’m super good (and super fast and efficient, too), but I can’t really show you my portfolio because I wasn’t inspired at all when I made it so the layout is ugly.

• Considering this is only the second time I’m on rollers again after five years, I can be pretty proud of the progress. I still don’t quite feel like I’m ever going to be quite good at it, but maybe that’s just because I’ve been used to being lousy at sports all my life, whereas there’s no reason for it to still be true now that I’m not a dysfunctional geek anymore, only a geek (I could blame my crapiness at all sports involving projectiles on my lack of three-dimensional vision, but I have no excuse to fail at skating).

• You could have told me it was Friday evening! Not only I’d have started piling up on (soft) drinks for the week-end, but I would have found something more interesting to do than atoning for my couscous on rollers!

Ooh, Google Earth (the new version is nice, but I don’t recall the interface being so laggy) has new photographs for Paris (I’ve been told they aren’t that new, but I hadn’t run it for a while). Wow, so many pixels.

I can’t date these pictures. I’m confused, between all the latest landmarks being where they should, and street markings that I’d thought to have disappeared for twenty years. Have I grown so used to the “don’t stay stuck in the middle of crossings” yellow grids that I just forget they exist?

• I have a very distinct feeling that my bedroom is darker in summer than in winter. It could just be due to contrast, in that I see bright dailight outside and dimmer inside, but it could also be quite conceivable that I actually got less sunlight inside, because the sun’s position is more vertical than in winter, couldn’t it?

• In other news, I’m dying. And I can be glad I don’t have large windows, because I can’t imagine what it would be then. The little sun I get in the fifty centimeters around my window manged to fry my alarm clock.

• Couldn’t find the fan aisle at BHV. But they received a MacBook, so it wasn’t useless going there. No fans left at Darty’s République store, meaning I’m not the only moron waiting until the last moment to buy one, but a few at the Châtelet store, probably because people don’t actually live there.

It’s been a long journey, but it’s finally beginning to look like something both appropriate for living and for having friends over (but not too many of those). First there was the minuscule desk that let the sun shine right onto my screen; then there was the gigantic desk occupying the whole room; now it’s just the right size, with the right angle (and it’s been a pain, first because I waited until the first day of sunny weather after three weeks of grey skies to go to the BHV and get my boards, and second because I had to cut the angle off myself) and the right height so as not to cannibalize the surrounding space.

— Ah, I can’t do that, you know, we can only make straight cuts.

— But… that’s straight.

— Sorry, we can’t.

— But… all it takes is rotating the board 45 degrees and…

— Oh, I’m not saying it isn’t simple, but we can’t do that, sorry.

In other news, LED-only lighting is actually rather dark (unless I am to buy two dozen bulbs and matching sockets) — and darker than you would think from the pictures. But maybe it’s not so bad: you probably sleep better, and earlier, if you don’t have too much artificial light after dusk (the body and brain prepares to falling asleep), so I guess all I need is a desk lamp for those times I want to read. Yeah, like I do that anymore. Oh, or eat. That one I do a lot.

Grrrrrrrrrrrarghhhhhhhh.

Meanwhile, gayattitude subscribers, who consider me a living god and would kiss the ground I walk every time they see me if only they ever got to see me at all, haven’t exactly gotten wild on my Amazon wishlist (which I just removed so nobody thinks I’m fishing for presents). Not complaining, just… honestly, when I think about it (not that it happens often, just that this occasion reminded me), I find it a bit odd.

• Do not install the switch right below the halogen spotlights, because when a lightbulb explodes at switch-on you don’t really want to be too close.

• Do not install halogen spotlights right over the bed, because once it’s covered with ultra-sharp microscopic glass shards you’re screwed.

• Do not turn on halogen spotlights at two in the morning, because it’s too late to run the vacuum cleaner.

All in all I’m not going to use up all my remaining lightbulbs, and I’m going to buy LED replacements for the last two — nevermind that they’re less bright.

In retrospect, it was a bit stupid going to the supermarket at ten to eight in case it would close at nine due to the semi-holiday, when I could have left ten minutes earlier and not faced a closed door.

To do: fill up condoms or balloons with pig blood to throw them onto assholes honking their horns down the street.