I’m on my  4th full day at the Performing Arts Foundation and am getting into the routine. People have come and gone. Besides the people I mentioned in the last post, I met an Estonian dancer writing his master’s thesis. And an artist from Canada just arrived this morning.

My room is to the left of the clock on the upper floor.

When packing for the week, I had no clue what to bring. At the last second I took dresses and boots out of my suitcase and replaced them with jeans and big sweaters. And boy am I glad I did. Saying it’s casual here is understating things a wee bit. The first day I looked nice. Second day I was still wearing my shoes downstairs. By yesterday, I was coming down to the kitchen to get tea in my pajamas and slippers.

PAF's gardens

Yesterday was my adventure-from-hell. Since Nov 1 is a holiday in France, stores close early, and though it looked like rain, I needed to get groceries. So I set off on one of the PAF bikes. (Seat too low=knees in my chest.) As soon as I got to the bottom of the first hill, it started pouring down rain. Two miles later I arrived at the grocery store dripping wet and with raccoon-eyes from smeared mascara. I bought my groceries, draped my bag over the handlebars, and began to ride the 2 miles uphill through the downpour.

just one of the dreaded hills that are all uphill when you come BACK from the grocery store

About halfway back I had one of those existential moments where I was thinking, “I am * old—” (*=insert age) “—and I am riding a freaking bike uphill for two miles in the pouring rain in November and my hands are so paralyzed from the cold that I can’t even let go of the handlebars.” Not really feeling sorry for myself, but wondering how many people had lost life, limb, or their fragile grasp on sanity in the same situation. And then I forced myself on and treated myself to a 15 minute sit-down in the hot shower when I arrived. (This is where you’re supposed to applaud.)

official PAF transport

The common language used here is English, although everyone tries out their French on Toothless Eric, the handyman. Last night when I was fixing my dinner, the Antwerp musician wandered into the kitchen and asked if I wanted to come help with English lessons. I followed him up to the media room, where a handful of villagers come every Thursday night to speak English with the Foundation’s artist guests. They brought flowers and home-baked goods and the Belgian musician and the Canadian writer and I sat around and played that game where someone else tapes the name of a celebrity to your forehead and you have to guess who it is. And then we talked about the American presidential campaign, which (embarrassingly) the villagers knew more about than I did.

Otherwise, dinner table conversations have ranged from Susan Sontag to internet dating to derivative vs original art to theaters set up in people’s living rooms in Croatia to who let the peacocks in yesterday.

peacocks holding vigil in front of the window

If I only had a peacock-to-human translator, I know they'd be saying, "Let us in the fricking house, already!" They are inspiring me to write a story about a flock of dreaded were-peacocks who terrorize a small French village while the blame is placed on the inhabitants of a nearby artist colony.

Meanwhile, I am juggling writing JUNEAU with a cutthroat coffee-drinking/snack-eating contest that I’m competing in against myself. Oh and writing blog posts…when I’m supposed to be writing 5000 words per day, but only have 2000 and it’s 4pm. Which is my cue to…

I call this composition "Deadline Desk"