6 December 2008 | Europe part duex
Sean and Ken over a very cold and very windy River Seine the day we arrived in Paris.
This is my, “Damn it’s cold in Paris” face. Notice there is no one behind us at the Louvre… there’s a reason.
Still cold….still vacant. It was a bit late to go in…so we went back to the hotel and would start the day anew demain.
Damn morning…Damn rain…Damn Ken and his camera…this is a photo of me before my morning café au lait.
Then obviously after…my partner of six years strongly suggests that I don’t have any human interaction before my morning coffee. But what does he know.
Ken and I standing in front of a Richard Serra near Avenue des Champs-Elysées. We consider ourselves Serra-holics with no desire to recover. We’re also Andy Goldsworthy-addics.
The Musée Rodin
Enjoying Rodin.
I’m in the garden of the Musée Rodin. Ken said, “Stand in front of that dome, let me take your picture.”
I said, “Why?”
He said, “Because it’s gilded and beautiful.”
I said, “If we take a picture with every damn gilded dome in Paris we’ll be here for a year.”
He said, “Stand in front of the the damn dome.”
I fell out laughing. This is our relationship and exactly why we have lasted six years.
This is exactly why I love Paris…We were picking up some peones for a luncheon at a friend’s house and this is the corner flower shop. J’adore this and everything in it!
When I walk around a corner, there is Ken with a camera. Click. Then he walks away.
At this point I didn’t know I had a Louvre stalker. I would have whispered something to security. “Psst. Monsieur sécurité homme…see that man in the blue argyle cashmere sweater? I think he wants to kill me. You should call your other sécurité hommes and question him. Yes him, with the kind face, the expensive camera and corduroys. I fear for my life and the innocent people around me.”
This time I had the camera and surprised him with an impromptu photo. “Click”
This photo made a large amount of French people laugh when we were taking it. So though I’m completely incomprehensible because my French is très mauvais… I’m still funny, which feeds my sink-drain-like ego so it makes me feel soooo good. For like a minute.
My stalker was stealing paparazzi shots of me sketching one of Michelangelo’s Slaves.
My stalker shooting from afar.
Now when Ken showed me this photo on the computer, he had at least fifty shots of me doing this sketch. Understand, it was Sunday and the Louvre was quite full. But I swear I had no idea he was there, I thought he was seeing another exhibit. He told me after, that he stood behind the other scuptures and wouldn’t cross in the path of my sight line because it would disturb me. That means, he went back out the door to the main hall, up the stairs, across the top of the Italian sculpture salon, down the stairwell and back into the room to get the photo prior to this one. I called him a knuckle head. And he said, “But I didn’t want to disturb you.” This is also a reason why we have lasted six years. He is the kindest man I have ever known.
