I thought taking care of kids was hard sober....

And then I tried it hungover. Like, the hungover where you can't walk, you can't brush your teeth, and your eyes are so swollen you look like a battered Chinese housewife. (Was that offensive? It's okay, I'm French now and can say racist things without worrying.)

How did this happen? I partied with an American band in Paris, that's how. A Texan band...even worse. My friend, the synthesizer and tambourine girl, was nice enough to meet up with me at the venue beforehand, a teeny tiny place called Espace B in the 19th arr. It was a bit of a dodgy area, and took three metro lines to get to. That is two transfers too many for lazy American me. We started off drinking whiskey, and then switched to pastis: a pretty-sounding anise-flavored liquor mixed with water and ice and magically turned white. They're mostly drunk in the South of France as an aperitif.

Then, the band ate dinner while I drank their bottle of wine. First mistake. (But how cool is it that you can eat dinner, drink wine, and then see a band all in a building the size of a one-bedroom American apartment?) The show was great, intimately sweaty and filled with front-row study abroad students screaming, "BROOOKLYYYNNNN!" Felt like I was back at SXSW all over again.

After the show my friend kept bringing me drinks, and with much variety. Always a mistake. From beer to wine to more pastis...I lost count. I seem to recall smoking cigarettes with some Turkish girls (who were really shitty come to think of it) and then I woke up in a cab. No idea how I got there, but the price was rather large. 30-something Euros. I only had 20. Here's where it gets really sad. I seem to recall trying to run away (I was drunk, didn't get very far) and then the mean cabbie grabbing me. At this point I think I began crying and rested my head on the trunk of the car. Here we remained, locked in a romantic tangle at 4am somewhere near my neighborhood.

We stayed there forever it seemed. I kept thinking, "Okay on the count of three...I'm gonna kick him in the shins really hard with my steel-toe boots and then run like the dickens!" But, sadly, I was so drunk/tired/disoriented I couldn't even lift my head. Then I remember blue lights...like an angel, but the Parisian police angels. They showed up, looked in my wallet, laughed at my silly American tears, and drove me home. Then I woke up the next morning and cursed the day I was ever born.

Getting blackout drunk in a foreign city alone is really stupid. Never again. Firstly, I can't afford it. Secondly, I can't handle my liquor. Thirdly, a wrestling match with an Algerian cabbie does not a fun Paris memory make. And you can bet my Tuesday with the kids was like dying a slow death. I can barely manage their high-pitched squeals when I'm healthily sober...when hungover, I thought about burying them in the sand at the playground and running until I puked out the evil inside me.

There is no moral to this story. On the plus side, M1 told me he hated me yesterday, so we've reached a new milestone! It's like the army...break them down, then build them back up. He's obviously realized I will not put up with his shit, so he can either back down or we will continue to make each other's lives miserable until one admits defeat. (Wanna guess which one? Yeah, it's no secret.)