Paris Blogs

As promised, I am writing to tell why I started to read blogs about Paris, a city I have never been and probably never want to go to.

Back in 2007 I used to read http://www.gringoes.com/ religiously. I love Brazilian culture and the language. They have a great segment everyweek called "Brazil Through Foreigners Eyes" where they interview a foreigner who chose to come to Brasil to live or work and find out what made them fall in love with the place so much they wanted to live there. I think I wanted to be one of those people but never got up the courage to do what they did. I can not leave the East Coast of the U.S. It's my home. I tried to do it once for a year and I missed everything there was to miss.

Anyway, one day on the website I started reading a blog written by someone who called himself Kermit the Vlog. Because he is French (get it?) and was writing a video blog. Anyway, he had links to blogs he followed that were fellow Parisians or should I say fellow ex-pats living in Paris who wrote about life being an ex-pat in Paris. One of these blogs was Petite Anglaise. I started to follow her trials and tribulations a little late in the game but found out how she started and wound up writing her blog, etc, etc. She no longer blogs but it made me seek out more Parisian ex-pat bloggers to get a feel and live vicariously through them I suppose.

But, this only recently started to fade for me. I used to read a whole pile of ex-pat Parisian blogs. Right now, I only read one. I think I would love Paris. It's a city after all, with tons going on.

But it got me started reading Brooklyn blogs and it turns out, I can relate to these a bit better than those Parisian ones. Not sure why it took me traveling south of the equator then across the pond to realize the obvious but I'm never one to make things easy, always gotta complicate shit and confuse the issues :-)

I love this quote

John Muir was a naturalist, and an environmentalist before it was trendy. He spent his days hanging out in the Sierra Nevadas. Muir Woods in California is one of my favorite places.  Found this quote on someone else's random blog today. So true, so true:

"I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in"

                           -John Muir

My response to this article in the New York Times

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/complaint-box-the-state-of-brooklyn/?scp=1&sq=fakelyn&st=cse

This article out-raged me. Is that correct grammar? I don't know but the main point that EVERYONE seems to skim over and glaze over is that you can't be "from" somwhere you weren't born or grew up. End of story, no contest, give it up and just stop. It doesn't matter if it is Brooklyn or anywhere else. If you claim you are from somewhere you've only lived a short period of time, you're lying! My response was something like this:

When I travel, if someone asks me where I am "from" I say I "live" just outside of Baltimore, because that is the truth. I am originally "from" Brooklyn but I do not live there. I would never, ever say I was "from" Maryland because I have only been here 11 years and anything before 1999 means nothing to me. My boyfriend and his friends reference things that went on in Maryland before I got here and I have no idea what they are talking about. Granted some of it has to do with the Colts leaving Baltimore or the Orioles and I wouldn't care either way but that is a different story.

Here's the truth of it: You are "from" somewhere if you lived there most of your life and were born there. If you were "born" somewhere else but moved to your current location when you were like 2-5 years old and you have no recollection of where you were "born" then you are "from" that place. I even have examples, people:

1-Keanu Reeves, according to IMDB was "born" in Beirut, Lebanon but "grew up" in Toronto! He's Canadian!
2-Nicole Kidman also according to IMDB was "born" in Hawaii but grew up in Australia! She's Australian!
3-Anna Paquin acording to IMDB was "born" in Canada but grew up in New Zealand. She's a Kiwi and a Canuck because she lived both places for a good portion of her life that she can remember and has an accent!
4-Pam Anderson was "born" and "grew up" in Canada, lived in the U.S. for most of her adult life and just recently got her citizenship here so by all rights she is Canadian but now is American as well!

It's about being accurate and precise, people. Don't be lazy about it because it's cooler to say you're from somewhere that you're not.

My other caveat I had was for folks who just arrived from overseas. If you came here when you were an adult, then proceed to live the rest of your life as an adult somewhere else, then you are "from" where ever you came from originally, have lived [insert new location] for most of your life (20+ years) so then "consider yourself  from" [insert new location]. But if you have lived here less than ten years, you are still "from" somewhere else.

These caveats need to be included. This is the main point. If someone asks where are you "from" v. "where do you "live" or where were you "born" these are very, very different things. They may all have the same answer but rest assured if you are living in Brooklyn in the trendy hipster re-gentrified areas they are not!

Example: I lived in San Francisco for 1 year (in my adult life) but I would never, ever say I was "from" San Francisco. I would never, ever say I was "from" Maryland because I have been here a relatively short amount of time in a person's lifetime.

So people, please don't put on airs to say you are "from" somewhere cool, when you know you are not because you are truly "lying".


You know who you are trendy hipster jerk-offs.