I HAVE INTERNET IN MY ROOM!!!!!!!

in french, the word for "chance" does not have the same haphazard connotations as it does in english. la chance is something that you emanate, that you control through the choices that you make and the opportunities you take. all of my days have been strung together with a fine thread connecting events to the past & bringing me to the future: things seem like they are coming together like a sculpture - i am moulding the clay between my hands, cupping it, centering it, spinning it.

in my russian literature class, i sit near the window & watch the rain clouds break apart as the sunlight beams strike the rooftops & bounce through the tour Eiffel that pops over the chimney pots; the professor just finished translating "war & peace," & his new edition is praised by the new yorker as delicate & finely rendered. my latin american literature professor tells us anecdotes about borges & cortazar, & the parties that they went to. anne marsella, my fiction teacher who just published a new novel, comes up to me after class to tell me she's heard good things about me. i went to shakespeare & company on tuesday to say hello to sylvia, & she said she is so excited to have me & they're all looking forward to me starting on friday.

tonight, i went to last semester's poetry teacher's friend's dinner party. jeffrey greene, my professor, was unable to make it, so i spent the evening talking with such lovely people & hearing their stories of paris in the 60's, 80's, & to-days. the poets & journalists & publishers & art historians gathered around the table (it was a party in honour of me, they told me afterwards, for jeffrey wanted them all to meet me even though he couldn't make it; i was very embarassed but didn't want to act modest in case they thought it was pretension. i was silent, instead) to trade stories & memories & track the lineage of shakespeare & company.

after dinner, as all the guests exhaled in gratification & stared into the backs of their minds, marilyn returned from the kitchen with a galette de roi - my first. a gold paper crown ennobled the round brown pastry, & the corners of everybody's mouths turned up in a childish grin. heather even clapped her hands: "the galette!" she cried gleefully. i had never partaken in the tradition of the galette, though i had seen these feuilletted treats spread across every pastry shop across paris since the beginning of january. the crown that makes it the galette de roi is in honour of the three wise men, but it is what's inside the galette that really makes it so special: the feve. as the youngest at the table (by at least a dozen years), i got to be the benjamin. the benjamin traditionally hides underneath the table as the eldest guest cuts the galette, but being a practising adult, i was allowed to merely turn my head. with my back still to the table, the eldest numbered each morceau of the galette and had me assign each piece to one person. this is done to ensure that nobody knows, or has control of, who gets the lucky piece. when each piece was distributed, i was allowed to resume my seat, and we all began to eat with complete disregard for the papery flecks sticking to our lips, but slowly, mindful of the chance of biting hopefully into what would crown one as the roi or the reine. lifting up the delicate sheets of pastry, i spotted a colourful plastic disc nestled in with the creme de patissier. at first, i kept it to myself, watching the careful, subtle excitement on everyone's face. then, with pride & understanding at the appropriateness of the situation, i pulled the feve from its soft bed, licked it clean, & said: "I think this is it, non?"

after that, i had to drink my wine in one gulp as everyone sang "la reine boit, la reine boit", and then i had to drop the feve into the glass of a man while everyone closed their eyes again. i picked john baxter & he didn't even check his glass, he had no thought that i would have selected him. when nobody else had it, he saw with genuine surprise & joy that the feve was in his own glass. he said simply, "thank you, i am flattered by your compliment."

when i returned home, after meeting laurent (yes, that's new too) at pipos bar a vin just around the corner, there was a shiny neon green caterpillar curled between my sheets.