Well, it's my last day in Gay Paree, and I have mixed feelings.

Boss-one's already in Cairo, and Memento's been in Hong Kong for two days now. That's nuts. Karen Warrior-Chieftain is en route to Nairobi as I type. Hole's off to Czeckorepublica later this evening. And I jump down the Caracas warp-zone pipe tomorrow morning.

Last night the assistant dean treated Hole, Karen Warrior-Chieftain and I to dinner at this great spot off rue St. Germain des Pres ("Saint Jermaine Dupree"). They serve but one item: steak. The lady just asks how you want it cooked, if you want the vin du maison, and that's it. Needless to say, it's a popular joint due to its simple perfection.

Anyhow, the dean asks me, quite frankly: "So let's say there is a war down there - what would you do? Would you pick up a gun? ...Would you shoot back?"

Peers and associates like to call what we've been doing this year "school." "Oh, I see, you're in 'school.'" And I guess in a sense they're right - lord knows we're paying our share of tuition.

But when the dean asks you if you plan to be strapping next quarter...I just don't know. "School" somehow misses the mark. 'Doesn't quite do it justice.

(I eventually went with no, not under any forseeable circumstances. As the dean pointed out, once you pick up that gun, there's no going back to "reporter." 'Talk about journalism ethics 101...on CRACK.)

Yesterday I held my breath, dipped into my funds, and bought a spankin' new Canon digital camera about the size of my palm.

I know, I know. I spent more than two weeks in Paris, and then decide perhaps it might be a good idea to take a few pics. Look, nobody's arguing I'm not an idiot, as these French are prone to calling me.

Actually, This Guy, the NY Times multimedia guru, persuaded me a few days ago. I told him where I was headed, and "you have a camera right?" was the first thing out of his mouth. He made a good point: You never know if something big might happen down there, and if you're gonna be in the right (wrong) place at the right (wrong) time....

This is a guy who...well, I don't want to get him in trouble with any international authorities, but he's done a lot of cool shit with cameras.

So I'm compromising. Instead of picking up an automatic rifle, I'm picking up my trusty new Canon Ixus 40 (seems to be the euro-equivalent to the Power Shot - the manual only comes in French).

Here's a (drunken) test run from last night. Take the Eiffel Tower, add several bottles of wine, shake, stir, and you get photo-journalism at its finest:



First, here's Sudanese Refugee #24092, sitting in his crib among the havoc.




Here's Hole making his way south down our street in St. Denis. On the other side of those buildings to the right is Gare du Nord, the main train station. Although, this city has like five different train stations within city limits (Gare du L'est is right down the block), which makes no fucking sense. What really makes no fucking sense is how I'm still surprised at things that make no fucking sense here. Explain that one.




Hole with the dean, at the perfect restaurant. Conversations about weaponry ensue.




It doesn't get much more romantic than this, folks. Me, a Hole and several bottles of wine under the Tour Eiffel.




Apparently there's this big tower here.




And then it sparkles every hour on the hour, for about ten minutes. A giant flashy phallus - just what every city needs.



We fought a small war with the Paris metro to meet up with the two Smita's, aka Eggz and Vibes, and wound up being 40 minutes late after the RER train decided to just, like...stop. ...Which made no fucking SENSE. (grrr.)




Hole and I with Karen Warrior-Chieftain. She had just been proposed to by a nice Senegalese man earlier in the evening. No, I'm not kidding.


By about 2:30 in the AM, there were only a few people scattered under the tower, and the lights had been shut off for 90 minutes. We stumbled across the lawn, towards the Ecole Militaire, and spent 15 minutes flagging down a cab (no taxi stand this time), because all the cabs were occupied, because there aren't enough of them...because this city makes no fucking sense.

That's right, bitches: We closed the Eiffel Tower.

I got home, put on a Web stream of La revolucion no sera transmitida ("The Revolution Will Not Be Televised") - a documentary about the attempted 2002 Venezuela coup against Chavez...and drifted to sleep, snug in my bed, with visions of tanks storming presidential palaces dancing in my head.