It's so Beautiful it hurts

From a note to John Ewing

I had a really funny experience last night. It's funny because I can only laugh at myself. The other option is to cry for myself and that- is too much. I am here and struggling but I still have a little pride or whatever that thing that we invoke when feeling insecure and somehow still hopeful. I think I am loosing my mind. I decided I needed a piece of graphite to try out this one drawing idea that I was obsessing about after going to the Centre Pompidou. It's Paris and so the shops were about to close at 7 PM and there was only one place that supposedly had art supplies walking distance from our apartment. So Kevin and I dashed out the door and walked in the cold rainy night till we found this place. Berthelot, 184 Faubourg St-Honoré in the 8th. Agh! it was beautiful- set up to look like Picasso's atelier with tons of cute little bric a brac by anonymous makers all over the place. Old tin cans stuffed with paint stained brushes- a couple of dark wood easels and an old leather bag in which presumably the tubes of paint were carried into the field of sunflowers. I felt a stabbing pain in my side. I just wanted some graphite. The place was disgusting really because it was obviously not a place where you could buy art supplies. Everything except oil paint was hidden in this amazing wall-sized mahogany wooden manuscript drawer. My hands were frozen and so I couldn't even get the deep wooden drawers open to look though what was there. They stuck in an obstinate gesture towards me. I was dripping water all over the place-from my hair, from my coat. The shop keeper's accent was impossibly difficult to understand and to make things worse I forgot the ratings for the pencils. I must have seemed totally crazy.  After struggling with the drawers and needing help just to open the pencil boxes, I finally decided I would take a 6b.  I also needed some textured paper for the experiment. Our kind shop keeper was suspicious but helpful. The moment he handed me the tablet of water color paper I realized I hated this place and all places like it. I told him I just couldn't buy this stuff from him. I told him that he has a really nice shop but that there was something a little immoral about it.  He smiled at me magnanimously either because he agreed with me or because he was then completely convinced that I was crazy and he wanted to express some kindness towards Kevin. Then we left, hurrying back home to make due with scotch tape, a 2b pencil and notebook paper. It didn't quite work- more on this later. I wonder if I am ODing on Paris. Could that be it?