So I've been working away, very hard, and leaving the museum and library exhausted, my brain a muddle. Which is great! I'm finding all kinds of great stuff. I've finished with my appointments at the museum - there was enough time, in the end, to look at everything I needed in three mornings. Can I just say - thank the gods for digital cameras in research!!!! What would I do without them...there's no way I could have gotten through even a third of what I did, without being able to take photos. Though 1 euro per photo does add up...

In the afternoons and into the evenings, I've been at the Bibliothèque nationale. I haven't worked there before. I must say that I'm pretty entranced by its incredible size and scope, and its technological efficiency, compared to the only other big research library I've really worked at (New York Public Library). It kind of blows my mind, the incredibly sophisticated system they have in place there. Good lord. Though I also recognize that there's something sinister about it - what surveillance! Thus I shouldn't be so in love with it, but I am. I spend a lot of my time there pondering its coolness while I transcribe text, which only requires half-attention.

In the evenings I've just been stopping on my way home for a drink, and then coming home and making a wee dinner of salad and bread and cheese. I'm conserving my going-out energy - and money - for the rest of the trip...R arrives tomorrow morning! We will be here in Paris together for eight days - I'll be working during the days while she explores - and then going to Lyon for three days before we leave. I lived in Lyon in 2000-01, and haven't been back since. It's full of fraught emotions for me - much as I adore it - so this will be an interesting trip...

This weekend my best friend, S, also comes here from London. Some of you may remember our time together in Paris last year, which was really hard in many ways. We have stayed more distant than we ever were before he moved to London...I never expected this kind of distance between us, never. But these three years have changed things. Anyway, though, he's coming for the weekend, which is grand...there will be lots of fun to be had. But I do worry a little about putting his very lax approaches together with both R and I. You remember, this was a bit of an issue last year...And R is that much more together than I am, and has even less patience for people who don't have their shit together. Historically, as much as they like each other, R and S have clashed in this regard. And of course it is my nature to take on this shit, to try and manage it. I don't want to spend my weekend feeling as if I have to mediate...But already, S hasn't replied to my email asking him to confirm where I'm meeting him when he arrives tomorrow...this is exactly what I'm afraid of. Oh well, we'll have a LOVELY time, I am sure.

Blogging may be quite light until the end of this trip, as I suspect R won't have much tolerance for me spending time on the Internet while we're here together...