Euphoria is hazardous to your health.

At long last I am writing from the other side of the Atlantic. Since May I have been living a kind of double life: one, the reality of my life in Chicago, the other, my dream life in Paris. I have always suffered from an hyper-active imagination, which allowed me to transform the inaudible conversations of people on the street or the train stop into French, the quiet corner on the northshore into a bustling Parisian neighborhood.

Something I often lack, however, is patience. As the months passed and I waited for my dream life to merge with my reality, I dug deep into the resources of my soul to conjure up all the patience I never had: this wait could have otherwise been unbearable. The reason behind this sudden surge of patience is simple - no matter how much I longed for France and no matter how hard the wait, I knew in my heart that Paris and I would soon be reunited and that I would never have to leave again if I chose. No more return dates, no more time limits on my life in France - and for this, I found the patience, humility and inner-strength of a Buddhist monk awaiting enlightenment.

My first night in the City of Lights I went for sushi and a French movie. Upon leaving the theater, for a split second I thought I was in Chicago. The realization that I was in fact IN PARIS, FRANCE, filled me with such sudden joy that I thought I might die of happiness. I was so in love with life - I felt like hugging every person I passed. I decided instead to go home since I suddenly felt that my perma-grin might prove dangerous, landing me in an asylum for the victims of everlasting euphoria. So I tried to mimic the nonchalence of Parisians on my way home (who have mastered the look of indifference) and that night I drifted off to dreamland with my shit-eating grin.

C'est belle la vie.