Notes About The Poem

Ok, Christmas

Ok, (taking a breath) Christmas.
Finals are over, it’s the Noel Holiday and the very air-pressure feels different.

My lanky bf, Peter and I have a small, three-foot, plastic green tree which stands proudly, like a cliff-jumper, on a coffee-side-table. It’s wrapped with enough multicolor fairy-lights to illuminate Times Square. It glitters, otherworldly, like the Carina Nebulae - where angels live.

It may be deliberately derivative, but I espouse joy this holiday - and general fun in the season. 
Call me privileged, call yourself the same, and declare it a blessing.  

Earlier this week
all I wanted was sleep
but once freed of academic cares,
I curse sleep’s thievish minutes.

Now that I can look around - Paris is merry and bright.
The Champs-Élysées axis is lit-up like Neverland and it’s used as a social runway.

There are cocktail evenings at the Ritz, Plaza Athénée, Le Meurice, George V, Crillon and Cheval Blanc - not a single “party” to book into, but an ecosystem of palaces crawling with ‘winter magic’ - code for quiet, exclusive, ‘famous people in the building energy’ soirées.

How do you get into these private, no-tourist, DM pass-only events?
You don’t.
Oh, you might read about them if you follow the Paris nightlife Insta accounts (Silencio, Raspoutine, Castel, etc.)
But I’ll get in, because I have François for two weeks to coordinate all my ‘Christmas wishes’ (lucky him) and though he grouses from time to time, “Anais, I’m NOT a magician,” he’s never let us down.

It works like this, I’ll DM François what I want, “We’ll need 4 all-access-passes for tomorrow night’s ‘Last Winter Tour’ (arena show) and voilà, it’s done.

Now Peter won’t go out every night, he has his own holiday ravishments planned 
- but isn’t that what mornings and afternoons are for?
.
.
A Christmas Playlist for this:
daweb.us/xmas/Christmas_29.mp3
.
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François, one of my Grandmère’s conglomerate, executive-secretarial minions. He’s handsome, 28ish, a perfectly tailored, hipster with straight, blonde, fringe-hair and a Sorbonne Université DBA.
Copyright © | Year Posted 2025

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Fallica Avatar
December 20, 2025 at 4:26 AM
Even I’M glad that YOU are on a holiday break. Or is that too presumptuous? / Boy! Christmas time in La Ville Lumière. That must be something! / I bought a toy train set to put around the small Xmas tree at a job I held. It had a two-foot diameter circular track. Maybe Peter can set up a small hadron collider around yours? ;-) / Having my own ‘François‘ is maybe the only privilege I wish I had. But honestly, using him to get my car serviced seems like such a waste of his abilities I’d be embarrassed to ask. / <3
Vionet Avatar
December 20, 2025 at 7:40 AM
When I first met François (four years ago?), he was to manage my summer plans - all from Paris via Face time. Lisa and I were flittering around the UK, Italy and France - we needed a thousand little things. You'd have to picture him - he's tall, slim, proper, tailored to the 9's - and a little snooty - he was above such things - you could see it in micro expressions - a tightening the jaw, a twerk of the head, a quiver of the lips. It'd just started to irritate me when summer ended.
Vionet Avatar
December 20, 2025 at 7:40 AM
The next summer, when Lisa, Leong, Anna, Sophy and I did Europe (Dublin, Ascot, Paris, Saint-Tropez), I specifically asked for him and suggested to Grandmère he actually join us at transition points. I have to admit that, at first, I teased him a bit. I'd ask for something needless and complicated and if he twitched, I'd say, "Should we call Grandmère?" while pulling out my phone. But after a pub-crawl or two we loosed up and we had fun. At some level I think G hoped we might match up - it turns out he's delightfully gay - I'm not sure she knows to this day (or would care). Now each call is a touch-point where we play catch up.
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