Good day to you. I greet myself today as I do on all days, with a quick swish-swish around and over the behind with the tepid water from the bidet, whispered thanks to God for making me citizen of Napoleon's empire, and a long, glorious stare in the mirror at my long, pale, moustachioed face. My moustache is not thick, mind you, though it is dark.

I drink cold coffee and smoke three cigarettes at once, combing the fine grey ash from my Gitanes through my greasy hair. It holds better that way when I make love to teenage girls and chesty men in their early 20's. One more cigarette. And may I please put on that ratty t-shirt that smells like rotting pork? Yes, I may, because I have no choice, it being the only shirt I own, it also being still on from last night when I slept in it, as I do every night.

May I put on underwear? No, because I do not own it and it is not available in France. I will put on dirty jeans, though, that have not been washed since I purchased them three years ago.

Oh! How I hate America. And England!

I am thin. I ate well last night, beef and red wine with flan for dessert. But, of course, I made myself vomit as I arrived home. Not so much for the weight issue, which concerns me so often, but more because I love smelling vomit on the inside of my nose.

I biked to work today on a rickety old bike that has only metal rims, no rubber tires. I carried the same stale baguettes in my backpack that I have carried to and from work since just after World War II. Like my countrymen, I love bread. It is what makes us different, what made de Gaulle a hero, what inspired Hugo to write "Les Miserables," what drove us to colonize West Africa. Hard, crusty, poor-tasting bread. I ride it on my bicycle so that my little breads can see the French countryside, see what it means to be French, see what it means to have won the war, which we did not win, but which the breads are too young (shhhh!!!) to understand.

Also, my beret has been a close friend these many years, which may tell you something about why I wear her each day, rain or shine, sweat or no sweat, clean or not clean (which depends on the rain or no rain).

Germans -- hah! You call that culture? You call Goethe an intellectual? I hate you.

I go to the cafe and read Jean-Paul Sartre, that wondrous brainiac whose eyes pointed in different directions, as in the following:

I do not understand what he is saying, but I yell about him and some others to the bartender, who had a lobotomy several years back but still holds strong opinions.

Then, of course, I make love. Not in the cafe, you Philistine!! I go out in the street and find cheap whores who use redwine as lipstick.

"Whore!" I say to the first one I see, a woman of perhaps fifty, smelling of urine, legs covered in hair, wearing a fur coat on this warm-ish July day. She begins to cry, which, of course, drives me to spit in her face. She smiles coyly as she wipes my putrid saliva from the corner of her mouth.

"I love you," I tell her. She closes her eyes and giggles softly in her deep, deep, deep voice.

"I know," she says. We go to the alley. I do not remove my clothes. She does not remove hers. We are next to a busstop. We make love. Others cheer and cry as they look on. Once we finish, each of us sweating, sated, I break out in tears and run away, fast, fast, then slow, slow, because I have trouble breathing. Then stop, stop as I nearly cough up a lung.

I go to the movies, alone, an American movie, and sit in the back row and hiss.

I eat stale cigarettes for dinner. I write in my journal. Nothing of substance, just practice writing my name in cursive over and over.

I fall asleep, not having defecated.