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Me: This bowl of Kraft mac is completely out of control.
Anne: Yes. But we will meet it in battle, none the less.
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I'm taking a walk just as evening hits. Evening hits here at about four thirty, so it turns out that you spend a lot of time walking around in it. The sun slowly fades and then disappears behind these ten-story terraced buildings that line all the streets. They rise up to meet the darkening sky and look for all the world like whitewashed cliffs dripping with boxes of flowers.

I have a half-formed idea of where I want to go and I eventually end up at Anvers, turning down the street that leads to Sacre-Cour. I still have to admit, for all that I miss Texas, there is nothing like this where I'm from. I can see the domed cathedral perched halfway up the side of the hill long before I'm anywhere close to it. It glows against the dark sky and for a moment I feel like I'm looking at something underwater. I get to the base of the staircase with the idea that I'm just going to walk up to the cathedral and sit for a while.

I see him out of the corner of my eye and try to turn away, but they're always too fast. He grasps my wrist in one hand and begins wrapping the thread around it, while starting up the usual patter- Ah, where are you from? You speak English? They can always tell, before I even open my mouth. I wear too much flannel.

I smile, tell him I don't have any money, but he's still there going at it. For a second I'm about to just walk away, like always, but then for some reason I just don't feel like it. I'm tired of being in a big city, not because of the lights or the traffic or the noise, but because I don't like the way that I relate to people now. There are too many of them so I disregard them all. At some point over the last few months everyone else on the planet got downgraded to warm bodies that I mow down on the crosswalk, obstacles to getting on the metro, sad faces that I sidestep and don't notice until later.

So I tell the guy I'm out of money but I'm from Texas, and ask him how long he's been in Paris. He looks taken aback, loosens his grip on my wrist a little. He's not much older than me and he has the kind of eyes that people with senses of humor have. He pockets the bracelets and walks me up to the cathedral. On the way, we talk about going to school and gas prices. He's from Senegal and has an older sister in London. We argue briefly about American movies and I win, but he insists that that's only because we're speaking in English. He asks how my French is coming along, and after listening to my short and impassioned demonstration recommends that I buy a book.

We get to the top of the hill and he asks me what I'm doing here, and I tell him that I just felt like seeing the church. I start walking into the sanctuary and for a second I think he's gone, but then I hear his steps come in behind me. We stand just inside the door and listen to the echoing sound of people shuffling around, the muted sounds of cameras clicking and the ringing voice of the priest reciting the liturgy. The candles can't reach the ceiling and it curves away into the dark. It doesn't feel the way I thought it would, like so many things. I turn and wander back out, wishing I had someplace familiar to go.

When I'm back outside I start heading back down the stairs. I'd kind of assumed that the guy would stay and work the church crowd, but he catches up with me in a few seconds. He's kind of breathless and after a second says that that was the first time he's ever been in a church. He looks a little shocked at his own daring. I'm not sure what to say. I wish I could have taken him somewhere a little more genuine.

The quiet is making me awkward, so I scratch my neck and say, Well, what do you do out here all day right in front of the cathedral then? And he says, I make bracelets. Then he laughs. And suddenly I'm sad and tired of myself, because that's all I think about people. I divide them into two categories: worth my time and not worth my time. I start talking to a guy on a whim and I'm shocked to find out that he's a real person, with plans and a family and an interesting story. It's so quick and unforgiving, the way I shunt people into one category or the other. Cute boy; worth my time. Bracelet guy; not. What is my time worth, anyway? Am I really too busy to talk to people that I can't get something from?

Well, that's not entirely true. I did get some advice on French verb conjugation. And a free bracelet.