Early this afternoon I headed down rue du Faubourg du Temple with its Vietnamese take-out joints and and its African bric-a-brac stores and its signs for Turkish kebab sandwiches and fries. All around, a comfortable bustling neighborhoody cacophony. Through the Tenth and the Third, I skirted the Eleventh, flirted with the Fourth. In a boulangerie in the Marais, the radio was tuned to Nostalgie, week-end de Seventies Non-Stop.

I found a flea market on rue Perrée, the tables laden with delight and loveliness: a red rotary phone, a handheld mirror in a gold frame, a little green lamp on a metal stand, a old tin that used to contain black cherry pastilles, a porcelain salt dish with a squirrel attached. So this is where the buyers at Anthropologie come when they say that they just happened to come across such-and-such over a weekend in Paris—this, before they send the thing off for mass reproduction at a workshop in India. Around the corner, a man appraised the offerings at one stand: “Oh là là! Oh là là! Oh là là là là!”

Along the Seine, joy is poking through the bouquiniste stands. I thumbed through one guy’s brilliant collection of 1950s and ’60s children's literature—several Martines, a stack of Super Boy magazines, tales of horses and goats and a duck with a red ribbon round his neck, some Enid Blyton translations—before finally coming away with Le Dimanche de la vie, bound in coarse yellow linen with the title and author name stamped on the front in dignity and gold. It became clear I’d spent too long poring over books when I realized my feet were so cold I could barely feel them. Uh, is that frostbite? Unlike many an unlucky mountain climber, I found myself right then in front of la Samaritaine. It was warm in there, and I hear there's a Mariage Frères upstairs, but I didn’t make it past the women’s department on the first floor. I tried on a pink corduroy skirt from the sale rack at Agnès B, but the gathers that were adorable while the skirt was on the hanger were foolishness on me.

And then I was late to meet Gab, but I figured, Eh, French time. I booked it West along the Seine, speeding by two old dudes passing me in the opposite direction, who glanced at me wonderingly, probably thinking I had to have been a bit touched to be flurrying along instead of promenading on a Saturday afternoon.

We hopped one of Gab’s bateaux parisiens as the lights came on around the city. What is nice is: Every bridge illuminated in the evening mist. Fancy living rooms lit up in houses along the river. Fairy lights dancing in the trees. The Eiffel Tower having lost its head in the fog. Door number 13, tucked under a bridge like cuteness. Spaces for summer sambas. The shaa-shaa-shaa of the water outside. House boats, little and big, and especially the one with the car parked on deck.

Later, on rue des Bons Enfants, a black plastic bag fell out of the sky. Gab picked it up, reached in, and took out a star-shaped key, Paris is incredible that way. We let ourselves in the door on the corner. Upstairs, Manel gave me a peach-cassis tisane and a pink Ladurée macaron. “The O.C.” in French was on TV, and then some game show that necessitated the boys yelling at the box: “Oeil! C’est oeil, pédé!!” At one point Sophie couldn't find her Gauloises. I imagined her cat was sitting in the other room lighting up a fag, narrowing its eyes at us through the smoke. Perched on the sofa next to the radiator, cradling my mug of tea, I felt the fatigue creeping up on me. I had such a desire to close my eyes.

Back in Belleville, I craved English reading material. A magazine. A women’s magazine. With lots of pictures. Gimme a break, sometimes a girl just feels like her head’s been working overtime. It occured to me that maybe what I needed was a big bowl of pho. And some nems. And jasmine tea. I popped out to the Vietnamese joint at the end of the street with my new Queneau. Mmmm. Aahhh.

All day the sky has been greywhite like a goosedown comforter. I can't wait to be in bed tonight, snuggled down deep under real covers.