Road to Elsewhere, Excerpt #21*: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Nincompoop

Not all who wander are lost. But if you are, why not in Paris?

ON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 28th, 1978, I walked out on the streets of Paris to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.

No, wait, that was Stephen Daedalus at the end of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. 

That morning, I would settle for the reality of breakfast.

Faced with a closing shop I hastily decided upon a large container of apricot yogurt and stepped out to catch my favorite Metro line for Odeon. I arrived on the platform as a train departed, so I was forced to wait several minutes for the next. In the slack time I peeled back the aluminum seal stretched tightly across the opening. Then my train arrived, so I replaced the plastic cover, the taste of the sweet, thick liquid still alive on my tongue. (I had licked the aluminum clean.) I weathered the stares of my cabin mates, who found it exceedingly interesting that I carried a yogurt, of all things. 

As I passed my familiar sequence of…