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Good stuff and bad stuff today. I may not even bother going to the Louvre- with queues that long, it's a luxury to go there to check out so few items. I'll maybe see tomorrow, but only after I've rethought, because today a bunch of stuff consolidated concerning how writers can and do use history and some of it was not pretty. It means I really don't need to see so much in Paris. I shall do some of what I planned and see.

I had an interesting discussion with one of the booksellers on the Seine. She was reluctant to admit at first that she knew anything about SF, but soon told me the exact spot the most fannish Seine bookseller was and we got into a lively discussion of the golden age for French and US spec fic.

I silenced myself when I told her that the golden age for Australian SF was right now. I realised that my French-speaking brain had said something my English-speaking brain couldn't conceive of. Australia is not supposed to *have* a golden age. That's something other people do. And we're especially not supposed to known anyone who might possibly be part of it. This would be being up onself. I bought some Jimmy Guiet to prove that I'm not up myself (also to read, since my life is such a bookless desert).

My feet know more about my research than I do. They also know more about Paris. This would be because I walked everywhere 25 years ago. I'm no good in Montparnasse (only visited it once back then) but my feet sorted me out most other places. My favourite second hand bookshops are all closed, but the cheap student bookshop is still round and still has an appalling selection. The best pizza place in the world has been replaced by rampant tourist garbage. And the Seine is currently lined with fake beaches. These things my feet showed me while helping me think my way through some knotty problems. I'm not through the problems yet, so I suspect there is walking in my tomorrow.

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Aliette de Bodard brought some clarity to my thoughts and we had a lovely couscous dinner. She's the only person I'm meeting in France (unless things change drastically) and she was wonderful. Thank you, Cheryl, for putting us in touch with each other. We talked very intensely for a long time, about many things.

I've been more than fortunate with the people I've spent time with this trip. It's a somewhat different journey from here on in. At least, I have progressed past the sticking point in my dissertation. I've worked how to allow for Chaz being Chaz and Elizabeth being Elizabeth by simply asking Aliette how she was Aliette. She explained, and light dawned and everything now makes sense. If you want to know how it precisely makes sense, you'll have to wait until I write it up at home, I'm afraid, because it needs to be aligned with other things. Anyhow, I have a thesis and can defend it, which is what dissertations are all about. This means that if I can sort my character issue, I have every chance of finishing this doctorate. Aliette couldn't solve my character issue because she handles things quite differently. Very cleverly, but not in a way I can emulate.

What I particularly love about speculative fiction is how very interesting the writers and artists and critics are, as people. They think and then then think some more. Good people in a whole bunch of ways.

And now I must spend the last bit of my evening rethinking the next two days, to allow for shifts in the project. Also watching more French TV.