I was depressed all day yesterday because French people (actually, most non-Anglophones) just don't understand the beauty of St. Patrick's Day: a totally banal holiday dedicated simply to drinking and pretending to be Irish. What's so hard about that? I've decided that one thing I miss about the US is our approbriation of world holidays, erasing their significance and simply using them as a reason to drink. The French don't even celebrate their own holidays well. And I will tell you why. Wine. Wine is the problem. It is a PARTY KILLER. Don't get me wrong. A glass or several of wine at dinner is a beautiful thing. It makes you all romantic and chatty and nostalgic. But beyond the meal, the sleepy wine intoxication just doesn't lend itself to the right levels of debauchery that make a party great. And to top it off, I find that red wine gives the most wicked hangovers. So what's the point?

That is why yesterday, which I spent mostly pining for green beer and shamrock shakes and sloppy Irish kisses, I was so grateful for the freeflowing pints of Guinness that I was fortunate enough to experience at some nameless, cave of a bar that I discovered with my fellow choristers after rehearsal. All together we were a strange-looking, multi-lingual bunch: a Japanese painter, a Brazilian embassy employee, an American college student, and a gay man from St. Kitts. But you know what? After about 3 pints, everyone seemed Irish to me! So the point of this story (other than irony) is that I think the French could learn a lesson about partying from the Irish. More beer, less wine. Maybe then all the Parisian young people who long to get back to New York to relive their drunken freedom, will stop bitching and start having fun. But then again, if they were to stop bitching, would they still be French?