Montmartre.

The more I read about that place, the more pictures I see of it, the more research I do into the people and the flavor and the locale, the more I feel like I belong there.
Haven't heard o fit? It's in the Paris, the 18e arrondissement (on the northern edge).
I think I'll craft a story set there. Sure, a lot more thorough research is required, and I'll have to interview my cousin -- who will be in Paris in a matter of days -- to get a better idea of what it's like, but it should be worth it. Thinking back to Rey and Stawiarz, maybe photography should be a motif (implying memory? maybe the POV character has amnesia? interesting conflict there...). I think I'll start now.

Catch twenty-two: I couldn't get a job because I didn't have experience (that I remember), and I couldn't get experience because I didn't have a job. The most I could hope for was a few euros here, a few there, submitting my photography to low-key papers and magazines -- no major event coverage; just spontaneous compositions. As far as these went, the Tour Eiffel and other tourist magnets had long ago become dead subjects, and photographing muggings and car accidents made me feel somehow guilty.
The way I saw it, people-watching was my last -- and easiest -- option. Any cafe in Paris was an outpost.
Late morning on a windy October day, I sat outside A La Mère Catherine with coffee and my camera. At another table a woman with deep, clear eyes was hunting in her pockets for matches; a cigarette hung from her lip. Rue du Mont-Cenis was behind her, and cars chugged hurriedly by. The day was overcast, and the glow provided by the sun was half-assed, at best -- my lighting of choice. But it was a tough situation, as I was waiting for multiple factors to come into play: a leaf the color of fire was straining to depart its branch in the wind; the woman would undoubtedly face the sun as she lit her cigarette; and several cars were turning the corner down the road.
Wait for it...wait for it...
The woman lit her cigarette, and with that first puff looked up at a building across the street -- the sun danced in her eyes, brought a soft light to her slim hands and cheeks. The leaf dropped and drifted into the frame, and the cars slipped through the background. All of this was captured on long exposure: the smoke, the leaf and the cars were all blended together, with the girl and her eyes and her pensive expression at the clear center.
Beautiful. I sipped at my steaming cup, unwrapped the square of dark chocolate accompanying the café noir on its dish. Just beautiful.
Cath purred and rubbed against my leg; I looked down at her, and she looked up at me. I read my cat's body language: "Can we go now?"
With a smile, I stroked her back and stood. A wave to the waitress -- who was inside -- and a five-euro bill later, I was on my way home.

Around that time, since before I could remember, I was living with Cath in that tiny shack on the edge of Montmartre. Its door creaked when I walked in; because of a peculiar slant in the street, common in my neighborhood, it slammed shut behind me.
I had always worried about that door breaking itself.
I tugged the pull string and a bulb above me cast the room into light: my cot was laid on wooden planks laid on the stone floor, with a large chest nearby for clothes and another chest beside for other things. Two bowls -- one for solids, one for liquids -- were at my bedside for Cath; a rolled-shut paper bag of dry cat food and a bottle of mineral water rested nearby. I quickly prepared a meal for her. As she ate and drank, I watched. She had grown in the past two years.
The past two years...
My thoughts strayed to the contents of my non-clothing chest, as they usually did. Eight and a half years' worth of memories, in the form of Moleskine journals and keepsakes and photographs and a bottle and a dead rose.
There had been a girl. Her name was Summer. We started dating in my third year of high school. Our fifth anniversary was celebrated with a small bottle of champagne -- among other things I couldn't find. I wouldn't have known any of this without having kept those journals, or collecting those keepsakes; she had left me two years before, on my twenty-third birthday, when I emerged from my coma without a single memory.

Keep in mind; this is towards a first draft. It's supposed to suck. Ask any author who knows anything about writing fiction: they'll tell you the same. To quote Hemingway: "The first draft of anything is shit."
On a slightly unrelated note, I'm applying today for a job at Barnes & Noble. Wish me luck!