Wanderlust

I just bought a ticket to Paris. Mainly because my man wants to go see his tax guy and his doc. As readers of Wanderlust know, I have a difficult relationship with the place, but I’m curious and optimistic as I go back for the first time in five years.

Some of my complicated feelings were wittily captured in this piece in The Awl by Emma Garman. (Self-promotion alert: she also says some nice things about Wanderlust.) Despite the general tediousness of the town (I blaspheme!), Americans can’t get enough:

…the most cursory survey of innumerable recent books set in Paris, inspired by Parisians, illustrated by photos of them, drawing on their potent sexual juju, revealing their never-before-revealed, foolproof and delicious diet secrets, exploiting their timeless wisdom, worshipping their devastating chic or some mélange of the above, proves that the trifling issue of reality is of zero importance to publishers. And who can blame them when, in a tough market, there’s a subject other than teen vampires and Swedish sex crimes that’s almost guaranteed to sell: Gay Paree!

Headed that way in a week.