Paris is everybody’s favorite city, except mine. I hate it. Yes, I know, it’s amazing. I’ve been sporadically visiting Paris for 30 years and I know all about its glories: the food, the streets, the Seine, the wine, the fashion, the museums and monuments.  I agree completely — amazing. And hating the City of Light makes me look like a spoiled brat. But read ahead and see why.

• I always get sick in Paris. I’ve spent many nights vomiting into toilets while everybody else walks under the lit-up Tour Eiffel, then eats moules frites in an ornate brasserie, then dances until dawn — when they stroll the quiet streets before stopping to a charming local café for croissant and a Grand Créme. But me, oh no. I just had to order a carafe d’eau instead of springing for Perrier. Either the water did me in or the Steak Tartare. Does it matter?

• I always get lost in Paris. Paris is segmented into triangles, not squares, and then within each triangle, it’s an insanity of narrow streets. It doesn’t make sense. I’m always thinking, “I can cut back by turning left and left…” and then I’m hopelessly confused and lost. And every part of Paris looks familiar, in that it all looks like part of Paris.

• I’m always miserable in Paris. It’s the most romantic city on earth, and either I’m alone and lonely or, when I was married, in a fight with my husband. Paris is for lovers. And I am so alooooooooooone.

• I’m always insecure in Paris. I wander the streets trying to look French even though I know this is ridiculous. I must achieve this, because no matter where I go in the city, people ask me for directions.  And my mediocre French gets me about four sentences in before it fails, the direction-asker looks at me betrayed, and I feel like a jerk. It must be my fierce “Parisian” pout, honed by decades of practice.

• Or, it’s the scarf.  In Paris, I, like every American woman in Paris, tie a scarf around my neck and refuse to smile on the street. Which makes me grumpy because…

• The damned scarf never looks right, it keeps slipping. That doesn’t happen to real French people. They must have scarf tying classes at the lycee.  Also, it’s physiological. They say that if you smile, you actually improve your mood.  You get happy by acting happy.  All that pseudo-French pouting — no wonder I have a history of being depressed in Paris.  And grumpy. And picking fights.

Now, this trip — this volcano-shortened couple of days alone in Paris — was a little different. I didn’t get sick! I was alone but not lonely. I got lost but I didn’t panic; I knew that if I found any Metro station I could find my way. My scarf looked awesome.

And yet, I still wandered the streets like a spurned lover before I figured it out. I hate Paris because I loved Paris. And Paris, that goddamned tease of a city, broke my heart.

[Cue the violins]

When I was young, 19, 20, 23, I thought Paris was my future.  I knew I’d live in Paris someday, or better yet, grow up to be French. But that didn’t happen. So for years, I’ve hated Paris because I felt like I’d been cruelly dumped, and I sulked and I threw fits and got sick in its toilets and Paris, that cold hearted demon, didn’t notice one bit.

So here’s what I figured out.  Paris is like George Clooney. Handsome, sexy, famous, talented, widely desired…  he might not be everybody’s favorite but I wouldn’t kick him out of the car, so to speak.  But George Clooney infuriates me in the same way Paris does.

Why?  Because we’re perfect for each other. We’re the same age which means we have all sorts of cultural references in common. I’m brunette, and he likes brunettes, right? And he’s smart! And I’m smart! And he has a sense of humor! And I have a sense of humor! See? Perfect. Except, George Clooney dates tall, gorgeous women, and I am 5′ 2″. Also, he dates younger women. So between that and the short thing, there is no chance that he would date me, even if he met me.

I am a woman spurned and scorned and ignored — by both Paris and George Clooney — and I do not take rejection lightly and I hate being ignored.  I toss my scarf over my shoulder. Haruumph.

This week, I walked around Paris a lot, and I stopped at every real estate office to look at the apartment listings. I live in the Bay Area so I understand about real estate. But my dream of a little apartment in Paris? A tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood for five hundred thousand euros?  If I divested everything I owned, I could maybe rent a garret. But then how would I earn a living? I could live in Paris, but not eat in Paris, not shop in Paris, not enjoy Paris, so what would be the point? It would be like getting a job shining George Clooney’s shoes. Not very satisfying at all.

So for now… and happily so…. I’m back in the Bay Area.  Where if I want world-class monuments I can take a stroll across the Golden Gate Bridge (take that, Eiffel Tower). I can also dine on the finest of all cuisines including French, hike in the redwoods, drive to the mountains, and never get lost.

Clooney, Paris, who needs you, anyway.

Hoorah!

I’m back at Literary Mama with a new column called Solo, about my life as a solo mother after an unexpected tragedy, about my impending solo life as my 17-year-old prepares to leave the nest, and about my evolution into a solo performance artist. My first column is called, “Solo Means You’re the Star.”

You never expect it to happen. People say this as cameras zoom into their shocked faces: “In an instant, my life changed.” The earthquake, the car accident, the drive-by, the overdose, the proverbial hit-by-a-truck. We say “live for now, it could all end tomorrow.” Yet life goes on, decades pass, and you never expect it to happen to you.

It happened.

Read it here….
http://www.literarymama.com/columns/solo/archives/2010/solo_means_youre_the_star.html

Leave a comment, let me know what you think!