In France!

If all goes well, I'm in Paris--right about when this post goes up. It's such a cliche to love Paris. But I do. I love the storied, storybook architecture, the cobbled windy streets, the beautiful stores and the stunning food and the music of the language all around me. One of the happiest memories I have of the past few years is a simple one: sitting on a low stone wall overlooking the Seine, with the sun shining, eating a lemon crepe. It doesn't take a lot to make me happy.

It's easy to be romantic in Paris, because romance isn't something you construct--it's all around you, a hazy fog you move in that casts everything you do in an extraordinary light. Yes, I am totally romanticizing the place. If I lived there it would become ordinary, full of the inconveniences and unpleasantnesses you find when you really get to know a place. I don't care. I will continue to put Paris on a pedestal as long as I can.

I live in another city it's easy to romanticize. I don't really romanticize New York. I live in a less-than-trendy neighborhood, and I'm in the city every day. I see the rats and the grime and the problems. I also see the opportunity and excitement. Like a lot of people, I came to New York to make something happen in my life. That's what the city's for--and as an ambitious person, I'm at home here. But I'd like to think that New York and I have a more functional, everyday relationship: I see New York for what it is, the good and the bad.

So New York is like my husband. I wouldn't want to be with anyone else. At least not for the foreseeable future. But Paris is the exciting, gorgeous, romantic fling I sometimes need to make living in New York even more spectacular. You always appreciate things most from a far-away vantage point. And I know that after being away for a while, I'll be even more happy that I live here.