We just got back from a working vacation in the Poconos with the kids and it was lovely, but now I need/want a vacation of my own. Both Nick and I were working the whole time and even though the big kids were in a camp most of the day we still have that bonus baby to contend with. Needless to say. There was no relaxing.
I did find these chocolate covered Fritos in a candy shop down the street from where we were staying and I know they sound disgusting, but they are pure heaven and I need the world to know about them. I brought them to a friend’s house last night and they were gone in less than a minute.
I also finished up a podcast episode that I adore with the author of the new book The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us. More on that and an extended version of the interview in a newsletter later this week. But give it a listen if you want something to tickle your ears. I love the part about how Judy became a writer because being a mom and a housewife in the sixties just didn’t feel like ENOUGH.
My friend Jenny Mollen wrote a newsletter this week about taking a vacation away from your children. It is gold and I love it.
This description of being on a trip alone slayed me:
I didn’t look in a mirror to confirm, but I’m pretty sure I was suddenly twenty-two again. I had the stamina to stay up late, as well as renewed curiosity in everyone around me.
I am actually planning one of these for the early fall. Glynnis will be turning 50 in September (we are both Virgos). She’s spending the whole month in Paris, the setting of her wildly popular memoir, I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, and I am going to join her for a week. WITH NO CHILDREN.
The last time I was in Paris with no children I was pregnant with the bonus baby and we were on a sort of babymoon. It was heaven, but also a baby in the belly isn’t totally childfree.
So Paris has been on my mind. Also THE OLYMPICS are about to start. I am a weird Olympic super fan so I plan on being glued to the TV for the first couple of weeks of August pretending that I could complete the triathlon and also medal on the balance beam if only I had put my heart into any sort of athletic ambition a little more before all my muscle mass started teetering off a cliff in my twenties.
Since I can’t stop thinking about Paris, I loved this recent newsletter from Glynnis about all of the places she loves in the City of Lights that are also in her book. The whole thing is below.
If you want a more kid-friendly itinerary I have this piece on conquering Paris’s museums like a pro.
But I prefer Glynnis’s version (with or without kids) because it is filled with delight and pleasure, something that we often do not have enough of in our lives.
Here are Glyn’s recs and if you aren’t reading her newsletter you definitely should.
This summer is a big one in France, in ways anticipated, and not. Last week the French held a snap election, and managed to stave off the far right (for now). In ten days the Olympics start. People are obviously always visiting Paris, but in the past few months it feels like I’ve been sending out my Paris recs every week or so (and also pointing people to Lindsey Tramuta, naturellement) and my instagram is continually flooded by photos of friends who are visiting.
Ever since I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself published, and even before that from friends who had galleys, people have been asking me to confirm some of the locations I mention in the book. They also ask me if Fruitz is real. It is real. And has apparently been making a comeback in the Paris metro of late, I’m told.
I have complicated feelings about travel guides, and increasingly about travel in general. (This Olivia Laing interview has really stuck with me: “Perhaps what we need to be offering is a sense of why it’s richer to stay in one place, why it’s richer to be able to communicate from the place you’re in.”) New York City has its fair share of tourists, obviously, but the city is so enormous it can absorb visitors without feeling as though the city has been lost to them. This is not the case in many places, as the recent water gun protests in Barcelona demonstrate. I was in Rome last summer for a week and couldn’t shake the sense the city was performing being Rome for the enjoyment of tourists.
Me taking my book to visit my favorite apartment building in Paris this past March. Vive le pèlerinage littéraire! Photo by Ellie.
Of course, I’m also a person who’s rerouted every road trip, sometimes hundreds of miles, in order to visit the locations that are mentioned in my favorite books (and then made a huge podcast about it) so I get it. And also, the interest is very flattering!
With all that in mind here’s a list of every place in Paris I mention in the book. Vive la France.
I’ve tried to list these chronologically. If' I’ve missed something leave a note in the comments and I’ll do my best.
