J’aime Paris

I know, I know.

I’ve going out on a very thin and shaky limb putting that kind of opinion out there.

The safe thing, of course, is to name-drop about how much you love the common, pedestrian tourist heartthrobs like  Ulan Bator, Ouagadougou, or Detroit – places that are so darned easy to love that anyone can do it.

No, it takes a a certain je ne sais quoi way of looking at the world to admit to loving Paris.  A certain perspicacity. A certain quirky aesthetic. A certain capacity for harkening to the beat of a different drum.

All of which I clearly have.

Plus the courage to say out loud what so few would dare utter for fear of being regarded as some sort of freak: I love Paris.

There, I’ve come out from hiding behind my high school French and said it in English.

And I’ll say it again, parce que that’s the kind of dame d'une certaine âge I am: I LOVE PARIS.

Maybe it is because I’m getting on in years that I feel so free to brazenly state something that’s as controversial as this. Almost unique, in fact. To me at least. I can’t think of one darned person who would be so bold as to claim affection for the City of Light.

After all, loving Paris means overlooking its history, architecture, parks, monuments, cafés, and baguettes. It means ignoring its general squalor and the raffishness of its inhabitants.

Generous soul that I am, I am able to do so.

Anyway, by the time you’re reading this, I will be in France.

That is if the unpronounceable Iceland volcano doesn’t erupt while we’re in the airspace over it.

The weather forecast isn’t perfect: some cloudy, showery, windy in there. But if you’re the kind of softy who needs plus-perfect weather when en vacance, then get thee to Novosirbirsk, why don’t you.

Leave Paris to those of us with the spirit and guts to venture off the beaten tourist path.

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If Internet access in our apartment works – and there’s no reason to believe it won’t – I’ll be posting from Paris this week. If not, Pink Slip will return on Monday, May 10th.

Au revoir, mes amis.