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American couch.

      Here’s how a Parisian vacation with your husband of three years should look: making out by the Seine, enjoying some crepes, and then taking twelve million obligatory pictures by the Eiffel Tower.

      Here’s how our Parisian vacation played out: freezing rain, grim determination, and a lot of crepes. I ate more crepes than a French teenager after football practice. There was a small kiosk right by the hotel that made them about the size of a car tire and slathered them with Nutella. Crepes upon crepes.

      And, I drank absolutely no wine. No cognac, either. We didn’t seek out the dark Parisian bars with sullen bartenders and a lot of gleaming bottles. No wine tastings. No wine cellars. There was no wine on my Paris vacation. This was just wrong and terrible. A tourist should be allowed to drink herself through her European vacation. It’s the American Way! Europeans drink wine over here at lunchtime, and it’s okay, d’accord? (Translation: “d’accord” means Paris is to drinking as the Kardashians are to eyelash extensions.)

I have had the pleasure of visiting Paris a few times. By “a few” I mean three, and one of those visits just involved the Paris airport, but still—it counts. My first real trip to Paris was on my own, and it was simply magical. In the great words of Mariah Carey, “I had a vision” of Paris, and it was all that Paris gave to me. My first morning in that glorious city, I walked out of my hotel room and looked to the right, and there, framed perfectly by the narrow road and white hotels, was the Eiffel Tower. It brought me to tears. I quickly hid behind large sunglasses and a disinterested slouch; I was going to blend in here, and sniffling and pointing at the Eiffel Tower was no way to get on my Parisian cool.

      My first night in Paris I went hunting for what I envisioned the apex of Parisian experiences: cognac and no filter cigarettes—so strong the packaging doesn’t even offer a warning, just a hotline for the nearest cardiologist.

      I found a bar, composed myself into what I hoped looked like a tired model just going in for a nightcap before heading home to her Parisian apartment, Parisian cat, and tousled Parisian bed. I slouch-walked in, sidled up to a stool, managed to order “un cognac, s’il vous plait” with so much disaffection the bartender might have thought I was slipping into a coma at any moment. And I drank up.

      It was awesome.

      I have never forgotten that cognac, that stool, the bartender’s dirty towel, or the loud couple to my right talking in their nasal snarl. It was like being on a movie set, and it was all I had ever wanted. Me, my cognac, and Paris. We were in love. The cognac and me were pretty much inseparable for the rest of the trip.

The fact that I programmed wine and cognac on repeat during the trip is understandable. I was terrified. I wanted so badly not to be pegged as a tourist. But I knew I was in a city where I barely knew the language, and I was terrible at reading maps, so at some point my cover would be blown. I walked around feeling like I was being watched and judged by the Cool Parisian Task Force, agonizing over my accent, my scarves, and my lipstick. I received the best compliment of my life when I ventured into a patisserie and managed to order an entire box of macaroons—cookies that are the color of Easter eggs—without breaking my cover. It wasn’t until I accepted my change that I blew it and thanked her in English. She widened her eyes in surprise, and I realized I had fooled her! Maybe, I fit here!

      Paris was so daunting. The Grand Prix of fitting in. If I could do it here, I could fit anywhere.

      And that was so very important.

      Now I am here in Paris, some four years later, and nothing fits. Not my jeans. Not my jackets. Not my communication skills with my husband. I can’t slide into a warm cognac to help ease all these jangled nerves and anxious edges. I am a spectacular mess of not-fitting. My husband has not-fitting down to a cheerful science, mainly because he insists on wearing white tennis shoes for the duration, which is clearly against Parisian law. I am unable to care about the Louvre, St. Chapelle, or the Seine. I am very interested in crepes and places where I can sit. We head over to another monument, and my interest extends only to the benches surrounding it. I do love those crepes and devour numerous ones before lunch with a low moaning sound that makes Brian eye me uneasily.

Yes, it’s possible I would have chosen the crepes over my husband. Along with the startling realization that bathrooms are too pedestrian for the French, I came to understand that traveling with my husband is rather difficult. He is an engineer and has a plan for everything. When Christmas comes, and we receive a large electronic gadget of some type, he is gleefully in that box, sniffing around for the instructions. He unfurls them with great pleasure and will proceed to read them with a pile of unopened presents still sitting before him. I am not sure he is human.

      I am of the firm conviction that instructions are a waste of time. I “throw things together.” I “rig stuff.” I don’t “follow the straight and narrow,” because “that’s for pansies.” Why? I don’t know. Straight lines are boring. In the case of this trip, some basic instructions like, “Plan ahead just a bit” would have helped. I didn’t plan anything for Paris, down to bringing the wrong type of clothes to wear in the frigid weather. When my husband gently inquired about all this, I responded with remarks like, “Details are annoying” and “Leave me alone.” As much as I value planning and organization, for some reason, I decided we were on vacation so I adopted the theme of, “Hey, let’s just wait and see!” This all stemmed from a deeper theme of “I am absolutely terrified of this trip for some reason!” Incidentally, quotation marks gloss over a lot of fault lines in my personality. In hindsight, there should have been a bit more planning on both our parts, but I had insisted I would do it all, and then I didn’t.

      Before we left, it would have been good to look over the materials list for our trip:

       • 1 Newly pregnant wife so tired she can master napping while standing. Oui!

       • 1 Overenthusiastic husband who is fired up about the availability of ESPN in France. Oui!

       • 2 Completely differing views of how this vacation should proceed. Oui!

We were doomed.

      We were also doomed, of course, because I was scared about being pregnant. Yes, I was also scared that Brian would wear K-State everything and mangle his French—those fears were pretty much realized at the Paris airport. I was scared we would get lost a lot, and we did. And I was scared that I would somehow get separated from Brian, and there wouldn’t be any crepe makers or a bathroom for miles around. This, thankfully, did not occur. But mainly I was deeply freaked out about having a little one growing inside me. I was so not ready for this whole baby thing. And this scratched at me because I wanted and needed to fit in. Fitting in would be: going to Paris, taking a lot of pictures of “le baby on board,” and glowing about it the whole time.

      Instead, my anxiety levels were at code red, which means disaster was set to strike at any moment. Feeling ill at ease and abnormal were actually normal for me. This trip packed all those uneasy feelings, along with a tiny baby and an uncomfortable bladder, into my tired body. I was surprised I was able to buckle my seatbelt over this entire bloated malfunction on the plane. But of course I did, because we were probably going to crash and die, most likely while we were over the ocean. The latest technology was kind enough to show me exactly how much of this trip was over the water through a handy-dandy massive screen detailing our trip on the cabin wall right in front of us. Of course Brian found this to be helpful and interesting. I just stared at the expanse of blue on the screen and nervously looked around for extra flotation devices. I would be floating for two.

Today I know that anxiety is a real ailment, not some floating feeling that surfaces from time to time, but an actual, diagnosable problem. Anxiety can be dealt with and treated. It didn’t have to be scooted around in my brain as something silly. Clearly, my issues with anxiety were not going to go away, but so far, I had only dealt with them in the most logical way I knew how: have a glass or two of wine and voila! I am okay. Edges are muted. Fears are eased. Or, at least they are all spread out, like melted butter on toast.

      At that point I had

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