I'm Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself

When you’re a woman of a certain age, you are not promised anything at all other than that everything will get worse. But what if everything you’ve been told is a lie. Come to Paris, August 2021, when the City of Lights was still empty of tourists and a thirst for long-overdue pleasure gripped those who wandered its streets. After New York City emptied out in March 2020, Glynnis MacNicol, aged forty-six, unmarried with no children, spent sixteen months alone in her tiny Manhattan apartment. The isolation was punishing. A year without touch. Women are warned of invisibility as they age, but this was an extreme loneliness no one can prepare you for. When the opportunity to sublet a friend’s apartment in Paris arose, MacNicol jumped on it. Leaving felt less like a risk than a necessity. What follows is a decadent, unexpected journey into one woman’s pursuit of radical enjoyment. The weeks in Paris are filled with friendship and food and sex. There is dancing on the Seine; a plethora of