First, a comparative visual – my parent’s overstocked US fridge (full to bursting with 17 kinds of salad dressing and nothing to eat) and our French fridge (cleaned by G. and awaiting a trip to the Saturday market). I’m back in Paris now – so happy to be in my own kitchen! I’m also back at my (incredibly) messy desk – and as I suspected, everything that has happened in the past few weeks seems a bit unreal.

I had a good meeting with my editor and the marketing/publicity team before I left – the subject – what to do to keep the momentum going. They are still pitching ideas to the press– but I get the sense that after the initial push – the rest needs to be driven by yours truly. Yours truly and the Internet.

The Internet still weirds me out sometimes. So personal, and yet so remote. I’ve been getting lots of nice emails from readers, and I’m trying to answer them all. My favorite thus far was from a woman who said her granddaughter was reading Lunch in Paris, and now she wants to marry a Frenchman! I wanted to find the text of the original comment, but it’s already lost in my inbox. Which tells you something about the efficiency of my current system.

I’m doing a reading in Paris at WHSmith on March 11th – this will be a very different crowd than the US and Australia – they all have a unique experience of France, many are here to stay, so they understand the challenges, as well as the beauties, of living here. I won’t be playing to people’s Paris fantasies. I’m not sure if that’s going to make it easier – or that much more difficult.

I’ve barely landed back in Paris and I’m already planning another trip to the US in April – coming in for a friend’s wedding, so I decided to try “Book Tour 2: The Return” to give a bit of notice to all (ok, some) of the people and places that I missed on my first trip because of agenda shuffling and short notice. I’ll be doing a reading at Barnes & Noble in NY (Tribeca) on April 7th, as part of their “Discover Great New Writers” series. I’m hoping to hit Connecticut and Boston as well. I’m really looking forward to visiting Northfield Mount Hermon, my old high school, after the trip to Boston – I asked one of my former English teachers if I could come in and talk to some classes about the writing life. I’m sure the students will be my most honest critics yet.

Oups. Baby awake. Must go – back to life without grandparents…my sweet potato wants his sweet potatoes!

Have a great week! EB