Every year when I reflect on what I’m grateful for, I feel a bit like a lottery winner. This was a trying year in some ways (freelance is amazing for the flexibility, but filled with rejection and not a lot of money), but pretty awesome in most ways (I stress less, exercise and read more, and have volunteer work back in the rotation).

A funny thing happened a couple weeks ago. Amy Thomas wrote me an email. Turns out, there’s another writer named Amy Thomas. She’s an expat, living in Madrid and discovered me doing a Google search.

Like a lot of parents living in the city, Andrew and I contemplate how long we can last. How many years we can live in a 1100-square-foot apartment.

Four and a half years after Parker’s debut in the world, we did it. We brought her to Paris.

The nation—nay, the world—has been swept up in Marie Kondo’s joy of tidying up. Me? I get off through good, old fashioned cleaning. 

“I have to tell you something,” Andrew confessed to me the other night. It had been an eternity since I’d had that horrible heart-skipping sensation, anticipating horrible news. He went on to explain that he had locked himself in the bathroom the prior day and bawled like a child. And then we talked about why. 

The eBook version of Paris, My Sweet is on special for the rest of April. Because, April in Paris. Scoop up a copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google or Kobo - and don’t forget Brooklyn In Love while you’re at it!

But he’s 100 years old today. He’s a Yonkers, New York native. Beat poet and publisher. Co-founder and owner of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco. He is now a centurion. And to me, he is a rock star.