http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/in-paris-with-boris-donald-and-lemon-tarts.html?ref=opinion&_r=0In Paris With Boris, Donald and Lemon Tarts
Maureen Dowd JULY 2, 2016
I DID something in Paris last Saturday night that I’ve never done before.
I went to a restaurant alone for dinner. I know, it’s lame that I’ve always been afraid to go out to public places at night on my own. I tried to get beyond this phobia by going to the movies by myself one Saturday night in Washington, many years ago, after a breakup. But when the lights came up, my ex was sitting in front of me with a pretty date. That cured me of the desire to venture forth solo for another couple of decades.
But I was in France for work for the week and stopped in Paris on the way home. I spent Friday night eating the minibar — salt-and-vinegar potato chips, popcorn, nuts, chocolate and white wine. But by the second night, it seemed too sad to be cooped up in a dark room in the City of Light.
So I worked up my nerve and made it as far as the hotel dining room. I was staying on the Left Bank at L’Hotel, where a depressed Oscar Wilde came to live in 1898, subsidized by the French government, after his release from Reading Gaol.
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