Have you stopped blogging? Are you dead? Abducted by aliens? Held prisoner by a deranged Londoner with chronic halitosis and a peg leg? No. I’m just lazy.

London life is easy. I hate admitting this, but almost too easy. Yes, I loved to complain about life in Tokyo, and to a far lesser extent, Hong Kong, but life in the English capital is pretty smooth. Are there things to complain about? Sure. Pull up a chair. The class thing is alive and well here. It’s almost like Japan, you know, where they sniff each other’s butts to determine rank before they open their mouths to speak. And don’t let me get started on the public drunkenness and resulting debauchery. Christ. Your ideas of the English and their manners would disappear faster than a drug lord in a Mexican prison.

But my partner and I love living here. We love our neighbourhood–I now type the u in neighbourhood because I hate red squiggly lines. Those red squiggly lines make me see, well, red. It’s the computer’s way of telling you that you fucked up. “Hey asshole, red squiggly lines. Learn how to spell you stupid fuck.” My computer has such a foul mouth.

But I digress.

Due to a royal mistake which will be discussed at a later time, we are now fugitives from the law. Okay, not really. I just wanted to type that. Due to an enormous error, my partner and I must leave the country within the next two years for a, I shit you not, “cooling off period.” You see, we were given the wrong visa upon entry into the UK. And now it appears this horrible, horrible mistake can only be fixed by leaving the UK for a year. And moving to Paris makes the most sense.

Given the proximity of Paris to London and thus my partner’s job, Paris is ideal. We only live one station away from San Pancras International, the Eurostar terminus. We know how easy it is to have breakfast in London and lunch in Paris. Should my partner require face to face time in the London office, he could board the train for England and be back again in time for dinner with me in France.

So why not move back to Asia you say? Why not stop this expat adventure altogether and move back to New York? Well because my partner’s job is easier done from London, or this approximate timezone. A move to Asia or the US would be challenging to say the least. He was working London hours right before we moved here from Hong Kong. That was no fun. We were having dinner at midnight. No joke. And me, the perfect mate, would cook as always and wait to eat with him. Me. Gold star. Here.

While I try to look on the bright, the shadows loom. I mean, twist my arm. Most people would say, “Hey, it’s Paris. It’s not Mogadishu or Bagdad. You are moving to a city most people could only dream of calling home.” And of course, yes, it’s Paris. But true story, the second to the last time I was there, I turned to my parter and said, “I love visiting Paris but I would never want to live here.”

And wouldn’t you know it? God or Yoda or Joan Rivers was listening and just like that, moving to Paris became a possible reality.

London is home though. We never expected to love it as much as we do but we do. Our plan is to live here longterm, to move back after a year in Paris and settle down more permanently. I never thought I’d want to live anywhere longterm other than New York. I was wrong. I only hope we can fix it to where we don’t have to move. Paris is fine but London is London.