Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

“Your key, mademoiselle,” said the man at the reception desk, handing me a plastic card.
I played tourist for the afternoon. Took the Metro to the Eiffel Tower, got my hands gooey with a
chocolate crêpe, and walked across the park, feeling like a girl trailing ribbons in her wake. I found a
cozy café tucked away on a quiet street and ordered a glass of bordeaux. It was cheaper than coffee.
Two euros. Another one of the line-item vetoes in the “never drink alone” rule book is that you’re
allowed to drink alone while traveling. Who else could possibly join you? I loved drinking alone in
distant bars, staying on speaking terms with my own solitude.
The wine was good. Sustaining. I sometimes wonder if I’d grown up in a culture lacking the
padlocks of Puritan restrictions, then maybe I wouldn’t have fetishized it so much. America, land of
shot specials and beer bongs. No sense of moderation.
I read once that a famous magazine editor had a glass of champagne with every lunch. One glass.
And I thought it was the classiest thing ever. I wanted that. The crystal flute, with its feminine curves
and ding-ding-ding. The bubbles reaching up to kiss my nose as my lips approached the glass.
And so I sipped my one glass of red wine. Just one. And I let it roll along the sandpaper of my
tongue. And the wine was better this way. Tiny sips. And it floated through my bloodstream like a
warm front. And it would not be an overstatement to say this felt like the very point of existence. To
savor each moment.
Then I ordered another glass.
I MET THE reality show host and his wife that night in a crowded square on the Right Bank. They had a
toddler and an adorable baby, and they struggled to maneuver the stroller over the cobbled streets,
even as we remarked how charming it was. The magazine profile was supposed to show how
awesome it was to bring your kids to Paris, but I suspected the host and his wife would give an arm
for a Babies “R” Us and a minivan.
The host was small and good-looking in a generic way. I expected to dislike him. In fact, I wanted
to dislike him, because he was in charge of the world’s dumbest social experiment. But he and his
wife were quite lovely. Years later, when the tabloids reported their split, I actually thought: But they
seemed so happy. As if I knew anything.
We took a seat at an Italian restaurant, ordered a bottle of red wine, and began the interview. My
questions were not what you would call probing.
“Why did you decide to film this season in Paris?”
He cleared his throat. He smiled.
They had chosen Paris because it is the world’s most romantic city. Anyone could fall in love in
Paris. Everyone did! As the host spoke, I watched the season’s sizzle reel unfold in my mind:
candlelit dinners along the Champs-Élysée, helicopters flying above the Arc de Triomphe set to the
swelling sounds of a power ballad, the corny accordion music leading us to commercial break.
I loved to rant about that show back when it debuted in 2002. Those brainless women with their
dripping bikini bodies and their Stepford smiles, scheming to marry a man they’d only just met. What
kind of self-loathing idiot would watch this tripe?
The answer, it turned out, was me. Because a few years later, I flipped it on one evening and
realized such vapid entertainment was a great way to unplug my mind. Anna started watching it, too,
and we called each other afterward to complain. Untangling the mysteries of desire can be a terrific