Evening post

Back at the Carroll Gardens library. It's dark out, I'm not feeling very inspired, I've had a glass of rose at the apartment to try to get myself going.

Since I am here the corner where I sit (virtually empty tonight, at this hour - library closes at 8 tonight) is perfumed with sweet musky scent. I raise my wrist and inhale.

Was at the Met today, I've never seen it so crowded. Check-in, as at an airport, took the better part of an hour. The Velasquez exhibit turned out not to be a major retrospective, but rather a curatorial mini-essay of sorts surrounding the recent restoration and re-valuation of one of the paintings, perhaps a self-portrait, in the Met's collection. Spent a couple of hours wandering the Met's galleries, and perhaps one of my favorite moments was lingering in the ancient Greek galleries on the south end of the main floor, where I admired an Ionic column.

Walked down Fifth afterward, paused at a bench abutting the park, and scribbled a note that read, "timeless winter light of a silver gelatin print." It was just that kind of light this afternoon.

Stopped at Bergdorf, at 58th, in a quest for another spritz of perfume, but I didn't see any perfume counters on the main floor, just extremely expensive jewelry and handbags, and a clientele that looked, in their subdued winter finery, as though they had been upholstered at the Frick, all very coded "old money" weight and tones.

I had intended to head west to check out what might be on sale at the Williams-Sonoma at the Time-Warner center, but realized that I simply must have another encounter with the intoxicating scent, it wasn't optional anymore. So I stayed on Fifth and despite the crowds (I think I'm getting used to them after the last few days in tourist-mad Manhattan, or at least am getting better at negotiating them) headed for Saks again. In my eagerness to imbibe the scent, inhabit it, I spritzed myself twice which may have been too much. Still, I noticed that my hit from Sunday afternoon lasted into the evening, into the night, until my shower the next morning, and even then I think a trace lingered (absorbed through my wrists, coursing through me?).

And that's all I have, really, for tonight. It's all about all sorts of delirious and intoxicating thoughts and lovely fragrances and romantic reveries and wonderings of - well, all sorts of wonderings.

Love.