Hello darling. Beautiful late afternoon here, hot, sunny and dry. The temperature's supposed to drop into the low 50s tonight, radiational cooling that reminds me of California. I changed sheets today and made the beds back up, this time with cotton blankets on top. They haven't been necessary for a while but will be welcome tonight.

Fifty-nine and clear by you, sunrise at 5:40, a civilized hour, though sunset at 12:33 a.m. is still pushing it, the sun behaving like a child refusing to go to bed. Are the tents lightproof or is there a vexing persistent glow through the gortex or whatever material that is?

What did I do today? Washed dishes by hand, I think we're getting a new dishwasher this weekend. Watched more Mad Men. Do you know it? It's a drama series about Madison Avenue advertising executives, their loves and lives in the early 1960s - fantastic characterizations, great acting, production values to perfection, well-observed, all working together to evoke that rapidly changing moment in time.

What else? Walked at the conservation area, drove across the bridge to the bank, drove back, picked up D at a job, stopped by supermarket, found several items with yellow half-price "managers special" stickers including baby mesclun - my favorite, I love the soft texture. I bought four plastic containers and have washed and dried it already to keep it from turning into compost. Alaskan cod will be for dinner.

What a lovely song on just now, I sway to it and think of you. Very romantic and lilting. Amarga Navidad, by Lila Downs - love it. Like a fado. Maybe it is a fado. Now Van Morrison is on. That would be you, darling. I love ya I love ya I love ya I love ya I love ya I'm hungry for your love.

What else? Washed sheets, hung them on the clothes umbrella which is hard to do because the buddleia has grown through it, so I ended up tossing pillowcases like frisbees onto the far end from the porch. Watered garden, things have been quite dry and I heard next rain won't be til next Wednesday. Checked blog stats. Bala Cynwyd, PA up top. Longing for United States. Page hits from you read as code - I view each one as a kiss, a magical visitation, the stop of a butterfly, or of a hummingbird. One day I hope for an actual kiss.

These days butterflies and hummingbird-like moths stop by the buddleia, but I haven't seen a hummingbird recently, though I believe they're around.

What else? As I drove up Warren Street Bob Schneider's Bring the Bringdown came on, one of the sexiest songs ever in my book. I sat at a red light and danced in my seat, just wanted to dance and remembered dancing with you. Did we go out dancing only once? Once is all I remember. Anyway, great song.

In other "bringing the bringdown" news, the other day at the conservation area I saw a barge floating a large section of the new Willis Avenue bridge downriver. It's been in the local news that it was fabricated up here and is being floated to Bayonne where it will be assembled and floated up the East River to replace the duct-tape-and-chewing-gum repaired structure that currently connects Upper Manhattan and the Bronx.

My delightful man (of course you are, and can't tell you how envious I am of everyone who gets to be around you), I hope everything is going well with you and that you're having a good time. I should go see about dinner, measure out rice to cook up in a pot, slice lemon, pull out mustard & butter to make a bit of sauce to drizzle over the sauteed cod. What's the veg tonight? Not sure. I never did make it to a farmstand today. No more baby mesclun for today though - half a package with the chicken quesadillas at lunch was enough.

Read more of the beautiful epistolary friendship between E.D. and Thomas Wentworth Higginson (will I ever reach the end of the book?). Checked movie schedules and other cultural listings. Became intrigued with synopsis of an opera playing at Bard this weekend, The Distant Sound, by Franz Schreker, 1910. The theme resonates -- Fritz, a composer, forsakes a woman’s love for an imagined sound that is but the distant echo of her presence. But the opera is only partly about Fritz and the elusive ideal that shimmers, mirage-like, beyond his grasp. It is also about how Grete, the composer’s beloved, is exploited by the society she lives in, and how she survives by retreating into her dreams...

This post is a ramble but it's the next best thing (like page loads:kisses) to being in your presence. I'll leave you with a lovely quote I read this morning, that the writer Nicholson Baker included in a fan letter he wrote to John Updike in the mid-1980s. I've just stepped into the bathroom to fetch the NYRB in which I read the piece. The quote is by someone by the name of John Jay Chapman - who is that? never heard of him. Anyway.

Your complete literary man writes all the time. It wakes him in the morning to write, it exercises him to write, it rests him to write. Writing is to him a visit from a friend, a cup of tea, a game of cards, a walk in the country, a warm bath, an after-dinner nap, a hot Scotch before bed, and the sleep that follows it. Your complete literary chap is a writing animal; and when he dies he leaves a cocoon as large as a haystack, in which every breath he has drawn is recorded in writing. "Balzac," quoted in Richard B. Hovey, John Jay Chapman

Now I'd like to hear the actor Jon Hamm, who plays the charming and complex ad executive Don Draper in Mad Men, read that quote aloud as he fixes his prey. Your complete ad man writes all the time. It wakes him in the morning to sell, it exercises him to pitch... Or maybe more likely it would be a quote delivered by a different character, one more given to pompous speeches - well, whatever.

Dearest love, very many kisses for you, woven into tonight's corner of cocoon. Love you.

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I can't vouch for this video, but if you have insomnia because of the midnight sun peeking through your little umbrella beach tent.... here's Bring the Bringdown. I hope it's as sexy a version as what I hear on radio, and baby, I love you, I am dancing with you to this either way.