Aloha darling, welcome stateside, let me bestow a lei on you and shower you with kisses, an old Hudson tradition. No, not really, alas, nothing here quite so charming. Here, were there an airport, before hardly clearing customs you'd likely be hit up for a donation to the annual June Flag Day parade - the extortion around here starts early - D was stopped in traffic for that this weekend. In the airport parking lot a bevy of volunteer fire would stop your rental car and wave a rubber boot, also demanding spare change for the very large red toy trucks they drive around in. Don't get me started. Are there sometimes legitimate fires & similar major emergencies that all manner of rescue squads respond to around here? Sure, and obviously I have no problem with that. But as my local property taxes keep going up, I resent when I personally, all too often, witness what appears to be a completely unnecessary, wasteful, and colossally expensive overresponse to a minor calamity, say a fender-bender, or a medical crisis. Your Homeland Security tax dollars hard at work in this rural bastion of Party-controlled silly redundancies...

Oh sweetheart - do I get a do-over? Let me try again. How about just a few sweet tender kisses for starters, and the promise of a vivifying drink & delicious repast, whatever you like.

I hope you're settling in and have had a good day. I've had a very nice one myself. I had a half-price certificate and so treated myself to lunch at my favorite casually elegant restaurant on Warren Street. I dressed up a bit again - what a treat to do so, to really enjoy what I'm wearing, and at first the maitre d' wanted to seat me at a small table right in the open of the middle of the room - the last place I wished to be - so I gestured to an empty small table - okay if I sit in the corner? Yes, of course. And so I was happily seated, and soon ensconced in reviewing the lunch menu, and ordering a delicious glass of minerally dry white wine, the variety of which I neglected to commit to memory. And so I enjoyed my meal, and the ambience, and the few diners in the room subtly checking one another out, me included, and I enjoyed the pan-fried scallops (all four of them!) done up in a rich buttery sauce that seemed to involve sesame oil, minced bacon or pancetta, and scallion - unexpectedly slightly Asian, fusion I guess. But before my order had arrived, I actually just enjoyed quietly surveying the room, taking the tiniest sips ever of my $11 glass of wine, and breaking off with my fingers bits of warm baguette, each of which, one by one, as the minutes unfolded, I ritually and lavisciously spread with a dot of cold butter, that would melt into each morsel, that I'd pop delicately into my mouth, and absolutely savor every bite, and - I'm going to say it - the mouthfeel. Yes, I'm a pretty sensual person - I really enjoyed that simple but perfect bread & butter, and the cool refreshing wine. By the end of the meal, I was half-intoxicated from the whole heady experience - which had gotten me for a moment drunker, the wine - or the butter & the rich sauce?

Afterward, I strolled up and down Warren Street, glanced in shop windows, and felt very elegant in my black skirt, animal print top, cashmere cardigan, and sandals. And I have to say that I was quite flattered when a guy parked in a Range Rover evidently noticed me and nodded hello, which I took as an approving look. Which outwardly I completely ignored - what was I supposed to do? I suppose a flirt would know precisely what to do. No, I instead regally sailed on - but it was a kick nonetheless - it is nice to be noticed. I, on the other hand, couldn't see his face, just the brief rather pointed signal dip of his head.

And then darling, I went to a poetry reading - and actually stayed for it. It was quite enjoyable, an older woman, well in her seventies, young at heart, vital, exuberant - and her poetry was very very good. Better than I expected really, though the Opera House here doesn't showcase any slouches, not at all (Ralph Waldo Emerson himself once gave a talk here - that's the sort of high-level bar they've set for themselves, on one level, because they do a lot of community arts programming, as well). I appreciated that this poet, who read from several of her published volumes of poetry, writes directly, while metaphorically, of major subjects - love, desire, death, dying... I was especially impressed that she read aloud a few poems that very openly treated of a woman's loving desire - so refreshing to hear, in our odd culture. And frankly, as problematic as my own blog is, or writing (because my writing, such as it is - that's what it consists of - this blog), I felt validated, or at least that there's another kindred spirit out there - still alive, still corporeal - who loves, who desires, who loves to kiss, to hold and to be held. I wouldn't be surprised if this woman's poetry is one day accorded a greater posthumous regard. In a brief Q&A after she entertainingly & energetically read a number of her verses, she said that she, while published by small presses, has thrived in her obscurity, and that if Knopf were to approach her she'd be inclined to turn them down, because she writes best in complete privacy, anonymity, and obscurity. Which was certainly a sentiment I could relate to, very much so. Whatever it is that I write - I don't write for a "market." I write for myself, and for you. And for whoever else - like yourself, once! - might discover my blog and like it and stay - but beyond that? no, there is no way I could write what I write "for publication."

Anyway, I'm going on & on here, I'm just so happy to sense that you're back - unpacked I guess, your home team charming extortionists (dare I guess?!), with their natural pent-up demand, having left you in peace perhaps, at the tail end of the weekend, for a little while...

Sweetheart, I'm not even going to proof this post, not just now, maybe in the morning. For now I'm just basking in the fresh remembrance of a wonderful day, with firm resolve to redouble my efforts in the workout department tomorrow - sybarite that I am, I enjoyed an awful lot of delicious food & drink this weekend, and though I took long vigorous walks - they weren't enough!

At lunch today in the restaurant I wished so much that you had been sitting across from me. We would have had a nice time. Maybe we would even have taken that table for two in the middle of the room. It wouldn't have mattered, because between the prospect of seeing each other across a table, touching hands now & then, sipping wine -- the entire rest of the room would have fallen away -- it would have been just you & me together --

many kisses, darling