It's old hat now, this photo-taking business. Turn left, turn right, look at your imaginary friend over there on the sofa and laugh at the very funny thing she's saying. I was posed: on the rug reading a Nobel Prize–winning Icelandic saga; still on the rug, but now taking a break from the Nobel Prize–winning Icelandic saga to drink from a dainty cup of tea; by the banister looking out the window; next to the table reaching for a porcelain bowl; just kind of standing around looking bloody gorgeous. Cleary, the kind of thing I get up to every day.



I was waiting for someone to Austin Powers it up and say, "You're a lemur! You're a lemur!" but it never happened. And then I'm not sure what kind of Zoolander look I was giving Tria as she clicked away, but she said, "Beautiful. You're a vixen." "Uhh," I said, "I don't know how I feel about that." "It's great," she said. "Sex sells. Even for Bargain Style."



It's possible the heavy-lidded look was simply the after-effects of having had Maud over for a ginger-carrot chicken noodle soup the night before; and then the two of us having stayed up till almost three, doing that thing where we keep trying to go to bed but then keep, instead, riling ourselves up with radio show goofiness, and road trip excitement, and girls we know, and boys we know, and (I swear this is true) French grammar and Montaigne and Proust; and then waking up just after six this morning to get ready for photo shoot day number two.



Still, I seem to be doing okay running on pure adrenaline and my iPod's shuffle selection—

(true story, when "Give Up the Funk" came on, people got very excited)

—and even managed to make a very large bowl of pancetta-chestnut-sage fettucine for lunch and the best chocolate tart yet. Hot damn, but this thing gets better every time I make it. I., are you reading this? This is the tart from that Pie and Pastry Bible. And with pouring cream and fresh raspberries mmmm.



The funny thing about this photo shoot is that by the time the magazine's out, I won't be living here anymore. But that's almost the best thing about it, too, because I'll have a souvenir of this thing I once created—this life I once had. What's especially sweet is that every picture seems to include something that was given to me by someone who means something to me—the little gold oil burner from Schmio; the pink cosmetic box from Ren; the enamel teapot from Beefy; the antique Chinese treasure chest from Ryan; the Ladurée pique-nique box from Maud; the gold and pink Chinese teacups from my grandmother; the mint green crackle vase from Tom and Vio; the dog-shaped pillbox, the mod ceramic candy dish, the luxe red bookcloth-covered Paris guide from CC. I'm pretty good about getting rid of things, but some things are things and some things have stories, and the thing is, we like stories.



Anyway. I'm still here, and there are flowers blooming all over the house, and I have a clean bathtub and some fancy bubble bath, and I'm going to go make good use of that situation. I'm going to sink into the warm, and I'm going to close my eyes, and it's going to feel good the way Nina Simone filling the quiet night feels good. Because some of us are officially very, very tired.

David the photographer’s assistant was bringing in bags and bags of gear this morning with the door wide open so that fresh baked cheesecake smell was wafting into the hallway just as hot neighbor Eric came in from walking his dogs, and hot neighbor Eric whipped his head round and said, “Oh my god, that smells amazing.” Nice job, David, even though recent evidence seems to point to hot neighbor Eric playing for the other team. The thing is, it just doesn’t matter, because as long as you are on the baked-good team, you are A-OK with me.



By nine a.m., the whole troupe had assembled—Jessica the writer, Brice the stylist, Tria the photog, David the assistant, Sarah the art director—and we were on to the first of many pots of a very strong, very dark roast.



Jessica’d told me they’d be shipping a few props over before the shoot, but in the last few days so many boxes have arrived that it looks like I got married or something. After my third day in a row picking up UPS shipments from my super, I said, “Sonia, um, all this isn’t mine, really.” She smiled and said, “Come on!” like I need to join Shopaholics Anonymous. She may even have winked. Had she not been handing me large boxes from Urban Outfitters and Hable Construction, she may even have tried to nudge.

So Jessica and I got to opening the boxes—so many cushions, my word, so many cushions. And some plain sheets,’cause mine are all patterned, and I don’t know why, but they didn’t want to use the lilac unicorn ones. And lamps, and a butterfly chair, and magnetic bulletin boards, and, um, wait, is this my house anymore? But I’ve been looking at the Polaroids all day, and so far it still looks familiar, so it’ll prolly be okay.



May I just say, IT IS VERY, VERY EXCITING HAVING ALL THESE PROFESH PHOTOG PEOPLE IN YOUR HOUSE. I believe at one point I thumped on the table and said, “You guys, I know this is work for you, but this is SO GREAT.” They seemed to humor me, but it could also have been because I had just set the table—

(When I’d told Jessica I was making lunch, she’d said, “Oh, but you didn’t have to.” “But that’s what I do,” I said. “The French literature thing is just a fallback.”)

—with a salad of spinach, bresaola, and parm regg; another salad, of chopped endives, walnuts, and blue cheese; a seven-grain loaf; and a raisin-walnut loaf. Oh, and chicken soup. The thing about the chicken soup was that Sarah was feeling illish, so I offered to make her some chicken soup, the words coming out of my mouth before I checked with my head to see if I actually knew how to make chicken soup. But a carton of organic broth, some orzo, an egg, and half a lemon later, I was reluctantly handing her her bowl, and then sending it envious glances of out of the corner of my eye.



All day: moving a throw on the bed up—no, down—no, up a little; shifting a pile of magazines to the right, no, to the left, no, a little— no— yes— there; so much fiddling with the light; so much arranging of flowers. They’d brought in armloads of flowers for the shoot, most of them pink. Oh, yes. Armloads. Pink. And the ranunculus, holey moley: pink and plump and getting plumper by the minute. I cupped a massive one in my hand and said, “These are great. And just so you know, peonies are my favorite flower.” To which Brice said, “I love peonies, too, but these are ranunculus, I know, they’re so huge, aren’t they gorgeous?” “Totally,” I said, “and just so you know, ranunculus are my favorite flower.”



The Shins and Robert Charlebois and the Mosquitoes and Zap Mama and Rilo Kiley and Scissor Sisters and Gino Paoli are all good music for a photo shoot. By the afternoon Tria was telling us about how Stevie Wonder was her first concert. I said mine was Debbie Gibson. David suggested maybe I shouldn’t offer that information so freely.

I have been swanning around the house all day, doing not so much, but I am beat. Maybe it takes more than one imagines, being a professional socialite. This will require more research. Tomorrow the glamour shots of ME.

Greyblue and greygreen, the park at dusk sounds like Rilo Kiley. There is the smell of new grass, and Jack is a dog who isn’t ready to leave just yet. Home, a black bean and bacon stew over couscous, the steam rising like a smile.

The only thing that can be good about being on the subway at seven-thirty in the morning with the earlybird drunks is if one is on one’s way to a breakfast tête-à-tête with Kat at Balthazar. I was so happy as to find myself in just that situation today, and maybe it was altogether Magic Day or something, ’cause when I popped into the boulangerie next door for a cranberry-pecan loaf, I found a ten-dollar bill crumpled up in the corner on the little black-and-white bakery tiles. The ten-dollar bill bought a cranberry-pecan loaf and a hot cross bun, with a dollar left for good luck.

(Although, crap, now I remember that when I found a fifty-kroner note on the street in Trondheim last summer, Khim Ee-ee said, “That’s lucky, and you must make sure to never spend it, because it means you will always have money.” I said, then, “But what if there’s a war and I’m all out of money except for this fifty-kroner note and I’m hungry? In that case can I maybe spend it?” “No,” she said, “and anyway if there were a war the money would be worthless.” She is sensible, that Khim Ee-ee; possibly superstitious, but sensible nonetheless. I still have that fifty-kroner note, it is tucked into my daily Moleskine, and it is pretty and green and has waterlilies and dragonflies on it. But the tenner is gone, oh, but the breadsmell of fresh and baking was all around me and I didn’t think about my future.)

We were having a perfectly lovely breakfast, me and Kat, in the red leather booth curving round us like girls with secrets, and I don’t know how we got to talking about Cyndi Lauper, and then I don’t know how we got to talking about “She Bop,” and I said, “Oh, that is a great song,” and Kat said, “Yes,” with meaning, so I said, “Wait, what?” and she said, “Because you know what it’s about, right?” So, of course, no, and it turns out, well, maybe I am the last person in the world to know this, but, uh, so. I mean, call me flabbergasted. I think I said: “What? No. What? No. I mean, okay, whatever, I support the slow art of self love, but come on. Come on! The lyrics are: She bop, he bop, a we bop, I bop, you bop, a they bop. What? No.” And then Kat pulled out her iPod, and we listened, and okay, fine, but I counter it’s still...ambiguous.



After, there was quickstepping my way westward through SoHo to the hair appointment with Norman, as if I don’t have to be done with this thesis in two weeks. I told him at the end, in a mumbly way, “Um, so I don’t know how to tell you that I’m moving to London.” And his face lit up and he said, “Oh, how exciting! I’m ready any time, when do we leave?” He suggested later that I try a Toni&Guy, and—barring a flight back to the corner of Spring and Sixth Avenue—I suppose I will, but the story I didn’t tell him was that in the fall of 1997 I was in London and all hepped up on living in Europe, and I checked into a Toni&Guy for a stylin’ London haircut, whereupon the tubby, cheery fellow wielding the scissors revealed he was from Batu Pahat or something. I suppose I’d been amused, at the time, at the kaki nang experience, but I think I also somehow felt a niggling sensation of having been cheated of a trendo London sitch.

Today, however, I was robbed of nothing, and even got to take an excursion to (this goes out to you, Saffron, because of thanks for making me think about it) Gourmet Garage for a bag of Irish raisin scones to go with the bitter orange jam Maud gave me the other day. Of course this is code for: I came out with a hunk of Comté, a round of smoked Gouda, a tub of ricotta, and several slices of bresaola and prosciutto. And a bag of Irish raisin scones.

So, but, you see? Magic Day.

And, okay, now I really believe I am going to samurai it up and show this thesis who’s boss. We have a challenge (that’s French!), me and Maud, and by Tuesday we will each have written seven pages, and then she’ll come over, and we’ll rent a movie and act like we’re ladies in a country house. I told her I was going to cook her something great for dinner, and, if this crappy weather keeps up, it may have to be a lamb tagine.

When the writing’s going nowhere fast and it’s grey outside and the sky is pissing down on humanity with raindrops of chilly contemptuousness, the only thing to do is head for a Chinatown porridge lunch with Maud. By the time the rain had transformed into a blustering icy-snowy mix of hell, we were rounding the corner on our way to Congee, where we hesitated over the snail and frog porridge before deciding on the chicken and black mushroom bowl. Maud gave me a jar of homemade bitter orange confiture, and I gave her twenty-five pages of thesis. One of us got the ass end of the deal, but I figured if I kept it on the DL she mightn’t notice.

Back in Brooklyn, I’m trading in the gym for pyjamas and a chocolate cupcake.

Jeez. It’s like, once upon a time I was out and about, gettin’ shit done. I guess I’m still gettin’ shit done, it’s just that it’s indoors this time. The solitary is surprisingly unoppressive, even though I had to turn down an invitation to homemade fried chicken and waffles this past weekend, and even though I think I will have to skip the Bollywood Disco this coming weekend. In addition, when I was at the gym last week, I was reminded, by the overhead television sets, that I also missed out on MTV Spring Break in Cancun. Ah, well. Maybe I am a samurai after all, what with the bed before midnight and the waking with the sun, and the fiendish single-mindedness all around. I even almost have the freezing cold waterfall showers down, thanks to the plumbing acting up in this place. But yes, so, inside is good. Inside happenings include:

in the morning, putting on Leontyne Price singing Verdi, and then, with a butter knife, conducting both the swelling orchestra, and the toast in the toaster;

accidentally falling asleep on the fluffy rug when I lay down to look at some papers I’d put on the floor because there wasn’t any space left on the table;

turning up the Aretha Franklin and the Otis Redding and dancing about the kitchen making a chicken curry dinner that, when all was said and done, ended up being five chicken curry dinners with varying permutations and combinations of vegetables;

sitting in the window and watching the Saint Patrick’s Day parade go by. The dancing girls were very, very foot-tappingly cute, and the NYPD marching band was very, very rousingly good. We like parades a lot;

hearing, like the announcement of Spring, a car going down the street honking “La Cucaracha.”

Also, oh!, apparently inside is so good that, remember when there was some talk of my house being photographed for a magazine?, okay, so, holy two-day photo shoot and possibly the cover of that issue, Batman!, the glam session is in a week.

Man, academic writing drives me cUh-RAy-zEe. I’ve been fighting on and off with a book of criticism for maybe a week now—really, the only time the fighting is off is when I have to put the book down because I get so aggravated with it. Then I got to the part about “the elaborate prefiguring of the autobiography’s unknowable nothingness,” to which the only possible response, after reading the sentence one more time, and then another, and then maybe swearing, is: YOU CAN SUCK MY UNKNOWABLE NOTHINGNESS.

Mornings, I wake before the seven o’clock alarm. I stretch, I put the kettle on, the kitchen floor tiles are cold, I sneeze, then I sneeze again.

Spring is on its way, and every day the quiet sunniness feels like things coming, not unhappily, to an end.

Last night a boy I know called. “I’d really like to see you,” he said, which was sweet and made me smile.

After so many solitary hours wrapped up in books, fantasies start weaving themselves through the lines.

1. I throw open the latched windows to the day beaming upon my Italian country house garden. The sunflowers call out through the glinting air in bright yellow voices. The soundtrack is Bobby Darin’s “Beyond the Sea.”

or:

2. A butler shows up at my door with a one of those hotel room-service trays—

(When I was a kid, my family once stayed in the posh-o-riffic Hyatt in the Rocks during a Sydney vacation. There was a telescope in the room looking out onto the harbor, a bowl of massive blushing strawberries on the table, and a butler service where they’d bring you videos upon request. I forget which video we requested, but the butler, oh, he was all blond hair and sparkle eyes, and even then, in my prepubescent, pre-boys stage, I knew he was somethin’ special. But I, and I think by now you know this about me, digress. I also digest. I also dig dresses. Stop me, please. Wrench the Leiris from my hands and just stop me. Anyway)—

I would like that butler to show up at my door with one of those hotel room-service trays lined with a thick white napkin, and to lift the silver cover to reveal a club sandwich. Lightly toasted and crusts off, of course; a toothpick holding the layers of crispy bacon and sweet tomatoes and whatever else together, of course; cut into triangles, but of course.

or maybe:

3. In my left hand, I am holding a bunch of ranunculus in purple and red and pink. In my right hand, I am holding a keyring with a shiny enamel charm in the shape of a fairy, and I am unlocking the door to my Covent Garden flat. Maybe Jude Law is sauntering by and saying “Hello,” it doesn’t even matter, because it’s summer and my shoulders are brown and everything is good like a new Eva Franco halter dress.

Someone found this site by Googling jude law vespa wallpaper.

Please. Tell me more.

Eeuuhhh...has anyone ever died from having to write a thesis?

Even with the days dotted with a host of study snacks (baby carrots and tzatziki, honey tangerines and Bonne Maman lemon tartlets, chocolate in milk and dark, slices of Manchego or smoked Gouda, Greek yoghurt swirled with fig jam); breaks for dancing (Scissor Sisters, Boney M, Kylie); and brief flirtations with gym trainers (yes, go ahead, laugh); this kind of bites the big one.

However.

The other day at the library, I borrowed Freud’s Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, and it’s due back the first of April. I think that’s pretty funny.

Unexpected Perk of Having a Roommate #8: Roommate makes earrings, confections of fancy in sparkle and fun. Hence, for a night out, sneaking earrings, which, hey, she left, like an invitation, on the kitchen counter. No, really. Well, okay, no, I mean, she did leave them on the kitchen counter, but I asked. And she said, “Of course, and you didn’t even have to ask.” You see?

The earrings are three strands of thin gold dangly, one of which ends in a translucent pink star, and—dangling themselves way past my concerns that I looked like a Joan Jett wannabe with the star and the spiky hair—said earrings rocked it at dinner last night at Public.

What did not rock at Public was the fact that since the last time I was there, the place has apparently become a NoLIta hotspot. Used to be Kat and I’d pop over for a meal, and it was a perfectly lovely way to pass an hour or three, chill, just chill.

Last night, among the guys with the large-check buttondowns and the laydeez in the one-shoulder tops, we could hardly hear ourselves bitching about how noisy it was. Certainly the waiter couldn’t hear us at all: “Are you done here?” “Uh-huh.” “Are you done here?” and, later, “May I clear this?” “No.” “May I clear this?”

In the Marisa Acocella illustration of my life, last night would be a line drawing with bla bla bla in cursive in the space above our heads, getting more and more cursive till it all became just swirls of dark ink, and all you’d be able to see would maybe be the pink stars on the ends of my earrings.

“It’s like this place’s turned into Republic,” Kat said, referring to the Union Square noodle bar with the spicy duck broth noodles and the cavernous echoing dining room. “Think noodles!”

Over the herby lentils with green beans, avocado, and pecans; the steamed snapper and shrimp dumpling; the artichoke-aleppo mash; the mini chocolate-ginger brûlée with sliced pears; the honey pannacotta and fig crackers; and the coffee bread pudding with sour cherries—can’t you just taste the words?—we yelled at each other across the table. Kat had to badmouth someone three times before I realized she was calling him an asshole. “You have to swear louder,” I said. “Think noodles!” she said.

Later, it was quiet outside, and quite nice. Sometimes the earrings brushed against my neck, fleeting and chilly like fairy dust. I walked the girl to Houston and then she walked me to First.

Turns out if you wake up early on a Sunday morning, you can have a yoghurty breakfast, bake two fig-date-apricot loaves, and watch the neighborhood dogs and the pink-haired lady saunter by your window while the day is yours alone.

I was sitting in my window with a ricotta-prosciutto sandwich and a cold cucumber-tomato-feta-peppercorn salad, and Lejeune on Leiris (“A lui tout seul, le serpent est l’image des deux sexes : globalement phallique ; mais à son extrêmité antérieure bée une bouche, au fond de laquelle darde, prête à la piqûre, une langue menaçante. Le serpent, c’est le phallus en abîme, le symbole des rapports de la castration et du phallus, et de leur fuite à l’infini,” ah bon), and Leonard Cohen in the background very softly murmuring to dear Heather; and the weekend sun was coming in like lightness and good times. And it made me remember how the other day I had occasion to be walking through some administrative office at school, down the fluourescent-lit linoleum-floored hallways with collapsible Officemax-esque cubicles on either side, miserable, miserable; and how it’d made me think that all too soon I’m going to have to join the working ranks again. God help us all, surely there’s got to be more than “smart casual” in my future. Anyone want to hire a world-travelin’ fast-talkin’ sweet-smilin’ dancefloor-groovin’ cute-shoe-rockin’ girl with a tongue for words and a taste for lemon tart?

All hail the utter and delightful decadence of taking a day off in the middle of the week to swan about in the sun doing not so much at all.

I stayed in the library till I gave myself a wretched headache, then decided I needed to blow off the rest of the afternoon, I have nine pages written, dammit.

On the 1 train downtown, there were jolly boys playing bongos. Downtown, there was a zucchini slice at the Sullivan Street Bakery, a chat with Lurlene about the Dowager Marchioness of Salisbury, and then returning to the counter for a second zucchini slice, hot damn they know what they’re doing at the Sullivan Street Bakery. It was like when Charlie buys that Willy Wonka Whipple-Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight and then goes back for another because it is just so good. And then the nice counter boy gave me a slice of chocolate-ganache financier just to be nice, so I sat back down with a cup of coffee and—and this is a very big “and”—the special Oscars edition of Us Weekly. I’d forgotten about the “Stars—They’re Just Like Us” feature, which tells you how long it’s been since I’ve looked at this magazine, because that spread alone is always worth the $3.29 cover price. And this week it was “Oscar Nominees—They’re Just Like Us,” which meant that accompanying the caption “They Check Their Booty” was a picture of Hilary Swank picking at her Guy Laroche–swathed butt on the red carpet. Go on, you know you love it.

The sun was streaming in through the thick glass-block walls, so it was time for walking up Wooster and along Prince and down Mercer and being in love with the city.

In the shops, I tried on summer dresses and danced about in fitting rooms, I continued my long infatuation with pink and black Puma Speed Cats, I lusted after a $295 pair of vermillion pointy-toed little-heeled leather shoes at Barneys Co-Op; and didn’t buy one single thing except some basil and a bag of crumpets and a loaf of seven-grain (Made from our Authentic European Recipe “From the Old Country”) at Gourmet Garage, can I get some awe and recognition around here please.

And then it was time to be hungry again, which worked out well for me and Sarah tucked away in the back at Lucien, over fish soup and an endive salad and a cozy macchiato, and of course over talking about boys, because we like boys.

At the Second Avenue station, the train came immediately, which was clearly a sign that sometimes if you need to take the day off, you should just take the day off and everything will fall into place and you will be surrounded by good vibes all day—because the Second Avenue station is the stinkiest one to be stuck at if you have to be waiting on the platform for the F train to come moseying down the tracks like an old lady in a flower-print dress on a hot summer afternoon.

Early this afternoon at the Union Theological Seminary there was a loop-de-loop of footprints in the snow, orange and yellow paper lanterns hanging in the trees, and the sun lighting on stained-glass windows. What is it about churchy places? They just feel so...nice. Oh, wait, is it God? Certainly when I got upstairs to the reference desk at Burke Library, it was like the librarian—silver hair, glasses, precise—was being played by God. Or at least, God played by Rooster. ’Member how in the movie “Annie,” Daddy Warbucks runs that ad on the radio to find Annie’s parents, and then Rooster and Bernadette Peters show up on Miss Hannigan’s doorstop disguised as Annie’s parents, and Bernadette Peters says they’ve moved to Jersey, where they have a small house and a farm, and then Rooster goes: “And a rooster!” and makes rooster sounds? That Rooster. Which is to say, somewhere after noon today my religious experience was brought about by a reference librarian played by God played by the no-good drifter brother of the head of a New York City Depression-era orphanage played by Tim Curry.

The girl at the desk next to mine in the library opened up her New York Times so I saw that the headline read: “Supreme Court, 5-4, Forbids Execution in Juvenile Crime.” I mean, come on, people, that is not something that needs to be debated.

It’s like when Kat e-mailed yesterday asking if I’d seen “Bring it On,” and—in case I hadn’t—recommending it. Please. I believe the response was: “I’m sexy! I’m cute! I’m popular to boot! I’m bitchin’! Great hair! The boys all love to stare!”

In other news, there is no other news. Except that I have nine pages of thesis written, awww yeeaahh. In early celebration of almost having nine pages written yesterday, there was going for a run, playing only Britney (early Britney, natch) on my iPod, and then a cannoli at Russo’s.