Back from NYC

...and recovering today. Here are the highlights, for the perfume-minded:

Snapped up the last two bottles of Gobin Daudé Jardins Ottomans on sale at Takashimaya for $19.00 apiece. This is a scent I paid some $125.00 for in Paris in 2003. Left Takashimaya glowing with pride.

In honor of the immensely talented Olivia Giacobetti, I picked up a bottle of Andrée Putman Préparation Parfumée and a bottle of the new l'Artisan Parfumeur scent Extrait de Songe. Both fragrances were designed by Giacobetti. With an air of superiority I communicated my finds to my friend Monica, who lives in Hoboken and met me for lunch on Monday. She promptly burst my bubble by barking, "Extrait de Singe? Monkey extract??" For the rest of my life I will think of this scent as Extrait de Singe. Thanks Monica.

During a final trip to Barney's I ran through the Keiko Mecheri line again, where I rediscovered Paname, a delicious and haunting absinthey-chocolatey scent that smells like a less complex but more wearable (for me anyway) version of Serge Lutens' Douce Amère.

Come to think of it, the following are, in my humble opinion, Keiko Mecheri knockoffs of Serge Lutens scents:

• Paname = Douce Amère
• Genie des Bois = Bois de Violette
• Loukhoum = Rahät Loukoum

The irony is that I strongly prefer the KMs to the SLs, except for Bois de Violette which beats the pants off Genie des Bois with its shrieking cedar note.

My last great find was a sale bottle of Catherine Memmi Iris room spray, which smells just like the iris note in Guerlain Après l'Ondée. Cool, powdery, loamy, and spicy, with a lipstick accord in there. Love it. Found it for half price at Bigelow. Unfortunately I couldn't test Prada Iris or any of the new scents at Aedes de Venustas because both shops were closed for Memorial Day. Monica and I sat in the park and watched the little dogs run around instead, a perfectly acceptable substitute.

Back to acquisitions: I also ended up with $1800.00 in Armani ties, FREE! One of my former students, Jill, lives in Manhattan and works for Armani. Shoes and accessories. She gets these ties for free and has to give them away in handfuls. I brought 15 home. Greg grabbed 9, so I'm sending the remaining 6 to my narcissistic dandy of a brother, who will pee his Brooks Brothers pants when he sees what's in the package.

Since the only people who will find this post even remotely interesting are wayward perfume hags like me from www.makeupalley.com (my former hangout), I will also share the deets of my Saturday evening. Greg and I got to meet MUA's own cjblue and her husband. We went out for dinner at a Mexican place and had a great time listening to their stories about working together on a fishing boat in Alaska and at a casino in Vegas.

In case you're wondering, Ruth is beautiful and vibrant, in lush contrast to my sharp and severe countenance. I'm only 35 and already I look like somebody's rich, forbidding, and frigid old aunt. I used to think (hope) that when people stared at me it was because they thought I was attractive but now I realize that it's because they're trying to figure out if I'm in drag. It's kind of a fun position to be in, actually, sort of like being in a fat suit. A social experiment, if you will. The irony is that I've lived with this for my entire life. People thought I was a boy when I was little, and even in my 20s they mistook me for a man.

The fact that I love Monty Python does nothing to reassure people that I'm female. We really enjoyed Spamalot, by the way.

Now that I'm slowly edging toward menopause I'm thinking I might just give in to the natural sex change that already seems to be occurring (I've got three dark whiskers on my chin that I have to tweeze every few weeks) so I can take full advantage of the benefits of manhood in American society. Money, respect, comfortable shoes--really, I can't wait.

I hope Greg's okay with it.