My God! When will it stop raining? May FLOWERS, the adage goes. May FLLLLOOOOOWERS.

Anyway, my lemon-scented geranium is going well. I had ice cream for breakfast today and then I went to see my arch-nemesis, Lillian Swift. She lives on the fifth floor of a very expensive apartment building and the walls of her apartment were all this strange but lovely rose-colored stucco or rag-effect or something and she had large faux-cezannes of oranges all over the walls and it was all very expensive. We sat down and drank bowls of coffee (for her) and chocolate (for me) while she cracked open lychees with her large white teeth and slurped up the insides and smoked, languidly, a couple of lettuce-flavored cigarettes, which I tried, but it was kind of like eating bad middle-eastern food. She crossed her legs and looked bored the whole time and told me about her husband's erectile dysfunction, but in such a way that it made him seem cool, like he was Clyde Barrow or something, and had better things to do than use his penis, like find unusual new ways to pleasure her and also new ways to knot his little pale-blue scarf over his little Frenchy coat. He has not very much hair but I admit he is sexy. His name is Arnaud, of course. At any rate, she went on & on, smoking and lowering her eyelids which were covered with a creamy pearly substance and fringed with clumpy mascara, and idly winding a strand of coarse black hair around a jeweled finger, and I sat there hating her, and on a shelf by the door she had at least five jars of beautiful-looking candied orange peel so I stole two when she wasn't looking and stuffed them into my coat pockets and said yes we absolutely should have lunch again soon this was so much fun. When I got home I spread the orange peels luxuriantly on some toast and ate it and used the beautiful iridescent ribbons that I found around the jars as little collars for my little imaginary kittens (I am going to name them Lotus and Second Best.)