What have you been up to lately?

Reading: Megan Abbott’s El Dorado Drive. I’ve read nearly all her other novels and I’ve been waiting for this one.

Art: Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Video: Department Q. (Fun, suspenseful, maybe not the best show ever, but it stars Matthew Goode, so I’m into it.)

Drinks: Iced coffee made from concentrate brewed at home, with a drop of Transcendence Coffee Gulab Jamun syrup.

(Tr)eats: Homemade cherry crisp and blueberry crisp. I’m not a good baker, but fresh summer fruit inspires me to try something basic, at least.

Beauty Products: A fresh bottle of Tree Hut Moroccan Rose Foaming Gel Wash —cheap, effective, fragrant. Armani Luminous Silk Natural Glow Foundation — not cheap, but cosmetically elegant, and I got a very good color match thanks to a sales associate at Sephora.

Fragrances: All Saints Ravished Rose. Leafy-green scents like ERIS Green Spell. Dawn Spencer Hurwitz Joyous Neroli. Frédéric Malle Sale Gosse, a neroli and ylang ylang cologne that’s easy to wear even during a heat wave.

Garb: New sneakers, alas, because physical therapy is ongoing and my knee still needs to be coddled. Black summer dresses. A lightweight leopard-print scarf from a local vintage shop.

Pleasures: A recent trip to give an art-and-aroma presentation at the Timken Museum in San Diego. Birthday socializing and 4th of July festivities with old friends.

Up Next: More freelance writing for a new client. (If you know of anyone who’s looking to hire a writer for any fragrance-related topics, by the way, let me know!) And I need to reorganize my home workspace.

Keep cool this week!