I feel like purchasing perfume today. Not just any perfume, perfume from Bourbon French, this delicious little shop in the French quarter of New Orleans.

I already own one bottle called the Dark Gift no. 1. It's a very mature scent, so I'm looking for something a bit more playful. I've been wanting to get the Dark Gift no. 2, but so far it hasn't come out yet and I don't feel like harassing the shop owner to get it. She's already been kind enough to send me a sample of it, so I will just have to bite my tongue and buy it when it becomes available to the public.

In the meantime there are plenty of other perfumes that I can choose from. There is one that I'm looking into called Voodoo Love Potion. It certainly sounds interesting, but maybe I'll think about going for a less erotic, floral scent. There are plenty of flowers growing in New Orleans after all…

That's where I plan to live one day. When I get older I want to buy a little shop in the French Quarter and live above it. I'll maybe open it into something of an antique shop, or a book shop, or a coffee shop, or a mixture of the two. It'll have to be something peaceful. Something that doesn't attract a lot of attention, that way between customers I can sit back and write.

Ah, that is what I want to do with my life. I want to get married, rely on my husband for most of the money, and then have my business on the side for pleasure and a little bit of extra income. It sounds so wonderful to me. I can picture it now, residing in that magical city, where anything can happen and the air is heavy with the scent of flowers.

For the most part I think that I'll maintain a peaceful, eventless existence, though a little mischief wouldn't hurt.

Oh, what am I saying!? I want an adventure! I want to go out to those special balls that I'm already being invited to, I want to don those gorgeous velvet coats and stride into the room with a mess of wild hair. I want to throw back my head and laugh, meet Drew with his curly locks and distaste for humanity, sink my teeth into the superstition and stay up late into the night.

I'll be the child predator moving through the back of the bars, hardly noticed, hardly seen. My coat will be torn in the back and the lace shirt beneath will peek from the sleeves. As I walk passed the many faceless strangers they will inhale the scent of chrysanthemums and turn to see the girl in black. They will gaze at me in distaste for my dusty garments, hate me for the natural flush of my cheeks, scorn me for the untamed waves of my voluminous hair.

I'd like to have a sort of notoriety again, like the children of the coven used to back at school. I'll wear my peculiarity like golden bangles and my passion like a locket. Behind two silver doors, open and see my true colors!

Some nights I'll find a corner and simply settle down to play the violin. Back and forth I'll saw away at the sturdy strings, strangling the bow with calloused fingers. Music! Oh the sheer joy of getting lost in the screams, the moans of the wooden instrument. People will either love my playing and drop coins in my open case, or they will hate it and tell me to pack up and go away. It'll makes no difference to me. I'll be making music. What greater satisfaction is there?

To hear every emotion played out, every melody interwoven into a thread of crescendos and arpeggios. Adagio Cantabile. Hayden forgive me, but your piano music will be transcribed tonight. It will belong to me and my violin.

And when the height of the evening approaches I will make my way to Divisadero street and haunt the lonely buildings, taunting the creatures that live there. Foolishly I will offer myself to them, bare my neck, beg for them to steal away my mortality like an unforgiving pestilence in need of a cure. In vain I will cry out, so drunk on the night that I will collapse in a heap on the curb and simply stare up into the heavens.

So lay me down to sleep at night,
And pray the immortals hold me tight.

Life in New Orleans… So far away and yet so within my grasp… A few years, a few chances, a few opportunities.

-Lauren Hatch
April 9, 2007