My trip to New York for IndieCade involved facemeeting some of my internet friends, and revisiting some favorite Manhattan places. This means a lovely wander around snowy St. Marks Place (thanks, ADigitalMagician!), and a black-and-white cookie, and a long walk through Chinatown, and eating at just a few of the amazing restaurants around, and also, a trip to the drugstore to sniff perfumes.
The Duane Reade next to my old office and the one next to the Port Authority both carried this insane line of perfume. They are plain square bottles of Honeysuckle, Freesia, and Jasmine, but also Wet Garden and Crayon and Old Books and all kinds of random, good-smelling things. When I missed the DeCamp bus to my parents’ house (sometimes because DeCamp wasn’t running on the Julian calendar that day), I’d go and sniff perfumes.
Not an advert. Just an example of some of the awesomely weird fragrances.
I know that when one reminisces fondly about working in Manhattan, drugstore perfume isn’t supposed to make on the list, but you guys, I walked about a dozen blocks out of my way to go to one of the drugstores that has these in testers, so I could try spray things on my arm, and get so excited over how Rain actually smells like a rainy day, or Laundromat actually smells like clean laundry, or how that Honeysuckle spray still smells exactly like the spring when I was writing quests for Next Island and Harold had just moved to New York.
