I leave for New York at noon . . . I feel very strange about it . . . a sort of glow-in-the-dark numbness. It’s hard to describe. When I left it last time, I was sure it would be years until I saw it again. And yet . . . !

It’s late and I ought to pack my bags . . .

I have just stepped in from the cold, and I’m not quite sure what reactivated it, but upon taking off my leather bomber jacket just now, I once again smelled Nicole’s perfume on the fur collar. It felt like a piano had landed on my head.

And elsewhere, far off in Los Angeles, I felt the phantom feeling of someone from long ago.