We then went to one of my favorite SoHo shops-- Evolution (theevolutionstore.com). This shop is like the Museum of Natural Science but you can touch everything and buy things, too. Imagine running your fingers over a fossil that is more than 30 million years old! Usually, that stuff is behind glass, but not in Evolution.
Then I left my friend and went out on my own to Brooklyn, to visit an incredible perfume shop I had read about. Perfume is no fun to buy on the web... a pilgrimage was in order. I schlepped myself to CB I Hate Perfume and spent more than an hour filling my nose with scents like "garden tomato" "bonfire" and "roast beef." I ended up buying a few lovely scents such as "green vine" "white soap" and "california roll." In that shop, I was a little girl, trying on Mom's perfume. I even got to meet the owner, Christopher Brosius. It was just what I imagined it would be.
As I left that evening, I felt a little like New York during the last few years-- knocked on my ass, but slowly rebuilding.
