Big goings on last week… Lots of parties, fancy fare, lovely weather and strolling the streets of the city to put together my shopping and eating guide. Oh, and I spent time doing frivolous things as well.

The life of one extraordinary Southern woman has kept me company while going from party to party, boutique opening to downtown wine tasting (the subways and taxis kill ya’, otherwise). Ms. Lillian Hellman and her “Pentimento”—no, not a misspelling of Jamie’s famous cheese spread, but her literary work of personal portraits—make me wish for a longer commute and fewer holiday fetes.

“Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent. When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman’s dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called ‘pentimento’ because the painter ‘repented,’ changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again.

That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.”

 To revisit life and see with the utmost clarity who influenced you, who really loved you, who betrayed you and irrevocably marked your soul and your character…

I’m young(ish) and impetuous and want that vision NOW.

Was New York and all its players for naught?