Blue Day. Formerly B Day. Day 37.

As I recline on my chaise lounge, the ceiling fans push thick hot air around the room. I declare, the cold drop of sweat rolling down my glass of fresh lemonade creates a murky mirror and I certainly look unwell. I listen to the call of the limpkins, rising at dawn and slowly push the bed linens aside. What is this malaise, that has overtaken me? I ring the small silver bell beside my mosquito canopied bed, and one of the new servants, ( I have yet to learn any of their names) enters my chambers and pushes open the wooden louvres and casts aside the darkening drapes.

Sunrise has broken free of the horizon, and yet I feel a very heaviness in my limbs and I fear I may have taken ill.

Last night at the ball, I stood atop our dock and watched the steamboats come and go, dropping off revelers in silken masks and carrying bone tipped walking sticks. I directed them towards the main house where most of the guests had gathered to fan themselves and eat oysters cooled by ice carried over from the winter and kept at great cost. I remained locked into the embrace of darkness, alone but so I like it, having loved once I could see no reason to love again, and socialization could only mean temptation. And now I am ill. Perhaps a mosquito, had dipped it's sharp tipped javelin into my veins. Certainly my porcelain skin would offer no resistance and now I lay the victim of insect malice. Certainly this was the case.

I once again return to the present, the doctor has come and gone and he finds I suffer no more than a case of boredom and a keen distaste of common things. He suggests I spend the day as I have, reclining in repose. I must schedule a trip soon. How long has it been since I have walked the cobbled streets of Copenhagen and ducked into the opera to listen to the Peer Gynt suite? Too long.

I believe I shall stay home today where my heart beats poetry and my veins flow fresh, invigorated by the vapors of creative irresponsibility. Alone. How forward my thinking must have been to foretell this malaise, this sullenness of the spirit that bespoke to me earlier to leave behind sub plans. Fortuitous indeed.