Final fantasy

Readers, my real life has become depressingly grown-up and dull--but luckily, I have a robust fantasy life (and some dear creature comforts in my boy, my kitties, and my ever-growing quilt collection).

So even as I'm waking up late, skipping breakfast, commuting, work work working, eating lunch at my desk, peering at budgets, editing, commuting again, collapsing on the sofa, and rinsing lathering repeating, I'm also secretly fomenting some exotic daydreams.

My dream du jour begins with an ooh-la-la vintage Louis Vuitton trunk:


Then, a one-way plane ticket to Mumbai--first class, natch:


Then, a train ticket down south to Alappuzha (marked on my old-timey British map as "Aulapolay"):


And finally, an indefinite stay on a rice barge-turned-floating paradise:


Also, I suppose, I'd unpack my luggage: a silk kimono, a bathing suit, and a case of Gauloises.


(I'm joking about the smokes--I go through maybe three cigarettes a year, just to make sure I still don't enjoy it.)

Alas, I won't be waking up on the backwaters of Kerala tomorrow and swilling down a measure of palm toddy for breakfast. Nor am I really in any sort of shape to be prancing about in nothing but a kimono and a bikini.

But this is, after all, my fantasy life, and I should live it up fantastically.

From top, left to right:
(1) Vintage Louis Vuitton trunk, price upon request;
(2) Vintage United Airline ticket packaging via genesis duncan;
(3) Mumbai train ticket via MF & G;
(4) Crop of 1831 map of India I and Ceylon by the Society of the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, via the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection;
(5-7) Discovery Boat in Alapuzzha, $745/night;
(8) Agent Provocateur Kiki silk kimono, $900;
(9) Bonnie bikini top and bottom in beach leopard sunkist, $295.