Nevertheless, they were mice, and they had to go. I got a big hatbox, cut a hole, added some sunflower seeds and cilantro—mice apparently enjoy a little Mexican zing—and waited for hours until one ventured in. I transferred it to a jar and sent Paul, my husband, out into the twilight to St. Luke’s churchyard garden. It was a frosty night, so he put the jar in a knit cap before he left.

When he came back he was clutching the jar, still in the hat. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “I tapped the jar at the gate. The mouse didn’t want to leave. I dumped it out and it walked very slowly. I thought, ‘The ground is frozen; I’ve sent the thing to its death.’ It was past the gate, so I couldn’t get it. I thought, ‘If it comes back, I’ll take it back home.’ I put the jar down, and the little thing turned around and slowly came back and got back in the jar.”

I remembered the story of the boy sent out with a cow to sell, only to return with three beans. I was expecting an empty jar, but now I had a mouse! Correction: two mice.

While Paul was out, I had captured this small survivor’s sister with my hatbox. Within two days, I had three more. We bought a 10-gallon terrarium and a running wheel, and Paul built a cardboard lodge with a few rooms. A friend sent a plastic duplex. The mice did lots of cardio. It would get them in shape. We decided to release them in the spring.

May rolled around, and Paul drove me and the mice to Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs. The mice spun around on their wheel even as the car bumped along. The wee guests lived with me in the “Pink Room” that Truman Capote had once occupied, and I soothed their wheel in perpetual motion with olive oil to keep the maid from hearing it squeak. Writers came to my room for a salon, but even those who regularly expose the dark or alternative side of humankind—i.e., A.M. Homes and Linda Yablonsky—knew nothing of my mice. Edgar Allan Poe may have written “The Raven” at Yaddo, but pets were verboten.

I told only one person my secret, a strange and curious conceptual artist named Melissa. One spring day, Melissa and I carried the terrarium out into the woods. Two daring mice bolted in glee, but the others clung to the wheel: their merry-go-round, their religion and their drug.

Later, Paul said I should have left them the wheel.

It occurred to me that mice (despite Stuart Little, plus Disney’s adorable Mickey and Minnie) are not only unwelcome and feared but violently misunderstood. And yet Picasso had a tame white mouse that lived in a drawer while living in his studio in Paris. Kafka dignified the mouse with his charming short story “Josephine the Singer.” My neighbor, playwright Robert Heide, whose work inspired part of Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls, has mice. He thinks they’re cute and, other than keeping his food in jars, does nothing to shoo them. Maybe the true measure of a person’s humanity lies in the way they treat small creatures.

June 2006. During a Gotham monsoon, a mouse the size of a nickel crossed my path on West 10th Street, making a beeline for a restaurant called the Place. A kindly blond boy who worked there gave me a takeout container. The mouse, however, preferred to crawl inside my Italian silk raincoat. Down the street I pleaded for some bread, telling the waiter I had rescued an “animal.” Probably thinking I was homeless, he came back with a large stack of French bread, carefully sliced and wrapped in foil. I found a cab.

At Petco, I scanned the “small animal” shelves and plucked up a small log with several holes, a running wheel and another terrarium. And then I did what no New Yorker I know has ever done: I took the mouse home.

Dr. Amy Kurowski at St. Marks Veterinary Hospital suggested kitten formula, in which I soaked the restaurant bread with a little organic-rice soymilk and flaxseed oil. She also implied that it would be cruel to release Carmen (as I had named her) into the wild, now that she’d gotten used to her easy domestic life. I considered my options.

Plan A: Hamster House in Inwood, run by a young, saintly woman who rescues those oft-tossed little rodents. I could make two donations: one financial, one fuzzy. But when I saw Carmen—tiny white ring around her pink nose—carefully ejecting a piece of poop from her log house, I had second thoughts. Would Hamster House appreciate her excellent hygiene? Would they feed her fresh corn, and almonds and the occasional raspberry?

Plan B: try to palm Carmen off on an eccentric friend. “She probably comes from a long chain of restaurant mice,” said my artist pal Suzan Clark, the former owner of Stanley. A tame country mouse, Stanley: He climbed about her arm and played in her lap. Not so Carmen, who has a feral urban attitude. “How did you tame Stanley?” I asked. “Can you tame Carmen? Do you want her?”

“She needs a better wheel,” Suzan said, “and a cage with bars so she can smell you. See how she stands up on her hind legs to sniff? And mice are social. She needs a friend.”

After finding a mouse-sitter, Paul and I flew to Chicago to visit my father and stepmother, Leon and Takeko, retired professors. In Chicago, Takeko had shared photos Leon had taken of mice he rescued from snakes while working at the Museum of Natural History. “That’s Lester,” he said. Then there was Emmelina, who lived on a mantel and ate watermelon. She did her running on a record player. “She would get tired and jump on the spindle.”

I realized in an instant that my love of mice is genetic. I was simply helplessly following my DNA when I took in these refugees. “How did you tame her?” I asked of Emmelina. “What’s the secret?”

“Oh,” my father said, probably thinking about his new critical text, Things to Come, “I don’t want to talk about that. It’s only a mouse.”

I’ve just gotten off the phone with Suzan, who is considering taking my little mus musculus. In the meantime, I’m stopping by Petco to upgrade Carmen’s wheel. And unless I find another stray mouse pretty soon, I just might buy her a playmate. What can I say? It’s in my blood.

Nevertheless, they were mice, and they had to go. I got a big hatbox, cut a hole, added some sunflower seeds and cilantro—mice apparently enjoy a little Mexican zing—and waited for hours until one ventured in. I transferred it to a jar and sent Paul, my husband, out into the twilight to St. Luke’s churchyard garden. It was a frosty night, so he put the jar in a knit cap before he left.

When he came back he was clutching the jar, still in the hat. “You won’t believe this,” he said. “I tapped the jar at the gate. The mouse didn’t want to leave. I dumped it out and it walked very slowly. I thought, ‘The ground is frozen; I’ve sent the thing to its death.’ It was past the gate, so I couldn’t get it. I thought, ‘If it comes back, I’ll take it back home.’ I put the jar down, and the little thing turned around and slowly came back and got back in the jar.”

I remembered the story of the boy sent out with a cow to sell, only to return with three beans. I was expecting an empty jar, but now I had a mouse! Correction: two mice.

While Paul was out, I had captured this small survivor’s sister with my hatbox. Within two days, I had three more. We bought a 10-gallon terrarium and a running wheel, and Paul built a cardboard lodge with a few rooms. A friend sent a plastic duplex. The mice did lots of cardio. It would get them in shape. We decided to release them in the spring.

May rolled around, and Paul drove me and the mice to Yaddo, the artists’ retreat in Saratoga Springs. The mice spun around on their wheel even as the car bumped along. The wee guests lived with me in the “Pink Room” that Truman Capote had once occupied, and I soothed their wheel in perpetual motion with olive oil to keep the maid from hearing it squeak. Writers came to my room for a salon, but even those who regularly expose the dark or alternative side of humankind—i.e., A.M. Homes and Linda Yablonsky—knew nothing of my mice. Edgar Allan Poe may have written “The Raven” at Yaddo, but pets were verboten.

I told only one person my secret, a strange and curious conceptual artist named Melissa. One spring day, Melissa and I carried the terrarium out into the woods. Two daring mice bolted in glee, but the others clung to the wheel: their merry-go-round, their religion and their drug.

Later, Paul said I should have left them the wheel.

It occurred to me that mice (despite Stuart Little, plus Disney’s adorable Mickey and Minnie) are not only unwelcome and feared but violently misunderstood. And yet Picasso had a tame white mouse that lived in a drawer while living in his studio in Paris. Kafka dignified the mouse with his charming short story “Josephine the Singer.” My neighbor, playwright Robert Heide, whose work inspired part of Warhol’s The Chelsea Girls, has mice. He thinks they’re cute and, other than keeping his food in jars, does nothing to shoo them. Maybe the true measure of a person’s humanity lies in the way they treat small creatures.

June 2006. During a Gotham monsoon, a mouse the size of a nickel crossed my path on West 10th Street, making a beeline for a restaurant called the Place. A kindly blond boy who worked there gave me a takeout container. The mouse, however, preferred to crawl inside my Italian silk raincoat. Down the street I pleaded for some bread, telling the waiter I had rescued an “animal.” Probably thinking I was homeless, he came back with a large stack of French bread, carefully sliced and wrapped in foil. I found a cab.

At Petco, I scanned the “small animal” shelves and plucked up a small log with several holes, a running wheel and another terrarium. And then I did what no New Yorker I know has ever done: I took the mouse home.

Dr. Amy Kurowski at St. Marks Veterinary Hospital suggested kitten formula, in which I soaked the restaurant bread with a little organic-rice soymilk and flaxseed oil. She also implied that it would be cruel to release Carmen (as I had named her) into the wild, now that she’d gotten used to her easy domestic life. I considered my options.

Plan A: Hamster House in Inwood, run by a young, saintly woman who rescues those oft-tossed little rodents. I could make two donations: one financial, one fuzzy. But when I saw Carmen—tiny white ring around her pink nose—carefully ejecting a piece of poop from her log house, I had second thoughts. Would Hamster House appreciate her excellent hygiene? Would they feed her fresh corn, and almonds and the occasional raspberry?

Plan B: try to palm Carmen off on an eccentric friend. “She probably comes from a long chain of restaurant mice,” said my artist pal Suzan Clark, the former owner of Stanley. A tame country mouse, Stanley: He climbed about her arm and played in her lap. Not so Carmen, who has a feral urban attitude. “How did you tame Stanley?” I asked. “Can you tame Carmen? Do you want her?”

“She needs a better wheel,” Suzan said, “and a cage with bars so she can smell you. See how she stands up on her hind legs to sniff? And mice are social. She needs a friend.”

After finding a mouse-sitter, Paul and I flew to Chicago to visit my father and stepmother, Leon and Takeko, retired professors. In Chicago, Takeko had shared photos Leon had taken of mice he rescued from snakes while working at the Museum of Natural History. “That’s Lester,” he said. Then there was Emmelina, who lived on a mantel and ate watermelon. She did her running on a record player. “She would get tired and jump on the spindle.”

I realized in an instant that my love of mice is genetic. I was simply helplessly following my DNA when I took in these refugees. “How did you tame her?” I asked of Emmelina. “What’s the secret?”

“Oh,” my father said, probably thinking about his new critical text, Things to Come, “I don’t want to talk about that. It’s only a mouse.”

I’ve just gotten off the phone with Suzan, who is considering taking my little mus musculus. In the meantime, I’m stopping by Petco to upgrade Carmen’s wheel. And unless I find another stray mouse pretty soon, I just might buy her a playmate. What can I say? It’s in my blood.

I found the chirp of what sounded like a large bird from my rear windows rather charming, though I was curious that it chirped only at night. “Don’t they cover the bird’s cage?” I wondered. Then I peered down into the courtyard below. I saw no bird, but rather large, nimble-footed rats sampling the wares of myriad garbage bags put out by a Cuban restaurant on the block. The rats are actually much quieter than the wait staff and intoxicated customers at said restaurant (a sheet of waterproof insulation keeps out elements but not noise), where almost nightly I hear vulgar hoooo-hoooo whoops and strains of “Happy Birthday.” The super of our building pitches in at this restaurant, and we often see him dragging restaurant trash through our hallway, streaking the floor with slimy, stinky goo.

But for real seedy, clandestine color, just step over our threshold. Even before you step over, you’ll see globs of viscous sinus matter, ejected by the employees from the neighboring nail salon, who emerge occasionally to spit in front of our door. Inside is where the action is.

When our (oblivious, debonair) landlord removed the lock from the outer door of our vestibule, we became the only residence on the block to be open to the public. And what a happening hallway it’s become. Among the Thai, Mexican and Chinese menus and circulars from D’Agostino and CVS, there are cigar butts, cigarette butts (desperately smoked down to the filter), clumps of shredded tobacco, shiny aluminum vials, amber glass vials, a pipe made of clear glass, smears of ketchup, peeled-off pantyhose, matches, a red plastic Bic lighter, bedded newspaper. Half-empty (half-full?) bottles of Snapple, Budweiser cans and Coca-Cola.

But it’s the quality of guests that I find most interesting: a real cross section of humanity.

I have not seen all of them; the people who use the vestibule as a urinal, for example, are pretty much short-term, and I’ve never, fortunately, caught them in the act. (Note to self: Do not put down groceries or laundry when unlocking door.)

Then there are the bell ringers. Jehovah’s Witnesses willing to trek up any number of flights to save a soul. A mysterious, quivering Queen’s English caller asking for the last name that appears on the bell and claiming to be “a friend.” The pseudo deliveries, bogus baby-sitter and boiler appointments, and aspiring suitors, along with the simple opportunists asking, “Can you let me in?”

Once, at 3 a.m., the bell rang. Briefly. Sporadically. Three times. Four. We pressed the “listen” button and heard breathy groans. We rarely answer the bell, but when I sent my husband downstairs, he found a couple in flagrante delicto, one arm wildly and passionately flailing, randomly hitting the bell. Correction: My husband says it was her back that was pressing urgently into the buzzer.

The smoke from our vestibule crashers wafts up the stairwell and seeps into our apartment, alerting us to carcinogenic intruders. Since it’s tiresome to keep running down and up the four flights, and possibly dangerous to ask people to evacuate, I’ve taken to using the intercom to ask them to leave, usually announcing “I’m calling them now,” which our visitors implicitly understand to mean “We’re dialing 911.” This is usually followed by the sound of the door slamming; once, a well-mannered, lilting Southern voice replied, “Oh, yes, of course I’ll be leaving now.”

The other day, I came home and, when I pushed open the door, I hit something—someone, apparently disturbing her nap. It was a woman with an inventively wrapped head scarf, nodding off on a pillow of two Verizon White Pages, with a third phonebook serving as a mini-ottoman. When I told her she had to leave, she could not have been more polite—in that lilting Southern way that I was sure I recognized from the intercom days before.

She was more polite than the ever-so-cool couple my cosmically inclined downstairs neighbor encountered while they were puffing on cigarettes: impertinent and annoyed when she asked them to please step outside.

Once my husband was followed in by an unsavory character and quickly exited so he that he wouldn’t be trapped between the doors. The man confided that he’d just gotten out of prison and wondered if my husband could give him any money.

“I’m unemployed, too,” said my husband, which was true. (Of course he’s unemployed—he’s writing an 800-page historical novel.)

I wonder if someone had placed personal ads around in the New York Press, The Villager or The Village Voice announcing:

Step right up! UNLOCKED VESTIBULE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE. FREE! UNCENSORED! OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Take a nap, take a leak, get it on, have a smoke, get high, do a popper, leave your trash!

And, in fact, our former downstairs neighbor once posted signs all over the Village announcing a party on our roof on Gay Pride Day and then left both the downstairs doors open. Strangers galore clambered up our stairwell, pausing briefly and clamorously in front of our apartment before scaling the rickety rungs to the roof. I was delighted to see a downstairs neighbor gyrating on the fire escape in a gold G-string and our 97-year-old neighbor in her purple T-shirt waving to “Dykes on Bikes.” (Later, she was shocked to learn that lavender was “their” color; what, she lamented, would her church think?)

I’m going to listen in more closely when I see those people giving Village walking tours, which inevitably end up on our corner. Might be something fishy going on. Maybe when they pause in front of our building, they announce:

“This landmark building is inhabited by genuine West Village writers, a retired-Mafia novelist, and a harpist-slash-ice-skater. The vestibule is well-known in the Village as a local urinal, crash pad and smoking haven, so if anyone needs to use the facilities, please feel free to do so now during our five-minute break.”

Do you suppose, if our landlord reads this, he’ll install a lock with a code and a video cam? With a little good editing, think of the excellent documentary film we can make with our vestibule footage—R-rated, X-rated, whatever.

Or do you suppose he will figure out a way to charge them rent?

I found the chirp of what sounded like a large bird from my rear windows rather charming, though I was curious that it chirped only at night. “Don’t they cover the bird’s cage?” I wondered. Then I peered down into the courtyard below. I saw no bird, but rather large, nimble-footed rats sampling the wares of myriad garbage bags put out by a Cuban restaurant on the block. The rats are actually much quieter than the wait staff and intoxicated customers at said restaurant (a sheet of waterproof insulation keeps out elements but not noise), where almost nightly I hear vulgar hoooo-hoooo whoops and strains of “Happy Birthday.” The super of our building pitches in at this restaurant, and we often see him dragging restaurant trash through our hallway, streaking the floor with slimy, stinky goo.

But for real seedy, clandestine color, just step over our threshold. Even before you step over, you’ll see globs of viscous sinus matter, ejected by the employees from the neighboring nail salon, who emerge occasionally to spit in front of our door. Inside is where the action is.

When our (oblivious, debonair) landlord removed the lock from the outer door of our vestibule, we became the only residence on the block to be open to the public. And what a happening hallway it’s become. Among the Thai, Mexican and Chinese menus and circulars from D’Agostino and CVS, there are cigar butts, cigarette butts (desperately smoked down to the filter), clumps of shredded tobacco, shiny aluminum vials, amber glass vials, a pipe made of clear glass, smears of ketchup, peeled-off pantyhose, matches, a red plastic Bic lighter, bedded newspaper. Half-empty (half-full?) bottles of Snapple, Budweiser cans and Coca-Cola.

But it’s the quality of guests that I find most interesting: a real cross section of humanity.

I have not seen all of them; the people who use the vestibule as a urinal, for example, are pretty much short-term, and I’ve never, fortunately, caught them in the act. (Note to self: Do not put down groceries or laundry when unlocking door.)

Then there are the bell ringers. Jehovah’s Witnesses willing to trek up any number of flights to save a soul. A mysterious, quivering Queen’s English caller asking for the last name that appears on the bell and claiming to be “a friend.” The pseudo deliveries, bogus baby-sitter and boiler appointments, and aspiring suitors, along with the simple opportunists asking, “Can you let me in?”

Once, at 3 a.m., the bell rang. Briefly. Sporadically. Three times. Four. We pressed the “listen” button and heard breathy groans. We rarely answer the bell, but when I sent my husband downstairs, he found a couple in flagrante delicto, one arm wildly and passionately flailing, randomly hitting the bell. Correction: My husband says it was her back that was pressing urgently into the buzzer.

The smoke from our vestibule crashers wafts up the stairwell and seeps into our apartment, alerting us to carcinogenic intruders. Since it’s tiresome to keep running down and up the four flights, and possibly dangerous to ask people to evacuate, I’ve taken to using the intercom to ask them to leave, usually announcing “I’m calling them now,” which our visitors implicitly understand to mean “We’re dialing 911.” This is usually followed by the sound of the door slamming; once, a well-mannered, lilting Southern voice replied, “Oh, yes, of course I’ll be leaving now.”

The other day, I came home and, when I pushed open the door, I hit something—some one, apparently disturbing her nap. It was a woman with an inventively wrapped head scarf, nodding off on a pillow of two Verizon White Pages, with a third phonebook serving as a mini-ottoman. When I told her she had to leave, she could not have been more polite—in that lilting Southern way that I was sure I recognized from the intercom days before.

She was more polite than the ever-so-cool couple my cosmically inclined downstairs neighbor encountered while they were puffing on cigarettes: impertinent and annoyed when she asked them to please step outside.

Once my husband was followed in by an unsavory character and quickly exited so he that he wouldn’t be trapped between the doors. The man confided that he’d just gotten out of prison and wondered if my husband could give him any money.

“I’m unemployed, too,” said my husband, which was true. (Of course he’s unemployed—he’s writing an 800-page historical novel.)

I wonder if someone had placed personal ads around in the New York Press, The Villager or The Village Voice announcing:

Step right up! UNLOCKED VESTIBULE IN GREENWICH VILLAGE. FREE! UNCENSORED! OPEN TO THE PUBLIC! Take a nap, take a leak, get it on, have a smoke, get high, do a popper, leave your trash!

And, in fact, our former downstairs neighbor once posted signs all over the Village announcing a party on our roof on Gay Pride Day and then left both the downstairs doors open. Strangers galore clambered up our stairwell, pausing briefly and clamorously in front of our apartment before scaling the rickety rungs to the roof. I was delighted to see a downstairs neighbor gyrating on the fire escape in a gold G-string and our 97-year-old neighbor in her purple T-shirt waving to “Dykes on Bikes.” (Later, she was shocked to learn that lavender was “their” color; what, she lamented, would her church think?)

I’m going to listen in more closely when I see those people giving Village walking tours, which inevitably end up on our corner. Might be something fishy going on. Maybe when they pause in front of our building, they announce:

“This landmark building is inhabited by genuine West Village writers, a retired-Mafia novelist, and a harpist-slash-ice-skater. The vestibule is well-known in the Village as a local urinal, crash pad and smoking haven, so if anyone needs to use the facilities, please feel free to do so now during our five-minute break.”

Do you suppose, if our landlord reads this, he’ll install a lock with a code and a video cam? With a little good editing, think of the excellent documentary film we can make with our vestibule footage—R-rated, X-rated, whatever.

Or do you suppose he will figure out a way to charge them rent?

But Patrick, in a sweeping fall topped by a statuesque hat, custom black cutaway coat and makeup more artfully applied than Johnny Depp's swashbuckler-meets-Keith-Richards look in the Pirates of the Caribbean, upstaged me. And it was my book party.

I'm not supposed to mind. I became a writer because I had a wallpaper personality (or do I mean "wallflower"?). Did I mention Patrick's custom-made silk boutonniere? A pansy.

If Patrick were wallpaper, it would have curlescent, meandering vines, manicured gardens with topiary, voluptuous pink peonies, iridescent hummingbirds, peacocks, a few belvederes here and there and impressive amounts of gold. If I were wallpaper, I would probably be strewn with (shrinking) violets.

I'd studied five types of bohemians for the new book, and it's the dandy that has me transfixed. Dandies are not drag queens, they are men who preen (David Bowie! Adam Ant! Mick Jagger! And eye-kohled, glitter-dusted newcomer Owen McCarthy of the Everyothers.) Dandies are fearless of ornamentation and affectation. They adore excess and extravagance.

Dandies are not metrosexuals, those victims of high-end consumerism. Dandies are anachronistic, self-made, self-styled. Dandies are never fashion victims, those people who need labels to feel whole. Dandies are artists, and all of life is their canvas. Their art supplies are clothes, accouterments, toiletries. The best of them have wit. What's not to love about that? Like me, they can find something fabulous at the Salvation Army thrift shop as easily as they can at Barneys, but the difference is the dandy will pull the look together better than I will. How's a girl supposed to keep up?

Dandyism is refreshing in this casual culture of T-shirts and baseball caps. When I look at pictures of men in bread lines during the Depression, even they look better than the throngs of guys in childish outfits I see sauntering into Bed Bath and Beyond, Starbucks and Tower Records. (None of which are much frequented by dandies.)

Dandies adore the bespoke. But even if their clothing isn't bespoken, it will be so customized-so personal, so tailored-that it will appear to be. A dandy is more likely to look at old paintings and engravings for fashion and design ideas than magazines, though they might be featured in these magazines as curious, stylish eccentrics.

Composer Lowell Liebermann attended my salon with feathered cap, caped coat, waistcoat, flamboyant tie, jewel-encrusted stickpin and walking stick. Lowell, whose operatic version of The Picture of Dorian Gray premiered in Monte Carlo, says he has no fondness for the term "dandy." He feels it's effeminate.

"But look what you were wearing," I chided.

"I was dressed for the occasion," he quipped.

Aren't they always? Please!

Many modern, sensitive men secretly burn to be dandies. Rick Marin, author of Cad (an old-school word only a dandy would use) claims to be a frustrated dandy with only a few flourishes of the type.

"You have to be dedicated to the cause," he said, "though I'll occasionally indulge in peacock colors." Occasionally? I distinctly remember my lunches with him to have had never a taupe moment. Rick was always in vivid Technicolor: a violet shirt with orange tie, pink shirt with viridian, an occasional ascot and pocket square. I always felt faded, outstanding as newsprint next to him.

Rick went off on a dandy diatribe, quoted Tom Wolfe and then proclaimed, "A dandy does it for himself … and it's a dandy thing to have something only you know about, like shoes that have a red lining no one else can see." Those would be Rick's wedding shoes. When a dandy gets married, look out, bride. Rick got decked out in a bespoke white suit, pink shirt and bright red tie. Of course, he styled his own boutonniere.

The night of my Dandy Salon, I wanted to marry Patrick McDonald. A momentary infatuation, he was like a beautiful object you see glittering in an antique shop in Paris and want to take home. I have already done my antiquing, however, and am married to a dandy named Paul Gregory Himmelein-a young gentleman, who, when I met him, was a rock musician living with two bandmates. In their Bleecker Street pad, three types of Aqua Net hair spray, Maybelline eye pencils and pancake makeup were visible on the exposed bathroom shelving.

He moved in with his Victrola and black rotary telephone. He chose our wall colors, fabrics for the chairs and sofas. He created a Dutch kitchen, a Russian-blue living room, dressed the bedroom in chinoiserie. He hand-painted furniture in the 19th-century style.

At our wedding, he wore a Venus' flytrap boutonniere wrapped in green plaid, while my elegant tweed couture gown blended with the Nantucket landscape.

My husband strides to the Writers Room five days a week in shirt and tie and even on weekends might bring out a pair of cufflinks-he has over 200. I look at him dressed for a quick dinner at Mary's Fish Camp and I'll say something like, "I thought we were going casual," and he'll say, "I am."

This means, of course, that I have to slip off the Minnetonka moccasins and slip on the Louboutins.

As for my tea with Patrick? He got to Lady Mendl's before I did. I found him poised on a chaise, his cranberry cap cocked just so. I was armed with an enormous brooch of pearl and rhinestones. But with his rings the size of demitasse cups, who noticed a brooch?

When we were preparing to leave, Patrick-always the perfect gentleman-tipped the coat-check guy, who retrieved my wrap first. It was long, black cashmere, with covered buttons, plush collar and a magnificent blue-and-white-striped silk lining that swooshed as I was helped into it. Not bad, not bad at all, I thought. But then out came Patrick's coat: an expanse of shaggy, cuddly, long-haired something in baby blue. Someone in the tea salon cooed, "Oooooooh."

Don't you just hate that?

I am a bohemian.

This started before I was born. My parents lived on the second floor of a cold-water flat on the Bowery, an Armenian restaurant downstairs. There was a pull-chain toilet in the hall (shared), no sink, a cloth ceiling to cover exposed beams and mice scampering across them. We had no bed, but an extra-long sofa; the dining-room table (also a desk) was a door screwed onto metal legs; and the stove was where the former tenant had ended it all by turning on the gas. Sometimes, when not listening to their Shostakovich records, my parents would step out and take in a Soviet film. And, of course, there was a sociology major renting out the back room.

My dad was a Columbia student, writing his dissertation on communism in Chinese agrarian society. My mom, an actress-adding the only bombshell element-worked at Elizabeth Arden. Except for a gospel-singing, highly perfumed godmother and Southern-belle grandmother, I had little exposure to bombshells.

I admit to having at least a modicum of charm and to being a shameless flirt. I have high heels, false eyelashes and two satin Gucci cocktail dresses in black and hot pink for public appearances. I perch on chairs; curl coquettishly, and inappropriately, on armrests, car seats and desks, even at job interviews; and take all my clothing off at any opportunity.

For a writer, I don't look too bad. I don't know if you've seen many of them in situ , but most writers look like hell. (I have space at the Writers [sic] Room where I see them shuffling around in bedroom slippers, sweat pants, shapeless sweaters and glasses repaired with tape.) Yet nearly all the press-despite my lanky hair, glasses, economical silhouette and obvious lack of va-va-voom-has insisted on calling me a bombshell.

Of course, I'm trying to make a good impression and sizzle a little for the sake of my book. (You can bet no one expected Norman Mailer to "dress like a bombshell" when he was promoting his voluptuously conjectured and gutsy Marilyn . Or Joyce Carol Oates for Blonde .) I showed up at Joey Reynolds' studio in a leopard-print coat. But every time Joey said he had a Real Live Bombshell on the air at WOR, I felt compelled to counter the "compliment": I'm not a bombshell, I study them. Only Lenard Lopate of NPR understood; and a stinging review of our Barnes & Noble reading in the New York Press nailed it, asserting that my muse for the book, Christina Cooley, was the genuine article and that I was, alas, too Audrey Hepburn. (I never said I didn't have style.)

It's true I have marabou and sequins sprinkled throughout my wardrobe, but I'm most comfortable in a black turtleneck or cotton paisley dress. Definitely un-bombshell.

Yet, surprisingly, there are many crossovers between bombshells and bohemians.

First of all, they both arrive late: bombshells for assorted and obvious reasons, like heels breaking, starting a hairdo over from scratch, staying up all night watching black-and-white movies; bohemians because they were up all night reading, writing, listening to jazz or watching black-and-white movies.

Both bombshells and bohemians love to undress: bombshells for calendars, centerfolds, plays and sleeping; bohemians to model for artists, performance art and sleeping.

But there's a big difference between bombshells and bohemians, and it's something I hadn't thought about until recently, when I began, as most of us have, to re-evaluate. I have questioned what it is I do for a living, namely naming lipsticks and beauty products. I do not heal, prescribe, mend, comfort, fix, serve, rescue or build. I have also questioned the value of my recent book.

The Bombshell Manual of Style , despite its upbeat, all-encompassing and generous outlook, seemed frivolous. It's not a novel; it's not epic. The idea of a bombshell manual seemed about as necessary as lipstick.

Until I looked deeper. What, I asked myself, would a bombshell do in the wake of tragedy, specifically post–Sept. 11?

A bombshell would take in a kitten, bake cookies for firemen and show up in her stilettos to present them, cheer rescue workers on the West Side Highway, make out with firemen or put flowers in front of the police station. And she would never stop shopping. A bombshell gets on a plane; a bombshell orders champagne; if champagne is only served in first class, somehow she'll manage some, even in coach. The bombshell would be thrilled to have a job, especially my job, naming beauty products for a company that doesn't do animal testing and donates 100 percent of profits from a lipstick to comfort and support people living with AIDS.

While the bohemian is reading Holocaustal, morbid, atomic, wartime, subversive or drunken poetry-Apollinaire, Ginsberg, Rimbaud, Toge Sankichi, Anna Akhmatova-and is too depressed to work on the novel or poem or screenplay, the bombshell reads something uplifting, like Walt Whitman.

Bombshells are patriotic. They adore national landmarks and Presidents-all Presidents, Democrat and Republican. They love the flag, they love their country and they love soldiers. This goes for sailors, the Coast Guard- just about any man in a uniform.

Bohemians are subversive and disagree with all Presidents, Democrat or Republican. Chances are, if a bohemian has a flag, it will be French or Soviet. An American flag? Hardly.

When I was in high school, I was the only student in my homeroom who refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance. But now?

I am thinking more like a bombshell. While I have always been a fan of a little fascism when it was in my favor (it was decidedly un-bohemian of me to think it swell when Mayor Giuliani curtailed smoking in public places), I was the expatriate type, romanticizing life in Paris, Scotland, Cairo. Now I want an American flag. I love Mayor Giuliani even though he doesn't understand ferrets, my pet of choice. I want the Pledge of Allegiance to be read every day (participation optional). Our firemen and policemen deserve a raise. Until there are no countries (i.e., John Lennon's "Imagine"), I want to love my country and Americans and not judge them so harshly. And stop dissing Norman Rockwell. I want to support American companies and goods made in America; I'll even try our shoes.

Kimberly Forrest, co-author of The Bombshell Manual of Style and former editor at W , climbed my fourth-floor walk-up in Birkenstocks that her artist boyfriend had spray-painted silver. Kimberly is disturbed by jingoism and flag-waving, and she looks disdainfully at those little pins and ribbons in red, white and blue.

She'll be the first person I ask to pitch in when I write The Bohemian Manifesto . I may have lost my bohemian edge.