I spent my entire day styling a photo shoot in Boston and assisting my coworker Nick (who is a fantastic photographer) with all the things that go into making a really good picture (like holding up my jacket to block the harsh sun, and brushing our models hair every three minutes to make sure it looked okay). It was surprisingly exhausting.

In order to create the picture, we had to buy around $100 worth of flowers, a task I loved. Ever since I was a kid, annoying my mom by picking yucca blooms of the neighbor’s plants, I’ve wanted to pick all of the flowers. When I was little, I would make “perfume” out of lilac blossoms by boiling them down in water and adding mint leaves. It eventually rotted and smelled terrible, but for a few sweet hours I felt like I had figured out the secret of being a lady. (I didn’t know then that there are so, so many secrets to being a lady that I will never figure them all out).

It’s probably because I have seen one too many pictures of Ophelia, floating around all romantic and dead and tragic, but I have always wanted to swim in flowers. So tonight, when I was finally done with work, I took all the beheaded flowers and threw them in the bathtub. It was weird, impractical, messy, and absurdly satisfying. When you’re a kid, you think the oddest things are just so cool. Like braces on the pretty girls, or the only boy in your neighborhood who can throw up on command, or even more questionable things, like Pogs or Tamagotchis. I always thought excessively long hair was so, so cool. And flowers. As a result, I had hair down to my butt and annoyed the neighbors.

My hair is a lot shorter now (I can’t sustain long hair) but I still want to be covered in petals.