.: So the madness escalates; thankfully I took some time to go shopping so I have some food. Drinking a few chilled shots of vodka, trying to taste a foreign land in every sip. The major news is fire: built a raging, purifying, Abraxas-evoking blaze that turned all my junk mail, old papers, student idiocies, and even one book (just to see what a book-burning is like… I had to) into ash– a much condensed ontology. ‘Twas a meditative and cathartic night, sitting on the back porch, hearing the final drops of rain in their stuttering rhythm on the roof, and burning the superfluous, sloughing skin of a life rapidly becoming “past”. [PW will be happy to know I found the Frankincense– which he is promised one-half– and also myrrh; of course, now I must change metaphors, for though the myrrh is found, the “bitter perfume” is not].

What else to say? As sometimes happens, I have begun this with dreams and ambitious intentions… but the vodka is working a bit too soon, and I am not holding the line, and writing seems less urgent than it did ten minutes ago.

Ok, time to go. I will give you more soon. That I promise, With every living ounce of my being.