Oh, shit, Prissy, I can’t even be funny. I can’t think funny. The fantastic sense of immediate liberation is a short-time thing. It yields place to who-am-I-where-am-I-going-what-do-I-do-next?

I am going to impose on you. Frost, God love him: Home is where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. You are as close to home as I’ve got, pudding pie. And I have a very real need to put points on my compass. God knows I cannot be in this hellhole another day. All of these totally transient people. Last night, for God knows what reason or combination thereof, I let myself get picked up by this off-duty blackjack dealer. We went to his room and had the first wholly impersonal sex I have ever had, and may I never have it again. I woke up around four in the morning with clammy skin and feeling sickish and went back to my room and threw up and thought dark suicidal thoughts.

Stop it, Muir. All right, she said, I’ll just do that. Look. I’m dropping in on you, and fairly soon. I’ll stay a few days, long enough to let things hang out a little, as the children say. Or to get myself together. Is it all the same thing? I don’t know anymore.

I am Rhoda Muir again, by the way. I may have gotten the divorce mainly to recoup my maiden name. I could never stand being Rhoda Dandridge. It sounded like some fucking broad-leafed evergreen.

My deepest love to Harry. Tell him, pliz, that I saw his skier cartoon and completely broke up. See, some of us do look to see who did the cartoon.

I’ll try not to get in his way. Or in yours, for that matter. Or to be too much of a drag. Actually I feel buoyant a great deal of the time. It’s the up-and-downness of the whole thing that bothers me more than anything else. I have this whelming (which is to say not quite overwhelming) need for stability and have just hauled my last anchor.