Hello darling, back from a literary reading at the local international arts colony, several writers in current residence taking to the dais to read excerpts from their work, a diverse array of writings. Notes of great violence ran through some of the imagined stories, seeming to link them - Palestinian suicide bombers; homegrown abortion clinic bombers; a gondola accident in the clear blue - startling to hear, yet refreshing too, such direct references to catastrophic abyss, reflective of the tenor of our times. No sugarcoating.

I miss you, it would have been nice if you could have been there with me, we might have stayed and shared a plate of wonderful food that I ended up bringing home with me, which will be tonight's dinner. I was flattered that a guy chatted me up as I stood on the buffet line, and I don't know, I might have stayed and talked to him more, but he was just ahead of me, and once he'd finished being plated, off he went and when I was done with plating myself I glanced around to look for him and there he was all the way on the other side of the room chatting up one of the featured writers, a particularly attractive young woman, lithe & sensuous, who'd read aloud from her humorous and provocative work. And so of course I didn't press it. In the all of two minutes he and I had conversed - speed date! - he learned that I'm a writer, and I that he teaches literature. Perhaps I'll teach your work one day, he said with a smile. I doubt it, I said, internally shuddering, unless posthumously. Upon which I became a bit flustered. How the hell do I explain my morally ambiguous (that is to say, utterly wanton) writing? Oh, and plus, who's that plate of food for anyway? What, no wedding ring? Darling - in the immortal bon mots of Bob Schneider - oh what a mess I must confess. So I fled, which seemed the only proper thing to do. Still, I'm kicking myself just a bit, it might have been nice to stay and mingle, flirt a little maybe - how am I ever to meet anyone corporeal if I keep flying to hide under the nearest rock? Still, it was gratifying, for just that little minute, to feel that perhaps I'd attracted a nice-looking guy's attention, he was pretty cute & very well-spoken, teaches Lysistrata to prisoners, I kid you not. Do you know Lysistrata?, he asked me, as the aroma of BBQ short ribs wafted our way from the buffet table. Greek tragedy? I was feeling nearsighted. I'm so unused to talking to people that I realize that I need contact lenses or something - his face was so close to mine (that is, standing next to each other on this line), that he was a bit blurry, and as though in need of readers I found myself tilting my head back a bit just so he'd come into sharp focus. No, no it's a comedy - about women on an island who withhold sex from the menfolk. I guffawed, and reparteed with - oh, that must go over great with the prisoners! I asked him if his students write papers, and he said they have very limited access to books, so can't do much research. So I suggested (rather pretentiously) that they go the New Criticism route, simply analyze the text itself.

No wonder he fled to the super-sexy novelist way over on the other side of the room...

Oh darling, I'm just kidding around, perhaps he was a player, perhaps just friendly, or who knows, if he teaches prisoners, then maybe he was feeling a bit sprung himself, don't I know the feeling. Probably I should have stayed a bit longer - what do you think?

Oh never mind what you think - well, no, I don't mean it that way. It's just that a huge part of me - having carved out this hugely inconvenient uncertain ground for myself - loves to come home to tap messages to you through the prison walls.

This is just such a message, my love. And other than that, this woman prisoner on her own island had her wicked way with you to fantastic avail, all in the privacy of her own bedchamber.

Yours, in whatever is the opposite of Lysistrata

xoxo darling
many many kisses