It was so sweet of you to come. I am glad you are here because otherwise I’d be so lonely.

To get me here they had to pick me up off of the sidewalk and put me into the limousine and I tried to stop them from doing that.

One assumes there is an end to this initial phase.

I saw Lesley and asked to talk to her because she is usually nice. She just wants to be finished with this and to become a doctor. For some time now she’s been considering that employment.

The man remember I told you about?—who calls me—called me and he wanted to come over and I told him that now really wasn’t a good time for me to have sexual relations, but he came over and what we did was peculiar, not very good, very odd, not right.

He said, “I always tell them hot! hot! hot! otherwise it’s cold. What is the matter with you?”

(I can’t believe I told you that.)

There is in his face a dingy hopefulness. As the afternoon increases itself, of course, he is hopeful.

At Bloomingdales he put tinsel down the neck of my jacket in the back so that he wouldn’t lose me.

He is tall. He has red hair and a goatee. That’s what he looks like. I met with him this morning and at length we discussed that things have not been going swimmingly.

He is standing right here. In level flight he is faster. He is probably flying out of here on Friday. He’s a pilot.

I have more of the story of my life and not much of his. He barely does a thing, and then he goes ahead and does it.

He is plenty sore when weather keeps him from traveling with the wind. He hit the ground to avoid hitting another biplane. He burnt his hands. He had a fracture of the skull—I mean scalp wounds—and then what adds to the confusion is the dreamlike crack that developed on his head which some call a gash, others say it is the invisible damage.

I think it will be hard to give you an accurate report—a gross report, yes.

I sleep for a few hours, turn around and drive all the way to Baltimore without stopping and run into Chester. We are sitting at a front table and I feel comfortable that my attention is on incredibly important matters. Equally important to me is my deepening and developing interest in national and global politics.

This is the next day and I go buy expensive silk pajamas and two very heavy books.

Even though I’m broke I take several people with me to a restaurant. Across the street at the bank I take three hundred dollars from my account.

I get into bed when I become displeased. My brother and his wife stop by and I tell them we will eat a late dinner. I have had a bad case of food poisoning. All in all it is a fine Christmas. It’s efficient and polite. Although, in the same manner a bowel movement is held back—a feeling dawns in me—which is not hiding, and which seems quite separate from my other feelings: I feel good that circumstances are well in hand, that I have returned from being alive.