Back to the ngb...he sends me three postcards in a letter. One of a beautiful fall river, golden leaves over blue water, and two cartoons. "Why shurtanly I'm gonna drive - ah ain't in no condishion to walk! (Hic!)." And the other one was not quite as witty.

Another from Nancy - who somewhere in here changed her name to Leah - I vaguely remember that. She writes on Hyatt Regency Milwaukee stationary, with an opening paragraph demanding the return of some embroidered white towels - hehehe - before fessing up to being Leah, " Alias, Nancy of 'Nancy & Jay' from the infamous commie seminar 'Is Western Culture Bla Bla Bla...'"

She's actually writing from the Virgin Islands, recouping from a semester at Boston University in graduate anthropology and having trouble doing linear thinking again. I went through the same thing my first (and only) year in graduate school.

She earns my permanent love and gratitude by writing, "I sure think you should keep writing your memoirs...What the fucks with these people and their 'conceptual ' art? Writing is just as 'gutsy' and a writer needs readers!"

I found Mary - could I find Nancy? Leah?

A welcome interlude from sentimental maunderings about lost love. From my friend Nancy, she who rescued me the morning after the head-banging incident. She's in Boston. I am now in Seattle. It is 1987. My life is about to go into the ditch again for awhile, but I'm still hanging in there. It's Christmas. Nancy wants to travel cross-country in a camper van. She sends me a card called "Exchange of Gifts." A tiny mouse stands beside a large present with a tag reading "To Kitty." Outside the mousehole, a large cat proffers a tiny gift. The cat's eyes glow green. The outcome of the coming exchange is uncertain.

An earlier letter from G, Feb/'87. 16 years later, this one nearly makes me weep with frustration for not getting on a plane (as he suggests) and hightailing it back "home" - or to what still seemed somewhat like home, as Seattle did not quite yet. The two men in my life eminently worth loving, and do I have the sense the goddess gave fleas??????

Oh, well. It's just nostalgia upon reading an oh-so-sweet letter (and believe me, he's not the sweet letter writer type). Well, it's sweet, if you can read through the G. verbiage, which goes something like "irritation is a common and seemingly unavoidable cost of reflecting on one's moments of unguarded spontaneity, but I had already convinced myself that in this case at lerast, the cost was well worth the rewards of the reveries which occasioned it." Goddam! The man owns 11 Harleys and is downright Victorian. I should be taken out and shot. In retrospect.

He then goes on to talk about recent busts in the Green Bay sex business, including the Cheyenne Social Club, and my old friend M, ("flat-backing at, I think, the Stairway to Heaven), who somehow missed the dragnet. He renames vice agents..."...narcs (what do you call undercover vice agents---nooks?).