I get my first letter from him.  It is 46 pages long.  The first page is to me.  The next 45 pages are a scribblish mess called the Gray Planet Chronicles.  I can usually read his slanty print, but much of this is truly not legible.  I finally get out a highlighter and slash thick neon yellow over what I can't read before sending it back to him.
It is details of his new home which he refers to as the Gray Planet or the Gray Submarine. It is mostly a description of the living quarters - if you can call being imprisoned on the 5th floor of a building for the next 3-4 years living. I get cabin fever if I am in the house all day long.  After hearing the actual dimensions of the facility - roughly 50 x 150 with a 40 x40 walled outdoor pen...I leave the house for the rest of the day.  Just reading about it is giving me claustraphobia. It is raining so I mostly drive around eventually nosing my car into a slot in front of a local wine bar where I recognize a few friends cars.

I haven't been there for over a year and everyone is glad to see me or maybe they have just have a nice buzz on from drinking all day - either way, I take the last stool at the bar.  Silver haired Barney next to me has brought in some of his homemade brandy for all to try.  He proudly talks about the still he made to create this diabolical stuff.  The patron next to me warns me, "don't smell it, don't taste it, just pinch your nose and down it as fast as you can."  Barney has filled a small wine glass with this clear liquid that looks benign enough and placed it on the bar in front of me.  I sniff it ignoring the warning.  It smells exactly like rubbing alcohol.  I mean it is identical to what I soak a cotton swab in.  I decide not to do the taste test and tip the glass back fast trying to hit the back of my throat.  I feel the tissues react and the burn slowly travels down, down, down.  I chase the brandy with a nice glass of Cabernet.  Twenty minutes later the talk is all about some 45' wooden yacht built in 1930 that can be had cheaply.  There are only 2 others like it in the whole world and they are worth over 100K this one can be had for a mere 17K and there is nothing wrong with it..........I offer them my truck to tow it back from Washington state if they want it.  They talk about mooring it in the large puddle we call a lake.  It seems incongruous to me to place this once fair lady in a puddle but then again the lake is shallow and the boat at least couldn't really sink should it happen to take on water.

I finish my Cab. and go home to wait for a phone call that doesn't come.

Tomorrow is another day.