In Which Vivienne Makes a Number of Admissions.

Look, Fair Readers.  You have stuck with me for quite a bit.  Through thick and thin, as it were.  And, as it is, I will make this admission:

Vivienne’s life is a disaster.

I mean, a Courtney-Love-at-five-a.m. disaster.  A late-Judy-Garland-attempting-to-film-Valley-of-the-Dolls disaster.  A Liza-Minelli-at-any-point disaster.  Together?  Vivienne does not have a whit of it.  And so, Vivienne is not quite sure why she has taken this, this very moment, this Judy-Garland-in-tragic-sunglasses moment, to quit smoking.

Careful Readers may be saying to themselves: Quit smoking?  I thought Vivienne already quit smoking.  I thought that happened years ago. Yes, Careful Readers, you are correct.  Vivienne did quit smoking, and it did happen years ago.  But Vivienne took up smoking again.  And here Vivienne makes a sad admission: Vivienne’s journey back down Nicotine Way started because of a man (actually, in an attempt to talk to a man in an unguarded smokehazed moment, during which said man confessed his homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to date him anyway) and continued because of a man (a man who, in Ms. Big Edie Bouvier-Beales’ words, was so warm on the telephone but so cold in person) (whose behavior also hinted at homosexual tendencies, which Vivienne ignored to semi-date him anyway, which brings to mind a pattern …).  And so, in order to liberate herself of Said Men, Vivienne is going to quit smoking.

Which leads Vivienne to think of her other additions: besides her addiction to dating and semi-dating men with homosexual tendencies, there is her addition to Diet Coke.  Smoking is bad.  Yes.  This, Vivienne can clearly see.  Diet Coke?  Nothing can convince her.  Her doctor tells her to stop drinking Diet Coke because it is eating her bones.  Vivienne is so exhausted by this news that she can do nothing but drink a Diet Coke.  Vivienne watches footage of an egg dropped in Diet Coke.  Vivienne watches as its shell dissolves.  Vivienne thinks, how refreshing would a cold Diet Coke be right now? Vivienne’s teeth fall out because she drinks so much Diet Coke.  Vivienne thinks, perhaps I could freeze Diet Coke in a dental mold?

And now, I provide you with no clear transition to tonight’s Ulysses assignment, inspired by Chapter 5, in which Mr. Bloom wanders around, tears up a letter, thinks about sluts, and witnesses an odd version of mass in which the Eucharist seems to come before the Gospel (perhaps this is just his perception, though): an imagine letter from an imaginary person.   Who is, hopefully, happily drinking a Diet Coke, smoking a Camel, and just acting on his homosexual tendencies fergod’ssake like he should’ve done instead of all that damned repression.

Dearest Y.,

As for the fish I am not sure.  Perhaps when feeding the tank left open, perhaps flipped themselves outwards.  Somewhere I read of their teeth though not sure this is a true thing.  Have you left the flowers where they were or are they elsewhere aplantered?  Last night I could swear bright as day.  The moon or something.  Six cents a sheet, the copies are, and the library overrun with moths.  Ate the verbs out and all of the Rs in the Oxford.  Crying shame, hidden in that dress in the corner, with the stains on the glovetips and seed pearls rolling.  Perhaps Sunday?  Or the hot rolls and the coffee burnt, heating element eternal lit, red eye in the night.  Lit his smoke on it and caught the hair on fire, poor guy.  Bugger he or should’ve been.  Or would’ve wished to.  Pour out the last of the glasses and call a night to it, will you?  Yes then.  Yes.

Regards.

FS