Today, I sold my old car, the Mazda. I suppose “old” sounds a bit pejorative. Today, I sold my double-plus-unnew car, the Mazda. (How’s that, George W. Orwell?) After the string of freaks and flakes who contacted me, the winners were a cute young couple from Dupont Circle who drove off in Ellen at about three-thirty this afternoon, leaving me with a hole in my heart and a fifteen-thousand-dollar cashier’s check. I thought I was going to have to accept less money, as the only other person to test drive it was a wild-eyed older guy from the suburbs who thought he could schnooker me into taking off a thousand dollars because he found a microscopic ding in the passenger side door.

I’m so sad about New Orleans, too sad to actually follow the story. Rob has been feeding me tidbits of news for the past few days, which is bad enough. The only time I ever went there, I saw a prostitute with breasts bigger than her head standing on Bourbon Street. My eyes must have jumped out of my skull; my father was with me and said, “Look away, David.” I feel as if that’s what I’m doing now, looking away from New Orleans, not to protect my virtue* but my sanity.**

* Good lord, I haven’t seen that in years.
** Hmm, that, either.