Yes, yes, I know. I am betraying the Brotherhood by sleeping with the betrothed. But I did it again. And despite my misgivings, despite my failures and misspeaking (oh, the things my significant others hear out of my mouth, misspeaking is too good a word...)

Despite all that, may the Gods forgive me, it was a pleasure to wake up after a long bout of what was (at least for me) fantastic and perfectly rough sex followed by three short hours of sleep and know, surveying the hurricane-crumpled wreckage of the mobile homes around me and the remaining erect poles of my carport, that other male sons of bitches have been doing precisely this since the cavemen discovered the bonds of matrimony.

The fact that she's married isn't the central fact of R.'s life, anyway. She's somehow managed to work for an industry I usually consider second only to the Khmer Rouge in its brutality without becoming callous or too cynical or - worse - toxically cheerful. I like that about her. She's not registered with a party. (And loathes Bush.)

She offered to follow me up to New York if I move. I nearly choked. And after a few minutes we fucked again.

I think I'm going to go home and get some sleep. Let it be recorded that I wouldn't trade my miserable and roach-infested, dirty, gloriously unpredictable life for all the tea in China, and thanks to all who have made it so.