Something got me the moment I returned home from work and Hugh delivered his interpretation of the EPA report. He told me that I am no longer allowed to smoke in any room that he currently occupies. Our apartment is small — four tiny rooms.

I told him that seeing as I pay half the rent, I should be al-lowed to smoke half the time we’re in the same room. He agreed, on the condition that every time I light a cigarette, all the windows must be open.

It’s cold outside.

Barrel Fever

GIANTESS

“WRITERS! Have fun while earning a few extra bucks writing erotica! Giantess magazine needs stories about gals who grow to gigantic proportions! Send sample of work to D.L. Publications.”

I circled that ad in this morning’s paper and left it lying on my desk while I went to work, staining the bookcases of an art director. This man had, among other artifacts, a pair of delicate porcelain plates, each picturing a single sperm making its reckless journey toward an egg. By mid-afternoon this man had only one such plate. It wasn’t necessarily our fault; it just sort of happened. The woman I was working with thought we should leave a confessional note but I thought it might be a better idea to tell him that a squirrel had come in the window, jumped on the dresser, smashed the plate, and left as suddenly as it had arrived. I thought we should scratch the surface of the dresser to suggest destructive claw marks. Lili decided it might be better for her to blame it all on me, seeing as the client was a friend of her brother. That was how we left it.

I came home and wrote a letter to Giantess magazine, including a story I had written several years ago. I don’t happen to have any giantess stories lying around the house so I sent them something about a short man, hoping they might recognize size as a theme.

I worked today for Marilyn Notkin, stripping the paint off her bedroom windows with a heat gun. I was at it for half an hour when I blew a fuse, at which point I set down my heat gun and headed downstairs to the basement fuse box. On my way back to Marilyn’s I popped into the first-floor apartment and joined Kim in watching a few minutes of “Oprah.” This morning Oprah’s guests were people who had forgiven the unforgivable. One woman had testified on behalf of the man who had stabbed her twenty times. Another had embraced the drunk driver who killed her only son. She invites this fellow over to her house for holidays and Sunday dinners.