I take out the wine. I thought there was a lot left, but it evaporated or something. So I go to 7-11. I almost buy the screw-top kind because I'm not sure if I have a corkscrew, and even if I do, I don't know how to use it.

On the way home, I search for a corkscrew in my picture of my kitchen in my mind, running red lights while I'm rummaging in the utensil drawer.

I have no corkscrew, but I have a screwdriver, which I jam into the cork until it slips and hisses. Before I give my final push, I line up all the chemistry facts in my head so I can determine if the pressure from the cork will explode the bottle. The line is jagged and broken in places, but what harm could come from a few pieces of glass? If worse comes to worse, I'm sure I have a strainer.

So I push, and I get a little wine on the front of my shirt, but I don't think wine stains. I fill up a glass and bring the bottle to the bedroom, where hopefully I will fall asleep before I am sitting around long enough to grasp the facts and cry.

This wine tastes like water. I panic that this is one of those party-pleasers for non-drinkers, but I find a this-product-will-impair-your-ability-to-think warning.

I decide my mattress needs flipping. I decide my floor needs sweeping. I decide to kill all the spiders I've been letting live in the far corners of my bedroom. I get all the bugs in the webs, too. There is spider blood squooshing all over my New York Times.

And why do I even subscribe to the New York Times when I never read it? There aren't a lot of pieces of mail that are as reliable as the Sunday Times.

I decide to renew my subscription even though it's not yet up.

I pour another glass of wine. I have that dizzy, goofy feeling like I need to go to a party I can be the funny, irreverent, secure-with-herself person I know I could be right now. Right now with this water-tasting wine which I would have never thought of, if Martha had not called to say she needs to go to AA but can't make herself go because she doesn't want to go drunk. But she can't stop drinking. I wouldn't have thought of drinking to avoid thinking about this weekend—about the last three weekends—except I told Martha she should go because the whole entertainment industry goes to AA and she's bound to score some freelance work there, and she said I should go, too, then, so I can quit my nine-to-five job. Five-to-four, I said, and agreed to Wednesday night, where four people stood up to share. And now this.

Well, at least my mattress is firm. That's why you flip it. To keep the springs spunky. Not that I need spunky springs anymore, because sinking in sex is no longer an issue. I already have. Sunk, that is. My therapist, who I don't see anymore because I am way more interested in the acquisition of material possessions, would say, I haven't sunk, my relationship has. And, of course, my identity does not equal my relationship. Handy, since the relationship only happened three nights a week. Maybe that's all I wanted, but I wanted us both to want more. Tano wanted less, probably. He wouldn't say he wanted less. In fact he said he wanted more. He said, I almost stopped by your house on Thursday night. To have sex. But if I did that, I wouldn't have a chance to do my laundry for another week.

The last three weekends, he has announced that he needs space. I took a walk, but it wasn't far enough, so he sent me home in the car. I talked on the phone so I wouldn't talk to him, but I messed up his call-waiting and it could have been someone important. I gave him my bedroom, but he wanted my printer.

When will your notes be done? I ask. When will it be time for people to interact? He's rethinking the interactive part. Space can be measured by the amount of competing desires it can hold, is what he tells me. I've heard it all before, when I edited the final four drafts. He likes to be fucking someone who can help him with his projects.