and the world is getting flatter
 and the sky is falling all around
 and nothing is the matter
 for i never cry in town
 and a love like ours my dear
 it's best measured when it's down
 and i never buy umbrellas
 cos there's always one around

 and all over the world strangers
 talk only about the weather

(Tom Waits)

More of the same: nothing is the matter, and something is broken all the same. I watched depressing movies, read Tennessee Williams and J.D. Salinger, smoked myself nearly to death. On Friday I put in the wastebasket something I received on Thursday; given with enough gall or simplicity to turn my ever-lovin’ heart into the strange engine of a very common disaster. For everything is the same to the heart, as it is to the blood: so long as it is strong and terrible. (Shall I explain this symbolism? Not yet, except, as a teaser for the classically inclined and the prurient: Athena, Artemis, Aphrodite stood before Paris quite naked.)

No, in truth there is little difference between gall and simplicity, little difference between anger and love, and though I ought not to admit it, between one woman and another. Not to the heart.