Michele blew into town this afternoon on her way to South Africa. Six years of silence, then a seven-hour layover in London, and thank heavens for the Heathrow Express. Six years to catch up on over soups and salads at Paul, and then the wind carried her off again. Her six years have involved a proposed threesome at five in the morning, sharp turns on Chicago streets, a Boston boy on the way to Miami. “He had the window seat,” she said, “and he needed to go to the toilet, and he was all wakin’ my ass up.”

“These are amazing stories,” I said. “It’s like Tym told me once,” I said—except I didn’t call her Tym, I called her Y------------------, because that is her name—“sometimes you just have to do it for the story.”

“But I don’t want to have a movie made of my life,” she said. “I want a house, maybe a child, maybe a dog, a two-car garage. The simple life.”

Me, I’ve decided I’m going to play me in the movie version of my life.

Tonight it is drizzling again. I am making a loaf of banana bread because tomorrow—hold on to your hats—I am going HORSE RIDING. I know I am supposed to be moping around and looking for a job, but, I mean, HORSES. Henny and I, we are taking the train to Ealing, and we are going to get on horses. It has been years now I have had a thing for theoretical horses, so why not. But I will tell you a secret, which is that sometime in the summer of 2004, when CC and I were at the Mudgee Motor Inn west of Sydney, there was a horse in the paddock outside. “I’m gonna go look at the horse,” I’d said, but then when he started ambling toward me I ran.

I was on the phone with Tom just now, Tom who grew up with horses on the family homestead in Omaha, Nebraska, and he said: “I will give you some advice, even though none was solicited, and it is this: When you get on the horse, do not fear how high up off the ground you are.” I had not thought to fear this until it was brought up. “Don’t forget,” he said, “that it has four legs and is very sturdy.”

I will try to remember this, I suppose, until maybe when Mr Horse decides to run for the hills, at which point I might forget everything and just start screaming.

So, but. May I just say?, I have been told that I should wear boots to the lesson. Cowboy boots! Okay!

But, so. The banana bread. It’s just that I think we might need a snack, going out to Ealing and riding horses and all. Suzzan wanted to know if I was going to bring the whole loaf, so I said: “No, hello, do you think I am one of the Famous Five?” There will be no potted ham sandwiches, no ginger beer, no lashings of cream on anything. Just a couple of slices of banana bread, and maybe an apple, even though the horse might eat it.