I'm lying in a waterbed. On the glass-topped table next to me: the journal of Alix Roubaud and a gun. I haven't touched the gun, I haven't read the book. I'm listening to "Roses" by White Ring. I feel like I'm overdosing on Nicorette. I spit the gum into a champagne flute and pick up Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Ellis. I read 3 pages, and then I read 3 pages from Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion, and then I wander the apartment, kind of dazed, and put in a DVD of Dawn of the Dead.