The following is a work of fiction.

Not Nick Nolte's Diary, Malibu, California
June 30, 2005

Union Jack

Today the ocean's taken on that color of late summer, in livid purples and blues of a prizefighter's ribs. That may be poetic license or just an usual algae level. It hard to concentrate today because the phones are out. Like city sound, sometimes one needs continual noise to get certain things done. The phone system is being upgraded so we are dead in the water. Now apparently I will be able to call Manolo from the barn, or Constance from the bathroom or myself from my mind. That last item wasn't in the brochure, but I'm sure the guy will oblige if I salt his margarita a bit. Perhaps that's a colorful phrase only to be used with the opposite sex, Diary. It didn't come out quite as I had hoped. But the same can be said for the eighteenth century and it didn't stop Nelson at Trafalagar. I'll put the day on hold and reclaim the stereo with a Mott the Hoople album or three.