No axe-wielding serial killers having yet dropped in to our cabin in the woods, we are still alive. We eat, we sleep, we read, we watch television. Yesterday was game day: Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, and Celebrity. Natural good manners and humility prevent me from mentioning who won two of the three. (In Trivial Pursuit, we were all so confounded by the “Sports” category that we eventually banished it.)

Last night, Faustus had the idea for us to sneak off and brave the snow and icy roads on a mad dash to the twenty-four hour grocery store for pancake mix. Would it not be lovely, he proposed, for us to cook breakfast for Rob and Rindy, who had done all of the cooking to date. No, I said, but it would be nice to fetch a nice pie, as we had run out the day before, and I was climbing the walls with craving. Honestly, there are things to risk one’s life for, but most of them are not breakfast foods. Cherry pie, on the other hand . . .

It is beautiful here, and the pace of life is more relaxing than New York. Sometimes it seems a shame to leave; I could live like a maharaja here on the same funds that keep me in my minuscule Manhattan walk-up. But there is something to be said for liveliness, creativity, fashion, and IQs over 50, none of which abound here in the Middle of Nowhere. Really, “Queer Eye” ought to make over the entire county. And until that far-off day, New York City is the place to be.

We leave tomorrow.

Oh, here’s the axe-wielding serial killer now. Hours behind schedule. Ta.