MARBLEHEAD, Massachusetts, July 14, 2005 — First things first. Shower, dress, breakfast. The breakfast in this B&B (The Seagull Inn) is very good and well-organized as I mentioned. You have a choice of cereal (including oatmeal), fruit, milk, yogurt, boiled eggs, cold cuts, salmon, bagels, pastry. You have to be careful not to overeat. I have granola with fruit and yogurt and then a bagel with salmon and cream cheese.

Walked around the neck. Our B&B is on an island connected by a causeway to Marblehead proper. Ocean and Harbor drives sort of circumnavigate it. That's a temptation to me to walk around it. It's probably a mile or two. So we do it. Before we get back our friend Bob has called us.

We talk to Bob and then go over to his house for more presentations. Bob is, well, a little crazy. But good, harmless, creative crazy. Like all our favorite people. He has all these writing and design projects, old and new, as I mentioned yesterday. And he can lay his hands on the archives or drafts in seconds. He shows us all kinds of things and reads aloud from drafts. He entertains me, I like him. But I worry a little. He is obsessive, compulsive with a tendency to repetitive behavior. I can't believe he can lay his hands on the first resume he put together after college and the military. Or that he recorded a coincidence of working a puzzle in The New York Times with some words and names that reminded him of things that had happened in the days before by getting an affidavit from a priest that he used a couple of words in conversation with him. Bob thinks synchronic events like this are cosmic, but I think that it's chaos. (As in my theory that you dream according to memory reorganization and accident randomness and the relationship to real events that occasionally occurs is the accidental noise.) We discuss that for a while.

It's time for lunch. Bob thinks we should go to the locally famous Maddie's Sail Loft. Some of his friends from last night will probably be there. However, he wants to go to his regular haunt, I think. We head for the old town and park and go into a great secondhand bookstore with some artwork thrown in. Then we go to Maddie's. We order (me: a beer and a generous plate of fried oysters with some French fries). Bob's friends come in. We talk and the they greet many of the people coming in. And talk about things, mostly boats. The folks think we should really see the Peabody/Essex museum. When we leave we follow one of the guys to his office and he gives us free passes to it. He is a donor, I believe.

So we go to the museum. They have an interesting photography exhibit and a bunch of amazing objects including a lot of nautical objects including a Queen Elizabeth I model that is about twenty-five feet long. There are lots of Oriental artifacts brought back by sailors but we don't have much time to see those.

We go back to the B&B. We are kind of weary. But our friend said he might come to the Corinthian for drinks. So we go there and have one. He doesn't show and we call him. Last night wore him out. He's "settling in." Which is what we should do. But we go to the town and buy him a 'thank you' gift and while in the high end gourmet store we see the guy who gave us the passes and we return them. He introduces us to a woman who runs the historical society.

We buy some gourmet cheese snacks for us along with the bottle of vodka for our friend. As I approach the checkout I say something about 'road food.' The cashier looks at the bottle of vodka and blanches. "Not that. That's a gift." I assure him.

We decide to eat. I'm not hungry but think maybe I'll get that way. We park and walk a way to the Barnacle. We sit outside on a crowded porch. It's warm. I'm not in the mood to drink any more. Or eat really. I order mussels. IT takes a long time but I still don't feel like drinking or eating. Other people's food looks repulsive. Our food comes. I pick at the mussels and FFP eats some of his fried seafood.

Back to the B&B to rest. I'll feel better in the morning.