She told herself that she was indeed a silly woman. Nine years ago she had entertained herself in this mental challenge of being desired by one whose orientation was not so inclined to women, spun herself in a specious illusion of intimacy when, in youth, sex was such a novel and believable medium of intimacy, and given birth in the belief that aborting an embryo was barbaric. Now she was struck by how this connection that she brought into the world would be an ongoing frittering away of her days. She cachinnated at her absurdity, which caused Mouse to jump on top of the washer and stare at this mad woman inquisitively. "Hi there, Mouse. Haven't you ever seen a woman laugh while doing the laundry before? You really must get a life." She chuckled at the cat. She told herself that there were too many people in her life when really there was just one. She told herself that contrary to her precept that people should be breathed in and out she was cluttering up her life with them although really a neatly isolated and Antarctic existence would have given her nothing to contemplate. Still, she again entertained the idea of dumping her son at Peggy's for he had become too indespensable to her life and this was a deep vulnerability. Still the quandary persisted: there was no way that she could allow him to be damaged by the disparaging animadversion of a family no different than a "boot camp" or military training camp. The internecine war games in this so called family of which she had extricated herself brought most damage onto outsiders like herself and she did not want to perpetuate it to the next generation. Gabriele heard a thump in her mailbox. She received a letter telling her that she was terminated from the local greeting card company. She rummaged though her sketches and found one of her impish ones, less pertaining to social etiquette, missing from the rest. She must have mailed it in by mistake. She guessed that this was similar to what she might have done to be ignored by Hallmark. With Hallmark she wasn't quite sure what she had done but this local greeting cards publishing house was clearly piqued. Did the subconscious, like an empress dowager, make its maneuvers on conscious reality behind the scenes? She had played such games for so long. It was no great wonder they had dismissed her. Only an idiot would have been surprised by this playing with the fates. She also realized that she could not prostitute herself more in her other occupation to rectify the lack of incoming finances. Sanity only allotted so much prostitution per week. "Oh, well," she thought. "Maybe I could sell my paintings."