I'm not sure that I even know how to write one of these things. It seems that my last entry into the Pizza Diaries was sometime back in April, shortly after I got back from Toronto and divvying up the majority of my grandmother's possessions. It's still somewhat odd to me that I've come to live with them all, though honestly, few of them seem all that out of place. That may be because so many of them are still in boxes somewhere.

It isn't that I haven't been eating pizza at all since then. In fact I've pretty much kept up with it all, eating pizza on a fairly regular basis. I'd like to think that I haven't simply been negligent, but rather that I've been kept from making further entries by other, more important (my apologies sensitive reader) things. I don't know that you'd really understand that my illustration of bears or my pair of built-in bookcases has taken me away from you, but please try. Plus the fact that I really haven't had any "big" pizza moments which might possibly compare to my entry last February. I guess I'm settling down some in my old age.

Joining me in my settling down of late has been my girlfriend Holly, who came into the picture not long after I got back from Toronto last April. She's living with me now, although as I write this I become more and more suspicious that perhaps she's been poisoning me slowly, though to what end I'm not entirely certain. I don't really have that much money and my possessions aren't really worth all that much (my grandmother's 19th Century Gentleman's Sitting Chair notwithstanding) so I can only assume that she's from the future and is just trying to get her bid in early because she knows that I'm going to win the lottery or have a piano dropped on me days after I sign a large life insurance policy while she's visiting her dear old mother in Rochester. The perfect alibi, or so she thinks. You and I know better.

I originally began to suspect that she might be slowly poisoning me because in spite of the fact that I got plenty of sleep last night, I'm still feeling pretty tired today. I was ready to write that off to coincidence or cold and flu season when I began to write this entry and realized just how out of character I've been acting ever since I met Holly a little more than eight months ago. As I wrote earlier, Holly and I live together now. She moved in in mid-August or so. Even before she moved in with me we would, from time to time, order a pizza from one of the three places that I know of that deliver to my apartment. Now that she's here all the time we will, when we're both feeling pretty exhausted at the end of the day and not at all interested in cooking, still order from one of those places. Here's the thing: of the three places, one of them, Gino's (790 Washington Ave., no photo on file) is just awful, and the other two, Gino's (not to be confused with the first one)(218 Flatbush Ave, no photo on file) and Antonio's (318 Flatbush Ave, no photo on file) are simply passable. Gino used to be my friend's landlord, and apparently he's a nice guy and everything, but that place just plain old needs an overhaul. Get new pizza, new customers, new decor, the works. And take down that cheesy newspaper article from nineteen ninety three about how pizza is really good for your health. I'm not entirely certain that the tomato content of their sauce is really even all that high. The other Gino's & Antonio's are places that I've long been familiar with and have done my best to avoid when I've had other options. Gino's is over by a police station and steps away from a bar called Freddy's. Antonio's is directly next door to what used to be the Plaza Twin Cinema, which shut down not long after Man On Fire & Van Helsing came out, which you can tell by the fact that their names are still up on the marquis. It's also right outside of a subway station and a bus stop. In short, I believe that both of these places have been able to survive by dint of their locations, and not by the quality of the pizza they're serving up. I'm talking about basic, "we got you by the balls" convenience pizza, without any frills and the elevated prices to match.

I think that most of you sleuthing, Encyclopedia Brown types can see where I'm probably going with this. If my brain were really working at its regular, full capacity, it is unlikely that (1) I would be so tired all the time, and (2) that I would allow myself to order from a "simply passable" pizzeria on a semi-regular basis. Were my mind in fact working in its usual steel-bear-trap fashion I would almost certainly have found some other method of obtaining for myself and my beloved (oh what a fool I have been!) a pizza pie worthy of my palate. However, as I have not made such a search the very foundation on which all other meaning of my life is erected, I feel I can only conclude that my ruby-haired ladylove has been slowly trying to do me in (so blind! so blind!).

I know that there are those of you who have already leapt to your feet in indignity and that there are those of you who would yet hold onto a single strand, a mere hair of hope whilst one remains. There are those of you who are thinking that this makes no sense, those of you who still believe that the mere fact of her suggesting repeatedly that we order from one of the two local pizzerias that are even half-decent is no proof of her desire to see me dead. And while this is perhaps true, perhaps her intention is to spring upon me some greater humiliation or revenge, it is clear to me that you are as blind and unwilling to see the truth of it all as I was when I first began writing this entry a little more than an hour ago. The mediocre pizza is the perfect vehicle for the mind-numbing venom she has polluted me with. Whereas if we were to eat a superior pizza I would surely detect the virus there among the finer, more nuanced flavors of cheese, dough, spices and sauce, with a mediocre pizza I'm more likely to assume that one ill flavor passing over my tongue is merely part of the greater culinary car wreck created in some bungling alchemist's insouciant scullery. Do not allow love or hope to obscure your view as I have up until forty or so minutes ago my dearest readers. If we face the truth together perhaps we will be able to find the strength in one another to forge on.

Again, I have no idea what her motive may be. Perhaps her love was true at first but after reading of my exploits prior to our having met she has found that she no longer has a place in her heart for me. Perhaps this is part of a greater plan put together by the owner of a pizzeria whose offerings I chose to reject, perhaps she is really his daughter (but then who was that man in Rochester? stranger and stranger…) Could it be that she would hope to expose me for having so much mid-level pizza without a public complaint? At present, it is impossible for me to know for sure. I will have to do some further investigating, watching carefully to see if she will eat any slice from the pie, and not just those with mushrooms and peppers, or if she regularly neglects her crust, etc. If you do not hear from me again then you may know that I have fallen victim to a great and powerful evil. Do not mourn me though, simply bear witness and raise a slice in my memory. If I am to return I hope that it will be with still greater knowledge (and less fatigue) of Holly's tactics and hopefully a better understanding of her motives. Until then, patient readers, I would ask that you think of me and keep me in your prayers.