Input jacks and fresh lilacs

Our home is accreting slowly, less dustily so far than the disk of a galaxy. We have all of our furniture, but not yet in all the right places. We have too many boxes piled on too many boxes containing too many things we need to unpack. Almost all of the fragile things are still in storage and almost all of my clothes are still at my parents' house. We are not actually sure what happened to our quilt. All of the wall sockets in this apartment are in peculiarly inconvenient locations and we need so many more lamps than we we presently own. There is no art up on the walls. Nonetheless, this afternoon we anchored the extant bookshelves to the wall and our mattress and box spring were delivered, so that even without the frame—it's still in transit—we have been able to construct a proper bed. It is here depicted with Doppel-Abbie and its signature blanket of a mother cat with her kittens, to which our own kittens have added their embroidery over the years. We need more rugs. We will learn to live here.

In my body is a broken strobe light

Such is the peculiar mentality of men under severe and continual nervous strain. But there, we are not what we were. We are not individuals that walked and talked and went about our lawful occasions in peacetime. Those persons have faded out of existence . . . We regard ourselves rather as detached personalities. Sapper Martin is not the respectable law-abiding Mr Martin of pre-war days. They are quite distinct personalities and are apt to eye each other rather insolently at times.

—Albert John "Jack" Martin, 24 August 1918