Entry 16:

Dear Harry,

You and Zoë have my apology. My last was intended as a literary joke, a parody of the intimacy states that e-mail correspondence produces. Truly, I have enjoyed my rapport with your partner and am ashamed that what I wrote should have ended it so violently, and with such apparent distress to you and her. Ordinarily I would have mulled same, but we were under deadline, and as a fiction writer I have learned to exalt risk. My criticism of your note to me is that you seem flatfooted and literal as a reader.  My apologies to Slate readers who were offended, too. But I am not ready to disown my writing. I can imagine/I hope there are readers who found my last amusing, readers for whom the joke worked. Once I get past the shock of this encounter, perhaps I'll be among them.

Philip