Dear Joey,

I have decided what we need to do.

I'm tired of the South. I'm tired of the pollution and the hundred-degree days, and of the lack of calamari and itty-bitty grilled cephalopods.

So I'm going to learn French. I figure I can do it at the same time I'm losing this 40 pounds with the new trainer.

Then I'll move to Montreal.

While I'm losing 40 pounds and learning French, you'll have to take the art world by storm. I figure that your Spring 2007 show, "Where are you going? Where have you been?", featuring GPS-enabled dresses and blouses that will map out one's progress through any city, will be a big hit. You will make Montreal the center of the art-tech-fashion world and will become a household name. Meanwhile, I will figure out how to become independently wealthy. Maybe the exchange rate will improve.

Shortly after that, you'll buy an Audi TT. White. Six-cylinder, with Quattro all-wheel drive and a stick shift. You can drive a stick, right? Oh, what the hell...if I can lose 40 pounds and learn French, you can learn to drive a damn stick. If we work it right, you can put one tiny box of mine into the back of the white TT and help me move.

I will drive a refurbished Karmann Ghia or a mail truck. An old right-hand drive mail truck, painted with large bright polka dots. You may keep your condominium while I move in to something loft-like in Chinatown (hard to find) or Little Italy (slightly easier). I'll hang a swing from the ceiling like Marguerite has.

You may wear gorgeous old cashmere coats with huge collars. I'll wander around in ball skirts and men's sweatshirts and plastic pop-bead necklaces and collect Balinese dancing masks. We'll never have a bad meal and will eat tofu only by choice.

We will spend our summers on Ile d'Orleans, eating raspberries and drinking champagne and figuring out your next artistic coup. Aside from six weeks of summer, which will be warm and sunny and dry, it will always be either spring or fall in Montreal. Except right around Christmas, when it will snow in a picturesque fashion, but not long enough to get all dirty and awful.

By general decree, the river will not only become safe to swim in, but will become pleasant and just cool enough. We'll buy big straw hats and a parasol or two.

That's what we're going to do. Please get cracking on taking the art world by storm. I'm going out to buy some lottery tickets.

Love,

Jo