12 December 1955

At sea again, & feeling a lot better—the shaky handwriting is caused by the ship’s vibrations, not my emotional outlook. I go up & down the emotional scale rapidly, but fortunately I spend most of my time on the top of the cycle rather than at the bottom.

Got another letter from home, which made me feel a little better. They’ve been getting my letters but almost none of my journal. It’s frustrating to think of all that work going for nothing. Perhaps I was loading the envelopes too heavily. Also, as yet, they haven’t gotten "Ching-Chong"—he’ll probably arrive in a million pieces about next June.

The minute we leave port, the sun comes out in all its glory—it was a beautiful day; at least the ten seconds I saw of it was. The last few nights in Genoa the seas were so rough they had to cancel the liberty boats, thus stranding 200 or more guys on the beach all night. They had a terrible time—all of them had to go & rent hotel rooms & stayed up all night drinking & running around the city. Poor things. Of course, some of the guys who were completely out of money slept aboard the two destroyers moored at the end of the same pier the Christoforo Colombo was.

Went to the library last night, for the first time in ages, & got two books—one of them Ogden Nash’s "The Face is Familiar," & the other Bulfinch’s "Mythology." The former was to elevate me out of the stupor I was in, the latter to improve my stagnating mind. Finished Nash the same night, & set about today (in what little spare time I had), to learn the names of the nine Muses—I could only recall one off hand—Terpsichore, muse of the dance. I enjoy reading mythology, but it is frequently confusing as to which god is related to which.

If you will notice, yours truly seems to be on an "I" binge again. Much more care must be taken in the future to correct this.

As of Naples, we’ll be required to wear our blue flat-hats instead of the white ones. Never having worn one, it ought to prove interesting. For some reason, I look ridiculous in any kind of hat.

Also, while dissecting my writing, it may be noted that almost nowhere can you find a sentence unbroken by one or several comma’s , unless it is a very short sentence. I lean heavily on "therefore"’s, "Of course", "also", & almost any device to break up a sentence into more palatable portions.

It is already after taps, & though I am in the mood to write indefinitely, bed beckons. As you may also have gathered, my spelling is atrocious. "I calls ‘em the way I sees ‘em"….