McCormick's Correspondences From the Sea, cont'd

One more day until we go to McCormick and Schmick's! I know this because, well, it's been hard to forget. McCormick has been in contact with me almost daily (I have no idea how his notes get here so fast) and I'm actually getting a little worried about him. Here is what I had waiting for me today:

Dearest Mark:

I hope this note finds you well. Things have not been so for me. Life on the sea is tough, and lately I have found myself to be in an endless cycle, battling the alternating bouts of chlamydia and loneliness.

I am writing to you because I have nobody left to confide in. My ship mates are natives of an island country who seem to have no need for the frivolities of my nature. So it is to you I turn. I'm afraid that I may have made a tactical blunder in my dispatching of Schmick, for it turns out that the widow Schmick has a considerable amount of stock in my business venture with her late husband, and in a legal sense, I suppose she now owns the operation. Oh! The vagaries of the seafaring life!

I would be lying to you if I told you my troubles ended there - I am just now facing the growing reality that I very well may be lost at see [sic]. In the light of day, I see nothing but water, and by night I cannot even see the hand in front of my face. I assure you, however, that I still catch nothing but the freshest, most delicious seafood. Now I must go, for I can hear the sharks circling. Yes they are circling again, biding their time, for their instincts have informed them of the inevitable that I cannot yet bear to face.

Go with health, Mark, and enjoy my $2 bar food specials on Friday.