Angels Flying Over Your Shoulder

Tuesday October 22
The mornings are chilly and dry this week. I wore a flannel shirt and corduroy blazer this morning. Picture that. A-bomb clouds from the latest Malibu wildfire puffed up opposite the sun as I crossed the Valley this morning. Have I got a lot on my mind today. My radiator cracked. I took it to Koretnyko Vladimir's body shop and repair because he did a good job with it last time even though it may be cheaper to go to a radiator shop. He explained that he was just going to take it out and bring it to a radiator shop. Fifty bucks it'll cost. I'm an idiot. I don't trust myself to do it. Victor quoted me a guy in Pacoima who could do it for thirty, but that's thirty miles away. It would overheat twice on the way. I just want the problem taken care of. I had a feeling you could trust Koretnyko Vladimir so I paid him twenty extra. God, am I an idiot. I'm not sure how I'll get to work tomorrow. Today Chirelle let me take her dad's Mustang. I almost hit a kid right in front of school who had darted out between two parked cars.
My brother just called. Five Olympic volleyball players OD'd on GHB at his party and had to be put on respirators at the hospital-- Something around here keeps beeping. The Yankees are beating the Braves so far two to nothing in the sixth inning of game 3 of the World Series. Atlanta had dominated the Yanks til now, outscoring them sixteen zip.
Shirelle is driving high a few blocks to Christina's to share what part of her joint she hasn't smoked yet. I said, "Be careful." She said, "Oh, I'm only going a few blocks." I said, "Oh, and nothing could go wrong between here and there?" She said, "God, why do you have to be so negative? Why can't you believe in angels flying over your shoulder looking out for you?" I threw down my pen. She said, "You don't have to get mad."


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Packing books. Remove tomes from the shelf, hefting the little story of the procurement of each one. Walden Books in the La Brea Mall, B. Dalton Booksellers in the La Puente Mall, Little Professor Books in Placentia, to which I would walk from my mom's place as a kid, Crown, Rizzoli's in Century City, Brentano's at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, Barnes and Noble in New York City where Lisa Yamada worked, Book Star at the Beverly Connection, the UCI bookstore, the UCLA bookstores at Luvalle Commons and Ackerman Plaza, The Paperbacker, Pasadena, Hollywood, Vancouver, Old Town San Diego, my dad's shelf, Marietti's shelf, Grandpa's paper bags full, La Puente High, Los Altos High, Sharp El, Lora Collins--a lot of them were stolen.
I read three pages of Jim Crack to my novel class last night. I got a favorable reaction, I thought. Now I have to do five first lines and a two to three pages tying in disparate images, one culled from a photo. There's a short story to read by an author I never heard of.

Miguel drove us out to watch the World Series and play pool on Steve's new table at his house in Temple City. The Braves blew out the Yankees in what was supposed to be a pitcher's duel between this year's Cy Young winners, Pettite and Smoltz.
I got suckered into paying for all the pizza and beer. Fuck.
My radiator has sprung a leak. How and when the hell am I going to fix that?
I still have to do my character in motion exercise for class tonight. I could kick myself for going to Steve's. I finished the four chapters of Judith Hearne I had to read.
The characters are all mostly repugnant, though Bernie is amusing, and I do have a little sympathy for Judith.

The Hollywood Beautification Team

Monday October 21
I'm in my classroom right now. My students are working diligently on a skills lesson showing the relationship between multiplication and division. They are a very good class. I should write about them more. Sandra just finished typing a story called "The Haunted Bridge". They also drew Spanish galleons because we've been studying the Spanish Empire's expansions throughout the world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The other day I was feeling a little too loosey goosey and I was singing an old schoolyard favorite which they had never heard before, "There's a place in France where Carlos wet his pants, but Danny doesn't care cuz he eats his underwear." I thought it best not to mention naked ladies dancing.
I was confused when the alarm went off Sunday morning. I wasn't sure whether it was Sunday or Monday. I was pretty sure it was Sunday, but my mind was struggling with why I had to get out of bed and go to work. Finally I realized that I had to go to community service. I ate a bowl of cereal and glanced at the headlines. We rode in the back of the Hollywood Beautifcation Team truck from their headquarters at Highland and Selma out to Sunset and Hillhurst about five miles or so away. It was chilly out. The sidewalks were still in the shade of the buildings. They dropped us off, and I grabbed a shovel and headed to the north side of Sunset so that when the sun cleared the buildings I could warm up a little. The wind had blown hard the night before, and the streets were littered with the dead fronds blown from the palms lining the strip. The little thorns lining the stems of the fronds and make it doubly difficult to break up and fit them in the bags, but I was working with a good crew, and we worked our five miles to La Brea quickly. We were finished almost two hours ahead of schedule. Crazy Girls topless bar is right there on the corner of La Brea and Sunset where the truck wouldn't be picking us up for another two hours. Heh heh. We left our shovels and brooms at the front door, and Kwan, Hernandez, and Magallan followed me in. I assured them there would be no trouble. We ordered beers and checked the football scores and watched the girls dance. We played a couple of games of pool and I won them both. Then it was time to go. The girls said, "Thanks, guys, for keeping Hollywood beautiful."
That made me smile. I said, "Same to you," and walked out into the bright sun.

Don't Know If Anything on This Page Is True--It's Boring Enough to Be True, Though

Sat Oct. 19
I'm trying to complete a two page character study of Jim Crack for my novel writing class. I'm having trouble with it. I stray into descriptions of how plot forms his character and how other characters see him, without his character driving either of those things or really anything at all.
Oh well. I've finished it now. Not one of my more stellar efforts, despite a few telling details. Anyway, it's the first character study I've done for Jim.
I'm beginning to set Jim off from myself. It's become important to find ways that he is not me. Oh, but so what?  I don't know if anything on this page is true. I'm just writing to fill the page. My brother is having a party tonight in Northridge. My sister will pick me up, but I don't think I'll be going. Walchak is coming over. He wanted to go to a movie. I said I'd go, but then I called him back to see if he wouldn't rather rent something so that I could get a little more work done. Tomorrow I'm going to do another eight hours of community service.
I ought to treadmill tonight. That Swiss knife ad idea for setting character in motion doesn't sound too difficult. I may find something that's already finished and insert the action. If I had any integrity, though, I'd build a new scene around it.
Maybe if pray for it, I'll get it done after work tomorrow. Two pages. That would be great. I have to spend an hour on the Bible tomorrow. I'm supposed to go with the GIP out to Rawler's place in Temple City tomorrow. His uncle just gave him a pool table. He'll probably have just brewed a fresh batch of beer.
The first game of the World Series

He flopped around in the sand like a lovestruck grunion.


We've got the Oliver Stone epic "Nixon" in the VCR right now. Shirelle has murdered by boiling, and is now slurping down, a lobster.