Wednesday November 6

Clinton has regained the Presidency. Dole accepted his defeat graciously. Carlos said if he was president, he would kill Bob Dole. He is nine and he often talks of killing. Before I showed them "The Red Pony", I asked them to write what they would do if they had a horse, how would they car for it, what would they name it. The first think Carlos wrote was the he would teach the horse to kill people. "Like Bob Dole?" I asked. He didn't answer, I don't think, or I didn't hear with the other kids talking, or I don't remember, or maybe I didn't want to know his answer. He's not really a bad kid. He reminds me of Tom in the The Red Pony. Some kids laughed. The boys, I guess, when Tom fought with the buzzards. ~ I let fall in front of the instructor who was listening to my conversation witho another instructor, that I had alcohol school. I don't remember what exactly I was talking about when it came out, but I remembered it was related and came out honestly. Must be some incompletion of the hippocampus.

The Lakers are playing the Hornets in Charlotte. My computer keeps blinking itself off, and I keep pressing it back to light, even though I'm not using it. Eighteen year old Kobe Bryant, the youngest player in the history of the NBA, is in the game.

Small Scale Joy Nonetheless

November 5
Election day. I think I'll vote for Ralph Nader and prop 215, the medical marijuana initiative. I'm in Downey for another boring conference on "Making Learning Brain-Interactive". Everybody went to lunch, but I stayed here to read section I of Seize the Day, which reminds me of myself and of Jim.
I just gave GIP the rent check. He says Ron is unhappy about the party we threw here the other night. Worried about the electric bill or some bitch shit like that. Doesn't leave him enough juice for his vibrating butt plugs. Reports are that Clinton has won in New Hampshire and Florida, states which were in contention. Maybe a Clinton landslide. Will it turn him into a monster? Shirelle listens to the radio while she bakes her casserole. I really must add five pages to Jim Crack, at least 2 by Thursday.
Linda Ahsour wrote "congratulations" on my setting piece from Jim Crack. She said she was prejudiced against drug scenes but that mine was well done.

The chinks in people's armors begin to show. What else? Memories of a dream, you don't know if it's from last night or years ago. Adam says, "What's up?"
Jim says, "My dick was, but I just got through jacking off on your couch." Adam walks to the fridge and opens it. "No fucking beer," he says. "I don't know what the hell I want it for. I spent all day at work hurtin and swearing I'd never drink again. I swear to God I just need to get out of this shit." He walked around the house with a glass and picked different almost-empty bottles and poured their dregs into a glass. "Are there any more roaches?" he asked.
Jim said nothing. Adam found a bottle of Cuervo 1800; it's neck stuck out from under the couch, and he added another noxious quarter inch to his glass. "I got paid today, but there's no way I'm going to spend a penny of it. On Monday, I'm taking it to the bank, depost it all, but two hundred and fifty bucks that I'll live off of until next month. But I'm even going to look at that check until Monday. I got to quit drinking. You know I'm thinking of going back to Utah."
Jim saw his mouth move, heard the sounds coming out. He was thirsting. He'd never seen Utah. Never been out of North Orange County for that matter. He wished he had a beer. He scratched his thigh. He played with his ear lobe. He shoved his hand between the couch cushions, and felt something smooth and cool. It was a bottle of beer! "Look," he said. "I wished for it and here it was."
His joy was small scale, but joy nonetheless.
The phone rang.

What If I Poured Some 150 Proof Rum in my Beer?

November 4, 1996

Here we go again. I'm listening to Toni Morrison's speech at her acceptance fo the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She excoriates "hate speech". I don't think she'd like my language one bit. My language betrays me. We are, and should be, our words, but I am not. My actions and my words rarely jibe. I feel wrong all the time, still. ~~It was sunny with intermittant clouds today in the Valley. We had a rainy day schedule, though, because new lines were being painted on the playground. I'm doing my journal and fifteen minutes regularly, but I still don't work on any manuscript with any faith. I have my novel class tonight. I have to turn in a plot outline tonight. I don't feel much strength from what I've developed so far. I feel beaten.
I've succumbed to preferring not to express myself. I blame that on my upbringing, and some larger, nebulous, pervasive, institutional teaching or something I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't write about other stuff while I listen to Toni Morrison warning against the language of hate. I got a double whopper and a chiken sandwich from Burger King on La Brea on my way home from work today. The same bad feeling I get when I boil a lobster I got when I carved open the pumpkin and scraped out its insides and sliced into it the face I wanted it to have.
I think maybe I don't give much of a damn about the plot. I might rather write one sentence after another with an ear tuned to the language, not really knowing where it will go. As much as I would enjoy being known as a storyteller, I realize I'm not a very good liar. Do I lack imagination? Is there a disparity between truth and imagination? Am I dork? What if I dumped a little hundred and fifty proof rum into my beer? I'm so stupid; that Burger King cost more than six bucks. I should have just gone to a movie. The beer from the keg in the kitchen is ok; neither too flat nor too warm. I still haven't looked over the ballot to get the exact working on the different propositions. You wonder if the medical marijuana initiative is not just going to become the DEA stoner roster. Your vote will put you on the federal to-bust list. What else? There's a new scab on my left flip-off knuckle. I showed it to a guy today who would not let me over on my way to Shar Avenue this morning. Then I caught up to him on the freeway and drove right alongside him for a few miles, just to remind him what a dickshit he was.  Sorry, Toni.
There's a Clark Gable color western on American Movie Classics right now. The fourth and final light bulb in ceiling fan just burned out. I'll write in the dark. It couldn't be any worse. Tomorrow: Downey, Vote, Prep a Crack Copy for Xeroxing