This Kind of Thing Happens All the Time

Sa 3-28-98 12:17 PM  by the clock of the El Coyote bar
I'm waiting for Julia.  I thought I would be late.  My battery was dead in the driveway this morning.  I was already running on fumes and was going to have to stop for gas.  The lights were left on.  I don't think I did that.  Maybe Christopher snuck over and opened the unlocked doors and did it to play a trick on me.  A car had taken up two spaces in the parking garage at the UTLA offices earlier.  I squeezed in next to him and nicked his door with my key.  Maybe an angel deadened my lights to even the score.  I thought of going to old Mel.  I felt like an ass bothering him to get his car out of his garage.  The old woman, Fumi, pulled up the driveway next to mine.  Two muchachas down the street were getting into their car.  I turned to go bug Mel, then turned back.  I had to be quick.  I got the keys out of the ignition and opened the trunk and got out the cables as the muchachas came near me in their Toyota.  I reached into the car and popped the hood.  I held up the cables and made a pleading face as they passed by and held up one finger to ask them to stop for one minute.  They slowed.  Their window was down.  I said it would just take a little while.  I showed a little between my thumb and index finger.  The pulled up next to me and the driver got out of the car to assist me.  She said her name was Angela and her sister in the car was Maribel and she asked if I lived in the house.  I hooked up the cables and started the car. They looked to be in unmarried and in child-bearing prime, a little younger than I, and pleased to meet me.  I said my thank-yous and shook hands.  I was late now.  I went to the car and the door was locked!?  I walked around to the other door, and it was locked, too.  With the engine running.  I didn't want them to know how retarded I am.  I walked discreetly toward the house mumbling that I would be right back.  The guy across the street drove up.  Wait.  Didn't I have a spare in my wallet?  I felt in there for them.  It was my new wallet.  Had I put it in there?  I hadn't.  No--I remembered.  It was hanging on a nail in the foyer alcove by the payphone on a Tinkerbell keychain my to which my Gramma had attached them.  When I got to the door of he house, the door was locked, of course.  It seemed like the whole neighborhood was watching me as I climbed onto the roof and went in through the window.  The girls said good-bye.

What Man Has Become

3-27-98 F 10:50 AM
Let's get this out of the way.  I'm swamped again.  Today's payday.  I'm paying off bills and trying to transfer my debts to lower interest rates.  The best deal expired back in December, but I sent it in anyway.  Maybe they'll still give it to me.  I mean, hey, the milk in the fridge expired a week ago, but I still put it on my cereal.  I sent in my federal tax return.  I sent it to the office with Dijonia and Jovannah to put in the mail.  I need an envelope for my insurance payment.  I have to talk to Mac about this golf tournament.  I've got to go to LACAS at lunch to get my attendance and check on the dictionaries.  After school I've got to go to a class from four to seven at the UTLA office on Wilshire.  Then I'm supposed to go to the Dodger/Angel game in Anaheim with the GIP.  After that I'm supposed to meet some people from work at the Conga Room.  Tomorrow I've got class from eight to four, and I'm also supposed to meet Julia at noon.  The kids are about to take their math test.  My nose is running like a Kenyan today.  What else?  I'm hungry.  Twenty-five minutes until lunch.  After lunch we'll correct the homework and take our vocabulary test.  I need some cold medicine.  It's supposed to rain tonight.  Maybe the game won't be played.  I've got to work on Jim and read and paint.  Shirelle slept over last night.  She put it where the sun don't shine.  She made some oven-roasted BBQ chicken wings.  They were a little heavy on the cayenne.  It cost me twenty bucks.  I have to blow my nose like every forty-five seconds.  What else?  My mom called yesterday.  I haven't had Taco Bell for a while, known affectionately as Taco Hell.  I'm forgoing the newspaper today.  What else?  I have to see what Washington is doing about the class tomorrow.  I'll have to check my e-mail when I get home.  I wonder how Seedyo is doing?  I paid off another grand on my First USA card.  Now I only owe two grand more.  Woo-woo.  I'm going to transfer that GM fucker and have it paid off by this time next year.  Three more lines.  Life's not supposed to be like this.  Man has become a perversion of his true nature.

The Orgasm Score

3-26-98 Th 8:07 AM
The storm has moved on.  The air is stable, cool and blue.  I slept at Shrill's last night.  We had some forty-five minutes of good porno sex during Jurassic Park.  I was sort of lobbying for a hand job when we woke up.  She said, "What do I get out of it?  That wouldn't be fair.  You got an orgasm last night, and I didn't.  Now you'll have two, and I won't have any."      
"I can't help it if the only way you can cum is for someone to suck your clit for a half hour.  What's not fair is the amount of time and effort I have to put into your orgasm compared to mine." 
  I got up and started to get dressed.  She buried her face in her pillow.
 "I won't be made to feel bad about this," I said. 
"About what?" she said.
"About the orgasm score."

_____

12:25 PM
Shirelle stopped by at lunch.  Said she had something to ask me.  The kids were lining up.  "What is it?" I asked.
She said, "Wait.  I'll ask you in a few minutes."  I dropped off the kids and we went walking toward the frame shop.  We passed Kendoll Ray on the way.  "Is this your friend?" Kendoll asked.
"Yup," I said,  "This is Shirelle Buthole."  I almost said, "She's the one."
We walked on.  Shirelle had 'tude, folded arms, pursed lips.  "What did you want to ask?" I asked.
"Forget it," she said.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"Why do you seem mad?  What am I not doing?"
"I'm going home," she said.
She turned and walked the other way.
"You're nuts," I called after her.
When she was about a hundred feet away, she yelled back at me, "Thanks for introducing me as just your friend!"
"I didn't say that.  Kendoll did."
"Well you didn't correct her."
"What was I supposed to say?  This is my fuck buddy who doesn't come unless you suck on her clit for a half hour?" I yelled back down the street.
She flipped me off and walked on. 
I kept going to the frame store..  I waited there while some desperately hip bitch fucked around for thirty minutes trying to find the right color mat for her "Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman Poster."  I looked through an--Aaron Ashely, was it?--catalog of prints.  They were all great.  Finally the desperately hip bitch left and the proprietress, a Heather Hang, sold me the print I wanted of the sweltering sun over a beer drinker for ninety-five dollars.  Once I had it, I didn't want it that much anymore.  I'm like that with everything. 
This is all I've done today.  I haven't typed anything.  I haven't read.  A woodwind quartet of flute, clarinet, French horn, and bassoon was playing  Brahms, Mozart, Strauss, Handel, Sousa and Rossinis in the auditorium when I got back to school

3-25-98 W 7:50 AM
It's raining today.  I walked to school under a blue umbrella.  I cant decide whether or not to run out for a newspaper before class starts.  Hopefully I can hold out until after school to eat at home, pasta or veggie burger or bagel or PB&J.  Then I hope I can type for an hour before I have to go teach night school.  We need Kleenex in this classroom.  All seven kids here right now are at the computer.  I ate cereal this morning.  What else?  Karros is expected to be out about six weeks.  What should I do about my taxes?  I should talk to Modchill.  Vetina gave me a four-ounce carton of apple juice.  Then I sent her out into the rain to the cafeteria to eat her sweet bread because we have a zero tolerance rule for eating anywhere else.  12:25 PM Ate ravioli and chicken nuggets from the school cafeteria.  I whipped through the crossword while Zannat and I talked basketball.  Then hot black Kelly came and we talked clubs.  I asked Gabi if she was going to the Conga Room Friday.  She said no.  I didn't get up to the frame place because we have a shortened lunch on rainy days.  Still wonder what to do about my taxes.  I'll do that federal from when I'm done writing here.  I read a few more pages of Herzog.  A doctor's examination.  A general post-divorce melancholia.  An affair with a good fuck named Ramona.  Is this great literature?  I subscribed to a magazine called Granta.  I hope to submit something to them someday.  What else?  I haven't been breathing to good lately.  Ugh.  The kids are doing silent reading.  I haven't typed yet today.  It took me almost an hour to get out of bed this morning.  Alcides pushed Vetina to the ground and she scraped her elbow.  I sent them to the office.  The class made collages form newspaper and magazine pictures.  They have a math test on Friday.  What else?  Sometimes I think of stealing the sweating sun from above the beer-drinking European, a sort of neo-Prometheus.  What else?  Maybe I'll do some water colors after I figure out that federal form.  The music teacher should be here soon.  What else?  The Insanity Pepper came by the house last night, bummed about an old love. [an ink drawing of Chuck Jones' Tasmanian Devil]