8-2-98 Su 11:30 PM
The HBO movie "Poodle Springs" just ended.  Good old Phillip Marlowe.  Caan does a better job than Mitchum, but not Bogie.  Shirelle's asleep in my bed.  I moved the tv to the opposite side of the room.  The window doesn't reflect off the screen now, and when I sit on the chair or lie on the couch now there's a light behind me to read by.  And I can reach the stereo from the couch.  But Thing says it's bad feng shui, and I must admit it LOOKS wrong.  And now we have one of life's fundamental dilemmas:  Looks or practicality?  Looks are only important on the surface, in the most shallow way.  Why overturn concrete advantages for aesthetic concerns?  It's like with Shirelle and the deal-breaking importance of wood floors.  It doesn't matter to her that this place has excellent proximity to my two jobs, nor that my friend's dad gives us a break on rent, all she cares about is wood floors.  "I Love You Alice B. Toklas" is on tv.  I think that's what this is, judging by the song in the background, and the girl in late 60s early 70s costume making hash brownies.  I just saw Peter Sellers drive away in a Furthur-type van.  So what else?  I'm sure I won't work on Jim tonight.  I have to all day tomorrow.  I hope Sheryl turned in my attendance for me.  What else?  I haven't smoked today.  I had a few mimosas with my stepfather.  I wrote a letter to my stepmother and my dad.  Still have to write to Kay and Julia and Shaun.  I haven't read any Maughm today.  What if I lose my night school job?  Someone's still jamming a voodoo pin in my shoulder.  Tomorrow, I'm going to make some breakfast for Shirelle, and then we're going to movies.  I think I'll take her to the batting cages with me one day soon.  Maybe we can miniature golf.  I have to ready myself for Pennsylvania soon.  Chuck said the lake is stocked with bass.  I immediately felt a surge of pride for the superiority of California trout.  What else?  I hope I can crank out some Jim.  I've got to plot the next five pages.  What do they talk about at breakfast?  How does she look when she opens the door?  What else?  Can I hit Philly, Shea, and Fenway?  How 'bout Three Rivers?  I should go buy that Pittsburgh book.  Well, I guess I'll read some Maughm now.

I Heard About That a Lot Afterward

7-31?-98 Fri. 6:30 PM
I'm at Magic Mountain.  Shirelle's idea.  I figured I better come or she'd give me a bunch of grief because I haven't done anything fun with her for two whole days.  She wants me to write about the Superman ride.  It's a steel tower that they shoot little cars up at about a hundred miles an hour.  It goes from 0 to 100 in about three seconds.  Must pull about 3 Gs.  There's a few seconds of weightlessness at the top.  I watched my sunglasses go floating out of my breast pocket.  I made a grab for them, but we fell away before I could get them, refuting known physical laws proven by Galileo at Pisa 400 years ago.  Now we're out in a little grass park in the parking lot having a picnic.  Shirelle wants to go back in.  I would prefer to see greedy-boy Piazza's first game against the Dodgers. 
Modchill called yesterday.  Said he was going to Redondo Beach.  I don't know what got into me.  I called in sick to work.  Now my attendance will be late, unless Cheryl turned it in.  Anyway, Modchill showed up with his girlfriend, Sarai, and his cousins, Jay and Joel.  We drank and smoked and I got ready with some guilt.  At first we piled into the convertible.  I said, "I just put some transaxle fluid in this baby.  She doesn't seem to hitch as much now." 
So then we got into Tim's car.  They said I had to ride in front because I was the biggest.  Maybe Sarai was afraid to sit by me.  We went to Chillers.  I was feeling a bit lugubrious.  I was guilty and out-of-sorts about not going to work, and I kept thinking about "Saving Private Ryan."  I only had seven dollars and I didn't want to use my credit card.  I was feeling like dead weight, though, so I put a pitcher on the card.  We played pool and foosball.  Then we walked over to the marina.  We watched the fishermen debark.  A couple had burlap bags heavy with fish.  We went to Naja's and had thirty-two-ounce beers and looked in the water at barnacles and minnows.  I started feeling better.  I got some cash at an ATM.  Then we went to the original El Torito.  We ate buffalo shrimp and watched "Jeopardy!" on the bar tv.  Everyone was impressed with my answers.  Then we walked over to Tony's.  We drank around the fire pit before going up to the upstairs bar which has windows all around and looks like a flight tower.  It was one of those nights where the sea looked like one of those jars in which you put dyed water and rubbing alcohol.  A catwalk runs around the tower.  I walked out on it and pissed past the windows where the people below were dining, into the ocean. 
There's a guy here using his sneaker for a pillow. I kept calling out "Espectaculo Publico," with great emphasis on the 'culo.'

She Seemed to Get It All in the Glass

7-29-98 10:30 PM  W
I'm at the Sonora Café on La Brea.  Upscale.  A flock of hot rich women are sitting on the patio, dude-less.  The bartendress has crossed eyes.  I ordered a bourbon and she seemed to get it all in the glass.  It'll probably cost me about six bucks.  My hands are marked black from putting transmission fluid in the Chrysler at the gas station just now.  I was lucky they had a long-stemmed funnel; the reservoir is buried pretty deep in that thing.  I stopped at the market.  I bought a lot to drink:  Beer, chardonnay, merlot, cabernet, gin (Gordon's--with a picture of Humphrey Bogart in "The African Queen" on the label), milk, juice, tea, Gatorade, and coffee, plus bananas, broccoli, carrots, and a plant to pump some oxygen into our place.
Two drunk queers just sat at the bar.  Seems like they've only tonight realized they're queer.  One of them calls the other Wolfman.  Now wait a minute--they've spotted the bitches on the patio, and now they're giggling.  They're trying to count them.  "There's nine--no, ten."
"There are eleven," I said.
"They keep changing shapes."
"They do that."

I humped Shirelle a good long time last night.  My astrological forecast said I would.  This morning I got up at nine and ate a bagel.  I typed for fifteen minutes, and then I walked up to the Chinese to see "Saving Private Ryan" with Shirelle.  It has soul-shattering battle scenes.  I almost resented the realism.  But I am all too jaded now, I guess.  I didn't feel as shot up as I did when I saw "Platoon" when I was eighteen.  After the movie, Shirelle dropped me off because my brother was supposed to be coming over because he wants me to write him a response to the County Office of Education's inquiry into his arrest at Lake Havasu on charges off assault before they'll hire him.  But he called at a quarter to three and asked to reschedule for tomorrow.  I was tired.  I just read the paper.  I was only able to do about 3/4 of the Xword.  I read reviews of the movie in the papers.  Two of them I agreed with, but Peter Rainier found no fault with its already-been-done characters.  I'm too harsh, though.  It's a well done movie.  I'm not sure what's wrong with it, except that it seemed so competently directed, so flawlessly edited, so neatly presented, it was unbelievable.  Still the tension is palpable when the Nazi slowly pushes his knife into the heart of the Jewish G.I. while the writer cowers on the stairs; I clutched the arm of my chair and tensed my toes and jaw and wished I could jump into the screen to help the G.I. 
I've got to go home and type in the third person.  When am I ever going to find the time to devote to Jim and Aaron and Tink and Vegas?  Shirelle's probably wondering where I am.  She'll be expecting me tonight.  My groceries are still in the trunk. 
I finished Dreams of Bunker Hill last night.  or is  it from?  Either way it was poor old dear sweetly-confused Arturo Fante John Bandini, simple and effective.  His natural sexuality does him in again. 
I ate a quesadilla while I read the news this afternoon.  I've only had that and the bagel today.  Maybe I'll have some pasta or a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich when I get home.  I have to use that bacon real soon.

That Letter Actually Worked

7-28-98 Tu 5:20 PM
I'm at "What's Brewing?" featuring "LA's Best Coffee."  I got an ice-blended vanilla with a shot of espresso.  I'm hoping it will wake me up.  A man in a suit just came in and bought an ice cream cone.  I hope it makes him feel better.  I have to leave to teach my night school class pretty soon.  Ho-hum.  I wish I had time to walk.  I have to be at the house at two tomorrow to type up and hand over to my brother a letter to try to deflate the police report the County Office of Education has of his arrest in Lake Havasu for pissing on a girl in a bar and then slugging her with a punch intended for her boyfriend.  He's hoping they will hire him.  Maybe I'll go to the Seven Eleven across the street and buy a pack of baseball cards.  I'd still like to get up to Aaron's Records for some Mahler and some Thelonious Monk. 

Devil's Postpile conclusion

7-27-98 M 1:10 PM
So I hiked the steep mile out of the canyon with the cold rain coming down and rocks filling my boots, then another two miles back to camp.  When I approached our site, I noticed one of the tents, the "clothes tent" was ripped to shreds.  For a second I thought Shirelle had done it to get at me. 
"A bear came," she said, in a scared, hateful voice.
 "Are the clothes okay?"
She didn't laugh.
There wasn't any food in the tent.  "Maybe he was looking for a summer tank top," I tried again, but she still didn't say anything else.
"Okay.  Let's go home," I said.
We broke camp and headed home.  We had a nasty, over-priced road lunch at some nasty ranch place in Olancha with dozens of dead flies on the window sill and dozens of their comrades buzzing about. The place was Old-West style with a wooden porch and stuffed Sierra animal trophies rotting on the walls.  I ordered fried chicken, but I think what came out was more a relative of the canary family. We came home over Walker Pass.  Never been that way before.  Nowhere else like it on Earth that I've been to.  Desert Joshua yuccas growing right up against the high Sierra back country, the road kind of a Baja Jr., with guide rails, but good and twisty with narrow shoulders. We farted around with the idea of camping at Lake Isabella, but I didn't really want to find out what another night of camping with Shirelle held.  The Kern River looked as formidable as I've heard, rocks and white water; along it was no guardrail and no shoulder.
A sign out of he canyon pointed to Los Angeles.  I checked the map.  It was the 184, a thin line that cut down to the freeway.  We went that way. It cut through Indiana, Texas, and much of Mexico.  After about 35 miles we came to a four-way stop in the middle of nowhere.  I saw a bent sign that said LOS ANGELES.  I went on that way. Shirelle said, "Didn't that sign say 'road closed?'"
I didn't see it.  We continued on and came many minutes later to a road block of orange and white-striped sawhorses.  I guess she can read a little.  I threaded my way around them.  Fields all around us reeked of manure and the smell of the whole valley, I guess.  We came upon another ROAD CLOSED sign.  Beyond it the road was torn to dirt.  I drove around the sign. It looked like they were doing some digging, an irrigation ditch or something.  We'd seen a car towing a boat--a boat!--coming the other way earlier; he could only have come through here, right?  We drove around the sign into the loose dirt and around a bulldozer.  We saw nothing but the flat fallow fields for a half hour.  The 99.  Oh, my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling 99. You were lost and gone forever.  Oh, my darling 99.