8-11-98 5:05 PM Tu
I'm drinking coffee at the Atlas Bar and Grill which adjoins the Wiltern Theater here on Wilton and Western.  I agonized all day whether or not to move up my flight and do that baseball tour.  I'm having a hard time justifying it and an equally hard time deciding against it.  I can't afford it.  But I can pull it off.  What should I do?  I need a sign.           Ugh.  What a day.     I don't want to get into it.  I think I can do some serious writing tonight.  Aaron's car stereo, the rollerblades.  The stereo was stolen while Jim was borrowing Aaron's car because his had broken down.       I slept on the couch again today.     I read a short story called "Concerning Mold on the Skin, Etc."  Something like that.  It was about a 1650's guy who forsook his family to study things under a microscope he had invented.  In the end, he looked into his daughter's tear.  I thought it was an analogy for writing.  Guy locks himself in a room and uses his family's pain for his life's work.  There's more, but I'm so down and lazy today.  Last night a read an essay about a woman with a fucked up face.  She'd had bone cancer in her jaw.  It was about society's reactions to her and the resulting ways that affected her identity.  I read a Ring Lardner story, too, "Who's Deal?"  Ignorant, overly-talkative bitch wife at a bridge game.  It's all in her out-loud voice.  I read another Lardner story about a guy who sold bad poetry, not knowing it was bad, not knowing publishers wanted it because it was so bad.  I started writing a story about a recently-divorced construction worker who likes hard-boiled eggs.  I stopped working on it when Shirelle came over.  This place is funny.  It's kind of industrial post-modern meets Brazilian carnival.  What else?  I hope when I wake up tomorrow that I'll know what to do.  I had a Taco Bell burrito this morning and I at three PB&Js just before coming here.  My night school class starts in fifteen minutes.  What else?  Shirelle left a bunch of deranged messages on my machine.  Then she called and hung up all afternoon.  I can expect that all night, I'm sure.  It just now occurs to me that I didn't feed the meter where I parked before I came here.  Fuck.  Hope I get a break.  What else?  I've got to get going.  I wonder if they have happy hour prices here.  What else?  Ugh.  I have to go teach.  I'm sick of it.  I should go for it back-East.

An Edotr's an Editor, I thought

8-9-98 10:17 PM Su
I'm at Home.  I want to the Dodger game with Rawler and his brothers.  My head hurts a little from beer and yelling.  It felt like Miami, it was so humid, thanks to tropical depression Frank.  Shirelle's on her way over.  Here she is now. 
8-10-98 3:45 Su PM
I'm in my kitchen.  I'm heating broccoli in a pot on the stove.  I'll leave for class in about an hour. 
Ugh.  I went up to Dublin's to meet this guy "Smitty" who has a screenplay.  I added some to Jim this morning, so that was good. 
I had a shot of black Bushmill's in my coffee, then I had the house vodka in my orange juice, and then again in a bloody mary.  This Smitty showed up, six broken ribs he said he had.  I doubted every word.  When I met him the first time, he had said he was an editor.  Later I learned, if he was telling the truth, that he was an editor for Hustler.  An editor's an editor, I thought.  He might have some constructive criticism for JK, which isn't without its sexual content.  I gave him a copy with my address and telephone number.  Then I had a smoke.  Maybe it was the smoke, but I began to see the guy as a fucked-up sleaze-ball, and I regretted having given him my work and contact info.  He proceeded to tell me he had lost his job and he was telling me about how he kept getting beat up.  His screenplay seemed decent, but yikes.  He asked about the CBEST and teaching.  I asked if he had any arrests.  He said or insinuated or joked about a molestation charge.  I called him an idiot and told him I had to go.  Ugh.  I was depressed all afternoon.  I was so depressed I got fast food for the first time in two months.  That made me even more disgusted and depressed.  I wasn't that hungry, but I didn't know what else to do.  I told myself to save my money for back-East.  But I was just sitting in the car waiting to go to work, reading thirty-five-year-old Jim Murray columns, and the next thing I knew I had started the car and was going to Jack in the Box.  Ugh.

8-8-98 Sa 4:53 PM
Shirelle's in the shower.  She wants me to go with her to see her best friend's, Demona's, boyfriend's band play somewhere on Pico, have a few drinks with them after, then go to a party in Hollywood Hills.  Naturally, I don't feel like going. 
1
We went.  It was lame beyond description.  The band never went on.  We just hung out in a nasty junkyard.  Now we're back at the house.  "The Godfather III" is on.  The situation is hopeless.  My spirit fled when I didn't write so that I could preserve Shirelle's idea of our social standing in her world. 12:08 AM  I just finished off that Maughm book--what a pompous, conceited, arrogant fuck that guy was.  I'll never read another word of his.  Okay, maybe I'll read Of Human Bondage one day.  What next?  I'll read some shorts and some poems.  Maybe Eliot's Wasteland.  I'm in my room.  Shirelle's in the living room watching "Sex in the City".  I was thinking tonight for the first time how hopeless it is with her.  I feel like I'm on Death Row tonight, a man resigned to his fate, like a grunt on the front of an amphibious landing craft on it's way to Omaha Beach on D-Day.  The die is cast, my downfall is written.
Rawler called to invite me to tomorrow's Dodger game with his brothers.  I should not have accepted, but I did.  Tomorrow is my youngest sib, Mardi's birthday.  Maybe I'll try to get down there early.  Rosalia's having a party in Downey tomorrow.  I may have to skip that.  Shirelle's got a BBQ lined up for her best friend, Demona's boyfriend's birthday.  Luckily, I'm excused.  I've got to get that plane ticket from my mom and decide whether or not to change it.  I wonder if I can golf tomorrow.  Probably not.  I won't get to read or write much tomorrow either.  Maybe I better start Jeremiah tonight.  I suspected Shirelle was up to no good, so I went out to check under the guise of going to the fridge.  She was smoking a cigarette in the house which she always says she never does.  I said, "I thought you said you don't smoke in the house?"
Get this: Her answer was, "I'm cleaning the living room."

Capuccino Tunisia Hiss Nowadays

F 8-7-98 3:15 PM
Slim pickin's in the backpack:  either a dull pencil or this felt pen.  I've been on the horn trying to hammer out details for the trip Back East.  I could conceivably hit Fenway, Shea, the Bronx, Veteran's, and Camden Yards, with excursions to Cape Cod and DC.  But the whole trip could get pricey.  Car and gas will be $500.  Lodging for a week another $500.  Eats-- maybe I can get by on $15 a day = $150.  Ballpark tickets to five games, let's say another $150.  Airfare $375.  Once I get to Hawley, I can live cheaply.  I can take $500 from savings,  5 from checking, and charge the rest.  Think I'll go for it.  Ugh!
I'm at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf on Larchmont.  Sounds like Bird's alto.  "Night in Tunisia" mixed in with blenders and cappuccino hiss.  I'm going to meet Ferrance McKey at Pico for a game of chess.  From five 'til seven I'll drink and type.  Then I'll watch "Jeopardy".  Then I'll type some more or go out for a drink.  This little place is crowded with all walks of life.  I don't feel like elaborating.  What else?  There's too much ice in my coffee.  I'm all I I and me me.  That's what the guy said about John Zorn the musician when I dropped off my camera for repair.  An old guy sat next to me.  He was sitting over there before.  He said the kids drove him off.  I said I could see how that could have happened.  He's reading a book about the Chunnel.  Another old guy with tattoos all up his arms sidled over.  He must have been a sailor.  He saw me writing.  "Dear John," he said.  "Dear John?!" said I.  "You mean 'Dear Jane'," said the Chunnel guy.  "Well, you don't know no more nowadays," said the tattoos.  "I'm straight," I declared.  We all decided we better shut up.  He's gone now.  I wonder if he was in WWII. 

Thinking Like That is Probably Normal

5:50 PM W 8-5-98
A loose screw in this table causes delicate weight shifts as I write which elicit sounds of a novice musician playing an out-of-tune violin.
 I've just walked to night school after a day of lying around half-awake from, I believe, the side effects of sinus medicine I swallowed after breakfast while I was reading the paper. 
Shirelle brought me home around four o'clock.  I turned on the computer and started typing for fifteen minutes, but halfway through, I had to go to the toilet.  I brought the phone with me so I could talk to the credit card company about my interest rate, which is supposed to be 4.9% but which is listed on my statement as 13.99%,  I waited on hold a long while.  I wanted to check the "finance charges" at different rates with the calculator on the computer, and when I closed the file I had been typing in, I forgot to save what I had written.  The calculator didn't have the functions I needed, or if it did, I wasn't smart enough to figure it out.  I watered the plants and walked to class.  Whenever I passed an old enough girl, I wondered how their pussies were.  Had they been fucked recently?  Ever?  Were they fulfilled?  I imagined asking the question aloud.  "Hi.  How are you?  Are your pussies okay?  Are you fulfilled?"  I thought these things even as I was reading the Maughm book as I walked.  He went from Cyprus to Spain.  One of the ladies whose pussy I was wondering about walked into a botanica, a black woman, from the Indies maybe.  Was she going in for a love potion?
6:31 PM Th 8-6-98
McKee's expecting me for a chess game tomorrow afternoon.  I napped this afternoon away again today.  I should make an appointment for a checkup before I leave for Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania:  I was looking at a National Geographic map titled Megalopolis showing the east coast from Boston to D.C.. It made me want to fly out earlier so I could visit all those cities and still spend time with my aunt and uncle and cousins.       I took my camera to Samy's to see about repairing it.  They said it would be two weeks before they could even give an estimate.  I don't think that will be enough time.  Maybe I will have to buy a new camera. 
What else?  I had to take a crap at Shirelle's this morning, but Christina was in the shower.  I was afraid I couldn't hold it, so I got in the car and drove to the Formosa with my asshole fighting to stay clamped shut.  When I was done, I stayed and had a beer and worked on the crossword.  The Times had reviews of two new sushi joints.  Miyagi is owned by the same guy that owns Dublins.  It's down Sunset a little way from Shrill's.  Maybe we'll go there tonight.  The Hump is at Santa Monica airport, named after WWII pilots' name for Everest when they flew supplies into China, so says the Times. 
1:10 AM 8-7-98 F
I'm at Shirelle's now.

A Clit is a Terrible Thing to Waste

8-4-98 Tu 7:45 PM
I walked to the Beverly Connection from Keniston today.  I saw Kendall and Roberto moving a lot of junk from their place.  We talked a short while.  I told them about the bear at Devil's Postpile.  I said "Private Ryan" was an ass-kicker.  I stopped at the Daily News Bar and Grill.  I had an iced tea and fish and chips and read the paper.  It cost me fifteen bucks.  I should have just waited until I got home and then I could have just eaten leftover turkey.  I met Shirelle at the movies.  We saw "There's Something About Mary".  Parts of it were funny.  Ben Stiller has a lot of likeability.  You fall in love with Cameron Diaz.  After he movie we went back toward my place.  I did the crossword in the car while Shirelle drove.  She wanted to show me a house for sale on Fairfax.  It's a nice house, but Fairfax is such a busy street, and the house is only a few yards from all that noise and exhaust.  Shirelle had been making some noises of her own about wanting her pussy sucked that morning, but I wanted a bowl of cereal, so she left.  When we got home I undressed her and started to lick her clit.  It didn't smell none to fresh down there, but I tried to be a trooper about it.  She pulled away.  "What's wrong?" I asked.  She said, "You don't seem like you want to do it."  I tried to go down again, but she clamped both hands over her pussy.  I got up.  I gave up.  "Where are you going?" she asked.  "To get a drink," I said.  "What about me?" she asked.  "What about you?  I don't understand you.  You're not making any sense to me."  "Well, it didn't seem like you wanted to do it."  "What do you mean?  I tried twice.  It didn't seem like YOU wanted it."  "Well, you don't make a girl feel very confident about herself.  I thought maybe it smelled bad down there."  "Whatever."  I turned on my computer.  She got all pissed and left.  I started playing chess.  She called.  We went round and round the mulberry bush again.  I don't know what the problem was.  Maybe I didn't put my fingers in your pussy fast enough or maybe I wasn't slobbering on your clit with enough gusto." " I was just getting a vibe," she said, "that's all."  "Okay," I said, "so the problem is you got some weird psychic vibe that I didn't know about, and you didn't want your pussy sucked at that time.  It' s not a problem."  I wanted to get back to my game of chess.  "Okay," she said and we said good-bye and hung up.  A little while later, she called again.  More of the same, but this time she added an apology.  "Don't worry about it," I said. "We'll try it again some other time."  "Okay, I love you."  "Uh, I love you, too."  "Okay."  "Okay."  "Bye."  "Bye."

8-3-98 12:15 PM Mon.
I'm in the waiting room at Shirelle's dental office on Wilshire.  She's having a tooth pulled, and she's scared, so I told her I'd go with.  After we get back (if we ever do--we've been here over an hour), I'll shoot hoops for a half hour and then shower, and then I've got to take care of this attendance business for freaking LACAS.  I should have some time to write my third-person page before Nomo takes on the Dodgers for the first time.  Then I gotta work.  Maybe Shirelle will let me work on Jim tonight.  I still have a stabbing pain in my back.  I read Maughm's self-superior pontifications on Russians and Russian writers.   How fortuitous for him to have been there during the revolution.  He remarks on meetings with Kerensky and Salkinov.  What was his access to them?  It's never explained.  What else?  My shoes and socks are damp from washing the car this morning.  I typed for fifteen minutes.  An old guy here in the waiting room chuckled into his Time magazine.  I looked up and he told me that the article he's reading is about a popular kiddie show called "Teletubbies" that employs sheep-sized rabbits that sometimes "bonk" on camera.  Okay.  What else?  When's Shirelle going to get out of there?  These crooked fucking dentists...they always tell you you need procedures you don't really need but will line their pockets.    What else?  I read the entire newspaper, did the crossword and the Jumble since I've been sitting here.  Slow news day.  In fact, nothing is happening.  Both parties urge Clinton to tell the truth.  I don't want to know.  I'm wearing purple socks and green shorts.  Yesterday I cut a fart in front of Shirelle and said, "Excuse me."  She said, "You need to write a written apology for that one."  What else?  What will I have for lunch?  Pasta salad and what else?  Jim tiddy Jim Jim.  What else?  Will Shirelle get any painkillers to bring home?  What else?  WHAT ELSE?  What the fuck else?  There are movies I'd like to see, but not today.  Three more lines.  I haven't had to count lines for a while.  Fuck shit crap.