10-6-94 Tu 8:53 AM
Roscoe's.  Skipped school today.  Didn't write yesterday.  All in the name of Jeopardy.  God, I hope I win.  Do I have any right asking for God's help on this?  I have to finish studying Egypt today.  Then Shakespeare characters.  Then capitals.  My food came, and I ate it in about five minutes.  I've got to go home and take my vitamin.  I have to do my laundry and trim my sideburns.  I might have to walk to a barber--I don't know yet.  Should I go to the staff meeting at school?  We'll wait and see on that.  I was playing NTN when some lady emailed me with a bunch of crap about fantasy being better than reality.  Whatever.  Shirelle called this morning, said she had a sex dream with me.  I don't remember any dreams.  I woke up with the alarm at six.  I read the paper.  Did most of the crossword.  Didn't feel like doing the jumble.  A woman in the booth next to me talks like she's a big actress, dropping names, but I think she's just hustling the dude sitting with her.  Tonight's the last night to watch Jeopardy before going on the show.  [a pencil sketch of Andrew Jackson from the portrait on the twenty-dollar bill]  What else?  I'm nearly done with The Sportswriter.  I have about twenty more pages to go.  I'm not liking it that much, but I'll force myself to finish it and read Independence Day, the sequel, next, since Ford won the Pulitzer for that.  Eugene O'neill won four Pulitzer's for "Anna Christie," "Strange Interlude," "Beyond the Horizon," and "Long Day's Journey into Night."   He also wrote "The Iceman Cometh" and "Morning Becomes Electra" and "Desire Under the Elms."  Tom Stoppard wrote "Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead."  Thornton Wilder wrote "Our Town" and "The Skin of Our Teeth."  Tophet was a Hebrew word for Hell.  Beckett wrote "Waiting for Godot," of course.  Bullfinch designed the capitol building.  Mills did the Washington Monument.  Jenny is credited with the first skyscraper, in Chicago.  Latrobe is considered the first American architect.  Bernini did important 1500's Italian shit.  Michelangelo's first name is Buonarotti.   Saarinen was Finnish.  Pei did the Louvre pyramid.  Far From the Madding Crowd is Hardy.  Thomas Wolfe wrote Look Homeward Angel.  Toni Morrison has a pseudonym.  Charlotte did Jane;  Emily did Heights.  Tom Wolfe has a pseudonym, too.  What else?  Start walking back now.  Start walking back now.  Shower and study.  I'll read some more Ford on the way. 

Dreams and Other Things

10-4-98 Su 10:20 PM
Jeremiah was in Egypt, warning the Moabites and the people who had left Judah of the Lord's wrath.  I'm sitting on the floor writing on the coffee table in front of a TV National Geographic show about the Amazon.  I've been studying all day, but I haven't been learning much. I feel a little fried.  I was asleep in bed.  Weird dreams:  We were camping in a desert full of rattlesnakes.  The ground was swarming with them.  You didn't know if you could get back to the car without getting bitten.  I don't remember if I did get bitten.  I think as soon as I did, the dream ended.
After that I dreamt that my adult ed classroom was haunted.  A pencil floated to the sharpener and sharpened itself.  The room grew cold, the lights were switching off.  I called the teacher next door to see.  She agreed it was strange.  I couldn't teach in that room.  The students seemed to agree.  So we went home early.  I was sitting outside in a rocking chair by a road wondering if I would get in trouble for leaving work early when the doorbell rang.  It rang again.  I went downstairs and opened the door.  It was Shirelle, of course.  I brought the paper up with us.  We lay in bed together while I read the sports page.  Then I took a shower.  Shirelle is on her period.  She didn't want to take a shower because there weren't any tampons under the sink like she thought.  I washed my hair.  She offered me a blowjob.  I turned off the water.  "Why you turn off the water?" she asked.
"Okay."  I turned it back on.
She bent at the waist and dropped her head in the shower and sucked my dick.  After I'd come, I dried off and dressed and we went to the market, and I got eggs and sausage and biscuits and juice and champagne for mimosas and toothpaste.  I cooked and we ate and I cleaned.  When I was done I took my paper to the couch and read it.  I wondered if Charles Schulz still really draws Peanuts.  Lot more gloom-and-doom economic forecasts.  Roddy McDowell died.  The Braves swept the Cubs.  The Indians finished off the Sox.  The curse of the Bambino is alive and well.  Played s'more NTN. Don't remember any of it.  Finished chapter six of the New York Public Library Desk Reference : "Inventions and Scientific Discoveries."  I can't recall any of it.  Uranus wasn't discovered until the 1780's.  I forget who. Pluto not til the 1930's.  I forget who.  My dad and stepmother called today.  Wanted to advise me on "Jeopardy" appearance.  I need to win.

10-3-98 Sa 12:23 PM
Is "the pursuit of happiness" really in the Declaration of Independence?  Can that be a foundation for a nation?
I asked Thing if he was still thinking of moving in November.  "I don't know.  It's almost the end of the year."  I wasn't sure what that meant.  It sounds like "Not really." 
I said, "Shirelle's pushing.  I don't know how much longer I can hold her off." 
"So you think you're really gonna take the plunge with Shirelle?" he asks.
"I don't know what's the alternative?"
"Will you be happy?"
I shrugged.  I wondered what's that got to do with Shirelle.  I said, "Counting on other people to make you happy is the best way I know to make yourself unhappy.  Happiness is a random occurrence."
His whole face blinked.

"No, I didn't know Steve McQueen was on the Manson family hit list."

I called Shirelle to see if she might want to give me a ride to the batting cages or the driving range.  She was talking more like dinner and a movie.  We reached an impasse.  A subtle impasse.  No one said anything for a while.  A plane buzzed overhead.  "Whose move is it?" I asked.
"Well, I said 'How about dinner?' and you said, 'No,' and I said, 'What about a movie?' and you said, 'No,'" she said.
"Well, I thought I was talking about getting some exercise."

I clipped the nails on one hand but not the other. 

Steve got into biplanes.  His father was a pilot, so he wanted to be a pilot.  "I gotta find a place for me to go for my personal salvation.  I went and sat by his bedside and it was a pitiful sight to see.  There was a loaded .45 on the nightstand.  He said, "Don't worry, even though my body is dying, my spirit is gone." 

The Cubs and the Braves are coming on soon.       "Deep down inside, I think he was a good man."     Or is it the Sox and the Indians?      She just called again.  It is the Sox.  I think I'll go put on my "End the Curse" shirt.  Saberhagen vs. Nagy.  Guess I'll drink a beer, too.  Maybe I should get on the treadmill first.      "What's up, Mo?  What're you gonna do in the off-season?"
"Mo said, 'I ain't thinking about no off-season.'"

Th 10-1-98 8:20 PM
Class just ended.  I'm waiting for commercial actress and moonlighting ESL adult ed sub, Adrienne, to finish with her class so I can catch a ride home with her. I saw her in a Honda ad on the History Channel the other night.  I had the tv on with no volume in the back of the class so I could keep tabs on the ballgame.  The Cubs lost a fucking heartbreaker to the fucking Braves.  Shirelle's supposed to be coming over with a couple steaks tonight.  I'll watch my "Jeopardy!" tape and study a couple hours.  I typed for fifteen minutes and played NTN for about an hour. At school I spent the day grading papers and teaching, so I didn't get to study at all or read the paper.  I finished a chapter of The Sportswriter while I walked Pico here.  I read about Madrid, where Phillip II founded the royal palace in the 1500's.  Tomorrow a bunch of my colleagues are going to Acapulco on Sunset for happy hour. Every day for a week someone has reminded me of it.
F 10-2-98 12:57 PM
What?  Let's see.  I ate a few baked corn chips for lunch. I'm not hungry, miracle.  Like what the  Cubs need. I don't know about going out after work today.  I should stay home, watch ballgames, study, write.  I don't have a ride anyway.  While I was walking to work yesterday with my nose buried in my a book, I passed a down-and-outer who said to me, "Hey Reverend, can you spare some change for a cup of coffee?"
It's silent reading, but nobody's reading.  My threats fall on deaf third-grade ears.  What else?  I got coffee jitters.  I can barely write.  We'll go play some basketball in a few minutes. We still have the social studies to correct, though.  God, I hope I win on Jeopardy. Here's the jinx:  I think I should.  I think I deserve it.  AAUGK!  HELP!    ok ok chill.  Just chill.  It will all be over in a few more days. Daryl Strawberry has a malignant tumor in his colon.  [black ink drawing of Shirelle]  Shirelle had a dream that her mom died.  She was freaking in her sleep.  I woke her, and she cried for about an hour.  It took me a couple of hours to get back to sleep.  I should have called her at lunch.  1:17 pm   Had a nice sweaty little game of basketball.  It's just about time to call it a week. If I go to happy hour, Shirelle will be pissed. What else?  I'm hungry now.  The Sox and Injuns are on right now. I have an apple I can eat.  Hyna and Coleco have stayed behind because they want to write on the chalkboard. [black ink drawing of Wily Coyote]  What else?  Should I go for a margarita?  Probably not. I'll see what happens at sign out.  I tried to bum a ride off Boston Laura Mulroney, but just like a Bostonian, she was cold about it. What else?  My new United States Senate backpack is falling apart already.  I lug too many books around.  I took a crap at congress.  Ha ha