11-20-98 F 11:45 AM
I'm at the Chinese place by school.  I was cruising today.  I just read the newspaper while my kids read their library books.  Then we wrote essays on sportsmanship while I did the crossword. Now I'm teaching night school, though. I smoked a little before class tonight.  I left for work about fifteen minutes later than usual, but it seemed hours darker.  Lately, I've been gliding to school the mile and along Pico with my nose in a book, but this time I did not read while I walked, and it seemed to take hours.  A toothless, negro bum in a Cubs hat sidled up to me on the corner at Crenshaw, muttering and mumbling, "You a teacher.  They know.  Everybody round here know that..,"  The light turned green.  I left him a penny and kept walking.  When I finally got to class, McKey was in there.  I mentioned Into Thin Air, and he went into a forty-five minute Everest monologue.  I sat down and tuned in and out.  Eventually there came a knock at the door.  I thought I would be letting students in, but I opened the door and there stood a wide-eyed, skinny-ass, white freak in a tie, queer as they come, smiling like a tripper, and babbling rapidly.  Space Invader--he seemed to want to talk directly to my chin, close enough to lick it, and my instinct was to release a right uppercut.  It was Sheryl's sub, but he may also have been one of Dale's and Nicholas' queer spies from admin.  I'd had a tie on that day, but had removed it on Pico, fearing it called attention to a potential mugging, but when the queer spy freak started asking questions about what I was teaching and how, I wished I'd had the tie.  I had the strongest urge to beat him to death. He had to be some kind of Dahmer.  I checked the urge and finally managed to get him in his room with the door closed and me in my room with my door closed.  But I was badly shaken.  My mouth was dry.  I could barely think straight.  My students were on to me.  A few giggled.  Surely my eyes had gone a glassy red.  "Co cai ee nay," I heard one say.  My fingers twitched.  I wrote the vocabulary on the board, choking on chalk dust.  I heard strange shrieks from the room next door.  Occasionally, the door would open a crack, and I could see the freak's wide eye spying in on me.  Eight thirty came mercifully, but it brought no relief.  I escaped the school only to land in similarly dire straits.  Shirelle waited for me in her car, somber, diamonds and babies on her mind, inconsolable.  I took her to Miceli's and paid for a seventy-dollar dinner through which she complained about all the things which make her unhappy.

Going Downtown Might Not Mean What You Think It Means

11-19-98 12:45 PM Th
When I got home from work last night, Shirelle was screaming to Thing to come see the actress from "The Rock" on "Beverly Hills 90210."
"THING!  THING!"
"What?  What?"
"COME HERE!  COME HERE!"
You would have thought they were showing her winning Lotto numbers on the screen.

 I couldn't think of anything better to do, so I suggested that we take a run up to Jerry and Biddie's.  I brought a glass of bourbon with me for the ride.  I stopped at Seven Eleven for cash.  I handed Shirelle eighty dollars so that she would finally get some fucking head shots and some work.  I said, "This money is for head shots and HEAD SHOTS ONLY, and if you use it for anything else, I'll leave you.  This is an investment in OUR future.  You use that money to make more money."
"Okay," she barely said.
A few years ago, I gave her two hundred dollars for head shots.  She used the money for a Gucci purse.  I should have shot her in the head.
Anyway, we left J&B's with some weed and went back to my house.  I gave her a generous portion as a kind of finder's fee. since I'm not comfortable dealing with J&B on my own.  Then I rolled a joint and opened another beer.  Shirelle went to bed.  I sat on the couch and adored the titles on my bookshelf.  Then I went to bed, too.  I thought of what seemed like all these great ideas, but I was too tired to get up to write them.  I tried to remember them on my fingers, but now I don't know what they were.  I was thinking I should meet with Principal Eisenstein to clarify my position on Action Learning.  I was full of purpose lying there in bed.  I awoke at four in the morning to one of Shirelle's sneezing fits.  I never got back to sleep.  I showered and dressed and asked Shirelle if she wanted any eggs.  She didn't.  I fried a couple over medium for myself and ate them with a banana and juice.  Shirelle started pestering me about "going downtown."  She was not talking about me eating her pussy, but going to the Jewelry District.  I told her I thought she was being a little rude.  Whatever.  I'm not ready to go downtown.  Her job is to be cheerful.  That will make me want to do it.  Not nagging.  Whatever.
I walked to school.  Ms. Washington wanted to know why I was wearing sunglasses, what was I hiding?  The fact that it was a bright day didn't seem to occur to her as any kind of reason.  I guess since I haven't shaved, I looked like my eyes would be bloodshot.  She later told me she was going to the doctor because of memory loss.
 I finished Into Thin Air--a great book.  Everything they say--"gripping," "riveting," etc. --is true.  I whipped through its nearly four hundred pages in a few days.  Now I want to climb Mt. Whitney this summer for sure.  Got to call Modchill, and Peachtree.  Walk to LAHS.  Write about that shit that sticks to the bowl above the waterline.  What the hell bacteria is that?  How is it so adhesive?

What it Sounds Like the Dalai Lama Thinks

11-18-98  W 9:01 AM
After [Arabic writing] class last night, one of my students, Juma, who is from Kenya, was showing me how to say and write certain things in Arabic.  My name is [more Arabic].  He had been studying pronouns and he taught me a few in Swahili, like "me me" is "I" and "we we" you.  He works at some plant, plucking and butchering chickens, and brings me one every night even though I tell him not to.  He's sad and sweet and resigned--you can see that moving to America has been a goal realized, a disappointing, exhausting dream dream come true.
Last night I asked Shirelle if she likes the Dalai Lama.  She had just seen him portrayed in a movie with Brad Pitt, so she said, "Yes.  I think he's great."
"Do you want to hear the Dalai Lama's four causes which produce a superior being?" I asked.
"Sure," she said.
I read John Avedon's interview with the lama.  "One: Satisfaction with whatever food you get.  Two:  Satisfaction with rags for clothing--not wishing for fancy or colorful attire.  Three:  Satisfaction with just enough shelter to protect you from the elements,  Four:  An intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating healthy ones in meditation."
She said, "Sounds like the Dalai Lama thinks homeless people are superior beings."
Ha!  She got me.  I had been hoping to triumphantly show her the shallowness of her materialism, but I'm a dick really, anyway.  He does kind of seem to be full of yak shit sometimes or more likely I am--maybe not yak shit, but American shit.  Really though, "Just enough shelter to protect yourself"?  What about that palace in Lhasa where he grew up?
I'm sure that attitude will only bring me bad karma.
The Lama also says, "With a pretty wife and children, you might be happy for some time.  In the long run, though, many problems naturally come about.  Half your independence--your freedom--is lost." (Half?)   If there is some benefit or meaning to experiencing the trouble that arises on giving up your independence then it is worthwhile.  If it is an effective situation which helps people, then it is good.  The trouble becomes worthwhile. But if it isn't, it is not worthwhile."
Yikes!  He ought maybe to be called the Didactic Lama with these childlike "Being There" pronouncements of wisdom--then again, this hits close to home.
Butt is asking me if I want a ride downtown.  This is to go to the Jewelry District.  I don't.  But again, if it's A, I want B; if it's B, I want A.  Fuck me.  But truly, my apprehension dwarfs my enthusiasm.  What do I do?
I forgot my banana.  I don't have any balls either.  What happened to my balls?  The village chief's daughter got up to leave the lounge when I did.  She asked if she could keep the aide we share.  I suppose she doesn't know que yo haria cualquier cosa en el mundo que ella quiere.   Man, are my heart strings in a tangle.    What else?       Like an idiot, I went over to the donut shop for a turkey and cheese croissant.  I saw the Adpated P. E. teacher.  "Ah, health food," she said.  Carl was talking about his humanities class after I met him coming out of the corner market on our way back to school.  His been learning about Gaugin and Van Gogh.

Inner Peace or...?

11-17-98 10:00 AM Tues.
It's recess, but I had to keep a bunch of kids in because they didn't do their homework, which was to write a paragraph about what they are thankful for.  I sort of feel like a dick--who am I to assume they must be thankful for something?  I'm glad I don't have to write one.  I'm hungry, as usual.  I'm not real thankful about that.  I had some Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast, about three hours ago.  Man, I can't find my Into Thin Air book today.  I had it this morning.  I could swear I packed it.  Oh, wait.  Here it is.  I'm glad.  I also have The Dalai Lama A Policy of Kindness:  Writing by and About the Dalai Lama Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  [pencil sketch of the Dalai Lama].  We had an earthquake drill today.  I am on the search-and-rescue team with a bunch of other guys.  We talked about sports while we did our mock search and rescue.  12:30 PM The Dalia Lama seems a little naive, as does the nation of Tibet, but I don't know how you can see China as anything other than tyrannical toward them.  I need a cup of coffee.  I wake up every night suffocating.  I should have gotten some coffee at lunch.  I'm going to have trouble staying energized.  I'll have to run across the street to the donut shop and get some coffee before the meeting after school.  I wish I could take a nap.  I wish my brains would wake up.  I wish I had some talent, some imagination, some will.  What else?  I would rather have inner-motivation than inner-peace.  I would rather achieve my peace actively than passively.  The guys want to come over to play basketball at my place  on Friday.  Javier is reading Arthur's Camp Out to the class.  I ate a meatball sandwich at lunch.  Patti Worthington was at Papa Rico's.  We sat together.  She offered me some of her garlic bread.  Nice of  her, but talk about a [pencil drawing of a wasp].  I got [pencil sketch of a naked woman's breasts, waist, belly button, pubic hair, vagina, and spread thighs] on the brain today.  Insane in the membrane.  Whatever.  Brztbrkplot~~~What else?  I haven't read a newspaper for a while.  Roger Clemens won his record fifth Cy Young Award.  I have his autographed rookie card.  What else?  What else?  I gotta piss.  2:30  We went out for some basketball.  That woke me.  I reffed.  The children were savages.  Coleco says, "Your girlfriend's here."  It's Shirelle.  5:13 PM  The variety and multitude of infirmities on Pico are remarkable, in limps alone, but today there was a guy who appeared to have no use of the muscles on the left side of his neck.  His head lolled over so that his temple rested on his shoulder.  I wondered how your perception might change with such a sideways view, so I tried it myself and found no change at all.  The world looks the same sideways as right side up.

#30

"Thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of your brightness:  I will cast thee to the ground."
--Ezekiel

11-16-98 M 9:30 AM
Here we go again.  What book number is this?  Twenty-something?  The sky's blue, but it's chilly, a little, today.  The students are all doing a pretty diligent job or writing in their journals.  I typed for fifteen minutes this morning before work.  I ate no breakfast.  I woke up to NPR on the clock radio.  Iraq has been spared a bombing by recapitulating to UN inspectors.  Probably has everything hidden away by now.  I wonder how I would feel if I was a citizen of some country and some other heavily-armed country wanted to dictate what arms I could and couldn't develop.  I guess US policy is the safest, trying to prevent Hussein from developing "weapons of mass destruction" even if it's clearly hypocritical.  That's politics.  Whatever.  When I put on KROQ in the bathroom for my shower, they were talking about some dominance/bondage thing that I guess I'm too square to appreciate.  I didn't think it belonged on the radio.  All the stations are going with these x-rated morning shows.  I love sex as much as the next guy, but I'm a little insulted by this constant moronic titillation. I guess it's all about keeping up with the Sterns.
So I walked up to work, not a thought in my head.  Got a cup of coffee.  Chitchatted with Gary, the plant manager, about not wanting to get out of bed, the coming holidays.  Talked to Dwayne on the yard about the poor officiating in this weekend's football games.  Saw la vista de la Senorita Villasenor, quien hace mariposas volar en mi estomago, mi corazon ir pitter patter, y mis deseos, mis deseos...no se.  Anyway, I robe glances a ella and it seemed that ella was stealing a few a mi, too.  The assembly was about hurricane relief for Honduras, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Word of the Week, no yo-yos at school, no food on the yard, etc., etc.   All the while I stare a mi amor.
Mierda do toro.  Mi corazon tiene la consistencia del tiempo.  My heart has the consistency of the weather.  Some of my students are inexplicably (I think) confused about rounding to the nearest hundred.  How can it be any more straight-forward?
I saw Miss Gonzalez at recess.  She invited me out on a boat tonight to fish and watch the Leonid meteor shower.  That sounds pretty cool, but what about school tomorrow?  I don't want to miss that meeting.
Ugh.  I went to Taco Bell at recess.  I could kick myself.  I have to go to LACAS to get my attendance.  Have to teach ESL tonight.  Shirelle wants to have dinner after that and rent the movie "The Birdcage," because for some reason it's very important to her that I see Helen Hunt's husband who seems really gay in it, but isn't.  Ugh.  Whatever.  I wonder what the village chief's daughter is doing?  Nothing so lame as that, I'm sure.