12-6-98 Su 4:35 PM
A group of Major League All-Stars are barnstorming Japan on TV.  I just finished reading the newspaper.  Shirelle and I saw the movie "A Bug's Life" this morning.  We ate Carl's Jr.  I feel sick about it.   Shirelle didn't want to stay here.  The usual.  We had a fight about it.  Whatever.  What else?  The mayor was at the luncheon I went to yesterday.  It's windy today.  I've got greasy belches.  My diet has been appalling this weekend.  I'll read seven more chapters of Ezekiel when I'm done here.  What else?  I haven't been reading much else lately.  The mayor said he would execute anyone who told him the score of the UCLA game.  After he spoke, he bailed without staying to hear writer Erika Ellis speak.  Villasenor told a dirty joke, but I forgot it.  I told her the penguin joke.  One of the other teachers told about a student who was busted for performing fellatio on another student in class during a video.  We talked about Beloved because Erika Ellis looked like the actress in the movie.  Whatever.  We left early.  I wonder if she likes me.  It doesn't matter.  She's a trip anyway.  I felt like hell.  I just lay on the couch and watched football.  Shirelle went to babysit.  I didn't read or write at all.  Went to bed early.  Slept ten hours or so.  That's about it.  What else?  I wonder what Jim's up to.  I guess it's about time to move forward.  Still have to say more about Aaron's car.  What kind?  What color?  Year?  Make?  Model?  Stereo?  Have to read Coydogs.  I'll eat that last piece of pizza for supper.  Maybe I'll do some treadmill.  What else?  Got gluey mucous again.  What else?  It has taken me an hour to get this far.  It's dark now.  Five more days until payday.  What else?  I have to wind my clocks.  What else?  I warmed my pizza in the microwave and ate it.  I put on the radio.  I told Ann I was a stoner.  Why?  I drank about five glasses of wine at the luncheon.  I have to clean my desk.  Fuck diamonds and rings!  When will I finish this fucking book?  Why am I such a loser?  What else?

12-9-98 F 10:11 AM
Man, am I slacking today.  No motivation.  No desire.  Got basketball today.  Kind of wish I didn't.  I need to get to the store and pick up some booze.  What would be good to eat today?  I've got that thing at UCLA tomorrow.  I'll miss the three biggest football games of the year.  Why'd I have to get sick this weekend.  Tonight's that Vivica Fox thing at the Beverly Hills Wilshire Hilton,  What else?  It's supposed to rain today.  Antwon, Jahvonna, and Dijonia are all in class with me right now.  It's recess, but they want to use the computers.  I've got weed in my pocket.  I need to call Rick's and Daniel's parents.  I guess I can make a turkey melt when I get home.  I hope I can keep up in basketball.  I'll never be able to fill in three pages before I go.  Dijonia said, "I like ants because they're like smarter than most bugs."  I can hear Elmer coaching some basketball out on the yard.  Sirens blare down Olympic,  I slept in my chair at lunch.  I skimmed the newspaper.  The kids watched "Microcosmos" about bugs in the garden.  We corrected out homework.  I should do next week's lesson plans.  I felt like a crummy teacher this week.  What else?  Gimme something to write on, man.  What else?  Duh.  Duh.  What else?  If I play basketball will I get sicker?  If I drink like silly tonight, will I get sicker?  If I get drunk tonight, will the whole day at UCLA suck tomorrow.  [ink sketch of Mark McGwire celebrating 50th homerun]  What else?  I haven't read any Coydogs today.  That's what I should do next.  I have to try to get a ride to the store right now.  Get beer, medicine, juice.  Maybe I should save a page for the Hilton.  That's it.  I'm out for now.

12-3-98 Th 8:51 AM
I've felt better.  Is this a minor case of the sniffles or the onset of the flu?  I have to remember to look for that Bing Crosby cassette.      I could go for a nap.  I was up past midnight again last night, not sleeping, not thinking, only awake.  Jim seemed awful again.  I couldn't work on it, though I tried.  Turns out my printer wasn't busted after all.  Idiot me was trying to print a blank page.  Duh.  I wonder if Miss Villasenor would be averse to giving me a lift to UCLA Saturday.  Otherwise I have to ride the bus.  I have basketball tomorrow afternoon and the bridal shower tomorrow night, followed by UCLA all day starting the next morning.  What's going Saturday night?  West and wewaxation?  Irma across the street gave me a ride to school this morning.  I walked to the donut shop and got a croissant and orange juice and coffee.  The Chinese lady that works there threw in some donut holes for some reason.  I gotta go to the bathroom.  I wrote that letter to my uncle last night.  12:50 PM  Ms. Villasenor was not averse to chauffeuring me.  What else?  I took 4 mg of chloropheniramine maleate with 75 mg phenylpropanolamine for temporary relief of runny nose and sneezing.  I didn't do my fifteen minutes this morning.  And I'm thinking I might have to nap when I get home today.  I can't miss night school tonight since I'm going to be on TV two nights next week and won't teach class.  I started reading Last of the Mohicans walking to work yesterday.  Cooper led an interesting life, and he has an interesting story, but his writing is SO BORING.  Maybe it gets better.  So far he's only reporting on the origins of place names and the effect of the geography of upstate New York on the armies of the colonial wars.  Maybe when we get some characters, dialog, and plot, it'll pick up.       I'm up to book three in Coydogs.  It's so fragmented.  It only needs to be fleshed out with some connective tissue, but you can see that will be a monumental task.  What else?  My snot problem grows worse by the minute.  My throat's starting to hurt.  Maybe I should leave a lesson plan for a sub tomorrow.

12-2-98 9:35 AM
The kids are looking up vocabulary words in dictionaries.  Somebody already did one of the bulletin boards I thought I had to do.  It's not raining today.  I have a bunch of conferences after school.  I need to find some paintbrushes,  I can't wait for classes to be done today.  I ate at Taco Hell this morning.  Shirelle and I had a few fights last night.  Should I bother to recall it?  I've got to find "Mele Kelikimaka."  Shirelle made pizza.  I wanted a piece.  She said she only had enough for one person.  I said, "Oh, like that weed of mine you smoked?"  She said, "Like that twenty-eight dollars I gave you for your Chinese food."  I said, "Like that eighty dollars I gave you for your head shots?"  She said, "I thought those fucking pictures were a gift.  If I knew you were going to throw that in my face, I would never have got the fucking pictures."  I said, "Right, because you don't want to work."  Then she went into silent mode, so offended was she by the audacity of my suggestion.  I went to work.  Whatever.  What else?  I got the paintbrushes.       My last conference is scheduled for forty-five minutes from now.  Then I can go home and make my steak and potatoes.  Dijonia and Jahvonna are in here bugging the heck out of me.  I got them to take my big box of trash across the playground to empty in the bins.  That'll keep 'em out of my hair a few minutes.  When I said, "Can I get you to empty this box in the bins for me?"  Dijonia said, "I'll do anything for you."  I said, "Oh, yeah?  Then how come when I asked you to behave yourself last year you never did?"  "I did too," she said.  What else?  Krystynne's parent is supposed to come next.  I bet he or she or doesn't show.  Did my fifteen minutes this morning.  Have to do my third-person when I get home.  Read Coydogs.  Work on Jim.  Walk to Pio Pico.  I'm almost out of alcohol.  I'm almost out of money, too.  Payday is nine days from now.  I've got about four hundred bucks left in my checking account and two hundred left in my savings.  Zannat wanted the info to go on "Jeopardy."  I said I'd get if for him, but then I started thinking I should make him figure it out for himself like I had to.  It's a competition after all.  What else?  Salvador's mom should be coming next.

12-1-98 Tu 12:40 PM
It's raining.  I shouldn't be surprised if I get a lot of no-shows for the parent conferences I have scheduled for today. I'm in the the shitter, and that's what is smelled like when I walked in, though now I detect a hint of the lemon from the lemon chicken I had for lunch yesterday.  Now I'm back in class.  I need to get an umbrella.  I began Coydogs last night.  What else?  Finished Into the Wild.  Typed fifteen this morning.  Waiting for Pedro's mom.  She won't show.  Brenda's mom is ten minutes late.  Probably the rain scared them off.  Irene's mom said she would be here at two thirty.  I talked to Chris's mom and to Javier's mom.  I still  have to do tomorrow's report cards.  Still have to put up bulletin boards in the admin hallway and in the auditorium.  Have to bring a copy of "Mele Kelikimaka" to school so the kids can learn to sing it for the program.  What else?  I'll give Sra. Chinchilla another twenty minutes, and then I'm going to swim home.  There is an old Batman umbrella left in the closets years ago.  The diameter ain't much, but it'll keep my head from getting soaked.  I'll have to walk down to Ralph's and hope they have some decent umbrellas left, like I should have done when I thought of it two weeks ago.  What the heck else?  I hung a Jeopardy invitation at the employee sign-in.  I wonder if it's arrogant like people will think I'm trying to show off by inviting them because I think I'm way smart.  Maybe I should have just done my own thing.  What else?  Gimme something to write on, man.  I printed that JK page here on the computer today that I couldn't print at home last night.  I'll have to do a third-person page when I get home, try to do something with Jim tonight.  Get them all in the car.  Move onto the roller-blader.  Talk about fear.  An inner monologue about fear.  Lower your standards and keep going.  What else?  I ate leftover turkey and green beans for lunch.  Miss King and Florelle were in there.  Florelle seemed a bit miffed, maybe.  Maybe cuz I didn't go there on "Tanksgiving."  Maybe it's my imagination.  What else?  I hear the rain plopping outside.  I've got to turn off the computers.  Tomorrow's Hump Day already.  What else?  What else?  Adios.