2-22-99 M 1:03 PM
I'm at the Hyatt downtown for a meeting my principal sent me to on "standards-based assessment."
It's another one of these things where they spend eight hours telling you something they could tell you in two.  My shoulder is screaming.  My thumb is groaning.  I think my baseball season is over.  I couldn't sleep last night, the pain was so agonizing.  I'm sure I've torn my rotator cuff.  Maybe I'll have to have surgery.  Whatever.  Shirelle gave me a ride here.  I was a half hour late.  There was plenty of cream cheese but no bagels by the time I got here.  So I went to a Carl's in the mall and got a double bacon cheeseburger.  I saw Florelle' beau Saulo.  We went to lunch together.  What else?  I got a paper.  A girl gave me some Tylenol.  What else?  I'm going to take the subway back.  I'll meet Shirelle at her office.  I told her I'd meet her at her office and we could order Neil Young tickets.  I don't know how I'm going to write on the chalkboard at night school with this shoulder.  I rented "Under the Volcano."  Maybe I can watch it tonight.  What else?  The wind knocked out the power twice last night.  Too bad I'm so tired and hurt and have to work tonight or I could wait for Shirelle at The Bounty with some bourbon.  Maybe she'll let me take her car home to nap for a while.  What else?  I added some slop to Jim Saturday; yesterday--nearly nothing.  I wonder who's here from Sharp?  What else?
3:50 PM
I'm at The Bounty now.  The class ended Julia Mirella, from my old school, came over to say hello.  I walked her to her car and she filled me in on all the latest Sharp Ave. gossip, none of it compelling.  Some teachers there have fallen in love.  Makes me rue Shirelle's lack of education.  Oh well, right?  Ugh.  What else?  The train ride was uneventful.  I sat across from a broken-backed old man with scabs on his scalp.  I departed the train and ascended to Vermont, donning mirrored shades.  An old Korean squatted and squirted on the sidewalk.  She asked if I had a twenty or a five.  "'fraid not," I said.  She had a tattoo on her dusty-looking forearm.  She said, "Oh, well.  Tough titties."  I almost gave her money after that, but she had moved on.  Shirelle wanted me to meet her boss.  "Congratulations," he said.  "She's quite a catch."  I wondered if he really meant that. 

2-19-99 F 10:48 AM
We're in the Wilshire Hill auditorium sitting through a symposium on the standards and the Stanford 9 test.  I feel like running my head into the wall to make it end.  Mr. Hyde is screaming to get out.  My alcohol cravings are increasde ten-fold.  Ugh.  Ack.  Ick.  Three and a half hours til freedom. 
2-20-99 Sa 10:50 AM
I'm at Beverly and Detroit in a Starbucks, reading the paper, fighting snot, hoping to get through his mercifully quickly.  Men in black suits and fedoras walk to temple for Sabbath.  They never smile nor acknowledge the presence of any Goyim.  A few hotties stray in and out for coffee.  I have no idea whether or not I should marry.  What else?  Elvin and I went to El Coyote yesterday after that excruciating meeting.  It was depressing.  It bothers me that I am so attracted to Miss V. After we got a little buzz going, we went up to Dublin's.  I had NO pool game.  It sucked.  Then we went to Shirelle's and then to the Rainbow Room for dinner and then back to Shirelle's where I went straight to bed.  You-know-who showed up in a dream.  I saw her from an upstairs window waiting for someone on the sidewalk below.  I felt intensely disheartened that she wasn't waiting on me.  It lingered when I woke.  I put on Saturday morning cartoons, "Batman," but Shirelle wanted to talk marriage, marriage, marriage.  She's trying to let me off he hook if I want, but I don't know if that's what I want any more than I know I should do it.  We're supposed to see this movie "Elizabeth" at 12:20 at the Beverly Center.  I've got a little over an hour to kill.  I guess I'll ride my bike back up to her place from here.  I should call first.  Tonight, I guess I'll go up to Zannat's place to watch the Whitaker/Trinidad welterweight bout.  The actress Minnie Driver just drove by, sullen looking.  I could go for some fresh pussy.

2-18-99  Th 11:22 AM
I don't feel like doing this.  May as well push through it.  Otherwise, I'll just be sitting here doing nothing.  I feel like having a sandwich from Subway.  Gary told me about a Mardi Gras dance on Saturday.  I want to see Felix Trinidad fight Pernell Whittaker that night.  There won't be any students at school tomorrow.  We have a staff training.  I think it doesn't start until nine.  I have to teach adult ed again tonight.  Ugh.  What else?  Hyna's mom wanted to lodge a complaint with me for keeping Hyna in at recess for being tardy again.  These s----d f-----g parents are starting to p--s me off.  No wonder these kids are so fucking stupid.  Whatever.  I finished Frost's second book of poems, North of Boston.  I don't want to be a teacher anymore.  Thirty minutes until I can go.  I'm constantly hungry lately. I didn't brush my teeth this morning.  What else?  2:30.  The little &((&!%@ 8^2=$ are gone.  I can go kill my lifetime at home now waiting to go to night school.  [red ink  drawing of Pain and Panic from the animated Disney "Hercules"--they look like mammary glands]  There's beer and weed at the house, but it seems like no consolation.  I feel as doomed as ever doomed to repeat my days.  Fuck this.  4:33 PM  I'm at El Cholo now  I rode here for a margarita before class to numb the grilling I took from my mom and Shirelle about the marriage issue.  The bartenders jabber in Spanish.  I feel kind of like the Consul, Geoffrey Firmin.  "Mataron el jefe de Tijuana," they say.  I'm miles from the bottom of the next page.  "Ese cabron."  "Diablos."  I ordered blue corn chicken enchiladas for just $11.95.  "Chingadera," they say.  This margarita is only $5.50.  I was trying to teach a lesson on scale today, but the kids weren't having it.  What the god damn mother ~~4:45 PM  Those enchiladas [blue ink line sketch of the El Cholo logo man in his sombrero and vest and big mustache SINCE 1927] were a rip-off.  How am I going to teach that class tonight in such bad mood?  Why not just do it?  I need to pray to God to bless a coin and flip it.  Tomorrow'll be weird, too.  I could go for a smoke.  I'm going to dust off another Ring Lardner story after this.  Then a Best of '94 essay and a Best of '93 short, then Mason's amateur fiction, Vivid Dreams.  Then "Twelfth Night."  Then, who knows?  What's in that gaping maw of a trunk?

Don't forget the dictionaries!
2-17-99 12:02 PM W
I feel like getting some lunch.  I had an egg and a pork chop for breakfast this morning.  I've got ribs and chicken waiting for me after school.  Can I hold out?  I have to go to LACAS again today to get some books.  I'm going to pick up Spanish/English dictionaries for some students in my adult ed class who brought little gifts for Valentine's Day and got nothing in return.  I have to get one for Fidel, Mina--I forget who else.  I guess I better get five.  That'll cost me twenty-five bucks.  I'm writing while I walk across the playground.  I've come to Taco Bell because I have zero will power.  Who gives a shit?  Fat Olga said to me, "You look so handsome today."  Fat Gina said, "Don't flatter him."  I'm avoiding the teachers' lounge like it's an all-male strip club.  I don't want to be grilled about Shirelle or rings or weddings or marriage.  I'm crossing over Olympic now back to school.  We're back in class now.  One of my kids knocked my books into my coffee and spilled coffee all over my desk and papers and lesson plans.  Which makes me want to scream.  Whatever.  Marco wants to bring some bud by the house tonight.  I told him I would be back from work around 8:30.  The Village Chief's Daughter walked by.  Marco said, "Hi, Anna, how you doing?"  She turned and said, "Fine," embarrassed, maybe, and kept going.  I said nothing.  I'm doing sort of a Golden Rule in reverse: treat her the way she treats me.  I'm sure she'd prefer that.  Whatever.  I got bigger worries now, right?  I saw Laurie on the yard and we chatted a little, and I saw Laila on the yard and we chatted a little.  I'm setting up a new page for Jim.  I got it started last night.  I haven't typed yet today.  What else?  I have to talk to Felicity to check on that sub for next Monday.  I've got to start Sean's Vivid Dreams.  I read an amazing Frost poem called "Reluctance."

                                                 Ah, when to the heart of man
                                                 was it ever less than a treason
                                                 to go with the drift of things
                                                 to yield with a grace to reason
                                                 and bow and accept an end
                                                 of a love or a season?

I want to read Twelfth Night.  What else?  My thumb still hurts.  I wish I was drunk.  I wish I was smarter.

To Eat My Cake Without Having It

Tu 2-16-99 10:36 AM
What's to say?  I'm at school.  The kids are practicing for their Stanford Nine test.  I'm feeling a little disillusioned with education today.  What else could I do?  Move back to New York and act?  Move to Los Cabos and write?  Whatever.  I typed for fifteen minutes this morning.  I rode my bike to school.  We had a cheesy little vaudeville-style, Afro-American history month assembly.  I'm writing with a Barbie pencil of such poor quality, it can't be sharpened properly.  You have to pick the wood from the lead with your thumbnail, and the point is not sharp but flat.  Whatever.  It's just exercise.  I guess we'll tell the old Kmart story.  I guess.  Everyone at school is asking me about Valentine's Day.  Am I engaged?  I don't want to be asked.  Shirelle was sitting on the couch eating nachos and chocolate and drinking beer and watching tv while I was trying to write, and it filled me with loathing.  Then she would smoke a cigarette and my loathing would intensify.      I ate eggs and a pork chop for breakfast this morning.  What else?  What, other than the glaring, screaming fact that I am an asshole?  I want to eat my cake without having it.  I need to hurry up and finish this bullshit so I can hurry up and finish Tar Baby.  I'll get a cup of coffee at lunch, and then I'll hide out.  I wonder if we're going to Vegas on Friday.  I can't leave until three.  That'll get us there around seven or eight on Friday night.  I wonder what time my baseball game is on Sunday.  Another fucking squeeze.  Whatever.  I can't hit anyway.  My reaction time is shit.  The impulses have to make their way through damaged nerve endings, fucked up brain cells.  Whatever.  It's lunch time.  I'd like to eat, but I guess I'll wait until I get home.  What else?  I put two hundred bucks on a retired credit card for dinner Sunday.  Ugh.  When's next payday?  When was last payday?  It's still almost three weeks away.  The kids are telling me I'm a good drawer.  "You should be an artist," they say.  What else?  The sky is gray, like my soul.  Yadira gave me a Valentine's card with a picture of the prince and princess from the Disney version of "Sleeping Beauty" on it. [a black ink line drawing of the card, with the principals dancing hand-in-hand]  Whatever.  Who believes in fairy tales?  All I want is a beer.  And a new paragraph for Jim.  And to be gone.  Gone on an adventure.

How Romantic

M 5:17 PM 2-15-99
I haven't gotten to the Bible yet this weekend.  Haven't done any exercise yet today.  I typed for fifteen minutes this morning.  Shirelle and Demona are on their way over here.  I went to my stepsister Christie's baby boy Marcos' baptism at St. Thomas' Catholic church in Riverside yesterday.  It was quiet when we walked in, but as soon as we sat down, the babies started tripping.  Marcos squalled in mortal agony, and Cassandra started snaking her tongue out at the altar, and then little Veronica saw her and started doing the same thing, and then Cassandra started pulling her fist down from the air like kids do when the want a trucker to blow his air horn, but I think she was trying to cross herself, and then she and Veronica were crawling up and down and over the pews and started taking their shoes off.  Back at the house, they sat on the porch, neither of them old enough to talk, but communicating with each other anyway, sharing a sense of humor, spitting water as far as they could over and over, and when they were done with that, they toddled outside and plucked geraniums and brought them in to give to my sisters, and were so pleased with themselves, they went out and brought in more until they had harvested every flower in the yard. 
Shirelle had reservations for us, so we left around sundown.  An ominous fogbank was rolling in from the west.  We changed and went to Mr. Chang's in Beverly Hills.  The nice cars and rich people made me feel a little violent inside.  We got a fifty-five-dollar bottle of champagne.  The place had black and white checkered floors.  They put us in a corner at the back.  Shirelle knew the maître d.  I didn't want to know how.  We had some squab and scallop dumplings.  The squab was good, meaty but light, wrapped in lettuce.  The dumplings were insubstantial.  We had sweet, crunchy walnut shrimp and grilled tuna.  Then some cake.  Shirelle gave me a couple of cards and a New Library Edition of Oliver Twist.  She had chosen that because of something she'd heard in "Good Will Hunting" she said, but she wasn't able to say what it was.  I put the little box on the table (she says I threw it down).  She didn't take it.  She was making me ask.  I stuttered and hemmed and bullshitted.  None of it was working.  I said, "I guess what I need to say is, will you marry me?" 
"What?" she asked, though she had heard perfectly well.
I had broken out in a cold sweat.  I repeated what I had said.
"Yes," she said and gave me a big kiss. 
I paid the bill and we left.  We went to the Hilton to go to the Coconut Grove, but it was closed.  So we went to Trader Vic's.