5-10-99 M 2:11 PM
I had to take these asshole kids to the Museum of Natural History today.  It exhausted me.  It's just another of many piles of shit around the corner for me.  I've got to talk to Stein after school about STEPS and open house.  For STEPS, I need to figure out about scoring.  I think two teams of three would be best.  Horowicz, Coonan, Zanax, Skully, Rodman, Zurn.  We'll do it June 3rd.  We'll have a 9:30 meeting on Wednesday.  I'll train the six on scoring procedures.  I went to McDonald's for lunch.  I wish I wouldn't have.  3:53 PM  I'm at home now.  I'm sitting on Shirelle's swirly white couch.  I haven't seen a newspaper today.  You would think there would be a basketball game on right now, but I couldn't find any.  Tomorrow is Open House at school.  I guess I'll have to get the night off from LACAS.  Plus there's this Latino Heritage culture program to prepare for.  I'm going to have to set up a better center for Open House.  That museum wore me down.  I feel like I haven't slept in weeks.  I could go for a smoke.  What else?  I can't think.  I feel unhappy.  I need Doctor Allendy.  I wish I could take a nap.  Take the night off.  Thing should call Lee and Gina to see if they want to go to Brass Monkey.  The Heat and the Knicks are on TV.  Bad blood in that series.  ESPN is blocked out.  I have to write thirty truths for my third-person page.  I'm begging God for a new page to give to Jim.  I have Nin to read.  Jeez, what else can I say?  The sun is in the sky?  The leaves are restless in the breeze?  There are the mirrors with decorative flowery frames over the mantel of the faux fireplace.  There are candles and family photos on the mantel.  There is a basket of magazines on the floor of the hearth.  There's a primitive, tribal-looking African-looking, 'fro-pick-type thing opposite the basket o' magazines.  Ugh.  Fuck.  What else?  I'm a loser, baby.  (blue-ink sketch of three arched windows and the divisions of their panes)

5-9-99 Su 3:30 PM
The Lakers are on.  Shirelle just went to get some peanut butter.  I haven't written since I did fifteen minutes yesterday.  I spent yesterday hanging pictures.  I had to go to the hardware store and get bits and nails and screws that would go through the concrete behind the walls.  I only bent about a dozen nails before I figured that out.  I rode my bike however many miles it is up to La Cienega and Melrose at 7:30 in the morning yesterday to go to a day of workshops only to find that I had the date wrong and the workshops are next week.  Duh.  So I went to that diner on Beverly and read the paper and ate bacon and eggs.  Then I rode over to Farmer's Market.  I thought I could get a beer, but the bar was closed.  There's nowhere to get a drink in this town before noon.  I rode home.  That's when I started hanging shit.  I had to wrestle Shirelle over the placement of every picture.  Luckily, her friend, Autumn, came over, Alabama Autumn with her Alabama teeth, and backed up my common sense against Butt's irrationality.  Whatever.  I drank beer.  Shirelle and Autumn went to see Larry "Dreamgirls."  The plumber put in new showerhead.  The cable guy came and hooked us up.  Thing came over.  We drank Kahlua and coffee and listened to John Coltrane.  Then we went over to Carlin's party.  It was a lot of purty, perty, flirty girls.  I was drunk and funny.  That weak p.o.s Gonzalez came over with back up because he was afraid I would kick his substantial ass.  I came home and Shirelle, and I watched "Vacation" until sleep.  I went to the market.  We made bacon and eggs.  I've been reading the paper and watching sports beating off to a new porno.  We're going out to eat a little later and maybe see a movie.  I have to read double Bible pages after this.  Then a third-person that's supposed to be about violence.  How am I ever going to add another line to Jim?  I haven't read any Nin lately.

5-7-99 12:43 PM F
I'm at Casey's Pub and Grill below Grand downtown.  Old school LA.  Didn't my dad bring me here for lunch one time when I drove out to visit him at his office in Parker Center?  I'm attending another dumb-ass meeting today at the Hyatt.  I read the paper while I listened.  There's a cute little Pilipina at my table named Joy Navel.  Sounds like a Bond girl's name.  The people at the table seem to enjoy saying my name for some reason I can't fathom.  I walked to a Walden books on my way to lunch and bought a copy of The Idiot.  The Clerk said, "Ooh, good one."  Casey's is all dark wood, cherry maybe, and elk's head and moose heads on the wall.  They've got some special label Wild Turkey I've never seen before, but I'm all tapped out; I got an eleven-dollar steak sandwich and two beers.
Shirelle gave me her car to come here.  I would have preferred the subway, but I ran out of time.  I've got some checks I have to cash.  What should I do about the money Galivan owes me?  I wish I had my weed sack.  I do!  Uh oh.  Oh, well.  What else?  I wonder if I'll be able to read any Nin during the second half of this meeting.  There are some guys in Hawaiian shirts here.  Casual Friday at the office.  I want to play with Joy Navel.  The bartender asks if I want another beer, but I'm out of money.  I should have gotten a six dollar sandwich, then I could have gotten another beer.  I left five hundred dollars cash in the house.  I should have brought some of that.  I can't drink too much tonight or stay out too late because I have to sit through workshops all day tomorrow.  Ugh.  It's about time for me to head back.  I'll roll a smoky with a just a little green in it.  Shirelle's having some girls over to the house for happy hour tonight.  I did a third-person page this morning.  There's got to be a sentence I can give Jim today.  Dreams with Anna and Zannat.

5-6-99 Th 11:48 AM
I don't have to come here tomorrow.  I've got to go downtown for some stupid-ass training.  Anais helps me to write.  I didn't want to do this.  I didn't write last night or this morning.  It's lunch time now.  I'm alone in my room.  There's nothing to do, but I couldn't bear to write, so I reluctantly read a few pages of her diary, and now I feel a little better about this.  I rode my bike home after school yesterday, and typed a page (worthless but for the exercise), drank a beer, smoked half a bongload, and rode over to El Cholo.  I was happy with the street.  I felt part of life, riding past all the people waiting at the bus stops, they seeing me as much as I see them, mothers with children, teenage sweethearts embracing.  It was sunny, just warm enough to be warm.  You could smell the tortillas frying a mile from el Cholo.  Candy King, Jean Rohman, and Adrian were there.  Florelle showed up with Jackie.  It was uneasy around the table.  I was because I had to go to work.  I don't know if the others were already uneasy or if I was the contagion.  Florelle was desperate to live.  I knew the feeling.  I, too, was torn between prudence and desperation to live. She wanted closeness, love, camaraderie, exotica, newness.  I knew I could have her if I had the desire and courage.  She was touching me a lot and interrupting the others' stories with her own.  She was telling me of a dream she had involving three coins, one with a city on it, one with a Madonna, and one with a woman's veiled face. I thought they were symbols for motherhood, chastity, and whoredom.  When it was time for me to go, she pleaded with me to go with her.  I reluctantly refused and rode my bike to work. I relented.  She followed me in her car, insisting I put my bike in her trunk.  I was afraid she would kidnap me from going to work, but she dropped me off.  I was drunk at class.  I think some students suspected.  When I rode home again, it was dark.  The city was entirely changed.  The sky could not be seen past the dim streetlights.  It was like an artificial place, no sign of nature anywhere.  A woman stood at Pico and Crenshaw with a swaddled baby.  I couldn't write when I got home.  I went to bed.  Fell asleep.  I didn't shower this morning.