7-8-99 Th 4:03 PM

I’m at the Q’s on Wilshire in Westwood.  The only two other patrons are sitting outside.  I’m playing the National Trivia Network.  I just got the thirteenth-best score in North America out of the several thousand playing.  I’m waiting to go over to Dutton’s at seven because one of my writer’s workshop teachers from UCLA sent me an invitation to a reading from her new novel.  I ate a chicken salad sandwich and onion rings just now.  I’m on my third iced Kahlua and coffee.  I forgot to bring a book to read.  I wanted to bring Islands in the Stream.  I think I’ll get To Have and Have Not at Dutton’s.  There’s a cute new waitress here.  Oriental.  Chinese, I guess.  Maybe Korean.  She’s a bit squat, without that Japanese delicacy, but with refined features, unlike the broader features I associate with a lot of the facial forms of Southeast-Asians I have known.  I don’t have the nerve to ask her about her ancestral descent, but she’s beautiful, and I salute every forebear that contributed to her DNA.  I wonder what she thinks of appraising, pointy-nosed white boys.  She’s refilling my Kahluer and coffee.       When I’m done with this, I’ll have met my average daily minimum writing requirement except for Jim.  They’re talking with this Kmart cashier who is apparently a kind of intellectual diamond in the rough.  Maybe she’ll give them a ride home.  I wish I had some green weed to roll with my tobacco.  ?ESLE TAHW     Jeez, I still have about three hours to kill.  Cutie just asked me if I’d like any popcorn.  “No, thanks,” I said in my chestiest voice.  Should I call Lauren?  Seems like a dangerous idear.  Pontius Pilate killed himself after being summoned to answer charges of cruelty by Caligula, of all people.  I read a Ring Lardner story called “Champion” about a despicable boxer who’s written up in the papers as a saint.  I also read a Cyntiah Ozick essay about Salman Rushdie at the Louvre.