3:39 PM 7-22-99 Th
I'm in Larchmont Village trying to cultivate a little northern Italy feel, sitting at a sidewalk cafe.  While I was reading the paper, someone walked up and said, "Hi." I looked up, and a touristy-looking lady in plaid Bermudas and a t-shirt said, "Are you on 'General Hospital?'"  Ha ha ha.  I smiled and shook my head.  She double-checked.  "You're not on 'General Hospital?'"  "No," I reaffirmed.  I don't think she believed me, and she seemed disappointed when she walked away.  Another lady skated up on roller-blades and sat down at the table next to me as the first one plodded away.  "Can I share your paper?" she asked.  "Sure," I said and handed her the sections I wasn't reading.  When I finished the Sports and put it down, she said, "Sports!" and snatched it up.  "Sports fan?" I asked.  She told me about being in New York for the Subway Series.  Her name was Catherine.  She said she was a singer/songwriter/actress.  She gave me a couple of Tootsie Rolls.          Sheryl asked me if I'd be interested in doing a part in some film one of the Getty heirs is making.  I said sure.  The shoot is this weekend.  I called my grandparents.  I thought my grandfather's birthday was today, but it was yesterday.  Oops.  I watched "Horatio Hornblower" on the classic movie channel this morning.  I typed fifteen minutes.  Some fine pussy walks around here.  I'll read some more Islands after this.  What else?  Maybe I'll go rent an adult film.  I'm hungry.  Blah blah blah.  I have to stop at the LACAS office at LA High to pick up some paperwork.  Maybe we'll go horseback riding tomorrow.  A better not go into Chevalier's bookstore.  A parade of fine pussy.  [ cubist pencil line sketch on the street tableau]

7-21-99 W 12:56 PM
Today is Hemingway's hundredth birthday.  I didn't realize it until the crossword proved to have a Hemingway theme.  Is it a coincidence that I just happen to be reading Hemingway on his hundredth birthday, or is it a fated sign that some day I will be the preeminent Man of Letters that he once was?  I wrote a page this morning that can be used for Jim.  It will turn into two or three more pages.  Ought to get me to page eighty-three.  And, bah-da-bing--I feel much better today, body, spirit, and soul than I have the last few lonely, empty, defeated days when I couldn't write.  I'm at an appropriately Hemingwayesque cafe on busy La Brea Blvd.  The hip lunch crowd is buzzing.  The waitress is bringing me a Dos Equis.  I've had two cups of coffee.  I was reading Islands in the Stream yesterday.  I was struck by three things:  The first that he felt that burning the driftwood he admired was wrong, but he felt no guilt.  He seems to accept that destroying beauty is as much a part of man's nature as creating and marveling.  Then Tom Hudson talked about missing Africa but said, "You have to make it inside of yourself wherever you are."  So true.  It reminded me of Maine and Philbrick telling me you can change places all you want but you'll still be you.  Then he talked about being "selfish and ruthless" as many women had told him he was, and that was exactly what I thought about Harry Morgan.  My beer is warm.  All the more Parisian I suppose.  If only I had some fellow expatriates. I'd like to call Florelle about getting into the Conga Room tonight, and Tom about the Ray Harryhausen retrospective. I'll go home next and add that couple pages to Jim. I've got to read another chapter of Islands and mail my grandfather's birthday card.  I read a Lardner short called "Conrad Green" about a typical Broadway producer, I suppose.

7-20-99  Tu 1:10 PM
I'm at the bar in the Manhattan Beach Brewing Company.  I took the trains here and then a bike ride up and down hills.  I was disappointed with how far the train lets off from the beach and how many hills rise between here and there.  At least there are bars all over now that I've pedaled some four miles, I guess.  Maybe not that far.  I brought my bike on the train with me. I read the paper on the train and did the puzzle.  I saw "Shadow of a Doubt" this morning.  It was just so-so.  Uncle Charles was creepy enough, but I couldn't believe Charli wouldn't rat him out, and that made it frustrating.  I feel like lying down.  I should have brought a big towel.  I haven't typed today.  I don't seem to care too much for Jim lately.  I don't know what turned the tide; I was going so well a couple weeks ago. I have to figure out what Jefferey and Lisa and Jim and Aaron will talk about on the ride back to the car and whether anything else will go wrong before they link up with Tink.  I need to leave here about three thirty or so to get back to LA in time to go to work.  I should maybe call Tim.  Or I could leave earlier and stop in at the Wild Goose to see some titty-jiggle. The Dodgers are on from Pittsburgh.  Ho hum.  I ate a bacon burger.  I left behind most of my onion rings.  I feel so weak lately.  A Hennessy's Tavern beckons up the street from here.  I should be working out.  What else?  I guess when the game is over, I'll pay up and move on.  It's in the ninth.  Gord, I'm bored and boring.  Everything I write in here is boring.  My salivary glands hurt.  So does my back and my calf and my foot and my wrist and my shoulders.  Maybe tomorrow I'll ride the bus out to Santa Monica and see "The Blair Witch Project."  Maybe I'll start Islands in the Stream today.  I rented the Hitchcock film "The Trouble with Harry."  After work tonight, I've got to work on Jim.  I guess that's it.

7-18? 20?-99 Monday 2:38 PM
I'm lagging today.  Got some new limps to go with some recurring old ones. Booksellers meet publishers.  My brother has sent me a money order of just twenty-five dollars less than the hundred he owes me. What shall I spend it on? Curtains? Got forty-four in my money fund, about the same in my checking account and about four more in that other one. That's about twelve plus two more in savings; that makes about fourteen thousand. On Friday, I can call it fifteen. I wonder if Shirelle got her passport. I haven't seen today's paper yet. Paul is preaching in Rome. Thing left a message. I haven't called back. Shirelle said I should take a picture of that abandoned house down the street. I should get over to LACAS and sign that paper. I'd need some Visine first. I fried up a steak this morning. It smoked like crazy, burnt on the outside, raw in the middle. It still mostly tasted good. Not as good as that bass the other night, though. I'm hungry again now. What should I eat? Shirelle went shopping. I don't know what I want. Duh. Duhr. There's that matter of P-forms to haggle about.