3:45 PM W 9-1-99
I lost my last journal, number 39, in Atlanta on the way to the Bahamas, so I didn't get to write during my little week-long adventure.  I got to be in Hurricane Dennis, caught lots of fish, partied with the locals in clubs where the roofs leaked hurricane rain and the girls vied to dance under the falling water, took X and snorkeled drunk (lucky I didn't drown) on some minor offshore reef before a BBQ/limbo party on a secluded white sand beach. Now I'm back and it all seems like a dream I had last night. I went by Wilshire Hill this morning and straightened out my room. I'll go back for a few hours tomorrow to get paper and set up bulletin boards and crap. Ugh. I'm at a restaurant called Ca' Brea. I had beers and saffron lobster pasta.  The place has closed and I'm sitting at the bar by myself. I just finished reading the Times and La Opinion.  I guess I'll grill some more of that bonita and yellow tail I brought back from the Bahamas for a late dinner tonight. Shirelle fried some with potatoes last night and we ate it with Kalik beer and rum with ice and molasses. Five days 'til school starts. I've got to call my dad and Dr. Jorlitzky when I get back to the house. Read some Caribbean and do a third-person page. I'm so bummed about losing that journal. I already typed about it during my fifteen minutes this morning. I've lost four of my best journals: the jail journal, the east coast journal, the broke-up journal, and now the Bahamas journal.  I took my film down to Sav-On but can't pick it up 'til after three tomorrow. This place is crawling with flies. I brought back itchy Bahamian sand fly bites on my feet and ankles. I can't believe it's four o'clock already. I wonder if I'll go out tonight. I'll see if I have any messages when I get home. What else? Funky paintings hang in this place. We need a new bed. I typed up a new resume and cover letter for Shirelle to hopefully interview Steven Bochco in this new Vivica Fox drama on CBS. Jim Crack is lame. 

8-3-99 Tu 2:23 PM

I ate a few mushrooms this morning.  I feel a little weird.  I typed fifteen minutes and rode my bike to Shirelle’s job at Premier Medical on Wilshire and Catalina.  I’m going to have to sharpen this pencil some day.  I went to the Huntinton and waited a ridiculously long time to see the amorphaphallus Titanium—billed as the largest flower in the world—bloom.  It had hardly opened, and it was supposed to smell of rotting flesh, but it was odorless when I got there.  I resented the tourist mentality of the mob.  The flower struck me as unspectacular, and I had no flash, and it was in the shade, so I doubt my pictures will come out.  A crazy old Chinese woman insisted on taking my picture and that I take several of her.  I went into a photo exhibit by Mark Knett?  Paul Klee?  It showed changes in the features of the southwestern US landscape.  Edward Abbey was in one of the photos.  I’m at Q’s now.  I had a BBQ chicken sandwich with fries and rings and three beers and read the paper.  I have to leave in a half hour when the meter expires and go to the market.  Adieu.

8-1-99 3:14 PM Su
I'm sitting on the porch steps in front of the house.  Shirelle's raking the magnolia leaves on the lawn into a pile while she smokes a cigarette.  I think the cigarette makes her look stupid.  We're going to Callendar's to eat and then to whatever movie she wants to see.  I just finished reading Romans chapters eight through fourteen:  "To be carnally minded is death...for the carnal mind is enmity against God...For meat destroy not the work of God...And he that doubteth is damned if he eat.  8:22  We didn't go to the movies.  We went to Hollywood video for some tapes instead.  None of those pens worked.  I made love to Shirelle.  My thighs are still quivering.  She just put in the movie "First Sight" in which Val Kilmer plays a blind man who gets his vision back.  Ernie was talking about pussy and pussy cats to begin the Cuba section of Islands.  He described an adulterous sexual relationship.  It made me want one.  I felt like it opened the door, planted the seed, like I know what it would be like now.  I agreed to work again tomorrow.  I'll have to remember to bring my camera.  I'm subbing for Rawler's class.  What else?  I got no exercise today.  I still have a third person to do.  I haven't worked on Jim lately.  I can't think withe the movie on.  Kissing is such a strange thing.  It's sort of mechanical with Shirelle now, an operation which has been performed innumerable times.  Florelle just called to see if I could work for Sergio tomorrow, but I can't.  When I was in college, The G.I.P. used to have these "porno marathons" in his dorm room and there were these two blind guys would show up tapping into the room, Carl, with his cane, and John, with his dog, and they'd sit real close to the tv and shout, "Oh, what's going on?  What are they doing now?!"  This is a good movie.  What's one more line I can write?

Now I Can Start Working on Climbing on Everest

7-30-99 Sa 2:40 PM
I'm at Lightning Point Camp way up in Angeles National Forest for the tenth annual Mountain Jam.  Roadies set up a big stage here among the rocks and pines, and some two dozen bands are slated to get the party going for the few hundred drunks here.  A snake pit of ever-narrower and winding roads brings you here.  I drove it eating McDonald's, the steering wheel slippery from the grease. This followed another wrangle with Shirelle about transportation.  Whatever.  I must be on my fourth beer.  I read the paper.  After this I'll put away a few more pages of Islands.  Then I'll play my guitar a little.  I was playing Phil's Willie-Nelson-signed bass badly, and then Eric picked it up and really played it. He saw me writing and said, "Taking some notes?"  I said, "Yeah, just doing my daily exercise, trying to keep the brain cells in touch."  I've got some mushrooms in my backpack.  I haven't decided yet whether to eat them.  I've got to drive home at some point.  My game's at nine o'clock tomorrow morning.  I told Shirelle I'd be home by midnight.  The bunch of people that were around a bit ago have gone.  This pencil's dull like me.  I brought up some cards and chips, but there's no table nearby.  What else?  I was thinking of a dialog.  Fuck it.  The main idea revolved around the words "stupid bitch."  Let's just leave it alone.  A guy strums a ukelele next to a guy with American flags all over his shirt.  Gerald Soren called from the district and said he'd decided to award me those salary points.  Hugh Hefner was in a booth bedecked with bowling-ball-boobed bimbos in the bar I was at last night.  Everyone in the bar rotated to face them like they were an exhibit in a zoo.  I told people being in the same room as Hugh Hefner and a bevy of Playmates had been a longtime goal of mine, and that now I could start working on mounting Everest.