Like Forgetting to Put on Your Pants

9-27-99 M 1:35 PM
I'm back at class.  The kids are doing their review of the the Rivers chapter. Shirelle got up at five fifteen to begin her first day on the "City of Angels" set. She probably won't be home 'til eight or so tonight.  It was hard to sleep with all her banging around. I got up at six and showered and shaved.  I typed fifteen minutes.  I read a few pages in the Creole chapter of Caribbean before I rode my bike up to Jack in the Box and got a burger for breakfast.  When I got to class, Ahshowntay's mom was waiting to talk to me.  Ashowntay had told her mom that I embarrassed her and made her cry because I said, "Forgetting to bring your homework is like forgetting to put your pants on before you come to school."  Mrs. Perez agreed with me.  The bell rang.  I went down to get the class, and three different people told me I was tied for the lead with Daron in the football pool going into tonight's Niner game at Arizona.  The paper says I have SF, but I could have sworn I circled AZ.  Oh, well, I guess I'll have to root for the Niners.  Anna told me about a cool class she went to this weekend.  They went for breakfast to a Japaneses garden, went to the Autry Museum for the Guthrie exhibit, and visited the Watts Towers, where there was a jazz festival.  She got two salary points for it and more or less invited me to the next one.  She said she'd Xerox the info and let me have it.  Back at class, the kids talked about their Chuck E. Cheesy weekends while I wrote up my lesson plan for the week.  Then they wrote in their journals, and it was suddenly recess.  I had some copies to make, but the machine is down.  I came back to class and read about the U.S.'s dramatic comeback victory in golf's Ryder Cup.  After recess, we did a lesson on relating addition and subtraction.  I skipped lunch and read the rest of the paper.  That brings us up to date. I can leave in a half hour.  I'll read some more Creole and do my third-person page.  Then it's off to night school.  Got to try to get Jim to page ninety. Amen.

Vamping, Strictly Vamping

9-25-99 Sat 1:15 PM
I'm at home in the parlor, sitting on the couch, writing in here on the coffee table.  Washington and Colorado are on.  Shirelle went to have breakfast with Demona.  I never got through the newspaper yesterday.  After school, I rode my bike up to El Coyote and drank and read the sports page until Jackie Bagheim came, and we drank and talked, and Florelle came, and we drank and talked.  I got all drunk and started babbling about my writing, and I told Jackie I'd bring her a copy of Jim.  I don't think that's such a good idea anymore.  The next thing I knew, it was dark.  I rode over to Debbie's and Ben's, but no one answered the door, so I rode home.  I don't remember riding back at all.  There were a bunch of messages.  Magilla called, Getov, I forget who.  I ended up just passing out.  Bernice called.  Everything went well on her United interview in Chicago until she lost her boarding pass for the return trip.  She's hoping that doesn't cost her the job.  I got up this morning and drove down to the bottom of Hudson and got the papers.  Brewed a pot of coffee and toasted a bagel to eat while I read.  Penn State beat Indiana and Purdue beat Northwestern.  Nothing else is really going on.  When I finish this, I figure I'll read some more about Horatio Nelson and then work a third-person page before putting in the video "Affliction," which is supposed to featured stellar performances by Nick Nolte and James Coburn.  I had been trying to drum up a party to go to a corn maze in Ventura, but everyone's busy.  I've got a game at noon again tomorrow.  I should call Carlos.  I still have to decide if Jim's going to talk about his father's wedding or all the girls he's loved before.  I just looked through a photo album Shrill keeps on the coffee table.  I thought there might be something in there I could draw, but there wasn't.  It's all pictures of Shirelle vamping, strictly vamping.  So, I guess that'll have to do it for today.  Over and out.

9-23-99 Th 9:20 PM
I'm at the Memorial Branch Library across from LA High on Olympic and Rimpau.  I had to leave the house because we had a short circuit, and I was afraid I was going to blow a fuse.  Shirelle seems to think she needs a desk and office space now that she's standing-in again.  We all know the high level of personal planning and at-home organization being a stand-in requires.  First, she took the patio table out of the backyard and moved the kitchen table to the middle of the kitchen and put the patio table where the kitchen had been.  It was surprising to see her fall to such levels of tackiness, she, for whom looks and decoration are everything.  I told her, now that interior decoration weren't important anymore, I would be moving my weight bench into the parlor.  When I got home today, the kitchen table had been restored to its usual position, and the patio table had been moved into my office.  My office.  The only room of five that I get.  I was only slightly bitter and prepared to live with it except that when I went to turn on my computer, it wouldn't because the plug woudn't stay securely in the loose electrical socket.  It hadn't been a problem before because I had arranged storage boxes so that they would hold the plug in place, but Shrill had rearranged these boxes to make room for the patio table which is to be her all-important stand-in command center.  It looked like I might have been able to screw the plug in if I'd had a rubber-handled screwdriver, but when I tried it, there was a spark and smoke, and the outlet went dead, rendering the computer--monitor, printer, and hard drive--and the stereo, useless.  Now my patience had run out for the unnecessity of "The Play Office."  "This is because you insist on having your bullshit little play office," I said.    "Don't blame me," she said.    "You're the one who broke it."    "It was working fine before you decided to install your little make-believe office," I said, and I could feel myself getting pissed, so I got my backpack and bike and walked out the door.  She said something.  I said something. She said something.  I said, "Fine, then pack my shit up for me, and I'll get out."    "Are you serious?" she asked.  "Go for it," I said and hopped on my bike and rode here. 

9-22-99 W 1:30 PM

                Ugh.  So, I guess we’re just going to flush these first three weeks of school so we can segregate the kids.  ~ 3:26 Ugh.  What an afternoon.  Since half the kids are going to a new class tomorrow, I just took them out to the yard for handball, basketball, and jump-rope.  When we came back in, I was trying to explain to the kids about how they were going to have a new teacher when Jaweeza started giving me the old “teacher-my-stomach-hurts” routine.  I had already sent her to the nurse and seen her come running back this afternoon, so I said, “Oh, stop it,” and she started crying.  I tried to ignore her and tell the kids what books they had to leave and what they could take with them when a bilous half-gallon of yellowish and white liquid started to spill over the hands Jaweza had clamped over her mouth.  She got up and started moving toward the door and projectile-vomited another half-gallon of the puke across the room.  She looked at me confusedly.  The kids started screaming.  She trailed another half-gallon of puke toward the door before she was done.  I moved the kids around the puke and out the door and gave them the paperwork assigning them to their new classes.  Kids were whining and screaming, the bell rang, parents were jabbering angrily about the class change, and I was running late for our meeting after school.  ~~~~~Whatever.  I’m home now.  I’m sitting at my desk.  Got ESPN on the TV behind me.  Baseball season is winding down to pennant races.  I need to do some sit-ups.  I need to read the Bible.  I had some mushu chicken for lunch.  Sosa and McGwire 0-fered in their head-to-head matchup at Wrigley.  I wish I could have gone to Houston and Detroit this summer before their stadiums close.  ~ I have to go to LACAS before class tonight.  I’m supposed to write a dramatic monologue from the point of view of someone I know well.  I’ll do Jim’s love history.  Then I’ll read Caribbean and take Jim to page eighty-nine and read La Opinion before I go to bed.

9-21-99 Tu 1:16 PM

Shirelle was mad this morning because I said she needed to brush her teeth.  Whatever.  My nose is sniffly.  The outskirts of Hurricane Hillary’s remains are blowing through town.  I thought I had won the football pool; when I got to school, I found out otherwise.  Sonia and Kellie had both picked one win more than I had.  I said, “I guess the teams with the prettier uniforms must have all won.”  I grabbed a paper.  Anna said the Reading by Nine program sucked.  When we got to class, the kids talked about their weekends and wrote in their journals while I planned the lessons for the week.  Then, they read from their journals and went to recess.  I read the papers.  A big earthquake rocked Taiwan and more about the latest LAPD corruption probe.  After recess, we did a couple of “ending consonant” pages from our phonics books before a worksheet about adding more than two numbers.  Then it was lunch.  I had to stay in a while to help a couple kids with their math. Then I went to Tams and got some orange chicken and juice and coffee.  I ate it in the lounge.  Shulman said the latest earthquake has her worried about—she wanted to guess the word, pretended like she didn’t know, I suspect because she is Jewish, but I sensed she knew – “Armageddon,” I said.  She said, “Yeah.  All these shootings and disasters.  All the news is bad.”  I said, “Well, just be pure of heart and you can walk through the valley of death and fear no evil.”  Then the bell rang.  I picked up the kids from the playground.  We had silent, and I read the newspaper.  There’s a meeting after school today.  It looks like they’re going to move all my English-speakers to another class and give me all the Spanish-speakers.  Sounds like segregation to me.  The big mystery is why didn’t they do it before the school year began.  I’m in the school library now.  The staff is dribbling in for the meeting.  I was just talking to a parent from Haiti.  The meeting is only supposed to take twenty minutes, but someone always finds a way to turn it into an hour or so.  Miss Mahoney just sat down.  She’s giving out caramels.  What else?  Do a third person when I get home.  Read Caribbean.

9-20-99 M 10:55 AM

It’s Yom Kippur.  I’m at Doctor Gorlitzki’s office in Santa Monica for a check-up. I think I’m fine, but maybe I should mention my lungs and diabetes in my family tree and the shoulder.  Should I tell him about my smoking and drinking?  Ask for a flu shot?  I haven’t written since Saturday, just before we left for the wedding.  The traffic to Pasadena was like the Hurricane Floyd evacuation.  We got there toward the end of the ceremony, which took place on a railed platform around the trunk of a big…sycamore is my guess, with little white lights twinkling in the leaves.  We ate and drank. At eight or so, I cut out to see the fight at Marietti’s.  A guy named Jerry came with.  The fight sucked.  Lot of dancing, no knockdowns, Oscar did close Tito’s eye and bloody his nose enough to stain Tito’s shorts without ever getting touched himself, but the judges ruled for Tito because Oscar was playing too safe at the end, I guess.  I thought Oscar won.  After that we went back to the wedding and drank and danced some.  I wanted to jump Jaime’s girlfriend and had a feeling she wanted to jump me except for logistical problems, namely Jaime and Shirelle.  She said for us to come meet them at Muse, but when I got up there, the doorman said I was drunk and wouldn’t let me in.  So, we left.  Shirelle drove home.  I woke up Sunday, hung.  Read some of the paper and went with Carlos to our game at Wilson.  We lost.  Again.  We were winning the whole game when, right on cue, we had a three-error eighth inning and lost.  I tapped out to the pitcher, hit the longest shot of the day and got thrown out at third, popped up with the bases loaded, and struck out swinging.  Bernie came over after the game, and I typed up a resume for her interview with United in Chicago next week.  Shirelle made pork chops for dinner.  I read the paper after and never did finish it.  Shrill sent me to get videos.  I got “Amistad,” the original “Thomas Crown Affair,” and “School Ties.”  12:15  I’m in Hooters now.  First Hooters I’ve ever been in.  It’s sort of ameliorating the violation of Doctor Gorlitzki’s finger in my ass.  I guess I’ll read the paper now. 

9-17-99 6:05 PM F

I’m at the Pollo Loco on Wilshire and Wilton. I feel terrible—exhausted with no reason to be, but not sleepy, and worse, I have doomed feeling worse than any I’ve had in years, one that came from nowhere and hit hard.  The only thing to do is go out for a drink or four.  I guess I’ll go ever to Molly’s.  I should have brung me darts.  Hot Korean ‘tang at the Pollo Loco counter.  So, it looks like Jim is about to walk to McDonald’s with Lisa.  What will they talk about?  Their pasts.  Their love lives.  Modern frustration.  Whether or not Jim or Jefferey is the bigger dick.  Carnal sins.  Is burger-dealing worse than pot-dealing?  ~~The thing to do now is to down a few pints.  On to the pub. 

6:42 PM  I’m at Molly’s now.  On the way here, I started thinking the reason I am feeling so bummed is because of the longing I felt for Gabi when we were leaving school today.  That’s it.  Now, I’m stumped.  It’s not an avenue I should pursue.  Whatever.  What else?  It’s been a while since I’ve been reduced to that phrase.  Walters wants to get together later tonight to drink and write and tell be about his true love that he met in Hawaii last month and saw for the first time since then in Northern California this past weekend.  I feel like a loner.  I feel like a smoke.  I better not--except maybe a bong hit back at the house.  Caed Mile Failte. 

“I’ve got to tell you the funniest thing,” says a girl at the bar, but her companions keep talking.  Eventually, she gets in.  The funniest thing is something she saw on a tv show.  I missed the humor.  Oh, a guy was on it she dated.  Ah, LA.  My beer’s gone.  Shall I have a whiskey?  Then I’ve got to get home and crap.  Write a third-person page.  Find a party.  Maybe we’ll go to a movie.  I could go for a smoke.  Too bad my lungs are so fucked up.  Either Joe Cocker or Tom Waits came on the juke, and guy started screaming, “Yeahhh!  Who put that on?”  and a fat woman raised her fists and screamed back, “I did!”

9-16-99 Th 1:00 PM
I don't feel like writing.  When I got home, I got about halfway through a third-person page before the engine seized.  I took the car to night class.  Babbled through the two and a half hours.  Shirelle showed up.  Thought her car had been stolen.  Duh.  She took it to go grocery shopping.  I told her I'd get a ride home with Sheryl.  Odilia gave me a plate of food, but I left it in Sheryl's car.  Shirelle had taco fixin's cooked up when I got home.  Her friend Paula came over to see Bahamas pictures.  I ate and went to bed.  Woke up suffocating in the night again.  I wonder if it's oxygen deprivation that makes me feel so tired even when I go to bed early.  For the first time since the new school year started, I had trouble getting out of bed.  Eventually, I showered and shaved and brushed and all.  Had a bowl of cereal and glass of juice and cup of coffee.  Rode to the newspaper stand.  Put thirty-five cents in, opened it, and it was empty.  I had to settle for the Times, no Opinion.  I read the sports page before class started.  After class started, we wrote sentences with our vocabulary words and illustrated them.  Then we did a workbook page.  At recess, I read more about Floyd.  Another shooting rampage.  Corrected math homework after recess.  Gave 'em an elephant puzzle sheet to do.  Went to Jack in the Box, had a burger but just a single patty, finished the paper.  We read "Where the River Begins" in our social studies books.  I have to go to a mainstreaming meeting in crazy Tracy Holzt's room to find out which disabled students from her class are going to study with my class.  I've got to read some more Caribbean when I get home.  Then I've got to finish the page I couldn't finish yesterday and work on Jim.  Work on Jim.  Work on Jim.  Then I ride to night class.  Shirelle's going out with Carmen tonight.  I should be able to work some.  Maybe I'll smoke a little.  It's almost time to go home.  10:13 PM  I must have been a prophet. I smoked a little.  Then I tried to work out a financial projection for the year 2000 and for June, 2000.  It's been a lengthy process.  Twenty-six minutes.  Is that all?  The numbers are playing tricks on me.  I thought I would draw a picture in this space and never did, and now there's no more room.  Ate tacos.

9-15-99 W 12:48 PM
Class.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning and then heated up a couple toaster waffles in the broiler and ate 'em with margarine and maple syrup.  I put cream cheese on one instead of butter.  The news is Floyd!  Floyd!  Hurricane Floyd!  I rode up to the newsstand and got the papers.  I whipped out onto Olympic as a car was making a left turn beside me.  The driver honked.  It was Miss Villasenor.  I thought she was honking hello, and I thought to myself, she's friendlier this year.  Later I realized she was honking because she thought she was going to run me over.  Sigh.  Well, at least I know she doesn't want to run me over.  Mrs. Colbert gave me a new grade book.  In class, we got new vocabulary words and reviewed how to use the glossary.  The kids couldn't have cared less.  I read most of the paper at recess.  The Houston Astros have a very good baseball team.  Fick went 0-5 last night.  Pedro pitches against Cleveland on tv tonight.  After recess, we did a phonics lesson and corrected the math homework.  I went to Numero Uno for lunch and ate three pieces of deep-dish Canadian bacon and onion pizza, drank iced coffee, and did the crossword puzzle with my left hand.  And here we are now.  We have to do that compass rose lesson.  PE if there's time.  I've got to begin Michener's take on Captain Morgan.  I'll do my third-person page when I get home.  Read La Opinion.  Go to night school.  I'll pick up their books if I have time.  Then I'll work on Jim tonight.  Maybe I'll have a puff tonight.  Hit the hay by eleven.  Shirelle got the stand-in job on the new Bochco drama we wanted.  It'll be more dough, and maybe she won't be so unhappy all the time.  I've got another meeting after school tomorrow.  It shouldn't be too long.  Friday is payday.  I moved up a step on the pay scale.  I think some people might go to Happy Hour.  Ralph was handing out info for the five-dollar football pool.  I guess I'll ante up.  I found out Lisa's wedding is at six o'clock Saturday night!  The same time the under card for the De La Hoya/Trinidad fight starts!  Oh, no!  I guess we'll have to tape it.  I'll have to call Rawler when I get home.  I want to do the cornfield maze Sunday.  I think Bernie is coming up to have me write her resume for her United Airlines interview in Chicago next week.  There's no school Monday so the Jews can atone in peace.  I've got a doctor's appointment followed by a one thirty tee time.