11-7-99 Su 3:20 PM
I'm on an airplane to Portland.  A Southwest 737.  Dad and I drove from the hospital to an all-night store and got some juice and donuts to take to Grandma's house.  I looked through photo albums with pictures of Grandpa with the Eskimos in Greenland in 1942, where he'd been assigned U-boat patrol aboard the Arundel.  There were also pictures of him playing football in the thirties and coverage of his and grandma's wedding in a newspaper article.  His grandfather had built Haverstraw, and his father had been mayor.  My dad says they lost the money in South American bonds.  When he came back from Greenland was when they got married, and Grandma traveled with him to San Francisco where he got shipped out to the Pacific to retake the Philippines and New Guinea.  He worked on tug that rescued ailing vessels, and they often had to shoot at Zeros that attacked.  He came home in 1946.  That's the year my dad was born.  The sun came up while we were at Grandma's.  We went back up to Dad's house.  Joan cooked up some bacon and eggs.  I went up to bed and slept a while.  Neighbors came over with dishes of food.  Football on TV.  I'm not clear on yesterday.  We ate lasagna at the table, but no one could get started.  I said, "Should we say grace or something tonight?"  I got tabbed to say it.  "God, thank you for bringing us all together tonight.  Please let Grandpa know that we love him and will always consider him at this table with us."  Then we ate.  Grandma wanted to go home after dinner.  I said, "Do you want to be alone tonight, Grandma, or would you like some company.  She said she wouldn't mind some company.  I tabbed Bernie to go.  I thought it might be better since she's a girl.  I don't know.  Maybe I should have gone.  I stayed with my dad.  He told a lot of stories complaining about Grandpa leaving at four in the morning to go to Fort Ticonderoga for family vacation and not letting them swim at the lake because of polio.  He told how Grandpa used to dig holes for phone-line posts and how gigantically strong he was after years of that.  I watched "Saving Private Ryan" after everyone had gone to bed.  I felt further blasted by it.  Dad came down because he couldn't sleep, but he passed out with his head in his hands.

11-6-99 Sa 4:34 PM
I'm in Idaho.  Grandpa Zurn's condition worsened, so my dad flew us up here to Hayden Lake via Reno, Boise, and Spokane.  I had to miss my weekend museum class with Miss Villasenor.  I called the program director to try to have the two hundred dollars I paid applied to a future class, but she refused.  I left eight hundred dollars at the house for Shirelle.  She's moving out this weekend and taking all the furniture with her.  I met my brother and sister at the house.  We took Bernice's Honda to the airport.  I was nervous all day. My dad said on the phone that my grandfather's heart is failing.  All day it felt like I'd just been punched in the stomach.  I tried to imagine what we were in for.  I was afraid to see him die.  I had talked to Gabi earlier, and she said it was as much about him seeing me and his family around him before he went as it was about us seeing him.  I felt really selfish.  I kept thinking about the opportunity lost with Anne.  I had a couple of bourbons on the plane and started talking to a pretty face on the seat in front of me.  Before she got off the plane in Reno, I handed her a not asking if I could call her.  She wrote her number on the note and gave it back.  On to Boise we flew.  The old man next to me told me about his prostate and how much he loved Boise.  When we landed, the stewardess announced there was a hydraulic problem with the plane, and we had to hang around the Boise airport for two hours.  I played pinball and thought a lot of selfish things.  I wondered if he would be dead or alive when we arrived.  When we finally got to Spokane, my dad told us that Grandpa seemed to be doing a little better, though he wasn't out of the woods yet.  I was cheered. I started to wonder if coming up here was really necessary. My father seemed so strange to me on the ride to Hayden.  Joan had sandwiches for us when we got to the house.  We talked a while.  I was tired.  I went to bed.  I prayed to God to bless Shirelle, and Anne, and Gabi, and the girl on the plane.  "Oh, and Grandpa," I threw in almost as an afterthought.  I went to sleep with that old bittersweet love in my head.~~~~~~~~~_______________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________Dark.  A light came on.  Voices.  I was angry with my father for a moment--his lack of tenderness.  I realized it wasn't morning.  It was three thirty in the night.  "Boys, get up," my stepmother said sternly.  "Get dressed.  We're going to the hospital. Your grandfather..."  I couldn't figure out what she was saying at first.  My brain wouldn't work.  I sat up and put my feet on the floor.  He must be gone.  I dressed.  My dad had already gone to get my grandmother.  My stepmother drove us to the hospital.  There was some confusion.  She didn't know for sure if he was gone or not.  The nurse that called said he was alive, but his BP was dropping and his pulse was erratic.  Joan wanted to wait in the parking lot 'til my dad got there.  I felt bitter.  "Let's not just wait here if he's in there dying.  Let's go be with him."  We drove around the parking lots looking for my dad. He wasn't there.  It was raining and cold.  We got out and walked to the door, but it was locked.  We went back to the car and drove around to the other side. We had to walk through a long maze of halls back to the other side of the hospital.  Up the elevators to the third floor.  If he's still around, we should go in," I said, "but if he's already gone, we should wait and let until Grandma can go in and make her peace.  Joan went ahead to check and came out nodding and mouthed the words, "He's gone."   [pencil sketch of grandfather's dead face] My eyes started to sting and stream.  His expression of love for us was unconditional.  Gone forever.  It seemed trite, and then the tears stung harder, and I rebuked myself again.  I saw my dad down the hall staring up at the ceiling in tears.  His arms were outstretched.  He might have been asking God why or trying to bring Gramps back.  He came to me and embraced me and my sister with those arms, sobbing.  "You're a good man," I said, rubbing his neck and back, crying.  We stayed like that a while.  "You want to come see him."  We went in.  His skin had the unmistakable pallor of the dead.  His mouth was open.  Grandma was hunched over him, and a new wave of hurt hit.  I left the room.  I wanted to leave her alone with him for a while.  They'd been in love since they were children.  "Oh, kids, oh, kids," she said.  "He loved you kids so much."  We hugged and I kissed her salty face.  I  ugh.  I feel like a ghoul writing like this.  My poor grandma.  I sat in the waiting room.  Never see him again.  They saddest of all was how in love they stayed for so many years, and then I cried about Shirelle and me.  "God damn, we're playin' football here," I hear my dad in the next room now.  I rode back from the hospital with him, just the two of us.  The last two John L Zurns.  I felt like a failure.  I wished I'd had a child to show Grandpa before he was gone.  I said nothing.  The Beach Boys were on the radio.  I wanted to turn it off, but I didn't want my dad to notice me.  I'm being called to eat. 

11-4-99 Th 1:05 PM
Class.  Ugh.  Shirelle came home whistling and singing last night.  She has none of my grimness over this breakup.  I was trying to sleep, and she was stomping around the house driving me insane.  I lay in the dark and reasoned that the house is mine.  I found it.  My friend's family owns it.  It's in my neighborhood, near my jobs, and I had to move there.  Shirelle chose to move in with me, and now she's the one opting out of the arrangement, so she should be the one to move.  I went out to tell her this.  She was stoned.  She said a lot of awful things about me, but she conceded much sooner than I had anticipated.  She said she'd need a month.  I told her she could do it by the end of this weekend.  I said, "You get boxes on Friday, pack on Saturday, get a U-Haul on Sunday, and clear out." Put your things in storage and stay on Demona's couch.  She's been staying on the couch in this house.  If she's going to stay on a couch, why not stay on one where she's not filling the other occupant with extreme disgust.  She immediately started rummaging around, taking down pictures, ripping up photos of us together.  I went back to bed.  The first thing on my mind this morning was Anna Villasenorita.  Ugh.  Then where I was came to me.  I got out of bed and showered.  Shirelle had taken her things from the bathroom.  When I get home today, I'll have to have the rest of the bills put in my name.  She hit me with a few more recriminations before I left the house.  I saw Dahn Dior on the sidewalk when I went to buy a paper.  "Hey, Book Pal," I said.  She tickled her nails on my back, causing prostate to hitch.  She asked about Shirelle.  I laughed and told her.  She said, "Good.  You don't buy a house with termites.  ~~~~~ I guess I'll eat that broccoli when I get home.  I'm going to have to buy a bed, a table, a couch, a coffee table, chair, carpet, and a lamp.  I hope I can get three thousand for that ring.  I've got that fucking physical bill to figure out.  We did workbook pages and talked about prefixes and suffixes this morning.  At recess, I stayed in and read the paper.  We did rounding to the nearest hundred, but most of the kids were baffled because they wouldn't listen.  I took film up to the developer at lunch.  3:05  I"m at home now.  I steamed the broccoli.  I also ate a piece of cake.  Doh!  I called Idaho, but no one answered.  I left a message.  I have to buy birthday cards.  I'll read "William Wilson" now.

It's Going Around

11-3-99 12:46 PM W
I haven't eaten today.  I'm going to broil that steak when I get home.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  Left the house.  All I said was bye.  We pretend like no one else is there.  I walked to the Royal Mart and got the news after I rode my bike to school.  I sat on a bench and read, but kids kept coming to talk to me, so I didn't read much.  My class read aloud their dream poems.  At recess, I had to go to the copier.  Jackie said she and Vic had split up.  It's going around, I said.  Anna came in.  We didn't say anything to each other.  I wonder where she was last night.  Asleep, I hope.  Urg.  I told Jackie there was more relief than grief.  We worked in the phonics books and did a lesson on rounding to the nearest ten and the nearest hundred.  I had to keep Walter at lunch because he keeps screwing around.  I finished the newspaper, and now, here I am.  Skipped lunch.  I can feel my hunger turning inward, consuming some fat maybe.  Ugh.  I'd sure like to lose that flab under my chin.  I wish I had time to work out.  I'll read some more of Poe's pathetic letters after this.  We've got to do our "Reading a Physical Map" lesson.  Then we play softball.  That'll burn a few more calories.  Cook that London broil when I get home.  Do my third-person page.  Maybe ride to Larchmont if there's enough time.  Ride to teach night school.  We're studying daily schedules.  Ride home.  Figure out where the heck Jim woke up that morning.  What he ate.  Why Larissa's a vegetarian.  Go to bed early.  Tomorrow, we have a grade-level meeting.  Music.  Friday there's an Emergency Response Team meeting.  Oh, wait!  I'm supposed to go to a picket line at Venice High or the cluster office to demonstrate for a raise.  What about my London broil?  Maybe after night school.  What else?  Friday, I have that Ethnic Experience class with Anna.  I don't know exactly when or where.  I hope she'll give me a ride.  I think I also have to go Saturday and Sunday.  I'm going to have to figure out how to get there.  Maybe I'll rent a car this weekend.  Ugh.  I'm going to have to be very careful about pinning my hopes on Anna.  What else? Got to figure out this apartment thing.  2:25   We're just back from PE.  Ashawntay hurt her knee and is crying like her puppy got run over.

11-2-99 Tu 11:50 AM

I’m at school.  I was just coming back from bringing my kids down to lunch.  They’re all cracked out on Halloween candy.  On the way back, Miss Villasenor was about a first down in front of me heading in the same direction.  She kind of stopped and kept going like she was debating whether to wait for me.  But then she turned around.  Gorgeous.  I couldn’t hear what she was saying through all that gorgeousness, but it was something about her kids.  I said I didn’t know if I was particularly grumpy today, or if it was that my kids were totally whacked, but that I was having a hard time.  She said Principal Harvard was in her room, and one kid called another kid a booty-head, and Harvard called them over and said to the name-caller, “Well, your head looks just like his head, except that it’s a little bigger, so I guess if he’s a booty-head, that makes you an even bigger booty-head.”  I could feel my smile ripping my face open.  I said I sent my check to a class she told me about.  She said, “Good,” (Did she say “Good?”) “I’ll see you there Friday.”  I’ve got to temper my enthusiasm.  I’ve got to remember the Glorious episode to help keep things in perspective.  My mindset right now is to just find a place, move in, and read and write as ever.  Enjoy my friends and freedom.       I don’t know when I’m lying or not.     I may have to live at the Bounty living in constant mortal fear of being buried alive when the big one hits.  All I ate yesterday was a bagel in the morning.  This morning, I had to slices of pupusa bread.  I took a London broil out of the freezer to thaw.  There’s the bell.  I have to go get my asthma medicine at Larchmont today.  I have got to not go psycho over this Shirelle breakup, and it’s got to be permanent.  I wonder if she would be willing to move.  That would be best.  Ugh.  I’ve been reading Poe’s letters. What a mess.  He sounds like sort of an asshole a little bit.  Unwilling to work but expecting to me made an aristocrat.  Like my brother Mac.  There are no good residential rental listings in the classifieds.  The other half of our duplex may be available, but I don’t want to hear that ho getting fucked.  Urgh.  It’s probably going to be a very frustrating year.  Millennium madness.  I could go for a puff.  But bought weed last night.

Ice on the Snatch

M 1-11-99 2:40 PM

The kids are gone.  A cool breeze comes through the door.  I feel bathed by it.  So Anne seemed mostly unhappy with our get-together Friday night. Certainly I gave her enough reasons to be.  Ambiguity and drunkenness being two of the most obvious.  Spilling a glass of ice water in her lap couldn’t have helped.  She was bored by Kris Kristofferson.  She sat out at the bar.  I didn’t know if she wanted to be left alone.  I went out to see.  I had a bourbon with me.  She said she was tired of standing.  We talked about a used tampon in the trash in the bathroom.  I kept having to go to the bathroom.  I kept saying, “Excuse me, but I’m going to check out that bloody tampon again.”  We went over to Dan Tana’s.  I ordered grub and wine.  She refused to eat or drink.  The waiter recognized us.  “Wilcher ill,” he said.  His daughter goes here.  He was good to me.  Brought me a glass of wine and dessert on the house.  That was around when I knocked the water over.  I don’t know.  A little ice water on the snatch might be fun, but that probably wasn’t the right circumstance.  We left to go back to her place by the fountain in Los Feliz.  She bolted from the car.  Called strike three.  Getoff dropped me at my house.  I went to my game on Sunday morning.  We won fourteen to four.  I was three for four with a double and two runs scored and two stolen bases.  Got a nice scab on my knee.  After the game, I called Getoff.  He wanted me to call Gabi and Esther and set up a date.  I called Gabi.  They were about to go shopping.  Said they’d call back.  I read the paper.  I didn’t expect they’d want to go, but they called around five.  I told Getoff that we were the Fonz going out with the Limon sisters.  We took them to Renee’s in Santa Monica.  Walked the Promenade and the out onto the pier.  It was very romantic.  I told Gabi my engagement was over.  She told me she’s seeing a paramedic.  Swing and miss—strike three!  It all makes sense.  It was an awkward drive home.  Shirelle wants me to move out.  I’m going to say this for the last time: Bitch.  I definitely felt like a loser.  I was terrified to see Anne.  She stayed away during the morning assembly.  I stumbled upon her in the mail room during recess.  Gulp.  “Hello,” I said.  She asked if we did anything after.  I was heartened she was showing signs of curiosity.  I said, “No, we just went home.  I was falling asleep in the car.  How about you?  Did you do anything Sunday?”  “I had to do things for school.  That’s why I had to leave so early.”  Again, I was heartened.  She seemed to want to explain that she wanted to stay out longer.  Maybe.  Maybe my drunkenness and ambiguity were not the main reason for her wanting to leave.  Wishful thinking?

10-3-99 7:02 PM S

I’m at Getoff’s house.  I feel trippy.  Jittery.  Full of fits and jerks.  Getoff and I are going to see Kris Kristofferson at the Troubador.  Miss Villasenor is going to come with us.  Those words release a joy chemical in my stomach that tickles right up into my throat.  After the Halloween parade, we went up to Mexican Village.  I rode up with Florelle in her battered Mustang with top dropped back and the sunshine shining.  I drank a lot, fast.  Getoff came, too.  Gabi was there.  Pert as ever.  Everyone was sitting on the patio, but I was drinking so fast, I stayed at the bar.  People kept asking why didn’t I go sit out on the patio.?  I kept explaining it was because I was drinking too fast to leave the bar.  Getoff came over and sat down.  He said, “So, which one of these girls have you got a crush on?”  “She’s not here,” I said.  I had seen Anne leaving.  I saw her taking out the trash from their class Halloween party.  I asked if she needed a hand.  She looked at her hand and said, “No.”  She told me she was tired.  So, I didn’t ask her about going to Mexican Village.  Getoff asked me about her.  I said she was kind of a bookworm.  He wanted to know if she’s blond or brunette.  Brunette.  I started slobbering on about how pretty her face is.  There goes that nervous joy chemical again.  While I was telling Getoff this, I felt a finger poke in the back.  I turned around, and it was her—Karlyn’s lighting candles for me.  She says, “I’m a witch now.”  She doesn’ t just mean for Halloween.  I walked Anne out to her car.  I hugged her good-bye.  I felt a little awkward.  We’re going to eat at Birds.  We ate at Noonan’s this morning.  Before golfing.  We’ve got to pick her up in an hour.  We should get going if we want to eat first.  Maybe I should finish this up there.  How bizarre.  How bizarre.  Just be honest and truthful with good humor.  We came back here after we left Mexican Village.  Carolyn Roberts and I picked up a few cases of beer.  Gabi and her sister, Esther, stayed after everyone else left.  Getoff and Esther were kissing.  I gave Gabi a foot rub.  I asked her if I could kiss her.  She said, “No.”

10-28-99 Th 4:13 PM
"...betrayal inundates the atoms of the universe." - Lauren Slater.  5:06 PM  It feels like autumn again this late afternoon.  The sky is gray.  Coffee mug.  Got a 1945 Viking Portable Library volume of the works of Poe.  A little green tome on which the hard cover is going soft.  It's stamped LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY. on the top edges of the pages when the book is closed.  On the inside cover, someone has written C. Novak 13705 Pierce St Pacoima Calif.  Where did I get this book?  I think one of my kids at Sharp gave it to me.  Sharp Avenue Elementary was actually on Pierce St. in Pacoima.  It's stamped Mrs. Marie Novak on three more pages.  Edited by Philip Van Doren Stern. 
My life is a prison.  I wish I could skip school and smoke and read and drink and write.  And have sexy loving phone conversations with Gabi and Anne and then go out and demonstrate my cutting-edge wit and intelligence to such a degree that I have my pick of babes in the bars to go home with.  "To Catch a Thief" is on TV.  Wish I could stay and watch it.  Some Cary Grant South of France thriller/romance  or something.  I wonder if Archie is frying.  Ashyantae's mom came to talk about Ashyantae and started crying.  I read an essay by a once-anorexic psychiatrist treating a chronic masturbator.
 The Yanks won it.  I've got to leave for work soon.  Another cheesy little carnival has sprung up in the vacant lot by the bus depot at the bottom of Rimpau and Hudson.  Maybe I'll take my camera with me tonight.  I've got to write Jim's response to Laura's vegetarianism.  Florelle asked me about Jim today at Taco Bell.  Yada yada yada.  I'll have to put on a sweater for my bike ride.  I've got to get some candy for my kids and remember to bring a sharp knife and spoon for the Jack o' Lantern tomorrow.  S'pos'd to go to Placentia tomorrow.  Got to call John Ball. 

Throes of Hype

10-27-99 5:12 PM W

I’m at home in the living room, sitting on the couch, writing in this journal on the coffee table.  Game four of the World Series is going through the throes of its pre-game hype as the Yanks attempt to close out a sweep of the Braves behind Roger Clemens.  The Rocket with take on Atlanta ace John Smoltz.  Meanwhile, I walked around the room closing windows as the first chill of fall seems finally to be blowing in this late afternoon. Against that chill and a heavy drowse have I brewed a pot of coffee from which I’m sipping a mugful as I write.  I’ve also got some Triscuits and bleu cheese to munch on.  I have to leave for school in about twenty minutes.  I’ll need a sweater for that bike ride tonight.  My sister Bernice wants me to take over the lease on her Honda before she moves to Chicago to work for United Airlines.  I may very well do it.  I read the news today.  – A perfect first for Clemens – Skipped lunch.  Took Miss Villasenor’s class so she could individually assess her kids according to district policy.  I read them a version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  Most of my third graders wanted to hear it, but the first graders were all giggly, making it difficult to sustain the mood.  I put that book of Ring Lardner shorts in my pack, but I haven’t gotten a chance to read it.  Paul O’Neill’s father died last night.  He’s the New York right fielder.  That’s not going to be a very fun World Series celebration for him if they win. [colored-pencil etching of the tropics from the cover of Caribbean]