12-3-99 1:05 PM F
[pencil sketch of an ape with a straight razor in a room with a window and fireplace, two sacks on the floor, two portraits of women on a wall]  I just finished reading "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."  Preposterous.  Poe was an ass.  I typed that letter of recommendation for Ana Gloria.  I'm supposed to wait for Yadira's mom to come to a conference.  I have to do a third-person page and pack when I get home.  Move that tree and those rocks out.  Leave a not where to leave the key.  I almost want to buy some new CDs.  A new adult video. I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  I guess I'll head to Pasadena by about four.  Maybe I'll stop in Old Town for a beer or something.  What else?  I skipped lunch.  I slept on the futon here in my class.
12-4-99 Sa 8:40 PM
Room 6333 at the Luxor in Las Vegas.  Rochelle is in the bathroom getting ready for dinner.  We have nine thirty reservations at the steak house downstairs.  The rest of the guys will be meeting us.  We sat around the sports book at Mandalay Bay, drank, and bet on football games and horse races.  Nebraska and Alabama won us some money, as did a horse called Spineless Jellyfish.  Last night we went up about a hundred bucks playing blackjack.  We sat in the bar in Nerfetiti's Lounge and told each other how in love we are and how we should get married as soon as possible.  We had decided to run out to a Vegas chapel and get it done, but today we thought it better to get rings and tell out parents.  She's going to move in with me, though.  Hard to believe, isn't it?  My stepmother always said, "When you meet the right one, you'll know."  I never really believe that 'til now.  I feel like I feel about her the way my grandpa always felt about my grandma.  I wondered if Gramps wasn't pulling some cosmic strings up in heaven.  I want to have kids with her like today.  She does, too!  We're going to have to go to the Mandalay again and collect on our Bama ticket.  Rochelle wants to see the fountains at Bellagio.  I was thinking that I might go play some poker, but I don't think I can stand to be away from her for that long.  I wonder if the guys are going to have strippers go up their rooms.  I kind of doubt it.  Maybe Rochelle and I can do some dancing somewhere later tonight.  I could go for some kind of stimulant.

Reference letter for Ana Gloria

12-2-99 11:00 AM Th

I’m tired. I’m hungry, too.  Maybe I’ll have a cheeseburger today.  I drove to school today because I’m not feeling so good.  My mild sore throat and sinusitis persist.  I would just drive home and have some leftover pasta carbonara that Rochelle made for me last night at my house, but my car is locked up ‘til school is over.  I could just wait ‘til I get home, and that may be what I do after all, but I kind of feel like treating myself.  Maybe, I should just wait ‘til Vegas to treat myself to a burger, though.  I have to remember to write a letter of recommendation for Ana Gloria Vargas.  I have a paragraph to add to Him when I get home.  I’m going to need a nap.  I wan to get a haircut.  I’ve got to print up some material to distribute among interested colleagues.  I’m going to being reading “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” today.  What else?  I’m at Jack in the Box now. I haven’t been her for at least a few weeks, so I’m not feeling real guilty about it.  I’m wondering if inviting Rochelle to Vegas is such a good idea.  Too late to do anything but make the best of it now, I guess.  Weirdness.  She looked very pretty this morning.  We’re staying at the Luxor.  I hate that place.

                I just set my diet back about a week.  Whateve2r.  I just missed her right now.  It’s nice to be loved and believe it.  I won’t be hitting on any Vegas hos, though.  Oh, well.  What else?  One more page.  The breeze is chilly, but the sun is hot.  She really is a sweetheart.  I’m the one we need to worry about.  If this thing goes down in flames, it will have been all my doing.  12:19  I’m back at school, sitting at the lunch tables under the elm trees.  The bell just rang.  I was snoring super hard last night.  Poor Rochelle.  I should have held out [ red ink line drawing of Quasimodo in fool’s garb hanging from a rope, surrounded by smoke] on lunch ‘til I got home.  Duh.  We go to music in a little while.  I wish I was home, playing my guitar.  I hope Chester is at ease.

12-1-99 W 11:57 AM

I invited Rochelle to Vegas this weekend.  I don’t know how the guys are going to react to that, it being a bachelor party and all.  Maybe they won’t even have to know.  She wants to go, though. 😊 She’s going to drive out and meet me there.  I’m flying out of Burbank at 8 PM, Friday.  We come back Sunday.  Rochelle and I both decided to play hooky on Monday.  There’s that thing at the House of Blues on Sunday night, too.  I’m sort of fired up about it all.  She’s going to come over after work tonight.  I haven’t eaten anything yet today.  I finished the paper already.  I found another ad for game show contestants in the classifieds, but when I called, the voice mail was already full.  What else?  I started a third-person page this morning.  I ironed a shirt.  I tried to give Chester a biscuit this morning.  He snatched it from my hand and threw it to the bottom of his cage.  He’s obviously angry about everything.  Can’t blame him.  Whatever.  I’m ready to give Rochelle the pink slip to my ass.  Heart that is. Or cock, maybe.  I’m ready to knock her up and make a go of it.  Move her in and hand her my check every month.  Marry her in some tacky chapel in Vegas.  Nuts.  [line-drawn googly face in red ink]  I’ve got to finish that third-person page when I get home.  Got to let Chester taste a little freedom outside his cage.  Pick up paper towels, detergent, and soap.  Flowers?  A couple steaks.  I wish I had remembered to ask Rochelle for her work number.  I’ll buy her a toothbrush and put it in a bouquet of flowers.  I’m insane.  I need a shrink.  I don’t care.  I wonder if parrots see in color.  I’ll definitely read “Hop Frog” after this.  Then, we have to do some social studies.  We’re going to begin a unit on the Kwakiutl tribe of the Pacific Northwest, where now, there are violent protests going on against the World Trade Organization.  What else?      The skies are gloomy, but I’m not.  Being happy feels great.  Even knowing it doesn’t last, taints it not.  Maybe it will last.  Maybe she will be a place or rather we’ll have a place between us that’s happy like this, even if other things are unhappy things.  Freakboy.  I’ve got to call Rawler.  I don’t have any conferences scheduled for today.  On to “Hop Frog.”

11-30-99 Tu 12:50 PM

I’m at school.  I’m waiting for my conferences to come.  I have kind of a sore throat.  I can’t wait to get home and let the bird, Chester, the Cynical Parrot, out of his cage.  I’m looking forward to talking to Rochelle again.  I need a staple gun.  Should I hook up my modem again?  She seemed to want me to.  We talked about taking Friday off.  So we can see each other before I go to fucking Vegas.  Maybe I should see if I can get her out to Vegas.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  Rode my bike to work.  I need to get Rochelle’s work number and address.  Duh duh duhr duh.  I have to read Slim Jim Phantom’s untitled story.  Maureen is grappling with cosmic philosophical questions.  She wants to know who God’s father is.  I read “The Black Cat” and reread “The Cask of the Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.”  I read the newspaper today.  I’ve got to do another third-person page.  Got to get detergent, soap, and paper towels.  The Tazmanian Devil is a coffee mug a kid [ink line drawing of Loony Tunes’ Tasmanian Devil] gave me.  Maureen sure is a curious and talkative little girl.  Rochelle was talking about having children last night.  I’ve known her about seventy-two hours and think I could about go for it.  Is that for real?  Am I fool?  Am I just swimming for the nearest flotsam in a storm-tossed ocean?  Or have I reached a safe harbor after years on that ocean?  Can I trust my instincts? I’m going to read “Hop Frog” next.  I made my bed this morning, but my watch came while I did it.  When I was done, I couldn’t find the watch anywhere.  Ugh.  I don’t want to work tonight.  I want to see Rochelle.  I’m obviously just a psycho.  I drop one obsession and pick up another.  Yeah, but this obsession likes me back.  Javonia, Dijon, Geleeza, and Lamarr, all former students, are in here screaming and singing and acting bizarre while Maureen peppers me with existential questions I can’t answer.  I should type up some shit to give to Jim and Manny.  When I finish this, I’ll read Phantom’s thing.  I wish I had time to work out.  I think I’ve lost about ten or fifteen pounds in the last month and half, but now I need to build some muscle.

11-29-99 M 12:10 PM
Where do I start?  After Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's, I gave Jerry the Freak a ride home.  When I got home, there was a message from Carlin that Bere wanted to see the onion. I red "The Masque of the Red Death" and had a smoke and then decided to go over there.  Glorious was there.  She looked good.  She was happy to see me.  We talked a long time.  She said she had been a little sad that I "dumped" her on New Year's Eve two years ago.  She said that I'm a great guy and that we have a lot in common.  She said that even though she had been a little sad, she respected my decision and admired my integrity.  I said I was sorry, I was an idiot, and that I deserved to be scorned and slapped.  I said I couldn't believe she was still nice to me and told her she is a hundred times better woman than Shirelle.  We kind of held hands while we talked.  We ended up playing Pictionary.  Glorious and I won the first game.  In the second game, they teamed me with Greg, and over-flamboyant, buck/gap-toothed, braided-hair queer.  We won.  After that, Glorious and I took a short walk.  I invited her to my house, but she declined.  They gave me a ride to my house around the corner, dropped me off, and went home.  She called me last night, but I was dead asleep, and told her I'd call back today.  Friday morning, I got up early and drove to Burbank and dropped another G on that entertainment center, a Jennyhill chair, an end table, and a lamp.  I had kind of a hangover and cursed throughout the assembly of said purchases.  I called my mom's friend's daughter, Rochelle, but got only machine.  I didn't leave a message.  Later, the phone rang.  I couldn't find it before the machine came on.  When I found it, I star-sixty-nined.  It was Rochelle's mother (?!)  Apparently, I had star-sixty-nined their star-sixty-nine.  We talked a while.  I had some charm and wit for a change.  I invited Rochelle to come up to Pasadena with me.  She came up from Orange to my house.  We went to Twin Palms to meet Getoff.  She has a great sense of humor and no interest in bullshit.  We were kind of touching some: a hand on the arm, the shoulder, the back, around the waist.  We were in the middle of a conversation with Getoff in the middle of the club when I leaned over and gave her an unpremeditated, open-mouthed kiss on the lips that was welcomed and returned in such a way that Walters walked off without finishing what he was saying.

W 1:03 PM 11-24-99

I’m in the school library with the rest of the faculty.  It’s a pupil-free day.  We’ve been sitting in meetings all morning.  I read my newspaper, even though Mrs. James and Mrs. Berger said it was rude.  I wanted to tell them to mind their own business.  Ugh.  I had a dream that I was at Knott’s Berry Farm with Anne and all the ice between us had melted and she was warm with me and smiling, and we were holding hands.  I woke directly from that dream bitterly disappointed that it wasn’t real.  I groaned and rolled over and punched the bed and went back to sleep.  Urg.  I ate no breakfast this morning.  I was sitting on the couch, bummed.  I heard Shirelle get her mail.  I peeked out the window and saw her get in her car and drive away.  I drove to work.  Everybody read my paper before I did.  The meetings have been about new report cards and ELD levels.  Yawn.  We went to KooKooRoo at lunch.  I drove King, Gillespie, and Florelle, and we met Estelle, Nattaz, and Mulroney.  I couldn’t talk much.  Ralph and I talked about going to play golf and shoot a little pool today.  I didn’t dare look at her today.  AUGH!  Her door is open.  How unusual.  What if I went over and told her about my dream?  Fucking dream.  Can’t help what we dream.  Don’t talk to her.  An open door isn’t necessarily an invitation.  I had a beer and a whiskey at Dublin’s with Slim Jim last night.  He took me to task for looking like I don’t listen.  He said I am uncommunicative.  Same as Shirelle says, and James, and Berger.   Phantom keeps wanting to express his affection.   I think his TB is heightening his sense of mortality.  I could go for playing some basketball today.  I have to do a third-person page.  I haven’t read any Poe for a few days.  Haven’t worked on Jim.  I have to get more frames and albums.  Get that entertainment center.  I’ve got ironing to do.  Got to wash the car.  I mopped this morning.  I’ve got to empty the dishwasher.  Feel like playing guitar.  Why would she leave her door open if not to invite visitors?  She could open the window if she wanted fresh air and still maintain her whole keep-away aura.

11-23-99 Tu 5:48 PM
I'm at Pio Pico.  I never wrote in here Sunday.  After our game, which I typed about this morning, I went home, showered, and ran some errands.  When I got home, there was a message from Getoff that he had four free passes to the House of Blues.  He and Estelle were going.  Did I want to go?  I called him back, but he wasn't there.  I called Gabi, Estelle's sister, to ask if she knew where they were.  She didn't.  I smoked and started sorting through my pictures and put some in frames and hung them up.  Getoff called, and he and Estelle and Carlin came over.  They admired my drawings and asked about some of the pictures I had on the mantel.  Carlin wanted me to type a psychology test for her.  I started it, but it was taking too long, so we decided to just go up to the House of Blues.  The band did Pink Floyd covers all night.  At first, it was lame.  I drank a few whiskeys and thought about when I went with Jay Ball to see Pink Floyd at the Coliseum.  I started to like the show a little better, and there was a tap on my shoulder, and I turned around and there was Jay Ball.  I gave him a hug and we talked a while before he went back downstairs.  Then I remembered I went with Shirelle to see Pink Floyd at the Rose Bowl, not with Jay Ball at the Coliseum.  Weird.  After that show, where I was frying hard on LSD, I ran to Jay Ball's house and bought a guitar.  Then I thought, no, I bought that guitar from Old Rawler.  Weird.  Weird.  Weird.  I went to the bar and got another whiskey.  I was down to my last six bucks after that.  An extremely beautiful young woman, with perfectly smooth white skin and long, straight, full, red hair, and a super model's playful face, wearing a rose skirt that clung to her perfect hips and ass, and a low-cut top of her beautiful boobies stood on the other end of the bar.  I guessed she was about twenty-three and figured I'd go over and strike out.  I don't even remember my approach, but she welcomed me!  She was so beautiful, a nanny from Canada.  I joked about her accent, and she put her hand on my arm.  Her friends said they were going, but she said she was going to stay and talk to me!  After a while, her friends came back, and we decided to go to Dublin's.  Getoff said he was leaving, but I said I was going to stay with Francine.  We walked arm in arm to Dublin's.  They bought me drinks!  Guys swarmed all over her and her friends, but she kept coming back to me!  We got drunker and drunker and suddenly it was closing time, and the three of them jumped in a cab leaving me and the other three guys holding our dicks.  Ouch!

11-19-1999  All odd digits--won't happen again for over a thousand years!  9:50 PM Sa
I'm at the Gaslight on Santa Monica, all dressed up.  I may go into this Lush place next door.  The car will get a ticket after three AM.  I got an Amstel from a hot bartenderess in black leather pants and spaghetti-string blouse.  A blues bongo combo does a workout.  Big gulp.  I have got to be careful driving.  I should have taken the bus.  I won't stay at Lush long.  I have a baseball game at 12:30 in Cheviot Hills manana.  Carlos stopped by the house a while ago.  He didn't want to come to this party.  Lush is that club that Penn used to own.  "How ya doin'?" asks a bartender.  "Good, thanks," I say.  He smiles warmly.  All part of the job.  He has a shirt with a Moose Lodge logo on the back.  I feel very conspicuous writing.  I made some bacon and eggs this morning while Roxanna slept.  She didn't want hers.  Bacon and eggs, that is.  She took a cup of coffee.  I had just poured it when the cab pulled up, so I told her to just keep the mug.  She wanted my number.  I gave it to her, but I hope she doesn't call.  Vern, reads the front of the Moose Lodge shirt.  That bacon and eggs was all I ate today, and two tortillas.  A young couple sits a seat around the corner from me struggling to have a conversation.  STAG [drawing of an antlered stag in blue ink]  Augh.  Still a page to go.  I struck out swinging on the phone with Villasenor tonight.  Looks like there's dancing over at Lush.  I don't know if I brought my dancing shoes tonight.  I think I sprained my vas defrens.  Ruptured a seminal vessicle.  The bar's filling up now.  Guys on either side of me trying to get comfortable on their bar stools now.  We Reserve The Right To Refuse Service To Anyone.  I'm covering what I write with my hand because I don't want anyone reading it.  How stupid is that?  The band took a break, but now I'm hearing bongos bongo back up again.  I guess I'll have a little whiskey now and then walk over to Lush.

11-18-99 Th 11:46 AM
Couldn't quite finish this yesterday, could I?  Facing this is facing how lonely and sad I feel.  Whatever.  Kirsten did not call last night.  That in itself doesn't really bother me.  Whatever.  I haven't eaten today.  This is the first I've written.  I emptied the dishwasher this morning.  I have been making my bed all week.  Villasenor's subarctic beauty is murdering me.  I'm such a fucking idiot.  I dreamed about Laurie Sunnyfield last night.  I don't recall the dream beyond the impression of her presence in it.  Are we denied the things we covet because we covet them?  I wonder if I'm not already accursed in they eyes of God, and I think of the two unborn children I fathered and had destroyed.  I have asked forgiveness in my heart, but maybe that's not enough.  Whatever.  I can't wait to drink myself silly this weekend.  The Bigfoot Lodge is a club written up in the paper.  It's in Los Feliz, and immediately my mind invites you-know-who there, followed by the sneaking suspicion that she would probably not welcome an invitation.  UGH.  I can't understand why she rejects me.  Why they all ultimately reject me.  It's because I'm not powerful enough.  Not financially or socially powerful enough.  And I'm the same way.  I'm always attracted to fucked up bitches with fucked up attitudes.  Nice girls don't interest me much.  I can't wait to have a drink.  I might start drinking after work tonight.  I wonder if Murphy-Hoag is still planning on calling.  If Shirelle's going out with her though, then I'm not.       Forgiveness without penance is an empty salvation.       What else?  We worked in our phonics books this morning.  I read the paper at recess.  We studied place value to the thousands some more.  The kids are at lunch now.  Mrs. Holzt sent over a couple oatmeal cookies.  I have to go to the LACAS office tonight.  How long will this curse last?  I can't wait to drink some alcohol.  My dad said it's the root of all evil.  Naturally, I crave it.  Do I then crave evil?  Or does it crave me?  Is the craving itself evil, or is the evil the result?  No one doubts the onion was black magic.  How can no one doubt that?