2-24-00 Th 5:12 PM
Urg.  Typed fifteen minutes this morning.  Walked to school so that Rochelle could meet me after, and we could walk up to the GM dealer together.  There was an African American Heritage Assembly in the auditorium.  I got stamps at lunch.  Walked up to the post office.  Picked up my film.  None of the pictures are very good.  Had an Ultimate Deathburger at Jack in the Box because I didn't think there would be any time to eat when I got home.  We corrected our problem-solving papers.  We did some more work on distinguishing between reality and fantasy in literature.  We were in the middle of talking about colonies when the maintenance guy came to fix the tables, so I took the kids out to the yard.  I played basketball with the boys.  Rochelle and I couldn't get the price we wanted at the Oldsmobile dealership.  We walked home.  I don't know what we're going to do now.  Rochelle made me a taco.  I've got to leave for night school now.  I should stop by the office.  Haven't read Blake yet.  Still have to put stamps on letters to Wales.  Do a third-person page.  I don't feel like riding to work tonight, but I have to.  It's cold tonight.  What else?  I don't know if we can go out to Bahooka tomorrow like we planned because we don't have a car now.  I was supposed to meet my brother to go downtown, but I missed him.  I have to call Mariachi, Rawler, and Thing.  What about this fucking car business?  I have to add a page to Jim.  Write a thank you note to the Hiroshitas.  Three notes to New Orleans.  I have to leave for LACAS now.  Phantom wanted me to go out with him after class tonight, but I don't feel like it.  Fuck!  It's time to go.  What else?  I want to play guitar some.  Urg.  What else?  We're going to "Fantasia 2000" Saturday evening.  I've got to talk to John Ball.  I think Rochelle's mom is coming Sunday. What else?  Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim

2-23-00 W 12:55 PM
Rain.  Rainy Day Schedule at school.  The kids are watching a remake of "The Parent Trap."  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  I had to walk to school because I couldn't ride my bike with my umbrella.  I got The Times and The Daily News.  I read The Times.  McCain won Michigan and Arizona.  McSorley will be kicked out of the NHL, maybe get jail time, for an on-ice assault.  We did a lesson on fantasy and reality.  The kids had to team up and write stories that could be either real or fantasy.  They would then read them to each other and everyone would guess which were which.  Half of them wrote about "Boogerland," "Pooh Pooh People," and "Buttheads."  I walked in the rain to Fromex at lunch and dropped off my film.  Then I went to Staples and got an ink cartridge for my printer.  I got a CDROM computer game for Rochelle to play on her computer and also an adventure game called "Tomb Raider."  I looked at calendars, but they didn't have any good ones.  Then I splashed over to Blockbuster and rented a couple videos.  I rented "Ten Things I Hate About You," (which is supposed to be an updated reworking of The Taming of the Shrew) and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."  Hopefully, Rochelle will feel a little better.  She has a head cold.  My brother is supposed to be coming up to the house this afternoon so we can go to the district offices and I can help get his sorry ass a job.  I'll have to write a third-person page when we get home.  Got more "Jerusalem" to read in Blake.  Find my birth certificate.  Mail Amy Carman's letter.  Write to the Joneses.  Go to LACAS.  Should I propose to work at LA High?  I'm going to have to take a bus or cab if the rain doesn't let up.  Or I guess I can have my sorry-ass brother drop me off, maybe.  I told Slim I go out to The Bounty with him Friday.  Thing and Jonette might go out to Bahooka with us on Friday.  We've got to get a car first.  Saturday I'm supposed to go to Rawler's and check out a couple houses on his street.  We've got tickets to see "Fantasia 2000" at 5:00 on Saturday.  I think my game is at 12:30 at Crystal Springs in Griffith Park.  Grass infield!  Pitcher's mound!  Principal Havard asked me to help develop a Wilshire Hill web page.  I had two slices of pizza for breakfast.  No lunch.  Rochelle is making chicken for dinner, but I'll be helping my sorry-ass brother.

2-22-00 Tu 1:27 PM

When we got home, the phone and the cynical parrot were dead.

Maybe solar flares knocked out the phone.  I think the storm killed Papillon.  A window had blown open.  They are on hinges that swing in to open.  An unusual design that must have led to the bird's doom.  Maybe the cold killed him.  Maybe the thunder scared him to death.  I felt terrible.  I wrapped him in a cloth and used a big spoon to dig a hole in the mud in the backyard, and I buried him.  I felt terrible.  It has been a terrible month with the car trouble and the ticket and court, and insurance, and the lost wallet, and the lost medicine, and the lost job, and all kinds of fucked-up shit.  And now the cynical parrot is dead.  And the phone.  I'll have to call Andrea and tell her her bird died.  On my watch.  Ugh. 

We had a hard landing in San Francisco.  I listened to the classical music station in the armrest on the flight to LA.  It complemented the monumental glory of the clouds and the adventurous suspense of the turbulence, breaking into a rousing rendition of "Pomp and Circumstance" as we descended safely onto the runway. 

I gave the cabbie twenty-five bucks and the pizza man thirty more.  I felt crappy about the bird and everything.  I went to bed without writing.  I made love to Rochelle, struggling to keep my mind full of sexual images, so that I would not be distracted to flaccidity by my remorse for the bird and everything.

 I awoke with a kink in my neck and a crook in my back.  Showered.  Dressed.  Had a small puff. Brushed.  Tried to organize.  Strummed.  Left the house late.  Rode bike.  Got paper.  Monday's, too.  Read 'em both.  Michigan primary today.  Solar storms.  I haven't eaten.  Forgot my vitamin.  No fifteen minutes.  Yet.  More Blake to read still.  Have to go to LACAS.  Get books.  Chalk. Fuck. 

2-21-00 M 1:12 PM
 It's President's Day.  Rochelle and I are sitting in San Francisco International Airport awaiting the boarding call for our flight back to Los Angeles. We flew in on a prop plane to Spokane over the moonlit snow.  My dad greeted us posing as a backwoods hick wearing a fur cap and screwy teeth, and my stepmother had shoved a pillow under her shirt so she would look pregnant.  I was tired and smarting still from court, but it was nice to see a little humor.  We stayed up and talked a while before we went to bed.  The next morning, what?  We had toast and coffee and looked over The Spokesman and went to Sears.  My dad sprang for a new refrigerator as a wedding present. It'll be delivered Tuesday next.  We drove around Coeur D'Alene and went to a Mongolian BBQ for lunch.  Then we went to Grandma's for a while and then back to my dad's.  The Chessy's came over and some law-and-order bitch who was incredulous that we live on Hudson.  "Isn't it all black?" she asked.  Joan cooked lasagna for dinner.  Donny, the retired fireman, and his wife came over for chocolate cream pie.  When everyone left, we went to bed. 

"We're burning daylight," my dad woke us with Sunday morning around 8:30."Oklahoma" was on TV.  Joan made pancakes.  We read the paper.  My dad was quizzing me about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do in North Idaho.  How would I know?  We ended up driving through Nazi country to Sand Point and had Burger King.  Ha!  We walked along Main Street.  It had its charm.  Stopped in some Christmas store and gallery.  I wanted to go into one of the bars for a beer, but it didn't seem worth trying.  We drove back, got Grandma, and went to the Coeur D'Alene Lake Resort for dinner.  I had roast pork.  Rochelle had trout.  After dinner, we stopped at Grandma's house for a bit.  Rochelle and I looked through her old photo albums with pictures from the thirties and from Grandpa's visits to the Eskimos in Greenland during the war.  Back at my dad's, we played Miles Bourne until about 10:30 and then went to bed.

 2-18-00 F 4:40 PM
Ugh.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning before we left for the Corona Superior Temple of Satan.  We waited out front in the cold for the doors to be opened.  Then we waited to be scanned by a trio of lesser demons before entering Limbo.  We waited nearly an eon in Limbo while other souls were called to be judged. A couple cases of mistaken identity were released back into the world.  Then a break was called before the misdemeanors were heard.  Commissioner Anders would not dismiss the charge, but reduced the fine to the cost of round-trip airfare to Hawaii for two--a mere six-hundred-and-fifty-one-dollar speeding ticket.  I hope he gets a sunburn, if not him, the governor, or maybe whichever of the fates was, or is, in charge of my case.  We got home with just enough time to change clothes, and we dropped Rochelle's rental at the Enterprise lot on La Brea and Beverly.  We walked to El Coyote and made ourselves fatter on beer, Kahlua and coffee, and signature scratch margaritas.  When were done, I rolled one while we waited for the cab.  A brain-damage victim wanted to talk.  He was nice, poor bastard.  Bless him.  We had a smoke in front of the airport.  I walked to the gate on wobbly legs, even though I hadn't finished the smoke, nor even gotten to the good part really.  We're on the plane now.  Finished La Opinion. Trate hacer la crucigrama, pero no pude completar mas de tres o cuatro palapbras.  Now I'm doing this.  Rochelle doesn't like to fly.  After this, I'll read some Blake.  I have the last essay in the Best of 1994 to read next.  I brought the weeklies to do their crosswords.  Mount Shasta is out the window, says the pilot, but we can't see it because we're seated near the emergency door which has no proper window.  We're supposed to arrive in Seattle at five fifty-three where we change planes to fly to Spokane.  I've never landed in Seattle before.  I've landed in Portland, Reno, Boise, and Oakland, and I've driven to Seattle and arrived on a train, but this is the first I've flown into the Emerald City.  We're supposed to get into Spokane at seven fifty-two.   I don't know what the heck to do with my folks nor what they'll do with us.

2-17-00 Th 11:59 AM
The bird is screaming "bloody murder" some would say.  I left the amp on; I can hear the fuzz from here.  I didn't go to school today.  I'm not feeling too good about it.  They had my wallet at the DMV, but not my driver's license.  I wonder if they can look up your Social Security number.  Write down your credit card numbers.  Have I brushed my teeth yet today?  I wrapped and buttoned up by umbrella.  There's one less loose end to worry about.  One.  I threw my bike in the back of the truck Rochelle rented, and she was kind enough to drop me at the DMV.  I rode my bike home.  I smell like fungicide.  I'm writing with a golf pencil.  I read the paper at Swinger's.  I read the sports page waiting in front of the DMV next to a couple of women with a strange odor.  Anyway.  Maybe that's what I get for cursing the DMV.  Karma, so to speak.  The waitress was from Maine.  I heard her telling a waitress-in-training.  I guess I better still go to night school tonight.  Or maybe not.  There's a lot to do around here.  Got to pack for Idaho.  How are we going to get to the airport?  Got to be in court at Corona tomorrow seven thirty AM.  How do you get there?  What will I say?  Get a load of laundry going.  Finish Blake's Milton today.  Maybe I won't feel so doomed when I'm not reading that stuff anymore.  I ate steak and eggs at Swinger's.  And that was after I'd eaten a bagel while I waited for the fungicide to dry before hopping into the shower.  I should finish that Ueland book today.  Do my third person.  I still haven't written any letters to anyone.  I did write to my grandmother last month.  My writing shocks my sometimes when I got back and read it.  I put the McCain book back on the shelf.  I feel like doing some curls.  I hope that since I've made right what I'd done wrong--that is, driving a rental car on my wife's and my honeymoon on a suspended license--his or her honor will dismiss the charge of driving on a suspended license and allow me to complete traffic school to atone for the charge of speeding to learn better not to speed.