3-29-00 W 

I'm at a lunch bench [black ink line drawing of the angel, Gabriel, flying and blowing his horn] on the playground at Wilshire Hill right now.  "Mr. Zurn!  Mr. Zurn!" A little girl comes running up.  "One of the boys was chasing us the other day."  "Okay," I said.  "I'll get 'em."  That seemed to satisfy her, and she skipped away.  The bell should ring any second now.  It has been the usual: Typed fifteen minutes. practiced a little guitar, ate a bagel, showered, dressed, biked to school, bought a newspaper.  We corrected our vocabulary workbook page and read a story about children's book illustrator, Jerry Pinkney.  

Putin and Xiamen scare me.  So do Bush and Gore, for that matter.  The Cubs beat the Mets in Tokyo.  The crossword was a breeze.  I rationalized that since I have to stay after school 'til four fifteen today, I should eat lunch.  So I went to Taco Bell.  I'm going to have written ninety pages in thirty days.  I don't know when I've done three pages a day this many days in a row.  Of course, a lot of it has been copied from Blake.  When I'm done here, I've got City of Quartz, Los Angeles Stories, Blake's Inn, and History of the World to read, and I'm supposed to read Harry Potter to the kids.  I have to call downtown and get someone to decipher the STEPS scoring shits for me.  We have a Teacher's Literacy Network meeting after school today.  I'll barely have enough time to do a third-person page before I have to teach night school.  I had thirty-seven people last night.  They're telling their friends and families about me.  Jim when I get home.  When will I get to page two hundred?  Where will the story be in another hundred pages?  Tomorrow, there's nothing out of the ordinary to do.  Friday is payday.  Saturday, I have to score the STEPS.  Should I sub Saturday morning?  No game Sunday. Maybe we'll have sushi and see a movie.  Week after next is the last before spring break.  Dodger game that Friday.  Palm Springs golf the 27th.  Jackson wedding the 29th.  Peachtree's bachelor party May 12-13.  Peachtree wedding May 28th.  Then it's one month 'til summer vacation.  I probably won't be able to go anywhere.  I'll probably have to work most of the time.  What else?  The kids are doing a good job of silent reading.  It's overcast today.  I wish I had the Blake book to do a drawing right here.  I don't draw from my imagination.  I only draw what I see.  Stop that pickle! [blue ink line drawing of a man offering a Paleton Corona]

 3-28-00 12:38 PM Tu

Silent reading time in Room 33.  Whatever.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  I played a little guitar.  I fooled around B chord configuration hear the bottom of the neck that Rochelle said she really liked.  Rode my bike to school.  Bought a paper at the corner store.  Distributed the STEPS tests.  We did vocab sentences with illustrations.  I administered tests to the RFEPs (Redesignated Fluent English Proficient).  I read the paper at recess.  The Spanish siesta is being sucked into the corporate capitalist nightmare.  Shame.  I want to live in Spain.  We did a "Regrouping Twice" subtraction lesson.  Read the sports at lunch.  The Cubs and Mets play in Tokyo at 2 AM California time tonight.  I ate some green corn chips for lunch.  I'll read a children's book called A Visit to William Blake's Inn when I'm done here.  Then we've got to prep for the math portion of the STEPS test.  I've got to get the tests ready after school for tomorrow.  Read more City of Quartz.  Read Jack Webb's paranoid ravings.  Do a third-person page with enough for Jim to get him down to page one hundred and four.  Got to go to LACAS tonight.  I had thirty-one people last night.  Tonight I'll probably have thirty-five or so.  Work on Jim.  Watch the second half of "Doctor Zhivago."  Got to read chapters five and six of some literacy acquisition book for that salary-point class after school tomorrow.  We've got to score the STEPs test on Saturday at noon.  I've got to find some directions for scoring the bastard.  Fucking bullshit.  No game Sunday until May.  I should take Rochelle to the museum this weekend.  What else?  I gave Carlos thirty bucks to go to Opening Day at Dodger Stadium.  That's the Friday before spring break begins.  It's overcast today.  What  else?  I cant think of anything else.  [black ink sketch of Don Mattingly? in Yankee pinstripes, throwing a baseball]  I wonder if I had the freedom and the resources to travel and develop personal artistic projects and to learn how to play music and shoot movies and act and finish my book, I wonder if I would feel satisfied, or would I still feel empty and hopeless.  Maybe when I'm a father, I won't feel like this.  Or maybe it will be more intense.

 3-27-00 M 11:26 AM

[Blake sketch in pencil and red ink of a floating, glowing bearded personage, arm raised, finger pointing to the heavens, addressing two supine figures]  Class.  Almost lunchtime. I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  After our game yesterday, Josh and Carlos wanted to grab a burger and go to Gil's  for some beer.  We sat out back.  Gil's wife brought out orange slices and fried chicken, but I didn't eat any.  I was worried I'd be in trouble drinking beer with the guys while my mother, mother-in-law, and pregnant wife were waiting for me.  By the time I got there, the moms were ready to leave.  They had brought up a book of baby names.  Mac stopped by and "borrowed" a pair of pants because Pete got him tickets to the Academy Awards and after parties.  I read the paper and watched the Laker pull out a nail-biter over the never-say-die Kings thanks to Shaq's clutch Superman performance.  We put on the Oscars show.  It filled me with envy and resentment.  I wrote about a page and half for Jim about his mother teaching him to pray.  Rochelle hasn't been feeling well.  She's letting pregnancy symptoms run her down.  I think it's at least partly psychological; the pregnant women here at work at nearly as crippled as she's acting.  I wish she would be tougher and work a few months so we'll have some extra dough going into this fucking house hunt.  I resent that it's all on me.  She's driving down to Orange County today for lunch with a friend.  That angered me.  But I hid it.  I'm hiding all of these feelings.  I didn't dare suggest that she needs to be tougher  or that she should work.  I'm queasy, too.  The whole deal turns my stomach.  I think we've made a mistake.  I'll do everything I can to be a good husband and father, but the planning has been bad.  Whatever.  Got to read some more Mike Davis crap.  Write a third-person page.  Go to LACAS.  Maybe I'll look for that Cameron sequel today.  Do more Jim.  Watch more "Dr. Zhivago."  I ate a little bag of corn nuts and two oatmeal cookies today.  Maybe I'll have a turkey burger when I get home.  I agreed to go to Stew's bachelor party in Palm Springs.  Another clearly bad idea.  How can I turn this around?

 3-25-00 Sa 4:56 PM

 I never wrote at all yesterday, I don't think.  I wrote about the Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic Eras in class before we went to the library. Josue stabbed sweet little Jocelyn Tesla Victorio Caballera in the meat along her shin.  He crawled under the table to do it. Sweet little Jocelyn calmly directed my attention to the puncture wound beside her tibia.  Josue said she was getting on his nerves.  I sent Josue to the office and Josie to the nurse.  The principal suspended him for Monday.  I read the paper at lunch.  UCLA lost.  I played computers and basketball with the kids.  Walked home.  Got a beer. Rochelle came home from visiting her sister. I was feeling a little despondent about something. I had another beer and shambled around confused.  Smoked a pinch.  Ate some leftovers.  Played a little guitar.  Getoff called.  I walked around the block to his place carrying a plastic patio table over my head with one arm and four plastic patio chairs in the other.  Getoff told me about his new computer.  Al and Esther and I shared with him some of the complexities of married life and impending fatherhood and some of the hormone-based emotions of pregnant women. We played guitars.  Getoff said I'm getting better.  I walked home about ten after two or three beers.  I decided to go down to Golden Bird to get some fried chicken.  I went into Planet Video and looked at adult video boxes and got a bit of penis rush, but I didn't get anything there, and it wore off as I drove to Blockbuster where I rented "Dr. Zhivago," and "The Mummy," and bought "Chinatown."  I ate my chicken on the floor by the bed.  We put on "The Mummy," but I fell asleep about ten minutes in.  We watched the rest of it this morning.  Mindless entertainment.  Mardi called. Rochelle and I went to Roscoe's.  "It's an LA institution," I said.  She liked it ok.  I read the paper after we got home.  The Lakers won.  The Kings tied.  I wrote a third-person page.  Washed the car.  Read about how Anglo interests came to control Southern California.  Downey, Baldwin, Temple, Van Nuys, and such moved in after Pico's, Sepulveda's, and Figueroa's cattle businesses went bust following a drought.  Says Mike Davis, the northern usurpers were rich with silver from the Comstock Lode.

 "Those who are cast out are All Those who, having no Passions of their own, because No Intellect, Have spent their lives in Curbing & Governing other people's..."

[ pencil sketch of a Brooke MacEldowney ballerina stretching before a mirror]

3-23-00 Th 12:28 PM

All I could must for Jim last night was a couple of lines.  This morning I decided my fifteen minutes of non-stop would be all as if it were Jim.  I got started and the phone rang.  It was Bernice calling from Chicago to share her joy with us about the pregnancy.  By the time we got off the phone, there wasn't enough time to do anything but eat a bagel, down a cup of cold coffee, pop a vitamin and go.  Rode bike to work.  Got paper.  An independent-minded democrat was elected president in Taiwan.  What's Red China going to do?  Lakers steam along.  UCLA plays Iowa State today in the Sweet Sixteen.  Kings are in Philadelphia.  Oscars are Monday.  We did a vocabulary lesson.  After recess, we did subtraction of three-digit numbers.  I did a shabby job of showing them how.  I'm logie today.  I had a glass of wine and a smoke last night.  I still feel whacked.  I finished another glass leftover from last night before work this morning.  Guess that's why.  We've got to read about the Oregon Trail today.  Plus Harry Potter.  Maybe play a little basketball.  I read a boring chapter about LA architecture in City of Quartz.  Davis wants to rip that it''s all imported, that nothing is distinctly homegrown.  He sort of casually states that anti-race-mixing cops halted the vibrant Central Avenue jazz scene.  I'll read the Fante excerpt next.  Do third person when I get home.  Maybe take a nap. We're talking about time in ESL.  Got to go out with Fenton tonight.  He wants some kind of going away party for his sick leave with TB.  Might golf with Ralph after work tomorrow.  Can't go to the salary point class Friday because the follow-up is on the same day as Rochelle's sister's wedding.  We have a game Sunday at nine.  [ink sketch of Blake's "Does thy God O Priest take such vengeance as this?]   Maybe we'll see "Being John Malkovich" or "Magnolia."  Three weeks more after this 'til spring break.  What'll I do?  What can I do?  The stork's a comin'.