Forever Now

 4-6-00 Th 1:45 PM

[pencil line sketch of bat-winged humanoid over a sleeping Man: Blake's "The Accuser Who is the God of this World"] The devils don't wait for me to sleep.  They beguile me in broad daylight, wide awake.      I left my backpack in Cheryl's car last night.      I feel doomed worse than ever.  I resent giving my, wife who doesn't work, eight hundred dollars for a car I can't drive.  Plus, eight-fifty I pay for rent, unaided.  And $174 for the internet hookup she was going to use to find a job.  And the $93 phone bill and the $400-monitor.  Ugh.  This is how it will be forever now:  I work forever to keep her and the kids happy.  My wants are forever subjugated.  I guess I'm a selfish fuck who's not truly in love, who was mistaken or lying when he said, "I do."  Who loves another.  It's Sophia Lorenfield all over again.  Ann Senoritavilla. The similarity in their names is uncanny:  Their skin is the same, their regard of me, the same, my infatuation.  Augh.  I feel horrible.  I dreamed I was with her last night.  Our hair was gray.  We were watching a movie.  She could take me or leave me.  Fuck.  Their beauty, the same.  I don't want to be this kind of husband.  But I will stay silent.  I swear I will.  I will do my best to be what they want.  I haven't got anymore confidantes anymore anyway.  I'm not intentionally evil.  My judgement checked out.  I'm doomed.  I knew it on Bourbon.  Why did I let this happen?  I knew.  I suspected.  Fuck.  This is bad.  This is really bad.  It was some outside source that moved me.  I thought it was  divine intervention.  This thing--this dream girl--it comes from in me; I don't control it, but it originates in me.  Which is right?  Which is good?  Which is evil?  Doomed.  Doomed bastard.  Had a bucket of bourbon and melted ice before I left for school this morning.  Got a paper from the sidewalk stand by the donut place.  Kenneth just pissed his pants.  I go the questionnaire faxed to me.  I don't want to go home.  I feel like giving up writing Jim.  The whole organ business seems lame; the personal shit: lame.  Like to go to Cheetahs.  before work tonight have some beer, stare at a nude chick with a non-flabby ass.

4-5-00 The Worm

 4-5-00 W 1:30 PM

[sketch in blue ink of Blake's "I have said to the Worm: Thou art my mother & my sister."] Ugh.  Where do I start?  Monique Skullee didn't turn in her tests to me, and I didn't make sure that she did.  Her tests disappeared.  She says she left them stacked next to the trashcan and the custodian must have thrown them in the trash.  I would have just sent in the rest of the tests and no one would have noticed, but she went to Principal Harvard and told her the tests were gone.  When I signed in yesterday morning, a note waited for me from Harvard.  "See me" it read.  The "me" was underlined twice.  She wanted to know what happened.  "Skullee's tests are gone."  What else was I supposed to say?

"Didn't you have them locked up?"

"No. She didn't give them to me."

"Didn't she sign the affidavit?"

"No. I didn't give it to her."

Silence. Then, "You need to call downtown and see what they want you to do."

Great.  They patch me through to the colonel in charge of the whole program, Janet Vane.  She grills me unmercifully.  "How could this happen?"  She seems to want a step-by-step reenactment of the crime, like I was there. She wants everything repeated.  She wants names.  She's writing everything down.  Harvard talks about how a teacher in Long Beach lost his credential for violating the integrity of the test.  Whatever.  Fire me. I spend the day on the phone and running around getting signatures on the security affidavits.  Skullee won't sign hers in case she wants to pretend she didn't know they were supposed to be turned in and secured and not stacked next to the trashcan.  Put the blame on me.  Meanwhile, I discovered that the scoring sheets were supposed to be bubbled in with the scorer's room number, and not the test-taker's, which makes no sense, so now I have to erase the numbers I had assigned and bubble in new ones for several hundred tests.  Ugh.  No newspaper, no journal, no reading yesterday.  Then we had a staff meeting.  Surprise!  I'm on the agenda.   Blah blah blah.  All bullshit.  I didn't get home until after four.  Florelle came talking what a dumb bitch Skullee is.  Rochelle had tacos waiting. I ate two and drank a 7Up and watched the Dodgers beat the Expos.  Florelle dropped me at Pio Pico to teach my night school class.  

After class, Rochelle and I went to Borders and bought travel books for Australia, Ireland, and Spain to try to decide where to fly with the vouchers my sister gave us from United.  We got a BB King CD and a copy of "The Phantom Menace" on video.  I read the "Sunset Boulevard" screenplay excerpt.

 4-3-00 M 3:00 PM

The clock chimes three.  I'm thinking of skipping work.  It's opening day.  The Cubs are in St. Louis.  McGwire is out with a bad back.  Sosa just K'd.  The Rockies are in Atlanta.  The Big Cat, fresh back from his cancer battle, goes deep on day one.  They got Texas at Comiskey on today, too.  And the Dodgers are on vs. the Expos.  The Yanks are in Anaheim.  Fick and the Tigers take on the A's at the new ballpark, and so, I'm thinking of taking the night off from work.  Got a beer in me already.  Maybe I'll make a chili cheeseburger.  I didn't get going early enough to write anything this morning.  I rode my bike to work.  Carlos stopped by yesterday.  He gave me a ride up to the bike shop on Beverly to get a new innertube.  Then we went to Dublin's and shot some pool.  I sucked.  Rochelle and I stayed in after I got home and ordered a pizza.  We watched "Borence of Arabia."  It made me think of how Blake kept trying to infuse Britain into the history of the Middle East.  Too many shots of guys on camels in the desert.  I guess Lean wanted to convey the vastness of the desert and the tediousness of crossing it.  The Cubs are losing six to one.  Andruw Jones homered for the Braves.  I've got to sort out those stupid tests.  Figure it all out.  Urg.  I read The Times.  I also picked up The Daily News.  The idiot teacher's union doesn't want incentive pay.  They want to protect the lowest common denominator.  Whatever.  I ate leftover pasta at lunch.  Straightened out my desk and wrote lesson plans for the week.  [pencil sketch of Blakes "Death's Door.]  The Premier of Japan had a stroke.  I thought of Grandpa Al.  I thought I'd be lucky to live into my seventies.  I hope I can write that long.  I hate calling in lying that I'm sick.  I'll read some more City of Quartz after this.  Have a smoke.  Do a third-person.

2000 Predictions

                                        NL                                                                             AL

                  W                    C                    E                                 W                   C                    E

                AZ                  STL                ATL                              ANA              CLE               BOS

                SF                   CHI                NY                               OAK              DET                NY

                LA                    CIN              MON                            SEA                KC                TOR

                COL                 PIT                PHI                               TEX               CHI               TB

                 SD                   MIL              FLA                                                     MIN                BAL

                                         HOU

 4-2-00  Sun 2:11 PM

We sprang the clocks forward last night.  My hand is sore and uncontrollable.  I never missed a day writing in the last journal:  three pages a day every day for thirty-one days.  Then I couldn't even finish the first entry in this one.  My allergies sucked yesterday.  Friday, I just plain gave in to laziness, chaos, and lack of order.  I tried to do "The Oregon Trail" computer game with the kids at lunch instead of writing.  I died of thirst.  Xavier died, too.  I think it might be fun if I ever have a son to name him Xavier Yohann Zorn, just to haha on the initials.  Friday after school, I walked home.  Rochelle drove me to the pharmacy at Larchmont.  My medicine has been recalled.  I got the last one they had of another brand.  Ventolin.  A fly buzzes in here.  I'm hungry.  We stopped at the magazine stand, and I picked up a copy of Beckett Monthly with baseball card price listings.  Whatever.  We ate at Lucy's El Adobe beneath an autographed picture of Ricardo Montalban.  We came home, and I passed out after four cranberry vodkas.  I woke at midnight and turned off the TV.  Then I woke up again at one and took off my shoes.  At two, I took off my pants and went around the house turning off all the lights.  I had to work Saturday morning.  I subbed for Florelle.  My allergies sucked.  We read until noon.  Library Lil, The Brave Triceratops, Naughty Ann.  Should I put one of those in Miss Senoritavilla's box?  Steiner's STEPS tests have gone missing.  I debated Cornine on merit pay.  I was stoned on Sudafed.  Made pasta when I got home.  Drove to Placentia.

 [a fading photograph looking west from Tioga past tall pines to distant hazy peaks]

3-31-00 F 10:45 AM

There's nothing to say.  Low pressure, clear, blue skies, mild Santa Ana's blow-drying your hair in some 80s New Wave style.  I didn't write this morning.  I finished reading the newspaper already.  It might as well have been blank white paper.  No news is good news, I suppose.  After this, I've got an excerpt from Billy Wilder's "Sunset Boulevard" screenplay to read. Quartz.  Somerset Fry Plangenet's History of the World.  Maybe I'll let the kids see a video after lunch today.  I've got to go to Larchmont to pick up new inhalers.  Told Miss Kendoll I'd meet her for a drink this afternoon.  I've got to work tomorrow.  How depressing.  We're supposed to go to Placentia after that.  Maybe golf Sunday.  What else?  Anna asked me, "What did the banana say to the vibrator?--What are you shaking for?  I'm the one she's gonna eat."  Then she asked the old "How do you make a hormone?"  I couldn't remember.  "Don't pay her."  Oh, yeah. [blue ink sketch of Blake's "The Traveler Hasteth in the Evening] 

 3-30-00 Th 12:30 PM

Class.  I have chapped lips.  Or is it chafed?  Whatever.  Whatever.  I read Raymond Chandler's "Writers in Hollywood."  Excoriating.  I read it while I walked here this morning.  I had to walk because my bike has a flat.  I still have a couple more pages.  He said most of the writers suck and the few that don't are made to suck by the producers.  He said the producers don't allow the writer time to "experiment and eliminate."  "Experiment and eliminate" : I like the way that sounds.  That's the way to go about it.  Thanks, Ray.  Got a paper.  California's economy is expected to boom further in 2000 and 2001.  The Kings are one point from clinching a playoff spot.  The kids read their "How to Be an Artist" paragraphs and took their vocabulary tests.  Then we read about a children's book author and did a true/false test about her.  Corrected out math homework.  I ate solar-heated Thai leftovers for lunch.  The kids are doing a good job silent reading.  We've got to go to music in fifteen minutes.  Maybe we'll play basketball today.  Or play "Oregon Trail II."  Everything's coming back to normal.  I'm craving alcohol all day and lusting for Miss Senoritavilla.  I lust for her, but don't, can't imagine sex with her.  Cruel tricks of life. Whatever.  She's cold-hearted.  Rochelle loves me. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Snap out of it, fool!  Like to go to the pub tonight.  Do third person.  More about Jim's mom.  City of Quartz.  LACAS.  Jim.  Rochelle rented "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Lawrence of Arabia."  She hasn't seen either.  Florelle came by at lunch.  I told her I'd sub for her on Saturday.  I have to call downtown about scoring the STEPS.  Tomorrow is payday.  I'll have to get a good night's sleep on Friday.  No game Sunday.  We're supposed to go to Placentia Saturday night.  Maybe we should sleep over.  I'll golf with John Sunday.  We haven't read much Harry Potter lately.  What else?  I want to drink.  I want to be rich and only work when I feel like it and only at what I feel like working on.  Yeah, right.  I dug my own grave.  The kids won't be quiet long enough to go down to music.  [blue ink line drawing of the fox from "The Fox and the Hound."] I say take out your social studies books.  A hush falls over the room.

The Variable Quit In Process Is Not Defined