5-3-00 11:20 AM W

[photgraph of Jerry the Freak, party horn in mouth, New Year's Eve, 99-00] I have to meet with Harvard at lunch.  This STEPS nonsense never ends.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  Walked to school.  I've used seven illness days so far this year.  Not good.  I bought a newspaper. I don't remember what it said. The Kings forced the Lakers to a deciding game five. We did some more Stanford 9 this morning.  We're doing a lesson on elapsed time now.  Lunch is in fifteen minutes. I have a sandwich. I already ate a green apple. I'll read some more Locust when I'm done here. 

"Tod liked to hear him talk. He was a master of an involved comic rhetoric that permitted him to express his moral indignation and still keep his reputation for worldliness and wit."

Got to write another third-person page. I added one line to Jim last night: "Jim said nothing." I thought of printing some up for Manny, except it sucks so much I'm embarrassed, and I left the disk at home. There's a teacher network meeting at Julio's after school today.  Wouldn't it be cool if Judith Sheinstern were struck by lightning? Whatever. I write such unspeakable, incriminating things in here.  Whatever. Walk to Pio Pico.  Call Faith. Call Jeff.  Call Tim.  I'm out of money. No me gusta ser casado.  Whatever. What else? How do I get out of this negative zone? How can you be positive if the positive is untrue. Whatever. I forgot to bring a photo today. I've got to go to the store for more crap. Got to do my register. I don't want to go to Vegas. Whatever. Rochelle is a better person than I am. Yahaira and Mauren have to miss their play time because they cheated on their homework. I know I'm leaving stuff out. When you can't allow yourself to think~~fuck it.

 5-2-00 11:50 AM Tu

Got a bad case of the Senoritavillas today. Why does life trick you so cruelly?  Whatever. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Added the words “blink blink” to Jim. Read the paper. Lakers tonight. We’re doing Stanford Nine testing this week. It’s not a bad thing because I just read the directions and then they take the test for seventy minutes. Rochelle’s going to another temp agency today. Maybe she’ll get some work this time. What else?  The only thing I want to think about, I have to force myself not to think about. Does she make contact with me because I’m married now, and the threat of advance is removed?  Seems plausible. I’m fucked. I need to think about my wife and child. You would think it would be natural. But life is irony. Which [ink and pencil sketch of Jerry the Freak with party horn in mouth, New Year’s Eve, 99-00] is the evil?  Which is wrong?  It’s all wrong. Make the best of what you’ve wrought. God, forgive my heart and head. Fix me up. Take away the sirens that I don’t want taken away. Why tantalize me?  Do these tormenta come from within or without?  Is it God or the devil?  Is it the universe or me?  Turn my mind to..?  Costa Rica.  

I imagine what if I hadn’t lost my mind in the fall?  If I’d waited out Petaluma...I’m an asshole.  Turn my mind.  Turn.  Got to make my house dad-proof.  Turn my mind.  Monumental mistakes.  Wouldn’t be that way either way?  Regrets either way?  I’m a born liar.  My life is a front.  I’ll live a lie.  I’m a hypocrite.  I’ll live a lie.  Like in the dream.  My truth will be secret. Buried. Fantasized.  

—Something else—The sky is blue.  Lower, it is dingy old sock.  

The bell rings.  Time to get the kids from lunch.  Pass by again, helplessly.  It makes my stomach sick.  I lost my mind in the fall.  Too late to do anything now.  Subvert true desire for honor without.  The honorable thing is to deny desire~

 4/28/00 4:53 pm F

“Do you cut honkey hair in here?”

5-1-00 12:13 pm M

Reading up on Costa Rica. Wrote fifteen minutes yesterday morning but nothing else until now. I read up to page 30 of “The Cow” in the Koran. It recaps the story of Adam and also the story of the idolaters with the golden calf. Rochelle and I went up to the travel show at the convention center. Seven bucks to park and eight more to get in and fill a bag with twenty pounds of travel brochures. Then we drove to the Toombs’ in Rancho Heights. Sat around the backyard while the fifty-somethings complained about their offspring. My dad was in a jolly mood. We left around 8:00. Rochelle gave me shit about reading the newspaper. “You can’t sit four minutes in the car with me without reading your newspaper.” That pissed me off. I’d made the bed, washed the car, did the dishes, taken her to a travel show, and then a party. What was she on my ass about?  “I’m sorry, “ I said. I put the paper on the floor of the car. “I’ll look out the windshield. Would that be better?”

“You can’t talk to me?”

“What have we been doing all afternoon?”

“Just read your paper.”

I sat there. 

“Why don’t you read your paper?”

Female hormones ought to be carefully regulated. I read until midnight.  I think she’s miffed because I raised the possibility of going to Chicago with my brother next month. Whatever. I made PB and J. Walked to school. Anna seemed glad to talk to me. We talked about going to Egypt. She said she talked to the lady about the Ethic Experience workshops I got screwed out over when my grandpa died. Anna said I should call her back. Anna took my phone number. Hmmm?  Whatever. Urgh. I should get my passport renewed. I think we’ll try to leave August 16th and come back August 30th. We should arrange car rental ahead of time. Going to have to work all I can this summer. I wonder how not fun it will be for Rochelle since she’s pregnant. I guess we’ll be sitting in our hotel a lot. Not much hiking. Who knows?  Y ?Como si yo podria ir con la Senorita Senoritavilla?  Un sueno. La vida es una broma trucosa. Whatever. Got Locusts to read. Third person to do. Go to LACAS office. Jim. Ugh. ?Estaria yo un escritor mejor con una mujer como la Senorita Senoritavilla?

 4-27-00 Th 5:03 PM

I'm sitting at the kitchen table next to a bowl of fruit and an Easter basket.  10:29 PM  I'm at my desk in "my office" now.  I have an ancient Men at Work tape playing.  It's all scratched up.  The Lakers won big.  I'll throw this tape out when it's over because the sound is so garbled.  Ugh.  I had to throw it away right then.  Put the radio on.  KPCC.  Trippin' out right now.  High.  Back from night class now.  Had the rest of that bottle of merlot we brought back from Miceli's.  Went to the store and spent too much money on booze.  Ugh.  Milly called to thank us for her wedding presents.  I didn't know anything about it, but I played along.  

I was reading the journal earlier today.  It's so vitriolic.  I want to try not to write so negatively.  Would it be me, though, if I wrote any other way?  I don't know. Whatever.  A horrifying thing came on TV about head drillings.  Magnetically horrifying.  I could almost see how you might benefit from a literal hole in the head.  It might release the pressure.  Almost.  An island of dead and starving Haitians was on the radio.  Started the intro to a 1950 version of Day of the Locust.  ~ An angel hovered in the lights of a carnival's spinning rides just before a tornado struck.  There was a photograph of it.  [Realistic pencil sketch of man in coat and tie] My eyes are dry.  I have to get a haircut tomorrow.  Tux in Westminster.  What else?  Now I got De La Soul on the radio.  I thought I'd find some bud in my tobacco pouch.  I was wrong.  I was thinking what an accomplishment it's been that I have only been buying a new bag every six weeks or so when Rochelle said, "Wow.  I can't believe how fast you smoked that whole bag."  Something like that.  Here's another journal no one should ever see.  Sigh.  There's so much crap in Jim that needs to be cleaned out and straightened up.  I can't decide whether to press on until done or scrap the whole project because the foundation's cracked.  Does it need complete restructuring or just cosmetic work when it's finished.  If the foundation were cracked, a professional homebuilder wouldn't build.  I assume.  Ass of u and me.

 4-26-00 12:37 PM W

I'm at school.  It's hot today, but there's a breeze coming through the open door.  It feels good, but it blows papers all over.  I typed fifteen minutes this morning.  Walked to school.  Got a paper.  Read it.  Ho hum.  The Nasdaq rallied.  We did four pages in the spelling workbook.  I went to In N Out for lunch with Florelle.  The class is doing silent reading.  Then we've got to check our homework about agriculture in the San Joaquin Valley.  Three girls ran up to me excitedly this morning to show me that their orange juice cartons said San Joaquin.  There's a teacher network class after school today at Julio's.  I have to write a third-person page when I get home.  I know it's going to be difficult.  Then I've got to walk to night school.  Read Play It.  I don't know that Jim is any worse than Play It.  Who knows?  One of my students, Francina, gave me a bag full of guitar picks.  I didn't think to ask where she got them.  I'm supposed to go golfing for Steve's bachelor party tomorrow.  I don't think I should miss work.  ugh.  UGH.  Whatever.  I'll have to call Steve today.  Have to call back the credit union to see how much of a loan I pre-qualify for.  Ugh.  Got to call John Ball.  Got to call Walter Getoff.  What else? [color photo of third graders in portable school pool] [colored pencil drawing of third graders in portable school pool]  It's time to go to PE.  I'm tying not to get all sweaty because there's that meeting after school.  The travel show Sunday.  The Groves' later Sunday.  What else?  Ugh.

 4-24-00 7:05 AM M

Back to work today.  Spring break was a bust.  I typed fifteen minutes yesterday morning before reading the Sunday paper.  We had to get ready to go to my mom's house before I had read anything more than the sports page.  We drove around Fullerton and Placentia writing down the phone numbers on the signs in front of houses for sale.  The one number at which someone actually picked up the phone was a listing at $269,500--about fifty thou more than I can afford, just like everything.  It's bullshit.  Whatever.  Josh barbecued steaks.  I was ill at ease all day.  Nauseous.  Still trying to make the adjustment to husband and father.  I feel heavier than ever.  I watched the Lakers beat the Kings with no volume while everyone talked about whatever they talked about.  Here's a picture from the '94-'95 school year at Sharp Ave. El in Pacoima.  That's [photograph of children in Los Angeles City Schools Learn to Swim portable pool] Christian Marcos, Raul Poz, Frank Diaz, and Danny Macias.  They were in fourth grade.  They are Freshman in high school now.  Unreal.  I read the rest of the newspaper on the way home from my mom's.  I didn't read any Mysteries of the Bible or Koran or Play It or Quartz.  I'm almost done with Quartz.  I was up until midnight reading the paper.  Rochelle was watching a documentary about The Police on VH1.  It made me wonder why I'm not a rock and roll star.  Now it's time to walk up to Wilshire Hill.  Ugh. My bike broke.  I've got to turn in my adult school attendance today.  I got the news.  US agents returned Elian Gonzalez to his father at gunpoint.  Lucky it wasn't uglier.  I wonder if I can fast until after school today.  Payday is Friday.  It's going to be about two fifty lighter than usual.  Ugh.  Spew's bachelor party is Thursday.  Rehearsal Friday.  Wedding Saturday.  Graves' Sunday.  Two months 'til summer.  So, what, though?

 4-22-00 Sa 5:50 PM

[pencil sketch of sketch of Youth Services Learn How to Swim-Sharp Ave. El, Pacoima]  We're up at LACMA.  I just dropped thirty bucks to bring Rochelle through an overcrowded collection of ancient Egyptian crap.  An astounding array of international body odors and gas permeated the exhibit.  Nefertiti and Ankhanten/Amhotep IV were the featured queen and pharaohs.  The big deal was that he switched his kingdom's religion to his favorite god, Aten, the sun god.  Also, the artists of that period, the Amarna Period, produced statues with beer bellies.  Maybe I have what it takes to be a pharaoh.  In the gift shop, a little retarded boy pulled on my sleeve and said, "Excuse me, ma'am.  Where are the videos?"  I said, "I'm sorry, bud. I don't know."  Then an older kid who was apparently not all there either but was working on his standup routine tapped me on the shoulder and said, "I bet I can make you laugh."  He held a hinged wooden box up to his mouth and made like it was talking, though it was just babble. "Ha ha. You win," I mumbled. "Watch this," he said and pulled his ears and inflated his cheeks.  "Yeah," I said and turned away.  

We walked here. I guess we're going to check out some other exhibits.  Then we'll walk home and cook some steaks. I've got a third-person page to write and the movie "Pushing Tin" to watch.  Some woman is taking pictures of me.  I'm not looking at her.  Whatever.  Nefertiti was Ankhenaten's "principal" wife.  That's the way things should be.  What happened?  What else?  I could go for a beer, but I can't justify spending the money.  It is Saturday night, though.  I wonder if anyone would want to come over and play cards.  What else?  The Dodgers won.  I read the paper.  Rochelle made pancakes this morning with enough bacon to kill a small horse.  The Angels were losing.