[Polaroid of the blogger (probably) at bat with catcher and umpire; written in the bottom margin: "HAPPY BIRDay J LANA Form"] 5-28-00 Su 10:49 PM I'm at home. Craig and Robin next door are having a small party. You can hear them talking and laughing. Rochelle is depressed because I don't fuck her much. I don't know how to make myself more passionate about sex with her. We had brunch with her mom, sister, and brother-in-law at the El Torito in Costa Mesa this morning. I was braindead and wanted nothing more than to be home. Tomorrow is Memorial Day. Don't have to work. Neither does Rochelle. Maybe we'll go to a movie. I'd liked to have gone for a bike ride. It's a sweaty night anyway. My back is splotched with red patches. Should I have a smoke? Join the party for a smoke? I read about Saul's visit to the witch of Endor, the appearance of Samuel's ghost, and his prophecy of Saul's destruction. I read in the Koran that Allah forgives divorce. I read some excerpts from Bukowski's Ham on Rye. I also read the forward of Genius and Lust. I played a little guitar. Got bills to pay. Do a fourth-person page. Read some Stevenson. [pencil sketch of a newborn baby]Work on Jim. I think the baby I tried to draw is my step-nephew Nathaniel. What else? We ended up skipping LaSalamander's wedding. Kendoll invited us to a BBQ, but we didn't go. [photograph of blogger and wife]

 5-25-00 1:25 PM Th

5-26-00 12:45 PM F

In another shitty mood. Or is it a still-shitty mood? It has been days now. Or has it been weeks? Years? Always? Fuck it all, anyway. I'm like this a lot. I'm sick of fucking shithead kids. Diontay reminds me of the old racist joke about what's long and hard on a black man. He makes his life and mine more difficult. He pushed down Angel and made her arm bleed. His parents are drooling crackheads. 

The handlebars on my new bike went loose on my way to work yesterday. I had to walk it back to the house and ride the old Huffy which I like better anyway. The whole day sucked. Whatever. I fell asleep after school. Woke up in time to go to school ten minutes late. I was sluggish. Bored. I hate my life. Whatever. Rochelle had to work until one. Her job gives her a backache and a headache. Ugh. Ugh and fuck. I got paid today. It'll all be gone soon enough. I watched "The Sheltering Sky," Bertolucci's take on the Bowles novel in which unsanitary conditions in Africa and good old human nature join to undo the marriage of Malkovich's Porter and I forget the name of Debra Winger's character. I went to sleep without writing. Didn't write this morning, either. Showered. Shat reading about Nebraska in National Geographic. Gave Rochelle a credit card to buy wedding presents for Peach's and Scott's weddings. We're supposed to be in San Diego for the rehearsal at seven, but we has a sonogram at 3:30. So, we'll be driving in Memorial Day Friday traffic for three or four hours instead of kicking back watching the Laker game. Oh, joy. Oh, goodie. I have to pick up the tux and figure out where I put the wedding invitations with the info. I don't know where we're sleeping tonight. I won' t get to see any of the college baseball playoffs at Cal State Fullerton. I have horrible feelings about weddings and marriages. I had the nerve to get married, but I didn't have the nerve to not get married. I'm a beast of burden now, a gelding mule. Whatever. I seem to hate writing now, now. I still like to write but not as much as drinking in bars and interacting with other drunks who don't give a fuck. I have a torn soul, a half soul; I'm so typical. Guilt vs. Desire. Fuck me.

 

5-24-00 W 9:17 PM

I’m at home. I just ate a grilled cheese sandwich and some cottage cheese. I had a nap and a cup of coffee this afternoon, but I’m still tired. I had a weird dream about a weird desert roadhouse off some lonely road outside of Vegas. Some rough characters were after me, and I had to hide in the parking lot between cars while they cruised around, a gang of them in the back of a pickup looking to kick my ass. I don’t know why.     I need to change the water in my bong. Florelle said Senoritavilla likes Graniel. Ah ha. Graniel’s getting married. So, she likes little guys of literary pretense. Graniel has a draft of Jim. I was looking at a copy of the first page and was humiliated by how bad it is and how superior Graniel must feel if he ever reads it.

After school, Florelle and I stopped at Super Torta before driving to the union rally. Super Torta is a little strip mall hangout where cops grub side by side with Central American gangsters. Five thousand teachers were protesting for higher salaries. I saw Rosa Fujimoto, Julie Iguana, and Kathy Whatsername who used to have a crush on me, so I was told. She used to be a brunette, but she is blond now. I said, “Oh! You’re hair’s a different color!” Oops.  Florelle and I were about to leave when horny Cece Horne caught me by the shirt tail. With her were all the Wilshire Hill contingent we had been looking for and had not been able to find. We walked a block with them before we peeled off. The whole thing was so crazy with people I don’t know who I was talking to or what I was saying or what they were saying to me, but a lot of people were talking to me. Florelle dropped me off at Pio Pico. Sheryl gave me a ride home. I went to the market for groceries. The changos in the line in front of me were playing let’s-aggravate-the-gringo. Eventually, they figured out how to pay, and I went to Golden Bird and ordered the four-piece meal. I asked for a breast, wing, thigh, and leg and had to order with the imbecile working the counter that that was four pieces because he kept insisting it was five. Then, because I was order #47, I won a Golden Bird T-shirt.

 

5-23-00 Tu 11:38 AM

I’m getting into one of these kid-hating modes. There’s one little bastard in particular who keeps pressing my Strangle button. Ugh. What’s it going to be like when my own kid makes me feel this way? How will I keep him from assimilating my horrible negativity? I ate a bagel for breakfast. The sky is dead. My throat craves a noose. How will I write three pages today? I’m eating sunflower seeds for lunch. That doesn’t seem so grim. The first non-grim observation of the day. Forty more pages of Road to read. [ink sketch of a guy with a rifle] I thought I might read Bukowski’s Run with the Dogs after that. I’ve got to go to union rally after work today. I probably won’t have time to write a third-person page. Looks like I won’t be riding my new bike to night class tonight, either. I found a hundred bucks I’d hidden in a picture frame and forgotten about. Another grim statement: Too bad it doesn’t help much. Phenylethylamine. What else? I’ll be out of here another hour. I’m hungry. Swine Lake. The kids are [ink line drawing of two pigs dancing from Swine Lake] The kids are watching “Pinocchio.” My back hurts. What else? What more? I’ll be out of here in thirty-two minutes. I’m hungry. I’m going to ride with Ms. Martinez [ink line drawing of the wolf licking his chops in the balcony of Swine Lake] to the rally. I wonder if she’ll stope for a bite. A burger maybe. I would just eat a tin of tuna and some soup at home if I had the time. Fifteen more minutes and I can leave here. Ten more minutes and I can leave here. I should call Rochelle, I guess, and tell her I’m going to the union rally. Whatever the fuck is on my back, I can feel it eating up more skin. Six more minutes and I can leave here.

 

5-22-00 M 1:14 PM

I had a bit of a headache Saturday morning. Mariachi came over. Tim came over with his van. We went with Tim to look at HUD homes. They should be called Hood Homes. Tim had beer and Bloody Mary fixin’s in the van. And weed. We took a ghetto tour. Mariachi was sour. It was inexplicable to him that we would look at HUD homes. He talked to Fred and Sanyo on his cel phone. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it. You know how it is with Zurn. I’ve been hoodwinked. I should just say “Zurn” and that should explain it.” We were gone all of about forty-five minutes. When we got back to the house Tim bailed. I rode with Pablo to Esteban’s house to watch the Laker game. THAT was what was weird. Mariachi would rather pick me up in LA and drive us to Pasadena and then bring me back and drive home again rather than just watch it at my house and make one round trip instead of two. They ordered nasty undercooked pizza and loved it. Mariachi played video games the whole time. After the Lakers won, we went to the batting cages. We couldn’t hit eighty miles per hour and had it lowered to seventy-five. That was better. We went back to Pablo’s afterward. He has a video game in which you control a guy; you have to make him eat, sleep, piss, shower, and go to work. That really blew my mind. I was astounded. Flabbergasted. Stupefied. Was it the absurdity? The redundancy? If they ever come up with a video game in which you make your guy breathe in and breathe out, I’m getting it for Mariachi. After he and Sanyo showered, (ella estaba muy guapa), and Fred showed up, we drove back to LA. I showered. We waited for Rochelle to come home from work. We ended up going to El Compadre. The Mariachis were nice enough to pick up the check in honor of my birthday. We had wanted to go out after, but we were all too stuffed and too tired. Rochelle and I just went home and went to sleep. I read the newspaper Sunday morning. We had a game at Crystal Springs in Griffith Park at 3:30. We won 17-6.

 5-18-00 Th 12:55 PM

Third grade. About to go to music. Got up a little past six. Showered. Dressed. Typed fifteen minutes. Had breakfast. I had a dream that I pissed out a hole in my back. Rode my bike to school. Got a newspaper. We read a William Steig story called Brave Irene. I got a couple chalupas at Taco Bell for lunch. We did some problem-solving strategies for math. I read the paper at lunch. Not much to it. The Dodgers went into the stands to brawl with fans at Wrigley. A poet named Alan Shapiro, of whom I'd never before heard, a WWII Pulitzer winner, died. 3:02 PM I'm at home on the couch now. "Sports Center" is on. I've got a bunch of tests to correct. Skelly's tests. Whatever. There's this bike to assemble. Fante to read. Third person to do. Jim to work on. My grandma sent me a Life magazine from 1968 with a picture of Earth from space on the cover that my grandfather had been saving for me since the day I was born. I just ate a bowl of Chef Boyardee. I can't think. I just keep flipping the channels around. The clock chimed three. A few minutes later it chimed four. I feel uneasy. I tried to draw a picture of my cousin McGee when she was twelve and three quarters. [pencil sketch of a girl's school photo] As you can see, it didn't come out too good. Maybe I should drink some coffee. Thank God tomorrow's Friday. I'm going to have to go to the scoring center in Santa Monica to turn in Skelley's tests. Guy said she'd get me a sub. I hope Rochelle won't be needing the car at that hour. I could go for a smoke. They're showing Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" at the Bing Theater this weekend. I've always wanted to see it. Mariachi wants to go to the batting cages on Saturday and watch the Laker game and have dinner. Our game is at Crystal Springs at three o'clock Sunday. My birthday. I took some watermelon out of the fridge. I have a doctor's appointment Monday. 

"Damn the torpedoes!' we said, and we were broadsided. I better be to work tonight by ten to six. Those Pio Pico day fucks are trying to make trouble for us. Petty selfishness is as bad as murder as far as sins go, if you ask me.