7-24-00 2:41 PM M

I'm on the underground platform in Universal City, waiting for the subway to take me back to L. A. I'm on the train now. Lights strobe the face of a girl sitting sullenly in the corner. I came up to the credit union because they said I needed to appear in person to get new checks with my new address on them. I got a summer school job at Wilshire Hill. I started this morning. Right now, I'm trying to decide if I have time for a beer or to buy a video before I go home. I don't. I still have to write a recommendation for Sheryl before I go into LACAS tonight. I'm off the train. I got off at Hollywood and Highland. I rode my bike down to What's Brewing? here on Highland and Wilshire. I got an iced coffee and a couple of cookies. I'm sitting in a wooden patio chair out front. A guy in a turban directs traffic. My iced coffee is more ice than coffee. I read the paper at Canteen, in Cahuenga Pass. I drank iced tea there. I ate a piece of school-cafeteria garlic cheese-bread at ten thirty this morning. It gave me chest pains. A tall, skinny Oriental girl sat next to me. She smiled at me and lit up a smoke. I guess I'll microwave something for lunch when I get home. Yesterday, Carlos failed to pick me up for our game. The GIP gave me a ride, but I was forty minutes late, thanks to Carlos. Gil left me on the bench until the last three innings, and I was out of rhythm and struck out and hit a gay little pop-up to the pitcher, and we lost eleven to six. I've got Miller to read. Rochelle works eleven to eight. I wonder what havoc the puppy has wrought. What else? What else? What else? Read Miller. Work on Jim.  Send Scott and Kim's thing. [ color photo of a dumbass with his wife and mother-in-law] 

 

7-22-00 Sa 11:06 AM

The moms will be here any minute. I’m sitting in the backyard on the grass. The fig tree is loaded with figs, but birds have eaten all the peaches. Miss Lucky Louisiana Chief is gnawing on a peach pit between my feet. I brought out a little tea and bourbon to counteract the heat of the glaring sun. I woke up early and read about twenty-five pages or so of Sexus. Nothing to it, really, but stark sexual honesty, if that’s what it is. He uses his own name. Why is Miller’s work considered fiction? Is it considered fiction? I typed for fifteen minutes, too, complaining on par with Miller about my wife, who has decided to cut her work hours because she is tired. Tonight, though, she has to work four to one. I pretend to be disappointed but secretly plot to get out and carouse about town. Modchill called about a luau in Sunland. I think I’d rather cab it around the city. I had odd dreams this morning. A man who was a friend in the dream but who is unknown to me now, set up a meeting between me and a girl who was attracted to me but who I did not know. I was to swing by her apartment and pick her up. Something was holding me back. I had to return home for my inhaler. There were two girls at the apartment. One was like Karen at the Bounty. The other was darker. Both were sexy. I wondered which one liked me. Then the dream jumped forward. I don’t know how we got there, but we were picking our way down a mountainside through a ruined, white-walled village after some cataclysm had left a futuristic Los Angeles smoldering below. In the mountains, though, we were soon surrounded by seven waterfalls, and the girl with whom I was holding hands agreed that it was beautiful. It seemed like the end of a movie, in the climax’s aftermath, the beginning of some new life for the characters. I supposed it was some fantastic counterpoint to the mundane disheartenment of my confining reality. The moms have arrived. What else? Finish quickly. The dog is rolling around in the grass. I have to shower still and get a newspaper. Where will I bike to today? Over and out.

 

7-20-00 Th 12:51 PM

I’m at Shakey’s pizza joint on Olympic and Fairfax, stuffed to the gills, a pile of chicken bones, pizza crusts, potato skins, orange rinds, and a few stray strands of spaghetti decomposes on the plate in front of me. I’m going to try and get the rest my beer in me when my lunch buffet has settled some. I got out of bed around seven thirty or so this morning. I went into the study and wrote seven more lines for Jim. I heard Rochelle praising the dog for shitting outside before she went to work, but that didn’t prevent me from stepping into a pile of puppy poop in my stocking feet. I took off the socks and used them to remove the turds to the trash and threw them out together. Then I douched the carpet with vinegar and water. I put on shoes and fresh socks and a t-shirt and shorts and walked to the corner for the papers. Yassar and Ehud are going to stay at Camp David a few more days. I say just let the Palestinians build s little state building in East Jerusalem. Whatever. The Angels got robbed by another incompetent umpire. Hansen homered in the Dodgers win. I read the paper in the shade of the orchard in the backyard while the dog chewed on everything she could get her teeth on. I called Berto. He’s going to bring me that “shirt” I ordered. He was at work. Then I cycled up to Wilshire Hill. Ralph said, let’s golf the three-par at Rancho Park.  He’s going to come by the house around two. I asked Ms. Harvard what she thought I should do about the Beich incident. She recommended I discuss it with Principal Steele. Then she offered me a summer school job which I accepted. It’ll be Monday-Friday, eight to twelve twenty. When I’m done here, I’ve got more Mailer/Miller to read. Mailer was in town with his wife promoting a new book. Third-person page.  Finger man. Work tonight. Call Steele, Keith, Tim. See “X-men” tomorrow. Price camcorders.