1-6-01 Sa 8:45 PM I’m writing while I sit on the toilet in the house on Hudson. I’ve never written in here before. The tile in here has a maroon diamonds in it. So we got maroon towels, a maroon bathmat, a maroon seashell shower curtain, and a maroon toilet lid cover. Thursday morning, we drove out First Street to East L.A to a place called Gloria’s that, according to the Times food section, is supposed to be a good place to get what you need to make tamales. Le viejita behind the counter didn’t real enthused about having three generations of gringos in her store. All their botes were too big and none of the lids fit any of them anyway. We walked down the street to a place called El Mercado where we found the right size bote, and a nice guy named Danny fixed us five pounds of masa. While he was grinding the corn, we went to buy chiles and pork for carnitas, cumin, and onion. We needed tomatoes, too, bu t the tomatoes there were rotten. Danny rang it all up, and it was only eighteen dollars. He said he didn’t charge us for the masa. He said, “See if you like it. If you do, come back.” We carried the baby and the bote back to the car. The baby cried all the way home.

We diced the onions and cut the pork into strips and simmered it in water a couple hours. I don’t remember what we did while the meant cooked. Maybe I wrote and read the paper. When the meat was nearly ready, we soaked the cornhusks in warm water, spread the masa into the husks, put in the carnitas, cheese, chile sauce, wrapped them up, and put them in the bote. It made thirty-six tamales. We ate some with beans and rice. They were good. Mac came over and had a few. Grandma and I watched a Buster Keaton film on DVD called “College.” The next morning, Rochelle went to the Fox Hills Mall.

 

1-3-01 12:05 PM W

I wrote fifteen minutes in the alternate word-processor notebook (which is just a paper notebook) while I sat in the jurors’ room. The gal next to me wanted to do it worse than I did. She kept leaning over the table so her shirt rode up, and her lace panties were exposed to me, and she would literally moan. I read the newspaper and maintained my silence, glaring at people on cel phones who talked like we all wanted to hear them. I bailed for lunch about forty minutes earlier than we were supposed to. I walked down Sixth Street to the “We Make Our Own Mayonnaise” joint. Turns out the place is the oft-written-about Cassel’s which boasts a wall full of framed mentions from publications like Oui, Los Angeles Magazine, and so on, including Channel 2’s website, all proclaiming it “The Home of the World’s Best Hamburger.” There are pictures of celebrities like Clint Eastwood and Michael Landon eating there (No doubt on lunch from civil trials at the nearby courthouse). I ordered a 2/3-pound burger with grilled onion, and I put about five tablespoons of homemade mayo on my plate. It probably was a quality burger, but I’m so senseless after another tour in the jury waiting room that I couldn’t taste anything. I ate and thanked the old Korean lady who bought the place from Cassel. “Happy New Year,” she said. From there I walked more blocks to the Four A, which may have been a bar in its heyday, but is now a strange kind of retro-chic Korean disco café with multicolored, bubbling light tubes, a ceiling with twinkling stars, and small TVs at each booth, all tuned to “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” And with all that, the furniture and drapes have an antique kind of Civil War Era look about them, and there’s an artificial Christmas tree in here. The menu is in Korean, and the translations are a lot of oboo ki chyon yang pyong, in case you don’t know what [Korean script] means. The almost entirely Korean female population in the place is smoking against the law. The servers wear neckties and can be summoned to the table with the press of a button. The door handle is the sculpture of a naked woman.

9:28 AM W 1-3-00

I’m in jury jail. You can see the Hollywood sign out the wall of windows. You could hear a guy talking to someone about a movie treatment he’s working on for New Line. “As soon as I’m done here, frankly,” he said, “we start production.” I read a Ring Lardner story about a brother and sister, one who lived in Michigan and the other in Long Island. They ended up having nothing in common. I rode my bike four miles here. That’s a lot of carbon monoxide to be inhaling. I thought of scaling Everest. We watched something on Nova last night of the expedition that discovered George Mallory’s body. They still don’t know if he made it to the top or not. I almost wish they hadn’t found him. It ruins the story of the men who ascended into the clouds and disappeared.

Great Grandma Zurn will be arriving tonight for a four-day visit. Mac wants to meet us at the airport. OK. I think we might make tamales tomorrow and take her to the Museum of Miniatures on Friday. When I’m done writing here, I’ll consume today’s Times. I’ll maybe go to the “We Make Our Own Mayonnaise” place for lunch. I’d really like to steal that sign and hang it in my kitchen. There’s also a bar here that Florelle once pointed out to me called AAAA, The Four Aces. I brought a biscuit with me that had been left in the oven since Monday morning.

 

1-2-01 8:46 AM Tu

 I’m a the Los Angeles Superior Court Building on Sixth and Commonwealth where I’ve been summoned for jury duty. I have been reading Whitman (“The Sleepers”) but am not feeling any of that expansive inclusiveness he’s always describing (though I have at times felt it). Mostly I’m just feeling resentment over another encroachment on my personal liberty. [Ink line sketch of city intersection with Hollywood sign in background] Ugh. I am feeling some Whitmanesque lust, though. What is it about being bored in groups, like meetings and such, that makes me want to fuck so bad? There are three gals in here I’d like to take into the bathroom and bang away at. ~~~

After I finish this, I’ve got the paper to read. If I’ve finished that before they call me, I’m just going to bail—fuck ‘em—they can try to bust me. Shit. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Maybe I’ll drive home and ride my bike back. I feel like a beer. Not a cloud in the sky. I need a laptop. I could go for a smoke. I need a massage. Ugh. Fuck. What else? God this place incites the anarchist in me.

If I have to come back tomorrow, I’m brining a Thermos full of booze. Whoa! Wait a minute. I gave them the wrong address. The mailing address on my summons is wrong. Maybe I can just say I never got it. That’s it. When I finish this, I’m out of here. They just called teachers. What should I do? What should I do?-------------

Fuck – I checked in. Now what? What up with Jim? The storm is raging. It’s going to hail. Will he sleep under the bridge or walk through the storm? God, am I horny. We watched the rest of “Day of the Locust” last night. As a movie, it’s weird. It seems so random. I wonder what West would have thought of it. It’s ironic to make a movie of a book that condemns movie culture. He probably would have hated it.

 

12-29-00 F 6:14 PM

Dublin’s. The Kings are on in Dallas. The Holiday Bowls pits Oregon against Texas. That’s about the size of it. I rode up to Virgin Records on my bike, but it turns out that “Jaws” DVD I wanted to return was actually purchased at Blockbuster. So, I rode about four miles farther than I had to. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Then we drove to the Target on La Cienega and exchanged the fire alarm for credit and cashed in the gift card my mom gave us. We got a bulletin board—rather a poster frame and three packages of corkboard squares to make a bulletin board. We got Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit board games. We got two battery-operated toothbrushes to give to Josh. Breast pads. No TV. No camera. Got Monty Python’s “Meaning of Life” and “Caddyshack” on DVD. I read the newspaper when we got home. The Kings beat the Blues with a bunch of minor leaguers. Bush appointed MO senator John Ashcroft to Attorney General. He is characterized by the Times as a religious crusader. Rochelle went to look for a dress and came back empty handed. We determined not to make tamales until Grandma comes. Haven’t decided for sure, but it looks like the Conga Room on New Year’s Eve is out.  Maybe the Bounty. Still have to get the AM on the Olds fixed and get it detailed. Have the tires rotated. I’d like to see “All the Pretty Horses,” “Traffic,” and “Cast Away,” among others. Read some more Whitman. I read “Song for Occupations” at Nick’s the other night. Do a third-person page. Read the Koran. Work on Jim. Play a game with Rochelle. Watch the rest of “Don’t Look Now.” GIP might meet me. Maybe we’ll stop and shoot some pool. [color photograph of stepmom and newborn baby girl]

 12-27-00 9:52 PM W

I'm at St. Nick's Pub on third near La Cienega. I rode here on my bike. I took the gift card Mardi gave me to Border's. I was looking for the Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume II, but they only had Volume I which I already have. So, then I was looking for a book to improve my pool game, but I didn't like the only one they had. So I got a book about How to Play the Guitar and a Dave Matthews CD. Then, on the way out, I saw Elmore Leonard's Out of Sight in the bargain bin, so I got that, too. I'm having a Wild Turkey and a beer. I typed fifteen minutes this morning. It was a short one. I had the baby on my lap. We all three of us went up to the Fairfax Cinema to see "Wonder Boys," about a writer who can't complete his second novel, until he gives up smoking pot at the end. It could have reminded me of me, but it reminded me of my brother. On the way to the movie, we stopped at Bookstar. They didn't have the Northon Anthology of American Literature Volume II, either, but they did have some decent pool books which I may go back and get. When we got home, We watched Mario Lemieux's return to ice hockey, and I read the newspaper. Energy costs are skyrocketing. The economic outlook is grim; the president-elect fixes blame on the outgoing administration. I played with the baby. I love her so much. It really does feel like it comes from the heart, I mean like the actual organ in my chest. It's the purest love of all. My head has nothing to do with it. There's no thought involved. When I'm done here, I've got Whitman to read and a third-person page to do when I get home. Then I'm supposed to play a game with Rochelle if it's not too late. I might have liked to see some titty dancing, but I spent too much time at Border's. There's a cervix bar around the corner, but topless is as debauched as I'm willing to go. I've got to try to make more time for Jim. I felt good talking to Al about it at the Pantry on Christmas Eve morning. I think we have to go to Target tomorrow. 

 12-20-00 Th 6:30 PM

I’m at Dublin’s having a Guinness alongside a business-looking woman wearing a blazer, pearls, and glitter who’s reading the sports page and looking lonely, I guess, for dick. The barmaid introduced herself as Lorisa—Isn’t that interesting? She looks a bit like how I imagine Jim’s Lorisa. I rode my bike up here. It took forty-five minutes. I went to Virgin Records mega store and spent mega bucks on CDs and DVDs—shiny, silver rainbow discs. I typed fifteen minutes this morning and red the newspaper. Bush appointed Colin Powell to Secretary of State—the first African American ever appointed to so high an office. It’s about time. I’ve finished my beer and ordered another. I spent much of the day tending to the [photo of the jungle river port, Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui, Costa Rica, August 2000, black and white] baby while Rochelle was out shopping. She sleeps in her swing mostly, but she also wants to be held a lot, and needed to be changed several times and fed. I love it, but it’s not conducive to writing. What’ll it be like when she wants to play and ask questions? It’s not like I wrote well when I wasn’t a dad. Maybe it will mature me. Catherine Howrad called while I was changing a diaper full of peanut butter and mustard. I tried to get online to find a TCU Horned Frogs t-shirt, but I couldn’t get it to work. What else? What next? I’ve been thinking of staying out late and drinking like a bachelor. I’ve tried calling the GIP, but no one answers. I guess I’ll have a smoke, and then I’ll want to write, so I’ll head home, and when I get there, I won’t be able to think of what it was I thought was worth writing about. I could help Rochelle make Christmas cookies for the family get together at her sister’s tomorrow. Maybe, I’ll shoot a few games of pool before I leave.

 

 12-19-00 Tu 6:54 PM

Got the bitter-ass, trippy, Christmas blues. When did I last write? Maybe I typed for fifteen minutes yesterday morning. Until the phone rang. I think. I didn't get in seven minutes. What stopped me? I'm like Cary Grant in "Spellbound" trying to remember. I ordered New Jersey Devils hockey apparel to give my mom and sister to unwrap on Christmas morning. We told my mother we would come to church with her on Christmas Eve. Rochelle has gone down to Hof's Hut for Aunt Geneva's birthday party--her Aunt Geneva, "who has never had a party in her whole life," so the story goes. She had rheumatic fever as a child, and the doctors told her parents she was retarded. "So, they raised her retarded, and so she grew up retarded," my mother-in-law said. "But she's not really retarded. She was just raised that way." All a big mix-up. Wow. Anyway, I bowed out of the party. I saw her at the nursing home where Rochelle's grandmother lives, next to where Aunt Geneva lives in a facility that cares for invalids (not sure that word's any better than retarded. I'd say it's worse, but that's the word I was told) after we had all gone to Sunday brunch for Rochelle's sister's virtual birthday party, even though her actual birthday is Christmas Day--who wants to get gypped out of a birthday party because of Jesus, I guess--a week after I saw them all on Thanksgiving down at their place. Methinks I may be excused for skipping Rochelle's Aunt Geneva's birthday party, but she wasn't too happy about it, even though I'll be going down to her sisters with her for the alternate pre-Christmas celebration and gift exchange on the twenty-second, three short days from now, and still we're in trouble for not committing to gumbo night at Rochelle's sister's in-laws since they changed the date three times to accommodate us. We're sending along gifts in our place for the gift exchange in which we drew the names of two people I've never met. I'm thinking about sending along the gift of a joyous message: "Christmas is not about getting or giving but forgiving, so please forgive me for not giving you a gift." I wrote in a bunch of cards and licked envelopes and stamps and wrote addresses and got them into the mailbox. I've got to edit a video of baby footage for my grandmother and send that apace, but I'm going to have to go to the store for a manila envelope, I guess? And I probably still need to buy more shit for people. Do I commit the sin of jewelry?

 

12-13-00 8:57 PM W

Learning love from a box of moving light; paid for; pretend

I’m exhausted. It’s the flu, I guess. I pray the baby doesn’t get it.     One of my students, a young lady, nineteen years old, Marta Barban, was crying when she left my class tonight because she won’t be in my class tonight, and, she says, she loves me. She has a crush, I guess. Life’s weird like that. Where was she when I was nineteen? I was with Jerzey Yokono. Whatever. I’m not even tempted. That’s how old I’ve become.

~~

I have to drop these movies off at the rental place. I don’t have my wallet, so if I want any new movies, I’ll have to stop by the house.  Even exhausted, I dread going to bed; dread [photo of the jungle growing right up to the ocean at Las Uvas, near Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica] the surrender of it. So much is undone. So little has been proved. I like to think it’s never too late, but the reality is something different: I bungled my potential. [ a couple of striped fish, one vertically, the other horizontally, above the dying reef at Las Uvas, underwater photo] No exotic beach can change how mediocre I turned out.

My freedom is close-ended.

12:04 PM 12-13-00 W

I don’t know why I’m starting this now since I’m going to have t pick up the kids off the yard in a few minutes. I guess I’ll have to suspend this when the bell rings, mark the time, and pick it up for however more minutes I need when I come back.

That was a waste of writing. I feel like crap. I’m tired and weak from the flu. I watched a movie about an obnoxious crusader called “Erin Brockovich.” When it was over, I turned off the light and went to sleep. The alarm went off immediately and it was morning and time to get up. I showered and dressed. Took a vitamin. Ate a bacon-egg-cheese sauce-and-death toaster-pastry. Added a couple of lines to Jim. I crossed to page one hundred thirty-eight. I drove to school. Bought a newspaper in front of Taco Bell. Opened the door early and let the kids use the computer. I read the paper. The Supreme Court has revealed what a political backscratcher the judicial system really is. Scalia’s sons work for Olson, the attorney who represents Bush; Thomas’ wife works for Bush. It’ sickening. Alex Rodriguez signed a $252.2-million-dollar contract. It wounds me. I thought I forgot my lunch and got my heart clogged with cheese and grease at Taco Bell. We investigated thousands. I finished the paper. When I opened my backpack to get this notebook, my lunch was in there. Oops. We’re going to the holiday program in forty-five minutes. Humbug. I asked the kids why we celebrate the holidays. “To get presents,” was the unanimous response. I have to grab a tree after school. Rochelle has caught the flu. The baby might have it, too, Ugh. That breaks my heart. I have to order that New Jersey Devils sweater for my mom. We go for portraits tomorrow.

 12-11-00 7:36 PM M

I'm at Los Angeles Community Adult School class at LA High, room 264. My students are taking their final exam. I have a cold. I've had it since Saturday morning. Rochelle went out this afternoon to meet with her personal trainer. She was gone over two hours and the baby got hungry. I warmed some formula for her, but she didn't seem to like it much. When Rochelle came home, she asked me how I was feeling, just like she does every two to ten minutes. "I have a cold," I said. I don't know what else I should have said, but she said, "You know, some day when we get a divorce, it's going to be because of your smart-ass remarks." Divorce? I said nothing, but there was plenty I could have said. Maybe she was trying to be funny. Still, it holds a match awfully close to the fuse on the powder keg. We are ammonia and bleach. I am a mongoose in a viper pit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just makes me look at all I do for her and see the imbalance, the inequality, in what she does for me. Ugh. Asking for fucking diamonds. How do I feel? I feel fucking outraged. And sure, she can use the D-word because, who will get fucked? Maybe I won't buy a house. Women think it's their duty in life to exploit men for their own gain. Hos pose nude and the feminists all scream that the women are being exploited, but it's man's desire that women exploit. What do the feminists say when a woman lives off a man's work? When she divorces him and takes half of what he's earned? I'm such a fucking idiot. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I so desperately wanted to escape Shirelle's bullshit that I married the first blowjob (actually, the second) to come along because it seemed like a foolproof way to be permanently free of Shirelle. "Foolproof" is the wrong word. Couldn't be any more wrong. Stop-gap. Just plug the hole with whatever might fit. Ugh.

When I'm done here, I'll read some more Leaves of Grass. Or should I read that Writers, Inc. handbook on the shelf in here?