2-5-01 M 3:25 PM

I'm sitting in the stands at the LA High athletic field. The soccer team is playing. Some pitchers and catchers are working out on the track. High flat clouds. Palm trees in the distance. I typed thirteen minutes this morning. I'm hornier than fuck lately. I drove down to Hoover to meet the plant manager, Stan Cowen. He wore a Depression-Era motoring cap and gnawed a toothpick the whole time HE questioned ME about why they haven't given us keys for our rooms yet. I was firm and diplomatic, but I still don't expect to see the keys any time soon. I drove around and dropped off Korean flyers for the program at some churches and BBQs and newspaper stands around Westmoreland and James M. Woods Streets. Drove up Vermont to Melrose to Cahuenga to the ATT office to pay the cable bill. Went from there to Shakey's. Got the lunch buffet and a beer and read the paper and ate. The Lakers beat Sacramento. There was a stack of NY Times in front of some office with an eviction notice tacked to the door. I took one. I drove home from there. Lied to the wife and said I only had an iced tea at Shakey's. Printed the CBET newsletter. Brought it here and had Aurora run off some copies. Showed it to my boss. Now that I've made in appearance, I'm thinking I don't have to go back to Hoover today. I might as well be done for the day. I considered going to Senorita Villa's class, but that's such a can of worms. I'm thirsty and horny. I could just go read some Crossing on the couch. Get going on my third-person page. The visitors just scored a goal. Get to Jim page one forty-three. There sure are a lot of guys walking around in this soccer game.

Freak Contest Finalists 2000

[photo of Rochelle, me, stepmom, brother, and dad]

2-3-01 Werewolf Mouth

 2-3-01 3:30 Pm Sa

We're at a gas station in Cucamonga. Had to stop becuase the baby was crying to be fed. We've been driving Foothill and Baseline beneath the San Gabriel's, looking for new homes in our price range. We've seen one. Rochelle said it was small. I've got wolf-man mouth. I think it was from the salty fries I ate at the Claim Jumper where we stopped for lunch when we first got out here. Werewolf mouth is when your teeth fall way sharper than usual and gnaw your lips and tongue.

8:35 PM I learned today that one little Chinese woman picking her nose can fuck up a whole freeway all by herself.

2-4-01 Su 6:43 AM

Whatever. Ugh. "The devil has taken your brother's brain," my mother said to me on the phone last night. He needs to be locked up in a psychiatric ward. There's so much more that needs to be said about this, but                    the three monkeys never have to worry about broken hearts. 

Other things. But no. Sympathy for the Devil comes on the radio. That's it. My mom says she doesn't know what happened to her cute little boy, her voice cracking.

~

I could go for a smoke. I'm playing baseball today, though. I hope. Mariachi's got a guy wants us to come play at Crystal Springs at 12:30. Maybe they'll need a first or third baseman.   I don't want any marijuana loginess in my system, though, if they give me a tryout. 

I'll read some more of The Crossing when I'm done with this. I'll have cereal for breakfast. Write a third-person page. Icy fingers have closed around Jim's wrist.

The dog was kind enough to go out to sleep on the couch last night, leaving the bed free for the wife and me to hump in.

[Photograph] Drenched with sweat from dancing in Hurricane Dennis, Bahamas, 1999, Atlantis Resort and Casino, Paradise Island, Nassau, New Providence.

 1-31-01 1:30 PM W

2-2-01 7:07 AM F

I wonder if Punxatawny Phil has seen his shadow this morning. I never went into work last night. I came home and added a line to Jim and read about twenty pages of The Crossing. Billy and Boyd have traveled into Mexico and are tracking the trail of the horse that was stolen when their parents were murdered. I typed fifteen minutes about the train to the Kings game mostly. I worked on a newsletter for CBET. Priced laptops online. Looks lie very few of them have all the features I want. Mainly a diskette drive and a CDROM drive. There was a used one in the classifieds that has a diskette drive. I wonder if any have both. We had on the movie "Mogambo" with Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly. We thought it a minor phenomenon that the two lady leads were Ava and Grace. The movie is kind of cheesy, though. Baby Grace slept right through it. Her mom and I crashed before it ended, too. Today I have to figure out about the bulletin boards. Maybe I'll just put up a sign that says, "I am a teacher, not an interior decorator." Whatever. It's fifty degrees right now. Should get up to the seventies. So says my TV news weatherman. The trash truck rumbles and bangs along like WWIII. Today is payday. I callede the automated teller. I have only $2900 in my checking and only $48 in my savings. It doesn't make sense. I have to take a class or something to raise my pay. Ugh. Ugh and fuck. Tomorrow we're meeting up with some realtors to house-hunt in Pasadena. Maybe we can hit Fry's in Burbank. Maybe we'll stop by Burbank High and see Mariachi at the baseball field. Maybe I'll go to happy hour with Florelle tonight. Whatever. The bulletin board thing bothers me.

 1-30-01 Tu 12:45 PM

I had to write these three pages in a different journal yesterday because I had left this one in the pouch of my windbreaker at home in the closet. I typed a full fifteen minutes this morning. Mostly I write about what I have to do for the LACAS CBET program. I rode my bike to school. Got the newspaper. The Kings are playing Dallas tonight. I'm going to the game. I rapped with Dwayne about the Super Bowl, mostly just parroted things I'd seen in the sports page yesterday. The bell rang and I led the kids across the playground to our room. We checked our "Tickets Out the Door," which are half sheets with four multiple-choice questions per side. We picked out which sentence was missing from a paragraph and discussed parallel and perpendicular lines. Checked the phonics. Did the "Main Idea Word Web." Shit. I forgot to Xerox something. The kids' homework for tonight. Crap. Maybe Mercedes can do it. Ugh. At recess, I called Holly Lauren, the cafeteria manager at Hoover. She says she'd got invoices going back to December for snacks that need to be paid for. I've got to ask Leah Jacoby what she wants done about that. Bush wants to endow faith-based charities as federal programs or something that seems to ignore the idea of separation of church and state. After recess, we continued lessons on counting coins. At lunch, I are my leftover pasta and finished the newspaper. I'll read them some more One Day in the Desert when I'm done here. Then we'll read in our social studies books about the Navajo. Play a little volleyball today. Go to LACAS. Talk to Leah about the invoices. Check up on the banners. Ask Aurora to make copies of the Korean flyers. Got another Foundations book. I wonder if I can ride my bike to Hoover today. Why not ? I'll stop by home first. Do a third-person page. Play a little guitar. I've got to see Mrs. Leyva. When I'm done there, I can head over to the bar at Staples. Read The Crossing and wait for Adam and Leslie. I should be home by eleven or so. Hopefully, I can add a line or two to Jim. Email AV. Hit the hay. Start over again tomorrow. I've started writing the page number of Jim that I complete on the calendar. So, I finished up p. 140 on the 18th and p.141 on the 28th. So I seem to be doing a page every ten days. Thity-six pages a year. Ugh. That's not good enough. A page day for five days would be okay. Not good, but okay. A hundred a year, that I could be happy with.

 1-27-01 Sa 3:03 PM

I’m at the Oaxacan barber shop on Pico. I’m all tripped out--on caffeine, I guess. The wife makes a mean pot of coffee. I’ve gone to shit about six times so far today. I feel uneasy and jittery. I’m short of breath and have fucked up post-nasal drip that fucks with the pressure in my inner ear. The bike ride through the winter air felt like a swim in a cold ocean.

I’m at Molly Malone’s now. I rode my bike back to the house so I could take the car keys to the hardware store when I went to get the j-bolt and wing screws to fix the bar in the closet. They didn’t have the right kind of key, though. I also got a light bulb and some fuses. I stopped by Elmer’s place after that. He married Gloria in an unexpected civil ceremony. He doesn’t seemed that thrilled about it. I’d like to play darts. A white-bearded guy is over there nailing his triples. I’ve brought my darts, but these horrible coffee jitters have so eroded my muscle control that I’m sure I’ll suck. Still, I should go for a game when I’m done here. I’ve got some Crossing to read, too. I guess Rochelle and her mom will probably be home by the time I get there. They’ll probably want to play a board game or watch a movie. I’ve got to email Briddlecomb’s address to Getoff. Write the fucking demon dream into Jim. Tomorrow is the Super Bowl. Mariachi is expecting us in Pasadena. Glen from work is having a party. I think I’d just like to stay home, monitor it, and read and write all day. What else? Shall I affect an Irish accent? I saw a peregrine falcon floating a hundred feet above Hudson as the dog and I were walking back form getting the newspaper. I went inside to get the camcorder, bus she was gone by the time I got back out. I settled for snow on the mountains behind the Hollywood sign.

 

1-25-01 Th 2:23 PM

I dropped off a roll of film to the developer on La Brea. Then I crossed the street to BofA and took out sixty bucks from my checking account. Then I went to the post office and got a one-cent stamp and also mailed Slope Dope to Tim in Los Osos. Got a Double Ultimate Cheeseburger with bacon and mayo, plus French fries. I ordered iced tea, but they gave me Coke or something. I drank it. Suicidal lunch. Urgh. I couldn’t finish a third-person page yesterday. Didn’t work on Jim. I felt unhappy, I don’t know if I couldn’t write because I was unhappy, or if I was unhappy because I couldn’t write.    Rochelle has gone down to her sister’s for the umpteenth time this month. We manage to put an average of a thousand miles a month on that car, even though I ride my bike to work. We don’t want to inconvenience anybody else.  The baby doesn’t always cry in the car. My sister-in-law offered to compensate us for gas. Wasn’t that thoughtful?    Blech. So, I didn’t type this morning, nor did I pack a lunch. Striekes one and two. I guess I’ll get a haircut today. Stop by LACAS and see if the fax from the banner guy has come in. See if May Ahn has printed the Korean translation. Stop by Hoover. See if the keys are there. They won’t be, but I can bug them about it. See who speaks Korean. Do the materials inventory for the daycare. Collect the attendance, take book orders. I have to order some stuff for my third graders with our bilingual money. I have The Crossing to read. Billy shot the wolf before he would let the ladrones abuse her to death to fight dogs. The stupid dream for Jim. Whatever. “2001: A Space Odyssey” is on AMC tonight. Maybe I’ll tape it. So is “Where Eagles Dare.” I’d like to tape that one, too. Maybe I’ll go to the museum tomorrow. [photo of mother and baby]. Christmas morning, ’00: the Wife, the Baby, and the Half Man. But is it the better half. The other half is traipsing the world, carousing.

 1-24-01 W 1:45 PM

I didn't have time to write a full fifteen minutes this morning. I had to settle for about six minutes. I packed some peanut butter and jellies and drove to school on rain-soaked streets. I picked up the kids in the auditorium. Mrs. Colbert hissed at me. The kids read their poems about dreams to the class. Then we checked our phonics pages. Since it was raining at recess, we stayed in and watched the end of "Tarzan." Good film. Quite enjoyable. I couldn't read the sports during recess because I was watching "Tarzan." After recess, we did a logic paper comparing numbers. Then we had a lesson on "Ten Thousands and Hundred Thousands." At lunch, Elayne Horowicz asked me to help her with a gran that Harvard asked her to write. I resented it, but I went. Some nonsense about getting the Douglas Foundation to improve our playground. Great, but are we are supposed to write this thing when? On our time. Sorry, but don't have any more time I can give but what I'm already giving. Meanwhile, the paper reports that our union has negotiated a pay raise of twelve percent over three years. Rochelle wants to move. I'm clinging to LA. Ugh. I have to start researching other districts. You know the biggest reason I don't want to move? I'll miss the bars. I'll miss The Bounty and El Coyote and Cheetahs and Dublins and more. In LA, I feel some path running to greatness, if I could just find it. Corona, Cucamonga, Rancho Santiago? They sound like consecration to Purgatory. Maybe it will be an idyllic life in the suburbs, with isolation to write, but I worry it might further reduce my freedoma and squash Rochelle and Ada and me together. It's the same fear I have about going overseas to teach.

I have to go straight to night school to check on the banners. Hopefulluy, I'll have time after that to finally go to the post office. I'm sure I'm forgetting something. Have go get keys at Hoover, ask about Wilton Place time cards, pick up the fax at LA High. There must be more. Starting to think about a haircut. I'm hungry. Got Crossing to read. Third-person page. Guitar. The storm has passed. The sky is blue, but the air is still cool. I've got a Taurine craving.

 1-22-01 1:28 PM M

I typed fifteen minutes this morning. Drank some coffee. Ate some Cheerios. Read about the Earth’s core, the rising and falling of cold mantle, in a National Geographic, while I took a coffee-induced crap. Kissed the girls, patted the dog, mounted up and biked to work. Got a newspaper. Read it on the playground waiting for the bell to ring. Electric Crunch in California. Lakers stunk against the Bulls. Ho-hum. Harvard is not back. I’m glad. A Peter Feherty is the interim principal. Arciaga and I joked about having a white-male principal. Whatever. We came up to class. The kids wrote in their journals while I wrote up lesson plans for the week. At recess, I ran off some copies but didn’t get to finish the job. We did a lesson on comparing and ordering numbers. Ho-hum. The kids seemed to get it. Most of them. I forgot my sandwich. I called Rochelle, and she dropped it off for me. Put a little note with it that she loves me. I ate it on the steps in front of school. Had a tangelo, too.  Read the rest of the paper. I read a story to the class called Baseball Camp on the Planet of the Eyeballs. They’re finishing their social studies review of the Cheyenne. Maybe we’ll go out for some P.E. after this. I have a few more copies to make still. Have to order some computer equipment with our $200 in bilingual funds. Should rebuild the programming on the computers in here. The CDROM connections are inoperative. Nothing can be done about that here. Brzk. Whatever. Have to get to the post office. Call DWP. Get the requisition fo the banner for CBET. Get copies for the flyers. Hang out around Hoover. The Kings are in Philly today. Have to write a third-person page about the homeless guy who wakes Jim. Or maybe not. Or maybe. A sinner, like Mac, whose downfall is of his own making. Maybe. Read some Crossing. Mark the passage about man’s word. Check the internet. Work on Jim. Just slap the dream in the there. It’s a first draft. First draft. Don’t forget it’s a first draft. Maybe we’ll watch “Hamlet” tonight. Tomorrow is a minimum day. What do I do about low numbers in Schunting’s class. It’s because he doesn’t give a damn. It’s still too early for me to play it any other way than nice guy. I have to think on it some more. Do the banner. I have to call Idaho. Want to see “O Brother…” this weekend upcoming. Jerky Boy.

 1-21-01 3:05 PM Su

Is a bike ride and a beer a violation of the Sabbath? Maybe as long as you don’t buy the beer on the Sabbath?

I caught no fish yesterday. I’m still depressed about it today. I’ve been feeling listless and mopey, and I finally figured out why: Because I caught no fish. I rode my bike up to Aaron’s records and traded in the “Chicken Run” video—the one I paid nineteen ninety-five for a month ago; they gave me a whopping five-dollar store credit. I got a thirteen ninety-nine Stevie Wonder Greatest Hits double CD set out of the used bin and guessed for eight ninety-nine with my whopping credit, it would be worth it. Only, while I was in line at the checkout stand, I compulsively picked up a Miles Davis CD and the soundtrack to “O Brother Where Art Thou.” Still, my despondency has not eased.

So, now I’m at the Snake Pit having a beer. I’m thinking of going to the Regent to see “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” at 4:30. I guess if I do that I better call the wife to see if she wants to meet me. The last time we brought the baby to a movie, Rochelle spent half the movie in the lobby trying to quiet down the baby’s squawking.

My beer came in a mug. I’ll have the flu withing twenty-four hours if I drink from that mug. I can’t waste it, though. Let’s see. Flu or waste beer? I took a sip. The barmaid is a cutie. She knows the guy sitting next to me. He talks about skydiving. She says she would never. “Happy hour with your feet on the ground?” asks he. “Well, no. Earthquakes,” she answers. Shelves of glass bottles go up to the ceiling behind her. I get she wouldn’t want to be in a quake under those bottles, but her comment is a non sequitur to me. She loaned me this pen. I’ll read some Crossing after this. I was looking for porn on the web this morning. Rochelle woke. Never done that one before. I couldn’t find anything. Then I heard her coming and everything I did to get rid of it only brought up new porn.

 F 1-19-01 10:06 AM

I’m tired. I went to bed early last night, but I’m still tired. My lungs are a little raspy today, and I’m sneezing here and there. I hope I don’t get sick. I typed fifteen minutes last night. I was reading an entry from March. Back in March, I was on page one hundred with Jim. Now I’m four lines onto page one hundred forty-one. At first I was all excited to think I have written forty pages since March, maybe fifty, in the last year. Then I remembered I inserted headers and footers that probably account for about twenty pages. Oh, well. I wish I wrote one hundred pages a year. Or three hundred. Two pages a week would be a hundred and four a year, right? I don’t think I can manage two pages a week. Some weeks I probably could some weeks. I slept until seven twenty this morning. Showered. Had no time for anything but to get dressed, pass out kisses, and drive the car to school. Then, I singed in and crossed the street to Taco Bell.  Hate myself for that. Got a newspaper and a couple chalupas and a burrito to bring to class. Ate it while we checked over our phonics. Answered some questions about sleeping and dreaming. At recess, I read ten pages of The Crossing. He visits and old brujo for advice on trapping the wolf. The man says there is no order in nature save for what “death puts there.” The kids are writing book reports now. When I’m done with this, I’ll read the paper. I may have to run home at lunch because my inhaler is not in my backpack. I’m supposed to go fishing with Rawler tomorrow. Then we’re having dinner with the Kepler’s at my mom’s. I still have to call DWP and send in the car payment. Maybe we can see a movie this afternoon or Sunday morning. What did I do with that roll of film? I thought it was in my backpack, but it’s not. I’ll have to grab Modchill’s address so can mail him Slope Dope. What else? I wish I had baseball on Sunday. I need some photographs to fill these dead places when I run out of things to write.

The twins and Carolina always say everything to me in chorus. Then they giggle and fall down.

I’m in a Caspian depression. The sky is gray. I could go for a Red Bull.

Deah and flesh mesh.     Whatever

What else? I should have saved this space to mount a photograph.

Blah blah blah.

Maybe my brain would work if I read the news. I didn’t smoke yesterday. Had three drinks