6-22-01 F 10:15 

It's the last day of school. I turned in my cumrs and handed out report cards. I'm expecting to get dinged on all kinds of shit because everyone in the office hates me. I bought a couple dozen donuts and some milk and OJ for the kids this morning. I think I added one line to Jim yesterday. I typed a new resume. I'm going to apply for a faculty position at Mt. San Antonio College. I'm sure they won't take me without a masters. I brought a copy of my resume to fax to that Mexican courier. Today is payday. I netted $3,800. Wednesday, I called Manuel. I was just about to Sloan's when he called back. I was having a Club Daiquiri in a can. I told him I'd swing by and pick him up. We went to the Red Setter or Irish Setter or something like that. Shot some pool. Read about ancient Egypt. Last night, the wife and I watched "61" about Maris and Mantle. It was great. The two actors, Barry Pepper and the other guy were perfect. It was fun. It wasn't stinking in sentimentality like most baseball movies. I didn't know that they roomed together, nor that Mantle missed the last two weeks of the season. I also never knew what happene4d in the hundred and fifty-fourth game, so that was exciting and suspenseful. What else? I could go for some coffee and a crap and a hump. We're supposed to go up to the Brass Monkey today. Senoravilla wants me to meet her at LACMA for jazz. I don't know nothing. [blurry color photo of rainbow] The rain from the train--Starlight Express]

 

6-19-01 Tu 5:20 PM

I’ve come to Tom Bergen’s to do this. I’m into a third straight week of poorly hidden depression. I told the wife I was going to Hoover. I did drive by Hoover. I’m zonked. Took the kids to the California Science Center. I’m too zonked to do it justice. Busloads upon busloads of kids scattering in different directions, jostling for position at interactive exhibits they don’t understand, whining they’re hungry, they’re tired, they’re bored, they have to go to the bathroom, look at this, look at that, let’s go upstairs, let’s go downstairs, can I go to the gift shop? Come here, come here, this way, that way, where’s Bryan? What happened to Pedro? Has anybody seen Aryeni? Aryeni, who’s in third grade, said, “Mr. Zurn, you’re so innocent.” Huh? “What do you mean?” I asked. “You’re just innocent,” she said. “Congratulations.” OK. The line at McDonald’s lasted thirty-five minutes. The Styrofoam cooler containing the juices and milks weighed about seventy-five pounds and broke apart as I lugged it a quarter mile from the bus to the tree in the park where we were having lunch between the puddles. Once we were back to school and the kids had been dismissed, I fell asleep at my desk. Don came in and told me he’d bungled a marriage proposal at Exposition Park after I told him that’s where we had been. You got lucky, I joked. Was I joking? We talked about how the grass is always greener…He said they used to call him Disco Don back in those days. I typed fifteen minutes. Did a cursory reading of the news today. That crook, Bush, has realized he’s allowed his cronies to soak California for all it’s worth and has now agreed to price caps by FERC on electricity. McGwire went deep last night. I read about Pontius Pilate’s ten-year prefecture over Jerusalem. He was called to the carpet in Syria for some massacre or another and never heard from again. I have to read the section of the religious life of the Assyrians and Babylonians in the Ancient Orient book. Then I’ll call Jim, I guess. I have to write a third person page. Figure out what Jim Crack’s going to do about his keys, ID, and money.

 6-16-01 Sa 9:12 AM

It has been almost six hours since I wrote the date and time. It's now 2:58 PM. I've had an aversion to doing this. Like a true, physical aversion. A loathing. Now, I just don't care, which is slightly better. I'm still stuck in some horrible overwhelming apathy and dissatisfaction. I contaminate my family with these feelings. ~~~~~

I've been feeling old and tired. When I got to school yesterday, one of my little eight-year-olds said, "Teacher, you look different."     "What do you mean?" I asked.     "You look old and tired," she said.

I had a hard time sleeping. I awoke at three in the morning with a painful headache. I had promised Rochelle we would go up to happy hour to celebrate her A in algebra at SMC. I'd had some whiskeys and beers. Thus, the horrible headache at three in the morning. It became four o'clock, then five. I took some Tylenol and Alka-Seltzer and smoked some pot and tried jerking off and lying on the couch. I guess I feel asleep around six and got up for work around seven. We had the softball game between the fifth graders and the teachers today. I pitched and homered. 

Getoff and Estella came over to watch the Lakers win another NBA championship. It was underwhelming and anticlimactic. We made ribs and chicken wings. Watched "Life of Brian" after the game. It was all boring. I went and got my hair cut short. I'm thinking of shaving it. I saw an old man walking on the street; framed he was--that is, he was walking with his head through a picture frame; it hung around his neck.

[color photograph "Mt. Hood, from a train, 1997]

 6-12-01 Tu 12:04 PM

Guess where I am? That's right; the shitter at Wilshire Hill. Whatever. What the hell? When did I last write? I don't remember. It must have been a fifteen-minutes on the laptop here at school yesterday. I haven't been feeling so good. I hate my place in life.  Hate the evil that seems to have the world in its grasp. The government is evil. I want to rescue my idiot brother and spirit my loved ones away to some island uncontrolled by the forces of evil. McVeigh was executed yesterday. When the government murders people, it's called justice. Bush, proof that the world is controlled by the forces of evil, had this thoughtful piece of idiocy to share: "Today, every living person who was hurt by the evil done in Oklahoma City can rest in the knowledge there has been a reckoning." I'd like to see some brave, good person flush that turd once and for all. I was turning the globe on my desk, turning and turning, trying find where in the world is there some sanctuary to raise my daughter. ~~~~Augh.

I never went to Hoover yesterday. Perhaps it is my own lack of integrity that invites evil unto the world. ~~~But the baby was there, and we love each other. Rochelle took a nap. She's always tired. Pregant? Yikes. My mother came over to dote on the baby. USC lost to Miami. I didn't feel like anything. I didn't read or write. I watched "Six of a Kind" with W. C. Fields, George Burns, and Gracie Allen. Fields' pool stick bit got to me. I put the baby to bed at seven. My mom left. Rochelle came home, and we went to bed. I neither drank nor smoked nor had any desire to do so. It was hard to get up this morning. I'm tired, too. Pregnant? Ugh. Rode my bike to work. I need some coffee. We did Maricruz's IEP in Yale's office. I translated. I struggle to care or to appear to care. I do care, but I feel defeated. In madness you dwell. I need a nap. I pored over the classifieds searching for an escape. Some other job. I could teach in Japan. What? I'll nap when I get home. Make a tape for my dad. Typed a newsletter for Hoover. I ate pizza at lunch.

 6-10-01 Su 5:07 PM

Wow. What? Where am I? I’m at home. When did I lasty write? I typed fifteen minutes on th way to the Dodger game yesterday. Beer, dogs, nuts, jacks, ‘zels, etc. The Dodgers won the game when Mark Grudzelanek singled over a drawn-in infield with one out in the bottom of the ninth, breaking the one-one tie. We were in the car, listening to it on the radio, though. I mean to get the paper read and write these pages after the game, but I guess I was talking too much. I read the paper her and watched the Devils blow the Cup to the dreaded Avalanche. I was feeling nervous because Senorita Villa was coming over. I had a smoke and some drinks, and then I was nervous and tired. It was strained and awkward. Whatever. I poured pinot grigio for everyone. Rochelle had Anne ride in the front seat with me. “Longer legs,” she said. Anne talked about writing. Writing for Penthouse and so on. Modeling. Whatever. Sky Sushi, where Nattaz’s party was, was empty when we got there. Bad buzz. I got a pool table. Rochelle and I played. My game sucked. I struggled to think of things to say, but only cartoon psycho mutterings would come. It was stuffy, and I sweated like a marathoner in Miami, trying to keep Anna entertained and my wife loved. Rochelle said she felt like a third wheel and that she thought she should leave Anna and me alone. And here I thought I had been doing a good job at least of hiding that wish. I had three or four Amstels and a Turk and was just hitting my groove as the place began filling up and the girls pulled the plug. They were bored and threatened by fake tits or something. Anna hugged Rochelle and said good-bye. No hug for me. I think Rochelle was glad to see her go. My personal mind-body-sprit trinity was aroused and as yet undoused, but the mother-in-law was watching the movie “Philadlephia” when we got home, and that was a strange, horrible bummer. I went to bed and dreamt a black sleep.

 

6-7-01 Th 8:03 AM

Wilshire Hill Elementary. Here we go again. Ugh. Let’s see. What? What? What? The main thing is, what are going to do with Him. A tone is pulsing on the other end of the intercom. Ther girls are practicing the Wilshire Hill school song. The twins gave me some cacahuates dulces, candied peanuts. I typed [ticket stub to 2001 NCAA Super Regionals baseball game at Dedeaux Filed] fifteen minutes last night. Then I got a Numero Uno craving. I called to have a pizza delivered. They said they stopped delivering at 9:30. “What?! This is LA!” I shouted and hung up on them. I would never order pizza from them again. I lay in bed with my Ancient Orient book. Bitter I was. They didn’t close until ten. Why stop delivering any earlier than that? At 9:50, I had the wife call to order a pizza for pickup. They told her they were closed. “What time do you close?” she asked. “Oh. I wasn’t aware it was ten o’clock already. In fact, it’s only 9:50.” She hung up on them. I called them back to rattle their cage and make them think they were turning down a rash of last-minute revenue. This time they took the order. I went and got the pizza. The lights were off. The chairs were up. “Oh, are you closing now?” I asked. I went to Hollywood video and got “Traffic,” “The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle,” and “Modern Times.” I couldn’t wait to get in bed with the pizza and watch a video. Eating the pizza in bed was integral to the whole thing. I got plates, paper towels, parmesan, bleu cheese, and a glass of milk and carried everything into the bedroom where the lights were off and the wife was nursing the baby. Drat! I stood frozen in the darkness. Mayber if I stayed perfectly still and quiet, the kid would go back to sleep. It took about ten minutes or so of not eating pizza. I guessed having a baby was still worth it, though.  We ate the pizza and watched the end of “Stripes.” Then we turned out the light and that was it until the baby started cock-a-doodle-dooing at about six this morning. I had my vitamin with a glass of wine. Drove the car