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.