1996
1/29/96: The past HALF-YEAR seems to have been taken up with "Spurts": first it was the computer-Internet-index and Web-page interest and research, which was put aside when the flurry of indexes started at the end of September. THAT lasted until the end of December, at which time I caught up with lots of things for Paul's visit, then indulged in a week of videotapes, back to indexing and playwriting, then last week culminated in one last rush index and the conversion of The Director into a narrow format for the daisy-wheel printer, sending THAT out Express Mail (hoping it can be addressed to a COMPANY at an address: that it doesn't need a PERSON'S name) yesterday and watching some of the VCR backlog---and going to the gym, where I remarked about the medical stuff I put on MEDICAL:1/29/96 today---which today's viewing should finish up. Then the quick AMSCO index to do (and the Townes Festshrift, which is longer than we thought), and back to more videotapes while clearing up the last of the old microwave, putting out the newspapers AGAIN, and getting BACK to the Internet for viewing and my Web-page. ALWAYS SOMETHING---maybe as a hedge against chewing over the coming trip's dangers??
2/8/96: 10:38AM: SHIT: What the fuck is going ON?? I'm depressed with an increasing sense of unreality: is THAT what happens after 26 movies in 10 days? Surely PART of it: sitting sobbing during Priest and The Sum of Us and Pride and Prejudice when signs of concrete love are exchanged on the cathode-ray tube? Starting The Traffic Director and at first being frightened at the depth it DOES seem to attain, then ignoring it for the next week while I escape to movies? Trying to ignore the rapidly-advancing trip-date? PART of it may be the "infinitely postponed" tasks like 1) phoning Marine Expeditions to check London-return extension times and prices (which I did JUST NOW), 2) finishing Clinical Chemistry index-changes from page-changes (which I finished THIS MORNING), and 3) phoning for another hair-dye (which I was tempted to check RIGHT NOW, but typed THIS instead: better to call DON and get the guy's NAME first). AND just phoned the Beard to check the waiting lists for 2/9 and 2/19! AND phoned Le Bernardin to change our reservation from 2/12 to 2/23 and phone Ken to confirm. Think of things to add to the play, like: "I used to be AFRAID of dying, now I rather think it might be a good idea as a solution to all my current frustrations, aches, druthers, fears, and uncertainties." THEN re-ink RIBBONS! THAT'S DOING things!
2/20/96: Noon: Things are looking up! Though I stopped 1040 work when I found I DON'T have form 8829 (which I'll try to get at the library), I GOT The Director mailed out (and Paul said he GOT it), got THROUGH the first batch of one-acts for NRL festival and will pick up the second batch tonight, finished ALL the pending indexes (though shocked to get buzzer at 9:30AM, "only" tickets and final itinerary from Marine), DID get the hair-job done last week. And find that the re-inked ribbons work FABULOUSLY! Put away a stack of stuff I retrieved from Spartacus's old apartment (umbrella, booze, humidifier---though I still have his Uher to look at as a replacement for MINE that doesn't work!), went through the "last" of his old porno at Pope's yesterday, satisfied with the workings of my new Panasonic VCR and will pick up the OLD NEC, repaired, for $100 later this week. Still lots of things to do on the "Trip List," but still 12 days to do them in. FOUND my will, my plug (which won't work on the ship---and WHAT about a converter?), and my month-pay chart that I'd misplaced last year, AND got his National Geographics (all 740 copies) onto 3+ shelves! But added vacuuming to the list of things to do. STILL not got the Springer or Holt checks, the last may be a REAL pain: "Probably delivered within two weeks!" Getting Village Playwrights things ready to Xerox NOW, rather than having to wait for some bitch to go through her stuff while I fume behind her, like last week! Phoned Mom and Rita yesterday, and Paul called, so I have my LAST calls in order. NOT caught up in "final anticipation" YET but I'm sure it'll be coming in next few days!
2/27/96: 10:10AM: Moving right along: 1) picked up a Personal Word Processor (PWP), discontinued by Smith-Corona, for $335 with 4-year warranty from The Wiz, which didn't include a Utility Disk which I've ordered for $12.95(!) from Smith-Corona, 2) finished IRS forms and checks yesterday (still waiting for checks to PAY for this: DAMN Springer since October and Holt since 1/5!), 3) finished the SECOND batch of plays and will be returning them tonight for a THIRD and LAST before I leave, 4) finally finished with Spartacus's stuff, 5) told Shelley about ZPTS syndrome (Zolnerzak's Pre-Travel Stress syndrome) at lunch at Amin Indian yesterday, but this morning actually felt A TOUCH OF PLEASURE when I thought I should add gym-shorts to packing and tried on the new suede slippers to take as my ONLY second pair of shoes (in addition to the Wellingtons, of course) for the trip. Now to print this to clear the pages to be Xeroxed for Village Playwrights today and get ON with the day! TRAVEL:ATLANTIC
5/10/96: 7:25AM: FIRST SINCE TRIP! Feels SO rusty putting the computer on and coming to this file to start this typing! Of course, I'm more accustomed to the keyboard-touch, the hyphenation bring-down, and the control keys of the PWP at this point. Got to get back into it BEFORE tackling the index. Woke, as usual, at 6AM this morning and tried to do Actualism, but the idea for Handsome: Hypertext Hunk comes to me so I get up at 6:55, updating a set of notes that I'll gradually transcribe for each day SINCE the trip-return. Made out a list of eight tasks for today, and continued through NEXT Saturday, listing the days when I'll read various New York Times, indicating I won't even BEGIN to be caught up before THURSDAY (which I can say now, since today is FRIDAY!). Resist the strong temptation to get my hands into the new-stamp package. Consolidate the still-unpacked stuff onto the dining-room table, and make ONE stack of "look-at-now" on the coffee table, only the SECOND stack with the index, and it comes to me to put the index onto the SHELF (since it's on my list to do Saturday), so I'll only have ONE stack to take from to handle NEXT, and the dining-room table to finish unpacking later. FEEL GOOD, and now will start Handsome: Hypertext Hunk at 7:35AM.
5/14/96: 11:33AM: AT LAST I feel that I'm HOME! Did an index yesterday, ready to mail today, next not due till later in the week, got MOST of the mail hassle out of the way (ready for checks tomorrow for the normal month), and up to date with reading only ONE Sunday Times per day. The crux was this morning: I woke with NOTHING pressing and watched my recording of Addams Family Values from last night, and felt HAPPY for the FIRST REAL TIME since being back precisely a week ago! Phoned Mary V. (the LAST on the list of people I HAD to call), Simon (to find he's in DC, not back until tonight), Pope (to tell I felt happy and catch up with HIS news and woes), and Tony (who finally had a chance to talk, having been in TRACTION the month of March and HOME for the first two weeks in April with DISK problems in his BACK), but he's going to Atlantic City on Friday night! Then decided to catch up with MAS, but FIRST just HAD to make this note!! BACK HOME AT LAST!
5/15/96: 8:55AM: Just finish transcribing a dream [DREAMS:5/15/96], and finally to a "normal" wakeup time, but I fear the record of the week+ back from the trip is in danger of being lost (particularly since I find another (*'+P*+' glitch in DREAMS when I retrieve it), and with the index I have to finish today and tomorrow (since I MUST go back to the gym today) I can't address other tasks, and I still feel hung over from all the wine last night, and I want to check InterCom again today if I'm to look at the Electronic Author web-page before meeting Simon and the author for dinner tonight. Dennis is also about to call for me to come down and change two light bulbs for him. MUST start seeing about the video camera repair/replace, and the slides will be back soon, and I SHOULD go back through the stack of stuff to "look at" to see what should be taken care of NOW, more than a week since it was relegated to a "later" stack.
5/22/96: 8:35AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Sad and depressed! Mom's troubles yesterday coming RIGHT at the point where I'm sorting through the last stacks of stuff to catch up with from the trip, I feel thrust from the VERGE of feeling good to the depths of problems. Frustration dream of not performing well on a test of Lord of the Rings in a class are succeeded by thoughts of ESCAPE while still lying in bed: go see Twister, get tickets to Rent, watch Soylent Green or Zardoz. Or FIND if I have the receipt for the 2/95 $215 dental bill. Then think of going to the computer as to a PERSON to talk with (rather than possibly waking Pope to talk to HIM, letting him know he's not the ONLY one with problems), and think of PLAY-A: computer DOES attain a personality and starts talking back to me as I type this notebook page. That evolves into PLAY-B: a book-review panel talking about all the books I haven't written: 1) One page for each day in the history of the world through which the SAME person lives and observes, 2) PLAY-A and PLAY-B, 3) others that I've made notes or outlines for and have never even STARTED, yet alone FINISHED. Along the way there was a PLAY-C, in which Internet gradually comes to self-realization and starts at first HELPING then starting to CONTROL the people who come into contact with it, and it ATTAINS the storage-complexity and memory-magnitude that ENABLES it to be a self-conscious brain, with me as its amanuensis and publicist. Then consider Spartacus's statement that the earnings level without having to give up retirement benefits has been raised (for those between 65 and 70) from $11,000 to $12,500, or something like that, and so I only have a FEW years to worry about indexing sliding to zero before it would HURT me, though I suppose there might be a period when I'd RATHER have the large additional income at a rate of $3 earned for every $1 lost in benefits---though I would KNOW what my level was AT 65, so that I could decide to RETIRE then or NOT, waiting for later for a LARGER retirement income. Then, in bed at 8:30AM, know that I'd gotten to sleep just before midnight, and had now been in bed about 8.5 hours, so it was time to get up, and I rose, naked, put on the air conditioner to cope with the current string of three days with daytime temperatures over 90°, and type out this to 8:47AM, rather disappointed that WordPerfect DIDN'T take over the typing and send me some shattering message of cognizance and radical interpretation. Had also considered the thoughts of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Boublil having constructed the "Musical Money-Making Machines" of their products, and fantasize my project with Simon turning into a lucrative source of income for my declining years. And then feel that Pope may have been RIGHT when he described "a pivotal turning point for all Aries, in terms of self-definition," which I feel reflected in my sense that I AM slowing down now that I've reached 60 (which STILL seems incredible!), 1) that I'm willing to let SOME things slide rather than tackle them AT ALL, 2) that I'm willing to admit I'm TIRED at night, or even during the daytime, 3) that I'm willing to consider even GREATER changes in the near future, like doing more what I WANT at the MOMENT now that things seem to be winding down slightly from "the up-tense yesterday." Anyway, marginally, I'm glad I didn't send Mom any MORE money, since it now seems she'll have to spend down before she can get anything from Medicaid, and I guess I should talk to Sherryl or Vicki or Spartacus about that. Debate going to the bottom of the page: it's almost 9AM, and I've "talked through" most of the things that were concerning me: now that they're "down on paper" they seem EASED FROM my mind, so that now I can consider other activities rather than revolving on the old thoughts, or enumerating adjunct elucidative lists (and the guy reading last night didn't even know how to pronounce "proponent"!), or sinking deeper into a depression that, if continued, might even warrant psychological assistance or medical energizers. At least Mom's only on Diazide and Meclozine, and at $2600/month or $31,200/year, she's probably not going to last more than THREE years, as she would have to in order to exhaust all her---SAY the word---INHERITANCE for her "precious children." To May of 1999? NOT to the year 2000? We'll SEE!
5/24/96: 8:50AM: Did lots of phoning about Mom on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and will continue today. Marion thinks Mom should BE in an assisted-living facility NOW ("What if she gets into an accident and someone sues her for everything?"), but the doctor seems to think less might be OK. Vicki clarifies for me: Medicare is medical-process insurance for everyone over 65 (and does not include home care or assisted-living facilities), while Medicaid is for ANYONE who has no money. I figure I have to ask the doctor if the nurse-evaluator could be white and in street clothes, and tell him that Marion says Mom is losing weight, maybe isn't eating, should have the car taken away from her, and should be in a home; and that she'll call him 2:15PM on Tuesday. My Alzheimer's has progressed to the point where I took the wrong number for Nita B. from Rita, kept saying Monday (which I didn't know was a holiday till Marion told me) rather than Tuesday for Marion's phone call, and misspoke a few other things with a few other people on the phone. And am amazed that I had the nerve to have Lila G. from McGraw-Hill phone ME rather than just send her a resume or phone her back. Larry G. can call me back, I guess. Sent out bills and made phone calls yesterday while watching TV tapes and going out to dinner with Dennis to the Shopsin General Store, quite unique. Piles of stuff on the table are now down to 12, but still the slides and videotapes and camcorder repair await my attention, and one of the stacks is all the transcription from the two weeks' vacation without the laptop entries and the three weeks after. MAYBE the dog downstairs has quieted, but the soprano is singing more, and people upstairs are bugging me more. And the idea of trying TKTS today for tonight and tomorrow matinee is gaining ground. So I'm ALMOST to the point of being able to enjoy NYC for what it IS, rather than what I have to DO before I can spare the time to enjoy it! But then have to start bugging Simon on Internet job!
Also on 5/24/96: 5:35PM: Start typing OLD notes:
On 12/17/95: Minesweeper #2211: 5# under 5# at END. 8B under 8B at 2,5; WINS.
On 12/25/95: lie and lay is lie and lei, but it's \lie\L and \lei\L! Double laugh.
On 1/15/96: At Met Museum: "Gold concentrated on two persons, one lying on top of the other in the center of the tomb. Lower had by far the most gold objects in the tomb: and all were FACE DOWN."
On 5/14/96: 12:57PM: MOUSE runs under the air conditioner! (2 in Kitchen, 1 in LR).
On 5/17/96: At Met Museum: Why didn't Chinese do carved RAINBOW lacquer, since I loved red-and-black carving. They DO have multi! SURELY background rock is a COCK in Shih Jui's Hsuan Yueh Asking the Way. Asia Society rocks ends 8/18!
Also on 5/24/96: Tony's "wish-fulfilling, not necessarily THOSE people" dream; if it felt good, ENJOY; channeling OWN energy; PROGRAM dreaming; he's to MEET Pope.
Pope said he'd talk for 10 minutes and ended up laughing and talking FORTY!
MARINE EXPEDITION TRAVEL NOTES:
On 1/29/96: Departure date is NOT 3/21 but 3/3, to April 21. Return 5/6 for $50 extra. "40 passengers, pretty full." But were 34!
On 2/11/96: Phoned Jean-Jacques and John G.; 3/2/96 finalized meeting plans.
On 3/1/96: Write about: A) Stupid male Macedonians and Albanians killing each other in Before the Rain. b) Movies that have us LIVE in Macedonia/Paris/ Rome/Ouagadougou/Taipei/Kyoto for 2-3 hours, then/now/in future--as OUR life.
On 3/2/96: Ship-talk SERIES: 1) TRAVEL places, 2) BUSINESS talks, 3) PERSONAL intros, 4) SPECIAL topics. "Two Degrees of Separation." I don't know everyone, but I bet someone I KNOW knows someone ELSE who is/does something I'd LIKE to know about.
On 3/10/96:VALID 2-LETTER WORDS: Aa,ad,ae,ah,ai,am,an,ar,as,at,ax,ay Be,by Da,do Ed,ef,eh,el,em,en,er,ex Fa Go Ha,he,hi,ho Id,if,in,is,it Ja,jo Ka La,li,lo Ma, me,mi,mu,my Na,ne,no,nu Od,of,oh,on,oo,or,ow,ox,oy Pa,pi Qi Re Si,so Ta,ti,to Uh,um,up,us,ut We,wo Xi,xu Ya,ye,yo (80 of them). Added Qat,qats, qoph,qadi at the bottom.
On 3/17/96: Ship owned by Russian Academy of Sciences. Previous research: East coast of Russia looking for illegal nuclear waste dumps. Akademik is HIGHER than a Professor.
[All this moved to TRAVEL:ATLANTIC ISLANDS TRIP, to COMPLETE trip-notes.]
On 5/6/96: [Follows from ATLANTIC ISLANDS TRIP pages]: Listen to phone messages and record the results on a card I should probably keep: 6 beeps, then Paul C. twice; 2 beeps and Carolyn 3/15 "welcome back." Then ten beeps and Madge M. on 3/31 wishes me a happy 60th birthday, leaving her number as 203 227-6117, which I have as her home number, and phone her 7PM 5/24 to get no answer. Eight beeps and Tony S., via Marj M., from Computer Consumer(?) Company, documentation indexes needed, 1-800-833-8147, press 2 for Red Bank. Nine beeps and Mrs. W. from Amex Company at 1-800-253-1709, a beep and Carol R. from ASCE, she has a book but will make other arrangements. Julia from LMP office will call back after May 6. Four beeps and Mrs. F. from Amex Company at 1-800-253-1709. One beep and Sherryl on 5/4, saying we'll have fun. Two beeps and Bob R. saying I'm not back YET? A beep and Adrienne M. from Garland has a quick turnaround in a week, 518 pages, 1-800-627-6273, extension 152. A beep and Bill P. on 5/6 about Village Playwrights 5/7, call 858-2980. Start another card I should keep: John A. 3 (when I must have gotten back) to 3:50, leave word with Spartacus; talk to Pope 3:50-4:20, Adrienne M. 4:25-4:35, Amex 4:40-4:50, Tony S. at first leave word, then send resume note; Bill P., Carolyn leave word in both places, Sherryl leave word, Dennis leave word, Susan 5:15-5:35, Vicki leave word; talk to Spartacus 5:40-6:20, talked to Vicki who's also back in NYC today, and talked to Shelley about having lunch on Thursday. There are three dead MICE on two glue-traps! Spartacus kindly asks me over to dinner, in his still-jammed apartment, and I'm to bed at 8:45PM, which is old 1:45AM!!!
On 5/7/96: Wake at 5:20AM (actually 10:20AM), up at 5:25, having slept 8:35! Read the 3/10 NY Times till 9:45AM. Talk to Dennis 11:15-11:40AM. Open about 1/3 all the mail. Carolyn leaves message to change my machine message. Spent $16 on Village Playwrights, dining at Sammy's Noodle Shop and talking about my trip, and got to bed at 11:20PM.
On 5/8/96: Up at 6:35AM, j/o to 7:40. Read 3/17 NY Times till 11:15AM. Read about 1/3 all the mail. Spartacus calls about Buried Child, and we see that awful play with the fantastic acting until about 5PM. See The Mother-In-Law and two other short plays at Dramatists Workshop and home about 9. Talk to Sherryl from 9 to 10. Bed at 12:15AM.
On 5/9/96: Lunch with Shelley at Grand Canyon. Start unpacking, read the 3/24 NY Times, and open the LAST of the mail. Make a card at 8PM when I left word for Carolyn and Don, Charles doesn't answer, leave word with Ken about the Beard dinner, and talk to Bernice 8:10-8:30. Carolyn calls at 11:23PM. Bed at 11:28PM.
On 5/10/96: Up at 6:55 and start writing Handsome. Read the 3/31 NY Times. Talk to Charles 12:45-1:55PM (he'll be away 5/11-5/16) and Pope from 2:30-3:05. Dine with Dennis at Judson Grill, great for tasting menu with four great wines.
On 5/11/96: Finish unpacking. Read the 4/7 NY Times. Far enough along that I treat myself to doing the STAMPS from about 6PM to 12:30AM.
On 5/12/96: Wake 6:50AM and do a GREAT Actualism clearing ("Why don't I feel HAPPIER about being home?!") from 7:15-8:45AM. Read the 4/14 NY Times. 5PM to Sherryl's for GOOD dinner; though my Elderberry Concentrate didn't go over very well, I left it there anyway.
On 5/13/96: Read the 4/21 NY Times. Do index from 3-7PM. Bed at 11:30PM.
On 5/14/96: FINALLY up at 7:15AM. Read the 4/28 NY Times. Start watching TV tapes with Addams Family Values. Catch up with MAS. Go to Beard #51 for Gabrielle's of New Orleans at a table with FOUR OTHER gay men, and we flirt with two cute waiters.
On 5/15/96: Read the 5/5 NY Times. Mail 6 checks, work 5:50 on a second index, and have drinks with Simon and Jane D. at Embassy and dinner at Bubby's and final champagne at his apartment, looking out from his rooftop. Bed at 1:30AM, back into my "usual" schedule!
On 5/16/96: Finish Ballard's Rushing to Paradise after returning from Simon's about 1AM. Sort through 900 slides! Watch Doctor Who from TV and other TV tapes, having enough time to do this at LAST.
On 5/17/96: Reduce slides from 900 to 340, to Met Museum about 1:30 for Naked Dressing and the ENORMOUS Chinese show with Charles. Out to walk down to see the sculpture at 59th and Fifth, look at five or six restaurants he doesn't care for, and end up at the great Les Sans Culottes West before a disappointing Masterclass at 8PM with a probably Tonied Zoe Caldwell.
On 5/18/96: Read the 5/12 NY Times. Go to the gym, back for lunch at Heights Cafe with Carolyn, then back to reduce the slides by TWENTY with her until 5PM, finish watching The Way of the Wizard with Deepak Chopra, and get to MAN at 7:45 to leave about 9:45 and back to work the puzzles.
On 5/19/96: Wake at 6:15 for leisurely breakfast and get to YMHA by 8:20AM for the Wadsworth Athenaeum from 11 to 2:30 and the Hill-Stead Museum until 4:30, back to walk down to phone Vicki and have dinner at Mo's Caribbean, the pork chops not QUITE as great as before, and home to collapse into bed.
On 5/20/96: Read the 5/19 NY Times, still a bit behind. Then TV tapes for the rest of the day.
On 5/21/96: Mail five envelopes from catching up, then Rita calls, saying that Marion is going to see Mom, who hadn't paid her rent, and Nita B. called Helen, who called Marion. Hassle until 5:40PM when I leave to Village Playwrights to get to Mike's play after it STARTED, and have to leave at 7:20 before he's FINISHED for David Parson's with Spartacus's Audience Extras. Get not-too-great egg foo yung at Chinita Linda.
On 5/22/96: On the phone for Mom most of the day, her phone NOT fixed at noon as promised, and get out giftless to Simon's for dinner at 8:30 with 12 other people, leaving about last at 12:45 and home exhausted.
On 5/23/96: Finish watching Signs and Wonders on TV, finally talk to Mom about 1:15PM, then out at 5:30 to meet Dennis for dinner at Shopsin's General Store for fantastic Maple Yam Plantain Corn Chowder.
Also on 5/24/96: To TKTS at 11:15 to pick up three tickets for the weekend. Get started typing the rest of the trip diary. Sort out the notes I'd written into "Pre trip" and "Post trip," and summarize the Scrabble sheets: I played 88 games, won 66; Diane won 21 games and Andy won 1. On 29 dates (but I don't HAVE any from [NOTEBOOK:3/10/06], when I did the "Valid two-letter word" list, so I may have THROWN OUT some sheets before I started saving them) I played 88 games, an average THREE per day! Ideal Husband with Charles and mediocre dinner at Broadway Joe's Steakhouse after.
5/25/96: Decide to convert the laptop pages into WP5.1 pages, which takes most of the morning, getting 127 pages into \scc\nb1 for 91,549 words. Midsummer-Night's Dream with the Royal Shakespeare Company in an OK ensemble performance with a pectorally pleasing Puck and a cute chorus boy, then back to watch TV tapes for In the Shadow of the Stars (about the Chorus of the San Francisco Opera), Woman of the Year and Visions of Light, waiting for tomorrow to get a call from Shelley if she wants the Sunday Times with her broken anklebone.
5/26/96: Out for groceries and prescription for Shelley from 11:15 to 12:35, deciding not to go to the Urban Park Rangers in Prospect Park for mushrooms. Read the 5/26 NY Times, caught up at LAST.
5/27/96: Start typing more of the diary at 9:30, then talk to Madge from 9:55 to 11:05AM, when I finally have breakfast and get back to catching up with these notes to type THIS at 12:15PM on the holiday-Monday with those goddam shits clumping around upstairs. Decide that the rest of the notes will be typed into the TRAVEL:ATLANTIC TRIP file, which I can put up WITH this to see that there's no duplication about some of the dates before or after the trip. Now at 12:30 I'd gone through and figured there were only FIVE big areas left: 1) Catch the ATLANTIC TRIP up to date, 2) Duplicate my "wrecked" videotape, 3) Get my camcorder repaired, 4) Edit the Y.s' film so I can return their stuff, 5) Do the final edit on the slides, so I can show them. Called Suzie on Saturday to finish the LAST of the stack (except selling back the useless transformer), except that Saturday's mail brought MORE things to take care of (with Shelley's errands) on TUESDAY, so life DOES continue as these pages do.
5/30/96: 9:10AM: Marion called last night to say that Mom should get a physical and go to a home. I call Rita, and Rita and Denny and I talk for over an hour with alternatives, but I say, "I'll A) call the doctor and verify that he agrees with Marion and has essentially MADE the evaluation that Mom needs a home (and it sounds reasonable: from the PAST when she's forgotten birthdays and to renew her driver's license and insurance, NOW she's 1) forgetting to pay her rent, 2) has lost ten pounds, 3) was told by Marion to comb her hair before her birthday dinner, and she DIDN'T comb it when she came back from the bathroom, 4) doesn't seem to be bathing since Marion said there was a smell, 5) has the apartment in a mess, and 6) is driving at 3AM), B) call Chambrel to see if there's still a vacancy, C) get back to you at 3PM by which time YOU will have phoned who YOU want to phone to get ALTERNATIVE places in Summit County that may be cheaper." Note that they're going to Canada for two weeks starting June 22, but Rita might stop in Akron to take care of some things BEFORE that. Then Marion called at 8AM this morning: "The doctor's going into the hospital for an operation and will be out of the office from today through Thursday, June 6, so the first time I could SCHEDULE a physical after checking with him would be FRIDAY, June 7!" Lie in bed and think about, not "geography of the Internet," but "geography of my PROBLEMS": 1) Brought ATLANTIC TRIP notes up to date, but still have the four tasks from the previous page left, 2) Pope having increasing problems, 3) Dennis having increasing problems, 4) Shelley with a broken ankle, 5) Sherryl with problems with her mother, 6) Susan with underemployment, 7) Vicki with the coming twins, 8) Spartacus STILL not finished with his apartment-moving, 9) Helen and Jimmy in enormous problems, 10) Marion sounding increasingly put upon, maybe not wanting to do ANYTHING to antagonize Mom. Well, that got THAT out of my system: now phone Pope, have breakfast, and get into MY day, after yesterday at HIP with seven tasks completed. MEDICAL:5/30/96
6/5/96: 10:40AM: Still DEPRESSED! Woke, remembered dream, reluctant to get up. Up, record dream [DREAMS:6/5/96], fix Village Playwrights page and print out mine AGAIN, then get to this, reluctant to get into rest of day, but MUST!
6/7/96: 7:10PM: Waiting for Don M. to ring my buzzer. Hope to get HIM to look at my slides and do the final weeding, maybe. Ate late lunch at 4:15, but maybe I'll be ready to eat when he FINALLY gets here. ANOTHER possible index, this one for $9400! Electronics Handbook from company given my name by ASI! Tony was over, and came all over, today. Taking him to Pope's, getting THAT out of the way. Dentist's cleaning was GREAT on Thursday, and Lina called (when I forgot to call HER), so Sunday's Games group is next activity I have planned. No news from Catherine W., the MEI refund, or from Rita and Denny about Mom, so I'll have to call them TOMORROW. Tony's number is unlisted, so I can't retrieve the address for 6/15 MAN until HE calls ME. Threw away Ribbon C when it FROZE on the printer, causing it to go CRAZY---undoubtedly from too much re-inking. Hope the OTHERS last, but C was the FIRST one I did, and I KNOW I did that the most. Caught up with tapes, except that John HAS Dick C.'s 20 porno tapes, so I have the first five of THOSE to look through and excerpt. AND have to duplicate the Y.s' tapes (still no news from Marty's repairman for MY camcorder repair) to FINISH off the trip. Did the MY\TRIPS page in four different orders for the top 18 trips in cost and time and cost/day. GREAT! Big impulse now to get into Internet and find WHAT "spiders" are and do and HOW to propose Geography of the Internet to Catherine if she DOES call. Then just enjoyed watching Mercuric Tidings and thought I could spend time looking at old videotapes like Zardoz and Soylent Green. Then Don buzzed, we dined at Henry's End and looked at my slides, and he left while I looked at the first three porno tapes (pretty bad) until 2:30AM, but I DID cum the second time today, and I have to start thinking of what to do after the NEXT (last) NOTEBOOK page 100!
6/8/96: 2:35PM: Finished breakfast and lunch, arranged to meet Dennis at 5:30 to go to a restaurant of his choice, talked to Don on the phone, and printed out the last of the pages I hadn't printed before, deciding to make MY\NOTEBOOK into MY\NOTEBOKA and starting a NEW set of MY\NOTEBOOK pages at page 1 after I finish THIS page. Watched Cezanne and couldn't help thinking that his fame is PRODUCED by artists and critics and writers and collectors and museum organizers: without any help from Cezanne himself, they invent elaborate theories of religious repression, possible homosexual attractions to Emile Zola when they bathed naked in rivers together as school chums, the transformation of Mount Victoire into a breast signifying his acceptance of his return to the eroticism of the soil (or whatever), and art-worthiness which may not be based on any PHYSICAL characteristics of his actual PAINTINGS. His "influence" of the faceless bathers in "his three last greatest paintings" on Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon may be real, but in fact Cezanne HIMSELF had nothing to do with that, having never spoken to Picasso. It's the WRITERS who "identified" this influence for their OWN purposes. Could this all be rationalization for not seeing the Cezanne exhibit in Philadelphia? But I can't rationalize my tepid reception of the "seminal" Corot exhibit at the Grand Palais: there just weren't very many interesting PICTURES (to use a very non-PC word about a "great" painter) to look at on the dim walls difficult to see because of the press of Parisians who paid to gape. The program concluded with "the fact" that Cezanne influenced every single painter who's painted after him. Wouldn't Cezanne have loved to know that? And wouldn't it have made NOT ONE BIT OF DIFFERENCE in his life and tortured mind? Of course, I would be willing to subscribe to the importance of repressed homosexuality in his life, as I would in the lives of Hitler, Tolstoi, Picasso, every mass murderer, every rapist, and a large number of serial killers. But what do I know? Think about people reading these pages after I've died, when my "playwriting style" has become "influential in every writer who came after me." [Wouldn't I just LOVE to have some writers come after me?] Does that make any difference to me now, except as I type these characters into the file on the screen? It may only be the current symptoms of the megalomania which has clearly influenced my entire life: like the "me-web" that I've woven around the world with my travels that "obviously" influenced the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dying of apartheid in South Africa, both of which happened only a few months after each of my visits. As the renewal of the Antarctic "hands off" treaty was signed only weeks after my visit there. Too bad the United States hasn't more greatly benefited from my travels HERE! Probably won't have enough time to finish the Mathematica index today, but it's nice to know that after dinner at Cornbread the Sunday Times will be out and I can get through that before tomorrow and my Games group meeting. Now at 2:50 I debate finishing off the dozen or so lines left on this page: getting calls about the Village Playwrights meeting Tuesday, for which I've already printed out the page to be copied for the members; haven't yet called Rita and Denny about Mom, the subject of a lengthy talk with Don last night, in the too-loud restaurant, which concluded with my "If she wants to die in her apartment, why DOESN'T she die in her apartment?" Has Denny told her that already? Next week looks pretty full in my schedule, and if the large indexes come in, I'll have plenty of work (and plenty of money) for the rest of the month, not POSSIBLY letting me have the time to get to Akron, which I hope Rita can do before her trip to Canada. Don commended my slide-show and commented that I should be ADDING more slides, not taking any more OUT! THAT'S a switch! But these loveliest days of spring I fritter away INSIDE without taking advantage of the temperatures OUTSIDE before it gets too hot! "Freedom" seems always JUST around the corner ONLY after one last task here in the apartment, not to mention that large videotape-to-watch list. But now I AM at the bottom of the page, ready to switch to a NEW set of NOTEBOOK pages after almost FOUR YEARS! 3PM: Really this is NOTEBOOK - 101, but I JUST made MY\NOTEBOOK into MY\NOTEBOKA, and have ONLY THIS page in NOTEBOOK. The beginning of an ERA!