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1996 continued

6/10/96: 10:30AM: Talk about the popcorn effect! Get "everything" out of the way and decide to look through the "stack of stuff to do." First, count and find that there're ONE HUNDRED items in the stack. THAT gives me the FIRST pause. Then decide to check the files of "to-do" that I'd set up before, and throw out lots of stuff from "phone-do" in preparation to filling it up with NEW stuff. Come across Shopper's Advantage. That should get a section in the black file-boxes. But that's full. But there's Airborne Express. Do I really NEED that? Should I change from Express Mail? What are comparable rates? Then come across AMORC. HAD had a space for that, but I'm FINISHED with it now.  KEEP the old stuff? Put it into filing cabinet---but THAT'S full. Throw some of THAT out? Maybe Shopper's Advantage should go into DESK file---but THAT'S full! Sort through THAT? Should REPLACE the file dividers: used THIS one for about 40 years, so the NEXT one should last until I'm 100! That BEGINS to sound like a good place to start: KEEP Keogh and Ira and apartment and current credit cards and such-like, but get RID of wine and gay (transfer THAT to BLACK files!) and cruising (that's ALREADY in black file), so I can add IGT to DESK file, where I can keep track of it. OK, it DOES sound like starting place!

6/15/96: Type notes:

From 5/24/96: From Ideal Husband: Politicians must pose as paragons of purity.

From 5/30/96: 2PM: FINALLY try to see my "ruined" tape and IT DOESN'T PLAY. New camcorder does, so VCR is working, so I sent my Nikon off to be repaired.

From 6/2/96: 1995 Tony Awards: Bring in Da Noise wins 4: Savion Glover for choreography, and for lighting, featured actress Duquesnay, and director Wolfe.
King and I wins 4: Revival of Musical, actress Donna Murphy, and costumes and scenic design. Rent wins 4: dead Jonathan Larson 2 for writing and for music/lyrics, featured actor Wilson Jamin Hedrick(?), and Musical.
Master Class wins 3: Zoe Caldwell, Audra McDonald, and Play.
Delicate Balance wins 3: Play Revival, actor Grizzard, director Gutierrez.
Seven Guitars wins 1 for featured actor Reuben Hudson.
Funny Thing wins 1 for actor Nathan Lane.  7 plays, 5 more than one, 3 @ 4!

From 6/5/96: Add to Jekyll: 7) Hyde will PROTEST being killed off, AS will Jekyll, so they're ultimately EQUAL. 8) SOME people would PREFER Hyde to Jekyll. Ending lines from movie: "He has taken his life. His atonement." But what would HYDE think of that? Someone at VP says it's now in tryouts in San Diego.

From 6/6/96: Dennis's T-cell counts from 72 to 230 with 2 wks on Crixivan(Intervir)

From 6/7/96: Finally figured I spent $8524.20 in the 65-day Atlantic Islands trip, which averages out $131.14/day, and I type up SHEETS to tabulate long trips.

From 6/14/96: Pope's computer-dictionary gives 3 -MT: DREAMT, UNDREAMT, DAYDREAMT.

Also on 6/15/96: Finish watching Revenge of the Nerds: 1971 Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) looked at PCs. 1973 they had ALTA costing $10,000, not for individual sale, with mouse and Ethernet. 1975: Altair (flip switches, no keyboard, no monitor) first sold to nerds. It COULD play musical notes! 1975: Paul Allen and Bill Gates form Microsoft, loaded BASIC onto Altair. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak did Apple I for $666, 50 sold. 1977: Apple II/Computer Faire.

From 10/79: Visicalc first spreadsheet for $100. 4/81 IBM PC. 11/82: Compaq first IBM clone. 1/24/84 Mackintosh. 1990 Windows 3.0 8/95 Windows 95: $300M in ads!

6/19/96: 11:05PM: If anything MORE could have gone wrong today, it's hard to think what it could have been, seeing as the FOLLOWING has already happened: 1) I tried INTERCOM again, didn't get in, phoned them the second time, and spent 5:18-6:15PM on the phone with them, leading to the second contretemps: 2) Got to Susan's 6:40, no answer, wait till 7:45, go to Brothers BBQ, back at 8:45PM, they're still not there; home at 9:15, message from Susan: WHERE WERE you at 6:30, THEY went to Stubs, phoned again when I didn't return. We laugh. 3) Phone GMHC for a Buddy for Dennis, they refer me to Brooklyn AIDS Task Force, who refers me to Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, who takes my message. Phone BACK to GMHC to find he probably IS a client. GMHC tells of the 10AM Monday "first 25 callers" getting on the list for a buddy.
4) Phone Division of AIDS Services (DAS) to ask about housing, and get told he should be a client THERE, must have T-cells under 200 (so record the 73 and don't tell anyone about it going back to 250), needs a M11-Q form saying he HAS a real case of AIDS. Dennis says he phones his case worker at CHP and leaves a message to get those to DAS. I tell him to call BEFORE he goes in.
5) Dennis goes to Key to buy five little items, falls with his cane in the rain, his glasses fall off and cut his face, five people gather around to help bring his groceries home: he's going to ask Mrs. R. to put a railing down his stairs to help with his walking. He says he's "losing it," and we both laugh about MY losing it by misunderstanding Susan and Rick's coming HERE. 6) Catherine W. calls, listens impassively as I tell her that the "lost" meal at the Beard House goes to someone I OWED it to, and says her company isn't interested in Geography of the Internet: first saying it would only be a book, then when I laud the CD-ROM advantages she says it's been done before for WWW, and then when I say that that's the POINT: WWW is only a PART of Internet, one CONTINENT in about TWENTY, she says their company does entertainment and animation, and lets me ramble on about how entertaining this would be and educational, and maybe we could use Java on REAL Web pages, but she simply ends by saying, "We get many good ideas, and yours is excellent, but we just can't use it," and I try to get in the last word by saying, "I did feel obligated FIRST to Simon since it was HE who got me thinking about the validity of a GEOGRAPHY of the Internet after my research told me that an INDEX to the Internet was practically impossible." She wasn't impressed about my "one-screen/one-page" idea, or my "indexer's insight" into organization of categories. Was sorry I wasn't talking to SIMON!

6/23/96: Well, I ALMOST did everything! ALMOST had the stack of stuff to do down to zero when I expanded file-cleaning to CABINET-cleaning, and started doing the kitchen cabinets on Tuesday (after making up a FINAL do-list that included going to Republic Bank to change accounts around; leaving word with the Gay Circles guy to use my apartment for Part 2; phoning NYC Opera to find that I'd missed the bargain time, but REMINDING myself that my Channel 13 card can get me to ANY opera for $10 the day of performance; and tweezing ear hairs), but was interrupted by the J&R shaver arriving (marked $14.95 that I buy for $19.95, which with shipping comes to $26.XX!) and doing my beard, doing a couple of indexes, and then BEFORE finishing the blasted cabinets (with the rat-shit all over the floor, but at least I SPACKLED the "last" hole they can enter through, leaving it to dry over Saturday), and then shot 12:40 on games all this week because I was depressed about Mom and Dennis---but at least the woman from Ohio consoles with "Adult children are NOT financially responsible for actions of parents," and Dennis this afternoon says that his DAD is coming to be with him in a week or so. Talk with him, buy groceries for him, get tapes and watch Jeffrey with Pope today, jerk off a lot, and even come up with the play idea based on my 6/19 conversations. NOW I have to get my apartment together before Susan and Rick come over Wednesday, which I SHOULD be able to do aside from my infinite-time CULL LIST which I made up this AM: porn/ slide/ musictape/ book/ videotape/ clothes/ record/ SciAm/ Omni/ file/ travel CULL!

Also on 6/23/96: WHERE AM I NOW? After "getting rid of" the past in the PREVIOUS entry, now I can look to the FUTURE! Part of my current depression (brought on by Mom and Dennis, but STRENGTHENED by what I'm DOING now) comes from all the DECISIONS on filing and saving and throwing away that I've been doing, CONSTANTLY bringing up "what's valuable, what isn't" and "what's worth keeping and what isn't," which leads inevitably to "what have I IN THE PAST devoted time and organizing energies to that I will IN THE FUTURE no longer care about, devote time to, or even KEEP." And for me, THAT IS a burden. The CULL LIST puts me in mind of my eventual move, which puts me in mind of my eventual death. After talking to Shelley and Marion and Joel B. and Vicki and Dale T. and Leroy S. about Dennis's condition; and Pope and Charles and (and phone Charles from 10:30-11:15 about going to Akron in July!).

6/26/96: 9:25AM: So organized it's unthinkable: tried the LAST of the do-list, trying to duplicate NEC>PAN or PAN>NEC and get colorless MONITOR but color on the TAPE for one or the other, but the PAN is a PAIN because it doesn't display the kinds of rewind-numbers I'm used to. But I've TRIED it and go back to NEC>RCA to take good parts from Penises on Parade. Finish cleaning and scrubbing, finish the stack of stuff (except for the PC-EXPO pile), and even have the computer out for Susan and Rick's visit this evening. AND Mom is in "stasis," Charles and Rita and I probably going to Akron in July; AND Dennis is in "stasis" with his father here and no IMMEDIATE need for a buddy or a home. Make the CULL LIST, and THAT should keep me going for the next five years before moving! Decide to REMOVE the "look at now" stack of stuff ON the calendar page, leaving it for "this week only" folders, and incorporate INTO the 7-item stack on the shelf, making it a 17-item stack for a DAILY "look at now" to see what fits TODAY! Computer company gets back with information that my board WILL take IDE and SCSI-2, but they WON'T come out because I'm not under warranty, and that CompUSA will accept bring-in or maybe even home-visit repairs. NOW to take my shit (literally) to HIP and get my blood taken and get BACK to my ever-more-productive days, ready for the delivery from Springer!

7/7/96: 4:40PM: ELEVEN days since the last time! Calendar is filled with videos I've been watching during that week. Sorted out disks and CDs and papers from the PC Expo before Susan and Rick came over that night and worked hours trying to get the main-memory storage in, finally THINKING we do it right, but not SURE, since MEM wasn't printed (or I can't find it) before. But the hard drive is still unconnected. And the computer is STILL on the table for working on. That was Wednesday, and on Thursday I watch FIVE movies of mine and Pope's, then on Friday I rush to meet Shelley at Cité, then get a wheelchair that Leroy wanted for Dennis, and get to dinner with them since Dennis has decided he's too weak to attend, and both Carolyn and Don will attend, Sherryl will show up, and I plead tiredness to get back home early. Saturday I watch Leaving Las Vegas in time to return it before meeting Carolyn at the LAST possible minute for the train to Mamaroneck for a boring BBQ, and get back about 10PM to the START of THE WORST WEEK EVER: 1) message from Leroy to come downstairs, down to find phone book open to LICH, get there about 11PM to start taking notes that end at 9AM Sunday after a VERY bad night with a protesting air-tubed Dennis with destroyed kidneys, sleep 9AM-2PM, and return to the hospital. Back Sunday to sleep 10:30PM-8:30AM Monday, squeeze in the two movies I'd rented Saturday BEFORE the current hassle started, and then 2) at 11PM Marion calls to say Mom's fallen and is in Emergency! I'm on the telephone ALL day Tuesday phoning for Dennis AND Mom, agonizing through Leroy at dinner at Stubs to keep him company, feeling like I'm getting a cold, and then 3) wake about 3AM Wednesday feeling heart pains and sore throat and remember HIP opens at 7:30AM, so I'm out to find that the DOCTORS don't get there till 8:30, at which time L. prescribes $132.39 for Cefaclor and $24+ for sinus-drainer, and permit myself to bum out on watching video to relax. Do an index each day Thursday and Friday, complain to everyone about my triple pain, manage to catch up on VCR tapes and see the Smithsonian exhibit at the Coliseum with Charles (Don owing me now $3.50 in addition to the $6 for the 42nd Street one-acts he didn't show up for twofers for and the $30 for the ticket to Barbara L.), interesting enough, though the highlight was, ironically, INTERNET! Nirvana a disaster food-wise and check-wise when I was in the JOHN before remembering we'd gone there BECAUSE I had IGT, so Charles had to get his Visa-slip canceled and I said I'd pay his refund toward the $14 ticket he wants with Curtains, which the Times today said was in its last days, maybe wrongly. Catch up with lots of things on Saturday, including talking to Rita about going to Akron 7/15 or thereabouts, and then Edgardo calls this morning to say he's arriving 7/14 in Boston and will phone me his number there. I'm feeling AWFUL after waking 2-3 times last night COUGHING, and it's getting to the point where my ABDOMEN hurts when I cough: the worst! Catch what I HOPE is the last mouse this morning (drown him in toilet and take him out with other garbage when I go to Pope's for Nyquil before 11AM, which is before I go to Pope's for Il Postino at 2PM). Catch up on my videos and decide NOT to work on my last index but go through the Times before the stompers come home upstairs, and decide to watch Strange Days, which was why I CAME TO TYPE this ten minutes ago: it STARTS FABULOUSLY, and I have a TORRENT of ideas: 1) they stream into MY head like the "clip" lives cascade into the viewers' brains in the film, 2) with ONLY the "clip" idea it could have made a wonderful movie, but they THROW IN the idea that it takes place on the last day of the Millennium (well, that's what the SPELLER says, but it sure LOOKS strange! But Webster's gives NO alternatives. 3) The cops have become crowd-ignoring villains, a good observation; 4) Ralph Fiennes casually mentions that the guy he's trying to sell might want a GUY as opposed to a gal, or would want to BE IN the body of the 18-year-old girl whose clip he samples to his well-emoted delight, and THAT could be the subject of another great movie. 5) My mind goes back to the Times Book Review of the guy who actually DID what others just THOUGHT of doing, and AGAIN I think I've got a pretty good life doing what I want to do, involved in the Internet as extolled in Life on the Internet that I'd watched just before. 6) Rethinking of my play-idea of phoning about Mom and Dennis, interrupting with a physical buzz from an index-deliverer, and I can ALSO tell POPE about the thoughts that I'm getting from HAVING watched Strange Days, which gets into the review of the new Kundera book as "philosophy and ideas in writing," as my PLAYS try to be. Sickness and enthusiasm (though Dale doesn't still sell grass, drat), 7) the joy of thinking that my aging body might STILL be titillated (and that DOES appear to be right) with clips of having sex with muscle-dudes (AND I got five more tapes from John via Dick C.), even though I have an ACTUAL nude buffet TOMORROW (for which I hope my cough is over, though I'll take Comtrex beforehand to suppress the symptoms), and Rita hasn't phoned about her speaking to Mom yet---talk about TRAIN OF THOUGHT! And I glance to page 103 of Consultation in Internal Medicine that I'm indexing and see the sole heading on the page: "DRUG-INDUCED FEVER" and that might be EXACTLY what I'm laboring under: the heat of all the news of the Sunday Times, Life on the Internet, followed by the stimulus of Strange Days, which now at 4:55PM I have the choice of RETURNING to view (along with the Il Postino I have to return tomorrow before going to the dentist), or finishing off the page, since I'm way down to line 9.17", and to think that I STILL haven't altered the system to give me a PROPER line-count, nor have I gotten my modem-key back to Intercom for Internet, my camcorder back so I can transcribe the start-tape and finally send the Sony BACK to the Y.s, nor my call from Paul N. with news of more plays to read for NRL with delays of Dennis's visiting to see if he can sneak into Flemister House without going through DAS, which seems like a bureaucratic pain. At least now at 5PM I can print out THIS page and get back to the movie, before the 2½ hours viewing scheduled for tonight.

7/8/96: 5:30PM: If LAST Tuesday was ludicrous in intensity, TODAY breaks THAT record: Rita called last night at 9:30PM to say that Mom HADN'T ANSWERED at home, and maybe she's still in the hospital? I thought that was impossible, but Rita called there and TALKED TO MOM! I called Colleen at 9:05AM, and she said she'd call me back, but didn't until about 1:35PM: Dr. S. DID say that she needed a guardian: the Social Worker would contact Probate Court to set up an Akron Attorney as Guardian because no one in the family IN the state of Ohio would become it: Helen was too sick and Marion wouldn't. Colleen and Rita and I hassle about a Durable Power of Attorney for FINANCE until Nancy clears THAT up: Mom has been declared INCOMPETENT, it's TOO LATE for her to sign over her power of attorney to ANYONE: the Guardian Attorney will be PAID (by the estate) to find out her finances, which is GREAT: Mom wouldn't tell Rita OR me, and certainly no one ELSE, but she doesn't HAVE to tell anyone. Nancy mentions a RANGE of time for evaluation of incompetence, but Colleen insists that that's been DECIDED: Dr. S. is writing up the papers for tomorrow. I try phoning Helen (no answer) and Marion (machine) for FAMILY lawyers who might want to be called, but get told THEY could contact Probate Court to volunteer themselves if wanted. Charles doesn't answer; Rita and I discuss possibly going to Akron as early as Thursday or Friday. When I talk to Charles later, he gives himself till noon tomorrow to solve his admittedly irrational mental conflict: he WANTS to go, WANTS to see his mother, but DREAD descends as he KNOWS the 30-35-times-repeated round of visits to relatives, depressions about being in Akron, etc. I finish in time to wolf down a sandwich and brush teeth to return tapes (and pick up the camcorder, which I then have to bring BACK before going to LICH) before dashing to my dentist at 3:30, where he sees me immediately and I'm out with a clean slate at 4PM. Up to see Dr. S. about Dennis: he thrashes and has panic attacks, so the MRI should help, except that his father had to be called for signed permission for sedation because Dennis thrashed around after 20 minutes in the MRI, destroying the data. His "thrashing" is the reason he can't go to the john himself: his father is doing great work by being with him all the time. Back home (having met Leroy in the hall LEAVING as I ENTERED and on the stairway RETURNING as I was LEAVING) to more phone calls, a quick shower, which feels GREAT in the air conditioning in the humid 86° weather, talk to Don, and finish this at 6PM, VERY ready for the coming nude (don't I WISH) buffet. Don "congratulates" me for being able to divorce myself from all the mess. Tomorrow MUST be better!

7/15/96: 10:40AM: AGAIN a week since the last entry: a very BUSY week. 1) Mom has checked HERSELF into Manor Care! 2) Charles WILL go with me to Akron tomorrow, stopping in Allentown for a small park, in Harrisburg for his architectural curiosity, maybe in Elysburg, or that with Fallingwater on the way BACK. 3) Dennis needs a dialysis-abdominal-implant and still hasn't had his MRI, but after THOSE he'll be transferred to Rivington House, which I just check to see is close to the Bowery stop on the M from the Clinton Street BMT station. 4) Pope will get my Sunday Times and give me an update on Mom's and my charts this afternoon (when it's not windy and storming, as predicted by the weather this morning). 5) Shelley said we probably won't meet today, but I might get to the post office to check her box and return her $60 anyway. 6) I have to pay my bills (for which at least I have the money IN my checking account) and even pay the gym on the VERY off chance I won't return to NYC before the 25th. 7) My computer is still waiting for a) InterCom connection, b) main-storage verification, c) hard-drive installation. 8) My VCRs still have to see a) John's tapes, b) Nikon transcription, c) Sony transcription. But the INDEXING is caught up with, the mail is in and I STILL haven't gotten the overdue Springer check, and all I've REALLY got to do is PACK before I leave for Mom's tomorrow. Finish transcribing all the phone numbers that I'll need in Akron. Still waiting for Edgardo to phone from Boston. Now 1PM and I have absolutely no idea what the next week has in store for me. None at ALL! TRAVEL:AKRON

7/27/96: 9:50AM: Things just NOT going right: 1) Searched for "Boston" in the previous hundred pages but it wasn't found: did I write NOTHING about my love-lost trip a few years ago? 2) Now waiting for a SECOND day for FedEx delivery about which I snipped to the clerk on the phone, who muttered, "What a dick," under her breath when I shouted that he did NOT show up at 11:30AM, because I was WAITING all day for the delivery, and he'd BETTER try another delivery today. 3) Still haven't read LAST Sunday's Times that Pope forgot to get for me and I haven't been to the library yet to see. 4) Beginning to feel REALLY guilty about not doing the Y.s' tapes yet, but THAT will be finished just like all the OTHER things will be finished---remember the WONDERFUL feeling of accomplishment just BEFORE Dennis got sick and Mom fell (back at the end of JUNE) when all I had LEFT to do was that? Then stopped to phone Rita, getting told about the explosion in Atlanta at 1:25AM that I missed by going to bed at 12:40AM, also being told that they can find a place that bills MONTHLY, so that Mom won't give ALL her money away at the start, which is good news. And Florence L. actually PHONED her, as did Danielle! Lay in bed this morning, reluctant to get up, thinking of all I had to do, thinking I HAD to do a page like this, but now that I HAVE the FedEx index I was waiting for, I'm now waiting for the 1PM FBI news conference on the Atlanta bombing. Having watched the CLOSEUPS of the Opening Ceremony and being reasonably glad I didn't spend $400 to BE there, and then glad that I didn't have the DECISION to stick around Atlanta after the bombing (fearing there may be MORE) or not, and now not even watching much of the EVENING broadcast, being content to let the sound percolate through my Minesweeper and Mahjongg playing---which takes a lot of time, but I DESERVE it---so THERE! And now they're VACUUMING upstairs, WHAT a pain they are!! But I feel finished with this: let's try a NEW printer ribbon!

8/9/96: 4:30AM: Though I'd eaten my three meat-filled, greasy, over-cholesteroled Cantonese egg foo yung by 8PM, I still had a bitter reflux taste wake me at 4AM, and then I couldn't get back to sleep. [Position Ln 5.67" JUST after I note that the time is 4:32.] Felt too hot to be comfortable in bed, felt STILL too stuffed to be comfortable lying down, so I decided to get UP and transcribe my at-once complicated AND simple feelings: the SIMPLE part is that I feel VERY sad and lonely, but the COMPLICATED part is that much of the sadness is now RETROSPECTIVE: I had to travel to Akron and get Mom to sign the power of attorney and agree to be transferred down to Florida to be near Rita, and I had to spend hour [what a TELLING typo: I'd THOUGHT to put "hours" but it came out "hour," which is of course MUCH more accurate compared with Leroy's MANY MANY hours spent TOTALLY devoted to Dennis at LICH and in his apartment so far] with Dennis and his father over Dennis's condition, but now that he's transferred to Rivington House (RH) Dennis is in a FAR better position than he was before. In BOTH cases, WHEN Mom gets settled into a place in Florida and WHEN Dennis gets settled into RH, the BEST OF A BAD SITUATION will have occurred, and though RITA is clearly the primary "caregiver" in Mom's situation, and LEROY is the primary "caregiver" in Dennis's situation, I DID have my place in both situations, "entitling" me to think of a few "sad-producing" breakdowns on my part: crying into Tony's arms when he comes over only for sex this afternoon, and signing up and attending some caregivers' meetings at RH to cry and get sympathy THERE. Part of my current feelings stem from my reading Dennis's thought-log on Dick C., in which Dennis speaks of HIS loneliness, his desire for an all-encompassing relationship which I don't have now (and, frankly, fantasize finding at the RH caregivers' meetings), and his general sadness with what he sees to be his emotional neglect by both me and Dick---though the REAL sadness stems from my KNOWLEDGE that he wanted more from me than I was willing to give him in the relationship (more "Penis," and "I'm masturbating," and "PLAY with my nipples" in a stereotypical way that more and more turned him on and me off) and that he wanted more from Dick than he was willing to give Dennis in the relationship (more commitment, more inclusion into Dick's day-to-day life, including daily telephone calls and at least weekly invitations into social parts of his life)---though the REAL irony stems from the fact that he DID get from ME (and wanted more) what he wanted from Dick (and didn't get), and DID get from DICK (and wanted more) what he wanted from me (and wanted even MORE of). But isn't that SO typical: I get unbounded sympathy from Shelley and Sherryl and Susan and Vicki (which is NICE, but it's not from the right PEOPLE), and I DO get recognition and thanks for my actions (albeit in a somewhat forced and slightly grudging manner) from Mom and Rita, and from Dennis and Leroy---but I want it from HUNKY STUDS who'll hold me in their arms and comfort me with their caresses and kisses and protestations that I'm doing a fabulous job and I'm a worthy person and they love me for it. Anything more at THIS time seems sort of artificial: I think I'll just put on the air conditioning, open my bedroom door, and go back to bed for a nice Actualism session (synchronicity of the super-sweet Frederick at RH asking if I'm still involved in it) now that I've gotten some of this out of my system: PRIMARILY my selfish, human, (sweet?) demands that finally crystallized eight (but I want it) to five (love me for it) lines back!

8/13/96: 11:59PM: At least get this STARTED on the day I wanted to! Decided I HAD to get in an Actualism session, since my mind was spinning on all the things that I HAD to do today: work on the Spr-V index, finish editing the Atlantic Islands trip in preparation to TRANSCRIBING the tapes that I took with the Y.s' video so that I HAVE all that I videoed WITHOUT having their camcorder after I send it back to them, and HOW will my copy of THEIR copy LOOK? Looking forward to GETTING my modem back, which is REALLY about Priority 3 that I mention to Pope when I finally get him this afternoon after he was out for the morning and I complained about his not having a phone-machine, which he said was GOOD of me to complain, since SANDY had complained about that, and those complaints would push a phone-machine from Priority 17 up higher. Got through over HALF the Spr-V book before getting off to the Beard for an INCREDIBLE table of Southerners (including KEN, whose accent I laughed at a NUMBER of times, I hope he didn't MIND!): Jim and Joyce the parents-in-law of Miles, the chef, sitting next to his bright-eyed wife; to their left was the couple from Natchez, Mississippi: he shy, she VERY outspoken and direct, next to the BEAUTIFUL Jackie next to me, affianced to a boy in Hoboken before their November wedding and honeymoon in Egypt (Cairo and Luxor), Kenya (but not Laetoli), and the Seychelles (Mahe and Praslin and St. Pierre [or something like that] and Curieux), yet I thought flirting with the clearly lesbian Frankie next to Ken, working with the gay-tolerant Le Cirque crew but still getting her ass pinched, which Jackie seemed to avoid by being so beautiful, and they BOTH bragged about being so "strong though they knew they didn't look it." Then there was Julie next, having written about Miles for the New York Times and having written for Hustler and Playboy and maybe even Playgirl, since Jim joked, "If they use a Coke bottle to perk up the gals' tits, what do they use to buck up the guys?" Good food, LOVELY final wine that Frankie insists on finishing for HERSELF, though I get to finish Jackie's, as Ken gets her dessert, and we leave about 11:15PM, my train thankfully stopping at Clark Street, to a message from Leroy about a telephone, that leads me to reset the clock and calendar and date on my FOURTH telephone which I can just GIVE him, cheap enough to be taken at Rivington if need be. Marvin called today, I wonder if I'll get to the Dance program at Lincoln Center tomorrow, and Thursday promised to start at 8:30AM with a new toilet, continue at 11:30 outside the gay porno drawing exhibit at Features Gallery (with camera!) with Charles, to be followed by my pages (from MOVIE-INDEX list AND from NOTEBOOK's old stuff) for testing on Vicki's OCR scanner and reader afterward, for which my index MUST be finished TOMORROW. And Rita DIDN'T call from Mom's tonight, though she should be THERE. John SATISFIED me with "I'm not capable of love," excusing my FEELING love for him which wasn't returned, though maybe it WAS!

8/14/96: 12:15AM: DID forget that I wanted to start a NEW sub-file under WP51\MY: FINAL, with sub-subdirectories for books, thoughts, etc. I guess do it NOW!

8/16/96: 12:15PM: Third of the Atlantic Islands videotapes for the Y.s’ camcorder being copied onto MY tapes, so THAT long-lived task is ALMOST finished: I make out a card of things yet to DO on that: 1) finish copying their tapes to my VHS tapes, 2) check end of their VHS tape for "nudes," 3) duplicate "master" for Joe S., 4) erase "nudes" at end of their tape #5, 5) send to Y.s' and S., 6) EDIT "master" to one hour to show with my slides. That was an expansion of my "last" do-list item 4. THAT whole list has: 1) clear off "do pile" (where I put THAT list), 2) watch John/C. videos, 3) watch Dennis's videos, 4) finish Y.s' tapes, 5) take NEC to Marty, 6) Dennis: vacuum-motor attachments? 7) get modem back, 8) check RAM and HD and CD-ROM and scanner on PC, 9) show Atlantic Islands slides/video, 10) return wheelchair, 11) get and try "Just for Men." 12) try Vicki's OCR/Scanner. I'd THOUGHT I'd had an "everything done but" list, but have to settle for the 6/10 "everything done but do-pile," because by 6/19 it STARTED to be a hassle with Mom and Dennis that has essentially STILL lasted through the next TWO MONTHS. But NOW, having had lunch at Vong yesterday before seeing Chinese furniture at Christie's with Charles, finally seeing the Chinese Scholars' Rocks at Asia House before the 8/18 closing-date, and finding that Vicki didn't have the OCR program she thought she had, I feel like I'm "getting along with it," enough to feel confident that the 12-item do-list GETTING DONE will let me feel like I can start on the "spider/Internet" learning I wanted to do SINCE THE TRIP. Now at 12:30 I can get back into the day, NOTHING AT ALL scheduled before SEPTEMBER 8---TWENTY-TWO TOTALLY FREE DAYS!!!---except The Maids reservation I made with Charles for tomorrow night, along with eating.

Note from 6/20/96 [transcribed 8/16/96]: 8:35AM: DYNAMITE play-idea: "If you'd like to make a call..." Phone saying this, guy comes from john, phones 1) GMHC, 2) Aunt Marion, 3) friend, speaks of "index" delivery and UPS-man (NOT have pen, so he comes to DOOR) and gets NEW work. Call-waiting from sex---j/o ends Act I. He can laugh, cry, be sympathetic, be a shit, eat, play sex games, ask for love and promise love.

Note from 7/8/96: 1) It was SHERRYL who called at 9:54AM that I'd forgotten who it was. 2) AGAIN run into Leroy, in the HOSPITAL CORRIDOR: Dennis is going into a three-hour MRI and Leroy's going back for a NAP. 3) Decide NOT to call Helen AGAIN, let MARION handle ANY "family-lawyer" references.

Note from 7/9/96: Pick up what I think might be a mouse turd---and it starts walking across my finger!

Note from 8/8/96: 10AM: "I've been dressed since 7AM," says Dennis at 10:40AM as I arrive. Dialysis center person has questions to 11:15. Ambulette movers come in, we leave at 11:30, arrive at Rivington House at 12:05. Admissions Officer greets us, we go to room 4227. Nurse is Tom H. (Bob's lover from MAN)! Two seconds later Frederick H. passes in hall: he's entertainment therapist here for 1.5 years, in DRAMA! INCREDIBLE! Tom takes Dennis's vitals to 12:45. Dr. Paul H. and social worker is Joyce K. Lunch will be up between 1 and 1:15. The nurse will INVENTORY belongings. Lunch between 1:25 and 1:50. Dialysis at 2PM is SLOW! At 3:15 I'm dying to get HOME. Steven D. is the social worker leader. Lifeline telephone service needs a Medicaid card and a social-security card. Romelee M. is nurse coordinator. I leave at 3:50, Dennis says, "It's been a bit much." I think so, TOO! Then on 8/11/96 I leave here 11AM, to Rivington at 12, dialysis/lunch/talk and I leave at 2:15 to Carolyn's where the back which she said was CLOSED was OPEN for me.

Note from 8/12/96: Looking at longevity tables I decide to figure where the "millennial number of days" fall: and figure that 10,000 days is 27 years, 4 months, and 17 days; 20,000 days is 54 years, 9 months, and 3 days; 30,000 days is 82 years, 1 month, and 20 days; 40,000 days is 109 years, 6 months, and 6 days; and 50,000 days is 136 years, 10 months, and 23 days, which is too much for a maximum, so 123 years, 2 months, and 14 days is 45,000 days; as my next milestone will be 25,000 days at 68 years, 5 months, and 12 days. Hmmmm.

8/18/96: 10PM: Thanks to Charles I got to THREE restaurants from my list in the past FOUR days: Vong, Aja, and Pete's Downtown! Leroy calls this evening to say that DONNA has gotten the play from Dennis for reproduction and the address, which DID turn out to be the FutureFest from Theater Week magazine. FINALLY get the Atlantic Islands tape and camcorder into a box for the Y.s and the letter redone and printed for Joe S. and the envelope ready. Things are going GOOD already: let's hope this isn't a signal for ANOTHER threesome of tragedies after I got to this point LAST time!

8/23/96: 10:03PM: Told myself this morning that I wanted to write about THREE things: 1) my depression, 2) Mom's situation, and 3) Dennis's situation. So: 1) I could barely get out of BED this morning because I wanted to a) phone Ector to make sure Village Playwrights starts on 9/10, b) phone Terry to make sure she got my message about wanting her index, c) phone Karina to say that the Eisenbud index WILL be expensive but I'll get it to her fast, d) phone Vicki to see if she'd be available tonight after Charles and I go to the Metropolitan (and she calls during the day to say that her doctor's told her she has PNEUMONIA but isn't infectious, she can even go OUT), e) phone Charles to arrange for meeting---which we do for 3PM but I don't get there until 4, finally finding him in the Shumei Collection at 5:30PM, f) phone 10811 to find out about the Dime-Plan (which is 10¢/minute BUT with a MINIMUM call of THREE minutes or THIRTY cents, PLUS a $5/month "access fee"), find I'm on Toll-Savers-2 (with no minimum, every tenth call a penny ONLY if the tenth is LESS than ten minutes [which, bizarrely, is the time the call is BILLED at, explaining the odd "ten-minute call for a penny at 9:35AM and a ten-minute call for a penny to the SAME number at 9:38AM!"], and no $5/month fee, and change to Common-Line which charges 15¢/minute ANYTIME with NO minimum-call and NO monthly charge, and g) John comes over and he tells me i) about his progress on his book, ii) that he wants to learn how to use my Internet, and iii) that HE phoned Leroy's complaints (1st, sloping toilet-floor; 2nd, plaster falling from ceilings; 3rd, no door on oven; 4th, sink clogged), and that I should call h) Eileen R., which I do, leaving a message, and get calls back ONLY from Vicki, Karina, and Donna, who'll call me again. But then I got OUT of bed, made all the calls, and then j) called Pope to crow about doing things. 2) Mom's situation: Rita called for an hour and a half last week to talk of Mom's improvements: a) she was playing BINGO when Rita got there, b) nurses asked, "Where is she NOW?" because she's a WANDERER, even to having a wrist-bracelet that sets off an alarm when she leaves the BUILDING, c) WENT with Rita to the apartment to look through last things after a successful weekend sale of the stuff there, most things being carted away, Rita ready to leave with Mom to Florida on the 28th. She went with Jimmy to Bob Evans, went with Marion to someplace in "The Valley," and phoned old high-school friends. She got the new auto registration for only $5, emptied out the safe-deposit box, identified the bad checks I had Mom make out, and questioned whether I had the yellow vase--and when I looked in my suitcase, there it WAS. RITA has Mom's oval veil-like pendant with the diamond chip that I remember as a kid, and she'll be taking the grandfather clock WITH the key and detachable pendulum. Denny will come up later to get the car, stuff will be left at a friend's somewhat nearby, where Denny can stay before driving the car back, and Rita's allowed to take four whole suitcases onto the plane with what's NOT in the trunk of the car. d) WALKS without even a walker or an arm to support her, though both of us realize this PROGRESS may STOP with the next ministroke, but we both hope it lasts through NEXT WEEK, where she WILL have to stay at Rita's for a few days until the bed comes down from Akron about September 8, the worst time (school-start) for moving cross-country. Rita's said no more about the "gifts" of a few thousand dollars she's thinking of giving both of us. Denny's wanting her back, and "my fifteen-year-old son, who NEVER talks to me at home, talked on the phone TEN MINUTES about how he wanted me back, probably to act as a mediator between him and his father!" Mom wrote out a check for $3600 for her stay at Manor Care, AND for the last month of her rent, and her apartment is ALREADY getting mail for the NEW tenant! Rita stays busy, has erased Mom's not liking "chicken white meat" from her preferences, and laughed with me when I immoderately said, "You've told me so many details I'd think I was THERE," and then said, "I KNEW I shouldn't have said that!" and she retorted, "Well, I sure wish you WERE!" So this all sounds like it's PRETTY MUCH under control. 3) Would that could be said about Dennis: decided to start a CHRONOLOGY: a) Leroy arrives Tuesday, June 25; b) Dennis to LICH on Saturday, June 29; c) I tend him at LICH through Sunday, June 30; d) Dennis to ICU about Tuesday, July 2; e) just under six weeks at LICH; f) to Rivington House's 4th floor on Thursday, August 8; g) to Rivington House's 2nd floor room #214 on Friday, August 9 (which changes his HUMANE dialysis-hours of 8AM, noon, 4PM, 8PM to the INHUMANE 6AM, noon, 6PM, and midnight!); h) just under two weeks with the awful obscene patient next to him and i) to room 210 on Thursday, August 22, much of which he spends being evaluated at LICH, and the old nurse, Mary, and the new nurse, Margie, tell me that his REAL problem is the ANEMIA, for which he's now getting Prokrit 4 times/week rather than 3/week, and when I go in today he's getting his first blood transfusion from Rivington House. On Wednesday he said he hoped to move HOME in October, but I said that I'd have to find out what their criteria were for moving him back to the FOURTH FLOOR, and doing THAT before moving to home, where his father would always worry if he were going to get WORSE, which he's been DOING most of the time now! Dennis agreed. Nurses said that the PRIMARY thing would be to have his hemoglobin up. Doctor M. said that Doctor S. would CONTINUE to handle him, and I talked to the latter, and was told that the TRANSFUSION should help his appetite, but that the Prokrit and transfusion might not show their BEST effect for a WEEK, and then they'll be able to evaluate him better. Dennis was asleep when I got there, his roommate quietly listening to a slightly too loud television set. I'd planned to leave at 2:10 but found myself leaving at 3:10. The cute male head nurse nodded his recognition of me. Everyone knows Dennis's father with pleasure. Dennis was hooked into the transfusion when SOMEONE phoned him this morning, and he couldn't get away, so maybe his father tried to call. I told Dennis about John's helping his father register a complaint about the apartment, and again the railing was talked about. I forgot about most of the hassles while looking for Charles at the Metropolitan Museum from 4PM-5PM, when I went to the cafeteria for a wonderful roast-beef sandwich for $7.95, a $4.95 bottle of wine, and a $1.95 blondie for $15.86, but Charles didn't wander in, so I went to the Shumei collection and THERE he was at 5:30, so we looked at the Shumei, the Deccani, other Iranian art, much Greek nudity, carpets, and left at 8:45PM to find it was RAINING, so we just raced to the subway and I got back to pick up the mail and shuck off the wet clothing, (happy that it was Met-free FRIDAY night and not Met-pay SATURDAY night, for which I had my $2.50 all ready!) and sit and moon for a bit and then decide to do these two pages. So Mom is mostly taken care of, Dennis still has his Dad to do most of the work, though he's planning to go to New Hampshire for a week in September, the complaints have started through the proper offices by John, my indexes are getting done, and SHEILA called with great delight last night to say she GOT the videotapes and camcorder and LOVED my editing, would I be interested in the Chilean coast in late January for a possibly reduced rate? Leaving mid-September on TRAVEL.

8/26/96: Note from 8/17/96: decided to list my BEST friends by GENDER to see which friends and which gender topped the list (with phone-dial automatic #s):
[I found it impossible to distinguish a real RANKING between the first TWO!]

Spartacus (M3)(when he's in town)        Carolyn (4)
Charles (7)                                              Vicki (5)

Pope (1)                                                Susan (3)
Ken (8/9)                                             Sherryl (2)

John                                                    Shelley
Dennis (M2)                                         Mildred
Don (6)                                                    Lina
Tony                                                   Bernice (10)

Jerry C.                                               Abby B.
Edgardo C.                                          Suzie M.
Paul C.                                             Barbara L.
Jean-Jacques                                         Marj M.
John G.                                              Louise S.
Don O.                                          Stephanie M.
Bob R.                                                  Mary V.
Laird W.                                                 Rita R.

Note from 8/19/96: Then, talking to Pope, I thought to list my OLDEST friends with whom I'm still (sometimes only very seldom) in touch:

1) Charles M.             met "really" September 1952: 44 years ago!
2) John C.           2/11/58: 38 years ago!
3) Laird W.               2/15/58   (four days of each other!)
4) Bill H.           4/21/58
5) Jean-Jacques V.        4/6/60: 36 years ago, over half HIS life!
6) Paul M.           1/30/61
7) Eddie J.               7/9/63
8) Peter R.               7/3/66: Just past 30 years!
9) Joe E.                 4/14/67
10) Arnold B.             9/25/69
11) Bob R.           1/23/70
12) John A.               2/14/70
13) Edgardo C.            9/9/72
14) Don M.           12/15/75
15) Dennis S.             2/20/76: over 20 years!

8/27/96: Typed at 10:15AM: At 8:45, after writing MY\MUSICAL from 8AM, and having the DREAM on DREAMS:8/27/96, while tweezing my ear-hairs (just before razoring my toenails, the OTHER task I set out for myself last night before going to bed) I remember THREE influences on my song-cycle writing:
1) Bernstein's (Leonard, not Spartacus) lovely, simple "Simple Song" on the TV presentation of the 25th Anniversary of the Kennedy Center Awards.
2) Yesterday's reading of Elton John's writing "a set of lyrics in 15 minutes---why does it TAKE composers so long; what do they DO all day?"
3) Thoughts of having written SOMETHING for Village Playwrights for 9/10 if no one else has phoned with anything to schedule.
4) "Pain" being written at point 11 on note 7 as arthritis pain hits thumb-base while I'm writing the line before that.
5) AND I systematically CLEARED THE DECK of things I had to do, BEFORE this!
6) AND I needed something to complicate my life WITHOUT someone ELSE, or ME, getting sick or having an accident or OTHER untoward occurrence!

Note from 9:10AM: Phone Rita: "Movers here---I gotta pack these boxes---I've been up since 5AM---Phone me---no, I'll call you back later."

Note from 9:20AM: From Saturday night bed at 2:50AM (after returning from dinner stuffed at 1AM and finishing both Times puzzles), Sunday up at 11AM and finish reading the Times before breakfast at 2PM!!!
Sunday night to bed 1:50AM Monday morning, Monday up at 11, breakfast at NOON! Monday night to bed 1AM after reducing my Atlantic Islands video BY 50 minutes, not TO 50 minutes (from 140 minutes to 90 minutes---not THAT bad!) Tuesday up at 8AM with musical, dream, and have breakfast at 9:20AM---GREAT!

Note from 10:25AM: Feeling GREAT, having ALMOST caught up with everything YESTERDAY and giving myself permission to buy Tuesday night and Wednesday matinee TKTS tickets for myself and Charles today, maybe having lunch in the city, maybe seeing Independence Day at the Ziegfeld, maybe doing the Chelsea Antiques Building, but let's see what's on AUDIENCE EXTRAS! And it's the WORST EVER, only 7 items, 4 of which are cabaret and 3 sound awful. Then call CHARLES! But first I look at my restaurant list, make reservations for 2 at Mesa Grill at 12:45, phone Charles who "must" wait for a call from Bill to see their lawyer THIS afternoon (HA!), but if NOT he'll meet me at the restaurant, or PHONE to see where his ticket for this evening is, OR I'll call him from HOME by 4PM, or he'll call me by 5PM. Complicated! Now I'll call POPE!

Note from 5:30PM: This is getting SILLY! Talked to Pope, took $160 cash from the bank, leaving me with EXACTLY my checkbook balance of $37.24, got subway to TKTS at noon, taking half an hour to get Boys in the Band (seen in 1968) for tonight for $36.25 each and A Delicate Balance (seen in 1966) for tomorrow matinee for $30 each, so Charles owes me $66.25. Then subway to Mesa for good chicken skewers (with cilantro, pace Charles), OK Angus burger with GREAT southwestern fries, and too-frozen banana-ice-cream-cake with pecan praline and sarsaparilla coulis for $40 with a kir, then meet Paul N., who says he STILL has plays to send me (we talk about WEB pages), and I drop into Old Navy, whose best bargain is flannel shirts for $15 and $17.50 jeans, so Modell's will never have to worry about them. Hiking boots for $25 looked good. Then to Today's Man for bargain short-sleeve shirts at 2 for $13, but they weren't COTTON, and the place was empty compared to the bustle of Old Navy, where the families looked like the clothes were being GIVEN away. Then stop in at Goldman's Treasury, which I note as "HUGE junk," and Charles said he was actually scowled out of the place because he and a friend laughed so much at what they had on sale. Turns out that Chelsea Antiques Building is the same one in which Antiquarian Bookshop is located, so I stop there to find the Archeological shop across from them on the ninth floor is closed, but the stuff isn't worth looking at, and then down to sixth floor to find the MAIN stamp shop closed, but was a bit put off by his Sharjah sales and HIGH prices on poor copies of single used Columbians. Then down to the lower level, and under the stairs spot a belted six-volume set of Child's Bookhouse, of which I had one or two volumes when on Dietz, and I actually PHONED them when I got home to find out how much they were: they said a salesman would call back when they weren't so busy. Back at 3:45, exhausted, to phone Charles (who didn't go to his lawyer after all, of course), and put other things away and debate taking a NAP to get rid of my full-stomach lethargy, but looked up a few MORE restaurants (getting my want-list down to only THREE for 1993, but I SHOULD be updating it NEXT!), then decided to type this rather than playing more Minesweeper and Mahjongg. Note also the sore sole of my right foot: I guess I should be replacing my velcros BOTH for the heels AND the soles, but I don't want to think about that right now at 5:45PM when I'm not due to meet Charles for another two hours; Spartacus and Beard foundation haven't called back yet, and haven't gotten Dennis's phone number yet; R. will DO all repairs!

Written when I got the invitation, typed out only today:

                      POEM FOR VICKI MOSS'S BIRTHDAY PARTY

     Write you a po-em 'bout Vicki?
     Sticky!

     SUREly I must be not icky!
     Yet what can I say about Moss of
     which Rolling Stones have such a loss of?

     She throws her a party in Cold Spring
     to which, what to choose as a gift-bring?
     She won't be content with this WORD-thing.
     Nor me as a slave with a nose-ring.

     I know, I'll give her an EAT-FLING!
     Has no one a rhyme-scheme so tricky?

 

9/5/96: 9:15AM: The MASTERBOARD swirls through my mind. To start at the end first, note (6) has "beauty pain frustration happiness God computers Internet words puns writing fame aging contentment money sex love" written in a column. Each moment of each life has a masterboard with a current collection of words. In the infinite alternate worlds, each person's moment has a different board. The purpose of life is to actually HAVE the board you want when you want it! The purpose of my play The Shoulder is to tell everyone that THAT truth IS. There are practical things that have to be done today: 1) see Walk in the Clouds with Pope, 2) deliver Eisenbud index diskette to Karina's messenger, 3) read the last play in Ibsen's Collected Plays, 4) phone B. about Leroy's leaving and returning from the apartment, 5) call Tony, 6) call Marj with Dennis's number, and maybe even 7) start on stamps. Still have to transcribe notes (1) through (5) and actually START WRITING The Shoulder in case no one else asks for the second hour on 9/10---or claim the second hour MYELF (cute typo for MYSELF). Is MYELF anything like The Master Builder's TROLL? that I read about yesterday? AND I have to eat, pick up the mail, buy groceries, see Dennis at some point, phone Rita Saturday, vacuum the floors, urinate, re-tint my beard, take in the Panasonic to be repaired, and dozens and dozens of other things currently crowding my MASTERBOARD. The aim of MY life is to SIMPLIFY my masterboard so that I can GRASP it at any moment and say, "This IS what I want now!" Which is what I said in the sixth line, above! I sit at the keyboard, now at 9:25AM, content, left hand-palm slightly sore, air conditioner reducing the humidity of the morning, ready for the telephone to ring with my next obligation. I guess I'll go prepare breakfast. Clear what MY masterboard says!

Also from 9/5/96: 12:33PM: Marj called. Pope called. 1:47PM: type notes from 7:50AM:  THE SHOULDER (to cry on), the Should-er (he SHOULD do it), the Soldier (he MAKES them), the Shudder (as in "The Horror"), the Shutter (as in camera-darkness between moments of light). Guy goes to Internet to find things and gets "Internet God" who takes specifications for "the perfect human race" for 1) Accountability---smokers suffer secondary smokers' cancers, 2) Upstairs noisemakers suffer PAIN at places underneath, 3) Puns are the pice of life (or the lice of pife, for spoonerists), 4) Starts by typing, then it gets VOICE recognition, so can just talk---then THOUGHT recognition for UNIFYING force. From typewriter to PC to laptop to "instant voice computer input" to tooth-cavity filler computers transcribing THOUGHTS. Feedback---antiabortionists "feel pain of unwanted children," Killers PRE-feel pain of killed and STOP killing. Lovers transformed. Liars out of WORK. Newspapers USELESS. Wars obsolete. Money hurts from "pain of where it COMES from." Alternate universes DO branch off so that EACH is richest---you just picked the wrong one. ALL BUT ONE are "slave-constructs," YOU just have to HEAD for the one world where you ARE the most important, getting ALL you want. Karma MAKES infinite-alternate-universes REQUIRED. Also REQUIRES there be NO GOD. You are NEVER alone---alternate-universes who WANT time travel, mind travel, HAVE it, so they DO come and watch every one of us! There ARE universes where there IS a God, but they're BETTER than this one. That "something" or "somewhat MORE" that EACH feels IS out there---AIM for it! Then I list terms for my MASTERBOARD - I: beauty pain frustration happiness God computers Internet words puns writing fame aging contentment money sex love.

9/10/96: Noon: Should have KNOWN it was Mercury retrograde and void-of-course! Phoned Community Health Project before 10AM and got a recorded message, but when I called LATER they said I should have the wheelchair there by 6PM, rather than as late as their "open hours" of 9PM. Phoned Dennis twice but got no answer, so I phoned Marvin, who said that my cheap phone rings SO softly that they're going to buy a louder one, that they were about to go out to Orchard Street when he visited on Sunday, Leroy DRESSING Dennis when he could have done it himself, since he seemed alert and managing. I confess to feeling somewhat GUILTY from 8 years ago: letting the relationship lapse so it wouldn't hurt so much when Dennis died sometime in the next 25 years, which Pope insisted on calling "only practical," though admitting SOME feeling of guilt was still POSSIBLE. Phoned B. to ask when the work would be done, and he complains that he doesn't have to TALK to me (though I asked him FOUR times what I should do with "Leroy asked me to phone him in NH when the work is done"), that he told Leroy that work would start in OCTOBER and he'd have to have a copy of Dennis's power of attorney vested in Leroy! Desk said that Dr. S. wouldn't be in till 6PM tonight, so I should call him then to ask about switching from peritoneal dialysis to hemodialysis, but that he only comes in to do his rounds and then leaves. Pope relays the commotion about the primary vote for Brooklyn Surrogate Judge: Michael Feinberg, though endorsed by the Lambda Independent Democrats (saying "Attention Lesbian and Gay Voters and Freinds!" [sic!], seems to have been behind the putting of Fern Goldbloom on the ballot SOLELY to take votes away from Lila Gold, fighting the "bosses" who fight HER with inaccurate reports of being called "non-approved" and of her friendship with someone's lawyer's father (or someone) when she denied someone financial rights where she probably SHOULD have been denied rights REGARDLESS of who's related to whose friend. So when Fern was fINALLY removed from the ballot at 3AM this morning, it delayed putting some of the voting machines into the precincts by noon, bringing up the possibility of postponing the vote to another day OR a backlash that WILL get Lila Gold elected AGAINST the wishes of the bosses, as reported by Pope's friend, who said that Lila Gold WAS independent and a good person, who only HAPPENED to have not sent in her responses to the LID questionnaire (does that IDENTIFY her as NOT being a politician?), since LID endorsed Michael Feinberg and wasn't even there to pick UP the call that Pope made to say that he'll never blindly follow their advice AGAIN, and we're wondering if it would be BETTER to postpone the election so this "dirty trick" will filter down to ALL the voters, but Pope just wants to get it over with---as I just want to get this page printed out so I can take the two Village Playwrights pages to be Xeroxed (along with pages from TWO books, since I'm not finished with Millennium yet) way BEFORE having to pack up the stuff for taking the wheelchair to the Gay Center tonight before the first Village Playwrights meeting, and THEN have to take my RCA in to MARTY, too, since IT went last night, and Mercury retrograde STARTED about September 3 and will end on September 26, thankfully the day BEFORE leaving for the Adirondacks this year, which will probably put me even MORE before schedule than I am now, and I thought I was pretty well caught UP!!

9/12/96: 10:08PM: Phoned Marvin---AH, but this should be on DENNIS CHRONICLE! Keep thinking of all the OTHER things I have to do even AFTER the five-remaining on the 8/16 list, and the pile on the table, and in the back of my mind: COMPUTER STUFF: 1) Evaluate search-engines against each other (e.g. 131000 for AltaVista and 1 from OpenText, so how many for Lycos and others?), 2) Get back to those interested in Indexing Handbook, 3) Read up on Spiders and "hits" in four books, 4) Re-phone Dr. Data if NO one calls. And PHONE STUFF: 1) Phone Charles for play-going and ticket-buying (he seems to be on island?), 2) Phone Damark to make sure that camcorder takes MY battery-recharger setups, 3) DID phone Rita (about my debt interest-rate), Audience Extras, Sherryl (about Audience Extras puppetry, and Pope. Now to go out for groceries and deposit ANOTHER check---or wait to get BACK from Dennis's!

9/14/96: NOON: Finished the "owe/bill" letter to Rita, TOUGH doing, and now the ONLY compelling "duty" is "Write for Tuesday" that I directed myself to do. Treated myself with three Audience Extras plays last night and today, Saturday matinee and evening, hoping to keep up "pressure" to keep me DOING: when I get down to the LAST FEW things, I tend to stare at them glassy-eyed and play GAMES or read BOOKS or think of going OUT: anything to NOT finish the last of the things to be finished! But if she DOES send me a CHECK, it would certainly help my FINANCES for the last few months of the year!

9/15/96: 11AM: Note made last night before going to bed: maybe my "Play" is "Browsing Internet" and INCLUDES previous fragment-attempts, "book" reviews, hunk-HTML, computer-god, "A Life in a Day," and other partly begun BITS!

9/17/96: 12:15PM: Well, I just didn't care ENOUGH to write anything for tonight's Village Playwrights meeting. I'm on the SCHEDULER, I tell myself; I'm NOT responsible for actually HAVING ANYTHING DONE on any particular night, but unless we all AGREE, we WILL be scheduled each WEEK. At least Kevin calls and I call tell everyone about the one-act productions on December 10 or 17. But THEN it gets to me that I'd wanted to get Skylight TKTS tickets BEFORE it opens on Thursday, which means I have to go NOW, so I call Charles and he WILL go tonight and NOT tomorrow, giving up Summer and Smoke if it's up. So I GO!

9/19/96: SYNCHRONICITY DAY: Meet the woman I'd met yesterday on the TKTS line in the seats (after telling the woman sitting in MY seat that since she says she has seat R15, she must be on the other side; but when she insists her friend has seats R15 and R16 I tell her that must be impossible, and finally our mutual friend comes to tsk, saying, "And she's a PhD!" and tell her friend that she told her they had seats R14 and R16), and while we're chatting before the curtain goes up on Skylight, who but Fred K. walks down the aisle to sit six or seven rows ahead. Tell her sketchily that I'm having the FIRST meeting at 5:30 of a group that's REPLACED a group that Fred had coordinated for the past 15 years, which had gone into abeyance for about two years, and TODAY is the first public meeting of his NEW group (even though he says he's not interested in the new group, but pleased to see me and says he'll say hello to John for me). We talk about how extraordinary a synchronicity this is, and during the intermission we chat about the energies required to be in plays, and I talk about Nathan Lane in Forum and she mentions Patti Lupone in Evita, and says she was her TEACHER (or guidance counselor) at Northport, or whatever high school she went to, so they got to see her in Evita FREE, and I took the opportunity to ask her if she saw her in Lupone’s solo evening, but when she hadn't, I say that I saw someone from her SCHOOL sing, and she looks at me in amazement and says that's the ONLY time in the WHOLE SEASON that that happened, and how AMAZING it was that I was there THAT night! THEN Paul at new Homogeniuses berates Marc C. for not sending HIM an announcement of the play that I'm going to see at 7:30 THAT EVENING: Marc and WOMAN in HIS group! TRAVEL:AD96

10/8/96: 1:15PM: Just NOT feeling terribly ENTHUSIASTIC these days! I admit there HAD been reasons to feel bad: 1) My play turned down by Renaissance series, 2) My Internet piece disliked at Village Playwrights, 3) Lack of color in the Adirondacks, plus too much food, and not very interesting trips, 4) Dennis not getting any better, 5) Mom now worse: not dressing nor changing clothes; her enthusiasm waning. But those are mainly in the PAST, so I should be able to PASS them. Then there's been so much hanging around to DO: but today I 1) cleaned the tub, 2) trimmed and colored my beard, 3) put Ibuprofen pills with daily takes, so as to test arthritis-help of 4 pills/day, 4) tried the topical anesthetic, which after an hour doesn't seem to be working, 5) retyped the pages for Village Playwrights for tonight, ready to Xerox with pages from three library books and final "What-I-Owe" pages for Rita---although now that I've waited it IS raining out!, 6) mailed to National Public Opinion, a second British book-search address for Love in Time, and ordering five thingies from a thingie catalog. But there's STILL Sex and Longing, and Summer and Smoke to get tickets to and see; though I've WATCHED the four new videos I purchased, I still haven't set them at GOOD spots and gone through the OTHER tapes I have to watch; and from the dim past STILL haven't 1) called Computer Doctor again for my PC, 2) tested Vicki's OCR, 3) shown my trip-slides, 4) taken in the Panasonic to repair, 5) attached the repaired RCA, 6) watched the video-output from the Adirondacks, or 7) vacuumed. Even though I DO try to do TWO things each day that have been piling up, it seems that they PILE UP just as fast. AND then there are two, soon to be three, rather biggish indexes to do. So it DOES GO ON! And I've typed this page so I can print it so I can take out the pages for Village Playwrights printed BEFORE this. ENDLESS!

10/19/96: 10:20AM: So MUCH of this seems to be about THINGS I GOTTA DO!! (Like answer the phone, which I just did when Mildred called, and it's now 11:03AM after we talked about Liza [no more tickets for her], Charles [who CAN'T go to Lascaux because he can't be away from Bill for more than 8-9 days], and the stock market [which she thinks is NEARING its peak, but it's not the time to bail out YET].) Haven't had breakfast, have three meetings today and maybe a trip tomorrow to take away from indexing time that's NEEDED now, and told myself to phone Don and Rita today, and made a list to 1) call Blair, 2) make an ophthalmic appointment, 3) do a computer backup, and 4) re-phone PC doctor, NOW that I've TAKEN the Panasonic to its repair place finally on Friday, and PUT AWAY the OCR stuff since Vicki will take MONTHS to re-get her OCR program. And now I really MUST stop and have BREAKFAST at 11:07AM---COLD in apartment!

10/29/96: 12:10PM: I keep REALIZING things and FORGETTING them: like I'd ALMOST caught up with doing everything, then got LAZY and RELUCTANT to finish the last items; only when things PILED UP did I get BUSY enough to KEEP trying to finish off MANY things in one day. When there's TOO LITTLE to do, I THINK too much, get too depressed, then don't feel like doing ANYTHING and usually end up reading books, watching TV movies, or playing computer games. It's only when I'm FULL of things to do that I DO do things! I really KNOW that I'd realized this before, but I keep FORGETTING it. But when I let things pile up in the middle of the room, got behind in indexing, had LOTS of things on my plate, I felt like DOING SOMETHING about it. Like just printing out three copies of Facades (and even doing a diskette if Kevin wants to reformat and reprint), counting pages for Infertility, getting this bit typed and printed to get the last page of Facades from the printer, phoning Tony, talking to John, checking COMMO for the next series of cock-shots from Bob R., putting the NY Times away, checking the mail, going to the gym, feeling BETTER than when I wandered down the street to Carolyn's, thinking: What's WRONG? I feel depressed about getting OLD! I have to ACCEPT it. But what good does THAT do without KNOWING what I'll be doing the next few days. Last week's BUSYNESS lets me look forward to NOT-SO-MANY things this week to catch up with MORE!!

11/12/96: 11:35AM: Sure PROVED the last entry: things have been VERY busy and I've felt relatively GOOD about everything: social activities (Games group, concerts, meetings), computer ("finished" update with putting on case on Friday and paying $949.29 for 32mb 133mhtz + 8xCD-ROM), reading (finally getting INTO Golden Notebook after skimming many starting Communist pages), and even Dennis (meeting Leroy last night to be told Dennis is in LICH "for the last 3-4 days" with ulcer at the bottom of his esophagus and a "red spot" near there, will be there "three more days", and talked to Marvin and Marj this morning about that; and the apartment is "finished" except Leroy wants molding to "stop cockroaches" and the outstairs railing; he actually PHONED Marvin, out of guilt for not calling me, probably). Played hours of games and even felt OK about THAT, though I DID watch TV last night until 1:30AM, getting an early call from Arnold yesterday at 9:20 and from GE long-term care this morning at 9:05AM. Also feel good about Infertility index, all but about six hours done in two good 6+-hour days, will probably have just over 3000 lines for their paltry $2300 instead of the original 4300 whose "style" I was supposed to follow. FINALLY got Tony about MAN's Thanksgiving dinner, so I could put away THAT flyer; delayed going to BAM tonight---calling Carolyn BACK to say that it's in the Carey Playhouse, not in the Opera House---to hear all of Manuel's first-half play tonight at VP, and typed out the new sheet to Xerox before going to the Met Museum with Charles for the first of the "Princely Collections" lectures. Vacuuming will have to wait until I put the tower back under the desk. Seem to have adjusted the heat by turning ON the radiator in the living room and OFF the one in the dining room, since it was much too hot when BOTH of them were on and too COLD in the living room when only the dining-room radiator was on. Still waiting for a call from poor Robert W., to whom I sent back the FIRST index I ever refused for Springer: a Japanese phonetics study whose subject index was IMPOSSIBLE to adjust for repaginating and rewriting: HOW could I judge whether rewriting TOOK OUT a reference from the subject index, or that the reference was IN KEEPING with terminology-glossary-similarity adopted by the original indexer and followed through the FIRST 128 pages and must therefore be followed through the reworking of the LAST 128 pages!? He'll probably holler about the $350 bill for the CITATION index reworking, but I can honestly say I did it at a LOSS of my own time: it should have been $50 HIGHER for the "two hours" I spent looking at the subject index while deciding I was NOT ABLE to do it. Talked with Marj about the glories of getting older and not CARING what someone else will think of you, but was startled to hear her use the word "psychotic" for Blanche's behavior at the Games group dinner: asking where I was sitting, then sitting at the OPPOSITE end of the table, and then smiling about not being bothered by such behavior. I reviewed that I thought she was very nice, but I kept hearing NEGATIVE things about her, and now maybe I know where those negative comments were coming from. Depressed about my VCRs: the two I HAVE mess up the tapes in various ways for various recording tapes, and I still haven't paid the additional $67 to the $40 deposit and picked up the Panasonic which went color-blind after hardly ANY use, and I STILL think I should write a letter of complaint to Panasonic, while keeping the new set well ABOVE what may be damaging heat from a unit DIRECTLY underneath it. AND I still haven't acted on the China-Tibet trip that looks so great---so I just DID and she said that I definitely WOULD be kept on the mailing list for next year's trip, which probably WILL go, since it's been so popular THIS year. So much for THAT! By now it's NOON and I'll have to leave about 1:40PM for the Metropolitan, so there's not much I'll be doing on Infertility TODAY, since I also want to get SOME lunch in, even though I don't have any salad dressing left unless I go to the store. At least I've been keeping the GYM to a rigid (and somewhat lax) every-four-day schedule! Oh, to get started back to CD-ROM testing and modem-S-register changing to speed THAT up, and TEST my new speedier computer capacities. Lots of stuff to keep being excited about!!

11/18/96: 1:30PM: Watching The Great War on TV is a VERY depressing activity: the misplaced patriotism of the combatants, the dull usualness of men cheerily marching off to die for their glorious country, with their "pals" who can obligingly die right next to them. The realization by EVERYONE that the war was getting NOWHERE and yet the carnage, planning, and striving for "honor" continued: but what CAN that word mean when it leads to ignominious death for so many, including the innocent children whom the WORST propaganda portray as being combatants ANYWAY, decking them out with rifles at age 4, portraying them stepping from the egg to search out their Hun enemies. Using poison gas and then resenting the French from using it back on them. Hatred inculcated from neighbors poorer than rich outsiders whom they must genocide out of existence to profit from their corpses and lands. "Even the rats went mad with panic" when the seven-day bombardment at Ypres continued. But then there are so MANY depressing things in my life at this time: not seeing Dennis, nor being told when he went into LICH or when he transferred out; going down to Dennis's to find so MANY things wrong: 1) a door that doesn't lock, 2) a phone machine that continues not to work, 3) a package on the table in the hallway for three days now, uncollected, 4) "Visit Dennis" on my schedule since 11/4 and I haven't seen him in the two intervening weeks. The depression of paying $107 for a Panasonic VCR repair on a machine I used for maybe six hours after buying it at a "bargain" $180. Trying to use my new G-drive CD-ROM and D-drive hard disk but finding my system wedded to the C-drive, which is overloaded. Finally getting to Amazon.com and not finding the last books that I want from my list, and even finding NEW titles that I quickly flip past so I won't want to buy them. Not being able to find what's ON the CD-ROM disk that came with the unit, though I SHOULD excuse myself for the TYPICAL first-use frustrations which will eventually be replaced with clear joy at having a new toy to play with. The phone calls from salespeople, even the confirmatory call for the long-term care person coming at 2PM today. Even managed to feel depressed that Terry might do the scut-work on a repaginated index HERSELF because the package sent by Henry K. on Wednesday was somehow mis-sent so that FedEx could report that it was "delivered at 9:06AM Thursday morning," by the odd means of "leaving it on the basement steps." So I don't have ANY indexes right here to do, I CAN pick up the VCR and visit Dennis and go to dinner with Charles before hearing Barbara Lea tonight, but even THAT reminds me of the "forced fun" of eating and drinking too much at the BCUE tasting-benefit in the Picnic House in Prospect Park yesterday with Carolyn, still mourning the loss of Kimberley to manipulation and unemotionalism, where I rued my over-appetite for the rest of the evening, and then woke still groggy at 9:30AM this morning, forgetting whatever dream-fragments may have dusted my consciousness as I lay in bed, then up to shit again, finally eating breakfast and having "morning" pills at 12:30PM, then leaving the last tape to be watched (oh, ANOTHER disappointment: the body-building tape left by Arnold a week ago: the banal commentary by a stupid black woman, the vapid "evaluation" of the bodies by the Chief Judge who hardly knew any words but "bulk" and "separation," and even the interviews with these BODIES that concentrated on the HEADS, which looked burnt (I hope with cosmetics rather than by the SUN!), though one body looked almost CHARRED across the back, and the thought of these idiots getting skin cancer in order to show off their musculature is the height of lunacy. Like Pope's idea of "fun" when he was younger of "smoking, drinking, and going to bars," all of which were damaging to the health! So I'm absolutely in a FOUL mood, again maybe because I don't have WORK to do and nothing PRESSING so that I can watch the TV tapes and lament that I don't WANT to go to more movies which are puerile, plays which are incompetently done (or only platforms to view beauties like Dave(?) Meindl from Cybele, whom I'd like to see again, and who I WOULD have liked to have seen in Party, when I could see ALL of him. And Marilyn's friend Morgan didn't phone back YET about my volunteering for Thursday's benefit dinner.

11/29/96 note: Cakewalk lines: 1) "If my child were as unhappy as I was, I'd want to kill it." "You make things so complicated! Just find an unhappy child---and kill it!" 2) "What does a woman want?" "As Ms. DeGaulle said: "A penis. Why are you looking at me like that? Did you think I would say 'Unhappiness'?"

12/2/96: Silicon Graphics (SG) Workshop at the elegant Millennium Hotel, starting in the Hudson Theater. 9:30-10 Introduction, they're in the ENTERTAINMENT business with product line $6K to $70M. CRAY Origin 2000. Nintendo 64. Graphic Design and Publishing about 15% of SG. "Scalable shared-memory multiple processing. CBS Cryptkeeper Sat AM has 10 min of animation per episode, they did 28 episodes in 8 days with 5 weeks preparation. 100mbytes /sec is now SLOW, 02 is 2GB/sec. 10-10:20 FROST animation. 10:20-10:40 ANTERO Ascent. 10:40-11:10: Avid/Matador: Twister/ID4. To Suite 311 from 11:15 for Lightwave 3D, Maya/Alias/Softimage 3D to 12:20. John with POLISHED MARBLE floor, can SEE guy in next stall, pants at ankles. Lunch GREAT (pity I'm going to the BEARD tonight). Lunch to 1 of salad, cold dishes, hot dishes, rolls, veggies, tables of meat, FRESH raspberries, kiwi, and strawberries with GOOD brie and bleu cheeses and ENDLESS cakes, pies, and cookies. Fill in evaluation form (even before FINISHED) and get free T-shirt. Take a dozen free pens. 1:15: Interactive game development: Power Animator 7.5, Nichiman to 2PM. Asset management at 2PM is media content management, with Illustra and DXF. Bulldog. "View meta-data about data" is INDEX!? DNET (digital network TV) to 3:12. 3:16PM to Hudson for editing, with Discreet Logic showing a good jumper on SFX or DXF program. Kodak Cineon to 3:42. Avid/Media Illusions to 4PM BLOWN by poor girl. 4:03 back to 311 for desktop authoring, JUST missing CD-ROM, and missed videotape from 311 before. Cosmo Worlds/CGI for VRML 2.0. Cosmo training downloadable from Internet. World Up 3D authoring for "data mining" is VERY poorly designed compared with others, to 4:49. Adobe quick to 4:54. Eddie describer goofs, too. Composer 4.0 (Alias/Wavefront) goes CRAZY with "You want that cocktail, huh?" All are VERY tired. To 5:53 Fire (Discreet Logic), Flare and Flint (program best before?) and Inferno. GORGEOUS guy and GOOD program of a SEXY TV ad. To 6:27, when they serve REAL cocktails and wine and pass canapes and I DASH out not to be tempted, sitting in 14th Street station for 15 minutes waiting for 7PM to get into Beard, not very hungry, for MORE!

12/3/96: Only note written about "Archduke Dr. Geza von Habsburg"'s talk (from his Curriculum Vitae it's amazing he knows about ANYTHING other than Faberge) on Rudolph II: Bezoars? Originally from Persian wild goats, they NOW mean ANY hair or vegetable or conglomerate (or "shellac"!) stomachic calculi.

12/11/96: 10:45PM: WHEE---are things getting wild: Charles in the hospital, resigned now to having his gallbladder removed after recovering for about a month; Leroy calling, saying Dennis HAS his old phone number back and Leroy will be learning how to administer peritoneal dialysis so he can do it for Dennis at HOME; bright-eyed Fred at Cafe Nicholson (friend of the even more bright-eyed Ramu D.) expressing interest in going to the Beard Foundation, so we'll SEE if he phones me to go with him; more things to DO like phoning for another eye exam to get my focal distance changed in my unusable glasses (reading now at 7" rather than the 17" that I DESIRE on my lap); many things DONE like getting laundry out, putting lots of objects away, phoning people, sending $15 for Fourth Ring Ballet Club membership and reserving for three YMHA tours REGARDLESS, phoning for dental and haircut appointments; yet still LEFT with notes to transcribe, the Javits to go to, possibly tomorrow depending on the weather, HIP for another Tibor appointment, and STILL have modem-switches to change, CD-ROM to investigate (and Owen [Dr. Data] said that InternetWorld gave him TEN CD-ROMs to play with), and YET to finish with Christmas letter, stock-calculations (that Schwab CAN'T give me), and STILL Arnold's telephone to FUSS with to GET to work at LAST, then RELAX!!

Note from 12/9/96: Maya and Mary were supposed to show up at 6PM and they showed up at 8PM, hungry, so we had to eat before starting most of the slide show, which didn't start until 9:15, and they were TIRED at 10:30, so they LEFT, as did Sherryl and David (who had to work early the next morning), so I really didn't FINISH showing slides to anyone! Paul at 12:15AM!

Note from 12/10/96: Fifth Kunstkammer lecture was about FIVE locations: 1) Munich: Shatzkammer, IN Residenz, 1000 objects on 60 tables in ancient times, fewer now; 2) Copenhagen, THE BEST PER GEZA VON HABSBURG, in Rosenborg Castle, including crown jewels; 3) Stockholm, Royal Castle with crown jewels, Hainhofer, Philip, MINIATURES (though no EB article exists with that name); 1658 Prague treasures captured by Queen Christina of Sweden: 660 objects, 330 instruments, 170 ivories, etc. "Peter the Great was eight feet tall" (though EB said 6.5 feet, or two meters), and traveled INCOGNITO as carpenter?? How does someone eight feet tall travel incognito??? 4) Moscow Armory has BEST European silver, and 5) St. Petersburg Hermitage has Scythian gold. He kept talking about 1560-1570 German MANURIST style?? Mannerist?? Then in the museum I see this caption on a Bandinelli chalk drawing: "The use of male models for both female and male figures was normal practice during the Renaissance, and the figure was eventually transformed into a female in the relief. This is the OPPOSITE process from GESTATION, where every fetus is a female UNTIL hormones change some into males.

Also from 12/11/96: 8:30AM: My BODY would LOVE an out-of-body experience. But the HIGHER HAS an in-body experience: ME!!!

Also from 12/11/96: 11:46PM: I'm STILL sozzled by the Chilean white (Chardonnay) and red (Merlot) wines from Cafe Nicholson, mildly dizzied by the attentiveness of Fred Y., born in Geneva, liking Montreux (thinking of Nabokov as his favorite author), possibly phoning me for dinner at the Beard House. It felt good that I had an Actualism session this morning, but it was sad to hear it'll probably rain the next two days of InternetWorld at the Javits, though it might be better to go to Pennsylvania Station and see if I can find the shuttle bus TO the Javits, as well as the shuttle bus BACK. And will only add to an EXISTING pile: that of CD-ROMS to look at on my computer. Felt VERY lazy about doing things today, though I managed to do a LOT, as indicated on the previous page, but AM looking forward to doing NOTHING but what I want to do: mainly reading books and watching videotapes. And AMSCO actually called this morning to say that my last index of the year will be sent out tomorrow! My neck is still hurting, my fingers are feeling arthritic as I type, and I don't start acetaminophen until Sunday, according to my plan, and my mind roams over having to color my beard, finish the rice and food from Monday and the filet from Sunday and the Muenster from Saturday from the refrigerator, and I'm STILL full from the meal that I finished over three hours ago: not really that great but the 13 at table turned out rather well, particularly since Ramu insisted on paying the $12 for each of the three bottles of wine he said we had, but we had at LEAST 3 bottles of WHITE and AT LEAST two of red, so he had a LARGER bill to pay, even though he smilingly said, "I'll let YOU pay when it's something MORE than $12/bottle!" He really IS cute, but he's certainly playing it STRAIGHT---was QUITE turned off by his OTHER friend Edvard citing Lenin as the John the Baptist of the Russian religion, with STALIN at its CHRIST, saying that Stalin was actually LOVED and that the Russian people would LOVE to have someone like him BACK in control, that things are just TOO free over there. Disheartening, with his typical Slavic accent, bald head, blubbery lips, and slight resemblance to Wally Shawn. Slight alcohol headache\hangover already, probably nine MORE hours of sleep THIS evening, though I DID cum quickly this morning, which is exhausting, and NOW I can print out this ADDITIONAL page since I've come to the last line.

Note from 12/6/96: Dinner at Bouterin was fabulous, with a Merlot Rosé eminently drinkable for $18; a demitasse of unsweet carrot soup; seafood risotto with clams, mussels, and shrimp; red snapper with vegetables, and "lamb a la spoon", like Antoine's grandmother made, wonderful, with lots of mignardises which we could barely finish and a LOVELY aromatic Calvados soufflé with bits of apple lardoning the delicate fragility of creamy fluff. Paul paid, but the $55 quoted was a real bargain for the spur-of-the moment tasting menu that he convinced the waiter to talk Bouterin into. Then I went to watch Vicki and Linda eating Chinese before Sheila arrived and we played the "No-Game Game," which was just a facilitated version of "The Truth" game.

Note from 12/13/96: Phoned Dennis (since Leroy called last night to ask if I'd phoned "and didn't let it ring long enough" yesterday, and I can take a hint!) at 212-982-0681 from 11:30-11:45AM, and he invited me to his Christmas party on 12/29 at 7PM, saying he'd invited Marvin and Vicki, Pope and me, and Andrea and Frank were going to be in New Mexico, he didn't know if he were going to call Donna, and he said, "Father called Sherryl and David this morning." He said his father was going to learn dialysis so that he might be able to come home sometime in January. He's taking Indinavir and "Norvir": "a new miracle drug." I said I'd see him "sometime next week" but then I phoned him today to say that I have a viral infection so I WON'T be seeing him this week. "Now I have an excuse." I phoned Spartacus, who said he wouldn't mind if he were invited, but today Dennis said he wasn't going to invite Spartacus or John, and hadn't thought about Marj, who phoned to say she couldn't see my play tonight. Things take so much ENERGY when I'm sick, per the following log.

12/16/96: 11:46PM: Tired, but going through the typing to keep me up until I can take my final antibiotic today. Ever since Paul's departure a week ago, it's just been DO, do, and DO! Tuesday lunch at Stubs, and he leaves in time for me to get to the Metropolitan, and then bus down Fifth, which gets me to Village Playwrights AFTER Mike reads his second installment of Baking, the first of which will be presented at the reading on Monday. Wednesday my task is to get everything organized and taken care of and telephoned so that I can get to Cafe Nicholson at 6:30, which kills THAT day. Thursday is my day at the Javits for InternetWorld, leaving at 10:30 and getting back at 3:30, fit for nothing but computer games for the rest of THAT evening. Friday is the day I go for my five-month haircut: February 13, July 13, and now December 13. I joked with him that he'd better schedule me for May 13, which is about the right time to get ready for the summer! Saturday is spent going to HIP and watching Pope's movie Primal Fear and cancelling out of Carolyn's party because I feel so pooped from what IS a viral infection for which I've been prescribed Amoxicillin and Humibid. Sunday I manage to do at least the six foreign letters and Christmas cards, mailing them and the last reservation for the Lascaux trip, meeting Carolyn in the SUBWAY! Good meal at Beard at an interesting all-woman table, then to MAN to be talked to by Frank and by Ron and stare at the LOVELY skin of a returned old-timer that I'd LOVE to talk to but CAN'T think of what I'd say: "You've got GREAT skin!?" Kevin rehearsed Al and Greg at my place, and everyone loved it, asking about the glass pipets from Brooklyn Botanic Garden's attic. Had put ALL stuff away for their rehearsal and was briefly tempted to LEAVE it that way. It looked so NICE without do-stacks! Computer games all THAT evening. Today is getting everything OUT: resolving bank statements, sending checks, doing my last index, stacking up last stacks, then going to reasonably successful (though Facades hasn't been optioned for even off-OFF-Broadway) "Season's Readings" at the Gay Center, and only Carolyn makes it, not Arnold or Vicki or Susan. Then go through THESE notes to get THAT stack off the table, and will probably start LIFE COURT just to get rid of THAT note. Then I'm down to SEVEN stacks: 1) stocks, 2) Xmas, 3) modem, 4) computer, 5) Booksearch, 6) David's reels, 7) do-list! UGG!

12/17/96: The final lecture on "Princely Collections" by Geza von Habsburg permits him to talk of "my uncle's castle" and "my grandfather's treasury," which was "taken" from the family in 1915 (though, of course, he wouldn't really admit that the FAMILY in fact took ALL the treasures indirectly or directly from the state [more properly, the PEOPLE of the state] in the first place), saying, "I kept the best for last.” He talks of the Albertina in Dresden, that contains 3000 objects, of which only a small percentage are on view: among which is the world's best worked-ivory collection of 200 pieces, treasures by the incredible workman Dinglinger (of whom there are no references in either EB), saying that the Green Vaults were the FIRST museum, though I wanted to ask him who was ALLOWED to visit this museum: hardly farmers from the countryside, I'll bet. Charles absent from the last two.

12/18/96: DETERMINED to get through "STUFF," I mail off the £5-note to Booksearch, phone David about picking up the two slide-reels, get rid of the note above and the dream from last night [DREAMS:12/18/96], and prepare to tackle Xmas cards!

12/26/96: 10:10AM: Nothing is QUITE going right: dinner last night in my too-tight Ace Hong Kong suit from my 1964 IBM-RTW trip (over 32 years ago: over HALF my age!) and my too-tight new snow-boots was almost sick-feeling uncomfortable toward the interminable end when the check taking off the $18 for decaffeinated coffee delayed for 35 minutes; hooking up the Panasonic isn't quite finished because I THOUGHT I had a third "In from antenna" plug, which seems to have been misplaced; looking at the Uher is unsatisfactory because neither works IDEALLY and my Sharp cassette player has NO input jacks for sounds to be duplicated---in fact, not even a MICROPHONE for recording from the ROOM, which is not what I would WANT, but would be NICE (reminds me that I bought a CD-ROM for my computer BEFORE waiting for prices to come down on CDR units which are now available---so how can I "save" the reel-to-reel except by putting them on VCR tapes through ONE channel or trying to repair my WALKMAN, which hasn't wound properly in the recent past; Intercom still hasn't responded to my complaint that I can't get to INTERNET anymore because there's no more @ENTER slot available; and the bathroom CEILING has begun to leak again, though Judy called back to say that the curtains surrounding the bathtub "are torn in places" and she's been THINKING of replacing them. And Marilyn is becoming a pain, calling this morning at 9:47AM when I WAS up, but STILL before 10AM! But maybe I'll get to Arnold's today BEFORE the gym, and give Lina her Scrabble two-letter/three-letter sheets tonight, and get THOSE off the list even if I DO fall behind a day on my 12/12 do-list, which has been up-to-date (except for the glitches described above) until YESTERDAY, and I MIGHT be able to at least START getting rid of the souvenir-pile, though certainly won't be able to FINISH the souvenir-STACK in the file-cabinets at this point!

Christmas safely past: Mission: Impossible lacked all that Eraser had: believable special effects (MI's helicopter in Chunnel vs. E's plane-chute sequence), easily followable plot (both essentially about moles), and affecting relationships (Cruise never trusted or liked ANYONE; Schwarz never kissed his black female, but was certainly friendly with boss Coburn), and with the telephone calls from Dennis and Don and Carolyn I didn't even have time to finish the movies before dinner at disappointing 5757, which thankfully no one in the group blamed ME for, though I just called Mildred to find that she had NOT invited David B. to New Year's Eve, since I wasn't about to put up with a SECOND evening of his homophobic conversation-grabbing. We chatted until I had breakfast, and now it's noon and I can call Arnold, and don't have to stop by C. for a new Gemfibrozil prescription, since the AARP Pharmacy will do it for me! Tape on for two Danny Kaye movies to see this evening, and I have two new movies to get at the video shop. Figure to step down the gym exercises this once, sorry to have to get back to them, fearing what I must weigh after a number of heavy meals and no exercising. PITY!!