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1997

1/7/97: Finally throwing out the VERY productive 12/12 do-list, having resolved to do ONE PER DAY to get rid of them, and I DID (for the most part): 1) Beard: Wait list Sunday? I'm GOING, they say, 12/12, but then I'm NOT listed.
2) Color beard, which I do 12/16, leaving it DARKER but still not NOTICEABLE.
3) Cindex (and other files) to Drive D, did on 12/12, academic when D DIES!!
4) Test Netpower on free-space C, did 12/22, but it had nothing I wanted.
5) Clear out souvenir shelf, still bulging, transferred to the NEW 1/7 do-list.
6) HIP optometrist appointment, made on 12/12 for 1/13, still no new glasses.
7) Check MAS/Intercom, which I did 12/21, but it's still on NEW 1/7 do-list.
8) Check stocks/bonds, did 12/20, putting cash into Schwab Advantage, hopeful.
9) Check CD-ROMS, which I did 12/12, but STILL have a stack, AT&T on 1/7 list.
10) Change modem switches, finally did 12/21, nothing helped, gave up on it.
11) Send Xmas letters/cards, finally did 12/19, sending many LATER as came in.
12) Send Booksearch £5 for continued search, got "continuing" response today.
13) Send DMG CDs-list, postponed 12/16, later DONE from classical selections.
14) Visit Dennis, did 12/23, though my visit with Dr. S. is now 1/10 NEW.
15) Show trip slides/tape is continued toward end of NEW 1/7 do-list---INFINITE.
16) Check Uher to tape, got them OUT 12/24, and they're STILL out, yet to DO!
17) Connect Panasonic, a longer-lasting duty, finally done 12/24, works OK!
18) Chernow index, done 12/28, actually got a RESERVATION for McG-Hill Psych!
19) Scrabble with Lina, she actually came over HERE 12/26 to get new word-list.
20) Throw out indexes, added as sop to one-per-day, LAST #15 on NEW 1/7 list.
21) Tapes from Spartacus, and they're gotten 12/28 and remain on RETURN table.
22) Disk D? Phoned Owen on 12/30 and it IS dead. Rest in Tower Case.

The NEW list ends at 15 items, one less than the 12/12 16-item-starting list:
1) Paul N.: get scripts and comments back. Call him later today?
2) Dr. S.: DS summary; called today and made appointment for 1/10, noon.
3) Dr. C.: neck exam, pain is actually GONE, hope it's not BACK by 1/15 apt.
4) Tony: MAN date and home-phone number. Left word 11:50AM but no response.
5) Print new VP list, did just now, and then do it again NEXT week, and NEXT.
6) J&R: reel-to-reel/CD machine rental? Better $100/ONE month than BUYING??
7) Look at 8mm porno-file to VCR transfer with a 2-year-old-never-touched mach.
8) Look at slides to VCR transfer with above machine. NEW items for this list!
9) Try ATT-Internet access program on CD-ROM.
10) Write Future Glass Bead Game, or SOMETHING for 1/21 VP I've scheduled!
11) 101 Clark: WHERE am I now on wait-list, since I'm ALREADY anticipating!
12) Try MAS/InterCom, maybe they actually ANSWERED my pre-Christmas question!
13) Clear off souvenir shelf---a souvenir from the 12/12 do-list.
14) Show trip slides/tape---will be on list at LEAST until my next trip!
15) Throw out indexes, the nice sop from #20 on the 12/12 do-list.

Also from 1/7/97: I'd kept note I made 12:30PM on 12/31/96 when Marilyn hung up on me: "You ALWAYS have traumas!" I wrote "Not MY traumas, my FRIENDS' traumas!" She called Monday, saying she was leaving Sunday, we apologized to each other, I went to her neat apartment for three games, she winning two, and we feel GOOD!

Also from 1/7/97: Dennis phoned AGAIN today, saying he MISSES talking to me, and I got him to say HE would take responsibility for calling ME since I don't like phoning and waking him from naps, or while his dad's there, or when he's out. Dr. C. is the psychologist he wants to talk to. His dad wants him to be home "two days/week," a new idea, and he'll be 81 on 1/8/97!! He woke one morning with BLOOD in his ear, has a bad heart, and he's had a bad back since a 1948 car accident. Dennis weighs 105 and eats about HALF what he gets, just has no appetite, though I said we might think about going to restaurants. He didn't recall Marvin telling to keep the Social Security checks for HIS OWN discretionary spending, so he won't have to get food money from dad; asking me what I thought about the Chula Vista house! Nothing yet discussed with his DAD on it.

1/8/97: Talked to Carolyn, who talked me into giving Leroy a birthday card this morning on his 81st birthday, so I went to bed at 12:05AM, got to sleep about 12:15, then WOKE about 1:45, lay until I checked the clock at 2AM, drank some water, but my stomach felt FULL and I felt GASSY. Try to get back to sleep but can't, so I'm up to take 1mg Rohypnol at 2:45 with 1/2 glass of wine to potentiate it. STILL up at 3:30, when I finished picking at the bottom of my left foot, and at 3:35AM I look to see that the top sheet (which I think all along has been making me uncomfortable) IS in fact 50% polyester! Finally I doze off almost immediately (though surprised that it took the Rohypnol as much as an hour to work), and wake at 8:20, feeling vaguely drugged, but I climb out of bed and dress and get down to Leroy's at 8:40AM to find that he has a cold and wasn't to see Dennis yesterday OR today. Chat with him to 9:40, eventually getting him to agree to a Chinese dinner some evening with Pope, whom I call at 10:30 after I get out of bed the SECOND time. Then finally catch up with the 1996 LIFELIST, which I then combined with the 1994 and 1995 LIFELISTs and sorted them into the ten divisions and started printing them all out, interspersed with this page. Ribbon A bit the dust by freezing, so I decide to type only SOME of the pages and then give the printer RESTS between.

1/9/97: Look at Lehrer's report on Supreme Court hearings on physician-assisted suicide and think the PROS have it SO much against the ANTIS: AGAIN the antis seem to be saying that EVERY doctor MUST assist every patient to suicide, rather as if EVERY child MUST be aborted if optional abortion is permitted. At 1:30AM my thoughts are so concentrated that I write myself a note: "This is TRULY a SICK society when those fighting AGAINST physician-assisted suicide fear that a family or a doctor may FORCE suicide on someone who doesn't want it, while allowing GUNS to be sold WITHOUT fearing that SOME of these guns may FORCE death on someone who doesn't want it." Then in the morning I add that antis' position sounds like: "You can SHOOT someone who DOESN'T WANT to be shot, but you CAN'T help kill someone who WANTS to kill himself." Pope briefly thinks it's VERY complicated and that HMOs might elect to off patients who are costing them too much money.

1/13/97: 9:35AM: Wake, jerk off, dress enough to type dreams from the last two days on DREAMS:1/12/97 and print it, and decide to finish THIS phase of THIS day with THIS typing: Over-pressured with H. for ophthalmological corrections on my glasses-prescription at 10:50AM and a dental checkup with P. at 2PM and printing and Xeroxing a new Village Playwrights sheet before Alvin's play at 7:45 this evening. Under-pressured last NIGHT when I got home from the Games group at 8PM, not having had dinner but full of snacks from Lina's, having finished the Sunday Times, having phoned the people I should phone (except Randy's call from Saturday and Marj's re-call), with only a small pile of things I should do on my desk that I just feel too tired to do ANY of, and I sit in my chair and think: should I start reading? Starting Pilcher's new book is tempting, but then it ISN'T tempting: it seems too much like the start of a whole PHASE of reading that can take HOURS and DAYS away from things that I "should" be doing, like getting more tapes from Marty's; actually FINISHING OFF the small stack of notes and things on my desk; getting to more things on my 1/7 do-list which is actually checked off as far as TODAY (I check at this moment); cleaning up the bathroom sink, since the leak from the week before last does REALLY seem to have totally stopped; cleaning the bathtub, which seems to be increasingly cruddy, possibly because I've been pouring greasy water from the hamburg-microwaver down the kitchen sink; putting away the two Uhers, both of which seem hopelessly out-of-repair; or telephoning any of the people I have yet to telephone---thankfully Vicki called ME yesterday morning before she goes off to Seattle for a week starting tonight. So I got this out of my system by 9:45AM, only an hour to kill with breakfast and fussing before going to H. by 10:50, so my day begins with SOME sense of accomplishment!

Note from 1/10/97: Talk to Dr. S. and Joanne, his nurse, from 12:05 to 12:45PM. Start talking about Leroy, telling them about his "collusion" to keep Dennis from the emergency ward until AFTER Dennis's kidneys failed, thinking "they might be wanting to go home to subconsciously try to end his life early." When I start asking about Dennis, they say the internal KS is NOT a problem, being treated with anti-virals, and the worst condition is on his left foot, which is NOT getting worse and MAY be getting slowly better. He's taking Epigen for red blood cells but not Neupigen for white cells. Takes Epivir and Bactrim, and AZT is a problem, since he has anemia. Indinavir was NOT dosable with renal failure, so they put him on Norvir and Sequanavir, which could be prescribed by some physician at LICH if Dennis comes back to Hicks. Appetite stimulants are problems, since some can cause blood clots in the leg, which is a danger with KS (and Tony suggests GRASS, and I think to ask the doctors about THC, which Dennis DID take at some point). Dennis has LITTLE appetite, eats about half his meals (and only the vegetables, Sherryl points out), and they'll think of prescribing stimulants when he recovers from his latest catheter infection (which ALL his infections had been, I'd confused "peritoneal" with "periCARDiatic," by mistake), which has also caused him to be unsteady on his feet, which means he won't even be ELEGIBLE to move to home "this month, anyway." He can only return when Leroy is CERTIFIED for dialysis. I should DECLINE the 516 questionnaire. "His mind is GOOD, the kidney/HIV status is STABLE, and his T-cells are over 200 and his viral load, taken 2-3 months ago, is NOT high, VERY low, and they'll soon get facilities for measuring that there. His infections in abdomen from dialysis catheterization were treated at LICH with antibiotics and peritoneal fluid." The staff psychiatrist, Dr. C., talks to BOTH Dennis and Leroy. His low blood pressure means he almost falls and MUST be escorted if he ever goes out. I talk to Dr. C. (WITH Leroy and Dennis, as she insists) from 12:45 to 1:35, and she says I should talk with GMHC and UJA to get a buddy for when Dennis goes home. Both AIDS and end-stage renal disease QUALIFY him for a home attendant for 8-12 hours/day for cleaning, shopping, changing beds, but NO medications. Also a nurse will come in 2-3 times/week. He needs blood drawers since his blood pressure is ALWAYS low and difficult to work with. Taking his temperature and pulse is GOOD for detecting infections at home. With protease inhibitors there are ALWAYS beds available for moving back to Rivington if necessary. She didn't think it would make sense to move to the fourth floor OR to go home periodically: "Let's take this show right to Broadway, we don't need any out-of-town tryouts." She said it was perfectly NORMAL for Dennis to make no new friends since he had his father in constant attendance. I felt VERY good after this news and talked to Marvin a bit on Friday evening before going to Carolyn's to tell HER all about it, and then talked on Saturday to Marvin from 10:40-11AM, Rita from 11-11:40 (see below), John A. from 11:45 to 12:15 (he said Dick C. wanted to remain "distant" from Dennis), Charles from 12:15-12:45, and to Vicki on SUNDAY when she called, from 12:45-1:20PM. Talked to Arnold and Susan and Pope at some time, too, and finally filled in Marj on Monday, when she said she was too overwhelmed to come to Alvin's play that night. I should feel better NOW!

1/14/97: Notes from 1/11 talk with Rita: Mom shit all over terrazzo floor, thankfully missing the bed and any carpets (but messing up a couple pair of shoes) just before Christmas, when she ate too many raisin cookies. Asked Rita how much she DID have, and the latest statement looks like about $150,000, with some income (though I said she should ask accountant about selling some 2-3% appreciating stocks [dangerous now?] and getting twice as much into a VERY safe CD), and paying $1700/month to the hospital. Mom's down to 93 pounds, so some of her clothes have to be taken in. They visit often, but Rita still worries about her and she doesn't seem to be improving, so it's doubtful she'll outspend her savings in the hospital. But at least she's stably in place and won't have to be moved until she dies. ANOTHER reason to feel better!

1/20/97: 9:58AM: Write two note-card-fuls of LIFECORT ideas before getting up to water plants and put some dishes away and AVOID putting other things away to catalyze WRITING today, even to putting the phone machine ON with volume UP so I can SCREEN OUT simply talky calls but get IMPORTANT ones. NOTHING else on the calendar today for me EXCEPT finish LIFECORT, and I print out SECOND DRAFT (FIRST DRAFT finished last Wednesday), in preparation for what today will produce as THIRD AND READING draft for tomorrow's Village Playwrights, finishing this note to myself (without printing) by 10:02AM. 3:45PM: DOUBLED size of LIFECORT from 10 pages to 20 pages (largely by reformatting and replacing the left-hand character-name by a centered-heading character-name), taking some out and putting some in, and finished (what I wanted to TRY is certainly TRIED, and I think to ask BEFOREHAND for people to consider what they find INTERESTING and what they DON'T find interesting to listen to, giving me SOME indication about a possible future direction) about 2:30, in time for Spartacus to call and chat. Then had lunch, all this with cold feet with THREE radiators going, bringing the temperature only up to 67°, and even with thick socks on, my feet are COLD. Feel no real PRESSURE to write except that I DID reserve an hour tomorrow, and no one except Alvin wanting to read some old poetry has signed up for MORE time. Is the group fading away? Got the IRS forms on Saturday, at last, so I've got lots I COULD be doing, mainly around the computer, but I just don't FEEL like it, so I'll probably catch up on more television tapes OR resign myself to more computer games!

2/1/97: 12:47AM: I'm so DEPRESSED: watched an hour on Queen Lilioukalani and her fruitless battle to keep Hawaii for the Hawaiians (or at least the 40,000 who were left from the original 800,000 after disease, malaise, and subtle genocide reduced the original idyllic population and replaced them with the majorities of Chinese and Japanese sugar laborers and American "missionaries" who took over the land and sugar factories to OWN the island for THEMSELVES), even though bolstered by the 2000-page report by Mr. Blunt to President Grover Cleveland condemning the settlers and Americans for their treatment of the peace-loving Hawaiians. I wanted to add this WOUND, inflicted on my psyche by the actions of power- and money-loving US "missionaries" and politicians against these happily illiterate islanders, to a list of wounds that I'd been keeping through all my television viewings: against the rape of the South Pacific, the change of medical habits away from holism to medical particularism, the fomentation of wars and battles for gain, the exploitation of labor by Andrew Carnegie (pitting one steel-making team against another and then setting the winning team's RECORD as the NORMAL productivity demanded of ALL FUTURE teams, or else they'd be fired for laziness and incompetence, forcing them to work 14-hour days 7 days a week for minimal wages), and the endless list of "religious" atrocities in Africa, South America, Central America, and even Europe. I feel so SAD that nothing can be done to stop them, that there's no avenue of TEACHING about them so that the younger generation won't be sucked into the "we're so perfect" trap that I labored under until I grew up. Then there's the depression of being selected for the Krystal Dodge jury, which will take at least a dozen more days away for the princely sum of $27.50/day starting on Monday. The fact that I STILL haven't done many things indicated by stacks on my tables, and even WITH my sleeping 9 hours when I can, the feeling of FATIGUE and USELESSNESS OF ACTION that leads me to watch TV tapes or just read (though jury-duty is certainly getting THAT out of my system, having finished Finney's Three by Finney today and taking the first of the NEW books in when I go back at 9:45AM on Monday)---having convinced myself that Audience Extras had nothing on tonight---at least sparing me another DISASTER like Secondhand Smoke with Charles on Thursday, which at least had the good "Zakuski" selection from Firebird to recommend the evening. AND now have the "end segment" of the slides scheduled in two weeks thanks to Mary V.'s phoning me this evening. And WHY is my radiator valve SUCKING??

2/2/97: 10:20AM: Don't FEEL like doing anything today, so I phone Lina and convince her to make omelettes for us when I arrive at noon, having bought muffins at the bagel shop just north of Dynasty. Of two minds about upcoming jury duty: think of a reason to get myself excused on Monday so I'll be FREE of it, or assume trial will be OVER by April 7 (OVER two months!) so as not to conflict with YMHA "building-top tour" and it won't interfere with my work, since I don't HAVE any. Yesterday I plowed through the stack of stuff I've been collecting for the PAST TWO WEEKS to put away, and now have SIXTEEN stacks to take care of---probably SHOULD make up a FEBRUARY do-list (since December's and January's was so successful, but figure I want to be EASIER than that. One stack was a collection of notes that haven't found a place yet, so I'll collect them HERE: 1) from 1/22, 4:45AM: ADD to dream: Oddly on the DAY I asked C. if growth hormone prescription would let me "return to youth for sleep" I return to "Youthful stoned-type DREAM" (see DREAMS:1/22/97)! 2) from 1/22, 4:48AM: How WONDERFUL if future brings a "dream-drawing computer" that DEPICTS dreams (as mine this morning) in hard-copy text and MOVING PICTURES. 3) from 1/22, 6AM: I take a 1-mg Rohypnol to SLEEP some this mind-active morning before I Puritani tonight! 4) from 1/25: go to bed at 8PM, having slept poorly because of radiator banging, and I get banged AWAKE at 10:30PM and FINISH Great Expectations to 1:45AM, and then when I can't sleep at 3AM I take a 2-mg Rohypnol and sleep VERY well until about 10:30, even feeling somewhat groggy from the pill when I wake. 5) from 1/30 notes in the back of Three by Finney from FIRST DAY OF JURY DUTY: 8:40AM arrive, sit, get brochure (daily $15 goes to $27.50 on 2/1/97); 8:50 take out book, put in earplugs; 9:03 Welcome, 1400 possible jurors, automatic carfare payment, fill out red form, DAY is 9AM-5PM, about 200 people will be called. Call, in illness, 643-5776, for payroll problems, 643-3899. 9:35 call about 30-40 names to room 258; 9:41 JUDGE's orientation, about 50,000 civil cases, 15,000 criminal cases, 50 judges, 92% of cases SETTLED before or during trial. 9:50 Regina, 9 names; 9:54 19 names, 9:56 53+4+2; 10AM 48 names, many repeats; 10:04 11+2---and I become aware that there are about as many jurors from previous days sitting IN the next room. 10:18 8; 10:28 7+1+27; 10:34 10+4; 10:37 "4 jurors of Beanie case" + 25+16+5; 10:48 14; 10:52 11+3+7; 10:58 22; 11AM 18; 11:13 22; 11:20 ME and 19 to room 5, one a HUMMER; 11:28 Regina seats us in name-called order; 11:31 get questionnaire for CIVIL case; 11:47 3 counsels arrive; 11:50 start rules; Noon start voir dire; 12:12 case of two doctors hurt in auto accident in 1991, same as POPE! 12:15 juror dismisses herself (mother and daughter in accident), they call ME as replacement, and I dismiss myself at 12:18 because of Pope. 12:20 back to main room, 10; 12:40 lunch, back at 2PM. 2:02PM back; 2:21 22; 2:30 43; 2:32 9; 2:39 6; 2:42 7+12; 2:44 10+20+15+7+5; 3:23 7; 3:28 8+9; 3:35 10; 3:40 20+10+10+10+8; 3:52 13; 3:56 32; 4:03 41! +7; 4:15 #15 ME to room 7. She shuffles cards and calls MY name first, into first seat at 4:18! 4:20 forms out, 4:24 start, 4:27 break for day: civil case in Brooklyn SUPREME Court. 4:34 leave, to be back tomorrow in room 7 at 9:45AM. 6) from 1/31 notes in back of Three by Finney from SECOND DAY OF JURY DUTY: 9:45 arrive in #7; 10:03 attorneys arrive, 1 person absent, they call for her. 10:12 start; 11:05-11:25 break, and #4,5,6 DISCHARGED. To lunch, I'm back at 2PM, we start at 2:14; 2:16 me and A. to POOL to wait for "Krystal Dodge case" calling, and at 4:14 we're called and sworn in and told to come back on Monday to room 261 at 9:45AM to AGAIN wait for "Krystal Dodge case" calling. Though we're "sworn to secrecy," of course I tell everyone about case. NOW at 10:50AM I have to update COMPCHRO and MEDICAL with notes, send response to SRI Software to say "I'm not interested" and leave for Lina's, assuming I'll be BACK to watch TV tonight and catch up with the rest of the tapes, including Man Who Fell to Earth, which I taped last night after GREAT Colours of Infinity, with fractals and Arthur C. Clarke and notes 1) ANY PART of fractal goes EVENTUALLY to black?? and 2) What are shapes of fractals SIDEWAYS, though there IS a 3-D image of MANDELBROT set in saved GREAT tape!

2/3/97: 6:25PM: Notes from THIRD DAY OF JURY DUTY (Monday) from back of Banks: Rule of the Bone, which I finished at home this evening. 9:50AM arrive to JAMMED room, to room 7 where two MORE have been picked already, but there're only seven LEFT from whom to choose the two remaining jurors and the two alternates. 10:25AM attorneys shoo A. and me back to 261. 12:35 lunch, back at 2PM. 2:07 back, and at 3:30, bored, I check desk to find they've GOT six, but still choosing two alternates, and I CAN'T go home ("That was written for every other county EXCEPT this one"), but "we're pushing them." Back to read all but 30 pages of book till 4:32 when I get discharged till 9:30 tomorrow morning, which I transcribe as 9:45, so I'll split the difference. My computer has taken on an ANNOYING whirring sound, probably stuffed-up fan? Talk to Spartacus when I get back, until 5:10, then have hamburg and make myself popcorn, and don't feel like doing ANYTHING!

2/10/97: 2PM: Update previous entries before taking notes from back of Powers: Operation Wandering Soul: FOURTH DAY OF JURY DUTY (Tuesday, 2/4): 9:35AM arrive; 9:37 first CALL; 11:23 REPORT: I get papers and directions for the NINE of us to 15 Willoughby; 11:34 settle THERE to read! Civil Court, jury room with about 200 seats for about 75 people; 11:45 to jury room 8: trial starts at 2PM! 11:49 to lunch, back at 2PM. Stop in at HIP for tomorrow's "1:30 C. appointment" expedited; 1:59 back to room 8; 2:33 Camille (our fat-hipped black liaison with the courtroom) takes our phone numbers and takes us to the courtroom at 2:35, which we leave at 4:45PM. FIFTH DAY OF JURY DUTY (Wednesday, 2/5): 9:40AM arrive; 10:10 juror #2 arrives and I tell clerk to call Camille in courtroom; 10:20 we're in to juridical chaos; 11:10 judge calls break, and in room 8 we talk about it and convict Chrysler; I note "Anything said about building fences? prior to 11:10 break---does juror #8 know more about the case than WE do?" He ALSO said "Signs gotta be put up by Chrysler-authorized construction company, and obey local zoning." 11:40 back; 1PM we hear that Spallone was indicted for income-tax evasion! 1:02 all for today, back at 9:45AM tomorrow. SIXTH DAY OF JURY DUTY (Thursday, 2/6): 9:42 arrive, 5 of us; 9:54 #2 and #9 STILL not in, #9 in at 9:55; 10:25 go into court. 11:25 "break" to upstairs room 6, with LOCK on door so we can leave coats and books THERE, and schedule showing we DON'T come in on Friday! 12:58 lunch till 2PM. 1:58 return to HOT room, jurors ALL over the place, scheduled in this room till 2/13! 2:13 back to court; 3:18-3:37 break, during which I tell them Camille said we should NOT discuss the case among ourselves. Back and dismissed about 4:30. SEVENTH DAY OF JURY DUTY (Friday, 2/7) just go in and SIGN from 9:30-10:30, and I shop at Wiz, Macy's, and Remsen books on the way back. EIGHTH DAY OF JURY DUTY (Monday, 2/10) 9:45 arrive with three questions I'd written up in bed before dragging myself out of it: 1) What was staff/payroll over time? a) HIGH staff--INTENT to sell? b) LOW staff--INTENT to fail? 2) What were sales over time? a) vs. Krystal Cadillac/Geo/?, b) vs. "normal" startups? 3) What was ECONOMY over time? a) boom--high cash/sales? b) recession--tight money? Camille laughs: judge won't answer them: if the lawyers bring it up, you consider it; if they don't, you DON'T consider it! 9:57 #9 (handsome BLACK Black) and #6 (only woman) arrive; 9:59 #2 (dumbish enormous Black) arrives; 10:02 #8 (smartish enormous Black) arrives (#3 was A., #4 was oriental guy with laptop, #5 was sexy Spanish with long pigtail and eternal dark glasses, #7 was capped Orthodox Jew---what a BOAT!). 10:07 JUDGE (Herbert Kramer) comes in: case SETTLED: Spallone got ZIP, lawyers get a BIT; "good trial." He says (after asking about and reading my questions, and that they'd ANSWERED #2) economy wouldn't have AFFECTED hyper-rich Roslyn lot. Chrysler's lawyers had lots of OTHER damning witnesses: he'd ORDERED his first "unwanted" shipment! "He gambled and lost." 10:20 red cards to Camille; 10:32 red cards good for EIGHT days at about $201+carfare, not BAD; END of it!

Note from 8/31/96: David's 2 trays; phoned 12/18, 1/16; DID 1/23!

2/11/97: 3:20PM: GHASTLY discovery this morning: packed up the newspapers to be taken down this evening, then into the closet to break down cardboard boxes for discarding, and when I get to FOUR cartons of envelopes I decide it's time to sort THROUGH all of them and take MOST of them off the bulky covers and soak off the stamps. So I decide to get ALL the boxes of stamps out of the closet (at which time Vicki calls and I talk to her about how OVERWHELMING the number of stamps are, and she says, I think jokingly, "Oh, just chuck them all"), and at the TOP I find that the wall behind has been WATER-SOAKED, and look at the envelopes and they're COVERED WITH MOLD: some of the stamps have been "washed" off, some of the writing has been totally blurred, and worst is the small box of United Nations MINT in the very corner: MANY of the plate blocks have been GLUED TO EACH OTHER, and in the notebook which was on the bottom some of the blocks are STUCK TO THE PAGE! The carnage VARIES GREATLY from page to page, even to different POSITIONS on the loose-leaf pages in the notebook; and while some of the year-packets seem untouched, others are REALLY in sad shape. I sit and STARE at them in discouragement, then decide to get ready for Village Playwrights this evening and change ribbons to get a darker page that will XEROX properly, and type this to move the other page up. THEN feel so depressed that I just resort to GAMES to play for the rest of the day!!

2/17/97: 9:37AM: That depression has STAYED through the following week. I'd just gotten most things DONE by the start of jury duty, but then THAT depressed me and led me to waste lots of time and to disregard things that I should have been doing, and the radiators were banging during some of that period, which I thought was the WORST, since I wasn't even HERE much of the time (which could be thought of as being GOOD, since I didn't have to BE here to LISTEN to the banging) for repair people, whom John had to let in, but at least it DID get me angry enough to SEND OFF the complaints to the Housing Board, though there were STILL piles of stuff to do on my coffee table, which then had to be pushed onto a stack when I cleaned up the place for the Games group on 2/9, expecting 9 but only having 5, who turned out to be all good with Boggle anyway, leading to a VERY pleasant afternoon, though I was a bit depressed when Abby concluded that my video was a DUPLICATE of the better slides of PLACES at the end of the trip: that the video was good primarily for the ANIMALS at the southern end of the trip. Then Monday gave the relief of the case being settled out of court, but then I had TV tapes to catch up with, and an index to do, and lots of evenings of food, and THAT week went, climaxed by cleaning up stuff AGAIN on Saturday and Sunday for Mary and Maya and Sherryl and David to come over Sunday (yesterday) for the rest of the slides, climaxed by a WONDERFUL lunch at Mustache, but I was "peopled out" and didn't feel like going to Vicki's for Scrabble, and think I have to 1) call her to find if she were even HOME in the evening, 2) try Owen again to hammer out what's wrong with Win95 on my computer---and there are so MANY things hanging over me that I feel I MUST finish another do-list, even though I ALREADY fixed my telephone machine that repeated my outgoing message, ALREADY complained about my buzzer downstairs which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, let the girls BELOW me hassle B. and F. about repairing my radiator valve that's bringing down their ceiling---3) phone Bernice with Mary's wonderful suggestion that ACTUALISM would have an excess of tape decks now that the center's closing!, 4) phone Rita to lay the groundwork IF she's going to send money, even though I figure I'll write a First check for the $4700 final payment for the Lascaux trip which will delay PAYING for that until April, 5) put together Kilimanjaro slides for Abby and David and Mary's viewing, 6) pay bills delayed since 2/15, 7) finish clipping stamps from envelopes to energetically reduce the quantity of storage space, even though THAT's become the "core depression": has the time I'd spent saving those been WASTED? What's my life's time ABOUT? What ELSE will I have to reduce by getting old and arthritic and weak and energy-less and crabby and forgetful and wasteful and sexless and touchless and SHITTY?

2/18/97: 8:55PM: Depression deepens: it's not helping that I've gotten another pack of bidis to "augment" my orgasms, when it really seems (most of the time, anyway) that they PUSH me toward an orgasm that isn't AS felt as those without them: smoked last night and got to bed at midnight, but woke at 3AM with reflux-threat from the too-much (mediocre) food at Duane Park last night, then at 8:30 this morning with crackles in my lungs, fatigue in my body, and wet pillow and bedclothes. As for page-above phone calls, even VICKI was feeling tired and didn't really want to have me over, Owen absorbed another of my messages without calling back, Bernice didn't make me feel much better by enumerating the problems of the "three girls," the remaining senior women in Actualism: Alice being released from the hospital today from a SECOND hip replacement due to osteoporosis, Penny still doing no work because of old-age infirmities, and Elizabeth weak and powerless with Epstein-Barr virus, which I consider I might have as I listlessly sit on the toilet at 8:35 after more than eight hours sleep and STILL feel like doing nothing. Rita said that Mom wasn't doing very well (naked and shitting when Denny entered her room last week; having to take down their vacation phone numbers in case anything happens and I'M called when they're away 2/22-3/2), but that she WOULD be able to lend me $5000 HERSELF (if Denny says OK, "and if he doesn't---" "You'll do it anyway," I conclude) and Mom's cash balance might allow as much as $10,000, provided I pay adequate interest and guarantee that IF they need the cash, I'll get it to them out of my "last resort": Keogh or IRA. Paid the bills but have a cash balance in my checking account of $677, not enough for next month's bills, though $2050 in checks SHOULD handle that IF they come in. WAS looking forward to getting out the Kilimanjaro slides (not to mention it wouldn't take over an hour to do), but felt I HAD to get started clipping the stamps off the "surplus" envelopes, so I did THAT for the rest of the afternoon, but after REMOVING most of the American, United Nations, and Australian stamps, I reach CANADA and all of BILL's envelopes which WILL be good to keep from the 50s, and I bypass all MARY'S envelopes from American Arbitration Association from the 80s and 90s, which ISN'T what I was wanting to DO! Keep a lot of EGYPT, too, only removing the RUINED stamps from most of the PACKAGES that were taking up a lot of space. So I STILL haven't made the final decision THERE. Then spoke to Pope about HIS problems, not encouraging, and thought about DENNIS, which added to my depression, and CHARLES wasn't home to be told about his 3/6 ticket to Stanley, probably cowering in fear on Long Island in preparation for his operation next week. So MOST of the people in my acquaintance are having problems, I can't remember whether "acquaintance" has a "c" or not and use "Spell" to check it. AND when I go to WP51 this morning, I get "insufficient number of FILES=, change and reboot," so though I'd updated AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS when I reloaded MS-DOS 5.0 yesterday to try to HELP my computer, it was AFTER the reload rebooted and I did it AGAIN, this time WITHOUT the A-boot diskette, and it DID load, but after I finish THIS page (and now at 9:15 have to get off and have breakfast before F., who just called, comes over to try to fix the valve that's leaking into the apartment below, and I added the note from "Courtney D. #6" that I found on my door at 9:45 last night to my Apartment file, so I had to move all my stamps into the bedroom in preparation for SOMEONE coming over to my living room to fix the problem today) I have to see whether I can get to WINDOWS by using only "win" or if I STILL have to CD to WINDOWS before going there (and accessing the A-boot disk to get BACK to DOS from WINDOWS). AND I have to send off the First check for $4730 QUICKLY, since the March 1 deadline is only TEN days away! Looked at my ENORMOUS silhouette in the mirror last night when I urinated (dark and awful-smelling) and figured I'd NEVER lose the weight I keep thinking I should be losing, which might lead to more danger from high blood pressure and diabetes, which will make my contemplation of MORE life, even WITH the Amazon trip, more depressing than EVER, and let's hope my Actualism-bought tape-deck solves SOME of my problems!

Also from 2/18/97: 9:30AM: Well, at least "win" DOES work, though VERY slowly, without the A-boot disk, which I put away AGAIN, and WHY does "Pos" blink on and off when I first load WP? Did it do that BEFORE and I just didn't RECOGNIZE it? Put out my morning and evening pills, and of course I'm not encouraged by the 2/day Gemfibrozil to help my triglyceride levels and the 4/day Aleve for the ATTEMPT to relieve my arthritis, which isn't being very relieved! Problems! 4:55PM: Much of the day DONE and not much DONE today! Made $600 by doing the Polymer Scaffolds index and got a check for $600 from Chernow, which makes it nice and symmetric. DOING things makes me feel better, too, now that F. DID show up (at about 11:30AM) to fix my radiator valve and HOPEFULLY saving the rest of the ceiling downstairs. Just typed out the Village Playwrights page, had lunch, and prepared to get out and vote, deposit checks, Xerox the page, and get to VP---and with this page printed as insurance!

2/26/97: 5:10PM: Radiators fixed, trip paid for (but not insurance yet), and LOTS of socializing scheduled: NYC Ballet Saturday matinee with Spartacus for which I'll buy tickets before the Met Billy Budd tonight, 3/5 Soho Steak for Susan's birthday, 3/6 Stanley with Ken and Charles to whom I'll sell his ticket tonight, 3/11 Beard #67 with Ken, 3/19 Victor/Victoria with Carolyn and Spartacus with $2 vouchers for $20 each from new membership in Senior Center around the corner with NO membership fee, 5/12 ABT gala with Spartacus sending in TKTS request. Got the tape to duplicate for Mary V. and return to both; still not heard from Owen L. Got CD-player quote from Damark and it was better than rejoining Shopper's Advantage. Reloaded Win95 WITH the Bernoullis on and STILL didn't work, though this time it goes THROUGH to an EMM386 error #1 screen. Borrowed three library books when I researched mildew; buying spray, moth crystals (for closet protection), disinfectant-for-stamp-soaking water (the spray), and cornstarch (for individual envelope protection) (as was used BEFORE from some company who sent me white-powdered envelopes). Went through MAS to date, not yet asking THEM for EMM386 help; and got "Password expired" on InterCom. So much for THEM! Good participation in Village Playwrights last night when I BEGGED people to bring stuff in: 1) Joe (whatever his last name) is taking up all next week's time, 2) Norman T. is bringing in copies of Edna St. Vincent Millay's Aria da Capo for reading in case of nothing, and 3) people are thinking about accepting "assignments" to work for next time if no one's scheduled, and 4) Alfred volunteering to bring in posters ADVERTISING us for the center's bulletin boards. GOOD GOING. Yesterday busy as I decided to see Evita (MUCH better than Hamlet from the day before), then bought fruit to get away from the pizza/meat menu I've been stuffing into my system recently, to Village Playwrights with new people picking up my instruction sheet, then END the meeting by departing for Daniel Dorfman at the Joyce with Spartacus, followed by egg foo yung at Chinita Linda, which closes them at 11:10PM, and home to read more before bed. Lots of stuff DONE, and lots of stuff STILL to do! STILL waiting for IRS form 8829, theoretically giving them until 2/28 for their "7-15 working day" delivery schedule; and STILL waiting to hear from Jean-Jacques about June 30-July 8, and Susan will them be in HEIDELBURG and WON'T be coming back to NYC!! She DID give me the dates of her three books for indexing, but business is VERY slow! At least checks are coming in according to schedule. Piles of stuff around to clear up, but I DID format more indexing disks, DID cancel the Computerworld which continues to arrive, DID cancel the Software of the Month Club which didn't prevent me getting ANOTHER one TODAY, and still have to hook up more wires to the VCRs, which at least I'm knowing how to HANDLE and the videos aren't THAT bad except for Channel 7, and DID see Vicki's Ron and Donna photos of China with a promise to see the second half of them, AND managed to get laundries out, plants watered, gym gone to, groceries bought, vacuuming done, people talked to on telephone, but MUST call Bernice TONIGHT to follow up on getting a tape deck (or two) from her when SHE wants me to!

2/28/97: 10:19AM: Finish transcribing the dream from this morning and feel I HAVE to list ALL the things I did yesterday: in the mail got a check in ADVANCE of its due date from Amsco, so I had $1199 to deposit with the jury-duty check, AND I finished both sides of a cassette for Mary V. with the Mustache Pitza music from a cassette that I now have to return to Mustache Pitza, and sorted through stacks of stuff in the living room to get a large pile of papers to be thrown out, so in the afternoon I decided to go out before lunch and do a DOUBLE-THREE list of activities: 1) consolidated the garbage and took down a bag of it, 2) returned the Mustache Pitza cassette, 3) since I was around THAT corner, I decided to stop in at the video shop and got Horseman on the Roof and Secrets and Lies from the "secret shelf," because those were the ONLY titles that I remembered from the list that I hadn't brought along, and then decided since I was OVER there, to 4) stop in at Cadman Plaza and pay for my plane tickets with my Choice card (realizing only AFTERWARD that I really SHOULD have left it for MONDAY, because then it would DEFINITELY be on the NEXT month's statement, whereas THIS transaction would probably be sent at the end of THIS month and be due on MARCH 15, rather than on APRIL 15, as I'd figured---drat it all), when she tells me that if I pick them up as late as 6/6 I'll be able to pick up my BOARDING PASSES for both NYC AND for Paris WITH the tickets, 5) over to Duane Reade to pick up a 120-day supply of DHEA after reading Modern Maturity about it (and recalling that John did NOT mention the possibility of prostate problems when he talked about the possible side-effects of insomnia and irritability, which implies that he read a DIFFERENT article that led him to the 2-for-1 sale for $10.99, which I feared would be GONE if I waited any longer, and it was only after I got HOME that I calculated that 4 months from NOW would lead to JUNE 28, which would be in the MIDDLE of my trip, so I'd better get a resupply (if it works) BEFORE I leave), 6) around the corner to Republic to deposit my two checks, 7) to Key Food to pick up the needed milk, but add into the bargain popcorn, more Wheatena which I would have added to the list TODAY), and more bread (which I would have needed probably just before the salad ran out), but when Arnold invited me over to a spaghetti dinner tonight in return for watching Secrets and Lies again with me (and he embellished the evening by playing the Cannes Awards from LAST April which awarded the best-actress award to Brenda Blethyn from the movie, but he didn't recall whether they awarded this the best-film award or not), so I didn't have a chance to go through more of MY bread for dinner---so I actually did a step MORE than the double-three! Also phoned Bernice to find that she'll be leaving my tape deck in the Center with a key for me at the Olcott desk for after my ballet that afternoon, so I decide to try phoning Mary V. (no answer this morning at 9:30) to get her out to an early dinner to return the cassette to her, have her give me the stamp-envelopes she's already collected two sets of for me, and celebrate her birthday tomorrow if she has no other plans for the early evening. Even this morning I (at 1AM) went through the billing to find that I had a $102 credit (which they said was $106, which didn't agree with my $108 on the calendar page), so I phoned at 9:45AM and after all was checked I STILL had a TWENTY CENT credit, and I'm supposed to bring the bill in to her, but I've decided I've already GIVEN UP returning bills to them to handle. Also last night phoned Charles, berated him ever-so-slightly for not calling me AFTERWARD (though he could plead that he had business to attend to, along with trying to avoid having to pay himself for the $23,000 hospital bill for the eight days he spent in a semi-private room at St. Vincent's at the rate of $1500/day, which was the figure I GUESSED when he asked in amazement what I thought the daily rate might outrageously BE), and he said that a friend had come over, and they were sitting in the living room, so "I really couldn't use the phone to call you before, and then I just got back and was GOING to call you maybe tomorrow to explain." Thanks a lot. Looked up Otway in EB for Venice Preserved for tonight, ready to reserve for the MAN meeting, and STILL have stamps to soak and JUNK to do!

Also from 2/28/97: 5PM: Tony calls with a WILD story from the Brooklyn office of Catholic Charities, no less. He was wearing his rubber pants and a butt-plug to the office today, and he went to the 8th-floor men's room to change the panties inside, since "the rubber was making me wet, and I didn't want to get my pants wet." He checked to see that there were no feet under any of the stalls and then very quietly went in and took off his rubber pants, but when he stooped over for something, his butt-plug popped out and rolled under the partition to the next cubicle. A hand reached down to pick it up, and then two feet appeared under the partition, and a knock came at his stall-door. "I think you dropped this?" Tony said, "What?" "Would you like me to help you put it back in?" Tony said, "What??" So he opened the stall-door to be confronted with a CUTE blond in his late 20s with his butt-plug in his hand. Tony kept saying he was worried that someone would come in, but the fellow kept on insisting, so Tony climbed onto the john and bent over so the guy could insert his butt-plug. Tony came, splattering the entire back wall of the stall, trembling hard, his legs shaking. "Are you all right?" the fellow asked. "Yeah, I just came," said Tony. "Would you give me a hand here?" asked the guy, and Tony turned around to see this seven-inch, "but very fat and all that," cock being masturbated, so Tony lent his hand and he came quickly. "What floor are you on?" asked Tony, who'd never seen him before. "Ten." Tony told me that there were men's rooms on every even floor and ladies' rooms on every odd floor. "So why did you come down to eight?" "Because here you need a key to unlock the door." He'd been there only two weeks; in the end they exchanged phone numbers, Tony giving him his beeper number (and why don't I have his beeper number?), and the guy ended by saying, "Be sure to let me know the next time you're in Brooklyn!" I immediately phoned John to tell him the story, joking with Tony that it would be in at least the Brooklyn papers by the weekend, and in the Times by next week. He laughed and said he couldn't plan ahead for MAN, so I should call him next week to remind him of the event on March 15. New story to tell Arnold, too.

3/5/97: 10:10AM: Caught up with DREAMS:3/5/97, floor littered with the last of the soaked stamps (at least the last providing I'm content with the 1500+ envelopes, though I have to sort out the LARGEST UN envelopes and put them with the sheets and Souvenir Folders in a large container so that the remaining envelopes will fit into two of the plastic boxes which I'll sprinkle with the moth-crystals to keep any mold from spreading) that I'll sort into the tottering stacks on the dining room table and envelope THOSE with cornstarch to prevent mold-spread, doing that before Friday 3PM, when Owen is finally coming to see what can be done with my Windows 95 installation. Relief from Software-of-the-Month ACKNOWLEDGING my February 2 letter and cancelling me and refunding my $65 and $15 on next Visa bill; and Beard DID refund two dinners (but charged me for another that I'll have to check); AND the $770 flight-charge did NOT come on the current bill, quite a relief, so I WILL have enough money for mid-March bills, and will call Rita Saturday to negotiate a loan for mid-April bills and tax payments, even though I've not YET filled out my tax-copies, as I've not YET tested the tape deck I got from Actualism on Saturday before taking Mary V. to her birthday dinner, as I'm looking forward to taking Susan to HER birthday dinner tonight, and then "Stanley" tomorrow night, and the Rice Mansion and Games Group on Sunday filling out the week, with videos to watch, MORE papers to shuffle, library books to be read, old do-lists to be consolidated, and still more organizing to be done before ANY indexing work comes in, moaning to everyone about how THIS January and February was the WORST since 1987, 1984, and 1977, leading me to think a year ending in "7" is particularly BAD for work load. Buy ten double-sided 5½" disks for $8 rather than three for $3 for startup disks, and groceries after gym yesterday, feeling virtuous. Angel Falls section of "new" trip sounds JUST like that of the old trip, without the "old" laboriousness. Sounds very GOOD!

3/18/97: 1:07PM: Hurrying to finish reading Sacrament by the now-out-in-character Clive Barker, in time to return all three books read to the library tomorrow; needing to put out more Village Playwrights brochures and literature to Xerox before going there this evening; and a whole FLIGHT of telephoning: canceling the erroneous bill from Long Island College Hospital for dental work, responding to Sherryl's request to see de Kooning at MOMA tomorrow, talking with Carolyn about meeting tomorrow night at Victor/Victoria with vouchers I bought yesterday and took to Spartacus's, Damark cassette-recording system to order, and lots of other things boring to me now. Phoned Dennis this morning to ring a long time before Leroy answered, saying Dennis was "too out of it" to talk, and that the operation went fine on Wednesday, he'd recovered nicely the next few days, but yesterday he was "doing poorly" and was "spaced out," and today, though Leroy had just gotten there at 11AM, he was still in "sad shape." He offered to talk to me this evening at 7:30, but I said I wouldn't be here then. Pope is getting worse: his cane had slipped in the dust on the stairways, he'd fallen and couldn't get up, even after shouting for Artie in the apartment a few floors down, until finally another Witness with more strength literally LIFTED him from the floor so that he could climb to his apartment to slip on a carpet and further injure his painful right arm, which now refuses to help him out of chairs, bed, and off the toilet seat. I refrain from saying he should lever this into GETTING his apartment moved to a lower floor. I had to put my tower-case back under my monitor on Sunday to work on the Biology Review index, feeling GOOD to get so much done: 1210 lines in about 5 hours, dare I mount to $200/hour??? Probably not. Asked Rita for $10,000 before April 15, thanking her for the $5000 loan which will pay for (most of) the caves trip, but next month is the crunch, and I STILL have not yet even gone through the worksheets of the IRS payments to find what I'll owe in LESS THAN A MONTH. Noting that THIS vernal equinox comes EARLY in the morning of 3/20, but Pope assures me that SOME equinoxes have come as early as 3/19, based on old books' listing of Aries starting then. Lots of TV tapes piling up to be watched, and even though I put all the stamps away after finishing plastic-drawering the last of the US stamps, I'm now tempted to tackle the next biggest plastic-drawer occupier: Great Britain. Like my new mastery of FreeCell, it's nice to deal with things I can CONTROL, as opposed to Dennis's illnesses, Mom's decline, Pope's infirmities, my increasing arthritic pain on my thumb-bases (it really HURTS to haul out a new two-quart milk container to fix my diet milkshake that seems to cause very smelly farts and stomach discomforts, so much so that I'm still concerned about possible fungal growths from my stamp-mold causing my sometimes-wheezy breathing and too-frequent "heartburn" sensations---and my fatigue waking up at 10:30AM when I'd gotten to bed at 2:30AM, and my "edge-nearing" of gym exercises recently. Things are NOT going well, though I keep HOPING (bastard that I am) that Dennis and Mom will soon just GIVE UP and LET GO, and let the rest of us GET ON WITH IT. AND I haven't heard from Don for a while, so maybe HE's going downhill, TOO. At least Tony is happy with his new Peter; I've managed to get a new driver's license without doing more than sending a check to a state agency; and have just responded to C. that she did NOT send any extra materials (like unedited manuscript) with my index pages---so others DO have FAR MORE SERIOUS problems than I'm complaining about, but I just don't FEEL like dealing with stuff now: I recall the BLISS of Sunday: ONE telephone call to give Leroy's number to Carolyn to replace back into her messed-up address computer, and then LOTS of book-reading, a nice amount of indexing, a couple hours of FreeCell, and (due to Spartacus's reminding me) food, including tuna casserole. A GOOD day, and I wish I had MORE of them, even though I NOW have news that my income is restricted to $8280 before losing $1 of benefits for every $2 earned over that between 62 and 65, so I WILL have to wait for 65 to retire, when in 2001 the limit will have risen to $25,000, which I SURELY won't have to worry about attaining! LOTS OF FUSS for someone who wants QUIET!

3/21/97: Looking up on the previous page about Dennis "giving up and letting go," I got a call 8:55AM yesterday morning from Marvin: Leroy Senior had phoned Leroy Junior who had phoned Marvin to tell him that "Dennis was comatose, hadn't eaten in six days, wasn't recognizing anyone, and the doctors said that he only had a few days to live." Phoned Marvin BACK to ask whom HE was going to phone, and he said he'd phone Sherryl, so I called Marj and left word with Donna and Andrea and talked to Pope and John and Spartacus, and then Sherryl called and practically DEMANDED that we go see Dennis, so I phoned the room to find that CAROLYN was there talking to Leroy, so I arranged to meet Sherryl at the hospital at 2PM, talked to others, left at 1:15 to get there at 2:05 to find MARVIN waiting outside the room, not wanting to disturb Dennis sleeping. Then Marvin went in, Sherryl arrived, got Leroy out of the room so that "Marvin could have some private time with Dennis," and then Sherryl went in, and Marvin and I went back in and TALKED with Dennis, who first saw Marvin as a SHADOW because his latest infection had affected his EYESIGHT, but he talked with me about the restaurant Carolyn and I went to (though he said, "Tell me about the restaurant" TWICE, pointed to HIMSELF ("Oh, you mean in Brooklyn!") when I asked him where he was during the subway strike, and didn't remember the name of the play (or even, at the start, that he'd WRITTEN a play) that included a character who insisted on solving the Sunday Times puzzles before noon on Sunday. Managed a meeting with Dr. P., his nephrologist, who said HE had been thinking about removing Dennis from dialysis temporarily because IT REMOVED PROTEIN from his system, and stopping dialysis might help his malnourishment! He said that "There is only a SLIGHT chance of his recovering from this crisis, but he should be given the chance with intravenous feeding for a few days anyway," being the first to emphasize the "day-to-day" necessity of any decisions. He wouldn't act to stop dialysis without S.'s agreement, but though Leroy and I waited until Dennis's 6PM dialysis started, S. didn't arrive and Leroy and I left. He said he'd hunt for his copy of Dennis's living will, which I found DID say that Dennis did NOT want intravenous nutrition and hydration! Got calls (during last night's indulgence of the World's Men's Skating Championship) from Andrea and Donna, saying that Dennis was ALERT the last few days, and talked to Andrea when I got back from the hospital and Sherryl and Vicki at 11PM, then to Donna at 9:30AM today, when she DISAGREED with Sherryl's categorical statement that hydration UNNECESSARILY PROLONGED Alice's final three weeks, and that DEhydration is an ANALGESIC, letting the person die QUICKLY and PAINLESSLY. Donna said the OPPOSITE: that it was PAINFUL, and Sherryl suggested I phone the Cabrini Hospice, and THEY nicely summarized that BOTH techniques worked at various times in various circumstances, and AGAIN it was only day-to-day care that was important. Leroy tried giving Dennis the phone (and Dennis got pissed at his father for not handling it right) and we talked for a bit, but Leroy couldn't find his living will. Dennis said something about going for Indian food, sad because yesterday he couldn't eat ANY solid food due to infections in his throat and stomach and "internal bleeding." Sherryl suggested that Rivington could FAX the living will to Cabrini, so I phoned the desk and the guy said S. would have to TAKE it over, and I asked if S. was THERE, and he WAS, saying he'd been trying to call ME a few minutes ago, and HE'd take the forms over at 5PM, and HE already authorized the stopping of dialysis for 24 hours anyway, and THAT DENNIS HAD A BIT OF ORAL FOOD FOR BREAKFAST and would have a pureed lunch. Again, everyone agreed this might not be a MAJOR turning point, but he's not at the point of death YET! Talked to Leroy again, who thanked me (as I thanked Andrea for the green cookies she'd given Dennis, that Leroy gave me last night) for all my help, and I ended trying to phone Charles about the 2PM Sondheim rehearsal at BAM, and Spartacus and I will be looking at Office Max in the new shopping center at BAM after the performance "where we're obviously going for ice cream after, aren't we," per Spartacus. Busy times, play and index to do by next week, TOO!

3/25/97: 2:20PM: Dennis died about 5PM yesterday (Monday). Any phone call on Saturday and Sunday I expected to be THAT phone call. Then Carolyn called me at 3:55PM Monday, saying that she just called Leroy, who said that Dennis had aspirated something and "might be on his way out." He thought he might be going tonight. Leroy: I just want to leave him in peace. Carolyn: I don't think he needs people around, for Dennis. She said she'd go over about 7PM to the hospital to be with Leroy. I decided to phone only Marvin, who said that he thought all OUR being there on Thursday SHARPENED Leroy's willingness to let Dennis go, the sooner the better. He's ANXIOUS for it to happen. If WE'RE around, it will INTERFERE with his doing nothing and letting Dennis die. Marvin told me about what Dennis told him privately, after Marvin told the nurse to get Dennis a bedpan: "I HATE asking for everything, being dependent," and to me that explained his enigmatic "Enough is enough" on Thursday. I leave work with Arnold at 4:30 after finishing talking with Marvin, who can't decide whether to go to the hospital or not. He calls about 5PM, and Vicki calls soon after, then at 6PM I get a call from Dr. S.'s assistant that Dennis died about 5PM. I get Marvin in his office at 6PM, phoned Carolyn by 6:15 to tell her to go NOW, since the hospital and Leroy were WAITING for her, and that she should call me when she gets Leroy home. Leave word with Vicki, and Spartacus calls back. Catch Donna in the office, and she said she went to see Dennis from 7-9PM on Sunday: "Dennis had anxiety, clawing at the IV in his arm." I attributed that to built-up toxins in his blood from not having had dialysis. She said that she'd VISITED on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, and had even gone in Monday morning. She'll call Andrea. I leave word with Marj without telling her, tell Sherryl on a message, and talk to John A., Susan, Pope, Dana, Joe E., Jose, Barbara L., Dale, and Shelley, who surprisingly wants to come to the memorial. Sherryl calls back from 7:05 to 7:10. Carolyn calls and invites me down to dinner, but I say I just had lunch and take down a bottle of white zinfandel with ice cubes and glasses while they have TV dinners and cut-up fruit, which I share, and we sit and talk from 7:30-10:45, while Leroy waits until 10:05 to phone Leroy Jr., back from Boston with Laurie, ordering him not to come down, and then he phones Adeline when I suggest he do that. Exhausted back to wake Rita up at 10:45 to answer her message that she'll loan me $6- or $7,000, and phone Vicki back from 10:50 to 11, and watch the end of the Academy Awards until 12:30 and watch other TV and finish New York puzzle to 1:30, and find myself waking up at 7AM! Make notes for "finishing" LIFECORT, and work on that while Terry, Marilyn, Marvin, Jose, and Vicki call back to chat, and when Sherryl calls and says that Charles is home, I call him and he said he had no record of the rehearsal on Friday afternoon. He might come tonight (as might Vicki, but not Marilyn) to Village Playwrights, but will see me in the seat for the performance for which we have tickets for tomorrow night. I have to keep lists of whom I called, whom I haven't told yet, and to whom I've given the date of 3-6PM on 4/6 for the Memorial at Dennis's apartment. Leroy loaded me down with pillows, sheets and pillowcases to bring up, and I put in a reservation for the butterscotch hanging lamp. Carolyn took recipes and a candle and a few other items, and Leroy kept insisting that I had to come down and go through his books and stuff, and he didn't know where the jazz-interview cassettes were. He said I could have the African masks, my Guatemala wall hanging, and anything else I wanted as he wasn't taking anything with him. Marvin was so mad at him he said he wasn't going to come on April 6th, but I said he should think about it: he'd be allowing Leroy Sr. to run and ruin his life just as Marvin resents his doing it to Dennis. He was touched by the strength of my feelings and said he'd think about it. I'm still telling everyone that I'd already been saying goodbye to Dennis since June; the only REAL emotion I felt was the desperation with which I pleaded with Marvin to COME to Dennis's memorial on April 6th. But also admitted that at some point the non-rational emotions might hit and I'd maybe save them until the Memorial. Only time will tell THAT, of course.

3/26/97: 6:10AM: Feeling strangely divided or dissociated: since I woke early yesterday morning, I felt VERY tired watching Programmed Cell Death from 10-11PM last night, so I went to bed at 11PM, putting off the telephone so no one would waken me by calling after 11PM. Slept to 4:30AM, when I woke to record two dreams on the laptop [DREAMS:3/24/97], but couldn't sleep, so got out of bed and dressed at 5:55AM after checking to see that it was raining so that Comet Hale-Bopp would not be visible. Added the idea to phone Erik, apologize about my play being NOT what he would have wanted to hear, and explain my realization that Norman seems VERY strange (cite intense writing exercise last week), and how I've learned to look back to WHOM SHOULD BE LOOKED AT when I "mesmerize" someone to talk to ME rather than the person addressed. Without BLAMING him for getting touchy when Norman corrected HIM instead of ME last night. Then think about past trips, as I did last night, thinking how I contribute THOSE to dinner conversations as Burt monopolized dinner at Chelsea Gallery last night with his adventures staging musicals of his straight plays, with Norman looking on with his characteristic pained intensity. And I'd fantasized he'd asked if I were going for coffee to talk to me about my PLAYS rather than just as company for his egg salad platter. Getting up this morning I felt odd (not least because it was 6AM---when am I ever up and going at 6AM?), as if I were putting Dennis's death behind some kind of wall, but I don't THINK that's what I'm doing since Dennis really hasn't been IN my life EXCEPT as a concern and guilt-about-not-seeing and how-does-his-father-need-help-and-I-don't-feel-like-helping anxiety. Where a few days ago I'd been "putting everything on hold waiting for Dennis to die," now I'm "putting everything on hold waiting for Norman to get back with his reaction to my The Director and Life Court I and concern that I didn't think to give him a copy of Life Court II. AND no idea what to think of the WILDLY different opinions about my reading last night---astounded that there was no more open DISLIKE of what I'd written, as if I'd cowed everyone into thinking it was THEIR fault for not "getting it," though the agreement that "I put up a wall" is disappointing because I DID want to COMMUNICATE, though I was pleased everyone seemed to excuse the fact that it was a first draft and I seemed amenable to editing and cutting. Though that has a problem squared with ideas that "there should be more bickering" and "LEFT and RIGHT should interrupt CENTER more, in the guise of having the AUDIENCE understand more clearly the density of ideas presented." Norman seemed encouraging by mentioning Faust Futu, whatever that is, in comparison with mine, and how he "found a way of directing it by opening it to the audience." FIRST thought I'd get up to watch TV tapes, then figured I'd finish the Blood Conservation index in the morning quiet (birds chirping away in the coming spring), but now looking at Dennis's files spread all over the place I figure I can throw away three quarters of it now and most of the rest later after Leroy leaves and the apartment is no longer the Southers'. And feel the need to get into town, but Audience Extras seemed to have NOTHING MUCH for this afternoon, except Willowbrook Revisited at 12:30, which is only a movie that will probably eventually be shown on Channel 13 free, without the hassle of GOING there. Maybe Thursday shopping for Victor/Victoria seats before checking out the Spanish Tourist Office for getting from Madrid to Campostela to Santillana? Or catching up on some of the exhibits in town that have been sloughed off to now? Odd call from Owen L., as he keeps saying his name incomprehensibly on the phone, saying there's ANOTHER chance for fixing my Iomega drives, and I debate trying them NOW with only DOS, but fear getting involved in FRUSTRATIONS with that, and the temptation to return to stamps is still strong---possibly (as I said at the end of Life Court II) only as an urge to get to CERTAINTY and CONTROL rather than the mush of wants, duties, and emotions surrounding Dennis's death, Leroy's coping and not coping, and my constant delay of figuring income tax and how much I'll NEED that Rita will be sending $6- or $7,000 of, and can I get the rest of it from Shelley as I phone her with the date of Dennis's memorial, among others?

4/1/97: Pity I'm depressed: since Dennis is dead I can't blame it on HIM, though I'm still involved in the memorial on Sunday, which now has 20 people scheduled to be there, including Dana and Jody, whom Leroy actually PHONED before I got to them on Saturday, but didn't bother to tell me about; a "no" from Abby, who's sorry that I won't be here the last two weeks of June when she's starring in a play that may "make" her; Andrea and Frank, who calls to say that he'd played Dennis's piano a number of times when he was taking lessons, and HE will take the cassettes (Donna phoned him, having had HIM in mind to take them) and file cabinet to see what Dennis has done with the material (he'd read many of Dennis's editings and thought he did a great job, talking about the news-reporter's book of Women in Jazz that sort of took the wind out of Dennis's sails without really offering any COMPETITION for the quality of his work, people, and interviews, and especially editing; AND he thinks he knows that some archives in New Jersey, headed by some famous person that I had to confess that I'd never heard of, would be glad to house the materials even if they didn't get published); and assuming that Marvin would NOT be there, even though I stupidly said that Vicki will have a CAR here on Sunday. Reading my previous page from last Wednesday, I discover I've not recorded TWO big disappointments since then: Norman called Wednesday morning to say that he didn't do "play doctoring" but that his idea was to write something TOGETHER, which was not my idea of doing anything productive. Then in going through some ideas I expressed what I'd only thought previously: that even I could rent a stage for $120 for two nights and direct The Director, and Norman LEAPED onto that idea, volunteering to be one of the parts if needed, though I (not thinking he'd be GOOD for any of the parts) agreed with him that he'd be better in an OVERSEEING position---the idea being it would teach ME something about writing, my play, and directing by doing it myself. It seemed rather simplistically good at the time, but I must admit the idea NOW isn't appealing: with stuff STILL hanging on about Dennis's memorial (and Leroy leaving on April 10 and MY having the keys to the paid-up apartment until April 30), hopefully more work coming in---and I STILL haven't looked at my taxes, though having gotten $7000 from Rita on Saturday (which I haven't even DEPOSITED yet, having spent all day yesterday finishing up videotapes and playing computer games and digesting the humongous meals from Carolyn on Saturday and Susan on Sunday evenings), and even an offer from Shelley for a couple thousand MORE if I'd need it. Only went down for the MAIL at 2AM this morning, to FINALLY find a postcard from Jean-Jacques saying he would NOT meet me in Lyon for a week, so what do I DO?: 1) spend the week there myself, which doesn't sound interesting in the mood I'm in, 2) visit Susan in Heidelberg or try to get her to come to France, 3) visit Edgardo in Milan, or 4) just GO to Paris and impose on Jean-Jacques even though HE doesn't want to travel, since I have to leave from there by air anyway. Why don't things WORK OUT RIGHT?! And I get bogged down in a computer error printing out a Village Playwrights page today, even though a cute-sounding A. made my evening by saying he'll be coming next week, and even Andy M. returning because he can't afford any more acting classes. And Bill P. and Rita phoning on my birthday to sing to me (and then Rita puts MOM on, who doesn't say ANYTHING), and then get a message from Helen that Mom is "getting real old." Having run out of Aleve (and fish oil) I decide to try my arthritis WITHOUT any pain medicine, since it doesn't seem to be doing any good ANYWAY, and it only REALLY hurts when I pick up something heavy with my thumbs, though I can feel slight twinges even as I now type on the space bar. Radio on to drown out the INCESSANT sounds from above. F. just (I hope) fixed the toilet so it doesn't rock and won't leak, and had sympathy (because "everyone B. hires is no good") that I have to get the electrician back to hook up the library, which is ENTIRELY without light! Having to reset the VCR AGAIN after doing it last night when the power blinked (during thunderstorm?), and again today when F. tried resetting the circuit breaker, doing nothing to the lights at all.

4/4/97: Notes from 3/28/97 Andrew Weil: Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, taped in 1996. Takes 8 weeks for health to TAKE PLACE. Ginger and turmeric for anti-inflammation. WEEK 1: Throw out polyunsaturated oils and fats like safflower and corn oil. Throw out saturated animal fats, margarine, and all partially hydrogenated oils and fats. The best fat is olive oil, which has oleic acid, which is good. Good olive oil is greenish-yellow and fruity. Throw out all artificial sweeteners and all artificial colors. For diet: eat broccoli (for anti-cancer), salmon or sardines (for omega-3 fatty acids) and flaxseeds, which you refrigerate, grind, and use tablespoon per day. For supplements, take vitamin C 1-2 grams 2-3 times per day, for 4-6 grams per day. Exercise: walk for 10 minutes 5 days/week. Watch breath 5 minutes/day. WEEK 2: Purify your water. Eat fish once a week. Add soy products (soybeans as anti-prostate cancer). Green tea is the BEST caffeine. Be sure you get MIXED carotene: 25k beta-carotene and lycopene (which is anti-prostate cancer. Walk 15 min./day and take a fast from news 1 day/week. WEEK 3: Find organic produce. Strawberries and peaches and spinach and Chilean grapes are bad if not organic. For EMF-pollution, no electric blankets and no CLOCK by your head in bed. Fish twice a week. More fruits and vegetables. Soy protein replaces meat once a week. Vitamin E must be NATURAL, 800 units for those over 40; add 200 micrograms of yeast-bound organic selenium. Walk 20 minutes/day, list happy-making people, and put flowers in your space. WEEK 4: Sleep well. Add garlic. Walk 25 minutes/day. Stretch in "opposite direction." Two-day news-fast. 5 min./day breath-watch. Acceptance and resignation are GOOD for you. WEEK 5: Steam bath or sauna and sweat 20 minutes one day/week. Eat ginger: anti-inflammatory, good for stomach. Walk 30 min/day, 5 days/week. Stretch. To park to nature and to trees. Relaxing breath: good: four cycles: in nose for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, out through mouth with sound for 8 seconds, holding tongue behind top teeth. WEEK 6: Concept of healing into life. List recoveries. Hear others' healings. Two steam baths/week, two fish/week, 2 soy/week; walking 35 min./day. Stretch. 4-day news-fast; buy flowers, breath observe, relaxing breath 1/day. WEEK 7: Find service work to do: help shut-in, volunteer outside. "Put interest of OTHERS before YOURSELF." Continue ALL others. Add fruits and vegetables, whole grains, walk 40 minutes/day; stretch. Spiritual: reach out to estranged former friends. More flowers and music. 8 breath-cycles/day. WEEK 8: Review changes made. Figure how to continue these. Try tonic: ginseng. BRISK walk 45 minutes 5x/week. 8 breath-cycles twice a day, which is MOST IMPORTANT. News-fast for seven days. Understand motivations of people who may have HURT you; reward self with flowers; buy flowers for another. He also takes a low-dose aspirin/day, 1/2 regular aspirin/day is GOOD. SWIM for ARTHRITIS. Contact www.drweil.com on Internet. Gingko helps blood flow and memory loss recovery.
SPONTANEOUS HEALING (1996): BODY CAN HEAL ITSELF. Health is wholeness; healing is making whole. Breathing pumps lymphatic system. Healing is RULE, not exception. DHEA: HAS uses, NOT long-term. Feverfew DAILY for migraines! Hiatal hernia, avoid alcohol and take licorice extract DGL, which increases mucus coating. Soy ACTIVELY GOOD for hormones. Tonics: Garlic for good blood, ginger is as good as NSAIDS. Placebo response is PURE HEALING. Astragalus good for infections. Stinging nettle for allergies. Swimming, turmeric and garlic for arthritis. Folic acid good. Exercise can REVERSE diabetes. Milk thistle regenerates liver cells. SEVEN STRATEGIES FOR HEALING: 1) Don't take NO for an answer, 2) Take charge of looking for information, 3) Seek people HEALED of your problem, 4) Form constructive partnership with health professional, 5) CAN make radical changes in life; moved, changed relationships, or eating habits, 6) Regard illness as GIFT that FORCED CHANGE of new way of living. 7) Cultivate attitude of self-acceptance---don't FIGHT disease, just SUBMIT to being sick which will ACTIVATE the healing system. I make a note to take to the health-food store to get DGL licorice extract, ginger capsules to add to pills, and turmeric in some form that I can take without adding it to food. Will try anything to get rid of arthritis before it gets worse and curtails me.

Note from 4/2/97: YMHA "upper stories" tour, one of the worst! TOLD about 1) 20 Exchange Place, built by Cross and Cross (along with SW corner of Lex and 52nd, which was RCA then GE and now Columbia University), where we waited in lobby from 9:40 to 9:55 while SOME went up to 54th floor and saw huge windows facing north (and east and west). "Try going up yourself," he said, when you're wearing a suit of course. 2) 233 Broadway: Woolworth Building, which we DID: go up to 53 (or to 54 and down the spiral staircase) and find Stairway B to the left and then go to the left, which looks north because the observatory's closed. 3) In Equitable Building at 120 Broadway, go to the 40th floor and look toward tops of buildings. Carriere and Hastings did the OTHER "skew" (like the top tower of 20 Exchange Place, which is probably oriented north-south) tower, which is the Standard Oil building (which I take later in photo #19 with the brazier on top) at 26 Broadway. One year after the plane hit (and killed 14) at the Empire State Building, another plane flew into the 58th floor of 40 Wall Street, which was then the Bank of Manhattan, but only 3 on plane were killed. Now 40 Wall is the Trump Building, across from 37 Wall, built in 1905, a Beaux-Arts building. (The great conference room at the top of the Irving Trust at 1 Wall Street is totally inaccessible to any outside public visitors, he says.) We go to the 59th floor in the Trump Building and look across to the observatory of 70 Pine, in the Citgo building, and I take photos 2-18 (#1 was the ceiling of the entrance to the building at 20 Exchange). Out about 12:20 and go to City Hall for photo #24 of the "Pantheon-like dome." Then to the disappointing Leslie-Lohman exhibit (after lunch at Kenn's SoHo Diner after which Charles got a painful earache and had to go home), after which I went across town to pick up Dennis's ashes and then collapsed into computer games for the rest of the day.

Also from 4/4/97: 5:42PM: WHERE AM I NOW?: Ready to meet Leroy downstairs to attend Barbara Lea's repeat of her November concert at Danny's Skylight Room, her treat, meeting at 6:10PM to get there in plenty of time for the 7PM show. Phoned Kevin, who's bringing head-shots to VP Tuesday so Norman and I can select actors for a 4/29 full-length performance of The Director. AM I afraid of success, as I grabbed-at to tell Marj why I was feeling bad when she called last night when I was playing computer games to find which subway stop to get off in Brooklyn Sunday? I AT LAST sorted through all the mail today, waiting for Tony to arrive between 12-1, but it's 5:45PM and he's not here yet. Does that mean he's not coming? Did a quick SEX survey and the last activity was playing with Paul in December, the ONLY activity in 1996. And I DID think he was going to make it, too; but piled up LOTS of things to do on the table in stacks, and found that I short-changed the videotape last night because I didn't check that I had a late-night movie on also. Pity. Think to phone Spartacus to get his cassette recorder tonight, but I've phoned him three times today already and that's enough, as well as phoning Charles about taking ANOTHER Metropolitan Opera subscription for next year, AND asking him about three MORE YMHA tours of the city. Lots of things doing, including marking the dates on my calendar for the trip, even debating calling Paul and asking him if HE wants to go to France with me for a week. Throwing out spare papers, putting bills away, and STILL haven't gotten to figuring out my taxes, though Shelley repeated that she'd lend me up to $2000 if I needed it, and I finally sent the note to Rita and Denny for my 6% compound-interest of their $7000 loan, and I can only hope that Mom dies SOON and brings me out of debt with a bit more loose change to tide me over to 65 and Social Security, though I DO hope I earn more than $8000 this year, which at THIS RATE I might not even do, not even getting random calls from Springer anymore, and now it's 5:50 and I have to find my warm sweater for the show tonight, which means I’ll be sweating, but that'll serve to keep Leroy company without a tie and jacket. Walk him around Times Square a bit, too, I guess, look at the lights, maybe stop in somewhere for a bit to eat, show him SOMETHING of the city before he leaves in LESS than a week, on 4/10, with me with the rest of my life to reconstruct without Dennis.

4/8/97: 11:22PM: Printing out another Village Playwrights page, with Kevin bringing male head-shots to the meeting tonight so that Norman and I can go through casting with The Director aiming for a 4/29 performance for Village Playwrights. Said farewell to Leroy this morning as I brought up John's stools from the party (John and I agreed to go ransack the apartment the afternoon of 4/10, after Leroy leaves and before B. has a chance to ransack it himself), and Leroy said he'll be staying in New Hampshire for a few weeks, though he won't have a car since they have only one and use it for school, and then be going back to Chula Vista but visiting back here from time to time "and the next time I'll come early and go see a play!" Still things piled up from Dennis's apartment, still lots of things to put away and lots of things to throw out to make room for the things I'll be putting away. Will finally finish the rough draft of my taxes just a week before having to copy out the final copies---maybe I'll do THAT just to get it out of the way except for writing the checks and mailing them. Shelley MIGHT find someone to buy her co-op by the end of the week, by which time she might be able to lend me MORE than the $2000 she can see clear to lending me now. Talked to Marj a lot recently, and caught up with Pope, and the messenger with 100 more pages of the McGraw-Hill book DID buzz the buzzer and the electrician DID buzz the buzzer, and I just figured that I earned PRECISELY $5000 in 1997 so far through the end of the first quarter, holding out the hope of a $20,000 year at LEAST, but where only TWO years were worse than the first two months, now FOUR years were worse than the first THREE months---though the month's vacation mid-summer will certainly hurt things---so I hope I'll be able to pay off SOME of my debt before the end of the year---and AGAIN find myself entertaining the HOPE that Mom will die, easing my loans to her COMPLETELY! What an AWFUL thing to admit, but admit it I must. Lots of LITTLE things left to do, like art exhibits to attend, the Spanish tourist office to get to, CDs to order one final time to cancel my subscription, Charles to check with YMHA tours, things to take to Pope's, Susan's for Win95 for my Internet reconnection, and the vacuuming to finish now that the electrician has FIXED all the rest of my lights. But where to store Dennis's African masks, and the enormous quantity of toilet paper, and more sheets and towels from downstairs? But maybe I can begin to feel HAPPY once again, with the stuff from Dennis FINALLY out of the way, with the debts FINISHED accumulating and begun to be paid off, with maybe more WORK coming in! Should I start PHONING Spectrum and Garland for work? Look to SELL old copies of Screw, old coin-sets, and maybe even the better stamps? At least START on the re-recording of reel-to-reel tapes with the rented unit from Spartacus and the bought unit from Actualism. And looking at slides for the Africa show, and for the overall show, and more work mindlessly on stamps with borrowed new catalogs? And throwing out lots of stuff---not to mention putting THESE pages into their respective books, which I haven't done for TWO YEARS now, I find as I check back to see 4/95 dates on the unfiled pages! And John tells me that the unsealed bricks will STILL be letting water into my closet from the outside downspout, so I've got to check THAT, too. And going out to enjoy the approaching SPRING, with a day of 70° already yesterday and a day rapidly warming from 40° this morning now at 11:45AM, and another movie to watch on tape with a backlog having been built up at the video shop---and finding places to put Dennis's videotapes, depending on what I want to save and what I want to tape over, the same goes for his audio cassettes, too---though I have to recall I'll be opening his apartment for Donna and Andrea and Frank and John and Carolyn for taking stuff out over the next three weeks. And go to the gym today: at least I feel I have SOME energy to do these things, though I STILL get up and sit on the edge of the bed and feel TIRED when I rise in the morning. Even WITH the DHEA, the ginger, the Echinacea, the turmeric, the Aleve, and all the pills. At least I have enough energy to still get to the bottom of the page, even though the last two lines are merely wheel-spinning to fill out the very end of the page.

4/12/97: 9:40AM: Made a 10-item list yesterday and actually got them DONE: 1) Phoned Susan to meet at 6, though she was still out walking Buster, and we found La Taverna closed but enjoyed the Indian Karahi across the street (she still owes me $27 which she'll pay for the meal next time when I return her Win95 disks she needs to give to her nephew with her second computer). 2) Phoned Pope to talk about Barbara Lea's recordings, my play rewriting, and lots of other things for about 45 minutes, after which Norman called with an "at last" and said he was going away for the weekend, the play was in MY court, but that I'd try to have a rewrite to him by VP meeting on Tuesday, and I assumed this morning that I'd phone the actors for 4/19 ANYWAY, since they won't even be getting the scripts THEN. 3) Phone actors crossed off. 4) Phone California agent to get Madrid-Bilbao flight with the rest of the group; hope she can do it, since it IS more than 2 months ahead! 5) Phone McGraw-Hill to get deadline (5/5 or 5/12) and bibliography (he'll send today?). 6) Finish taxes, which I did even to writing all checks, leaving maximum of 2 from Optima at 6.9%: $4730 First-check coverage, and even $1411 Choice IF Shelley only loans me MINIMUM amount. 7) Record Hildegard von Bingen Susan-CD to my tape (taking TWO of them!) to return to her tonight. 8) Bring up masks, hanging, and lamp, and lots of other miscellany; getting grilled by B. (with whom Susan gets so annoyed she says she'll contact her retired lawyer friend in the building to see if I can't call the POLICE on B.'s hubris). 9) Questions and indexing estimate to American Foundation for the Blind, whom I called to leave word at 1:50PM and they never called back: slight reprieve. 10) See 57th Street galleries, having phoned Charles to find he's not home yet, and I GO to 20 East 57 for the Galerie Lelong for the red netting around black (variably weighted) balls and the soundtrack of balls falling, with the adjoining gold-wire-wrapped hay, and WHAT a NOTHING! Then to Joseph Helman Gallery on 2 for Dennis Oppenheim and his amusing Sleeping Dogs: hot dogs in sleeping bags around a fire roasting HUMAN buttocks; Go Surrounded by Stop: a ring of green-light-flashing "high" figures inside a ring of "low" red-light-flashing figures; and Doom Rooms Hanging on a Stroke: model rooms under metal paint strokes; and Structures Punching Their Eyes Out: a metal curve representing "one eye out, two eyes out, four eyes out." To 8th floor for photos of boxers, only a few photos sexy. Then to Robert Miller on 2 at 57th and Madison, the Fuller Building, for Alice Neel and her 30s paintings, including the old Jew with three cocks-and-balls; and William Eggleston's prints. With time to spare, up to the third floor for Matta exhibit, still going strong being born in 1911; many artists at Peter Findlay, including a possibly too-new Caillebotte for $460,000; up to 4 for Neuhoff and new Brazilians, colorful and woody and sand-sculptured; figurative art with Parkes sexy, though mostly women; up to 5 for fabulously colorful Al Held at Emmerich for "only" $60,000; and Nohra Haime for many others; and I leave at 5:20 with many galleries beginning to close, and others already shut for installations. Walk west on West 58th and see my last exhibit: lock eyes with a rather attractive older woman in a red top with black slacks and realize, "Oh, it's Diana Rigg!" Her look flicks away when I recognize her. Subway neatly to Susan's. Back home to find a message from Sherryl about making arrangements to eat before the Tango-Fest at Town Hall tonight, and I look through and find Brasilia and Paradise and Lunch in my Dining A la Carte book, 30% off for tonight's meal, which for four of us might be as much as $30. Put her FIRST on today's list, adding 2) Ms. R., rent? for Norman, 3) Rewrite play, 4) Index Gardner, 5) Call 18 actors postponed from yesterday, and already did transcribe the dream-note [DREAMS:4/12/97] that frees up the index-list for 1997 I made yesterday while cleaning out space for indexes for the first time this year, and I got these yesterday-notes transcribed, and I already went up to show a brown-water-wet lid to Judy, looking awful in pajamas, who promises to look into it when she cleans her kitchen today; and DON'T have to complain NOW since the awful barking dog downstairs AT LAST stopped by now at 10:05AM---WHEW!

4/15/97: 4PM: Totally "wasted" day yesterday catching up on videotapes and eating peanut-butter-stuffed Ritz crackerettes, which led me to take notes for seven tasks to be accomplished today: 1) Ken: I have Bilbao plane tickets with the rest of the group, 2) Shelley: loan ready? And she won't know (and won't have any) unless Chinese couple says NO on SATURDAY! So I make out two MORE First checks for rent and for Choice bill, hoping to get SOMETHING from her in time to pay those off, leaving the original First bill for TWO more days, hoping that something will come up. 3) Buy yellow marker for Spr-V's new MAKEINDEX-style index-markups (yet for a GENEROUS $3/page!). 4) Buy groceries, which I thought to do when I was going OUT early today, but will---no, I've got to go out ANYWAY, to find the woman at the Jubilee Center IN to see if I can get a voucher for Victor/Victoria for TOMORROW! 5) Called Carolyn to see that she IS still interested and free for that. 7) Marvin called back when I left word for him to call me, still mad about Leroy Senior, having gotten a LONG letter from Leroy Jr. about Sr. 8) Send off BMG-END hasn't been done yet, but it's on the desk as coming next. 9) Tried AT&T from 12:25 to 2:35 and got essentially nowhere, and I MUST get to Susan's by Saturday to give the Win95 disks back to her, and maybe I've just got to buy the system for myself? Then decided I HAD to retype the VP list for tonight (with no one scheduled to bring anything in), so I printed out THAT page and then had to follow it up with something, so I did THIS. Now to print it out and get out to errands NOW!

4/18/97: 11:30AM: Did lots of stuff---amazing how much STUFF there always is to DO! Finally got to the gym after NINE days yesterday, and (seemingly BECAUSE of that) was VERY tired and weary by 1:15AM this morning (would have gone to bed even EARLIER if I didn't have to sit up to digest the late dinner at The Heights Cafe until 12:15AM with Charles after the Mark Morris at BAM lasted until 10:35, making our 11PM arrival at Henry's End much too late to enjoy my free half-carafe of wine from my BAM Friend's card. Woke at 8:45AM REFRESHED (first time in a long time I could say THAT!) and energized for finishing the MAKEINDEX index, phoning W. to find that Express Mail delivery on Monday is fine with him, which means I don't have to CHOOSE (HA!) between A to Z's $56+ delivery fee versus Legend's $26 person-to-person or $16 door-to-door, which last is probably less than the $16+ Express Mail charge for MAILING it. Got the last information I needed from Dennis B. to finish off the AFB Journal estimate and send it out today, write another try at a New York magazine ad response that DOESN'T demand a photo, and finally get to BMG-END in JUST the right time to make sure it hits the 4/23 deadline, then mail them all off before going to Susan's by 5PM for my LAST dinner with her (she DOES owe me $27), and the only PRESSING thing on my stack (aside from trying out reel-to-reel copies with Actualism's and Arnold's equipment) is rewriting the PLAY, which should be easily possible without any new index-work (as seen on my newly written "Indexes coming" list) due before Tuesday's VP meeting. Told Charles that I would NOT follow up on scheduling the YMHA tours, partly because they weren't THAT interesting (we agreed it would be better to be in a car that visited Hunt's Point Market about 3AM, when it was REALLY busy, rather than getting there when it was finished about 9AM) and we had to leave TOO early for them, AND I just felt like I didn't NEED anything new added to my calendar before my trip---leaving room for indexes, Paul C.'s visit on May 7 for four days, catching up on videotapes from Marty's that I haven't done for a while, getting back on Internet through a NEW Windows95 setup, and even throwing out some clothing and stuff so I can store the stuff added to my stuff from Dennis's apartment. And oversee B. checking that apartment to see what work needs to be done, as was hammered out finally by Ms. R. when I called to complain about B.'s LYING that Leroy told him to tell me to give him the keys, when Leroy insists he said, "ASK Bob to give you the keys," and Ms. R. said, "Go WITH him," which is fine by me, and of course give him the keys on April 30, when the apartment is no longer OURS!

4/18/97: 4PM: Feel SO good about finishing the last index I have on hand to work on, sending the letter to NYM, selecting my final BMG CDs, and at last washing dishes (first time in about three weeks?), I just don't feel like STARTING on the play rewrite, particularly since I have to leave about 4:30, or even a bit before, for SUSAN'S this evening. So I type this and play GAMES!

4/21/97: 10:35AM: Just off the phone with Norman. At the end of it, I CONFESSED that I searched through my mind for the REASON I had been eager to have a reading SOON of The Director, and had to admit that my "flimsy detail" was ONLY because I'd borrowed the headshots from Kevin and had to give them back in two weeks. Norman laughed and said, "One of the things I like about you is that you're SENSIBLE, an old-fashioned virtue that's hard to find now." He'd just "smoothed [my] way into accepting" that we not have an immediate reading by trying to show that my three PRESSURES would come into conflict: 1) My upcoming trip to France, 2) the erratic pressures of the work which I would have to accept if it came in, 3) GREATLY rewriting the play BEFORE it's produced in any way. He'd mentioned he wanted to RECORD what we said about the play so that I could rehear it when I needed. I said, "In your 'recording' of this conversation, remind me in six months to tell you the 'flimsy detail' that got us to this point in the FIRST place"---namely, my horror at finding that I had a YMHA TOUR that next Saturday on which we'd scheduled an audition of the actors, which I hadn't realized at dinner at Chelsea Gallery, and so I'd scrambled frantically for the idea of REWRITING (rather than presenting it AS WRITTEN, as I'd first thought, or of REWRITING WHILE DIRECTING, as I'd second thought) the play BEFORE auditioning the actors. Such a TRIVIAL REASON for the rewriting that's going to change my attitude as a playwright: making things more clear, removing "that wall between the play and the audience," making the play MORE PALATABLE to the audience so they will at least STAY to hear what hard lessons I have to give them! I told him about (not by names) the four plays I saw this weekend: The Godsend, which I loved, though I talked at the end of Act I with Charles about why the laugh-line "Who killed JR---I mean JFK" didn't go over with the audience, and then talked at the end of Act II about why Act II didn't go over with HIM, mixing bad reviews for the "channeling actress" and the actual "format" of the channeled information; Over Time, which was pure political polemicizing, though the audience for that kind of thing ATE IT UP; Henry's Bridge was typical dramaturgidity through homophobia, which we've had more than enough of; and Wine-Blue-Open-Water was (as I'd thought it when I left) great if you'd just read the Odyssey three times and were on acid, but there was the PERFORMANCE-STYLE ("on-site") wall between it and audience acceptance. Norman described the patience he had with me, and that I have to CHANGE, though he doesn't want to PUSH me, but I assure him he's PULLING (I judiciously used the word ATTRACTING) me to where I know I should be heading, and he again praised my originality and facility of thinking, which he hopes to make stage-worthy. I suggested that HE be the director while I rewrite, but that will be in abeyance, since a performance, as he put it, "won't be until next year: late autumn or early spring" and I won't even bother to think if he meant 1997-1998 or 1998-1999, since it depends on how much I can rewrite to please his directions. I thought to KEEP the "confusion" of ACT I, Scene 1, but he definitely said it was not a good idea for me to sink the audience so fast. I just have to be careful not to take OUT what I think are good ideas and confusions. HOWEVER, I'd planned to work over the weekend, but ended up with four plays attended. I'd intended to work much of today, and it's already noon and I've just eaten breakfast and talked to Susan and Norman, and I'll have to leave at 4:30 for my Seder dinner this evening! AND I have to go to the gym, which in total leaves me THREE hours to work on the play. At least I explained to Norman that WHEN the indexing work comes in, I MUST do it. But it IS good to leave time for doing work BEFORE I leave quickly, hoping to pay off some of my bills WITHOUT high interest rates!

4/25/97: 9:25AM: Multitasking on Wednesday: 1) take out garbage, 2) mail letter, 3) pick up Audience Extra tickets for Dream matinee, 4) eat two chocolate-glazed donuts from Krispy-Kreme, 5) see Diamond Sea at Gallery 303 about the 75,000- kilometer-square forbidden area of the Namib Skeleton Coast, 6) walk up to Mud, Sweat, and Tears at 46th and 10th to get a card, sign up for class information, and pay $10 for a molded cup by Bob Gereke, 7) see the nicely staged Dream from second-row-center with an enthusiastic Marilyn, who joins me on the walk uptown for 8) the Museum of American Folk Art for Henry Darger's paintings of the Vivian Sisters' trials with penises, then subway back down to 9) meet Spartacus at 6:30 at the jammed Virgil's to go next door to Viva Pancho's, where Marilyn has reserved a table for dinner for the three of us before 10) going to Last Night of Ballyhoo at the former Little, now Helen Hayes, Theater, all tickets $55 and we're on the aisle in the last row for this trivial exercise in Jewish snobbery and whinery, and then home to crash. Thursday became scheduling Saturday at Dennis's with Marvin and Frank, and taking a bagful myself when Pope came to take books and lights from the place that afternoon. Then catch up on videotapes, interspersed with hours of games from 5:30 to 7:30, which leads me to start tallying game-hours until I have breakfast to take antibiotic, then Grade 8 from California comes with all kinds of extra pages, and I finish that by 11:35AM and have to print this out because I've got to get to the gym before going to the galleries before going to Susan's by 6PM! Have started thinking of taking Buspar to relieve TENSION!

4/29/97: 9:40PM: Norman and I talked from 4:15 to 5:30 about my play, and I can hardly remember the details now. He visualizes the Actor having an EXPLOSION, insisting on ACTING and AUDITIONING for his part in an ACTUAL Hamlet that this is the audition for. The Director has been "on top" in his relationship with the Actor (figuratively) and the Reader (actually), and he demands control, which the Author wants, so the Author does away with the Director first as an exercise in POWER. Norman said that the relationship between the Actor and Author make them the most real, but the Director and Reader are only superficial, so maybe I could get more details out of THEIR relationship when it's revealed in Scene 1. Norman's willing to work on the STRUCTURE of the play if I'll do all the work on the DIALOGUE---but he's ALREADY insisting that we're BOTH listed as authors of the play. I admit I don't know ANYTHING about structure---I know I don't---so HE can put it in. He won't respond about the idea of HIS directing the final piece until he knows more what it's going to be like. He suggests, which I tell him I'd already considered, a reading of the revised Scene 1, but I say I'd rather work on the whole thing, since revisions to Scenes 2 and 3 will undoubtedly change bits of Scene 1. He was disappointed in the way Scene 2 just "went into the Author's head-trip," saying that there has to be ORDER to keep the audience interested as a RESOLUTION of the basic chaos and flux of the play. He keeps wanting the characters to CHANGE, to TRANSFORM, to DEVELOP in ways that I may have "planted the seeds," but now I have to "let them germinate." He didn't want me taking any notes of our conversation, insisting that I was still thinking that ONE rewrite would do it, but I said I was quite sure there would be many, I was just looking to see where I could START the FIRST revision. Being an actor himself, he seems to want to give MORE juicy EMOTING to the Actor, and I've yet to point out the similarity between ME as the author wanting power over HIM as the Director/Actor. He "doesn't remember" the "And Then There Were Two" re-titling enough to say whether he thinks that should stay or go. AH, remembered he thinks the Director should be MORE controlling, MORE vicious, MORE distasteful, making a good springboard from which the Actor can EXPLODE and "have his soliloquy" to bring the audience into the action. Play must GRAB and HOLD the audience; it can't be just a head-trip; it has to be emotional and character-changing and structured. He said we should keep planning meetings to talk about it; when will I WORK on rewriting?

5/1/97: 9:20AM: though it's now 9:35AM because I've phoned 1) W. to ask how my MAKEINDEX writings were accepted, 2) J. to complain about Fermat, and 3) D. to find how many chapters there ARE and when bibliography is coming. Still feel HUNGRY: at least that means I DON'T have a fever to starve, but the stye on my eye is still unresolved and ugly, I'm still coughing, and I'm hoping yesterday's inch of phlegm in the glass will be the maximum, though I'm already up to a quarter-inch this morning. Decide to GO to the gym today to wash my hair, just to LOWER every exercise machine a notch to give my body a chance to recuperate from the trauma of the tooth-pull on Monday and the cold that I've decided started Sunday coming back from Sherryl's. Felt like doing not much the past few days BECAUSE of the cold, so I took time off yesterday to see Four Million Houseguests at Sony IMAX, paying Spartacus $3 for his reservation of the tickets, plus $3 for the subway, making $6 for the 45-minute show, not the best rate, though it was good, albeit incomplete: too much pine trees and not enough scanning electron microscopy. Didn't even do any games since I finished figuring the 41-minutes-per-day average for game-playing, though the 721 1/3 days DID come out to 30+ ENTIRE days: ONE SOLID MONTH since 2/20/94, or 38 months, but it would be over $72,000 if I could somehow have converted it to work-wages. Also tried Audience Extras to see if anything good was on for this evening, but the Indian dancers at the Joyce and the Hoodlum movie at 6PM didn't excite me very much without Spartacus suggesting them. Never got a call back from Marilyn about my offer to her yesterday at 3PM about the IMAX movie at 6:30. At least Charles will meet me Sunday for the Orchestras at World Financial Center. And I HOPE this cold will be over by the time Paul gets here next Wednesday. Put a lot of thought into putting up the May calendar last night at midnight: Mom is now officially 86 years old (probably the top?), and I'm just on the cusp between MORE than 61 and 1/12 years old and 61.1 years old: between 30 and 33 days after MY birthday. Things still on the table to do, and I MUST get the pillowslip out TODAY for cleaning so it'll be ready for Paul, AND schedule a haircut BEFORE my 5-month period which will end on 5/13/97. AND put the "Dennis stuff" away after throwing things out---SAME OLD SHIT! ENOUGH of this, now to BREAKFAST!

5/3/97: 12:15PM: Feel pretty awful! Still have a nagging cough, which was bad last night at Vicki's and I fear will be bad tonight at the Beard's $110 dinner from Commander's Palace! Took an HOUR this morning to go through FIVE Heinlein paperbacks, extract 2-3 sheets from four of them to keep with the covers and decide to keep ONE (even though, sadly, saving only about 60% of the SPACE, rather than the 80% the PROPORTION would suggest. Watched a virtual-reality kid's competition and a muscle-builder's fantasy of battling warriors on kids' TV after watching an episode of Millennium, which is getting increasingly morbid, leading me to the CONSTANT thoughts while watching it: "What IS the world coming to that we've given psychotic horse-killers and woman-rapists who're finally trampled by horses 'who trust us' at the climax?" Didn't go to Brooklyn Botanic Garden yesterday to see the Cherry Blossom Festival because it was chilly and very windy, but today's even worse with a gray rain that keeps the apartment cool enough for a sweater. Got the pillowcase out for cleaning yesterday, wrote a letter for a bogus attempt to get $60 back from IGT from Triplets which I should mail NOW rather than waiting for tonight when I go out to the Beard. AND I forgot to take Dennis's letter-to-friends that Marj Xeroxed for me to VICKI last night! Though it's been on the table to be taken for a WEEK now. People upstairs are CONSTANTLY bumping and banging and moving around, driving me CRAZY. Get 7 new CDs and haven't played MOST of the ones I HAVE, and started re-taping my reel-to-reel but only got a BAD test case so far. Paul's coming Wednesday and the place is a MESS but I don't feel like doing ANYTHING, even finishing the INDEX that has to be delivered today. OK, so I PUT ON a CD to screen out upstairs noise and FINISH the index and get BOTH deliveries out. AT&T pisses by PHONING always!

5/6/97: 9:05AM: WHAT A LOT GOING ON! Bed at 1AM this morning after watching the not-very-satisfactory conclusion to Invasion by Robin Cook, not taking anything for my lingering cough---having coughed maybe two VERY CONTROLLABLE times during the play last night---but wake with a SORE THROAT again, which makes me FEAR a lung infection, fungus, or pneumonia, even debating going to the emergency room at HIP to get x-rays and have someone look at my throat and lungs. Decide to do a second-in-two-days Actualism session, and it goes very well; even get STRONG ideas about writing something TODAY in addition to The Director to take to Norman TONIGHT! Take those notes at 7:50AM, get back into cycles of inner work, and just FINISHING that process when the BUZZER goes at 8:45AM! It's Way Messenger with the last chapter and a GLOSSARY for the Human Development book, not yet the enormous bibliography. HAD left myself a message last night to phone David D. about a $2000 partial billing to get more MONEY in before I leave for my trip, and now I have INSTRUCTIONS about handling Glossary page-numbers and a DIRECTION to send me a copy of the previous edition's index to help me EDIT the monster. Had STARTED the list to do today ONLY with phoning D., C. about HER late bill, and to confirm Jean-Georges for tomorrow, but ADD A) vacuum and clean kitchen, B) trim beard, C) Kevin, are you COMING tonight? and D) Dr. Data, BRING new Win95 for me, to de-install and INSTALL and MAKE SURE everything's there that's needed! Get it STARTED at least! Get me BACK on Internet! Then at 9:15AM decide to TRANSCRIBE the bald notes I wrote about The Director: Director IS LEAVING Actor (as he HAD left, experimentally, for his affair with the Reader) because Director only likes YOUNG, SEXY partners, not MATURE, thinking, less sexually charged Actor. Actor RESENTS this, "Macbeth" symbolizing his DESPERATION to get back with Director to FORMER intensity (obvious basing on Dennis's wanting to get something MORE from me, not getting it, trying to get something MORE from Dick C. and not getting it from HIM, either). Director is SNIDE and EVIL and REPRESSIVE while Actor wants to GROW. ACTHOR sees and WANTS this. NEW CLEAR (nuclear) RE-ACTOR goes CRITICAL, taking over DIRECTOR'S lead---Author wants ANYONE, to break out of OLD MOLD/MOULD---try ANYTHING. Director is STUCK, so he GOES first! And now I go to DIRECT10 to flesh it out!

5/10/97: 11:30AM: Cough finally over, and throat no longer sore in the morning, so I guess THAT phase is over. DID write NINE pages in DIRECT10 for Norman for Tuesday---and then LEFT the pages in the COMPUTER, though the readings by Don J. and Andy M. (for both of which I read stage directions) were proof that VP is REALLY working. Mailed the pages to Norman on Wednesday, but they didn't get to his apartment by FRIDAY, and "the office is closed on Saturday" so he won't get any mail today. Then wrote 4 CONDENSED pages that would expand to AT LEAST nine MORE pages on Thursday night, which I phoned Norman about on Friday and he said he'd come over tonight if Paul will have left, which he will have, so Norman said he'll be over at 5PM, adding that I sounded a bit "dazed and over-visited" on the phone. After dinner at Jean-Georges, lunch at Chanterelle, visits to Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Museum, Hippolyte and Aricie for four hours at BAM last night for a great production (no stable chorus OR soloists!), it HAS been a busy time, including fielding Marilyn away for today when she finds nothing interesting on AudExt, and I'm scheduled for the Games group tomorrow and maybe the gay films at Goethe afterwards. D. accepted my bill for $2160 and since he did NOT call yesterday, accepts ALL authors (from bibliography which I got by messenger JUST before leaving yesterday) for the Human Development book, LOTS of money coming in! AND Dr. Data arrived at 9PM Tuesday and cleared up EVERYTHING on computer: boot with subroutines, Iomega drives, AT&T Internet, and NEW Win95! Catching up on TV tapes, but Paul takes over now with the Surge tapes that I got back from John yesterday because Paul missed guys fucking in elevator. I type this page to get the reprints of DIRECT10 and DIRECT11 out of the printer, now 11:45AM, to get to brunch at Stubs, I guess, and he leaves by car at 3 and Norman arrives at 5!

5/11/97: 9:10AM: Since Bouterin doesn't serve lunch on Saturday, after I finished putting the tabs on the Bibliography (finding the LAST one inadvertently taped to the cuff of my SHIRT this morning, solving THAT mystery), we went for the $10.95 "all mimosas you can drink" brunch at Stubs, but THAT was closed, so while walking toward either Petite Crevette or La Bouillabaisse on Atlantic, I think of Fatoosh on Henry, so we buy four stouts and have the $7.50 mixed grill outside nicely till 1:30. He's finished packing at 2 and comes into the kitchen naked and erect saying, "Could you spare me five minutes for a massage?" I suppress embarrassment and say, "Sure," knowing that my body smells from having no shower in three days---not to mention that I don't feel the slightest bit sexy at the moment---but he lies on his back on the bed (for a massage ONLY, I'm quite sure he would have been on his STOMACH) with this wonderful erection curled across his thigh, arms over his head to emphasize his slender abdomen and waist and the possibly trimmed ribbon of hair down the median of his sinuous torso. "Maybe you'd like more than a massage?" is the most committal statement I can make, and he, with his (and all Frenchmen's, in my experience) typical grace, says, "As you like." I start with cupped fingertips over his torso and midsection, squeezing his cock at the base and bringing it straight up from his crotch, which makes his face contort into a frown mingling pleasure and pain, and he thrusts and makes his phony little sex-gasps and -grunts. I start a typical pass of massage-tickle up onto his arms and down his legs to mid-calf, and he does seem to want sex, because his cock stays up, so my frantic mind dives under the bed to see a possibility. "Let's try this, for a change," I say, and find my vibrator quickly---blessedly it's still plugged in. I turn it on and, with his now almost perpetual frown of perplexity, he looks down his chest to watch my vibrating fingers introduce his midsection to the vibrator, and then I touch the underside of his frenulum with one middle finger. He cringes and protests, "That's too strong," and loses some of his rock-cock hardness. I run my hand up and down his body, paying palm service to his deltoids, triceps and brachioradialis above, and his rectus below. When I tire of that, figuring that this WILL only be a massage, I ask him to roll onto his stomach, so that I can press long passages up and down the sides of his spine (which do seem tense), plump his cushiony buttocks without getting too close to his anus, then move below to his lush gastrocnemius, but hold back from his possibly sensitive calcaneal tendon below. He glances at the clock, and I'm pleased that ten minutes have passed: soon he'll have to stop to take his shower, finish packing, and get dressed for the car in fifty minutes. We both seem to bore with his back, so I ask him to roll toward me again. He's made no move to touch me at all, so my clothing remains: the mere faintest stirrings have failed to engorge my cock, so it's just as well he doesn't probe for my excitement, though I do retain a silly smirk on my face throughout. My dirty shirt is becoming damp with my perspiration, and I fear I smell. I try my thumb on his frenulum, which he tolerates, again frowning down to see precisely what I'm doing with what, so I try a whole-palm squeeze, which he tolerates, but it doesn't make him harder. I try jerk-off motions, but that doesn't do any good: he strains, but to no effect. The vibrator was a bad choice. Turn it off, hot, and go for the lotion, knowing he's probably locally anesthetized and beyond cumming, and he enjoys the softness of my touch and the slick of the salve, but my arm is getting tired and at 2:25 he finally ends the torment by saying he has to shower. He dresses and gives me the purse-lipped perfunctory kiss after the buzzer goes at 3PM, and he's gone, after which I meticulously remove every trace of his presence: crumbs on rug in front of TV, dishes from sink drainer, pillow from bed, keys back to Peruvian box, my date-cards back on dresser, shower curtain adjusted just so but the towel left to dry, bedroom drawers aligned from his usages---and settle in to watch TV before Norman arrives early at 4:40PM to start a session I think to record as DIRECT SEQUEL: DIRECTS1, for future amused referencings.

5/14/97: 11:58AM: It's NEVERENDING! Keep recording VCR tapes which I'm AGAIN a week behind in watching. Keep adding things to the calendar (like the two possible German Gay Movement openings at Goethe House on Thursday and at the Gay Center on Friday and the Wall Street tour at noon on Sunday), keep adding things to the play (two scenes) which I have to print out (18 pages twice last night) which I followed by a SECOND page of "DIRECTS1" to get the last page out of the printer, then ANOTHER set of pages which I "got out of the printer" with a DREAM fragment [DREAMS:5/14/97] I'd not recorded earlier, and then had a THIRD set of pages to print, so I figured I do THIS page as a cover-up, after finding Charles not home and Spartacus interested in the tour Sunday noon but probably not the to Gay Openings earlier, and now it's 12:15PM and I STILL want to have a sandwich before Norman arrives, so there's NO time to work on the index, which is thankfully going FAST in the first phase with only marking and typing the LAST names of the first authors, to be collated with the first initials from the Bibliography at the END, which will be a pain, since it will mean checking back to the PAGES about 10% of the time to check WHICH initial for same last names with DIFFERENT first initials, but still easier and faster than thumbing through the Bibliography with EACH reference! Got a call from Janet, saying her last two indexes are delayed, but not by much, and sorted through the trip stuff and put IT out of sight of Norman, and now I can type THIS out and get on with the rest of cleaning up the living room!

5/15/97: 12:50PM: WHAT TWO DAYS! Norman arrived yesterday at 12:40PM, BEFORE I had a chance to eat, BUT he'd pulled a muscle, was in incredible pain, took my heating pad and the entire rewritten-as-of-now script, and left at 2PM, leaving me the rest of the day to catch up on a few things, play some FreeCell, and watch a few TV tapes, all of which made me feel VERY good. Then up at 9 this morning with two sections of dream [DREAMS5/15/97], got a call from Garland for a $1500 index before I leave on the trip, got buzzed by a delivery of Grade 7 from California, and spent two hours trying to fax the letter to Spain, finding that I CAN print it out, but WRITE from DOS seems to have been replaced by NOTEPAD, which does not have the same characteristics for faxing things, so I FINALLY get out the WinFax manual and, following the directions on "Sending a marked-up fax" I get it to go OUT, I THINK, but I can't be sure because the modem didn't RING when it dialed! The COMPUTER said it went, however, and I tried dialing AT&T, but they say they have no way of checking my accounts for a few days (told Pope I really didn't believe them). Then, in the middle of trying to leave a message for Ken, the buzzer goes AGAIN and it's a three-pound package from Texas marked "Refrigerate on receiving"! What IS this? Out come colored streamers, an envelope with four paper-expanding whistles, colored balloons, and candles, and a LEMON BIRTHDAY CAKE from Dining a la Card, which had been PROMISED if I'd gone to two restaurants in April, but I really had FORGOTTEN about! Tried some of the passable cake, called Pope and talked with him (even about his dying) for over half an hour, then LEFT a message with Ken's secretary who asked where I WAS, and she said she was sorry but I sounded EXACTLY like Judge Martin F., or someone like that. Called Arnold to leave a message, and put on Marilyn's noodle pudding from dessert for breakfast so I can taste it with my added apricot preserves and then ask if she wants to come over before Miss Reardon Drinks a Little and have birthday cake WITH me. Enjoying Spirits of the Jaguar about the Mayans in four hours taped from Channel 13, look forward to the final two hours of a much better (and sexier) 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and look at the jobs coming in. GREAT to have more work, and then NORMAN just called to say that the third act is GREAT in the drowning and the climbing the mountain (direct, touching, straightforward: "How can anyone who writes all that POPCORN [referring to my "fluff"] write such GOOD STUFF"). I was reminded of my four monologues being appreciated by VP when I read THEM, and he'll be coming back this weekend. MANY THINGS GOING ON. He also appreciated my HUMANITY to him yesterday. Shucks, twarn't nothin'!

5/20/97: at 1AM this morning I write a note that encapsulated what I've thought about for the past half-hour: a new WILL now that Mom's not the reasonable receiver of my estate and Dennis can't be my executor and Pope is thinking about finishing his before HE dies.

          LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF ROBERT ZOLNERZAK, DATED MAY 20, 1997.

My executor will be John A. He has keys to my apartment and will contact Arnold B., Pope H., Carolyn M., Vicki M., Charles M., to see if they want any material objects from my apartment. After they, John A., and anyone else whom those named six individuals may choose, have had a chance to take what they want, everything else I have should be converted to cash for easy divisibility.

FIRST: pay off my debts to my mother and/or my sister and anyone (including bank or credit card) else to whom I owe money.

THEN: from remaining amount, apportion according to the following percents, recognizing that my CHOSEN family has been more important to me than my BIOLOGICAL family since I moved from Ohio in 1957, and recognizing that, following my family, these following six individuals, two organizations, and last self-publishing task are among the most important elements of my recent life. Other individuals who were close to me were deemed "not to need" portions of my small monetary legacy. I hope that what remains of my material possessions will give pleasure to these groups and individuals.

25% to Rita Zolnerzak R. and her family
10% to Pope H.
10% to Susan M. B.
10% to Carolyn M.
10% to Sherryl F.
 5% to Village Playwrights for members' play-production funds
 5% to New York Gay and Lesbian Center for library maintenance
 5% to Bernice C.
 5% to Marjorie M.
15% to John A. for publishing my writings (plays, travel journals, and diaries) as much as reasonably possible with the funds available.

This official will is hereby signed by me on May 20, 1997.

                                                             Robert Zolnerzak

5/21/97: 8:15AM: Bed at 1AM this morning and up at 8AM, less than 7 hours sleep, just because I've GOT to finish most of the Human Development index today for THREE reasons: 1) to see how much time I'll actually BILL after I ALREADY sent two partial bills for $5040, even though I've only worked 29 hours on it so far, 2) to see how many LINES there will be to see how much I CAN bill, and 3) to get questions to David D. before Friday when he'll be giving over the book to Dubuque, Iowa! In addition, I feel this is my last FULL day of indexing (actually, the ONLY full day of indexing) before the trip, which will leave only the two small math indexes from California that I could probably finish in a day each if I really HAD to, and the Japanese encyclopedia that I could accomplish the needed 15 hours in TWO days if I had to, even leaving time for ANOTHER quick index or two that might be phoned to me in the LESS THAN THREE WEEKS before I leave on the trip, and with Pope's constant talk about dying, and my will-draft, above, I can fly with the feeling that it wouldn't really MATTER if something happened, which should lower the sick-anticipation of the flights considerably. Interesting times!!

5/31/97: 1PM: No more indexes, but there's still a LOT to do: going to the NYC Ballet three times on the $12 Fourth-Ring tickets, twice with Charles and once with Carolyn, showing the Africa/Tanzania slides last night to the B.s, Ken, Carolyn, and Charles, phoning Jean-Jacques this morning to get his OK to come to Paris on July 2 and stay through my departure for New York on July 8, phoning Rita to NOT give her my itinerary, with is OK with her, and we'll next talk in July after we BOTH get back from our vacations, and going to La Mama tomorrow and two other scheduled dinners next week. Got out lots of letters, kept track of accounts, got the relief from Spartacus that I don't HAVE to pay my estimated tax on June 15 just so long as I pay for ALL of it (without penalty) on January 15 of next year! And the weather's nice AT LAST---and even gave the Cave Art book back to Abby so the table is mostly clear of stuff, though the Tarzan tape to be returned to Arnold has no Tarzan!

6/3/97: 4:38PM: Finished with ALL the indexes here to do, went to the gym today, figuring to get in TWO more sessions before the last on Tuesday itself, since I need to be clean to sleep overnight on the plane to Madrid; and just updated the book-want list to take to Village Playwrights and the book sale at the Gay Center at the beginning of this month---convenient, AS I have to leave EARLY to buy film at B&H, it JUST occurs to me, so I have to get through this QUICKLY and print it out to produce the sheet of books wanted. Haven't called Tina about train times and prices from Bordeaux to Paris, made myself a note to tie up the papers and put them out TONIGHT, since I won't want to do it next week before I leave, and still have to fuss with printer ribbons, and I've GOT to GO!

6/4/97: 10:20AM: As I'm walking toward the subway entrance on Clark Street it hits me that I FORGOT the book-want list! Go back and, since I'd ALSO kicked myself for not taking down two handfuls of papers WITH me, I took the time to pack up two stacks of paper AND remember to CHECK for the book-list and pick it up after I forget it AGAIN in the flurry of opening the Audience Extras mailing to find that they hadn't sent my membership card for the SECOND year on the first try. Bought outdated film AGAIN from B&H, since it was such a bargain and WORKED last year, though this is actually a YEAR OLD ALREADY. But I put it in the fridge with the ten mailers, all bought for $55, which I have to add to the cost-list of the trip, which I completed yesterday. Checked the wastebasket and found I'd thrown out FIVE note-cards I'd written myself to do yesterday, leaving only THREE on the desk, adding FOUR this morning, so in three days I should have finished THOSE off. There's always such a CRUSH: starting LAST June with the dealings with Dennis and Mom into the hospital, then recently the time with The Director with Norman T., then all the indexes that made May a $10,000 month (if I include the TIME I put into the Japanese encyclopedia that I actually only billed in JUNE), even taking the time to do a month-by-month total of past earnings to see how far down these recent years will slip as I earn less and less. Then I added the "chore" of catching up with my videotape-rental card, which takes up lots of pleasurable time and takes my mind off my upcoming trip, and finally yesterday I had the gym to catch up with, and today I add going to Remsen to get current paperbacks of books I want to read on the trip, leaving almost a week for him to ORDER them if necessary, and adding more computer-time duties, too, doing a backup before I leave, clearing storage, catching up with MAS, increasing my easy-to-use address book of Internet addresses, sending out "I'm going on a trip" message. Feel almost STRANGELY calm about the upcoming trip, as if it's only "part of life," rather than an object of great angst AND Great Expectations. Suspect my "zip" will return ON the trip with good hotels and food and caves (and hopefully some interesting traveling companions), and I've even more or less gotten over the sadness of Dennis's death: life goes on, though limited because of less energy with age, orgasms becoming sadly less felt and less in demand, and even writing THESE pages less of an overwhelming demand!

6/7/97: 6AM: Saturday today. On Wednesday 6/4 I wake and it occurs to me that I got to bed at 2AM Tuesday morning after watching TV, and got to bed about 1AM that (Wednesday) morning and got up about 9:30AM, so I (false-started by putting my BEDTIME first and WAKING time second) made a list that changed my hours by ONE for the week before my trip, with a second (proper) list wake-bed  progression as follows: Tue 6/3 11AM/2AM, Wed 6/4 10AM/1AM, Thu 6/5 9AM/Mid, Fri 6/6 8AM/11PM, Sat 6/7 7AM/10PM, Sun 6/8 6AM/9PM, Mon 6/9 5AM/8PM, Tue 6/10 4AM/7PM (after a 6:20PM plane departure), Wed 6/11 scheduled for a 7:45AM landing in Madrid, a six-hour time-difference, which would be 1:45AM NYC time/ 6PM (midnight in Madrid, yet early), Thu 6/12 (Madrid time) 8AM/1AM, just about right. I phone Carolyn and change our 6:30PM Sunday dinner meeting-time to 5:30PM so we can chat, drink, and eat about 7PM so I can leave about 8:45PM and get home and to bed by 9PM (just about when it's dark enough to GET to sleep in a darkened room). Vicki thinks it's a great idea and agrees to make our tentative Saturday-night dinner at 6PM, but later she cancels, needing to pick up her grandkids at the airport. Then Ken calls last night and suggests dinner on Saturday at 131 Duane, which we establish at 7PM, which should get me to bed close enough to 10PM as makes no difference, glad that I don't have any other LATE nights planned. Of course, it doesn't QUITE work out EXACTLY that way: Thursday I TRIED to get to bed at midnight at 12:15AM, but then was hit with a TERRIBLE anxiety-attack about the trip, trying a sketchy Actualism and two counting-back-from-100 cycles and tossing and turning until 1:15AM, when I get up and scrabble through medicines to find I'm running out of Rohypnol, so I only take a 1mg tablet which at last lets my fevered mind get to sleep about 1:30AM, waking about 9AM Friday, an hour behind schedule. Friday is a rather depressed DAY, though I DID get a $2160 check from McGraw-Hill that I deposited immediately, at least being able to get a CLEARING date on the phone Monday so John can mail out SOME credit-card payment to FIRST Visa, which charges me a Finance Charge I don't quite yet understand, so I PHONE them and find that I should have READ their new letter-of-terms in May: EACH "convenience check" is now charged at $10 or 2% of the check, whichever is MORE---I say it's not very convenient but of course have to pay for my mistake this once. Go through all the CANCELED credit cards and rubber-band the old statements and file them: no longer have ANY Mastercards but I DO now have ONE Visa and ONE Amex after I finish paying off (and keeping "just in case") FIRST. Feel rather GROGGY as I have breakfast at 7AM, but I'm ON SCHEDULE if I can keep it up by going to bed at 10PM tonight and getting up at 6AM tomorrow!

6/9/97: Monday 4:15AM: HUGE dinner with Ken on Saturday night at 131 Duane is over just after 9PM, but I go to his apartment and look through his good guide books and we talk about stuff and find where the hotel is and I leave about 10:30, feeling really TIRED. Get to bed at 11:15PM, BEHIND my schedule, but wake at 4:15AM Sunday, feeling rather decent, try MAS again with no results, read through the Times except saving the puzzle for the plane flight, have breakfast about 6AM, not really feeling hungry at ALL, and finish reading Eco's Island of the Day Before to get THAT out of the way, then at 8:30AM put on the tape of Joseph Campbell's Mythos recorded over 6 hours last night, but feel so tired that I keep dozing off, missing stuff, and having to rewind and play it over. John says he watched part of it and it seemed very disorganized and hard to follow and impossible to say afterward what he really SAID. Finish that about 2PM and don't feel like doing ANYTHING industrious, so I simply put on Stonewall, which isn't very good, till 3:30 and Flirting with Disaster, overdone but amusing, till 5:10, and get to Carolyn's at 5:40PM after walking along over-bright Hicks Street, warm enough in the afternoon sun to take off my jacket. She makes beef stroganoff by 7PM and I eat too much again, and she has a HUGE fat-free fruit and ice-yogurt dessert and I leave VERY tired about 8:45PM, almost dark, and get to bed at 9:15PM, falling asleep without too much trouble, wake at 2AM and doze to 3:50AM.

6/10/97: 4:37AM: DID get to bed at the scheduled 8PM last night, but though I felt calm enough to do an effective Actualism meditation, I still wasn't asleep when I finished, so I did a series of ineffective "counting backward from 100" but flicked on the light at 9:03PM to decide I just HAD to have a sleeping pill, and even THEN I lay till about 9:20PM without getting to sleep. Woke with the clear memory of a non-threatening dream [DREAMS:6/10/97] (Pope did a reading for me yesterday when I took my spare keys to him for Paul's possible use, and he went on and on about Jupiter or Saturn being in my house of inventiveness and travel all this year, and how that was very good for writing creativity on the play, and how the aspects were good with Venus starting in my house of travel on 6/5, the day I actually "started" my trip by beginning my count-back of hours to living in Spain and France for a month, and he speaks of lots of changes around June 20, the full moon, and June 21, the summer solstice, but all from good to the better. He says it'll be particularly "open" from June 25 to July 8, and I told him of my fantasy of meeting someone [probably a straight couple] on the trip who will be pleased to transport me to pleasant meals and tourist destinations after the guided portion of the trip ends in Bordeaux on 6/30.) I woke apparently unaffected by having taken a sleeping pill, the first of a pair last night and tonight, and hope I experience much LESS of the awful fatigue I've felt the last few days with five hours sleep on Sunday morning and six-and-a-half hours sleep on Monday morning, with the same six-and-a-half hours' sleep this Tuesday morning, which will still leave me tired enough by 7PM on the plane for Madrid that I'll be able to fall asleep and sleep MOST of the seven-hour flight, so that I won't feel TOO exhausted on even my very first day in Spain, on the first NIGHT of which I'll get my first REAL sleep, the LAST of which was the eight hours I got last Thursday morning, flanking the seven-and-a-half hours of Wednesday morning and the seven-and-a-half hours of Friday morning, giving a total of 43 hours for the past seven nights, just a fraction over an average of SIX hours for the past WEEK: no WONDER I've felt tired. While trying to get to SLEEP last night, I recalled with some distress that I haven't felt really HAPPY for the last couple of days: getting up early, eating meals when I didn't feel like them, doing things before the trip (even if only watching videotapes): it's all been from a sense of DUTY and even SACRIFICE to the time-change and trip coming up! Look forward to the first day of the trip when I feel HAPPY to have signed up for it, rather than trying with dogged persistence to not feel depressed about having scheduled it. Also coalesced the feelings that my personal relationships have not been the most POSITIVE: 1) talking with Rita about Mom's sad condition, 2) talking with Pope about his waning physical strength, 3) talking with Danny about his loneliness and disgust with the gay world, 4) talking yesterday with Spartacus about his frustrations with lack of tour-guide work, 5) talking with Marilyn about her depression and desperate search for a man to take care of her, 6) talking with Carolyn about her renewed traumas with Kimberley, leaving only Vicki and Charles with vaguely optimistic outlooks in my life. I've made a small list of things left to do today before leaving on what I now think will be the SUBWAY for JFK: going to the gym and packing being the only details of any time-consuming length. I've already spent what seems like HOURS on the details of the packing: putting the piles of pills together, testing and changing diskettes in the laptop, going through books and maps of France and Spain, getting money together, paying bills, saying goodbye to people, piling objects on the table for my permanent duffel bag and my take-along Abercrombie and Kent shoulder bag. Haven't felt ANY appetite for ANY meal since Saturday's dinner with Ken, but feel that my stomach is NOW vaguely on Spanish time with 4AM breakfast here comparing quite favorably with a 10AM breakfast in Madrid, and I can always forgo the gym trip with a shower before I leave. Let's hope the 14-month expired Fuji slide films work as well as the outdated ones from B&H worked LAST year. AND I don't even get CLOSE to the 44 pounds baggage limit to carry on the A-train in ten hours! TRAVEL:FRANCESPAIN

7/13/97: Sunday, 12:30PM: WHERE AM I NOW? Back from the trip on Tuesday; Sunday Times all read, one on Wednesday, three on Thursday after Paul called on Wednesday to say that he'd be arriving on FRIDAY in time for dinner at Bouterin (there goes MY free time!); Paul come and gone without TOO much fuss (though he did page through MY porno last night before we fell asleep about 11:30PM, and he was up BEFORE 5:45AM to shut off the alarm I'd set for him at 6AM to wake him for his 6:30 taxi to JFK for his flight to San Diego, from which he'll return on THURSDAY, another two-day interruption of time to myself); two indexing jobs in, which is great: one from Garland on China like the one I'd done on Japan, though with lots of questions that I have to ask Helga tomorrow, and a journal from Plenum with questions for ANNE on Monday to see if it'll make me enough money to warrant my predicted headaches over it; nice talk with Rita yesterday, Mom in GOOD shape; two messages to Noel and Fran, latest this morning after talking with Pope about an hour (commiserating with manipulative Paul, and wanting more CONTROL over my life's hours) and finding that HE knows them as well or better than Mildred does; and jerked off A LOT: once on Tuesday night, TWICE on Wednesday, again Friday morning (before getting out of bed to sort through Visa slips for a final trip cost that goes OVER $300/day), and again THIS morning when I felt horny after Paul left. Now I'm to meet Marilyn at 1:30 for the Games Group at Lina's at 2PM, maybe to get a call from Don about meeting at his place this evening, now that he's completely moved in at LAST. STILL not quite caught up with jet lag, even though I attempted the melitonin therapy, by the fifth day STILL getting tired about 9PM though being able to stagger through until 11:30, but STILL waking at 5:30AM, and six hours is NOT enough sleep! Pleased with myself for getting to the gym on Thursday, which means I could have gone today again but MUST go tomorrow. Did one page of the CAVE notes on Friday and SEVEN pages yesterday, and almost decided to go back to them NOW before deciding to do THIS page to better reflect where I am NOW, rather than where I was two WEEKS ago. Not that my notes have given THAT much information: details of what drawings were IN caves are notably absent from my note-taking, which I hope the brochures and slides will remedy partly. Only about four CAVE pages left to type, so I hope to finish those quickly. Went through the Sunday Times and puzzles this morning neatly. Got enough groceries to survive on, Paul buying the milk and bread that I needed after my first short excursion for milk and salad stuff. And eating his chocolate-chip cookies. Sent off bills, sorted out mail by the ton (and RE-SORTED it when I "lost" my glasses-repair kit and retrieved the GARBAGE to see if I hadn't inadvertently thrown it out before looking in the bag of film in the FRIDGE and finding it THERE), and phoned a number of items, including another brochure on Angel Falls. Still have my VCR videotapes to watch, my camcorder tapes to watch, and the slides of the caves to intersperse with the slides from my trip, which I hope will return this week. Will reserve for Le Bernardin for Thursday, so with Le Cirque a week from WEDNESDAY all I have is La Caravelle to attend to COMPLETE the 10-stamp Perrier-Jouet champagne card offer. THEN I can call Norman and get back to the play, see about Ken's willingness for EITHER Angel Falls OR China/Tibet for NEXT year and get on THAT list, and AT LAST get back to throwing away books so that I can put more things on shelves so I can CLEAR OUT my apartment as it was before being loaded up with stuff from Dennis's apartment. And put more of the slides into trays; and fill a tray with "the best of the best" trip slides. And consider the video-computer interlink offered for a suspiciously cheap price by Damark. And get in touch with Charles, and visit the Y.s, and get more work so I can pay off my debt to Rita before much longer. Then listen to my new CDs, put away the final stacks of French and Spanish souvenirs from the trip, invite friends over for the trip-showing, rent more videos, get more Bjorn videos for copying, finally ask Marty about his cache of gay films, and do numbers of other things that will float to the top when THOSE things are all out of the way and I can start living "normally"---whatever THAT means!!

7/18/97: Friday 10:10AM: Videos (both taped by me and recorded by me) watched and copy gotten to Ken already. Suzanne Farrell going to Pope via Paul today or tomorrow. La Grenouille off my champagne stamp-list tonight, so only Wednesday's La Cirque will FINISH it! Told myself this morning that I should call Bill and Kevin and Eric and Andy from Village Playwrights; Andy to see if his performance is "worth the voyage." Temperatures over 95° for a number of days has caused the limit of air-conditioning: closing off the library and bathroom and kitchen and keeping the AC on all night ONLY in the living room (darkened) and bedroom. MUST get the statement from Republic today or will have to send off the Choice check regardless of balancing. Threw out old indexes, hoping to fill the shelves with new ones. Print up the summary sheet, the index-price sheet, and this to clear the printer. Owen called last night and said he was going to CompUSA today and might be able to get the 2.0-gig hard disk for $150 (plus tax, of course). He made encouraging sounds about the Damark purchase, too. Noel Y. phoned at 9:15 this morning to say they're still in the country and won't be back in the near future. It's nice they continue to think of keeping in touch with me (as David and Nell did INSTANTLY, as was to be expected). Think to start the Internet Attachment as a WordPad document, and then have to figure how to get unwanted documents OFF the document-list, which means that I'll have to start learning how to USE Windows95, rather than just REACTING to it. Remind myself that I still have to test out printer ribbons before sending out Modern China with the too-dim existing ribbons. Loathe to make a "do-list" because it so automatically generates a NOT wanting to complete the tasks, where "keeping them in mind only" keeps the pressure up that DOES get them done. Relaxed for an hour last night after the GREAT menu at Le Bernardin by reading random things in an old New Yorker---must eventually get through that stack of eight or nine old magazines, but no pressure, understand? MUST get started on the index today, so if anything good comes up I won't feel pressured by the work to have to deny myself any outdoor adventures. Think to take this to the bottom of the page, but that would REALLY be pressing matters! Why DOES the printer take so LONG to start printing?

7/28/97: 7PM: Menu from La Grenouille 7/18/97 with Paul: Bread sticks and rolls, cod on red pepper as amuse bouches. Then shrimp on morels(toughish shrimp, good morels); cold asparagus soup with creme fraiche and caviar; tuna and scallop carpaccio (one of the best-tasting RAW slices of scallop I've ever tasted); roast codfish on white beans and artichokes and chanterelles and bean sauce (too much ordinary-tasting fish); black bass on cauliflower and saffron with peppers and oils and caviar; GREAT roast foie gras with peaches and kumquat; filet mignon of lamb with almond couscous, with truffles and tomatoes and pepper. Granité of almonds is actually FEATHERY in texture. We had a wine of Sevres et Maine for the fish, and with the filet a half-bottle of 1993 Pauillac Chateau Longueville for $47, which wasn't that great. Mignardises included tuiles, cookies, gums, macaroons, a marzipan ROSE, and chocolate truffles; and for dessert an IMMENSE hot chocolate flourless cake and BITTER chocolate ice cream and three fruit sorbets. Just possibly worth the $196 for EACH person, though I had to over-praise the Pauillac to justify the price!!

7/31/97: 12:10PM: Three indexes to do! Printer ribbons actually sorted and put back on the shelf! Keogh-withdrawal form requested from Schwab! Owen informed that the Damark Grab-It came and he can install my 2.0-gig disk (and solve the recurrent "rattle" from my computer-fan?)! Norman over and I'm thinking about how to continue working on The Director. Too much time spent on FreeCell!! Slides set to show Ken for Saturday, sad that I don't have ANY spare empty carousel trays left: "only" have 11 of them?? Tibet-trip flights look AWFUL!! Looks like 12 hours L.A.-Beijing and 5-6 MORE on to Lhasa! Just left word with Vicki to talk before she goes to Long Island for a month. No one calls ME to have fun anymore, and I feel like I'm depressed and not as interesting as usual.

8/11/97: 9:35AM: Just recorded this morning's frustration-dream on DREAMS:8/11/97 and felt it might be connected with last night's extreme SEXUAL frustration on returning from Judy G.'s place in Queens: Just missed the Manhattan-bound 7 at the 46th Street-Bliss (yeah!) station, so I sat down to read and noted the guy lying in front of the bench his friend (?) was sitting on, across on the Flushing-bound side of the platform. Then a GORGEOUS Spanish-type sat down next to me: large used-but-polished black boots showing under tight navy pants with WHITE STARS on the seam-strips on either outside seam, TIGHT black strap-T showing WONDERFUL chocolate shoulders and biceps and massy pectorals cupped by the sheer silky shirt fabric. Marcelled slick-black hair over an angular face with ENORMOUS liquid-black eyes fringed with curly lashes over a straight nose, well-proportioned lips, and a Sebastian Junger jaw. He noted that the guy had now moved off the floor, after his "partner" left on the train, and was trying to make himself comfortable on the now-empty bench. "He had a good drink," Doll said to me with a smile. I turned to his magnetic dark eyes and open face with approval and tried to add something witty: "Maybe a few MORE than one good drink." Then we were aware that the guy's eyes were OPEN to vertical slits, regarding us warily from his lying-down position. Doll continued his negative comments and I said, "It looks like he can hear us," because he started mumbling in Spanish. Doll responded quietly in Spanish, and I thought I heard the word "faggot" from across the way and I THINK Doll said, "He has homo-fear because he doesn't know how to deal with his own feelings," and "He's saying terrible things about my mother." In fact, the drunken comments seem more directed toward ME, maybe because I was sitting next to someone who was so clearly GAY, but I COULD NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME respond in any way positively gay to this glorious person who seemed WILLING to chat with me openly. Adding to my frustration was the typical Rosamunde Pilcher-introduction of a set of beautiful, rich, contented, sexually diverse people who found each other fabulously attractive and would end up in lavish sexual embrace, and I was sitting on a platform next to a Doll and couldn't put seductive or even APPRECIATIVE words into my mouth for his hearing. We sat next to each other on the train, and I kept trying to think how to ask him where he was going (pretty clearly a bar or dance place), but just returned to my book in frustration. He said goodbye and dashed up the stairs to the downtown 2-3 track and hurried toward the back of the train, so I sat on a bench and continued reading. Then on THAT leg of my journey home were a couple of cute men, particularly a tourist-type in shorts with a large backpack who sat across from me and seemed fascinated by everyone around him: he was tall and thin, with smooth skin and frightened-yet-receptive eyes that on more than a few occasions glanced my way, and wonderfully kissable lips that I fantasized occupying hours of my avid tactile attention. How I hoped he'd get off at Clark Street, but he stayed on, and I got off to feel miserable about seeing such lovely possibilities but recalling with pain Monette's comment from Beauty of Men: we're past the time of exchanging glances that say "YES!" in an instant: now there's "oh, if only..." and "HE'S cute but I'M so old..." and other exercises in frustration. No good reminding myself that I would have been frustrated with such treasures even WHEN I was younger---at least I HAD encounters then that partly allayed the OVERARCHING frustration of living at that point as contrasted to living at THIS point. Watched TV tapes and played a few games of FreeCell (at least restricting myself to my FIRST failure) and went to bed to RECALL the sexual frustration and ADD the FINANCIAL frustration of being requested to pay for the trip in CASH, rather than with Platinum insurance-giving, month-delaying Visa billing. Debated starting lightwork, but THAT didn't work, and it seemed WARM in the apartment even though the thermometer read 72° outside. Feared the length of the flight to Beijing (though I consoled myself that it was HOURS less than the marathon from NYC to Melbourne), and grumbled at the dog-barks coming from downstairs last night AND this morning as I type this, AND get another call from Schwab ensuring I was "satisfied" with $7000.

8/20/97: 10:50AM: SO MANY PHYSICAL THINGS GOING WRONG: 1) Arthritis increasing in thumbs, maybe even in toes. 2) Weakness in walking long distances or even in running upstairs. 3) Depression still, though Dennis is dead and Mom OK in hospital. 4) Back pain which may be localized or another arthritis-symptom. 5) Anal pain recurred this week for the first time in a long while. 6) Eyesight getting worse: may have to start wearing reading glasses ALL the time, even for indexing. SO MANY AGING REMINDERS: 1) Physical things like all the above. 2) Emotional things like depression and over-gaming. 3) Books being thrown out as reminder of CHANGE of emphases through life. 4) Pain which seems like a life-constant now. 5) Money harder to come by: withdrawal from Keogh as SIGN of retiring. 6) Dull feeling: not even interesting to friends anymore. 7) Computer problems: mouse-jolts, printer delays, screen oddities. 8) Alimentary problems: gas, parti-colored feces, over-fullness long after meals into mornings. 9) Reluctance to get to work or play or anything useful. Even to get to THIS, which I should now think is FINISHED.

8/27/97: 11:50AM: [One week and one hour after ABOVE!] Depressing week since. DID get a few more indexing jobs, actually billing $4280 in August which, for an AVERAGE month, would mean more than $50,000/year. GOT a few of the jobs out and have only the BIG one left, but FORCED myself to get back to the play after finding that Charles didn't answer the phone. Only a FEW things on the out-table: Pope's article and tomorrow's Remsen Bookshop paperbacks. AND only a few things on the in-table: big index, play, and photos for Chinese visa! BUT I had a HARD TIME doing ANYTHING:  HOWEVER, now that I FOUND the Win95 manual (hidden among computer-pile I SHOULD get to!) and put the taskbar back at the bottom of the starting window AND find that the mouse is SOMEWHAT easier to use when it's not so humid, there aren't so many frustrations. Bathroom ceiling fell in Saturday morning and F. said on Monday he couldn't fix it until WEDNESDAY, which pissed me off enough to get a complaint-number from John and call for a rent-reduction form---AND I just had to piss in the KITCHEN sink since he's now WORKING on the ceiling at 12:35PM. DID get through to Charles who'll try to pick up tickets for Stoppard's Rough Crossing, and we're going to Once a Catholic at the Duplex tomorrow night, as well as the Beard tonight, which Bernice will NOT be joining me at though she IS thinking of joining the organization. But I went to Heights Video for two MORE tapes for the card-month of August, but could find no more. AND I finished reading Pilcher's Coming Home (now out in paperback) and most of Young Man from the Provinces right here to spend time SOMEWHAT usefully. AND got to STAMPS for three days last week "because I felt like it." Even got to discarding another 15 or so Heinlein books, but THAT is really taking a back seat. Only the need to have SOMETHING for next Tuesday's Village Playwrights first-of-new-season meeting drove me back to the play this morning, and I'm not even THERE yet: HAD finished most of 14 pages, and only got through page 15 before deciding that I "had" to finish off THIS page as WHERE AM I NOW? Putting on air conditioner as a noise shield as I'm becoming more and more sensitive to the noise from upstairs ALL DAY LONG. Can hope when school starts it'll diminish. Actually started wearing bedroom slippers for the first time this summer since my feet got overly cold when the air conditioner worked too well when it wasn't that hot outside, only humid. Owen is on vacation this week so I could put the list of things to ask him (slow WP printing, shaky mouse-board connection, B-disk "non-system" on booting) on the computer stack out of the way. Called Sherryl about the free NY Hall of Science today and tomorrow from 2-5, but she didn't call back yet. Don's leaving for California today but doesn't know if he'll be there to host me going to or coming from China, which would be VERY nice and extend a 23-day vacation into the "required" 28 days. John wants to check out KOALA on Internet, and I HAVE been checking MAS but I think I'll do THAT again, since I left messages saying I didn't know how to change HyperTerminal for ASCII or speed. MORE diversions BEFORE writing play!!

8/31/97: 9:40AM: "Feeling horny and I jerk off without bands and with new swatch of llama-cloth." I'd typed that as the last line of 8/31 dream on DREAMS:8/31/97, then decided it didn't fit into DREAMS and should go HERE, so I copied the block and brought it over. VERY sensitive currently to the noise upstairs, and wear earplugs much of the time when I'm working so I won't get my adrenalin going with anger against their CONSTANT moving, dropping, thumping, and squeaking floorboards. Wigstock scheduled today about 2PM with Charles and beginning to feel a slight pressure to finish the Marketing Research book index, so I thought to work before breakfast, but first had to get the dream transcribed and then bring the first line of this over. Thumbs hurting more and more with arthritis: awkward pushing holders into ends of sweet corn, writing notes, or thumbing through book pages. Really a PROBLEM!!!