1999
1/1/99: 10:50AM: Just made the last hundred pages into NOTEBOKB (and ran through it to make sure it was THERE) and deleted the stuff from NOTEBOOK and started THIS---also proving that my computer could handle the changeover to 1999, at least. Missed the numbers 3-5 of the WQXR countdown, and think that Internet might have the list. No response YET to my sending the "sample" to Kathleen last night. Mildred called this morning at 9:15 and talked till 10:05, apologizing because she didn't remember I'd told her not to call before 10AM. Out in the cold to get my pills, and took one about 10:30, better than the 12:30 yesterday but STILL not "last thing at night," before my blood test. Fun that this is REALLY page "201" just before year 2000! As I noted that 12/30 was "the next-to-the-last-day in the next-to-the-last year of the millennium." A bit concerned with the FIVE indexes on my plate, but doing SOMETHING on Grade 7 and finishing Grade 11 in the two MAIN projects will suffice me till I start on the Watson-Guptill books. AND I've got to locate my 1999 CALENDAR, and can now finish the LIFELIST for 1998. Wanted to get to the bottom of the SCREEN, but this will suffice for now, at 10:55AM, needing a SHOWER BADLY!
1/2/99: WQXR Musical Countdowns: For individual conductors, soloists, and instrumentalists: top down: Bernstein, Pavarotti, Perlman, Domingo, Yo-Yo Ma, Masur, Levine, Bartoli, Galway, Te Kanawa, Horowitz, Mehta, Terfel, Toscanini, Stern, DeLaRocha, Callas, Solti, Bjoerling, Ozawa, Rubinstein, Heifetz, Renee Fleming, Von Karajan, Brendel, Carreras, Slatkin, and Jessye Norman. For pieces: 47) Brahms Violin Concerto in A, 46) Saint-Saens Sym no. 3, 45) Prokofiev Symphony Fantastique, 43) Holst Planets, 42) Ravel Bolero, 41) Tchaikovsky PC 1, 40) Puccini Tosca, 39) Mozart Don Giovanni, 38) Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, 37) Verdi Traviata, 36) Mahler Sym 4, 35) Copland Appalachian Spring, 34) Orff Carmina Burana, 33) Tchaikovsky Sym 5, 32) Verdi Requiem, 31) Bach B Minor Mass, 30) Mozart Sym 40, 29) Schubert Sym 9, 28) Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 27) Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, 26) Rachmaninoff PC 3, 25) Bizet Carmen, 24) Tchaikovsky Sym 6, 23) Brahms Sym 1, 22) Sibelius Sym 2, 21) Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E, 20) Mahler Sym 2, 19) Mozart Marriage of Figaro, 18) Bach Brandenburg no. 1, 17) Puccini Boheme, 16) Mahler Sym 1, 15) Mozart Requiem, 14) Brahms Sym 4, 13) Beethoven Sym 3, 12) Beethoven Violin Concerto in D, 11) Schubert Trout Quintet, 10) Mozart Sym 41 (Jupiter), 9) Handel Messiah, 8) Rachmaninoff PC 2, 7) Beethoven PC 5 (Emperor), 6) Beethoven Sym 6, 5) Beethoven Sym 7, 4) Vivaldi 4 Seasons, 3) Dvorak Sym 9, 2) Beethoven Sym 5, 1) Beethoven Sym 9. Most of these titles from the INTERNET!!
1/4/99: Siskel's top-ten movies: 1) Babe: Pig in the City, 2) Thin Red Line, 3) Pleasantville, 4) Saving Private Ryan, 5) Shakespeare in Love, 6) The Truman Show, 7) Antz, 8) Simon Birch, 9) There's Something About Mary, 10) Waking Ned Devine. Ebert's top-ten: 1) Dark City (!), 2) Pleasantville (Siskel #3), 3) Saving Private Ryan (Siskel #4), 4) A Simple Plan, 5) Happiness, 6) Elizabeth, 7) Babe: Pig in the City (Siskel #1), 8) Shakespeare in Love (Siskel #5), 9) Life Is Beautiful, 10) Primary Colors.
1/7/99: 4PM: Sometimes it goes well, sometimes it turns to shit: tried to set up my "alternate" keyboard and transform my REAL keyboard into something that won't WORK. Call John, who's waiting for a call, and when he comes over a half-hour later it WORKS!! NO idea what "fixed" it, but I went back in and TOOK OUT the alternate changes! Printing out Gift of the Alien for Out on the Edge deadline of 1/10 SHOULD have been over by NOON and is JUST finished. Now to finish the Movie index that Victoria did NOT get back to me on, and try to get another grade to Kathleen before I leave for Scarlet Pimpernel, meeting Spartacus at 7:15PM, and I'm NOW starved for lunch, but getting this sheet printer out to get the last sheet (SO MANY MISPRINTS!) of the play out of the printer. And then the Springer-Verlag index will come and I'll have ANOTHER task before even LOOKING at Holt's Grade 7 FILES, let alone the corrections to the INDEXES themselves!
1/19/99: 10:35AM: WHERE AM I NOW? I'm so CRABBY: angrily pushing open door at Clark Street each time it's blocked, angry with D. when my 9:05AM appointment isn't seen until 9:40AM for no obvious reason, angry with the INDEXES which are giving me so much MONEY! To try to "placate myself," I sit on the Promenade in the brilliantly clear air, looking over the hills of western New Jersey, the morning misty air over Staten Island, the glowing tip of the Statue of Liberty, the workmen at the piers blocked off from public access below. Thank God TODAY will see the end of the physics index for Springer-Verlag, and getting near the end of Grade 7, phoning Hunter to deliver the missing pages for the Communications Handbook. Breakfast microwaving, doctors' appointments set, Beard tomorrow night, TV almost caught up with---though I should see about comparing prices with Damark's dual-VCR at J&R, and even accepted another index from Princeton, pages coming in three weeks, and nothing heard on the Coleman grade-indexes. So it'll be better VERY soon, and I can return to my lazy life: just past 501 hours on Holt: that's more work than in a USUAL YEAR! No WONDER I'm feeling overworked and crabby and PUT ON!
1/23/99: 5:15PM: Few minutes to kill before MAN at 6PM: finished the Holt Grade 7 AT LAST today at 12:30PM, GREAT relief to Express Mail it off before going to the Brooklyn Museum for a disappointing Qajar exhibit, but I've DONE it, and balanced checkbook, looked through the mail, found through Vicki that Sherryl's procedure was VERY good on Thursday, and now I can RELAX a bit before getting to Grade 8, starting down on my "to-do list after Grade 7," and have a Springer-Verlag 161-page index on my table now, no big deal. Next to finish typing the LIFELIST---AND almost finished with Rita's oranges and grapefruit!
1/24/99: 4PM: NY Times and NYC Ballet yesterday, taking New Yorkers to Pope and meeting Alden and his girlfriend, and almost-not-meeting Mary V. and getting three envelopes of stamps before the totally new ballet program. Back to play FreeCell and talk with people and watch the Golden Globe awards WHILE doing FreeCell. Jerk off and bed early. This morning, about 9AM, I decide to see if I can solve the SECOND "impossible" FreeCell: #3289---and it GOES, on the 8th and final column, though I have a few problems NOTATING how I did it and REPEATING it enough so that I KNOW how it's done. Well, so at 10:30AM I decide to try the LAST one: #1941. Try the first column and think it looks hopeful, but it's not working. Then try the fourth column and it's a real bomb. Try column 3---and it WORKS!! Astounding! I know it's HSDC ace-order, so it's pretty clear how to start or it'd be HCXX. But I CAN'T find it! Try and try and TRY, and finally at 12:30 my feet are cold (it's snowing big flakes that aren't accumulating), so I turn on the radiator and have BREAKFAST! Carolyn calls, Spartacus calls, I phone Spr-V for pages and Richard (who tells me to MAIL him the "flow chart/flowchart" pages), get the AMSCO pages, and go BACK to trying to find the solution. Try and try---and FINALLY get it, just about conclusively proving to me (having done over 7600 of the 32000, almost a quarter of them) that they're ALL solvable. Send a triumphant e-mail to Rita, then decide---JUST before I continue transcribing my LIFELIST---that I'll write a bit of THIS. Also note that my left shoulder SEEMS to have stopped hurting after the cortisone injection on Thursday! Will have to go easy at the gym (three days ago I did NO upper-body work---well, no ARM work, except biceps) for the next week and a half anyway, but it looks GOOD. AND my "liver" seems to have stopped hurting, too. Pity my cums aren't more forceful---more ABRASIVE recently than SENSUAL. But "when you're hot----" is still best. It just feels SO good not to have a REAL DEADLINE for the first time in MONTHS! And now that I'm pretty much FreeCelled out (calling us FREECELLERS to Rita), I can hope to get SOMETHING constructive done each morning before the sybaritic individual takes over and PLAYS. Realize, with Powys, I don't have BOOKS that I just like to sit down and READ: his are more like ASSIGNMENTS, but then I'm about through with his third enormous tome, and will start OTHER!
2/16/99: 1159PM: Just came from the Beard Foundation, and took pains to eliminate misspellings from five words in seven different ways to make this accurate, despite my stonedness: dined at the Beard for the Carnevale, which Ken said he'd only THEN realized had to do with the Tuesday before Lent, or Mardi Gras, and I showed him a corner of the silver-glitter eye-mask that I brought along in case everyone decides to celebrate without having announced it, and a number of times through the evening I reminded everyone, as I reminded myself, that a year ago I was in Florence, being spritzed with shaving creme on my way to the Enoteca for a disappointing Tuscan feast (though I had no time to describe the lovely Japanese couple to anyone) for not enough quality for too much money (and there should be some way to preserve my numerous misspellings WHILE getting out the sense that I so much want to convey AT THIS moment about the noetic beauty of self-existence), also in the service of the celebration of the season. I didn't recall Mark's name as I greeted his tallness when we entered, but he said it often enough that I could use it "casually" so that he knew I knew it, and I motioned to him across the cocktail area: "Are you sitting at Table 1?" and he nodded yes, and I felt sorry when he sat next to the woman he seemed to be with (Fran) who sat next to Ken at the table, but then a couple of young women seemed to want to sit together, and the maitre'd talked to Mark and he moved to sit next to ME, and I asked if he'd COME with Fran, and he said he'd come alone and talked to her because SHE was alone, but he was sitting next to ME, and he didn't talk to the glum older man to his left, so I kept plying him with questions which magically led him to other topics which kept the conversation going, and I ended up whispering to Ken, "The last few evenings have been a disaster, but THIS is a great evening," and to lengthen it, when I left, I walked from the subway to sit on the Promenade for a half-hour, with that TYPICAL expansive feeling of wonderful all-love, and MARVELED at the civilization that I was regarding: Wall Street, Village, and Midtown to the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Tower (and I LOOK at the typed word "Chrysler" and decide it MUST be right, but I'm almost typing MORE false letters than correct letters, and NOW at 10:12AM I feel SO drunk I can HARDLY continue, but I type and backspace and take out the wrong letters HOPING to convey the MAGIC and the BEAUTY of the evening, the connection with the nights when ALL WAS ONE and I knew I had the best-possible life, and knew what there was to know, all this on the verge of throwing up because of the booze in my system, yet I persist, and knock out the extra letters, and backspace, and try to capture the MAGIC, and the INTENSITY of the evening, drunk but clear, loving the lights and the colors and the cars, not knowing I'm looking at them, and the charm of Mark, and the neediness of Fran, and the sullen sadness of the guy to Mark's left who doesn't enter the conversation, and I see that I'm at line 7.5, and wonder if I can persist to line 10.66, when I finish the page, and I've ALREADY come SO FAR, and hope I've related the ARCHETYPAL magic of the feeling of "This is special," and "This is to be retained," even though at the moment I feel like vomiting, and even looking at the screen makes me dizzy, and it's 12:18AM and I demand of myself to get to the bottom of the page, having felt GOOD as I hadn't in YEARS, and debating going home and jerking off AGAIN, though at the moment that seems QUITE impossible, and I'm now at line 8.67, and only a DOZEN more to the bottom of the page, and I'd put on my Japanese robe, thanking Yen, or whoever gave it to me, and sweating, and feeling that I'm going to be sick, and making more mistakes, but feeling that I'm nearer to the bottom of the page, and I've TRIED, at least, to convey the magic, and beauty, and completeness of the evening, with the booze, and the reflection of the past, and having finished the dental appointment, and it's now 12:21AM, that magic address-number, and I just have a FEW lines left to type before I can finish, and sit on the pot, and shit, and vomit, knowing that I was TRANSCENDENT this evening, and I can't in ANY way capture it in words, though I try as hard as I can, and this is the last line, and when I finish I can PRINT it and STOP it!
2/20/99: 8:55AM: Went to bed 1:20AM and got up at 8AM the previous day, so last night I felt almost like I was feverish, or coming down with something, as I finished proofreading and printing the horrible name-index for Birkhauser and went to bed at 10:22PM, almost instantly to sleep, woke at 1:50AM to pee, came awake again at 4:55AM for a moment, then woke at 6:15 to record the dream [DREAMS:2/20/99] I just had, and then actually got up at 8:15AM for my hepatitis tests and to deliver the index, having slept ALMOST ten hours, MORE than making up for what I'd lost before, and GET the test and deliver the mail package and now ready for BREAKFAST before a busy culture day: Moses und Aron and Shostakovich 7th.
2/22/99: 9:42AM: Just recorded two VERY detailed dreams on DREAMS:2/22/99, and still don't feel quite AWAKE. So MUCH seems to be going wrong: most recently the observation last night in the mirror that my right armpit appears quite enlarged from swelling lymph nodes, even enlarging the right margins of my breast, and I'm worried about my immune system and the feeling for the last few days that USUALLY toward the end of the winter, when I'd not been plagued with colds, when I'm nearing the finish of a huge project my determination to continue flags and I come down with some kind of cold to "occupy my time" before the next project comes along. That might explain the odd RELUCTANCE I have to actually FINISH the penultimate Holt Grade 8 (though there are more and MORE pages revealed as not even present as TEARSHEETS [other than to say they've been KILLED] so that I really CAN'T finish). When I told Mildred that I'd phoned the "late-life anxiety" number from a WQXR ad, she pooh-poohed me and said I didn't have causeless free-floating anxiety, I might be using that as an easier term than DEPRESSION, which might in fact be the case, but there seem to be LOTS of things to be CONCERNED about: 1) my increasing arthritic pain, 2) my left-tongue, which hasn't yet healed from my six-days-ago traumatization on my replaced lower cap, 3) my abraded tooth margins on both the lower left AND the lower right, 4) my enlarged armpit observed last night, 5) my constant feeling that something's wrong (and now beginning to at assorted times actually PAIN me) with my liver, so much so that Dr. C. agreed that I should be tested for hepatitis to explain my elevated SGOT readings, 6) my horrid glimpse of OVERHANGING stomach in profile at the gym, 7) my increasingly less pleasurable orgasms, coupled with 8) my increasing tendency to chafe my cock-shaft edematous each time I cum, 9) my increasingly erratic eating habits, gorging at a 12:30 brunch yesterday, then having four small slices of cake at "Sweet Tarts" for All Out Arts, then managing to avoid any goodies at Lina's until dinner at Dynasty, but then filling up on Cheetos while watching late-night television before taking my pills at 12:30AM THIS morning. 10) Then my eyes have been increasingly crusted when I wake, 11) my left-shoulder pain seems to be coming back, possibly aggravated by putting grade-sheets onto the floor so often, so I'm glad I have only one full grade left, 12) dislike of the now-present Sports index for Princeton University Press and HATRED of the upcoming World History index for Amsco, which I feel VERY reluctant to turn down, but WANT to, 13) despair of finding someone to travel with since I've seemed to permanently miss the Alitalia cheap flights to Rome by March 15, 14) renewed sadness over Michael's refusing our relationship, brought on by being unable to sell his ticket to Saturday's Shostakovich's 7th Symphony at BAM (no one COMES to Brooklyn WITHOUT a ticket, and then MANY people entered early for the 7PM orientation talk) and telling the tale last night to Lina, who hadn't heard yet, 15) walking down the street to the subway to Sweet Tarts, thinking I wasn't REALLY looking forward to GOING there or reading more plays for the festival, AND going tomorrow to Village Playwrights, who STILL bring in nothing, and I've got so many things that I do because THERE'S NOTHING BETTER TO DO, like Mildred with her real-estate dealings ("What else would I DO??!!"). And the thought last night that IF I were really sick unto death, it might be ABOUT TIME, for the amount of pleasure I've been getting recently, and maybe that IS depression!
2/25/99: 10:05AM: Already took 25 minutes typing DREAMS:2/25/99 about the source of my thoughts below: in the "14 days" (read, 2-3 years) left of "my vacation" (read, my time at 167 Hicks) how will I find the time to sort through my "20 body bags" (read, apartment STUFF) before I have to "go home" (read, move to Cadman Plaza)? Lie thinking about BOOKS to throw out: even fleetingly think of SCANNING pages from, for instance, Heinlein books, rather than tearing them out and filing them (to fall apart into yellowish wood-fragments in great time). Benefits of CD-ROM: interspersing TEXT and PICTURES, so that EVERYTHING could be saved on a PERMANENT (as opposed to the transitory video- and audiotape) medium. Again rehash Arnold's agonies with tons of stuff even AFTER he left most of his cassette tapes, reel-to-reel tapes, and many of his books behind. And gave National Geographics to ME! To add to MY burdens! What of the endless days that I predicted for my nineties, when I'd leisurely thumb through all the saved books and writings and souvenirs and "distill" them into something meaningful and condensed, which now seem unlikely since I've even NOW progressed to a "just throw it out" stage rather than a "let's see what the valuable parts of it are, to save" phase. What if something IS wrong with my liver which will NEGATE those leisurely years? I think I should NOW start carting down one bag per day of stuff to throw out, even BEFORE the final year before moving makes it mandatory---knowing full WELL how I resent doing things that have piled up for the last minute! But I'm probably repeating what I said before, and just adding another page of typed stuff to my stack which will have to be gleaned (my writings! NEVER!), and I'm hungry for breakfast now at 10:30AM, having been interrupted by a deliveryman whom I didn't go down for because I heard Judy chatting with the parents of the "cute baby" downstairs and figured they rang my bell by mistake AGAIN, and I wasn't about to make a fool of myself and shout down, "Who is it?" when it was CLEAR it was Judy. And she's up there moving around NOW, rather than at 11:30 or even 12:30, and NOT about to move though Mrs. R. offered them $16,000, up from the first $10,000, and John advising them not to take less than $50,000, which will take a LONG time in coming. So they're going to be UP there all the time I'm HERE!!
3/2/99: 11:30AM: Watched (most of, since I hadn't realized it started at ten minutes BEFORE the hour and lasted AFTER the hour!) Hildegard of Bingen who went through TORTURES of the body, "bolstered" by the Virtues of Humility, Love of God, Pillar (who praised the upstanding rigidity of God in her cave of rock, um-hmmm), finally seemed to succumb to a man (the Devil, of course) and Virginity kept praising her own glories, yet talked of her "marriage to the King of Kings (who has the Cock of Cocks?)" (yet another example of the double-headedness of religions everywhere). WE would be so quick to condemn the Muslims who clitoridectomize their women and keep them from public sight, yet we extol VIRGINITY, which is keeping woman's ESSENCE away from mankind, while twisting themselves around to get the Christ-child born ANYWAY, so it must have been a VIRGIN who conceived a child, while taking our minds away from the copulation that was needed to create EACH of us. The HORROR of religion which does such CRAZY things in the name of an "afterlife" which has no hope in HELL of existing, anywhere anytime, and all these suffering beings don't even have the comfort (or discomfort) of KNOWING that they'd been cheated when there IS nothing to follow their sacrifices and mortifications of the flesh (which is really a mortification of the SOUL of mankind) to gain their future goals of being covered with jewels---SURE! Each "outflowing river of fire of love from God (orgasm?)" and "melting ardor of womankind (again cum?)" only serving to stoke MY fires of resentment and hatred of ALL these dirty-old-man's religions that desire MAINLY to keep the women FREE from men---now WHY would they want to do this, and then say children are BEFORE the age of reason so that they can fuck THEM with impunity when they bolster their guilt about their attraction to men THEIR OWN AGE, which is obviously wrong to their sanctified minds. Can't BEGIN to transcribe here my disgust with religions in every way!
3/10/99: 10:30PM: OBSESSION: Just HAD to get rid of the last carbon-copy printer paper without having too much left over to "use" in "pieces," so when I had 35 pages left for a 33-page index I figured it was PERFECT, but the printer messed up one page and then I inadvertently printed a page, so I had to do the BILL in "clean" paper, in GREAT contrast to the old stuff, which is FINALLY gone COMPLETELY, and I didn't even need THIS fall-back for any "last" pages left over. Recorded the dreams [DREAMS:3/10/99], put away the mail, filled the two Express Mail packets for the Sports index, checked AOL to find no new mail, Juno for the message from Kathleen to "trash the hard copy" of her job, and emptied the wastebasket after filling the humidifier and checking with Audience Extras and calling Ken about going to the Beard tonight and trying Charles to gossip about how Mildred gets when she has TWO martinis, as she did at dinner at American Park last night when SHE trashed the place (which wasn't THAT bad), starting with my GREAT mushroom soup-of-the-day, but ending with just awful Pear Cider and a not-so-great chocolate souffle cake. Then FINALLY got word from Richard S. that I should FINAL-EDIT Grade 8, which will put me onto the LAST book of the series, Grade 6, which will take a WHILE to finish, since I have fewer than HALF first-pages for the entire book. Down to three index-cards: one from Watson-Guptill (which won't be here for a week yet), one from Holt, and a quickie from Springer-Verlag. THEN maybe I can start throwing out books so that I'll have someplace to store the ones I just bought on Monday on my trip to Strand Bookshop for something to READ after I finished my LAST book-to-read. AND I can start getting videotapes to see if my double-barrel VCR actually copies over copy-protect. Lots of stuff by "default" on the shelf, not to mention the stack for TODAY: gym, St. Francis slide-show on the African Burial Ground at 6PM after taking the Beard March Calendar to Shelley before going to the Beard with Ken tonight. Sort of worried all last week about "finishing" grade 8, and even NOW I'm doing THIS page as part of a LARGE self-conspiracy NOT to get to the final phases, and I'm still waiting for three pages with corrections, though Hunter may have ALREADY sent them, since I got his mailing postmarked March 2 only on March 8, and he may have sent me something that I'll get today or even tomorrow, but I can't check with him since he isn't IN today. AND I have to balance that old "when I finish with everything and have no more pressing jobs to do, I usually get a COLD" feeling that I had for the last few days, or even WORSE, the feeling of "hallucinatory reality" that might have stemmed from eating too much mold on the loaf I sliced and froze from the Beard House and then toasted and ate before I noticed that one slice was TOTAL mold. Charles grinning in anticipation of ergotism when I just mentioned the mold. Put away the two large folders from Hallmark and Tribeca Pointe that we looked at yesterday: the first a retirement house starting at $3600/month including 20 dinners, the second a large building on the Hudson with great views for $2900-$4200/month for the ones we looked at between the 8th and 30th floors, and it's even RENT STABILIZED so there's only a one-year lease and the rent can go UP from there! My Keogh and IRA balance has gone DOWN for the month, probably bond PRICES going down, since some are more like 102 than like the 120 they were, but I fear there will be some MORE decreases. AND a trip still isn't decided: Paul hasn't gotten back to me about the Guianas, nothing from Fred about travel in India, nothing concrete about Ken's and my trip to Lyon in October, and I guess by default I'm not signing up for the $6000 round-England tour from the Explorer's Club, partly because I really don't know when Grade 6 will END, and I MUST be around for THAT! Now I'm almost at the bottom of the page, WQXR thundering in the background because the people upstairs have been thumping around CONSTANTLY for the last WEEK because they've supposedly fixed the floor to the bathroom and worked in the kitchen and other rooms, but it's taking MUCH too long for them to SETTLE DOWN! AND WQXR has MANY too many ADS all the time! Cold spell for now, wearing two sets of socks all the time, and now it's 12:40PM and I've really GOT to get back to finishing Grade 8 and the DAY-REST!
3/17/99: Catch up on lots of notes stored atop "the stack" on my desk:
From 8/12/98: Search for TV: 1) Marty's Mitsubishi 32" for $400? Sony is BEST. 2) J&R 27" Samsung $349, 27" Panasonic $359, 32" Samsung $599. 25" Panasonic TV/VCR $399. 3) WizDirect "Lowest prices" +10% OFF. 4) Wiz RCA 27" $299 + $25 delivery is what I end up GETTING, and it LACKS having easy color/speed knobs.
From 8/12/98: My Scott Stereo 11/67, out 8/98. A/C in 1976? Rollei Slide Projector 12/80. Sharp 25" (A&S) 12/12/84 $416.95, 13.7 years, or $30.50/yr, or 8¢/day!
From 8/26/98: In Lewis Carroll at Morgan Library, in a Jabberwocky satire: "in summer of an exhausted plodder-fag."
From 10/2/98: China Institute Series #1: 1) Imperial Era 220BC to Qing (Manchu) in 1911. non-Han started 1644. 2) Republic of China 1912-1949, 3) People's Republic of China 1949-Present. Population 1.2B, all having "Thickness of Chinese historical experience." HAN Chinese=95% of "China." 60M non-Han are 1) Uyghis Republic, agricultural nomads, 2) Tibet, 3) Yunnan and East: primitive: slash and burn, Han in valleys, primitive in hills. 4) Inner Mongolia. Rivers: Yellow, Grand Canal (800AD), Yangtze. 1) water for rice, 2) transportation, 3) DENSE population, 4) commerce economy [NO WAY feudal]. Languages: 70% Mandarin includes Peking, north, south, dialects. 30% Shanghainese, Cantonese, Hakka, and Other, have common WRITTEN language. They have "higher" language in common. Factors IN cultural homogeneity: 1) examination: most evolved in Qing system, bureaucracy, "tradition," power. Abolished in 1905. Emperor is "Son of Heaven," NOT hereditary: imperial system. a) county: start, b) prefecture as BA, c) provincial as MA, d) capital as Ph.D., defines "elite." 2) cosmology viewpoint: good integrated cosmos-family. British violated this: NOT being Chinese. Magistrates: 1) 1/4M people, 2) max 3 years, 3) serve 500 miles AWAY from home and wife's home. 3) Japanese ELEVATED traditionalism. 2B) Chinese ELITE rebelled against "tradition" and FRACTURED cosmological viewpoint, see farmers as PEASANTS. Confucians to Catholics to Communists. Became Chinese BURDEN.
From 10/3/98: 7:35AM: Back to Giftalie to add "He's never had an ORGASM" to 10:10AM to page 13, then on 10/12/98 finish to page 35. Submit to 1999 All Out Arts: rejected.
From 10/9/98: China Institute Series #2: "China in Focus" INTERMEDIATE beyond this. I. What WAS Imperial China? 1) Large UNIFIED continental empire. 2) Emperor ALL, people NOTHING: Dynastic cycle. 3) Confucian intellectuals (effete and backward) BAD. 4) China is FEUDAL (complacent and self-sufficient). Confucius: Hierarchical elitism: Moral: "If there IS God, we can't see him, so FORGET about him. Qingtao beer from GERMAN occupation of Shandong Province. II. Modern needs: 1) We MUST keep country unified, 2) we MUST keep Taiwan. III. Sustaining unity today: 1) Chinese culture: Confucianism, Buddhism. 2) Chinese WRITTEN language (pictographs READ, not SPOKEN), INTELLECTUALS pre-19th Century in Japan, Korea, Vietnam WORKED in Chinese. They TRIED, but COULDN'T phoneticize ideographs. IV. FIVE relationships: 1) Ruler to ruled, 2) Father to son, 3) Husband to wife, 4) Older brother to younger brother, 5) Friend to friend. V. Emperor: ruled because he had VIRTUE. Mandate of HEAVEN: decides AMONG virtues. Chinese STILL want "Big Daddyism" from government. Emperor NEED NOT be Chinese (like Manchu). In SOUTH Guizhou, Guangxi, Guangdon, Hainan, not "central" but ruled by territorial CHIEFS pledging ALLEGIANCE to Peking. Heilongjian, Jilin and Liaoning: three provinces of northeast: Manchuria. Did not include Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and Gansu till recently. Xinjiang added end of 18th Century. Tibet in 1940s. WESTERN Sichuan WAS East Tibet. Mongols "protected" Tibetan theocracy. Ginghai added recently. VI. Chinese taxation: from agriculture and state-monopoly industries. VII. People CAN rebel if state FAILS; if state PUTS DOWN rebels, state is STILL OK. VIII. Chinese ECONOMIC development/failure; she, like last week, says "not REALLY feudal." But "laissez-faire gone WILD." IX. Chinese today: 1) Past is everywhere, 2) State is paternal, 3) Fear of anti-statism, 4) Disdain of commoners by intellectuals, 5) Commoners CAN improve, protest, take INTEREST. Women were household managers. Men farm, women weave and make money. Today men LEAVE to work and women do it ALL at home. Most Chinese DISSOCIATED from Mao's "crazy" cultural revolution destruction. Women ARE powerful and in good shape now.
From 10/16/98: China Institute Series #3: China's language is VISCERAL. A. Language SPOKEN Chinese is singing, written Chinese is painting. Mandarin, national language, is spoken, based on Peking dialect. Not words, but characters: each has one syllable. Only consonant ENDING is N or NG, so in English "We go to Mo(tt) Stree(t)." "SH" is initial sound. B. FOUR tones: NO one is tone deaf: either you're deaf or you're NOT tone-deaf. Shi is high-tone, Wen is rising, Yong, sound hits bottom; Zai is falling, tz-sound. C. Radical (root) of character---all have them. Most basic elements of life: Woman, life, water, rain, about 175 roots. Tree+tree=woods; woods+tree=forest. Dust=3 deer on earth. Meeting=3 birds in tree. Book of changes--sun in window--no two days same, no two moments same. D. HIGH tones are masculine: dominating images. LOW tones are feminine, passive images. Chinese language is string of pearls, Western language is tapestry: one strand leaves, all fall. Chinese is highly structured and controlled language. Precision and sequence. Chinese: Tonight you no eat? Western: Do you eat tonight? WHO eats TONIGHT? In Chinese, adverbs come FIRST: "I with you eat." Confucius before eat, I eat, you tomorrow eat. No conjugations, suffixes, prefixes, prepositions, articles. Eat=mouth begging. Chinese negation: I no like you. English: I do (yes?) not (no!) like you. E. Dialects=spoken by five mouths. Pekingese KEPT relation between sound and character. In Shanghainese they mispronounce words. Four aspects of Chinese: sounds, tones, structure, and calligraphy. He rants AGAINST our looking DOWN on their (killing) human rights. Written language NOT changing. EACH character has ONE tone; there are 150,000 characters and about 2500 sounds. Always abstract BEFORE specific: adjective before noun, FEW punctuation marks, only started in 1912. Simplified style MUCH less aesthetic, but it's what you SEE. Idiosyncratic Talk.
From 10/23/98: China Institute Series #4: Arts: media and themes. 1. Jade: supremely valued substance (harder than steel). Jade purifies soul as it moves from body to afterlife. 2. Bronze: 15th Century BC (weapons, tools, and vessels). Tripod became symbol/prerogative of ruler. Formal and hard. 3. Landscape painting: end of Tang, start of Song, 950AD. Mirroring order of state and TINY figures. Civil-service exams about 1100AD. 4. Calligraphy. 5. Porcelain decoration (Song: Purity). Song love of precision and naturalness. 12th-13th Century: individual and "common" images. Poetry simply picture-field. Mongols abolished exams for a bit. 6. Cloisonné brought from Europe by Mongols in 1500s. First Ming emperor (illiterate) HATED schools, but later re-introduced exams. Emperor's mustache like dragon's whiskers. 7. 15th Century porcelains influenced by Tibet and Persia, who brought COBALT (blue and white). "Boneless" color paintings: no outlines. Late Ming: lohans were mountain hermits. Ming collapsed in decadence. 8. Manchus brought sumptuous color. Jesuit priests influenced enamelware in 1680. Indulged in tour-de-force fantasies. European ladies on yak-butter pitcher. Manchus expanded (by horses) empire. 9. Treasure boxes loved by Ching for "goodies" inside: Ching means cosmos inside. State became emperor's TOY, in private. "We need nothing" from England and West. But British ambassador said, "They're WEAK." He THOUGHT China was INSULATED for 5000 years. 10. Seals MEANT to perpetuate ownership-lineage. Scholar is QUINTESSENTIAL poet, calligrapher, and painter. Women "contributed less" to arts through history. I'm ready for series to be OVER now.
From 10/30/98: China Institute Series #5: "China Today" 1) 1900-1919: Nationalists wanted to oust foreign/Manchu/Ching rule, oust foreign missionary/religion, oust foreign profiteers in business, oust "principle of extratorriteriality" [sic]. "Society of Righteous Fists" became BOXERS, who rebelled in 1900. 1901 Empress restored, foot-binding out, women to school. 1905 end of imperial examination system. 1906 no torture-confessions, no "death of 1000 slices." 1908 empress died. 2) Sun Yat-Sen: earned MD in Hawaii and London. 1911 (for 47 days) President of First Republic. 3) 1911-1918 regional divisiveness. 4) 1919 Japanese take conquered German-held territory in China. 5) 1937-1945 Communist/Japanese/Chinese mosaic. 6) 1949 Chang Kai-Shek (Sun's "successor") defeated by Mao Tse-Tung. 1950 Mao in Moscow for "Friendship" (lots of Soviet control) Treaty with Stalin (70 years old). 7) 1976 Mao dies, "ending China's threat to Russian-Communist supremacy." a) Only ONE (failed) five-year plan for modernization. b) Great Leap Forward: "useless" steel, communal life/work. "Insanity" 1959-1962 FAMINE: "Leaders simply WRONG." c) Progress threatens Mao's Marxism: 1966: Cultural Revolution: "Ten years lost." 8) End of failure (Mao's hubris); 1978: Deng's economic reform. 9) Current: MAYBE political reform, maybe not ONLY economics. Jiang Ximin, Free radio, art, plutocrats, court reform. China STARTING to think of POSSIBLE humanism. "Ten years ago China MAY have split up; it's BEEN split LOTS in past. "The 'one child' policy WORKS in controllable cities, NOT in countryside." End 12:37.
From 12/26/98: "Memories" (from Cats) is Violetta's "Adio bel Pasato" from La Traviata, page 14 of Marty's Angel recording of Traviata.
From 1/1/99: 1998 movie-income worldwide: 1) Titanic 1.7B, 2) Armageddon 464M, 3) Saving Private Ryan 422M, 4) Godzilla 375M, 5) Deep Impact 348M, 6) Something About Mary 327M.
3/19/99: 3PM: Exhausted from watching Snake Eyes ending with Pope, getting new movies, going to the gym, and putting away the five tiny stacks of computer paper Pope gave me that I refused to postpone taking home simply because I was going to the gym first. "Start taxes" has been on my list for a few days now, and probably by now my $46,000 check has cleared and I CAN pay out large sums, but I haven't done ANYTHING except watch 2, 3, or even 4 movies in a day, and visit Carolyn in LICH on Wednesday and Thursday, and try to keep up with Audience Extras, though I didn't go myself to see Winterset last night when both Charles and Mildred refused to go with me. Did Lightwork in depression over Mom in the hospital, Carolyn in the hospital, and Pope thinking he might HAVE to go to the hospital: and the "Vision" energy revealed the helpful advice that these problems are really those of OTHERS: I can SEE them, but I don't have to PARTAKE of them; I can ASSIST in listening and visiting these people, but I don't have to get sick myself, or worry about my getting sick, or feel that I'm particularly burdened with sick people. Usual reluctance to return to the Holt work, but this is the LAST book, and I'm getting the LAST collections in and I'll be FINISHED with it---at least it will make any OTHER project look trivial, though the Watson-Guptill "80-page catalog" turned into 180 pages with MANY on a page with a LONG last year's index. Just hope I don't get a call from Rita that I have to come down to Florida for a funeral before all THIS is taken care of. And the FIRST "tiny stack" of three pages is in the printer, with large effort, and this will be the first page typed on it, and I'll have to come up with a few dreams and more notes to take care of the remaining two pages, since I'll be compulsive about THIS as I am about almost everything. Poor Mildred, having to "toilet" for four hours every morning for her intestinal ailments, prohibiting her from going out late last night so she can be ready at 10AM this morning, and thank goodness Charles was willing to take the second "Religious Music" tickets for BAM this evening, AND will join me for the lecture beforehand, eating hopefully at Henry's End AFTER the performance, ready for Arnold's party on SUNDAY afternoon.
3/31/99: 3:05AM: It's FINISHED, it's FINISHED! Still have to talk to Richard about WHEN something else may come in for me to do with REPRINTS, and get rid of LOTS more paper. My check has cleared and I've PAID OFF all my debts to Rita and Mom as of tomorrow. Now waiting for a call from Pope---but I'll leave word on HIS machine! THEN I can go to the gym NOW---at 73° outside!!
4/8/99: 10:35AM: Printing out DREAMS:4/8/99, waiting for Hector to arrive to look at the leaking bathroom faucet and the remains of many leaks from above. I only hope they KEEP banging around upstairs and---and the doorbell rings! 11:35AM: They leave to buy supplies: what a GREAT guy Hector is! (Though he's NOT the sexy guy who knocked on my door when he was working upstairs that gave me pleasant fantasies of erotic sex last night before sleeping.) Throw out old indexes to add THAT bag to the stack of plastic and paper to be taken downstairs for trash. Hector wants to paint "the first two weeks of next month," but I say that will have to depend on getting about half my books thrown out, which he can agree with. Richard tells me there's NO chance of having to do anything for reprints, and certainly nothing in the next four months! I can travel!? Maybe just recorded my LAST index??? Pope's "birthday" reading when I went to pick him up off the floor on Sunday was very financially positive, with travel and "a new life." With Mom having over $200,000 and me with currently over the same, things look GOOD, so why work?? For one reason, it gives a framework to my life!! They return at 11:45AM and I have to figure what to do NEXT before looking at the videotapes I have to take back for possibly the LAST group in this time period. Things looking UP!!!
4/10/99: Rain yesterday made me SO glad I went out to the Promenade Thursday evening when the day got above 75° and REALLY felt like spring (yesterday and today back down to the 40s!), marveling at all the STREETS lined with blossoming trees: Hicks, Willow, Orange, Pineapple, Montague, Pierrepont, with the glorious arrays of forsythia, early azalea, late crocus, peak daffodils (both jonquil-type and miniature), a pink flowering tree I don't even know, cascades of white tiny-wisteria-form clusters, firework-explosions of tiny white florets in masses, early hyacinth, enormous tulip buds, magnolia---mostly ignored by people on the Promenade as I get out at 7:10PM and walk to the north to find that the sun at 7:25PM ALREADY sets to the north of the edge-buildings on Manhattan so as to be invisible from the END-BLOCK of the Promenade, and that line-of-invisibility will travel south so that, possibly, by mid-June NONE of the Promenade will be able to see where the sun sets over Jersey due to the intervening Manhattan-masses. Want to have early breakfast to have early lunch to see John Guare's Lake Hollywood today with Arnold and Kit before subwaying up to Lina's for Scrabble, maybe even leaving for the last L'Heure if she's willing to sit in the top balcony, seeing Antz (which may be the LAST of the videos for this season, though I just MIGHT manage to eke out two more from pre-release hiding before retyping the want-list at the SAME size as last time, needing ONLY two more to do that). Got the prospective itinerary to Ken yesterday before lunching at Frank's, since Mildred was too busy to come up with a Friday lunch, and I DO want to get back to MY restaurant list completion. Have last year's Visa bills out to be put away, and think to discard all the cartons in the above-hall storage area to clear out underneath the dining- room table so that THAT gets started for my turkey dinner on International Migratory Bird Day, May 2, with me and Arnold and Charles (who didn't answer his phone for the last two days---which again reminds me I want to call Rita this morning) and Vicki and Sherryl and Mildred, even though the two latter don't seem to get along, but maybe Mildred will "behave" if I ask her to---she CAN be charming when she's not determined to be a bitch---and maybe she NEEDN'T wear a T-shirt! Soon there'll be nothing BUT "getting rid of books" to do, though I should probably turn to the SOUVENIR-filing next, for which I'll NEED shelf-space to put them neatly AWAY.
4/29/99: 5PM: Just finished printing 12 pages of BOOKS DISCARDED, having taken the last stack of books Montague Bookshop didn't buy to the Unitarian Booksale textbook section directly. Picked up my x-ray for Tuesday, rechecked that my Cadman wait-list number IS 78, but it DID go down two per month in the last two months but only down by 5 in the previous YEAR! Now the ONLY thing left on my list is "swim," and it's too late for THAT today, since 3:30-5PM every weekday is for children's lessons. Have tapes to watch, but feel like being more active. Brooklyn Botanic scheduled with Charles tomorrow, but it's too late for the Main Reading Room or the new Metropolitan Greek Collection today. Did the last index waiting for me and mailed it this afternoon. Do I REALLY want to start filing programs, or---well, Arnold's filing cases DO fit PERFECTLY on the shelves by the window that I JUST wondered what I was going to put ONTO!
5/6/99: 11:47AM: Just finished a series of 119 FreeCell games that improved my average by .0087, to 81.4132, TOTALLY RIDICULOUS! Just COMPELLED to do those to excess during the past week. I still haven't RECOVERED from the impact of the Holt job: THAT was finished the beginning of April, when I started throwing out books, which finished a few days before my turkey dinner of May 2, International Migratory Bird Day---THAT bird is now migrating in our STOMACHS! Then Monday and Tuesday were CLEANING UP from that mess, and then I started trying to catch up with videotapes, but ALMOST FELL ASLEEP watching them on Tuesday evening, so I went to BED at 8:40PM, woke with a dream that I transcribed from 11:30-11:50PM [DREAMS:5/4/99], and then I started reading at 1:05AM and started eating until 2:40AM, getting up at 10:30AM. Last night I gorged on turkey for "lunch" at 7:15PM (well, isn't THAT the next meal after breakfast?) and finished off half the remaining 1.5 liter bottle of red wine, watched a disappointing Swan Lake Live from Lincoln Center with Damian Woetzel no better than he usually is and Miranda Weese (taking Mrs. Peter Martins' [Darci Kistler's] place) doing a FEW nice balances with a flirt of her trailing hand, but then at 11PM I decided to do "some" FreeCell (which I'd left standing when I'd stopped to eat dinner at 7:15, having started about 4PM), and got to bed at 3AM with a game still ON the screen. Up at 10:30 and back to the game, finishing it only by 11:45AM. Finally GOT the Springer-Verlag Physics of the Millennium book yesterday, but still not got my Spr-V check that on 4/26 "would certainly arrive in ten days," nor my Zoological Society membership card that I paid for on 4/15! AND still haven't decided where to GO after 5/17, when I'm FREE for the rest of the year!! But, at least now at noon, time for BREAKFAST!
5/18/99: 8:50AM: LOTS of progress since last time: DID throw out the last of the turkey last Thursday, "only" eleven days after the meal, and washed the dishes to give the last items back to John, and got to the Prospect Park Zoo with Charles and Carolyn on Sunday, using my new Zoological Society membership card, and DID get to the Endurance exhibit at Natural History Museum, the Met for the Greek-rooms' redesign, and the Library for the barely changed Main Rose Reading Room. Cleared up tapes from my own taping and Arnold's library, to return them for two "last" tapes from him: one watched yesterday while waiting for Tina's call from Cadman Travel, and one to watch today. About 4PM Tina finally called: leaving THURSDAY (the day after tomorrow!) for Glasgow and returning on 6/14, a 26-day trip that slips nicely into the 24-, 25-, and 28-day prior-trip sequence. Got seven Scotland books from Spartacus, which I narrowed to four to take, along with New York and New Yorker magazines to READ (rather than books) on the trip! Making lists of things to buy (film and batteries) and thinking of what else to take (beret?), and started by phoning John this morning to say "pick up four Sunday Times," which he accepted stoically, his brace coming off next week. And gotta check Juno after getting off this before starting Starship Troopers. Only ONE index coming in end-June, and my $14,000 check finally cleared so I can mail MORE to my non-IRA Schwab, and the trip is LOOKING GOOD---can I FEEL good now?
5/20/99: 3:35PM: Computer drives me CRAZY! Tried to dupe WP51 files onto B, but it didn't work, and it didn't work, until FINALLY I just COPIED files, but it took me AN HOUR! Then VERY impatient with Pope on phone, can't WAIT to get away, meeting Mildred for dinner at Teresa's at 5:15. Just want to GOOO!!!! TRAVEL:SCOTLAND
6/15/99: 1999 AFI top 50 Actors/Actresses: Actors: 1) Humphrey Bogart, 2) Cary
Grant, 3) James Stewart, 4) Marlon Brando, 5) Fred Astaire, 6) Henry Fonda, 7)
Clark Gable, 8) James Cagney, 9) Spencer Tracy, 10) Charlie Chaplin, 11) Gary
Cooper, 12) Gregory Peck, 13) John Wayne, 14) Lawrence Olivier, 15) Gene
Kelly, 16) Orson Welles, 17) Kirk Douglas, 18) James Dean, 19) Burt Lancaster,
20) Marx Brothers, 21) Buster Keaton, 22) Sidney Poitier, 23) Robert Mitchum,
24) Edward G. Robinson, 25) ?? Actresses: 1) Katharine Hepburn, 2) Bette
Davis, 3) Audrey Hepburn, 4) Ingrid Bergman, 5) Greta Garbo, 6) Marilyn
Monroe, 7) Elizabeth Taylor, 8) Judy Garland, 9) Marlene Dietrich, 10) Joan
Crawford, 11) Barbara Stanwyck, 12) Claudette Colbert, 13) Grace Kelly, 14)
Ginger Rogers, 15) Mae West, 16) Vivian Leigh, 17) Lillian Gish, 15) Shirley
Temple, 19) Rita Hayworth, 20) Lauren Bacall, 21) Sophia Loren, 22) ??, 23)
Carole Lombard, 24) Mary Pickford, 25) Ava Gardner.
6/16/99: Wake, think: "Maybe 4:10." Light on: 4:10!!
6/17/99: Catching up with notes taken before and after trip:
A: 5/18: Told I'll be away 5/20 (Thu) - 6/14 9Mon): 1) John, 2) Marj, 3) Bill P., 4) Pope, 5) Mildred, 6) Charles, 7) Sherryl, 8) Shelley, 9) Vicki, 10) Carolyn, 11) Ken.
B: Sunday to bed 2:20AM, Monday 12:50 (-1.5 hr), Tuesday 10:10PM, Wednesday 9:25, up 5:50, Thursday recorded in trip-notes.
C: Before trip: 1) Get film and 4 + 1 spare batteries, 2) Check sent to Schwab account, 3) Pack New York and New Yorkers to read on trip, 4) Save WP files on Bernoulli, 5) Return library book, 6) Call for car, 7) Mildred 5:15 at Teresa---all crossed off.
D: At 6:20 cab phones, not till 6:30, and I ADD 1) Scarf, 2) Deodorant!, 3) Passport Xerox and photos, 4) Safety pins, 5) Another pen (which I never used).
E: 6/14 phone messages: 1) C.: hold off on Pravachol, do liver test first, 2) Abby B. about Games group, 3) Village Playwrights crazy, 4) Nothing, 5) Rita, who'll be away 6/19-7/4, phone IN Canada 613 273-5627 for Eleanor R., 6) Lina M., host NEXT Group, now in far Brooklyn, 7) P.J. T. wants to know my home-schedule for indexing, 8) Steve P. has two jobs, one of which he sends 6/16, 9) Carolyn for a) rug-mat receipt, b) AB application, c) Park Slope fireworks-visibility, and 6/14-7/7 grandson-visit, 10) Junk, 11) Blank, 12) Lawrence W. will be sending 6/22 Social Studies, 13) Mildred, 14) Marj about a) Lawrence W. and b) Jane L., complicated.
F: 6/14 returned-calls: 1) Marj to 8:45, 2) Pope to 8:50, 3) Mildred to 9:15, 4) JA left word, 5) Charles NA, 6) Sherryl to 9:35, NO cancerous conditions left! G: 6/15 returned-calls: 7) Shelley QUICK 9:55, 8) Vicki to 10:07; 6/16 9) Bill P., not THIS month, either (at supermarket), 10) Lina M.; 6/17 11) Tony LW, 12) Carolyn chat, 13) Ken meeting Saturday for France-talk.
7/8/99: 5:25PM: Things get ENDLESSLY done: jerked off this morning from 5-5:30 and dozed till 10, talked to Pope and John and Charles and Mildred on the phone and went through the Sunday Times at LAST and put it away and piled up the rest of the Scotland-trip stuff and piled up all the old mail and went through it and phoned John Hancock to find that my "June 10" bill didn't have to be paid and I'd save "a huge amount of money" by paying annually rather than quarterly, and figure I have to write a check for $3300 from Schwab to Repub1ic to pay all my July 15 bills, which I do and will deposit after giving the "HotDog/Hellman/Hammett" tape to Shelley before meeting Charles to get tickets for the Kirov which Mildred will NOT attend and thus I can offer Charles the "gay" series at the Roundabout WITHOUT worrying what she'll say. And STILL have to call Fred about Angkor and tape the Gay Games for Lina M.!
7/16/99: 9:42AM: Had to RESET to GET here! Computer getting WORSE! But it seems to "reset and recover" all right. Jerked off late last night, did a rudimentary Actualism session this morning, and felt a sense of relief that the BIG ($2250) Springer-Verlag index is DONE, which seemed to take ALL the time after my last notebook-entry---all the time I wasn't doing something else: watching TV tapes, going out, or spending HOURS on FreeCell, notably the 7:30PM-4:3OAM marathon Monday or Tuesday night. FORGOT to check my "available balance" for the $3300 check deposited a WEEK ago, after taking the index to the post office about 6PM yesterday. Got to write checks today. Phoned Charles who still delays about the Roundabout series and says OK to La Terrasse standby from Audience Extras, except their morning tape is CUT OFF after 9 shows. My restaurant list will be TWO pages, since I've let it go so long! But want to DO it to get it STARTED toward being FINISHED as soon as possible, so that NEXT year's list will only be ONE page again! Still pile of stuff on the floor: pages from "stack" that are NOT 1) NOTEBOOK, 2) DREAMS, 3) COMPUTER CHRONICLE. More WRITINGS to file! Then the stack of Pope's TV-movies to catalog for him. Last dentist was March 5---so much for 3-month cleanings! Make appointment for TUESDAY. Then decide to just DO the OAT trip with Fred, so phone HIM, and reserve for THAT, and then reserve for La Terrasse for Saturday matinee; so I call Charles and say I'm going three places: 1) Dentist on Tuesday, 2) Angkor on January 7, and 3) La Terrasse at 2:30 tomorrow. "There must be some consistency here," he jokes. Carolyn to pick up credit card to get refund for her New Jersey purchase. Now 11:30, time for breakfast!
7/26/99: 7:05PM: Still DOING things, though I have the idea I spend MOST of my time playing FreeCell, but I stopped after 1.5 hours just NOW to type THIS! Got MORE indexes done; available balance was OK even on 7/20. Charles still didn't respond to Roundabout series, so I guess we won't do it. Restaurant list started with 112 restaurants! Put the "stack" away, catalogued Pope's movies, got a dental cleaning; now a pile of stuff to do for the 1/7/00 Angkor trip! More indexes COMING IN! Finally went to the GYM today after putting MORE stuff away from shoulder "rehab," Wednesday will be my LAST. VERY hot these days; even with the AC on ALL the time I'm STILL sweating now at the computer: thermometer at 84°! Set out a slide tray to "put the slide-sorting on my priority list," and even typed up a 15-item "summer-do" list, going to the Met before dining in the Trustees’ dining room (very NICE, but Mildred was INCENSED by "poor waiters" and it was NOT a pleasant evening emotionally!). Got stuff back to Spartacus before he left on another trip; got list to Vicki, who's working free-lance before going to Seattle on Friday for 10 days; Charles hasn't been home, and arguments with Mildred seemed to be patched up. Annoyed when Kalio dinner with Carolyn was at a place I'd BEEN before! STILL not gotten my free Frappuccino from Starbucks nor visited the bookshop for my $75 credit. Still sleeping a LOT: going to bed at 1:30 and getting out of bed STILL tired at 10:30! Pope's in awful shape; maybe HE'S draining my energy away. Threw out grapes, finally ate a mango, still have one bowl of blueberries to go. Still not eaten my chicken-wrap from Wednesday and my sirloin from Helen from Friday. As wrapped up in details as Pope is: NOT! Probably watch TV tapes tonight, resisting getting tapes from Marty's until AFTER I do my slide-sort, and THEN have to have people OVER to SEE them! And Paul will be here in two weeks, and I DID make reservations for (though I mistakenly threw card OUT, so had to search through current wastebasket to FIND it!) him and me at Cello (with chef from CT restaurant) and at Lespinasse (with NEW chef). Felt WIPED OUT after finishing a big lunch at 5:30, but played FreeCell as alternative to taking NAP! Looking like RAIN to break the heat? Good to have an index to WORK on when I feel "at odds ends." Still have trip souvenirs to sort through, plane reservation to make for France---AH, and NEXT will write a note to Jean-Jacques to see if he'll be available for any of Alain Ducasse, Pierre Gagnaire, or L'Arpege, the uneaten-in three-stars, either before or after my trip to the south with Ken.
7/27/99: 5:50AM: Well, I don't understand the DiGiView controls! Now that I turned the light on, I can see that the controls are "move to the left, move to the right, decrease, increase", but I still don't understand such terms as V-Size and H-Size. Anyway: woke at 4:20AM to pee and could NOT get back to sleep even after an Actualism session (that didn't seem to do much). Tried that to 5:25AM, seeming to be oriented to "hands-together" mode on looking at the clock, and debated reading, or watching a TV tape, or typing a page like this, and finally got out of bed at 5:48AM to DO this. Got to bed about lAM, but I'd been getting TOO MUCH sleep recently, so maybe this is an ANTIDOTE to that, for today, at least. Wanted to concentrate here not on what I have to DO but WHERE I ACTUALLY AM! Growing old, that's for sure. Thought of the acronym COMB, for Crappy Old Man's Bladder condition, which gets me and Pope and Ken and probably many women up two or three times a night to pee. Then reaching for the lamp to light the clock REALLY hurts my left shoulder, even though I'm stopping "rehab" tomorrow. It DOES seem to get better when I'm NOT exercising it, even though I finally went to the gym yesterday and tried some of the pull-down and pull-up exercises that Tito recommended. Happy about the upcoming trips to France and Angkor, and even thinking of phoning for information about some Baltic-country tour for 10-11 days for the end of August, the time I keep telling companies I don't want any work after. Three trips a year seems to be about right, if only I can get into the proper cycle of buying film for taking slides and then sorting through the slides to show to people before I take my NEXT trip. Also DEMAND of myself more freedom to USE New York---like starting by buying a month-pass for the subway so I won't be "concerned" about multiple trips per day. Then thought of INCREASING frequency of blood tests until my LDL and liver problems are solved: take a test WHILE I'm taking Pravachol so that results will be available to C. BEFORE my prescription runs out in case I have to KEEP taking it, though I have SOME hope that INTERMITTENT use might clear up the LDL for SOME TIME before it builds to "lethal" levels. Obviously death is more on my mind, heightened by the loss of JFK Jr. at a young age, and my blood problems and arthritis problems and shoulder problems and lower-back "bump" causing me concern about BOTH leaving and maybe not even MINDING so much if I DO leave. But there's still a lot I want to DO, though that's not what THIS is supposed to be about! Depression over dwindling circle of friends, too: Pope not available, Arnold away on trips, Charles not home, Vicki going to Seattle, Sherryl not returning my "Let's do it" calls, Carolyn impaired, though I think of phoning her to see if she wants to see the Anchorage with me, and when I go to check New York magazine to see if it lists hours (it doesn't), I find that my latest issue is MISSING pages 41-64! AND the frustration of LOTS of things to DO, but not many of them that I REALLY WANT to do, which means I'll probably rent videos today so that I have at least THOSE to fall back on, though I'm tempted NOW to sort through my videos to see where Mefistofele is and watch THAT, though I'm concerned about video-volume when people aren't awake and my windows are open to whatever outside breezes there may be now that it's no longer over 80° outside at night. Or do I finish my remaining index to clear that away before other indexes come in, having solved the "colors" problem in Nature Photography by taking OUT individual colors and put "symbolism of each" as a subentry under COLOR! Rehearsing arguments to Watson-Guptill if they start to complain about my billing: simple: just don't send me indexes anymore!! AND have to experiment about sending my Schwab One account business checks to re-boost my "available" balance without dipping into my principal. Depressing crow-caws start before birds do. Am I preparing for a trip by getting up early each day now? Pope's problem of not being able to sleep through the night? Lousy supper last night with leftover chicken from a week ago, the last of a jar of applesauce, a bag of popcorn, and some yoghurt, resisting the last mango (which is smelling up my kitchen) because I'd already eaten a mango today, and also think of going to Atlantic Avenue for more of that DRIED good mango! 5PM: Buzz, buzz, buzz: busy, busy, busy. Lunch at Tin Room Café, which moved three months ago from 5 Front to 1 Front, for which he'd waited seven years while "One Hot Spot" died. Good focaccia with prosciutto, mozzarella, tomatoes, and arugula with potatoes and salad for $5.50 with a $5 glass of mediocre Pinot Grigio, watching students from the broken-down bus to Great Adventure across the street. Anchorage was closed: tried three numbers in Brooklyn and got 1) fax noises, 2) "disconnected," 3) "no longer in service." Then Charles mentions Creative Time in Manhattan, and THEIRS is the number in 212 whose 718 gave the fax noises. "Anchorage closed, put your name on our mailing list." Back to Starbucks for an AWFUL-tasting Caramel Frappuccino, free rather than $3.50, and check the bookshop to find NO books for my $75 credit, except for the $1 first edition of Nicholson Baker's Room Temperature, which I resist buying and which Charles says I SHOULD buy. Leave word with Sherryl to call me, for Deirdre M. from Princeton University Press to call me, and finally GET Charles on the phone. Endless talk about Raelians, JFK Jr., The Matrix, bookshops, amusement parks, and going to the Wessel-O'Connor Gallery tomorrow.
7/28/99: 5:45PM: So TIRED! Of course, I jerked off last night (weakly) AND this morning (stronger, to make up for last night), so no WONDER I felt overtired at the last rehab session---though Tito and the Chinese fellow and the Polish fellow were all so enthusiastic about the two OAT books I brought in that I was quite the star of their afternoon. Sent in the Photography index while fielding calls from Sherryl and Shelley and the guy working on the Austin index who couldn't get my WP5.1 diskette to read. AND trying to figure what the hell happened [just went BACK to Quicken and told there's no MORE data to be downloaded from today!] to my check to John Hancock to pay for my new ANNUAL extended care policy that Wendy F.'s flunkey called me about today, and again when I was in the shower and begged her to call back in 10 minutes, and had to search for her number when she DIDN'T! Then Charles couldn't get a half-price for Wit and Carolyn called with her dizzy "Hello" so that I said I couldn't figure who she was. Just getting annoyed at EVERYONE recently, except Charles, who's always good to laugh with. We're meeting at Le Gans this evening at 7, which for some pitiful reason I felt I had to REPHONE him to verify even though I WROTE IT DOWN, but STILL didn't think it was right. Then almost fell asleep having lunch with the lovely moussaka and chips and syrups that I got from Sahadi (which almost made me late for the 2:30 messenger who'd tried ringing Apartment 1 instead of mine, with only the name "Bob" on the pickup package!) for $30, so my salt intake will escalate. Oh, Tito said that a bone-ish pain MORE in the morning than in the evening IS like arthritis, so could the things in my shoulders BE arthritis without showing up on x-rays? He said I COULD come back IF my doctor recommended me AGAIN, but he felt that I'd made good progress and I should feel better if I keep up my exercises. Stuffed myself for lunch, then felt like sleeping, but went to FreeCell to revive my brain, and played 20 games, winning 18 of them, and figuring my VERY slowly increasing average beyond 81.5%. TWO indexes sitting on my desk, but I still haven’t gotten the call back about the lists for the Number One. So MANY things to do in the day and I STILL don't feel like doing them, though it was nice to sleep THROUGH the night last night, unlike the previous night when I couldn't get back to sleep. Air conditioner pooping out because it's still 81° in here when it's "only" 90° outside. Now 6PM and it feels like I've got to shit AGAIN! Oh, also ordered "Good-Value France" on-line, so let's hope it comes. Want to e-mail Suze, too, to shake up some summer driving. Actually checked some questions on my VCR-list last night, which felt pretty good, and I suppose I should update the index just to complete things: ANYTHING to stall getting to sorting my slides from the TRIP, which really seems to be becoming a hang-up for me, but at least that topic got me to the last line on the page, which I can complete with no trouble before printing it out at 6:O5PM: Right NOW!
7/31/99: 10:43AM: Whether going to the gym on Friday or STOPPING rehab sessions on Wednesday did it, I seem SUFFUSED with energy. Only today I 1) Looked up "frought" in the dictionary (as read on a subway ad) and find it's "fraught." 2) Pulled ear-hairs and trimmed my beard and mustache. 3) Responded to Susie's reply to my e-mail yesterday. 4) Looked at another daily message from Frommer. 5) Checked again to find my John Hancock check hasn't cleared. 6) Made a note for Monday to phone Wendy to say "check if I'm APPROVED": I sent my check (to the wrong address?) with my APPROVAL prior-addressed envelope. 7) Agreed to Genghis Sings (or whatever) with Sherryl at 3:45PM, which leads me to look at my restaurant list and come up with Chelsea BBQ, where Charles will join me for lunch at 1PM. 3) Not to mention dinner at Tsampa afterward. 9) Got out my video-card to find that life membership was in JUNE, so I hope to get it dated to at LEAST July by taking it in for a movie today. 10) And got out my Farewell Symphony card and checked that the library's open at 10AM today to get THAT out of the way, now that I've caught up with reading, AND 11) Added "read pages 41-64 of 8/2 New York magazine," deleted from my copy. 12) Added MASS MOCA to my summer-list. 13) And did this page to 10:50, late enough to get dressed and out to Marty's when it opens at 11. Feels good to DO!
8/3/99: 8:32AM: Just had a problem printing out DREAMS:7/28/99 with my whole-page dream this morning, but now it's busily printing away. Glad I could get those thoughts down more or less complete before coming to THIS page. Wit was [and then LOOKING at the printed page I see to my disgust that I'd forgotten to specify LEFT-justification, and the two DREAM pages are RIGHT-justified, too!---and when I switched specifications I had to laboriously CHANGE lines to get the damn pages to fit!] depressing to Mildred and me because we don't like to look at the idea of finally dying, which influenced my dream last night and my thoughts on waking this morning. Unfortunately, any ideas of summing up on this page have been destroyed by the hassles of the print-adjustment and the disgust with the noises from upstairs. I can recoup slightly by describing the increasing discomfort in my liver-region, which implies that Pravachol is not being nice to it, and maybe I WILL have to give up wine and meat COMPLETELY as we talked about at the table at Park Bistro last night, where I spent another $80 after the $177.25 of the previous evening at Tonic, and who knows what with Paul at Cello and Lespinasse tomorrow and the following night. Also here record my depressing thoughts about the planned Angkor trip: reluctant to get the final documentation, pay the final bill, make the final arrangements, with the realization that I'm feeling less energetic in my days walking around the city and my increasingly infrequent visits to the gym, and the continuing "awareness" of slight discomforts in my shoulders and increasing discomforts in my thumbs while indexing, writing, and typing, and ADD to that the uncharacteristic weakness in my knees after standing for a mere two hours at the Damrosch band shell for the Trocadero Ballet after not meeting Mary V. for my stamps (and my depression on my emphasizing THOSE rather than meeting HER when I phoned her). Reluctance to finish slide-sorting on the Scotland trip isn't helping things when I WANTED to be finished with that BEFORE Paul arrives tonight. Crummy apartment, physical discomforts, feeling the need to shit at the moment, getting close to 9AM and I'm still tired enough to want to put in my earplugs and go back to bed, anger at the constant footsteps creaking the floors above my head, but at least I'm near the end of the page and the printer-glitch seems to have vanished for the time being, and I can get the things out of the way that I can GET out of the way, and the rest of them can just take care of themselves when the hours pass with time for me to do things OTHER than playing FreeCell, which has been kept under control recently when I can quit with 100% played out and NOT start losing, which enters into the vicious circle of having to continue for 7-8 hours to get back above my 83% average, having broken THAT once when I just QUIT, which was a good object lesson for the Future. Now to print out this page and SHIT! Ha!
8/16/99: 11:28AM: MOM DIES: Rita phoned sometime yesterday [Saturday] afternoon to say that Mom had been totally unresponsive when she’d visited earlier that day: she'd been responsive the last time she'd been there (I think it was the previous Friday, but it may have been more recently), but this time she was staring at the TV before and AFTER it was turned off. She didn't seem to recognize Rita, put the glasses-earpiece in her mouth when Rita gave her the glasses to put on, put the end of a flower in her mouth when Rita gave it to her, and finally the nurse told her that she'd had "another small stroke." I guess she had then been transferred to some kind of intensive-care unit. I'd gone to the Dalai Lama on Sunday morning and the Games Group Sunday afternoon, but avoided dinner with them and was therefore home about 8PM when Rita phoned Sunday to say that they phoned her to say that Mom was sinking: very weak pulse, very intermittent breathing, and Rita intimated that it might be a good thing if this was the end at last. I look at the next week on my calendar and it's TOTALLY blank; even Fred L. called and said he was going away today and would be back next Sunday and we should talk that week about our January trip. I don't feel like continuing my Ring synopsis, nor like playing FreeCell, so when I finish the Sunday Times and put the rest of the things away I finish reading Edmund White's The Farewell Symphony so I can return it anytime before its Friday due-date. Then it's 11:45 and I'm tired, but told Rita I'd be up until 1AM if she wanted to phone, so I play a bit of FreeCell until 12:15 and start to get ready for bed. 12:30AM the phone rings: Rita says, "Mom died about midnight." She figures the funeral would be around Thursday in Akron. At 12:45AM I try phoning Charles, who said he'd have to go to Akron sometime around Friday, but his phone's busy. Get him at 12:55 and he's going to the Island for Bill prior to going to Akron for his mother, so I should either call him in Manhattan before 11:30 or on the Island after 3:30. Get to bed at 1:15AM and at 1:30 take a sleeping pill because my head's going on about what I might say at the funeral, whom I'll call, Mom's dead, money coming in, trip to Akron, bereavement rates on planes. Write notes till 1:38AM and get to sleep about 2AM. Up at l0AM, having a slight headache, messing up memories of two elaborate dreams on DREAMS:8/16/99. 10:45AM phone Rita but get her machine: leave word. Phone Pope 10:47 to leave word. Phone John 10:48 to leave word. Talk to Mildred 10:50 to 11:05, and she sweetly says, "If you need time filled, call me." Pope calls 11:03-11:36, then Rita calls 11:39-12:30. Went through a list of questions I'd made out for her: 1) Mom actually died in her bed in the nursing home. 2) Probably won't have an autopsy to prove whether or not it was Alzheimer's she had (Rita: Most elderly have dementia rather than Alzheimer's). 3) Doctor put that she died at 12:01AM on Monday, August 16 (Rita: Rather than August 15, which is the Assumption). I checked that she'd fallen on July 1, l996, and had signed over power of attorney to Rita on July 15, and Rita said she'd come up to Akron to take Mom to Florida on AUGUST 16, so she was in the home for just three years. 4) Funeral is Saturday morning, so the viewing will be Friday evening for 2 hours, making the obituary in the Akron Beacon on Thursday morning. 5) Rita said she'd call Helen and Jimmy, Edward, Marion, and Doris F. to tell all her working friends, so that left no one for me to call. She suggested we both fly in to Cleveland-Hopkins airport on Friday and rent a car, and leave Sunday. I phone Tina l2:32-l2:40, and she tells of an Orlando-Cleveland Continental nonstop that gets in at 2:50PM, and says that USAir has a better bereavement discount, but is a connecting flight 9:55-1:46. Rita was talking of a connecting flight when the Florida Funeral Director said that she didn't want to fly WITH the casket, since it took at least three hours to transfer it from one flight to another. Talk to Arnold 12:55-l:35, then call Carolyn 1:35 and she says she'll call back. Catch up with this and call Rita at 1:42 to tell her about the flight information and get the Funeral Home, Funeral Director's name and phone number, which I require for Tina to get a bereavement discount. Leave word with Vicki and Sherryl to call me back, and talk to Ken 1:51-1:53PM and finish up this desolate page by 1:55PM, printing it.
8/19/99: 12:46PM: Added Carolyn to the list when she called at 2:30 Monday and we talked to 2:53; then John rings my doorbell 4:05-4:07, Sherryl calls 4:25-4:45 and we agree to dine at Sin Sin on Wednesday, and Rita calls 5:05-5:25. Then Tuesday I decide to tell Shelley, who invites me to a picnic dinner on her roof that night. Spartacus gets Wednesday matinee tickets to Hurrah at Last and I'd jerked off on Tuesday, intending to go to the gym on Wednesday, but there was no time, and when I look at my crotch on Thursday the upper thighs are DISCOLORED from unwashedness! Lina wakes me at 9:45AM today, Thursday, after I get to bed after 3AM playing over 5 hours of FreeCell because I just don't feel like doing ANYTHING else! Phone Audience Extras to find nothing interesting for tonight. Phone Tara S., who says the author is supposed to call her from overseas TODAY, but it's now something like 7PM there, so I guess I'll not be finishing THAT index before I leave tomorrow for the noon flight. Get the tickets from Tina yesterday afternoon and choke up slightly when she sincerely hopes I don't have too bad a time in Akron. Get out to mail the letter to Jean-Jacques hoping for the Opera on October 20 and reiterating my choice of the remaining undined-at Michelin three-stars, pick up the laundry, and Xerox the pages I want from White's The Farewell Symphony, waiting to 1PM to go to the gym so I can return it to the OPEN Brooklyn Heights Library. Started packing when I realize I'll be leaving here in LESS than 24 hours! Air conditioner weak, though it's not THAT warm out. Shelley had a tentative dinner engagement tonight but MIGHT be able to dine in Brooklyn somewhere; she'll call me about 4PM. Nothing much more to do now at 12:54PM: leaving tomorrow, Akron day-after-tomorrow, NYC the day after THAT!
8/20/99: 10:28AM: The TRAUMA of being CAUGHT UP! Packed and weighed and tabulated by 10:15AM, car coming at 10:45AM. Phoned ASME to be told "It's almost OK as it IS" and leave word at Princeton University Press that I'm now ASSUMING the index was OK. Clip ends from plants, collect dead leaves, phone Pope, took along a jacket and a bathing suit "in case" and have NOTHING more to do, and DON'T want to start FreeCell. WARM (humid, rather) in here, but that's the way it IS. Pope hopes I have a "rewarding" weekend with family. I said I kept thinking of what I might say: "She was certainly unforgettable," "She liked bingo," "She was a real challenge?" Now at 10:30 I can't think of anything more to say HERE, so I guess I'll just close and print it later. NOTES FROM MOM'S FUNERAL: 10:30AM read New Yorker to fill time. Car ride 10:50-11:15. Long Gate 3 line. COMPUTER down! At 11:50 "We'll be boarding, open seating, in 5-10 minutes. You'll make your Pittsburgh connection." STAND. Computer UP at 11:55. Get AISLE 16D at 12. Pre-board 12:02. Move to 15F at 12:25! 12:35: flight time 1 hour. Off at 1:07! Good NYC and Hudson River, then clouds. 1:30 GREAT fluffy clouds against blue skies and SOME views of the Pennsylvania Turnpike below. 1:54 descend into PURPLE cloud-cover. Cleveland gate E-11 announced, land at 2:04PM and stop at 2:10. Onto People Mover at 2:20 and to E6 at 2:25 and PREVIOUS flight is leaving, my plane isn't IN yet! The R.s' flight 560 delayed 1:05 and is landing at 2:51, 1:05 late! We board 2:40 for 2:33 flight. Move at 2:57, off at 3. BUMPY ten-minute climb, clouds and view, LOTS of swimming pools. Land 3:35! Out to meet Denny, then Rita, then buy 4 cookies from Original Cookie for lunch: "brownie"-like fudge, strokarama and macadamia nut and peanut butter for $5.57. Walk to shuttle and get to Avis at 4:10PM. Pee. Finish puzzle from plane magazine, they get car, Paul hardly speaks. Get red 4-door, drive to Sky-High at 5:30. Their room #339. Check in at 6:15 and I'm ready at 6:30 but they're not until 6:50 and out to Carr's at 7. Pauline and Helen and Jimmy and Edward already there. LONG evening, out at 10:15PM, no one eager to stop chatting, which everyone agrees is what this is SUPPOSED to be. Chat up two fat friends of Rita's from college, Miss G. from ICWU, Lorene in late, brought from airport at 3PM by Dan, and Gary and Marta even later. Chuck G. manically animated, Father C. and Sister Someone lead prayers, I "stand and talk with" Mom, who looks downturned-lipped and flat-chested and skinny-fingered with ragged fingernails painted a dark pink. Helen curt in wheelchair, Jimmy scattered in jacket with Stanford sweater underneath. Some friends of the G.s are there, some others I don't know. To bed, exhausted, at 10:30, toss till about 11:30 but finally get a decent night's sleep.
SATURDAY, 8/21/99: Wake about 6, lie till 7:10, look at magazines, shower, out to breakfast at 7:30, ludicrous tiny Danish and too-late offer of hot chocolate, and Paul lucks out ordering a bagel with cream cheese. Denny's mother and sister are pleasant for our six-person breakfast table. 8:15 Denny drives me to Funeral Home to see chairs lined up for a service, Nick the Director SAYS he told everyone to be there at 8:15, but clearly he didn't, nor did he tell Denny and Dan and Paul that THEY were to be pallbearers along with me and Edward and Chuck. Another prayer and we lug her out to hearse and drive through five red lights (which delights Edward) along Crosby to St. Vincent's. Long boring service, touching on SECURITY, which I tell priest she DID give us. "So I said that for you," he said smugly. HE describes Charlotte's Web, which Vicki and I gasp about when we talk on Monday. Out at 10:10 and to Rose Hill for ANOTHER prayer (oh, I took communion), and look for slot (outside looking over lake?) and look at Henry's grave and back to Hilton at 11AM to put two tables together and 17 have lunch for $176 + $23 tip for $204, to 3PM: me, Rita, Denny, Paul, Denny's mom and sister, two fat friends, Edward, Gary and Marta, Marion, mother and kid from Canada trip, Lorene and Dan and his well-behaved daughter Stephanie. Talk, and to Marion's for Indian vase. Drink white zinfandel. Look at fish in pond and Greg's wingless plane in A-frame behind lot. Rita gets bombed enough to look and laugh at painter's ass-cleavage. Paul and Denny arrive after visiting a cousin, and Paul and Marion tour home. They leave 5:45 to shop, and I made 6:30 reservation at Inn at Turner's Mill. Drive there and FABULOUS three-course four-wine tasting menu for $162 for BOTH to 10, then down to bar for apricot sours and she drives me to Hilton at 10:50, Rita and family asleep, and I'm STONED! Read Newsweek Rita left about Dalai Lama and get to bed about 11:20PM, falling asleep instantly.
SUNDAY, 8/22/99: Up 7AM, shit, toss, doze, think, phone Marion 9:30, she wants to phone Dan: I suggest Edward knows his number. She'll call back. I pack. Marion calls at 10: Dan's on phone. Down to breakfast and wait till 10:10 for her and 10:20 to be seated (!) and bagel to 10:50 and up to shit and pack and check out, all on Rita's $247 charge card. Out to car and drive to Rose Hill, and Mom's wreath IS at lake. We talk of reincarnation and look at Henry's and Arnetts' gravestones and back to car to pass boxy 1680 Merriman Restaurant, not nearly as nice as Inn. Get gas at 11:52 on way to Helen and Jimmy's at Rockynol; a WARM nice day out. Ku Klux Klan and Black Home Exposition worked out peacefully yesterday in Cleveland. At 1PM to Sheraton Suites, Cuyahoga River rapids, and Riverfront Restaurant to 1:30, when I'm STILL not hungry, drive around and around and she decides on Swenson's drive-in for lunch of Galley Burger (with relish) and a key lime shake (awful). But eat slowly enough to get right on road at 2:15 for airport, small traffic jam at entrance. Check in at 3:20 to CHANGE to A4 window on first lap and have to settle for 14F on second lap. Sit at Gate A32 lounge until 3:30 announcement "Plane's arrived, and on time." GREAT fluffy-cloud blue-sky day! Board 3:45 DIRECTLY, off at 4, and GREAT clear-view flight, land at 4:31. Read found New York Times sections: first, Travel news, then Arts section to 5:13, when boarding is announced. THIS 14F is RIGHT over CENTER of wing. Ask stewardess to change, but flight is jammed, at 5:40 "51 minute flight, 71° in NYC!" LOTS of people now loading, no HOPE for seat-change. Off at 5:55, good flight, GREAT Pittsburgh, prior good Cleveland view. But at 6:30: "New York is saturated; we'll be flying in a holding pattern for 30-40 minutes!" ALL cloudy below now. 6:46: "Three of five planes ahead of us have turned in, so we'll be moving out soon." 6:48: "They turned us toward LaGuardia, should be landing in 20-25 minutes." 7PM: "Landing in 10-12 minutes." Land at 7:10 to smell of burning rubber. Out of plane at 7:22 and into taxi quickly and home by 8PM to get TV section from John and phone Pope and Mildred and waste time. Took cash of $396.59 and returned with $357.64, which indicated I spent only $39.55 in cash, which had to be incorrect since I could TALLY $20 taxi to airport, $5 cookies, $1 Sunday breakfast tip, $22 taxi home, and $2.55 for the NY Times to John, so I spent $50.55 at least, and I must have miscounted $416 taken as $396?? Anyway, transcribed this last sentence 8/25 so I could throw away the ]ast slip from the trip to be put here.
8/24/99: 9:05AM: AWFUL awfulness! Funeral weekend went well enough, got back Sunday night and did a bit of the Sunday Times and TV and went to bed early. Slept a lot. Monday was a loss: up early to jerk off and then jerked off AGAIN in the middle of the day. Managed to finish BOTH Times puzzles (which had been troublesome), and arranged with Charles to meet at Markt for dinner, and only when I finished with FreeCell before leaving did I have the directivity to begin unpacking and putting SOME things away, lessening the mess rather than increasing it. Prime trauma was getting off the phone with Marj after an hour and a half and realizing that I'd MISSED my DENTAL exam which had been scheduled at 1PM: The only thing I HAD to do was one of many things that I DIDN'T do. Phoned Tony to get a MACHINE at the Catholic Charities office, talked to Mildred and Rita for a long time, and got calls from Vicki and Sherryl, whom I filled in with details from my weekend, and talked to Pope Sunday, so I have four or five people still to catch up with, though John had to return my purloined TV section from the Times. Still haven't finished that to put it away, have to call Charles and Mildred to try to set up tonight, still need to talk to Bill P. about Village Playwrights starting in September and a few indexes to CANCEL because I just DON'T want to become involved in them! Also GOT to start reducing, since the 196# the last few times at the gym is just NOT reasonable and arthritis increasing, joint-pain starting in feet and knees, and that strange spinal left and right liver enlarging possibility are all totally futurely physically frightening!
8/25/99: NO ONE TO CRY WITH! Did sessions last night and this morning, hoping to cry at least SOME for Mom's death, but it didn't work. Thought of Mildred's saying that I was "flat," which seemed to mean that I didn't cry with HER, and I thought she had a certain arrogance to think that I'd WANT to cry with her, but then I couldn't think of whom I COULD cry with! Sherryl would be the most likely possibility, since she's cried with me on the phone about her various cancer and operation and MRI (in person, here) scares, and has (with her mournful voice) suggested that I'm simply "in mourning," which accounts for my forgetting that SHE wanted to see Benton Kozo rather than Mildred. Debated the thought of crying with JOHN, but he's not really the sympathetic sort. Could have done it with MICHAEL, if he'd stayed around, but he didn't. Pope and Spartacus are out of the question, and I'd be too ashamed to do it around Carolyn because she'd get all the more intimate, which I don't want. Vicki's a possibility, because she could take it more objectively. Marion would be good, but she's not here. Think briefly about Village Playwrights in a piece, but that didn't work in the past and wouldn't work now. Maybe there IS no real sadness about Mom's death: she'd been "on the way" for at least three years, she wouldn't have (really sincerely) cried about anyone ELSE's death, and even Rita didn't seem broken up at the funeral except after one bit at the wake, and it was Paul who seemed the most affected in church, but then I wasn't sitting that near Rita. And now POPE is in the hospital, which means I'll have obligations to go to and from his apartment and here and the hospital, which will remove my mind from ACTIVE mourning. No wonder I keep thinking of getting AWAY from New York City to be ON MY OWN, far from diseases and aging and pain.
8/29/99: 8:30AM: Started my Alzheimer's list of forgettings, but the latest one REALLY has me in a snit: ABSOLUTELY RECALL a telephone call, probably to a 1-800 number, that I waited through an initial menu that said something like "ordering" or "information," and pushing "1" for THAT, then getting a SECOND menu that gave me only TWO choices, neither of which I wanted, so I didn't push anything, and there was a pause and a live person came on. I asked what I needed to know, and then said, "Since this is usually a necessity, let me have your name," and she said something like "Nell Hamilton," and I wrote her name on the card on which I took the information I needed, AND I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS ALL ABOUT! It wasn't about Mom, or stocks, or the Internet, or Pope, or restaurants, or my dental appointment, or my trip to Angkor (no notes found among the mess on my desk that I can only call on MONDAY about my passport/visa time-problems), or my trip to France, or today's trip to Rye Playland, or the Beard House, or my apartment, or any kind of opera/play/performance subscription, or Village Playwrights, or passport photos. I looked at my "calendar notes" and found nothing; looked among the storage shelves and found nothing, contemplated current indexes for no solution. Typed this, hoping to associate some train of thought with the answer: no luck so far, nothing about Ken, or Carolyn, or Vicki, or Sherryl, or Charles, or Mildred, or Spartacus---where would the CARD be that I WROTE THE NAME ON?? Look through my desk file, without resolution of problem. Not doctor or dental. Finally look in WASTEBASKET and see sheets from the US Postal Service, and it was LINDA W. whose name I put on the Philatelic Standing Order sheet (that I put in my stamp-drawer, and had MISDATED to the week BEFORE: 8/20, rather than THIS Friday, 8/27!) when I called to CANCEL my standing order on FRIDAY! At least feel relief that I FOUND what it was, and it WASN'T obvious! 9AM: Updated ALZ with above, and MEDICAL with left knee from Friday, and NOW, at 9:10AM, want to record MY BOOK-PUBLISHING IDEA: my "final" list had always been the "final five": 1) Movie Way of All Flesh, with Emil Jannings, last Oscar-winning movie to be seen; 2) Book Love in Time, by John Wyndham writing as Johnson Harris, longest-lasting book on book-want list; 3) Angel Falls, the last destination to get to "one place on each Atlas page"; 4) Lover, taken OFF my list since the unsatisfactory relationship with Michael; and 5) Published book---at least publishing SOMETHING, whether a novel or a play, whether traditionally published or self-published---probably with the untenable idea that publishing SOMETHING will make publishing SOMETHING ELSE easier, somewhat refuted after reading Edmund White's The Farewell Symphony. With all the news of Web-sites selling for millions, I kept thinking I should have done SOMETHING on the Web. Then, lying in bed after typing the entry above, and bemoaning the possible Alzheimer's destruction of ALL my memories, I have the "obvious" thought: set up a Web-site that IN FACT "PUBLISHES" ALL my books and plays and notebooks and dreams! Encapsulate mv "List of Lists" and "Ultimate Philosophy" and "Thing Organization" and "Web Index" (WHAT did I call my proposal to WHAT was his name from the Atlantic Islands trip---and I go AGAIN to "split-screen" to retrieve TRAVEL [to find it's not THERE] and MY\ATLSUMM to recall it was Simon W. to whom I proposed "Indexation" or "Webindex" or WHATEVER it was that I STILL can't find the name of, because I can't find the ATLANTIC ISLANDS TRIP JOURNAL that I did on the PWP laptop). ANYWAY, have a HOME PAGE that lists Indexing Handbook and Gain and Acid House and Gift of the Alien and The Director and NOTEBOOK and ACTUALISM and DREAMS and a SITE that CONTAINS the complete documents---in effect PUBLISHING everything ON THE WEB! And now It's 9:35AM and I'm hungry for breakfast and have to get off to meet Mildred at 11:30 in Grand Central for the trip to Rye Playland, and someday this will ALL be available to ANYONE who wants it, even AFTER I die, or lose my memory, or even LOSE INTEREST IN THE ACT OF BEING PUBLISHED, and it will all BE there, as my LEGACY to the universe IN FACT recorded in the "Akashic Records" of the World Wide Web!
9/2/99: 11:55AM: Notes from back of Proulx: Postcards
Note from 8/27/99: Priced two passport photos: 1) Xerox place $5.50 (and each FOLL0WING only $2.50 apiece), the eventual winner, just as my local laundry was the eventual suit-cleaning-price winner. 2) Boro Photo $6.95. 3) Photomat/Remsen $5.95. REMSEN BOOKS CLOSED! 4) 44 Court $9 "Lotta money." 5) 52 Court $9 "That's cheap." 6) 105 Court $6.95. 7) 159 Court $6.50. 8) 148 Court $6.50. Ytournel Restaurant "in a week." Atlantic Antics is Brooklyn Grill October 3.
Note from 8/29/99: Rye Playland trip: 11:40 train to 12:25PM, bus 12:30-12:45. in at 12:55. $16 for 36 ride tickets ($2 off $18). Dragon Coaster, 2:10 ride, to 1:26PM. Old Mill, 7:00 ride, to 2:04. Hurricane (stop worst), 1:30 ride, to 2:11. Lunch of flounder filet and chips and beer at $8.75 at Captain Hook's seafood to 2:45. Hot fudge Carvel sundae at $3.50 to 3. Read Wildlife Sanctuary 3:20-3:45, nice walks. Wild Mouse, Flume, and Morphis (movie-ride-car) CLOSED. 3:55-4:20 Musical Revue at Tower Stage, awful. Ice and sit to 4:30. Haunted Mansion funhouse to 4:36. Gondola (Ferris) Wheel to 5:27. Dragon Coaster to 5:40. 5:45 to bus to station 5:55. 6:15 on train (after pee and drink of water in station) to 7PM. Dine at Michael Jordan's (Grand Central) to 8:30.
Note from 9/1/99: Coney Island: Aquarium 2:10-5:10, Cyclone, 2:00 ride for $4. Wonder Wheel for $3 now goes only TWICE around. Board train 8:10 and home 8:55PM.
More on 9/2/99: 12:12PM: Now have FIVE indexes sitting on the table lined up for me to do! Determined not to take ANY more for the rest of the year, since it's now SEPTEMBER and I'll be away most of OCTOBER. Jerked off this morning just to DO it to get rid of the general feeling of frustration: Pope having problems with his nursing home, me having problems with Alzheimer's symptoms EVERY day, and Spartacus deciding this morning that he DIDN'T want to go to Dance Theater Workshop this evening because he has so much work he wants to get done and doesn't want to have that deadline hanging over his head, but I say that if he changes his mind he can call me. Still "one every two days" on my restaurant list, and AT LAST going to put away the stack of stuff for the January trip because the visa person in Virginia (though I didn't get her NAME!) said I would have plenty of time if I applied at the end of October, AFTER my France trip, for my visas for January. Sent two letters from Pope together with my Xerox of the meal at Inn at Turner's Mill to Marion yesterday. Still have to listen to John's tape of his 15-minute call-in interview with Brian Lehrer yesterday. Got to go to the gym today because they're closing from September 3-12 for their maintenance. My "NYC trip" list is going very slowly, so when I get back from the Saturday-Monday Labor Day weekend in Weston, Connecticut, with Vicki, I'll have to concentrate on doing the few things which will be closing next week. Charles is away and I'll rely on his calling me when he gets back into town. Mildred hasn't called recently, and I've not yet got a call from Pope, saying that his contact moved him to a better room at the Cobble Hill Health Center and Nursing Home OR to the Village Nursing Home on Hudson Street in Manhattan. Recorded the stuff, above, from the back of Proulx's Postcards (which I finished yesterday), and put a two-week-old double-issue of New Yorker into my shoulder bag for subway reading, finding that's a GREAT way to keep up with periodicals. Still a stack of stuff on the desk and the table to put away, but I contentedly "cleaned up" the bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and library to get to the point (though I really SHOULD think about vacuuming soon!) where I feel I have it all under control EXCEPT for the five indexes, all of which I'll be able to finish in the next two weeks. Visa bills come in comfortably at the END of the previous month, so I can pay it along with other bills like rent, BEFORE I leave on October 8. Glad to be at the last line on the page HERE so that I can print this out and get to the rest of the day's work.
9/10/99: 10:15AM: Talk to Bernice 8:30-9:30AM: Actualism still struggling with teachers who want to "move slowly" 14 years after Russell's death. Penny has high blood pressure and asthma, Alice has multiple health problems, and Elizabeth doesn't talk about her health, but all three get checks from "the permanent trust fund." Stan lost his brother, is breaking up with his wife, and lost his father, so he's in poor shape, having moved to San Francisco. Crystal has nothing to do with the organization, Richard still participates, Jennifer, a tai-chi teacher, refuses to move (ha!) in her board position. Bruce changes very slowly, with Bernice the radical. FOUR energies have come through, the third, Compassion, may be taught soon. The Web-site is going strong, with powerful people in South Africa and New Zealand. Her job may be ending, though she's working with three rich families who may find uses for her organizational talents. Delores L. has dropped out of sight, Arthur D.'s father died, Valda is back in the work, having moved to Rego Park and possibly terminally ill in the lungs with the cats she refuses to relinquish. Bruce is still working for Newsweek. Harry lost a parent recently, too. Wow.
9/17/99: 7:45AM: Just couldn't stay in bed with the things I want to do, among them this page: Pope IS serving me in that I'm SO frustrated looking for things he wants from his apartment (and storing his stuff HERE which he might eventually want in his "permanent" nursing home) that I'm taking a FRESH look at getting rid of MY stuff. Since I so seldom USE past-travel clippings that I take with me on trips, I can get rid of MOST of that stuff. Pope's books being left for the Witnesses to discard makes it easier for me to think of getting rid of MORE of my books: they just don't MATTER---they aren't so IMPORTANT to me as they were before. BEFORE they were proofs that I'd READ them, but since I don't in fact REMEMBER most of what I've read beyond vague overall impressions, there's no need to KEEP them unless I intend to read them AGAIN, which is unlikely, since I'm reading MUCH less now than in previous years: sitting and reading for hours just doesn't seem like SOMETHING TO DO at this phase of my life. And since I've NEVER looked back at old Scientific American articles (and they're available at libraries, anyway), why should I keep hundreds of pounds of old copies to move to my new apartment? Clothing to be gotten rid of, since so MANY of my old clothes don't fit comfortably anymore. Old National Geographics to throw out that I laboriously lugged from Spartacus's old apartment, meticulously filed and listed, but I keep telling myself I should get involved in GOING THROUGH them rather than spending endless hours on Freecell, which has NO benefit to me EXCEPT as a PASTIME. Even bored with THIS now, go on to my LAST long-term index (pushed off Watson-Guptill and the Columbia University Faculty Handbook on Barbara when she called for more work, and even put her back in touch with Terry K. at Springer-Verlag, which in the listings, Barbara says, is now only "Springer."), with only Robert W.'s ASME Catalog coming in next week as the LAST of the indexes to do this year---and have to total my INCOME---just did: $83,962 thru AUGUST, totally outrageous. Hurricane Floyd seems to have passed: sunny skies after the HUGE blast of wind and rain when I came out of the subway here after the cancellation of Jane Goodall at the YMHA yesterday. New York sightseeing and restaurant lists still progressing satisfactorily, but have to check with AOL to try to get my homepage on the SYSTEM, if it's still on MY system's files. Dining with Mildred from my list tonight, with Shelley's group week after next, got the Queens Zoo on my calendar with Vicki, need to call Sherryl today about Art Walk tomorrow, put Lina on the list for Sunday, Charles back in town today, Arnold away till next week, Pope to visit this afternoon after the index and the gym, maybe my funk from Mom's death and "finishing indexes" is finally alleviating? But my "hardcore save" is still enormous: FEET of writing to be computerized, POUNDS of files to be sorted through and thrown out as no longer valuable, COINS to be considered, as Pope's tiny trove has reminded me, and THESE pages to file away in books for FUTURE discarding?
9/29/99: 12:45PM: Palladin's Time Hotel Cafe note from 9/17: $65 tasting menu with 7 courses and a $26 Burgundy: 1) Guinea hen egg and caviar, 2) Carpaccio of ahi and tamiki tunas and two salads, 3) Sea urchin broth with bits of flesh, 3) John Dory on polenta and caviar butter, 5) Chicken and mashed potatoes, 6) Cantaloupe sorbet on honeydew melon balls and yellow watermelon soup, 7) Banana custard, ice cream, millefeuille and slice: GREAT bargain price! 12:50PM: Far Rockaway notes from 9/25: Up at 9:20, out 9:45AM, get sandwich, to platform 9:58. C-train comes at 10, A-train to Lefferts at 10:03, C-train at 10:12, A-train to Far Rockaway at 10:14. To Mott Street 11:08AM, and Helen Y.: I'll get November-February, 3/year, also told of Urban Trails by Eileen. City tours can be 80-120 people, this is average of 18. Some tours walk too fast for us, some 10-mile treks in Westchester are HARD. 12:11 to Bayswater State Park, off Mott Avenue, to 12:38. Smitty's is two blocks south of Jamaica Bay, 12:54 to Elstone (black residential on Bay) Park. 1:15 water stop at Inwood/Nassau county border. CANNON on one side, Blessed Virgin Mary on OTHER side in one home's yard. 1:55PM to Almost Paradise dive shop to eat to 2:35. 2:55 graveyard of Richard Cornell on Caffrey Avenue, son founded University, he'd been Mayor of NYC. 2:57 six of 14-left leaving. 3:25 Russell Sage First Presbyterian Church for rest stop to 2:34, EXHAUSTED. Depart on subway 4:05PM to get off at 4:53PM, never to do another tour with Helen Y.!
10/1/99: SENSATIONS at Brooklyn Museum, thanks to Shelley's Preview Pass for John A. and me: 86 things by 41 artists: blood-sculpture of head, handprints for murderess, shark in formaldehyde, many elephant-dungs, best of which is Spaceshit. Painting of a lingerie-clothed back. Half-size naked mannequins a la Goya, PRETTY erections on Zygotic---, to bathtubs in odd substances, a large medicine chest, four horse-paintings, 8-foot one-brush-stroke painting, room of 10x10 (100) beneath-seats, a look at the water tower on southeast corner of Grand and West Broadway. Sacred has to be DEFROSTED weekly (photos of God who answered ad). LATEX cow's head in 1000 Years on REAL floor that will have to be replaced. Blown Up bullet-hole/vagina. Most paintings not interesting. A BABY'S crying! Poussin's Choice of Bacchus and Triumph of Pan, and one in Rave is clearly Hugh Grant. Victorian gowns in African cloths. Went 6-8PM, exhausted, then enjoyed "goldfish" pretzels and coke and a gummy-shark in green and watched people until leaving.
10/7/99: 10AM: Still groggy after a coughing night. Huge double-dream onto DREAMS:10/7/99, phoned Steve L. again for a Schwab meeting today when I get 20 films from B&H for BOTH trips. Packed up clothes to cart (literally) over to Catholic Charities from cleaning out HALF my closet. Audio relaxation tapes to return to Shelley's box and check to deposit along with it. Made 16th and last trip to Pope's yesterday, but still have to talk to him and Mildred and Vicki and others before I leave. So many people AWAY: Shelley and Arnold and Carolyn and John! Hassle to get Sunday Times! Retyped the trip-mailing list, taking people off and changing LOTS of addresses: down to 24 people, National Geographics still in stacks to be left till I get back. Not started packing yet, but took Jean-Jacques' phone number on mailing list. Sent him note of lunches at L'Arpege on 20th and Pierre Gagnaire on 21st, and hope it's OK with him. Still have to get the laundry back, record my phone message, pay bills and American Express, and trim beard. Emptied Juno and unsubscribed Frommers. Still haven't responded to Shelley's suggestion that I become restaurant writer for the First Unitarian Church. Still haven't made Beard reservations for December with Fred. Still not gotten a call from Francois with a lunch fax nor a call from Steve about the Schwab meeting. Still coughing, "off" from the cold which is hopefully ending. And I'm leaving for France TOMORROW? Tenuous!
10/8/99: 7:20AM: Just "nonrecorded" DREAMS:10/8/99, but only TWO sets of coughing last night, though I'm quite phlegmy this morning---didn't take Nyquil, either, though I did take a Rohypnol about 9:50PM, rather late for "3:50AM in France." Which explains why I woke at 6:40 STILL feeling somewhat groggy, but ready for whatever the day brings. Wrote OVER the notes which said when I went to bed; 12:15AM on Tuesday, up at 9:15 (AGAIN 9 hours), 9:25PM Wednesday, up at 7:35AM after lots of tossing and turning, so it wasn't really 10+ hours, and then to bed 7:35PM last night to be up at 6:40AM, though with a rather frustrating jerk-off session for about an hour between then. Reminded myself on the note to take my watch-setting instructions, since I don't relish the thought of subtracting six hours through the 18 days; and book matches, since I've been farting, and Ken farts, and I'll want to have something WITH me as an antidote. Talked with Pope and Mildred, but not Vicki, and set up a 10:45AM appointment with Steve L., having heard from Mildred that CINF is rates "A" by Barrons, and the account went UP to $100,000 yesterday! But Mildred said that a few years ago it had been ranging up to 140! So maybe I WILL keep it. Put Amazonia on my lunch-list for restaurant #42 in 84 days, nicely symmetric. Got the laundry back and paid all bills, and AM the restaurant critic for Brooklyn Heights when I get back! Got ONE confirmation slip from L'Arpege but should call Francois to get another from Pierre Gagnaire, and still have to call Beard for Fred's dates. Not to mention watching the last hour or two on videotape and setting up the list for the trip. Now 7:30, HAVE eaten breakfast (and will have lots of food to LEAVE in the fridge and THROW AWAY when I get back), and GOT to get into the rest of the day. 3:45PM: Schwab meeting, film buying, Gagnaire confirmation getting, Amazonia lunching, TV watching and setting up, and GOT my MasterCard! Beard will call back?? Got belt exchanged and two more!! Now to pack, eat dinner, shower and trim beard, and call taxi! 5PM: Impossible rush before 5:20 car!!! TRAVEL:FRANCE BY CAR
10/28/99: 4:45PM: Things WERE going well until I tried to contact www.tasteofbrooklyn.com and got NOTHING but "contact/advertise." Sent her a note and then phoned her. Unfortunately I feel like I'm getting a COLD again! Not to mention that quick loose shit RIGHT after I ate the tuna casserole I'd JUST MADE for lunch. Managed to get through the mail the first day, but still haven't sent off the forms for visas for the January trip. Did talk to Mildred, Charles, Rita, Pope, Vicki, Lawrence W., Ken, Shelley, Arnold, and left word with Sherryl. Got through two Sunday Times puzzles and one of the two I had. Don't even feel like DOING THIS now!!
11/20/99: 9:30AM: JUST ABOUT caught up from the trip. Turned in four reviews (for $80?) to Tasteofbrooklyn, got the visas back, caught up talking with everyone and even videotapes, including six hours of Vanity Fair that I copied while I watched last night in case Rita still wants the last two hours. Very drunk from Beard lunch, jerked off not-too-well (I'm concerned about the "decreased sexual drive" phrase in the Tricor pamphlet---not to mention my left Visa card when I argued about not signing the release form Friday when I picked up the FIRST tablet for Saturday, before getting FIVE MORE tablets on Saturday, before the SIXTEEN tablets on Tuesday, what a pain), and went to bed feeling NAUSEOUS at 12:45AM. Better this morning, changing clothes before changing bedclothes and taking last batch in for laundry, maybe even dry cleaning, and DO have to fix up the apartment ENOUGH for Ken to come over after we meet at his place---wait, WHY am I doing THAT if it's not SPECIAL???---before coming here so he can see the slides he might want me to make prints of for Jay to see. Still slowly going through National Geographics, exchanging e-mail with Rita and Suzie, expecting a call from Anne K. from Taste, going back to the gym on my every-THREE-day updating, brushing teeth, making up list of places to go in December, phoning Audience Extras, preparing for tomorrow's MAN and Games Group, and still not really feeling GOOD, even with new Actualism Compassion.
11/26/99: 11:53AM: Just finished writing and printing DREAMS:11/26/99, in which I got started on THIS complaint: things just aren't going WELL. Wednesday was retrieved when I phoned Sherryl to complain about my "cancellations": 1) Javits Center party canceled for 12/31. 2) Mildred canceled my invitation to Thanksgiving dinner at Dallas BBQ the DAY BEFORE Thanksgiving, leaving me with nothing, 3) Arnold tried to get an Audience Extras play for Wednesday evening, but it was sold out, and 4) Tammy apologized Wednesday morning for not having gotten in touch with me, but things were delayed and I wouldn't be getting any pages until Tuesday at the earliest. Sherryl then said she had nothing to do Wednesday evening so we ended up at the good Dolphins restaurant for dinner and Space at the Public Theater for a good play. (At least THAT has some positive feedback: reading Scientific American [while shitting on getting up this morning] which states that the NEXT "paradigm shift" will likely be the PROOF of the possibility of alternate universes [though I'm sorry to admit I have no idea of the thought-links which could PROVE this] outside our own, diminishing our individuality by ANOTHER order of billions.) Thanksgiving consisted of watching two tapes from Marty's: Cookie's Fortune (entertaining with Glenn Close as another version of Cruella deVil; and A Walk on the Moon (with a fairly sexy Liev Schreiber and an even sexier Viggo Mortensen but a silly ending: could the twist REALLY repair that marriage)? Then hours of FreeCell with WQXR providing the background mind-removal. Didn't even finish putting away the pile of stuff on the table that's been there for five or six days now, and my failure to get ANY reply on Juno from Rita or Anne or Alvin is part of my malaise. Having no work to do is also part of it. AND the thought of the 13:25 hour flight across a darkened North Pole is REALLY appalling: two entire days on a plane ending in TOTAL exhaustion if I don't manage to get any sleep. I can only HOPE that the flight is SO odd that there'll be enough room for sleeping across three or four seats, as there was on the going China Airlines flight. Or that there'd be enough individual movies, a la Air France, to keep me occupied as on the trip back from France. But I suppose it's better than some ALTERNATIVE, which would have me spending a day (or even more) in the limbo of a Seattle or Anchorage or Tokyo BETWEEN days of flight, as the overnight in Los Angeles wasn't particularly exciting on the return from Tibet. Vicki's managed to set up a Canasta evening at her place for 7PM tomorrow, which will take care of part of that. But there's no one to CALL: Charles is on the Island, I don't think I'll be calling Mildred EVER again ("Who knows, you might cancel something ELSE with me at the last minute, leaving me in the kind of lurch that I REALLY DON'T LIKE!"), Carolyn is upstate, and Spartacus doesn't seem to be doing anything except receiving the tapes as I return them. Getting two more tapes from Marty today, and still have two four-hour prerecorded videotapes to watch. Not to mention the stacks of National Geographic to continue to sift through. But I'm DEPRESSED! No answer at C.'s, so I have no idea what my x-ray may have revealed. Shelley's been so ill or busy it's hardly worth it calling HER. Really should phone Pope to check how he's doing. Audience Extras has nothing good for tonight. Even REALLY debated NOT writing out the DREAMS this morning [DREAMS:11/26/99]: they were both "interesting" (though of very usual patterns), but I'm starting to question WHY I'm doing this? I'm certainly not looking through them to find patterns or correspondences. WHY bother to continue. But I keep thinking, "At least it's keeping on with what I HAD been doing, which is better than just NOT DOING, as I've started more and more to---uh, not do." Can't even think of anything interesting to get to the bottom of the page, not even the impetus to change the ribbon (which is REALLY getting dim), but with no jobs to insist on it, it's just one of a large and larger number of things that I JUST DON'T DO, like not even concentrating on the restaurant-list, which at least gave me something to do every other day for about six weeks BEFORE my trip to France got my weight up to ABOUT 200 pounds, which is REALLY tragic, seeing that my border for mean body mass index, or whatever it's called, is 176 pounds, now seemingly hopeless to attain.
12/13/99: 1:40PM: Depression FINALLY relieved, now that Paul's here and gone, and pile of stuff has been reduced on table, and work reduces to ONE book before my trip and PROBABLY two after. Phoned Mildred and "we're back," even to my telling her TODAY that I have (finally) plans with Carolyn for New Year's Eve at Patois for $75. Telling myself I MUST accomplish three useful things in a day: mailed "last big batch" of Christmas cards today, but didn't buy "other" stamps because the lines were too long and Spartacus says the RATES may be going up January 1! Subway strike may cancel Mildred's and my movie and dinner on Wednesday, and I just have the Beard on Friday noon. AND FORGOT 1PM MARK! ! ! Phoned Mark: no reservation under that name??? Phone Fred to leave a message on his machine and get his VOICE: Today's MONDAY, not Tuesday! "Are you usually this ditzy???" ANYWAY, it sure breaks up the DAY!!
12/19/99: 12:02PM: Re-read above: changed the ribbon, bought the stamps, subway didn't strike, managed the two big meals on Tuesday, looking forward to the Games Group this afternoon, sent THREE Juno messages: 1) per Ken, CANCELING the condom order, taking ANOTHER stack off my table, 2) responding to Gerry M.'s different e-mail address, 3) query to FREE4ANYONE@NETZERO.NET to find out why it doesn't work, and then searched for Andre E. (seeing my success with Rolf H.) and got NOTHING, so I think he probably IS dead. Typed LIFE99 up to date, preparing for the amalgamation of all the 1900s into ONE list, so that the 2000s will PROPERLY form a secondarily supplemental list. Moaned to Gerry that I seem to NEED work to FOCUS my energies; otherwise I tend to settle for hours of FreeCell. Need to get something ELSE to do, like putting the stack of National Geographics back out after I'd put them away for the trip, or more actively going OUT, even by myself, since Mildred seems remote, Charles is unavailable---just talk to Charles: Bill is OUT of the hospital, eating well, taking his Parkinson's medications without side effects, and his mother needs a THIRD operation (after her hip and her stomach) to "graft flesh over the base of her spine." Call Spartacus and we chat about nothing until he has to go to the john and call me back. One Taste review ready to go out, but I like the idea of keeping them in pairs. AND Charles will be BACK in town sometime this week. Stretching this out: No Reason!