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2002

1/1/02: 1:20PM: Finished the 2001 LIFELIST typing, sorting, and almost printing, putting this at the end to print out the last page. Do-list down to only FIVE: 1) Met before 1/13, 2) Massage, 3) World of Video, 4) Coins, and 5) Cadman Plaza check. Today to the gym and Fred's party and back to watch TV and tomorrow to finish catching up with TV and start on indexing, ready for the NEW YEAR, helped by Ken's inviting me to his place after a mediocre dinner at Town to help kill a $140 bottle of Dom Perignon with him and Jay. Good days!

1/7/02: 1:25PM: Decided to RETIRE the do-list: it still has five items on it, but the THINGS are stacked on the table: 1) Jim S.’s massage number of 638-1792 didn't answer after 11 rings, I'll try his website next. 2) "World of Video" card is on the table with want-list. 3) Cook Island coin-dealers reduced to only two possibilities on 47th Street. 4) "Met before 12/30" has been replaced by "Met before 1/13" and then lots of OTHER places, on the table. 5) Cadman now puts two people into a one-bedroom apartment, so I'd never get a two-bedroom even WITH Jean-Pierre, and when I called today to see where I was on the list I was told to call back tomorrow when the woman who handles it is there. SO THE LIST GOES INTO---my Personal file! Now to get rid of the stuff on the table! Ken wants to go to Costa Rica in April, before the rainy season in May, but Abby can only give me bound-book dates of 4/26 for Grade 9, 4/25 for Grade 10, 5/24 for Grade 11, and 5/24 for Grade 12. She'll have to call me back for my question, "How long BEFORE these dates for INDEX?" Ken's trip sounds good, but only if I can go. Went to Pope's to give him John's Xmas present of Wit's End and $40 cash and 8 AA batteries (expensive for $6.70?), having a happy meeting with Harriet, trying to enjoy walking in the wetness of the first snowfall of the season (still falling outside my window with three old roses still visible on the aging plants), picked up "a few" groceries that expanded into my usual three-bag $36.58, home to find the mail hadn't come yet, and up to put groceries away, clean the TV screen from the humidifier being working for only a week, soak my warts (which still haven't come off), down to the penultimate hide-patch. Phoned M. for the Physics Handbook corrections and questions WAY before the 1/21 deadline, phoned Abby for the "no set deadline yet" news, and no answer from Cadman and no response from masseur---and is "blue," in his phone message, that he's morose, or just erotic? Spartacus is interested in a possible $10 matinee for Homebody/Kabul Wednesday, Charles and I have Frau, which got great reviews in both this week's New York and New Yorker, tomorrow evening, and I'm almost caught up with my TV tapes---which will let me get to World of Video for more porno, so I can get back into sexy orgasms, which haven't been too prevalent recently, maybe because I used up the last Androenlarge and I'm waiting for my next blood testosterone-check results. END!

1/22/02: 8:00AM: Yesterday was SUCH a day with 1) talking to Pope, 2) getting a massage, 3) Jean-Pierre's phone call, 4) seeing Syndrome, 5) getting and "using" World of Video tapes, 6) surveying "the last two weeks" of the indexes for Grades 9 and 10, that I wanted to write this OFTEN. To take them in INVERSE order: 6) Aside from "the final polish" on the indexes, I've essentially gotten HALF the material needed for a complete index: through chapter 6 of the 12 chapters and back matter for Grade 9, through chapter 6 of the 11 chapters and back matter for Grade 10. Good talk with Abby on Friday at 6PM about what I don't have and may get before they'll "need to have" my index (how they need it when some chapters are still in MANUSCRIPT I don't quite know). So today I should confess that I'm "caught up" and will have to start on first-pass pages if no editing is available. 5) The VERY LAST item on the table (except for a newly received index due the end of this week) was "World of Video" stack, which I went to last night and got three tapes, mostly unpleasant anal shots followed by unexciting orgasms, and jerked off until 1:30AM this morning, not at all easy to arouse, as reflected in 2), later. 4) Pity Charles didn't see Syndrome with me: I got the last ticket because family or friends or word of mouth filled the place, and it might be a smash: intellectually stimulating, very funny in places, entrancing totally new ideas with a more than competent portrayer of the ideas, and I'd recommend that anyone see it. Exhilarating evening in the theater, though I found my eyes closing inadvertently from sheer exhaustion with the emotions of the day. 3) Since he usually called at 3PM Saturday, I took the phone off the hook while I went to the massage, returning at 3:30 and despairing when I didn't get his promised call for the next 2.5 hours, but then at 6PM he phoned, still happy to hear my voice, still insisting on using his own phone card, with a somewhat better toleration on both our parts of the time-delay in the phone transmissions, and blessedly he changed his date of wanting to visit NYC from March (I was concerned about winter cold on his hot system: should I take a spare overcoat to meet him at the airport; what about footgear; how awful if he'd catch a cold or be terribly uncomfortable!) to July, when it would be warm and I'd be totally away from work and travel for his sake. I'm resigning myself to the possibility that (as Rolf once described Paul) he's really "a little girl" in emotionality and coping ability, so that I'll have to care for EVERYTHING he experiences. 2) The massage should really have been a page to itself. 1) 8:43AM: This now takes precedence. Pope phoned yesterday morning with his usual litany of urinal and bedpan problems, talking on and on as I tried to listen but thought of other things at the same time, like how annoyed I was with his insistence on talking about urinal and bedpan problems. He was concerned with (after, in seeming order of priority, a) losing his room, b) losing his foot, c) keeping his urinal and bedpan problems, d) replacing his telephone) his monthly astrological column for the nursing home newspaper, trying to direct me (why not Harriet?) to a red folder with most of his current articles, as usual ASSUMING that I would do as he wanted, but then he phoned back while I was eating breakfast and I said I just COULDN'T go to the nursing home for him now! His talking between 10:15 and 10:45 meant that I didn't have time to go to the gym before the massage, so I just had to take a shower. Then this morning, at 7:55AM, I got a call from Dr. W. (with whom I'd left a message at 4:25PM on Friday, after their closing time at 4PM before the three-day weekend), saying, bottom line, that the foot really had to come off: Pope was in denial, his leg was contracted almost to his buttocks and had bits of gangrene; Pope would concentrate on details and avoid the big picture: the foot had to come off. Though Pope called again, yesterday, saying that I should NOT talk to Dr. W. because "it would just make him angry, and I want Doug to talk to him," I felt that I HAD to talk to him since he phoned ME. I called Pope back and he was STILL in denial, saying repeatedly that he'd die in the operation at LICH (the pacemaker operation was in Methodist Hospital), and then Dr. W. came in at 8AM and Pope asked me to phone him back. I started on the page, then phoned him at 8:30 to get no answer. I then phoned Doug's home number and got his office number, where I contacted him and gave him Pope's phone number, since he had NOT been contacted when Pope went to the hospital, saying what Dr. W. had told me. I said there was no answer, but when I phoned again at 8:40 Pope WAS answering, saying that when the phone rang before his nurse had prevented him from answering and that Doug should call him now. Phoned Doug back to tell him that. Now 9:04AM. Sat a bit at 8AM and felt sorry for Pope, then felt that I HAD to get this page (these pages) out of my system. [Interpolated at 9:45: Just got off the phone with Harriet, who thinks Dr. W. is a wise guy and unreliable, obviously feeding into Pope's distrust of him. She tells me Pope was admitted to the hospital on Monday. She's going to call Pope and get back to me.] Back to 2). I'd phoned once, got no answer; contacted him via e-mail where James insisted that his phone machine DID work. Left a message, he left a message with me, I set up an appointment for 11AM Monday, then realized I should go to the gym before seeing him, and he accepted my change to 1PM Monday, giving me good bus directions to his place on Willoughby. Left about 12:15, leaving the phone off the hook since Jean-Pierre had phoned at 3PM on Saturday and said he was phoning again today, and I knew I probably wouldn't be back before 3PM. Bus took me on en route, little traffic because of the holiday, though much of Fulton Mall seemed to be open for Martin Luther King's birthday anyway, though only about five people were on the bus when I got off at Vanderbilt. Old-looking brownstone at 75 Willoughby with winter-denuded shrubs and small trees almost obscuring the entrance and ground floor. True to his word, there was one bell on the door (he later said he shared the third floor with an older man's apartment, the second floor was a floor-through, as was the ground floor) and I waited awhile as he came down from the third floor to open the door for me. Up to a tiny bit over-warm room, rather spare, with a narrow body-table in the middle. Took off my coat and my clothes and put them onto a sofa under the front windows, and when I noticed he also stripped to his gym-shorts, I pointed to my underwear and asked "on or off" and he said off. Lay on my stomach, time then probably close to 1PM, since I arrived about 12:50PM and we hardly chatted, as I said I was expecting a phone call at 3PM. He started by just touching my body from head to toe from the back, then applied light pressure, then got some water-soluble oil and began what I assume was a Swedish-like massage: moderate depth, only grunting slightly when he encountered an obstruction going up the outside of my right leg with a pressure that he later said would USUALLY cause discomfort, though he really didn't know why. We had started with light chat, but then I just relaxed under his competent hands. When he finished, he got warm cloths and began washing off the oil. I asked if this were typical of Swedish or if this was his own doing. He said the oil was water soluble, but he thought the bathing was comforting, which it was. When he washed me, he then took off his shorts, so I was conscious that his thighs were naked against my arms on the sides of the table. I turned my head a few times so I wouldn't get a crick in my neck, and I could see his small genitals. Then, on my back, I opened my eyes as he stretched over me, mentally complaining about a small bit of shirt-lint marring the pinkness of his left underarm, recalling his website with his feminine posings, noting the small ring in his navel, finding his pale flesh not that appealing, and the underside of his pockmarked chin and thin nostrils not the most exciting views in the world. Then, from the legs and stomach, he began kneading my genitals with the oil, at first I thought as massage, then, as it quickly became clear, in order to excite me, which I though paradoxical after the extreme relaxation of the massage itself. I let it go, let it go, but was not becoming aroused as he so clearly wanted, so I asked if I could touch him, and he said, "Of course." Since he was so anal-oriented I went first to the bumpy area under his testicles, trying to make him hard as he was trying to make me hard, but I wasn't getting any response from either him or me, so I transferred my energies to his cock---rather stubby with severely lobed cockhead, as if he might have had a urethral ring that had pulled out. At one point he seemed to respond to my pressures by becoming harder, but it didn't make me harder, and when he lost that bit of an edge, I murmured, "I think we could consider this part of the massage---over." He asked if I wanted an orgasm and I said no. So he finished up, and washed me off, and when I was sitting up I asked if he "had a choice" when doing the session of taking off his shorts or initiating sex-play: what if "a real troll" was on the table? He laughed and said "a real troll" wouldn't get through his door. He said that some people wanted release and some didn't. He'd lightly referred to the Tantric [Pope interpolation #2 at 10:06AM: Harriet calls and says Pope's worried about Coumadin, which "he thinks he had last night, and if he has it before an operation he might bleed to death." So I call Doug, who got the number 780-1056 for Dr. W. while Harriet gave me the number 797-1101 for "his office," and he said Dr. W. was on his rounds and would get back to him by 11:30. Harriet said Pope's operation was scheduled for tomorrow! I told all this to Doug, who said he'd get back to me. Now 10:10AM and I'm beginning to hunger for breakfast and to dress better than my bathrobe and slippers.] form of massage when he talked about "bathing," talking about the "sensual experience provided in as many ways as possible." He also talked about his "course" that said that sexual release wasn't RECOMMENDED, but in some clients it would benefit. He said some did and some didn't. I started telling him a tiny bit about bodywork I'd done, but he didn't express interest in any details. My feet were cold throughout: he asked if I wanted him to put on more heat, but I said, "My feet may be cold, but I'm not." I finally asked for the time and it was 2:46PM already! I got off the table and we hugged naked, he even coming down with a kiss on my cheek and neck, saying we'd hug again when I was dressed. I was about to put on my coat when I said I'd rather get a hug before that, and we did. Went to the john as he went downstairs to let me out, telling me to keep warm, and I was halfway to the gate when I remembered that I hadn't PAID him. Went back to ring the bell and saw that he was standing behind the door, and he laughed and said he thought I'd left it upstairs. Peeled out six 20s from my wallet and he took them and I went out the door again, just missing a 38 bus, but another came in about five-six minutes, and a slow ride home got me there by 3:30, to find that no one seems to have called during that time. I was happy about a number of things: I'd gotten another item off my list and didn't feel any need to go BACK for a massage, since his body, in hand, didn't really appeal to me that much, though I admit to a fantasy that HE gets in touch with ME and says he liked my responses and personality and would offer me a five- or ten-session heavy discount if I would continue to get massages from him. After jerking off last night and watching Tony Danza on TV to 1:30AM (making a 7:55AM call VERY early!), I lay in bed, looking at the clock as late as 2:10AM, thinking that, with the visit to World of Video and finding I had only FIVE rentals left, I was almost finished with THAT, too, except for the glitch that I'd be reluctant to leave for Village Playwrights if Jean-Pierre didn't call by 5:20 today, and with the two Cook Islands coins and museums caught up to January 27---but that's SUNDAY, and this is TUESDAY, so clearly THAT has to be ADDED to the do-table NOW!---I'm REALLY caught up and should feel FABULOUS! But now at 10:20AM GOT to dress and get into breakfast and prepare for my DENTIST appointment at 1PM, nothing like OTHER things to take my mind OFF that! Breakfast while watching television, having NOT taped a special from Channel 13 that I can do next Saturday late-night. Doug calls back again and again, talking to Pope, concluding he should have the operation tomorrow, since W. can regulate Coumadin effects if necessary, and the sooner the better: "He can be back at Cobble Hill five days after the operation," which can NOT be spinal with his bedsore, so it WILL be general---"And who would want to watch his foot being taken off ANYWAY." And it would be BELOW the knee, but not ONLY the foot because THAT would mean probably another operation in a few months. Mildred calls about restaurant reservations and did NOT call yesterday, and I wash my face and finish this at 12:23PM, just about completely ready for what may be the first of MANY dental appointments!

1/24/02: 10:10AM: Yesterday ANOTHER busy-busy day: woke about 6AM and made a list of SIXTEEN items to do yesterday, Wednesday, and actually got THROUGH all of them save (ha) #13: 1) Call Laura (we finally talked at 6, answering all my questions for her; she said she'd call today with sample-index evaluation), 2) See Spartacus (who couldn't find half the tapes for me he was looking for, but I brought back three large tapes to view anyway), 3) Jackie--insurance? (she said the supplier would take out the $350 deposit from the Visa, so obviously my balance was used for insurance), 4) Call Mildred (who sympathized with Pope, complained on her own, and continued to wonder why I did all I did for Pope), 5) Sort 2001 receipts (clearing a bit of my overstuffed desk drawer, amazed that I'm over $51,000 including Social Security benefits from last year), 6) Call Carolyn (with results of her first try at sending my notebook-typing e-mail, producing only BOXES for apostrophes and quotation marks, not a good thing, and she kept INSISTING I can download the Mac way, which I can't, but she doesn't want to come over yet to SEE how things work here, will try to e-mail me another file that works better), 7) Return tapes (which I didn't do Tuesday because I was waiting for Jean-Pierre's call, but was happy to check the slip to see that the tapes were actually signed out for TWO days, and since I felt like treating myself, I phoned the Beard and found there was a seat available for the Santa Fe restaurant with Ken, so I took myself in early and got out three more tapes, which I'll get to later when I get to last NIGHT), 8) Check TDF, where I found my ID# 1439001, which I gave to Spartacus to see if HE can use it, though I said I had to give my e-mail address to TDF and won't be able to register until Monday), 9) Order Pravachol and Gemfibrozil (which I did, by phone, picking it up at 1:35, even earlier than the 2PM they said, but left an envelope [have NO idea what this was!] which I have to add to TODAY'S list of things to do), 10) Laundry out (which I'll pick up today with the envelope from Duane Reade), 11) Wash dishes (a huge task, putting them away before leaving for the Beard), 12) Call Bill P. (his usual ditzy self, but the meeting went pretty well), 13) Buy shoes (not done), 14) Beard: tonight with Ken? (yes, so I called Ken, who then reminded me about Ron's offer of $55 for Thursday night, which I called Beard back for but haven't gotten a response yet), 15) Ken--WHEN is the $55 "special" (which was covered above), 16) Check Juno/Beard message from Ron (who didn't use my e-mail address yet). Ken was early to the Beard, so we loaded up on appetizers with the good New Mexican champagne, and the food was REALLY GREAT, particularly the verjus with the sea bass, and I got home maybe 11:15 to undress partly and the phone rings with JEAN-PIERRE, who's willing to pay for his plane ticket, can stay for a month in July, and in my drunken bliss I REALLY enjoy talking with him, so much so that I can hardly get to sleep thinking about him. Phone Spartacus and talk till about 12:15AM, then play my two messages and the first is a joyful "I'm alive!" from Pope, which I call Spartacus back about, feeling that THIS day has been good, maybe partly because Pope DID find someone to phone Unity for prayers, which I couldn't find. Also, Dr. W. phoned me at 3:50PM to say that the operation was a total success. Looked at one good Bjorn tape (Plantation Paradise) and jerked off and put on another TV tape and got to bed about 2:10AM, but almost debated taking a sleeping pill so that my mind wouldn't revolve around anticipations of Jean-Pierre's trip here, Pope's new life without a foot, and the Holt and other jobs waiting for me to complete---getting to sleep after 3 when I finally started Actualism, getting VERY little distance before sleep. Woke at 9:10, lots of things to do, so up and shit and dress, feeling slightly hung over, not improved by a talk with a VERY querulous Pope complaining about ALL the details of a wet wallet, lost glasses, non-responding nurses, a breakfast he thought he maybe shouldn't have gotten, complaints already about PT and recovery, so I got off the phone, checked Juno to get an error that caused me to reset and try again OK, got the delivery from TechBooks, and made an eight-item (HALF the size!) do-list for today: 1) Charles/Neue? 2/3) Holt/Abby? 4/5) Get laundry/envelope, 6) Beard tonight? 7) Write Jean-Pierre, 8) Buy shoes. Start the DAY!

2/12/02: BUSY DAYS! Yesterday I picked up my socks after dropping off Chinese laundry and finding that the Pierrepont mailbox only picked up at 10AM for Carolyn's $300 advance check for her purchase of a PC and WP9 for my journal-typing. Finished the Times, saving the Real Estate section for Mildred, got two Beard dates from Ken in May, left word with Jacqui for paying my Costa Rica balance, send what looked to be an attachment (which I couldn't open) with Carolyn's lost four pages, got to the gym only one day off my usual 4-day-lapse schedule, and then watched an hour's videotape while eating a quick lunch before joining Mildred at Olive's---after depositing $12,025 in the bank---for dinner before going to the Blue Heron for Seamus Heaney's Cure at Troy: A Translation of Sophocles' Philoctetes, which I then came home to read about. That looked like at least TWELVE tasks accomplished, as well as changing the sheets and earplugs after my gym-cleaning, and the Monday flower watering also. This morning I woke with energy for having breakfast while watching the start of Snow in August and brushing my teeth for my 10:30AM dental appointment, which lasted until 12:10PM, when I determined to buy the shoes that'd been longest on my list, but walking up Atlantic Avenue I passed Sahadi's, so I couldn't resist going in and buying 1) 33 ounces of Sour Cherry Syrup, 2) three packages of Near East pilafs, 3) Anne's Almond cookies (a fairly weighty lug to the next purchases): 4) deodorant and 5) three rubber tips for teeth at Barney's, which had no arginine. Then across to Payless for the object of the day: 6) 9W shoes usually $19.99 on sale for $16.99, passing up $1 socks which weren't quite all cotton and what I wanted. Then crossed to Rite Aid for 7) Odor-Eaters for the new shoes and 8) two Flair red felt-tip pens. Decided Vitamins Plus would be the best for 9) L-arginine, also on sale for $19.17, and I'm glad there's no tax on any of these. Around corner to HIP for 10) an optometrist's list that still includes Grand on Montague, and 11) renewed prescriptions from Dr. C. for Gemfibrozil and Pravachol, which were expiring, and I'd forgotten 12) my next appointment with D., to whom I wrote a $600 check for the whole crown after a MISERABLE session where the tooth WOULD NOT BE NUMBED! Back to messages so I phoned Spartacus; Jacqui, to whom I agreed to Visa $2283.50 for the rest of the Costa Rica trip; Carolyn, who solved her WP9 storage problem and agreed to bring a sample diskette over tomorrow at 10:30AM to test; and then I went down at 4PM for a true mailbox-full of mail: 1) big letter from Christal and Hansjorg, 2) DTW ad, 3) Covad ad, 4) Big Onion schedule, 5) Aquavit mailing, 6) RadioShack statement, 7) Mark Morris ad, 8) Modern Maturity, 9) New Yorker Anniversary Issue, 10) OfficeMax ad, 11) Grand Circle ad, 12) APC ad, 13) Reliable ad, 14) New York Spring Fashion issue. WHEW!!! Forgot that yesterday TechBooks called to say the appendix for my current books hasn't been "decided whether to include" yet, and they'll start sending pages for the Pesticides book for which I haven't received ANY pages yet. Lots of stuff to put away, and still have two big things left to look at: 1) IRS forms, to see how much cash I'll need to deflate my current $21,000 too-big balance, and 2) all the pile-up of Holt pages, which I expect to be quizzed on any minute now. BUT Shelley called to say we should meet at the garage at 9:45 Thursday for the Brooklyn Museum, and Spartacus reminded me that we're seeing Queen of Spades tomorrow night, followed the next night by Cymbeline with Ken, both of which will be better than the awful Further than the Furthest Thing that I saw Monday with Shelley after the mediocre dinner at Nocello. E-mailed Susan a day-late birthday greeting and note that I have to reserve for the Sunday Games Group tomorrow, too. Busy busy! At least Pope's phone is working, BOTH Sherryl's scans were OK, and I've yet to get a response to the second of the three letters I sent to Jean-Pierre. Spartacus is going to London in May, and I'm only scarcely tempted to ask if I can come along. Put the radiator back on because it was really chilly in here, and I've got to get a haircut any day now, and even the floors are so dirty I'll think about vacuuming before long. Not to mention a growing grocery-list and stacks of newspapers to leave down next Tuesday---the cycles just go on and on and the journal pages finally reach the bottom of the page.

2/23/02: 7:40AM! Bed at 11:35 last night after wine and Swedish meatballs at Spartacus's, but woke with reflux at 1:30AM and again at 2 something and 3 something, and while lying about 6AM came to the idea of MY "Unpopular Positions" Web-page, including the following sections: 1) My antipathy to the two greatest evils in the world (Religion and Nationalism) was wonderfully summed up in the 2/10/02 New York Times review of two books about Edward Abbey that gave me his wonderful quote: "Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." 2) Why should the gay movement GROUP women and men: gay men have FEW interests in common with gay women, and vice versa. 3) If I hate sodomy, does that mean I'm not gay? 4) Condemnation of pornography should never include GAY pornography, which is so clearly life AFFIRMING rather than degrading. 5) Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the father-son family-Bush have to be four of the most despicable people to have existed: self-serving, public-damning, economy-busting, rich-enhancing, utterly hypocritical unless completely oblivious of their stupidity, being totally manipulated by their supporters. 6) What POSSIBLE good could Stalin and Hitler have gotten from their Holocausts, South African rulers from their genocides, current politicians for their lies and manipulations ASIDE from money and power, which they probably didn't enjoy because they never considered that they had ENOUGH OF EITHER? Observation most recently based on the depressing Frontline (but Frontline is almost ALWAYS depressing) showing the generals who supervised the slaughter of thousands of Salvadorans living comfortably in FLORIDA! 7) Then the stupid Americans who continue to a) buy SUVs though Ford and Chrysler are INTENTIONALLY endangering lives for their huge profit margins, b) smoke cigarettes to burden the health-care structures with their lung cancers and emphysemas, c) vote Republican though most don't benefit from the riches siphoned into the pockets of the Enron, Savings and Loan, stock-market manipulations, super-fat cats, d) support religion though other religions have sanctioned the killing of thousands right here in River (I mean New York) City, e) support marriage though clearly it's based on the outmoded idea that women can't support themselves without men, f) support our government though it's clearly one of the most exploitive in the world. (Though equally clearly there's no great competition for a BETTER government in the existing world.) THIS LIST CAN BE EXTENDED. So I lay in bed thinking of the indexing I have to finish (Holt Grade 9 by Wednesday, Grade 10 by Friday; then FIVE others: 1) TechBooks' Parallel Piping still held for appendix, 2) St. Martin's Self-Help by 3/1, 3) BOMC's kids' grammar, 4) TechBooks' Pesticides, 5) Terry's Informatics not in yet), and get up at 6:55AM to dress and search out Russell's Unpopular Essays and re-read a couple with delight, find the Edward Abbey quote, start typing this page at 7:40, now 8:10AM! VERY happy with my yesterday's work of filling out the Schwab Keogh-change forms and finding my IRS/NYS taxes, sending out IRA/Keogh checks, getting Xeroxes of forms and Jean-Pierre's photos (and dinner and wine) at Spartacus's, leaving ONLY the indexes to do, a reminder that the Hindu exhibit at Natural History has been extended to 3/21, and current pills to refill. Not to mention the gym today and prescriptions to get to Rite Aid before the Beard tonight---and when will I pick up milk and lunch meat? AND watch all four tapes from Spartacus, one of which has to be back by Tuesday. Reading back, I'm surprised that NOTEBOOK from 2/12/02, ELEVEN DAYS AGO, is still in the printer. Printing VERY LITTLE, though I DID get more paper, and STILL have to get my haircut and pick up Chinese laundry, having thrown a stinky shirt into the hamper this morning. So LOTS of things are getting done (including talking to Marj lengthily about Jean-Pierre yesterday, and calling Rita today for her and Paul's SS-number and date of birth for the Schwab Keogh beneficiary-list, including John), but still lots to do, with the first half of Holt thundering to conclusion with only 84 hours to date! Thank goodness I still have my health and energy! And not much NEXT week aside from Village Playwrights, dentist, Paul Taylor, and MAYBE slides here Friday but Fred hasn't called back yet. Now hungry for breakfast at 8:25AM!!

2/28/02: 9:30AM: Possible feelings of happiness? Wow! FINISHED Grade 9 on Monday and mailed it Tuesday, but still haven't heard from Abby about it, nor about the last chapter of Grade 10. HAVE DONE lots: got haircut after the grueling (though relatively painless, thank goodness) 100 minutes in the dentist's chair yesterday, picked up laundry; already did the Village Playwrights, dentist, and Paul Taylor, but have yet to clean up the place for tomorrow's slides for Fred and Ken and Carolyn after sorting out the "male" slides from the 542 discards. Finished the Things index, e-mailed the English guide, and have to call York about TWO pending indexes. Will get another St. Martin's delivered by messenger today and have Terry's Informatics to puzzle through for $1200 limit. Got to bed at 2AM after a gratifying FreeCell that puts me at a record 83.7%, but got out of bed at 9:10AM to put on sweater in crocus-killing cold in the 20s, but now the heat's coming up and temperature inside is up to 65°. Feel GOOD at 9:40AM.

3/5/02: 9:17AM: Look blankly around for something to DO: finished the Informatics index last night at 1:35 except for incorporating the four missing pages that Terry will FedEx to me this morning, waiting to e-mail the name-ridden Einstein File that I don't need to e-mail to St. Martin's until Thursday or he'll REALLY think I'm too good, having worked over 6 hours on Saturday and 10:20 on Sunday and 8:30 on Monday (even while going to the gym and talking on the phone to Carolyn and Mary V. and Charles and Spartacus and Sherryl about my 3/23 birthday potluck [which Spartacus calls covered-dish]), and waiting for the appendix for Piping (which will come this week), and for Grade 10, chapter 11 from Holt (which may have gotten lost in the mail)---and ignoring my pressure to at least see what QUESTIONS will come up for Grades 11 and 12 for the two indexes "due 3/11" (HA)!! And Mildred did NOT call back to accept my apology for being pissy to her on Sunday when I was so annoyed with myself for taking the biography-form of the Einstein file, which was ALL names, though I had to go BACK to fill out the 1012 lines but it WORKED with my speed, just as all the glossary entries for the Informatics WORKED with my speed, generating 1407 lines with MANY page-entries in only 9 hours of the $1200 limit. But it's all DONE and I'm FREE for the first time in ages, only the Birdie with Ken tonight on the calendar before next Tuesday's dentist and slide-showing at Tuesday Evening Club. So I figure to catch up on television tapes, but then feel that I MUST do this page to crow about HOW CAUGHT UP WITH INDEXING I am, so that I could even entertain the thought of GETTING MY APARTMENT PAINTED this spring before Jean-Pierre arrives in July! Wonderfully caught up with EVERYTHING!! And decide to print this partial page at 9:26AM, ready to get into the lazy day.

3/20/02: 8:35AM: Got up at 8AM to type DREAMS:3/20/02 and wanted to write THIS bit, too. Lots of things on my plate for today: 1) go to Museum of Natural History, 2) go to gym, 3) phone D. to reduce crown-surface, 4) phone Jean-Pierre on his wonderful new portable phone, 5) maybe receive packages from Holt and B&H, and of course 6) finish Holt Grade 11 index. ALL the jobs listed on 2/23 have been wonderfully finished EXCEPT the Holt. How my life is governed by BENCHMARKS: 2000 with five trips, 2001 with five trips followed by Holt pressures, now coming to an end NEXT WEEK! Then the Costa Rica trip followed by PAINTING, and maybe another trip before Jean-Pierre arrives in July. After that---WHO KNOWS??? But it'll be nice to have FREE TIME to 1) catch up with Marty's tapes, 2) trim back the rosebush, 3) prepare for painting, 4) write to Jean-Pierre more, 5) check blood-work with C., 6) invest my cash---or at least open a SAVINGS account at HSBC for more interest. And be nicer to Mildred. Now hungry for breakfast at only 8:50AM, so print this out and EAT! Well, seeing that I have only a few lines left: hope NOT to repeat my agony before sleeping night-before-last with a phone call AND a letter from Jean-Pierre, ACHING to be here, and only a last desperate Actualism turned down my adrenaline by 2:15AM. And there'll probably be more indexes, too, including whatever "repagination"the Pesticides book might come up with this and next week.

3/27/02: 8:15AM: Still in the terrible funk from yesterday: finished with Grade 12 all but the page-tearing on Monday, then watched TV tapes to fill the rest of the day. Up early Tuesday to eat breakfast and brush teeth and get out to D. to grind down both my upper and lower bridges so I can chew better, not really getting to where it feels "normal," but she astounds me by saying she's reluctant to take much more off the crown because it's only a TENTH OF A MILLIMETER thick! And says that I do NOT have a clump of iron up top that could be ground indefinitely. So I conclude "I'll live with this," and it feels somewhat better the next morning---maybe boosted by her assurance that my grinding on the marking-tape shows that ALL my teeth ARE touching on that side. Then get home to finish the Grade 12 index, putting everything away, but get involved in CROSSWORD puzzles when I sort out the old stack for this new trip. Decide I MUST get out to deliver the index about 2PM, depositing a check (since I don't have another one in the mail), and hope I don't catch cold in the miserable drizzly rain and gloomy afternoon. More work on the puzzles and have lunch and mope and mope: what a BEREFT feeling without the past four months' time-concentration on the Holt indexes! It must be what a new retiree feels after quitting absorbing work all at once at 65. Of course the trip-anxiety doesn't help a bit! Get out the Scotland journal for Spartacus and spend about 45 minutes reading through all THAT, nothing much to help him OR me in my memories, sadly. Then pick up the prescriptions at 5:10PM and get to Village Playwrights for a dreadful piece of convict mail-exchange with Margaret C., and take two of my $4-over back from last month. Return to phone Ken, who does NOT have my plane tickets: he GAVE them to me! Look and look and phone him back: HOW did he give them to me? With a tote bag and maybe an itinerary. Look in the closets for NO tote bag, having NO memory of bringing ANYTHING like that into my apartment at ALL! Phone Ken AGAIN to find WHEN he gave it to me: but he can only say it was "somewhere public" and probably the Beard, but I'd just have to phone Jackie and find out about getting the tickets reissued. Tell him to PLEASE phone me if he can think of anything more specific. I'm eating dinner about 9:10 when he phones again to say that it was March 5 at To You, the Birdie, so I must have left it at the theater or at the restaurant! THAT finally makes sense! SORT of remember taking it from under my seat at the play, so it must be at Grimaldi's. Think to WALK there, but PHONE first and the guy says he called the office and ME, but he'd not gotten my correct phone number. Phone Ken and say, "Thank you, thank you, thank you," at 10:10PM, hoping it's not too late and I'd wake him in bed, and get out to a puzzled cashier who asks why I came in NOW, and I said I was packing for the trip and a friend reminded me where I might have left it. Give him $5 and he accepts it in a handshake and I trundle back up the hill in the drizzle by 10:40. Call Spartacus to tell him about it, he says he'll call me back at midnight, I say no. Go to bed and ALMOST to sleep when the distant phone-ring has me answer him at 11:04PM, saying I'll talk to him after 11AM. Sleep, but up two or three times in my anxiety, comfortable in bed. About 5AM notice what seems to be the right side of the window blind fallen, but astounded to turn on the light and see the blind OK on the inside. Only when I turn out the light and STILL see the light from outside do I investigate and find the OUTER layer torn away. Leave it and back to bed, trying Actualism desultorily, intending to get up at 7AM but only up at 8:05 to clip toenails, staple the edges of the torn blind, fix the bed, get to the desk to update my mailing list with Jean-Pierre, and start this at 8:15, now 8:40AM, listening to WQXR, which SORT of helps brighten things up a bit, the brighter almost-sun outside helping, too, but I'm counting down the six meals left, hoping the bread lasts, knowing I'll have to throw out some meat, like Spam, knowing that in TWO weeks, on Wednesday, I'll be BACK here! Now to wait for both York and Holt express mailings, Rita's phone call, call Spartacus at 11 and maybe take over the Scotland journal, lots of things to get ready for packing, and at last videotapes to watch to fill the time before departing for Ken's early morning the day after tomorrow for Costa Rica! TRAVEL:COSTARICA

4/17/02: 8:55AM: Kept notes on what I did AFTER the Costa Rica trip on the trip journal itself, ending finally on Monday---a whole WEEK after I got back on "Tuesday" on Costa Rican time, which was really Wednesday morning on local time---when I updated the calendar. Monday was a huge catch-up day with paying all the bills AND the IRS payments, sending off seven mailings into the REGULAR mailbox before joining Arnold and Bob for Valhalla. Most of the time was spent finishing sorting through the New Yorker culls. Tuesday another huge catch-up day: writing a letter to Rita about TWO sets of mailings of clippings she sent me; going through stuff that Spartacus gave me to read so I can get them back to him the following day with a Visa-slip to Xerox for the LICH payment claim, a Medicare card to Xerox for MTA verification, the photo of Sherryl and me to Xerox (since I sent the last copy to Rita), and the photos of Jean-Pierre to Xerox (since I sent the last "regular" copies to Rita); found a place in the black file-chest to put correspondence and photos from Jean-Pierre; cleared out over a year's Visa-files to make space for the Schwab brochure about my new QRP plan in the desk-drawer file; put the Actualism body-work and Bill's reading notes back where I got them; ignoring phoning back Hector for George for closet-door repairs before painting and Terry for 3/7 delayed bill-payment when they didn't call me; set up today's art-exhibit crossing-off and another restaurant from 2000 with Mildred, who commented non-angrily about Charles's telling her he wouldn't put up with her trying to make him feel bad; trying to finish the single tape Arnold lent me to take back with the clippings and Xeroxings today, but leaving EdTV for this morning; culminating with FIVE trips down the stairs with Sci-Ams, New Yorkers, a bag of paper-trash from a month before, old pages from the HRW job, keeping the "last copy" of the four books "just in case," and nine old FedEx boxes uncrushed, with "regulars" nested inside "larges" to save SOME space; and lots of OTHER trivial put-things-away things. This morning I'm on what I've named "The Cusp of Countability," where I DID make a list of four phone calls I want to make, rather than forgetting them, adding them to the five stacks still on the coffee table "for the future" and the six stacks on the desk to "do today," not wanting to make a do-list but determining to put out a SEPARATE CARD for the tasks remaining AFTER today, which will clear up MORE THAN A DOZEN items on my mind, so that STARTING TOMORROW there'll be a countable list that I can wear down day-by-day (like clearing out a bulk of Schwab stuff to clear my desk-drawer file better, indexing the New Yorker clippings, throwing away more stuff) BEFORE the painting starts on Tuesday, which will be the LAST BIG THING before the next trip and before Jean-Pierre's visit, whenever. THEN I can get into a wonderful day-to-day enjoyment I've not been able to do for the past three years, when the trip-mania started so strongly. Now 9:15AM and stop.

4/22/02: 9:30AM: DID manage to get the do-stack down to about six after Wednesday's flurry of activities, temperature up to 96°, culminating in the Grey Art Gallery and dinner with Mildred at the Strip House, then a late-night phone call from Jean-Pierre! That cleared the decks for Thursday's trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and then Ballet Tech at the Joyce with Carolyn, going in for her operation Friday. Friday I visited Pope, picked up a blood-test slip from C., and watched TV tapes until the rug-clean guy came at 5PM, and tapes until another call from Jean-Pierre! Do-stack now on my desk, clearing up more every day. Saturday worried about painting and cleaning, but only watched TV until Syringa Tree with Arnold, then the Times puzzles from midnight to 3:30AM, finally solving both laboriously. Sunday TV and Games Group and did NOT phone Bob for Rosenkavalier, the LAST on the stack that I filed in the datebook, getting to bed at 1:30AM---progress. Up today, FIVE days left to end of painting-cleaning, loath to start moving things to John's apartment, but "the active move but once, the worriers move the SAME things AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN." Decide NOT to call Arnold to help move, raining out and cool, and do this to 9:35AM to pass time before starting TV, moving, and calling him.

5/1/02: 10:00AM: IT'S ALMOST OVER! Moved stuff ALL day Monday from noon to 8PM, when it got dark. Decided I really didn't NEED to see Ali at St. Francis today. Tuesday painters came 10AM-4PM, leaving me enough time to get out to Village Playwrights for one good play (Bob's Hairy Normal outclassing Neanderthal play) and one bad one (the old fart's strained comedy). Shelley cancels lunch on Wednesday---good---and painters come at 9:30 and leave at 4, letting me have the kitchen and bathroom that they finished yesterday. Thursday the painters left without leaving me a touch-up remnant, and a fair amount of paint on the rug that I start scraping off before the rug-cleaner comes on Friday, but he comes early, at 9:35, helps me move stuff, and finishes before 10:34, less than an hour for $416! Not bad! Move furniture around so it won't leave sink-marks on the drying rugs. Started watching Six Feet Under on Wednesday at John's while they were painting, doing puzzles when I started nodding off with boredom in his heated apartment. Went to Marty's for Artificial Intelligence and Mulholland Drive to occupy my time on Thursday after finishing Six Feet Under, the last of Spartacus's tapes for this week. Friday I cleaned the kitchen and rest of floors meticulously so I wouldn't track dust onto the newly cleaned rugs, fingers aching from scraping at paint on the rugs in the morning, back and hips and knees aching from the bending and kneeling and scrubbing of the floors, feeling VERY exhausted from the chores. Feared getting water on John's floor when I watered my plants on Tuesday, and again on Friday, watering his plants, too. Saturday spent all day moving things back from John's, seemingly endless: moved maybe 60 trips on Saturday, and STILL had something like 80 left. Saturday connected the computer to play a bit of FreeCell before going out for the Times at 10:40PM, getting pizza for dinner. Sunday moved lots of stuff back, demanding that I leave no more than 36 trips left, finally getting it down to 29 before stopping and watching Oz and Manhunter that I'd gotten from Spartacus Sunday afternoon, as well as picking up Bob L.’s Rosenkavalier trio, the last of the PRE-PAINTING list of things to do. VERY sore, not going to the gym because I'm just too tired. Monday I decided to give myself a vacation day, watching Wages of Fear and some of Perfect Storm and Hamam on TV before going to the gym on the fifth day, pleased to get THAT out of the way! Talked on the phone and watched Sexaholics and went to Tango Masculino with Spartacus at Wings, getting to bed reasonably early still. Tuesday I FORCED myself to work by demanding I fill out SIXTY-FOUR tasks, leaving only THIRTY-TWO for Wednesday, etc. Actually DID the 64 by 5:15PM, time to dress for the Beard: 1) phone for prescriptions, 2) fix computer set-up, untangling all wires, 3) leave word with Hector, 4) talk to Vicki, 5) set up Vicki-visit on Saturday, 6) phone Charles (on bus entering Akron!), 7) phone Carolyn, 8) store phone numbers, 9) try Dr. C. twice, getting him, 10) fill Gemfibrozil pillbox, 11) buy plant trays, 12) buy 9V batteries, 13) fill L-arginine bottle, 14) take garbage down, 15) mail mis-sent mail, 16) put up smoke detector, 17) clean bedroom chest-top, 18) put up bedroom ceiling-glass, 19) dust library chest-top, 20) re-stack library chests, 21) clear orange file-top, 22) vacuum again, 23) dust desktop, 24) re-connect floor lamp, 25) throw old shelf papers away, 26) eat lunch, 27) put up kitchen pegboard, 28) put up spice rack, 29) put tools away, 30) clear calendar drawer, 31) answer Hector's call, 32) field HRW phone call, 33) hang antlers in bedroom! 34) put up living-room ceiling-glass, 35) put up bison hanging, 36-54) NINETEEN trips from John's, only ELEVEN left! 55) de-leaf John's floor, 56) water John's plants, 57-58) hang two macrames, 59-63) wash and put up five window shades, 64) wash and go to Beard. Got there at 7PM, LOTS of wine and food, back to look at mail but nod off while doing New York puzzle, so bed at 12:30AM. Started Wednesday's THIRTY-TWO list on Tuesday: 1) set up and empty trash, 2) set up TV recording, 3) price all Beards, 4) hang belts back. Up 8:20AM Wednesday---today! Continue with 5) pin bedroom slipper, 6) finish New York puzzle, 7) replace vacuum bag, 8) call about checks, 9) change calendar, 10) check checking, 11) dust bathroom wastebasket, 12) consolidate trash, 13) mail John's rent, 14) get [10:38AM:] George's call, 15) raise five dried blinds, 16) replace ADK map, 17) hook up printer, 18) catch up on NOTEBOOK. Then continue this at 6:15PM: 19) clean comb, 20) eat breakfast, 21) Beard reservation, 22-32) ELEVEN plant-trips from John's. Start the list for SIXTEEN on Thursday at 1:45PM on Wednesday: 1) clean John's floor. Then go to lunch with Shelley at Mezze, and bizarrely we don't BETWEEN us eat enough to cancel my $10.50 CREDIT from before! Back at 3:30 and 2) shelve videotapes and 3) glue head on mobile before George comes over to take paint off door strikers, but has to come back tomorrow to move the plates so the doors will CLOSE properly. Start 4) making New Yorker fiction and nonfiction indexes while he's here, finishing and finishing THIS at 6:17PM, leaving EIGHT "final tasks" on list when I finish with the LITTLE things today and tomorrow. Stomach sore from lunch! Threw away LOTS of plant material, leaving minimal plants in library. Still feeling EXHAUSTED, will leave at 6:50PM to get to Public Theater for Blue Surge, or whatever it is, sure to be awful because it's at the Public Theater!

5/2/02: 9:45AM: Play WAS pretty awful, in addition to being delayed because a computer malfunction eliminated the bar, which sullen technicians replaced with a table and chair and bench and booze. Before that, I 5) sign the HRW Confidentiality Agreement for mailing, 6) hang the wisteria, 7) hang the storks, and 8) hang the Pierrot after trying two lengths of hanging thread, leaving only EIGHT tasks for today to finish. 3:10PM: Played some FreeCell, had breakfast at 10:30, then continued with list: 9) clean video screens, 10) nail up the hanging in the entryway, 11) nail the second hanging above the radiator in the living room, 12) hang firebird in the corner where the hook is, 13) empty out the box containing the stuff atop the desk-side bookcase, 14) empty out the LAST box containing stuff at the sides of the library bookcases, 15) water John's plants for the last time, 16) wash the outside door as the repair guy comes for the outside downspout, which releases a flood of water when fixed. Then at 12:15PM I start on the EIGHT for Friday: 1) finish tending and watering the LAST of my plants, and 2) finish the LAST vacuuming by 3PM, leaving only SIX for tomorrow and FOUR for Saturday, taken care of by the ELEVEN on the "final" tasks list. THINGS GOING GOOD, though George calls to say he won't be doing my closet-doors today, and I'm not here Saturday. What happened to Friday?

5/5/02: 12:13PM (Sunday): Catching up on paint-do-list: Friday: 3) wash kitchen curtain, 4) tape Costa Rica video, 5) return tapes to Spartacus, 6) Scotland slides to Spartacus, 7) go to gym, 8) hear about John's trip (and his negative remarks about Jean-Pierre's agenda). Think that Saturday will see no tasks done because I'm going to Vicki's, but do FOUR anyway: 1) shave, 2) melt some more honey, 3) go to Vicki's, 4) read Times, and finish both puzzles with difficulty (though the doublecrostic was SO intuitive it almost scares me: was putting in words like "community" with only a beginning "c" and a "t") by 1:30 and get to bed. Up after Actualism at 10AM, breakfast, talk to Mildred about her taking my opinions as FACTS and wanting me to change, then Spartacus had an omelet so won't be joining me for egg foo yung before the Feld Ballet at 1PM today. Down to TEN items on the do-list, putting the served-me-well task-card into my personal file for permanent savings, and finish this by 12:20PM, printing out the page and getting ready for the rest of my life, putting emphasis on the phrase I read, treasured by the Buddhist executive coach in the New Yorker article: "Be happy NOW," which, of course, is the only time in which one CAN be happy! Changing tapes at the ballet with Spartacus, then back to dress for the $250 dinner at the Four Seasons with Ken, and the rest of this week will finish the ten items and start the new eight-book project for HRW in Texas, and lots of PLEASURE in the city, starting with trying Juno now to see what Suzie may have to say about my demand for Rutt's Hut in May. Hope Charles isn't put off by our seeing Snedden's Landing yesterday, well worth any revisiting necessary!

5/8/02: 10:56AM: Wrote out a dream on DREAMS:5/8/02 and decide to do this. John showed me the first few pages of his scanning yesterday, and it appears to be working well with DARK typing, but I still fear how well it's going to work with lighter type where some of the letters aren't even printed legibly. Did manage to accomplish three list-tasks yesterday, in spite of my weakness from my cold, which started with a sore throat that wouldn't go away on Monday. Today I must (Grandma's phrase!) water the plants, scrub the tub, take a bath and change clothes from the painting, and then hopefully get to clearing out the Schwab files and writing a letter to Jean-Pierre. I THOUGHT I'd warned myself about getting a cold (I DID, at bottom of a DREAMS page, which I check now!). That will leave only THREE tasks on the "final" tasks list: 1) check APC rewiring, 2) C. for testosterone test, and 3) figure where to put CASH. Even find the apartment ATTRACTIVE now that it's painted and thoroughly vacuumed again yesterday from the paint-chips remaining from the two closet-door-plate replacements and the scraping of the between-room windows, which exhausted me, but I still had enough energy to watch videotapes (lots of them to do!) and go to the Beard for the Campanile "best restaurant of 1999," which isn't that good, with only two mediocre appetizers of brandade and liver/foie, admittedly four appetizer wines, but only TWO dinner wines, neither very good. Beautiful Tom with his animated face and conversation (primarily with Bob across the table) and his pleasant oriental wife Christine, and quiet Sylvia, reviewing for the house, giving Ken her spare wasabi on the half-raw tuna and me her "one-sipped" white and red wines when they didn't re-pour often enough. But no trace of hangover from the mediocre $100 dinner. Spoiled by Sunday's feast at the Four Seasons. So NICE that the do-list has gotten so low so quickly, and the painting's DONE!

5/18/02: 5:35PM: I guess I don't LIKE having nothing to do. After getting my blood test yesterday and looking at as many ways of turning off the APC light as I could think of, I erased both of them from the do-list, leaving just TWO to do: clear out the Schwab files and put my cash somewhere, probably Treasury bonds if my reading of New Yorker will influence me. But didn't want to start the last videotape today, so after breakfast I started watching Mefistofele first on the bad tape 22 then on the good GB. Then STARTED watching the last videotape, set up the last bit of the first of three tapes for Spartacus, and felt it was too early to leave for MAN, so sat down with this to record my NOT HAPPY FEELING of having nothing to look forward to doing! Games Group tomorrow after the Times tonight, AND more videotapes, after which I'll probably go to Marty's to do SOMETHING, but do I go back to reading books? Writing? Throwing more stuff out in preparation for moving? Filing more stuff, like the souvenir shelf, which IS overflowing? OR trying to find out why I ALWAYS feel unhappy and crabby recently, hoping it will NOT jeopardize my relationship with Jean-Pierre (whose letter with insufficient postage came in and went back out yesterday) when he gets here just over two months from now. How can I start ENJOYING my free time in NYC, WITH work to fill in spare time, WITH Jean-Pierre to look forward to---maybe by trying to meet YOUNGER friends to replace the crabs like Mildred and Sherryl? By going to more restaurants by myself, since the last one off my list was OVER a month ago (4/17)! Just enjoy SPRING in NYC!!! TRY it!!

5/22/02: 2:25PM: DID put my money, all $90,000 of it, into Federal Home Loan Bank at 5.24%, perfectly safe: even Mildred congratulated me. So that left ONLY the Schwab stuff to put away, ONE AND ONLY item left on list, which will soon be put into the "personal" file for my obsessivitiness. Picked up the laundry on the way back from Pope's, on the way from mailing a $20,000 check to Schwab One (hoping it gets to my account from ORLANDO pre-paid mailer!), and gave him $50, and got back from the gym to check Juno to find no message yet from Suzie on Friday's meeting time in Jersey. Feel GOOD, as does Pope, and LOTS of work coming in to replace my NOTHING-to-do-ness, even probably catching up videotapes this evening if nothing interesting comes up on an Audience Extras second try.

5/25/02: 11:38AM: Woke from DREAMS:5/25/02 dream to start playing with myself very pleasurably, then tease myself into putting on the light and checking the time at 8AM. Played VERY sexily and smoked and came contentedly by 8:30, feeling VERY good about myself and my apartment, getting up to take the last two pictures on the roll to mail it off when I go out today. Phoned Mildred, who just had a tooth out yesterday and isn't feeling like doing anything, and probably wouldn't return to the American Folk Art Museum anyway, so since Charles isn't in town and wouldn't like to see it, I tried suggesting it to Ken when I called in response to his message about Beard meals in June, but he thanked me and refused, as Steve H. refused Lomzynianka for this evening but we made plans for Thursday, so I guess I'll try the Museum myself today, and, having eaten breakfast before 10AM, might even stop off at Heartbeat for an early lunch, and NOW think of extending the day by---since I'm in midtown---going to the Candy Store and Toys R Us and taking the train to Astoria to try Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden for dinner tonight, finishing the last of the 1999 restaurants, enabling me to type up a new restaurant list containing only a few from 2000 and all the new ones from 2002. Already well into the 70s outside, so I can change into cooler clothes, too. Feel GOOD about getting into the day!

5/31/02: 2:15AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Took my second Viagra at 8:15PM and, even though I finished my meal at Lomzynianka at 7PM, there was NO stir by 10:25, after 2.5 hours. Finally start to jerk off about 11:45PM, ending about 12:40, and end cleaning up at 1:15AM, FIVE HOURS. Try to sleep, but the fact that Dr. C. suggested I try psychotherapy rather than simply prescribing an antidepressant started a whole thought process that kept me awake until 2AM, and by 2:10AM decided that the best thing to do was to clear my mind of the thoughts C.'s suggestion engendered. Part of my depression was due undoubtedly to the fact that I had nothing USEFUL to do when I finished the tasks I'd set for myself. After the South Pacific trip I had the enormous $40,000 Holt Rinehart and Winston job to finish, getting the final indexes off just before my Costa Rica trip at the end of March. On my return I followed through with my impulse to get my apartment painted before Jean-Pierre's arrival in July, generating an enormous list of things to do after the painting and rug-cleaning was finished. The last of the set of tasks, finding where to put most of my unproductive cash now that the Schwab Value Advantage program had decreased from a healthy 6% to an almost nonexistent 1.4%, satisfied with bonds of the Federal Bank Loan Fund at 5.24%, and the last at 5.12%, which Mildred said was a GOOD thing, since it meant that the value of the bonds had increased in the week's time between the two investments. Then I ransacked my "city do" list by going to Toys R Us and the American Folk Art Museum, and made inroads on my restaurant list by finishing the last of the 1999 listings with Rutt's Hut with Suzie and Charles and John, and the Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden by myself, and Lomzynianka this evening with Steve. But when "everything was done" that could be done (waiting for more pages to start the smallest of the three remaining jobs, to finish that before tackling the 1200-page book, finishing that before finishing the Austin HRW jobs which will probably extend through Jean-Pierre's visit) I found myself either watching videotapes, which I've now just about finished (though I can still increase that by returning to Marty's to satisfy THAT list of movies, or playing FreeCell, on which I spend entirely too much time). This probably adds to my three reasons for an antidepressant: 1) irritability with practically everyone doing practically everything, 2) lack of joy in DOING what I'd planned to do, and 3) foreboding based on a) 9/11, b) "nuclear terrorist WILL occur" article in Sunday's Times Magazine, and c) Jean-Pierre's arrival to encounter my slobby, overweight, unattractive, aging body. So my partial solution was to PRODUCE more, whether by 1) WRITING more plays, 2) PRODUCING my plays for the $10,000 I promised to devote to that task rather than investing in The Producers, which in retrospect was a stupid decision, 3) CREATING a website as I've so long wanted to do, which would include a) my books, b) my plays, c) my travel slide-shows, and d) my notebooks. As to 1), I even thought of taking a tape recorder to my psychotherapeutic sessions so that none of my valuable insights would be lost in time. As to 2) I thought of a) asking Kevin B. how he produces HIS plays, b) asking Marj M. for suggestions, c) contacting Wings to see how I could get something done there, d) trying to interest Shelley or Mildred to help in the investing with me. As to 3) I thought of a) checking with John to see how his transcription of my old journals is going, b) asking Carolyn for advice based on her new website, c) continuing to send "final" copies of books and website components to Vicki for safekeeping in Greystone, d) recruiting Jean-Pierre to be my Administrator to try to get things done FOR me. So now I'm content that these pages will 1) be a starting point IF the therapist consents to "treat" me, 2) help me think of something to do tomorrow and the next day when I don't have anything BETTER to do. So now at 2:40AM I might get to sleep? 12:10PM: Retiring another "gym-days/cum" sheet, and the figures are rather remarkably parallel: in the 700 days between 7/2000 and 5/2002, 23 months, I went to the gym 120 times, about once every 5.8 days; and I jerked off 124 times, about once every 5.6 days. VERY INTERESTING!!

6/05/02: 7:50PM: Wonderful day at Metropolitan Museum, thinking to go for "two or three hours," AGAIN it's an all-day trip: leave at 10:10 and off subway at 10:50 after passing through HUGE throng waiting for Manhattan-bound train while I go to Borough Hall for East Side, 1) Oldenburg tour on roof 11-12 with assistant curator, 2) Tapestry 12-1:45 MUCH more interesting that I'd thought: MANY "this is the first time in 250 years these four panels have appeared together," 3) hall photos 1:45-1:55, and I'm so tired I just elevator down and get a quick seat in the cafe at 2 and have a LOVELY Black Forest ham and brie on brioche sandwich with a refreshing pina colada for $21.15, then see two photo shows that I'd not heard about, but that got space in the May-June Program I picked up later: 4) Photos As It Happened in the Gilman 2:25-2:45, some good old ones, and 5) New York New York photos 2:45-3, then to 6) Sichuan finds in China from 1200BC, INCREDIBLE bronzes, money-trees best, 3-4:10, and pick up the new program and read it while I shit and sit 4:10-4:25 to relax, then 7) Adrian in the Costume Institute 4:25-5:15 when they start closing. So tired that when I exit I take a Fifth Avenue bus down to the BMT at 60th Street and get home at 6:10PM to my predicted four messages, except that the final two are both from Pope, depressed again, and the first is from Mildred saying we've got Lutece at 2PM tomorrow, and the second is from Spartacus, whom I talk to from 6:25-7:35 (he had a wonderful people-oriented trip), and I go through the mail and put everything away, TRULY caught up with EVERYTHING, happy that I got the last pages for the Springer/Poliner book so I can do THAT Thursday and Friday and get it off so she'll get it on Monday the 10th, THEN I can start on the biggie from Terry for the next week, getting it in in a month, leaving only the Austin HRW biggie, dates for which Denise STILL has not phoned in to me. Stop now at 8!

6/18/02: PRE-THERAPY notes: I'd told C. a number of months ago (after 9/11) that I felt depressed, but when he offered to refer me to a support group from 9/11 I didn't feel that was what I needed. Then about a month ago I told Shelley that I was mildly depressed, and she said she was, too, and suggested I ask C. for a Prozac prescription, 50mg. I asked C. for it May 30, my physical, and he said, "Would you like to try a therapist?" I said OK and he told me to go across Montague to the bank building and ask for an appointment. Went and was told to phone, and made an appointment on Thursday, June 13, with Carolyn A., who greeted me cheerfully and (as Shelley reported) unprofessionally by "comparing" psychiatrists and "trading" personal information about herself with me, but she "chose" Dr. J., whom I'm about to see at 11AM on Tuesday, June 18, and I wanted to get these notes down first.
[PM:] Tragedy of errors: I get to J. at 10:55 and don't sign in, as I hadn't before, and check with "guard" at 11:15: "No, you don't have to sign in." Check AGAIN at 11:35 if I'm here on the right DAY, and they say, "You should have checked in when you came in. I told him you weren't here." SEE him for about 20 minutes, and as Shelley predicted he's really the prescription writer, deciding that Prozac had too many side effects for my case, including sexual impotence, prescribing Wellbutrin, one tablet a day for a week, then two tablets, seeing him again on July 5. But AARP never phoned him about the Wellbutrin, though they said they would, and I phoned him again on Monday, 6/24, and he said he'd call in, which he did, because I got the Wellbutrin (with a side effect of sleeplessness!) on Wednesday 6/26 and took 1 that night.

6/24/02: Jury duty: 8:38AM guy at door giving THREE addresses. Enter security. Into jury room at 8:40. People enter till 9:10. Video (good values) 8:40-9:10. 9:11: Woman's welcome. If no jury, dismiss after TWO days. Decent, clear orientation to 9:37AM. Did NO women sitting to my left bring a pen?? First jurors called at 9:45AM. At 10:23 I'm called, with about 50 others, to room 438, "Judge Charging Jury." Roll call at 10:33, Judge Dowling. Back at 2 to room 456. LEAVE at 10:37, back at 1:59PM after seeing Kate and Leopold," talking to Spartacus on the phone, and getting a senior card from Donaldson. Shit in crappy john, called to court at 2:25. At 2:40 LOTS of people say they don't want to serve on a trial that may last 5-7 days. That's over at 3:12. Then she asks about prejudice and I'm ONLY one to raise hand and say I'm prejudiced because "I can't trust people talking my OWN language, much less having to have someone TRANSLATE for someone else." And they let me go at 3:27, back to room 261 to get called for COMPLETION at 4:24, and I go home with my diploma! Note: Take Viagra #3 at 6:48AM, having not eaten anything since the feast at AZ the previous evening, ending about 10:30PM, and I'm erect at 7:37AM, cum at 8:53, and go down right after, so without food it IS the one-hour active time.

6/27/02: 6:40PM: Finally get the mess cleared up off the coffee table since before Sunday: loads of mail, restaurant things from Beard, AZ, and two lunches, a maybe-savings-account at 3% put away, notes from the Venezuela trip away with the notation I told Ken to go ahead with the standard insurance, why did I try to fight it when I'd figured it was just the normal cost of travel at my age?, and the note that Amtrak leaves Montreal every morning at 9:30AM and gets into Grand Central at 7:45, a nice day for $105. Air conditioner not working very well, on all last night and still warm outside the living room. Call from Denise that puts emphasis on Teacher Editions now, pages tomorrow and next week. Got the "last" 460-page index from Spr-V. Lots of journal-typing from Carolyn and John cluttering my desk for proofreading, John up to about $700 already for this month and I don't have any of the files from all that yet. Carolyn came over Tuesday, stopping me from going to the gym, having had to retype the missing section "13" as Ninth-A, and stopping on the single-spaced South American trip because she can't read it, and took it over to John today, who agreed to type it "as is" and I can switch the copy around later if I want to. Stopped getting videos from Marty when I thought I'd be taken up with jury duty, but the last two days after heavy meals have been spent on HOURS of FreeCell, really maddening. Ah, and went back to Carolyn A. Tuesday 11:30, not being taken until 11:55, and she chats and we laugh and she's going to be out because of a foot operation and takes me next on July 11, and I report her ludicrous "Say you have an ear infection" to shut up Mildred, with Spartacus's helpful "If venting is helping you, I'll listen, otherwise it isn't doing me any good at all," (which Mildred said she'd hate) and Shelley's even more helpful "Stop" with a hand gesture, saying, "I'd rather we not discuss this RIGHT NOW," putting WE into it, and saying it twice if necessary and leaving if needed a third time. Ah, Marj won't help me but for HOURS on phone!

7/2/02: 10:37AM: Got to bed at 2, but with insomnia, clearly due to my having read that a possible Wellbutrin side-effect could be insomnia. And I ITCH furiously on my left ankle, inside my right knee, and a few other places that I fear to scratch too hard because I might break a blister and spread an irritant or, like Mildred, scratch until I bled. Could that be 1) a rash from the Wellbutrin? 2) bedbug bites from too-long-used sheets? 3) heat rash? or 4) signs that I have to take a shower more than once every four days during the heat of the summer? Then I find myself dozing off, but wake at 3, again at 4:10 with a dream that I record on DREAMS:7/2/02, then pee; then look at the clock at 5 something and 6 something and 7 something and 8 something, and then think I hear the door-buzzer (could I even hear it over the bedroom fan wearing my earplugs---or wearing my earplugs over the bedroom fan---or with the noise of the bedroom fan when I'm wearing earplugs?) and get up at 9:10 and look through the Volume A, Table of Contents, of my writings, to see what the scope of the job is, and what John and Carolyn might get next. There are two MORE volumes of grouped travel notes (maybe Travel B and Travel E, since Carolyn is doing Travel A and John is doing Travel F, and I think my RTW trip is in two volumes that may be Travel C and Travel D in the middle of the series) that would go next. I glance through the pages and pages of CONTENTS, seeing that I did a numbered count of 14,210 pages, with added pages in the 92xxx page-series for Throwback and in the 94xxx page-series for Earliest Memories, the last volumes added. They're NUMBERED through 45, but many of them have supplemental A-B or even more volumes, so I may have as many as SIXTY volumes. A marginal note shows that 15,000 pages contain maybe 6,000,000 words, which would be 500,000 lines, so at 10¢/line that would be $50,000, which comes out to about two years' work for John and Carolyn, each making about $1000/month, as they want to, so it would be $2,000/month for 25 months. That doesn't seem like a great burden to me, since I get $1117 (or more)/month from SS and surely can earn $900 a month (spendable) from indexing. Go through mail after typing this and send IN for explanation of how SS-increase was figured from $1111 to $1117, and find a GOOD-LOOKING Ambassador Tour around southern South America that I ask Fred about and we're both going to be calling for more-detailed brochures, though she doesn't HAVE information about whether we cruise the COAST to SEE it or just PASS the Torres de Paine mountains. Then John comes over with questions about typing, and I give him the sections Carolyn missed before turning the pages back to me AND the page he inadvertently skipped. Warm even WITH the air conditioning on. Then I'd ALSO made a restaurant-promise to Normandale [my invention for Norman and Dale K.](and Shelley) in exchange for their dinner tonight, which prevents me (thank goodness) from seeing the Opera in Fort Greene Park that Fred's helping man and sponsor, and checked the refund from NYS IRS to find that I simply MISSED that credit, as I'm sure many did. Ken called last night and we seem to be paying for the entire Venezuela trip (about $3500) by credit card for a 4% savings. Told him about Federal Bank Loan bonds, too, which he'll ask HIS broker about today. Hope to finish proofreading John's input today, and then I can get to the last index, which was only given me on Thursday, so I couldn't return it much before next week anyway. Then much of the HRW indexing to do BEFORE Jean-Pierre arrives. Starting to think about the website that is going to contain all this writing when it's nearing completion, with space for the eventual presentation of the slides and videos when the storage and speed gets good enough so that MY LIFE can go onto the Internet, possibly to reach "critical mass" and start thinking on its own to take over after I leave the planet personally. Looking through the Table of Contents there are certainly a lot of pages that I haven't even THOUGHT about in a while: orgies and people; ballet, book, theater, movie reviews; volumes of journals; then the Seasonings or Interlardings, BOOKS like Throwback (nee Babbitt Brighton) which I'd forgotten about, and early novellas like Loom and Luxury, though I seem to remember I STARTED transcribing some of the Russia-China trip a couple of years ago, getting something like 80 pages done before other work took over. LOTS TO DO!

7/5/02: 9:30AM: Completed TRAVEL-F file except for some small details, and TRAVEL-A except for what John was finishing (which I presume he finished since he asked for a new book, but he didn't bother giving me a disk), both yesterday after I proofread for hours. Gave Carolyn TRAVEL-B and John TRAVEL-E, I think. Did a good lightwork this morning and finished off MEDICAL:7/5/02 with my "mental" health, seeing J. at 11AM this morning. Thought of all the copies of my letters in the file cabinet which I HADN'T included in my "computerization" thoughts to this point. Thought of moving, STILL tons of books to get rid of, wondering how many closets I'll get to replace the four lovely ones here. John said he'd let ME re-install the scanner onto his computer so I could try doing some of the "number-heavy" pages he didn't want to type: they're clear enough, and proofreading will have to be a pain anyway, so I can do them if they're, like, 99% accurate to start with. He agreed to talk at 2PM, since his "in an hour?" conflicted with my doctor's appointment. Carolyn hasn't picked up on my second call when I said I was missing her pages 35. Erased her "draft" pages from "MY" and John's draft pages from "JV" and thought about putting both volumes, when complete, onto ONE disk and e-mailing attached copies to John, Carolyn, and Vicki for safekeeping. Tried Carolyn's attachments again, and they were simply "incompatible," therefore unusable. Also thought, "Only two more weeks before Jean-Pierre's arrival, and how will my life change?" Obviously part of my "affectlessness," since I don't want to get TOO excited about the possible results of his visit until he's actually HERE for a few days and we see how we "fit." Aside from the "last" Springer index, I'm thinking I should really get to organizing my COMPUTER-FILE pages: the stack of unsorted DREAMS, NOTEREPL, and other pages just piled up sequentially, the falling-apart TRAVEL binder, and travel pages still sitting in their travel files from recent trips. A few total-books in themselves! AND hope my rash will go away, and it MIGHT be poison ivy from my slippers (since it occurred around my heels first!) that had never been washed and MAY have gotten some of the irritating resin on them if I wore them when I suffered so much from it a number of years ago, since it CAN take a week or more to develop, per Taylor’s book, which I'm keeping. Feeling pretty good about catching up but I'm hungry for breakfast so I'll stop now at 9:50AM.

7/7/02: 10:10AM: Laird called this morning and we filled each other in on our relatively contented lives: Beau retired with mitral-valve troubles, he working part-time (though 22 days in June) and enjoying it, his mother now living with another brother rather than inhibiting Laird and Beau in their new "cabin in the woods," and I tell him about work and Jean-Pierre. Then to John's to try light-type scanning, and it's truly useless (see TRVLF-1F.txt for "original" and TRVLF-1F for "editing to make it as readable as a scan as possible." Read the Times last night, but couldn't really get started on the diagramless for the first time in ages, and caught up with TWO-WEEKS-AGO week on TV yesterday, hoping to catch up on LAST-WEEK tape today so I can start back to Marty early this week. Second air conditioner leaked water all over the place when I removed it last night to close the blinds so I could sleep; sleeping MUCH better than the last few nights with the light waking me early. Getting warmer today, but one A/C sufficient. Mildred and Spartacus phoned yesterday, but it seems if I don't call, they don't call me. WANT to start dining out with KEN! But let FRED call me with what he thinks about South America voyage, maybe waiting to see how we "enjoy" the Canada cruise together. Finally got rid of all the old meat, green pastrami and not-smelly steaks, and fruit, semi-moldy and squishy grapes, so the refrigerator is back in shape. AND cleaned the red-lined toilet bowl. Catching UP! Now finish at 10:20AM and risk calling Ken. He's NOT even willing to go "once a week on weeks we don't have Beard," but may be willing to try "twice a month," though he accepts my attempt at Triomphe for Saturday even though we're going to the Beard on Wednesday. AND he tells me that Atlas CLOSED last week, article in the Times! Another one off my list! Living room junky again but I'll tackle that when I get tired of watching TV.

7/14/02: 10:15PM: Just erased everything except JV\TRVL-A1 and 2, for the entire TRAVEL A volume; JV\TRVL-F1 and 2, for the entire TRAVEL F volume, and JV\TRVL-D1 for Carolyn's first transmittal, which I can't proofread because she didn't return the pages. Listening to Strauss's Alpine Symphony on radio while I perspire doing this: calamine on leg, wart-removal liquid on bottom of foot, "fresh" from the gym for the first time since July 2. Maybe I'll sleep well tonight. Now back to television tapes, trying to catch up with those, with a stack of disks to return to John with a notice to give me pages THIS week so I can catch up before Jean-Pierre arrives. And don't want to do any more of this.

7/21/02: 11:10PM: Caught up with MEDICAL:7/21/02 at 11, and finish my glass of black currant juice and try to figure what to say here: hoped Jean-Pierre would PHONE on Saturday, so much that I left a special message on my phone machine when I went to the gym: "I'll be back about 3PM, leave a message or call back then." Then I left the phone off the hook when I got the paper at 7:45PM, and did the reading and both puzzles handily by 11PM, watching a bit of TV and getting to bed at 1:11AM, having expected a call from Jean-Pierre all evening. But none. Then up Sunday, today, expecting SOMETHING all day, playing FreeCell, doing a bit of work, sending an e-mail to Denise and Robin, watching TV tapes, and then about 8PM decide to make a tuna casserole, since it's not terribly hot outside, and eat at 9:30, expecting a call any minute, STILL believing that Jean-Pierre DID get to Los Angeles on the 20th, as he'd said, but maybe he found someone who offered him a better deal and he's waiting to see if it works out before calling me to say he won't be here? Have questions on the desk to phone to Denise tomorrow, and maybe a reservation for the Beard tomorrow night for $55 if I can get John to sit in my apartment while I'm gone in case Jean-Pierre doesn't call or arrive before that, and MIGHT arrive while I'm gone MONDAY night. How long can this go on?

7/31/02: 8:40AM: Yesterday had the TERRIBLE idea that I may have put Jean-Pierre off coming here when I told him that I had WORK to do while he was here, and in his self-sacrificing love he decided not to BOTHER me during my time of work, not even wanting to disturb me with a TELEPHONE call! Can't get it out of my head that I'm to blame, and not him! Talk to Mildred, who says it's silly, and later to Shelley, who keeps talking about how ANGRY she is with him for not calling, and how my feeling of BLAME might be easier for me to face than what may be DEEPER and WORSE than that, which I can't imagine what might be. However, after working 8 very tense hours yesterday between 9:55 and 7:55, I had dinner, watched TV and got to bed at 9:55 because I felt so TIRED. Couldn't sleep, so at 12:10 this morning I took two "nighttime sleep aids," called diphenhydramine (which I could barely read for the small print) which didn't take effect (if at all) until after 1AM. Then up at 2:15 to pee, wake about each hour after, once to put on the blanket because the evening finally felt cool enough that my still-going air conditioner through the open bedroom door cooled the room enough so that I needed a top sheet, peed again at 5:30AM and again at 7:05AM, feeling that something must be going wrong: anxiety about Jean-Pierre, tension from indexing, concern about deadlines and growing old, or whatever, but finally dragged out of bed at 8:05AM, having STILL slept less than seven hours though I'd been in bed over ten hours, and made the HRWM2 for Denise, phoning her to leave a message that there are still a few questions before I send her Grade 6 Student Edition, and (still charging this time to HRW, since it IS part of my time because of their job!) finish this about 8:50AM, concerned about being able to finish Grade 7 because I haven't even started MARKING the text material, only have the "tally sheet" for the first six chapters (excluding the features from grades 5 and 6) completed as of NOW! The most AWFUL thing would be for Jean-Pierre to show up about NOW and REALLY put things into a scheduling frenzy and emotional turmoil. And MUST gym today!

8/2/02: 9:05AM: Update medical list [MEDICAL:8/2/02] with poison-ivy finishing-up, but can't find Viagra in that file. Look back here to see that I recorded the SECOND one on 5/31, and the THIRD one on 6/26, so since the FOURTH one (and glad it WAS the fourth, since, when I thought it was only the third, I found I had only 9 left from the two prescriptions of five each, which would mean that Ken had sold me only TWO, while I was sure I bought THREE, which I just proved I DID since 13 in all results in 9 left after taking four---see, I DO learn from HRW math indexing!) was 7/29, I'll say for the sake of symmetry I took the first (unrecorded) one around 4/30. AS for the fourth, had a small dinner at 8:15PM on 7/29, took Viagra #4 at 9:35, watched TV tapes, and found not a TWINGE by 12:45, at which time I started j/o ANYWAY, came at 1:15AM after a lot of trouble and much dick-skin abrasion (on which I applied aloe and it went away---the abrasions, not my dick), and I went right down afterwards, so I guess I've got the pattern pretty well in hand (ha!). As I remember the FIRST time I took it after a large Beard meal, jerked off after about an hour, and then woke in bed about 3AM with an ADAMANT hard-on which I guess I jerked off with AGAIN, but I can't find a note on my j/o list OR in my calendar, so I guess the historic first time is LOST! Interesting to read my 7/31 entry, above, since at 7:35 Jean-Pierre calls (#15) and I characterize our lack of communication with our opening dialogue: "Hello?" "Hi, Jean-Pierre." "Where ARE you?" "I'm fine." "No, WHERE are you?" "In Tahiti; I've been working at the Tahiti airport." "I was WORRIED about you; why didn't you call?" "I'm sorry," and he lapsed into French for much of the rest of the conversation, so I didn't get much clear at all, but we said we'd write, though of course I don't know whether he'll be getting letters I send to Hanaiapa! So I take time off from work to tell EVERYONE he's (relatively) OK! 1) Arnold, tell briefly, and talk longly 8/1 11:45-12:15. 2) Carolyn, LW, but her e-mail said she tried calling my busy phone, and we talked the next morning 11:25-11:40. 3) Shelley, LW, and we talk 3:20-3:30 the next afternoon. 4) Vicki, LW, she LW on 8/1 and I LW twice more on 8/1, but she's the only one who hasn't really discussed it yet. 5) Sherryl, LW, but she calls back the same evening 10:50-11:05. 6) Mildred talks longly when she answers. 7) Ken talks 10:05-10:15, same evening, after I LW. 8) Fred calls back 11:10-11:20 after I LW. 9) John talks briefly. 10) Marj talks from 8:10-8:55PM the same night, as usual. 11) Suzie e-mailed, no response yet. 12) Susan e-mailed, she responded 8/1 with her trip to Alaska, to which I wished her a good trip. 13) Carolyn A. told during 8/1 session. 14) Rita called on 8/1, and SHE talks 12:25-1:05PM. 15) Pope calls 6:30-6:40PM and he complains about his shit after I tell him. 16) I guess Steve H. is the LAST person I talked to about Jean-Pierre's possible arrival, but I see no reason to call him: he's probably forgotten about it, and if he asks me in the future, I'll fill him in. So I can throw THAT note away! Wake this morning with LOTS of things on my mind: 1) First Friday (which IS today) available at Beard? 2) Record poison-ivy finishing-up. 3) Dream note, recorded after this. 4) Record haircut yesterday. 5) Remind myself to make a gym-orientation note from my session on Saturday, July 28: first he discourages me by saying I shouldn't be doing the SAME things all the time, because it can actually DETRACT from any musculature I may have built up! I hope he's not ENTIRELY accurate! Then he recommends I take one of the free Yoga classes, so I pick up a brochure and have it on the table for when my HRW deadlines ease up. He insists I should drink LOTS of water every day: "bathe your body in water." He also goes on about the need for having a big breakfast right after waking (which I hardly EVER do!), and maybe even have TWO small breakfasts, since all meals should be small. Take a lunch, then have a SNACK before a small dinner. And a glass of milk before bedtime will give protein! Drinking is OK, but it IS good to drink lots of water while drinking alcohol. I SHOULD do knee exercises for range-of-motion and flexibility with osteoarthritis, though he goes too far with two aspirin before each gym-time, overestimating my arthritis pain, but saying I should end EACH session in Jacuzzi, flexing my hands and feet. Should act on SOME of it!

8/19/02: 8:45AM: Just type the skimpy DREAMS:8/19/02, and re-read my last (farf-lung) notebook entries, and when Jean-Pierre was just settling into the background, and HRW ending in the next two weeks before my week on the boat with Fred (who changed things by getting a FLIGHT from Montreal to NYC the VERY DAY we arrive in Montreal, leaving me alone there for a day---or two or three?), GET AN APARTMENT NOTICE FROM 101 CLARK ON SATURDAY EVENING! Barely manage to get to sleep Saturday night after exhausting myself finishing both Times puzzles (ending with the fourth-try success with the ¢ diagramless one at 2:30AM!), and then get up 10ish to phone 1) Spartacus, 2) Vicki, 3) Sherryl, 4) Mildred, and 5) LW with Charles, and 6) tell John when he comes over to say he wants more to type. Then to the Games Group, where Blanche doesn't seem to be fully recovered from her minor stroke LAST Games Group day, because she REALLY made a mess of trying to communicate ideas for her Charades turns. Then the awful dinner at "The Barking Dog" with "The Screaming Toddlers" left me so exhausted that I got home at 8:45, played FreeCell successfully (having reached a NEW high of 83.75245 at 5:30PM on Saturday) for 9 games until I felt I was almost nodding off into sleep, so I went to bed with a Noctamide at 9:20PM, fearing I might toss and turn thinking about what I had to DO about moving, AND going Monday to see what the place LOOKS like, and woke about 5:30AM, not feeling rested enough yet, and stayed in bed until 8:30AM, OVER ELEVEN HOURS, feeling NOW as if I'd had TOO MUCH sleep. Must use Noctamide carefully, since it DOES seem to work, but with a sleepy-hangover. Spartacus seems to think that this IS an offer to ME ONLY, which I would HAVE to take (since the alternative might be an even-worse apartment, vacating next to him, with more outside-light, noise, and nearness to a robbery-roof step-into-window position) and I'm waiting to phone, now at 9:05AM, to make an appointment to see the apartment and get a copy of the floor plan. Look at floor AREAS, and my IRS-stated 900 square feet turns out to be 537 square feet when I actually MEASURE it! And measure Spartacus's from the floor plan (without bathroom and closets) and it comes to 542 square feet, so my NEW apartment will probably be marginally SMALLER than my old apartment?! Phone at 9:30 (and when I say, "I have an offer," she says, "5E?" so it may be the ONLY one available at the moment?) and she HAS keys and I can come over at 10:30AM, just to SEE it. Phone Mildred but get only a phone message. MAY call Spartacus at 10:15, just in CASE he'd like to see it. Think of all the stuff I have to THROW AWAY before I move: clothes, books, outdated travel stuff, "spare" stuff like now-non-working RCA VCR, probably the never-used old "surprise" printer with the laptop whose name I now can't remember. Think of how many months I may overlap with rent; think of asking Eileen R. for a "clear out" fee of maybe $10,000; think of stopping John (coming over today) and Daniel (whom I have to phone today) typing while I concentrate on moving, and of course have to finish the Spr-V index today and Airborne came EARLY today (before at 1:30PM) at 9:10 with the REST of the Grade 6 TE pages, both text AND features, so I can start on the finishing of THAT job, too! Won't take a video camera today (but might when I go over later with Mildred or Spartacus to look at it AGAIN), but WILL take a tape measure to see how big the WHOLE place is, to compare with mine. So NOW I don't have to worry about the increasingly opaque windows in my living room, the leaks from above, the poor air conditioning, the ratty French doors, the delivery of mail without a doorman, the exhaustion of my calling cards and my checks with the 167 Hicks address, and sure hope I can transfer my phone number intact. Happy that the move's in the FALL, since it won't be too hot or too cold, that I'll be closer to the subway, the video shop, the post office, and to Spartacus, BUT think of the possibilities of having not one person above and one below, but FOUR on top bottom and two sides, with the elevator doors near me across the hall, but hopefully there are NO kids or dogs or cats in the building, as I get echoes of from HERE. AND the place faces SOUTH, which would have been my greatest choice, even though I'll have a view only of the buildings across the street, until I move (in 15 years?) through INTERNAL list! 11:45AM: Learned lots from Kathy (there 6 months) and Dell (there 14 years, lives at 40 Clinton and is 71 years old [and I told her Arnold, whom she knows and likes and thinks is crazy, is older than her: 72, but he's really 73] and loves the job): They sent the INTERNAL move-list of 100 the prospect of 5E, and to 15 on the external list, on which I'm #10, but the top two are probably in process of moving into apartments, so I'm really #8, and those below #5 rarely get the offering, so this one probably ISN'T mine. I DO have the right of one refusal (but if I GIVE them $300 and say YES, and THEN refuse, I'm off the list immediately because of the trouble it causes THEM). I'm on the list since '89, so this is my 14th year. They re-opened the list with an ad in the Times (?) and Post in September 2001, and got THOUSANDS of responses. They sent out applications to 100 of each, picked at random, for 1, 2, and 3-bedrooms and got back LESS THAN HALF, so they sent out ANOTHER hundred of each in May of 2002. When I talked to Mildred she REPEATED that the floor-space is measured FOUR INCHES into the outside walls and TWO inches into interior walls, so my space is measured small, but my 537 compares to the 768 rough calculation for apartment 5E (but it's the middle-sized bedroom: larger than Bob's, smaller than Spartacus's), which is ALMOST half again as large. So I don't really have to note that the kitchen had no stove or refrigerator, the bedroom had a ceiling fan, the living room a tatty rug, and the linen-closet and 1/3 the hall-closet spaces were taken by support columns---but the 6.5-foot deep balcony would have been a nice plus. So I phoned everyone to tell them I probably WON'T get this, but that I'll start throwing things away in PREPARATION for it, and Sherryl wants to get together to do something Wednesday, Daniel's coming over tomorrow at 10:30, regretting that the typing will be going on hiatus during a three-to-six-month period, and now at 1PM I've got to get back to checking the HRW pages for the completion of grade 6 that came in, AND finish the Spr-V index.

8/22/02: 7:45AM: WHERE AM I NOW (first in a LONG time)? Now 8:13AM! Checked with "search" and found WHERE AM I NOW?s on 1/19/99, 2/9/00, 4/2/00, 9/7/01 (over 17 months between those!), 9/17/01, 12/4/01, and 5/31/02, so not even THREE months ago. Amusing to read what I was "catching up on" and how I'd managed to move through everything, including FreeCell addictions. Monday night (8/19) I saw Endless Night, Sweet Delight with Charles at Wings, interesting because it was the kind of play I might write, and we ended up dining at Florent, leaving after midnight, which left me to walk to a CLOSED-downtown Christopher Street station, so I sat in the STEAMING uptown station to 14th Street, waited a LONG time for a #1, which STOPPED at Chambers, and a long-awaited #2 got me home about 1:45AM! Bed about 2 and up at 10 for a disappointed Daniel who volunteered his PHYSICAL help for my moving, and I think of him THURSDAY morning. Then got to the disappointing Royal Tenenbaums at noon at St. Francis, dashed out to the first no-bicycle gym-time in time to get back to leave for the R-train to not-meet Fred at 5PM for the trip to Dino's Amici Amore in Astoria by 6PM for prosecco and a Cosmopolitan to 7PM and a disappointing tasting menu with LOTS of wines for $75, leaving THERE at 12:15AM to switch at Times Square for ANOTHER #1-to-Chambers and letting TWO MORE enter and leave before a #2 gets me home exhausted at 2:15AM!! Up at 10AM the next day (yesterday), vaguely hung over, jerk off till 11:30, leave word with Sherryl (who HAD tried to phone me while I had the phone off the hook for jerking off, but I said it was "business"---HA), and talk to Spartacus to 12:30, when Sherryl calls and I apologize for phone-busy and say it'll be too warm today for a long time outdoors, but I'll treat her to Peasant, the last 2000-entry restaurant on my list (and the surprisingly upscale meals later that night cost me $113.50)! Played FreeCell ALL afternoon after breakfast at 1PM, and back at 8:30 to play FreeCell AGAIN and Jean-Pierre calls (#sweet-16) 9:20-9:30 (AGAIN on a Wednesday before my Thursday therapist!), and TV to 11:40 and bed to toss and wake and up to think: 1) PHONE Jean-Pierre and offer HIM my book-selling-before-moving job! and 2) phone Daniel and tell HIM to sell my books for commissions!

8/24/02: 12:20PM: Watched "Bitter Harvest" about opium on Wide Angle (which replaced an announced program on Argentina, so this must be "current," and it WAS dated 2002), and so MANY INTERLOCKING factors came together that I had to write about it. 1) Narcotraffic wouldn't be so profitable if opium and drugs were LEGALIZED---I'm sure narcotraffic isn't so important in the Netherlands, where it's legal. 2) Corruption results at the highest levels because of the amount of money involved: I'm not even sure the ugly Italian UN head of Narcotics Control in Central Asia isn't taking her cut to do nothing; the "General" seemed self-protecting when he (not in uniform) talked about "pursuing uniformed criminals," meaning the military and the police, while carefully defending "white-collar workers" (as opposed to "khaki-collared workers" who might be in the police and the military; and am I the FIRST to think of this term?) like himself and his higher-ups, who, "higher," also "hire" his kind to protect THEM. There are vague references to the "incompetent governments of Kazakhstan and Kirghizstan" and the "fledgling non-Taliban government of Afghanistan," all of whom I'm sure are taking their rake-offs, which leads to 3) Blackmail, as in the GREAT number of people who say that ONLY the billions siphoned in for aid and food and supplies (and probably also armaments and ammunition) by the USA, continued over a LONG period of time, will be the ONLY preventative of GREATER drug trafficking, though even now, with the aid, the trafficking is INCREASING (all but TWO at the current talks raised their hands, admitting to being current poppy-farmers). We're blamed for not supporting Afghanistan, not supporting the corrupt governments that were formerly SSRs, not paying for education and training, which money would probably only end up in the pockets of the corrupt administrations ANYWAY. 4) AIDS (to make us feel MORE guilty) is "rampant where the employment is low and narcotics are prevalent"---which reminds me of the TWO PERCENT of the populations of these "stans" who are addicts (sharing needles "over 50% infected with HIV"), since there's nothing BETTER for them to do, and we should send them WHEAT, which they can plant (and I could almost SEE the warlord grinning ironically as he pontificated that "we have to support them in a new way of life so they can get away from drugs," which seemed to ME to mean: "Sure, send me your support money, I can squander THAT as well as the profits I make by being the middleman in these narcotrafficking transactions"). They moan about the borders being impossible to police, yet ignore the basic fact that it's only the ILLEGALITY of drugs that produces the market for them, and the fact that these BILLIONS spent for "border guarding" result in the (optimistic!) estimate that they intercept TEN PERCENT of the trafficking, and the rest get through. THEIR jails are filled with small-time couriers (primarily women, many of them mothers of young children) who were caught (because they didn't have payoff money, probably), making one wonder what happened to the children they were hoping to support with their trafficking, who are now practically PARENTLESS. 5) US corruption of business and politics (the unspeakable Bushes) is inevitably intertwined: we send billions to Israel, antagonizing the---aha--- 6) MUSLIMS, who undoubtedly form the WORST threat to US security, not only from current random terrorism, but from LONG-TERM JIHAD which aims at our ERADICATION, so that the world will be "safe" for Allah-junkies. 7) Religion, naturally, in general, being one of the worst crime-producing agencies because a) they determine that drug-taking IS a crime, b) they determine that anyone who isn't of their faith should be destroyed, c) they teach hypocrisy on ALL levels so you can't believe the i) religious teachers, ii) politicians, iii) political appointees, iv) newscasters who clearly try to DEMONIZE anything we're against so that we're not condemned when we ATTACK them, though of course WE can condemn THEM if they attack US. 8) Apathy, mine paramount, can be the only result when such intertwined evils are making me happy I've got LESS life to live in this increasingly difficult world than I had prior to this in a fairly pleasant world. 8) Democracy, that Ultimate Hypocrisy (men are equal? INDEED!?) being last on the list which ends at the bottom of the not-exhausted-idea page.

8/30/02: 4:30PM: I'm just so TIRED! No, DEPRESSED, since the tired feeling I might have talked myself into by telling Denise and Robin that I might be sleeping if they get back to me, implying I worked ALL NIGHT on their Grade 7 indexes. Things are going WELL: I got another book off to John (though he slipped a note under my door saying he wants ANOTHER before I leave), the HRW job seems to be done satisfactorily, AND I get home to an e-mail from Robin that I won't even have to rewrite the contract, since my "extra" $1,000 is within "the 10% window" of the original $12,000. So I can write a bill for $5,000 before I go. And I've resigned myself to taking a taxi from 42nd and the River to get on the ship on Sunday so I don't have to lug my luggage looking for the Norwegian Sea up the 46th Street taxi-roadway. And I'm almost caught up on videotapes (though I get a message from Spartacus that he has MORE good stuff for me for Montreal, so why didn't he think of that yesterday?) and will record next week from Sunday's Times TV section. Play FreeCell until about 9PM and then call Spartacus and decide to go over, after dinner here, and feel VERY tired when I leave about 11:20PM, so I get home and get to bed before midnight!

8/31/02: 12:05PM: Took Viagra #5 this morning at 6:52AM, kept on with a very productive Actualism session, dozed off, woke at 8 and start jerking off to videos, then into bed and get to a PEAK at 8:30, finally cum by 8:51, finishing the notes I kept at 9:01AM. I left three small butts and SIX matches in the ashtray, possibly a record high, and am left with edema on the front of my cock. The Actualism session was my attempt to produce HAPPINESS and JOY in my current life, since I decided that it (depression) was all in my HEAD. Think to CONTINUE through the trip, and maybe the change from my apartment for the next week will produce some kind of improvement. Came up with an odd "new occupation" as I thought, while turning on the colors, that my LIFE needed more color, and I idly thought of the brightness of the Kalacakra mandala, moved to the thought that the mandala was made of SAND, and what would happen if that flat surface were HEATED so that the sand MELTED INTO GLASS, and thought it would make a wonderful combination stained-glass window and MIRROR, suspended in the sunlight to catch the colors, maybe constructed into a half-silvered box so that the patterns would be reflected to infinity. Like Carolyn, I thought THIS might be the way to an improved financial standing! So I got up and recorded my cum and my Actualism session, but still didn't feel like doing anything, so I phoned Mildred, who'd finally finished Gain yesterday, and she said how much she learned about me: "You're not interior, but this book made you seem so" (which gives an idea of how well she knows me). She suggested I FORCE Charles to read it, and maybe Shelley, and then everyone could get together and talk about how the book could be made better: she said she HATED the passages about the Gain Radio: "I'm not interested in music as a metaphor for LIFE, and you just went ON and ON about it; if I'd bought the book I'd have skipped over those pages or just put the book down without finishing it." She still wants to read something that "doesn't have so much of [myself] in it," as she doesn't believe that I could create a character that WASN'T largely myself, and she hadn't read Coover or A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (which author’s name I couldn't remember), so she admitted maybe she wouldn't like modern fiction which has gone ever deeper into the PERSONAL in novels. I finish watching my back TV tapes while eating breakfast, get down the last dream-fragment on DREAMS:8/31/02, and want to finish this page before writing the bill to HRW, going out to see if my laundry is ready, getting the last mail, packing, and passing time before going out for the Times to take most of with me on the boat tomorrow, and probably WATCH the last two hours of August TV so that I can throw away the two listings remaining. Wish I had MORE to occupy my worry-time before leaving in less than 24 hours, but maybe something else will come up, as the Metropolitan Museum filled so much of yesterday, though lunch in the Cafe heightened my wonder about "Why don't I feel BETTER, since everything seems to be OK at this point?" And maybe get notice of my next apartment offering at Cadman Towers! TRAVEL:CANCRUISE

9/14/02: 1:15PM: Finally finish with EVERYTHING from the trip: proofreading AlphaSmart journal, printing it out, putting stuff away, updating datebook, talking to people, and have ONLY to view video, sort souvenirs, and return stuff to Spartacus. Went through the pages for the Chernow index, which will give me something to do while waiting to see if Jean-Pierre IS going to visit me the month of October, as he said on Thursday, when he called (on the third try), said he was thinking of me on the 9/11 anniversary yesterday, and WAS willing to quit his job and come to New York ("Maybe forever," he said, laughing). Told Spartacus and Mildred, and then vowed to tell no one else, lying to Carolyn when she asked about him today. Threw out five old printer ribbons which I checked with the parti-colored SPACIFIC pages, and STILL have a pretty dim one in for my use, 3 others somewhat better, and 2 unopened ones. Just hope I don't come across ANOTHER copy of the printed SPACIFIC pages in the move, which may be coming up since I got ANOTHER apartment, and just called Spartacus who said HE might take it, which means that I might get his over-lighted, over-noisy apartment 3S! At least it's BIG. Awkward they send to the EXTERNAL list without knowing if they've satisfied the INTERNAL list. I felt "guilty," since Carolyn used that term to describe how I feel when I'm not doing something "useful," though I don't think it applies, playing FreeCell for about three hours last night, determined to get it above the magic 84%, sorry that I'd botched a winning streak into the low 40s earlier. Spartacus talks AND talks and talks, and CONTRADICTS: "Oh, it couldn't be Waterside Park on the West Side because that's what it is on the East Side." "No, if you lied to Carolyn by saying he didn't call, you'd lie in the same way if you said he called but didn't say he was thinking of coming to New York," when I said saying he didn't call was a SIMPLER lie than constructing a call that's not the whole truth. Now 1:55PM and I'll print this page to clear the last of CANCRUIS.

9/16/02: 1:14PM: Note from Sunday AM, 9/15/02: Can't sleep 12:40-2:40AM! Take two diphenhydramine at 2:48. To sleep AFTER 4AM! Wake 8:06, groggy, pee; and get out of bed at 9:20, feeling poor, but was OK by noon. 1:17PM: Small time to kill before going to meet Mildred at 2PM at Ilo, knowing that I'll get there fast because this is the second day of EXPRESS service back on the 2 and 3! But last night we had to wait a LONG time for the express to come in at Grand Central when we caught the local instantly at 50th after Oklahoma! at 11PM, and, true to Spartacus's predictions, the first train in on the express track was a WORK train! Home about 11:50, tired. Yesterday watched TV tapes most of the time, today watched a bit of the Faith after 9/11 program and decided at noon that I couldn't watch the whole thing because I'd be too depressed at lunch, so I went to mailing checks, paying taxes, and finally looking at the forms for the EcoVoyager trip to Venezuela, which I find I PAID for, $3366, on July 2 Visa bill! Send out another Visa bill for $280 for the trip-insurance for the full amount of the trip, hoping that it's not too late to be effective, since there are no pre-existing conditions at THIS time. Make a note to phone Eileen about moving, and left a message with Barbara Chernow's telephone operator about the missing page, and washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth and will watch the rest of the tapes from the trip by the end of today, I hope, and get into LAST week to get rid of the "hangover" from the 9/11 memorial all last week. Then there's only the HUGE stack of stuff to proofread, and the Heights Books bookmark to remind me to take a stack of expensive books to Strand and Mercer and Heights to see which will give the best prices for the better books that I simply wouldn't want to throw away, even though I realize this economic-crunch time might not be the BEST time to sell, but I can get a COMPARATIVE feel without going to the Internet. Will be glad when my crotch-rot is healed, which will probably be aided by coming cooler weather, though today's 73° feels VERY uncomfortable with what must be about 85% humidity, as it was yesterday. Now to dress and leave at 1:24PM---PRINT!

9/23/02: 11:07AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Got to bed at 4AM because I'd gotten hooked into a dwindling-returns session of FreeCell, stopping at about 120 games at 79%, deciding I HAD to go to bed without a CHANCE of getting the percentage up any higher in any reasonable amount of time. Sunday had passed by getting up at 10AM (having gotten to bed at 3AM the previous morning) and jerking off very poorly, first trying one of Fred's tapes (which don't do anything for me), then quickly with my favorite. Breakfast about noon, then the Times, doing both puzzles, the doublecrostic with assistance from EB, by about 4PM, when I had a light lunch of cream cheese and jelly because I wanted something GOOD-tasting. Then to FreeCell until 7PM, when I watched the inconsequential (for me, since I don't watch 90% of the programs nominated) Emmys until 11:15, and then got back to FreeCell until 4AM. Lay in bed this morning COUGHING, finally getting up about 10 to get Fisherman's Friend, which stopped it, and, since the Wellbutrin doesn't "allow" me to be depressed, mull over the waste of time yesterday and think of ALL the things (all the books, clothes, programs, boxes) I can throw out WITHOUT TRYING to sell them, since NONE of them would get to the point of paying me anything like the $100/hour for labor that the TOUGHEST index gets me still. Then decide I want to do this page, though I've gone through the proofreading of so many inconsequential pages LIKE this that John typed from my first volume of Subjective pages, just to get it out of my head so that I can start the day with the ASME Catalog index that has to get done this week. Why is my life so "hung" at this point? 1) I'm not even TRYING to think about the possible visit by Jean-Pierre in the month of October, particularly since it's been over a week since he said he'd arrange to come and he hasn't called me YET with any particulars, even if they would be FOLLOWED, as his first set wasn't. 2) I'm trying to convince myself that a move to Cadman Towers SURELY won't be this year, so I don't have to start preparing IMMEDIATELY, but since it WILL surely be next year, I've got to get started throwing out things to be able to live in a state of storage until my internal-waitlist gets me into anything like an apartment I might want to STAY in. 3) I have Carolyn's call from Saturday evening and Mildred's call this morning (when I put the phone on mute so it just wouldn't interrupt my nothingness) to reply to. 4) Stacks of stuff to put away before even getting to the index, including 5) two volumes that I haven't even proofread yet. Not to mention 6) the constant salving of my groin with Spectazole, which I fear may run out, needing another prescription from C. (whom I have to call about my blood test taken Friday) before it clears up, I fear; and the salving of my athlete's foot with Clotrimazole, which seems to be making slow progress, thankfully not preventing me from enjoying, more than most, the MAN session at the 15th Street luxury apartment with newly discovered kaleidoscopes to fascinate me and Steve. But my dribbling, weak urine flow has me worried about genital health in general, or general health in genital. Well, looking at the smallish pile from the second-last proofreading volume, maybe I CAN finish that today before starting on the ASME index. But then I have to have breakfast SOMETIME before noon so that I can have a snack for lunch before going to the Beard tonight, not going to lunch with Mildred today at all. Then to call Spartacus to see how his sister's visit and his decision about moving to another quieter apartment is coming. Also didn't go to the gym, scheduled for yesterday, because I wanted to PAMPER my useless body. At least the height of the heat-intensive season is over, even though I ran the air conditioner for hours yesterday to cope with the humidity, which kept my crotch over-wet. And I throw away the depressing undershirt which I put on clean yesterday and immediately soiled in the front by leaning against the filthy edge of my kitchen table, which has marked a number of T-shirts which had become mysteriously smudged in the chest-area; not to mention that I tore it a bit, making the hole bigger under one of the brown armpits, making it disgusting in a second sense. And when will the awaited delivery of the three Bill Smith Studio indexes arrive, for which I prepare myself to tromp downstairs in SOME semblance of presentability mornings, though the FedEx man may just leave it.

9/30/02: 10:05AM: What a week it's been! Just read the previous page, written only an hour short of EXACTLY a week ago, and accomplished most of the "must do's" from that: 1) Finished the LAST mania-session on FreeCell that lasted from FRIDAY through SUNDAY with a card summarizing my calculator-precise advance toward a higher percentage done THIS time, finishing up at 143 games (which take MANY hours, getting me to bed at 3AM and even 4AM as on Monday last) at 10:25AM Sunday when the average reached 83.91608%, just over the overall average of 83.80717%, down from the previous high. But I put a BOOK under my mouse so that I'd be tempted to shift to READING rather than FreeCelling when I had time to "spare." 2) Haven't jerked off since, because the crotch-rot seems decidedly anti-sexual. 3) The Times-reading and puzzles (which were thankfully easy this time) waited for Sunday-day rather than Saturday-evening because the Beard on Saturday was so filling and drunken. 4) Made a note to change sheets today (about time, since July 20!), since I was coughing AGAIN this early morning, and the sheets, which don't APPEAR grungy, may be causing it. 5) Of course, I've thrown NOTHING out in the intervening week. 6) Started ASME index so late I was chagrined to hear on Wednesday that he'd wanted the index THAT day, but my Thursday was so busy he couldn't send a messenger, so I e-mailed him the index about Wednesday midnight and Express Mailed him the printed index on Thursday. 7) Jean-Pierre not called yet. 8) Got to make an appointment for seeing Apartment 4F at Cadman Towers to check on my current number and "when-moving" date. 9) Monday was GREAT at putting everything away, and finished the penultimate volume's proofreading before starting the ASME index, leaving only the Russia-China, which I've still got unfinished on my desk to do. 10) Got the blood results (good) and a new prescription for Spectazole, which Rite Aid didn't have and I had to go to the larger Cadman-Montague corner prescription counter to get it and start using it the next day; crud still rampant. 11) Got a letter from Bill Smith on Thursday saying there was a delay in the indexes, so I didn't have to phone HIM, just as Beard phoned Wednesday to cancel Thursday's dinner so that I could go to the free movies that even Spartacus, who heard about them via A&E, didn't get to go to since his planes were delayed; just as he couldn't join Sherryl, who heard about them via her New Jersey Transit ride to her Rutgers class, and he couldn’t join Carolyn and Charles and me at the New Jersey Transportation exhibit in Hoboken on Sunday because he had MORE planes to meet at the airport. 12) This page echoes the "where am I" of the previous page, so I'm caught up with WHY, now to the WHAT of the previous week: MONDAY: caught up with lots of little things, watched the rest of Fred's awful tapes, did more of the penultimate proofreading, and got off to the good Beard from Montreal with Ken, at a good-peopled table in the front room with a pregnant woman who gave lots of her wine to me, which I didn't need. TUESDAY: Finished proofing volume, started ASME, and got to Village Playwrights to end up trying to eat at City Bakery, which was closed at 8:15 though they SAY they're open till 11PM; Union Square Cafe, which was closed due to water damage from 9/22-10/3; and finally at BB Sandwich Bar for a mediocre Philly cheese-steak sandwich. WEDNESDAY: Worked 10:25 on ASME, save for meeting Mildred at the pleasant 79th Street Boat Basin for lunch. THURSDAY: A MAD free-movie day starting with my session with Carolyn, which she changes to 3PM on Mondays for my index-delivery-time relief at 10:30 Thursdays; depositing a $5000 index-check; mailing the Express Mail ASME index; seeing C. for my blood results and getting a new Spectazole prescription; dashing to just see the beginning of In the Bedroom at St. Francis; getting the prescription; getting to Lost World to find I could get a quart of Cherry Coke, an ice-cream sandwich that gave me 44% of my daily allowance of saturated fat, and a large popcorn that filled me up for the rest of the free-movie day, which included the good Fellowship of the Ring artist and a great Frida movie, sitting by chance at the feet of Julie Taymor, her composer-companion, and the biographer. FRIDAY: Cité HUGE wine-steak lunch with Mildred, then Take Me Out with Charles and MORE food at Johnny Rockets. SATURDAY: Alicia's at Beard!! 1:45PM: Sort of continuing from last page: Sunday got up late and didn't do much of anything except the puzzles before leaving for Hoboken with Sherryl and Carolyn and Charles (to name them in order of their arrival at the 9th Street and 6th Avenue Path station), having a good day whose highlight was a free 45-minute ferry tour of the Harbor down to the Statue of Liberty (with its tourist-less monument-base). Fun train things on exhibit, including the possibility of paying almost $1000 for a three-day and two-night tour by private railroad car to either Montreal or Washington. Decent lunch at Clam Broth House, which Arnold insisted WAS the place we ate, and when I check my restaurant list I find we DID eat there November 11, 1990! Then back to finish the Times and get to bed at 11:45PM WITHOUT reading anything, watching any TV tapes, or playing FreeCell, but do a thorough Actualism session, during which I obviously fall asleep because I can remember looking at the clock just past midnight, then sometime past 1AM, and sometime past 2AM when I clearly wasn't awake ALL that time, since I even had dream fragments lingering in my memory. Then up to pee at 3:15AM, awake again at 4, again at 5:50 (or so) to pee again, wondering why I wake up SO much! Debate cumming, which I haven't since 9/23, but just don't feel like it. My crotch-rot is beginning to itch! Make lots of little lists of things to do, so that I decide to keep a list of what I do TODAY: 1) Up at 10AM and type page. 2) Girasole lunch OK. 3) Leave word with Charles about Girasole on Saturday. 4) Talk to a frazzled Mildred dealing with her sister's after-death paperwork about Saturday and about three articles in Sunday's Times about which we had talked: Syrah, War, and Science. 5) Fill the pillbox for the week, not knowing how I'm going to get more lecithin that I'll run out of by next Monday, and 6) have breakfast. 7) Update Actualism list with today as the ONLY day in September in which I did a session, last before was 8/31, after checking through my cruise journal to determine that I recorded NO Actualism session during the trip. 8) Water John's plants, sorry that I didn't check them on Friday, since he's coming back late this evening. 9) Call Spartacus about what he missed yesterday, and he continues to fill me in on items that he's prepared for himself to eat. 10) Bag laundry to take out, mainly the sheets, but also four shirts and a pair of pants. 11) Ken calls with an OK Beard reservation which I have to phone in, too, and try to get the point made that we have the SAME membership, but Cecilia says we have to bill it on the SAME credit card, so I leave word with Ken asking if that might not be possible, even my willingness to charge for him since HE doesn't check the billing and I DO. 12) Water my plants. 13) Skim New Yorkers for cartoons so I can just read them as I usually do, wondering when my renewed subscription will start. 14) Leave word with Terry K. about when I'm going to get an $800 check for a bill submitted August 22, well over five weeks ago. 15) Leave word with Abby W. at Holt to thank her for recommending my name to Mike T. of Bill Smith's for indexing, and asking "how things are," and leaving my phone number, saying it's not important if she gets back to me or not. 16) Type this page until 2PM, figuring I have to have lunch soon if I'm going to get to Carolyn's on the new schedule of 3PM, when I take out the laundry; and I have to phone for an appointment to see Apartment 4F after that. 5:15PM: Lunch, take laundry out, see Carolyn A. from 3-3:30 PRECISELY, saying I've felt GOOD a couple times last week, let's see how THIS week works when I have only HER scheduled this afternoon and then nothing until a possible Friday lunch! Then to Kathy at Cadman Plaza who's sorry she doesn't have the keys to 4F, but she takes down my phone number and says she'll get back to me when she gets them. Back home to bring up the mail, take it over to John's, put his mailbox key back on his key-holder in my wooden box for future use, and read the mail and do the New York magazine puzzle, then throw the stuff away, put other stuff away, making a new section for Cadman Plaza in my case on the shelf that had "Taste of Brooklyn" and "World of Video," one gone, the other in abeyance. Got a message from Mike T. and phoned my social security number to him, then finish this at 5:17PM and print it and start in on proofreading TRC.

10/2/02: 11:55AM: Finished proofreading TRC on Tuesday and started updating my video list. Went to the gym after Arnold said he'd order me a second ticket on Audience Extras to The Graduate this evening. Sorted through "to see" list and found that I've got to get to The New-York Historical Society by 10/20, and that I'd wanted to go to a yoga (or something) class at the gym, so there are STILL things to do "before" I get to pricing books at various bookshops. Watch tapes last night (Tuesday) until 2:30AM today (Wednesday), but get up at 8AM feeling horny and take Viagra #6 at 8:10AM and start looking through old porno tapes to catalog where they're placed, and at the end of only FOUR of them I'm so hot and bothered I turn off the TV and go into the bedroom and jerk off by 9:35, still not at much physiological feeling as I'd like, but I guess that's permanently gone! Came up before it would have taken effect and when I came there was no urge to STAY up, so it had limited action and no "side effect." Glanced back through my "Viagra" listings and find my usage VERY symmetric, like once a month: #1 about 4/30, #2 on 5/31, #3 on 6/26, #4 on 8/2 (tsk, should have done it in SEPTEMBER!), #5 on 8/31, and #6 on 10/2. And now I have the last CURRENT index (though the three from Bill Smith should be in by the end of this week, and the Algebra of HRW will be due this month), for Chernow, on my desk, having gotten it 9/13 but it isn't needed until "mid-October." Will keep me busy the next few days while I'm finishing looking through old videos and refining space-left statistics by checking tapes whose contents are quite unknown. Finish this at 12:05PM and print it out to clear the decks for index!

10/6/02: 8:20AM: Just finished DREAMS:10/6/02 and MUST record the WONDERFUL news from 101 Clark Street! Had gotten the offer of apartment 4F and went over on Monday to give in my acceptance note and be told by Kathy that she didn't have the keys yet, but she'd call me when she did. She called about 12:30 Friday and said I had keys, and since the office closes at 2PM I went over then and looked at a surprisingly acceptable 4F, but when I asked where I was on the list, and she said I was TWO, I asked what was coming up soon, and she started talking about apartment 20K, which I expressed surprise WASN'T snapped up by the internal move-list, and said that obviously #1 would grab that, but she thought and said that #1 couldn't APPLY for it, because he was about to be sent a formal offering (which he had to accept) for another apartment, and "was out of the cycle" for 20K, so that it was mine to accept! Went to the office because she said Joan M. was still in 20K and I'd have to phone HER to see the space, and she phoned, said, "So I can give him the numbers?" and wrote Joan's home and work numbers on a Post-it, which she put on my Preliminary Offering sheet, which she made up for me then in the office, to which I responded with my written acceptance. She explained the situation to Del, who agreed it was mine to take, and the manager even came out to say it was a GREAT apartment! Went home elated and left a message for Arnold and called Mildred, who wanted to see it, and I phoned Joan to find she had a bar mitzvah and would be home about 6PM Saturday, when she would phone me. I told Mildred, who said she'd sit in my lobby until I got the call, and left a message with Charles. Saturday's lunch at Girasole was not bad, though the presentation on long-term care was unenlightening except for Medicare's picking up of the first hundred days, making my 100-day exemption perfectly reasonable, though I hadn't known it, and she said I should phone her when I got home, and Charles and I went to the New-York Historical Society for 9/11 shows and a too-old and far-removed exhibit of early board games, and HE went home, and subway delays got me in at 6:15 and Joan said I could be there at 7, so Charles joined me at 7:05 and we looked at the GREAT views, saw that the space was indeed large though the kitchen was on the small side, the neighbors were great, only dog-noise from above, good north light, and she may be moving out as early as NOVEMBER 1, though she couldn't move during election-time, and of course my trip was November 2-16, but I was ELATED as we walked to Bar Tabac for dinner, and I thought to get out the plans to see how my two rugs would fit into the living room and just HOW to move all! 9:10AM: Get out plans and find the bedroom rug is good in the bedroom, but the two others seem to overlap unless the measurements are slightly different from what's given in the plan, and make a note that I want the EXACT measurements of all the areas AND the height of the ceiling to see if my Door Store bookcases are even a possibility. Survey both buildings to find they have 9 1-beds, 8 2-beds, and 3 3-beds among the 20 layouts in the two buildings. In 101, there are only 4 1-beds, of which E and K are the largest, also with larger terraces, E having a SLIGHTLY larger kitchen but only by 4" by 3". By coincidence Arnold's in his building and mine in my building are the only L-shapes that wrap around the elevators, which means we're closest to both the elevators and the stairwells. Start looking at the wall-space and think I can get the line of bookcases behind my bed, but I guess it'd be better in the living room in the tiny odd recess which would probably be uncarpeted anyway. Got to wait for REAL measurements.

10/10/02: 10:15AM: WHAT A FUCKING CRUSHING BLOW! Kathy just called to say that someone from the internal move-list who had been deemed unqualified for 20K has hired lawyers to plead his case with the Housing Department, which, Mr. P. says (since he has to "officially" give me the news), 90% of the time agrees with the internal pleader. The process may take as long as six months, and if I'm WAITING for 20K I will NOT be sent other offerings (though Kathy whispers at the end that I'm not out of the loop since Spartacus will be getting all the internal notices of apartments available, as 5E---and when I look at the plan, 5E is the SAME as 20K (without the view, of course), with a TINY bit larger kitchen (only by 3 inches one way and 4 inches the other---though THREE inches across EIGHT feet is TWO square feet and FOUR inches across SIX feet is ANOTHER two square feet, for an addition of FOUR SQUARE FEET!, like a floor-to-ceiling cupboard)---and I call Kathy and I can SEE it this afternoon as late as 5PM. Mr. P. seemed to say that I'd gotten a "tentative" formal offering, though the LETTER says FORMAL OFFERING only, and I phone Mildred to see if maybe I can't push MY case for taking the apartment, though that would certainly antagonize Cadman Towers. Call Arnold at 10:30, but he's on the phone and will call me back. JOHN doesn't even answer his phone! So ON THE ONE HAND I have a lot longer time to get rid of stuff before ANY move, and maybe I can get some "extra" consideration for my disappointment THIS time by getting a better apartment than I might NEXT time. Glad that I did nothing PERMANENT about moving except get very excited about it and tell lots of people about it. Did nothing yesterday except a bit of FreeCell, some TV watching, an index for 5 hours, and sorted through bedroom drawers getting rid of stuff, and then this morning, since Arnold was supposed to come over to look at backpacks, I went through my record collection, optimistically saying that I'd get rid of "about 80%" and find that I get rid of MAYBE 30%! So what if I have to make my calling cards (down to about 5) and checks and return-address labels last another six months? But it's now 10:35 and I have to start getting ready for J. at 11AM and picking up my prescription for more Spectazole, though it IS going away, and my athlete's foot seems to be cured, so I can start wearing socks to keep my feet warm now that the daily weather seems only to go up to 65°. AND I don't have to worry about the "wasted" November 2-16 Venezuela trip-time which could have seriously cut into my "getting rid of stuff before moving" activities. Chance of rain today for lunch with Mildred at Aquavit at 2:15 and seeing the apartment, but I guess I won't be putting stuff out onto the garbage-rack top for people to take. Interesting how this CHARGE with the possible apartment has put whatever disappointment I might have about Jean-Pierre AGAIN not coming as he'd said, the month of October, into abeyance. But I've got a lot to catch Dr. J. up on! DID tell Arnold to get his dental cleanings often, since my cleaning "with small pockets" was painful and I had to learn that my last cleaning was in AUGUST 2001, not in January when I saw Dr. D. as I'd thought and she even seemed a bit guilty about it but I was glad teeth were OK!

10/18/02: Transcribe note from 8/24/02 in clearing out top-ledge desk-stack: Appolo bus blocking 42nd operated by Mawafag A. Abedollah of North Bergen, NJ.

10/19/02: 10AM: Rita called from Akron yesterday to say that "Helen left money in her will only to those who came to her funeral," and for a second I believed her, but there was a tone in her voice that led me to ask, "Is that for real?" and she starts by saying she THOUGHT that might be the case, that's why she changed her mind to go along---and that could have happened, since I recall her denying some money, one year, from those who didn't respond to Jimmy's daughter's invitation to her graduation from high school. Then we agreed we'd heard she'd left all her money to Akron University, which also seemed reasonable from her point of view. Then Rita seemed to tell the truth: Helen left 1/3 to Edward, 1/3 to Marion, and 1/3 to be split between Rita and ME! Only later did I realize it was essentially dividing her half (she and Jimmy did EVERYTHING by halves: stocks, bonds, rent, car purchases, EVERYTHING) of the couple's wealth among her three siblings: Edward, Henry's wife, Mom's children! Mildred said there might be inheritance taxes if the figure was large enough, but I sort of supposed it was in the neighborhood of $600,000, if we were lucky and their wad hadn't been diminished by the recent stock debacle, so I could possibly gain $100,000! Rita said she'd know more by Monday, on which day she was taking the 2PM flight back to Florida, having phoned before to complain that the cheapest "bereavement flight" was $400+, others as much as $800, and that she was going to say that I was willing to pay for the lunch she and Lorene were driving to at the Women's City Club out of my share, and then we both laughed. Renie was driving, but at stoplights she'd come on and remind me of the carved Indian-head along Exchange Street, the big church on the corner of some boulevard, Rockynol---where Jimmy still was that no one bothered to see because he wouldn't remember any of them, and I was reminded of John C., who lived off there somewhere, though he had died, too, before our 45th class reunion a couple of years ago. I told Mildred about it and she mentioned that she left $100,000 to some old flame (Tony?) "who was the only man who ever loved me who KNEW who I was and loved me for that, rather than for who he THOUGHT I was," and I vaguely, again, wondered if she'd leave ME anything as her "current best friend," even though she also left $100,000 to Howard, who I think hasn't yet responded to her inquiries about renewing their friendship, stopped by Mildred or by Howard's new lover who wanted to occupy all his time.

10/20/02: 11AM: Took out more porno into public waste bins yesterday, but have to take the laundry out when going to Piri's for the Games Group, as well as carting along my National Geographic game and two Word-Scrabble sets, and now knowing that I have lots of junk (unworking electrical appliances) to discard from the large file drawer in the bedroom. Also want to finish the Jean-Pierre-called list to see if his not calling yesterday, the anniversary of our meeting, would make it the LONGEST time during which he hasn't telephoned. Actually looking forward to watching Tom Cruise in the mysterious Vanilla Sky tonight, and will FINALLY, this morning, get to cleaning up the room which has been a MESS since I put the copies of the Xeroxes from Arnold's on the table a week ago Wednesday (yes, eleven days ago). But at least I finished the puzzles quickly last night, though the magazine article on plutocrats took a long time, and I haven't finished updating the indexes-done list, and have lots of things to do Monday, like phoning eLec to say my phone service shouldn't be disconnected, get a call from Rita, perhaps, enumerating the possible size of our inheritance from Aunt Helen, and take the videos back to Marty's for the last time of this round, since no more seem to be available. But still burdened with trying to sell the two stacks of records I've winnowed out, and take a stack of books to the local bookshop to see how much they'll pay for them, but the pressure of moving's off since I'm thinking it WON'T be for six months yet, and ironically I'll get to enjoy almost a year of my apartment's being painted.

10/26/02: 12:53PM: Reading from previous page: Vanilla Sky was more mysterious AFTER I saw it than before! But not good enough to even be concerned about. Finished the indexes-done list, eLec said I was OK, called Rita TWICE for over an hour on Tuesday and Thursday, learning nothing more about Helen's legacy. Just now go under the body table to retrieve the 78s that have languished on the bottom shelf since I got them through Joe from Philadelphia, keeping only Josef Hofmann's 1938 Casimir Hall Recital album, and put the rest into the third "white tray" on the living room floor for Carolyn's friend Alison(?) to look at after today. Figure to vacuum, for the first time exactly six months after the rugs were cleaned in April, but first wanted to get the figures for the IBM pension query, finding that I'd worked JUST 120 months, or ten years, so it only depends on WHEN IBM went from 15 years' requirement to 10 years'! WQXR reminds that we set our clocks back an hour tonight. That took almost two hours, but I printed out two copies and wanted to get the copy out of the printer by typing and printing this page. It was a hectic week: telling Carolyn on Monday about my not-getting-apartment blow, showing her three photos of Jean-Pierre, and giving her the good news about my inheritance from Helen, which was complicated by her naming me EDWARD Zolnerzak in her will, and I called Lynett who agreed that if I signed all documents Robert EDWARD Zolnerzak it would be OK. Rita laughed that SHE'D get all the money, since there WAS no nephew named Edward Zolnerzak, but that Marion WOULD remember to call me Bobby if anyone asked. Then indexes came in for their share of ups and downs: kept thinking that I had THREE sets of indexes to finish by the time I left on the trip, but since HRW hasn't called YET, I can't imagine she'll expect me to finish next week. Then Mike T. calls from Bill Smith Studio to say that the schedule has slipped so that the first index pages will only be coming in through the first week of November and the index will be due on 11/16, so since I can't do the FIRST index, he's taking ALL them away from me, first "assuring himself" that I haven't spent much time on it already. So I don't have anything beyond the Taylor Fundamentals from Springer-Verlag, which is going quicker than I thought by using the old index, even though I phoned Terry on Monday to warn her that it's not going to be CHEAP since the pages are so different with tables moved around a lot. Then on WEDNESDAY an index comes in from Mary Ann B., totally unannounced, so I phone her at 10AM to say that she should have told me, but she insists Terry told me about it some months ago, though I don't have a card for it, but then she sees something that puzzles me and she has to go to a meeting and call me back. When she does, she says it was a mistake: the author will do the index! I should just chuck out what she'd sent! Up and down and up and down again! Phone Terry on Friday and she says it's fine to e-mail the index AND bill, and though I tell her to PHONE me, she only e-mails me that she got it OK and I'll get paid within the month. Then Vicki guilted me into trying to vote by Absentee Ballot, reinforced by meeting Joan M. at the subway after returning from She Stoops to Conquer to say something like "The board came through my apartment, and it's looking good for you to get it!" She wishes me luck with the apartment and I wish her luck with her election, though when I go to 345 Adams (having taken an agonizing half hour to print out the application from the inconsistent www.vote.nyc.ny.us site, making me slightly late for the Beard with Ken at which we're seated SEPARATELY because, according to Dino, "This is the fullest we've ever been, 108 people, and most of them are couples," so I don't bother to argue that WE are a couple, too, and choose to sit at Table 5, which includes the single father (not husband) of the chef, so I make up the ten, and Ken is at Table 7 with what appear to be two other couples, and he leaves early, so it couldn't have been very great, and I wasn't the most overcome by the brilliance of the conversation at our table, either. WQXR is playing an ugly new opera by Carlyle Floyd, something like Sassy Tree, and I'll be glad to run the vacuum to drown out the unpleasantness. Carolyn demanded I bring TWO bottles of champagne to her party this evening, so Mildred will join us, too.

10/29/02: 11:15AM: Played FreeCell Sunday, so I didn't do the vacuuming, then went about 6PM to Carolyn's, having good quiche, beef bourguignon, chicken without its attendant couscous, and Carolyn's usual good lentil soup, followed by two of Erik's wonderful brownies, made with U-Bet chocolate, and I took three home with me. Sherryl called to say she wasn't coming, and both Mildred and Charles didn't show up WITHOUT calling. Talked to one woman about indexing and publishing, and a guy about opera, so it was a pleasant evening, during which I had only two glasses of white wine and a glass from my two bottles of Martini Asti champagne, drinking seltzer the rest of the time, so that when I left at 10PM I felt pretty good, though the puzzles didn't get solved by the time I went to bed about 2AM, even with setting clock back an hour for change from daylight savings time. Sunday I tried to continue the FreeCell I left on from last night to get above the magic 84% figure, pausing to have breakfast about noon, then lunch about 5PM, then dinner about 10PM, but kept on and kept on and kept on until at 2:30AM I shut it off with despair, getting up this morning at 10 to find that I'd played 283 games, winning 226 and losing 57 for a score of 80%, even down from the 84s, then 83s, then LOADS of 82s, and finally losing 81s, but HAD to get off because I was actually becoming NAUSEOUS with the constant board movement, calculating this morning that my final average for the debacle was 25925/30916, or 83.85625, unfortunately DOWN from the previous high of 10/17: 25468/30370, or 83.85907, resisting a small impulse to play the few games which would take me back up. Then Charles called at 10:30 and we shared our depressions about Islam: I'd just finished reading an article in New Yorker (continued this week) that made it clear to me that ONE of the reasons for my depression is my CONVICTION that the Jihadists will eventually WIN, since they don't MIND dying and are CONVINCED they're right and we're wrong. Share that with Charles, who says it's the "tar baby" effect that we've become tainted with our support of Israel so that they hate us as well as the Jews. HE says the only possible solution would be when something so awful happens to Israel that they WILL move out of their "state," (as the article said, would the United States give its property back to the Indians, or would Britain return its hegemony to the Celts?) and give it back to the Moslems. He said the cities were doomed (he was considering moving to New Brunswick because he couldn't think of any place less interesting, including Prince Edward Island). How ironic we'd fall in love with New York City, the prime target for all the terrorists of the world. I said I thought of Israel as the Judas goat, tied outside our territories to attract all the vengeful evildoers into attacking it, rather than us. Charles said he was sure that the Israelis had an unconscious death wish, since the Holocaust, settling in the ONE place where the neighbors were SURE to hate and attack them, but of course we couldn't say these things to Mildred. He'd started by asking what our plans for the day were, and I said that I'd call the Instituto Cervantes to find out if a Pal-format machine would be available at 2PM, and they actually have THREE machines so there's no problem at any time. So we'll meet there, then shop for Broadway tickets, then eat (maybe the AQ cafe?), then go to the opera. Called Carolyn A. to schedule my session for 11:30AM Thursday, which was canceled at the WORST time yesterday when I made a POINT of stopping FreeCell to get to her appointment at 3PM, only to find she had an emergency meeting to decide whether to call 911 for a suicide threat by one of their patients. When she canceled, I decided I HAD to go to the gym, settling on ONLY the Exercycle for an hour on the FIFTH day from the last visit, just to wash my hair and body, getting back before Alison, who wasn't at Carolyn's party but who phoned Sunday, came up to take all of FIVE records from my three crates of records, which I've just about decided to just take downstairs and leave outside for anyone to pick up, since it really wasn't worth the effort of lugging them around ANYWHERE (except, I guess, possibly the Unitarian Church) for a SALE---and I CALL and Sandy will call and maybe pick them up tomorrow morning! And AARP writes to say they won't be handling prescriptions anymore! DAMN! Listening to WQXR to fill the spaces.

11/18/02: 8:25AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Just finished typing the first Actualism entry in three years and a day on ACTUALISM:11/18/02. Got THAT off my mind. Now to THIS: figured the end-of-trip notes wouldn't go much into detail about my "finishing with" the trip, since I didn't keep notes and just went aleatorily about the tasks of reading the mail and the three accumulated Sunday New York Times, getting a fourth on my only trip outside on Sunday, and calling only Spartacus and getting called only by Ken and John. Food was rather aleatory, too: tuna casserole for dinner Saturday; Sunday: oatmeal at 6, but soon hungry so have Spam sandwich at 9, then lots of cold tuna at 12, then most of a lentil pot at 4, concluding with two slices of cream cheese and jelly at 10:30. Mortified by jerking off: found a sore-skin-tab on the right side of my shaft left over from my first session at 3:20AM Sunday, then quickly rubbed an open blood-spot during my second session at 9:40PM Sunday, treating it with aloe after finishing off the LAST of both types of bidi almost simultaneously with my second orgasm, not very intensely felt. Amused to find that I'd ALREADY seen "the last atlas page" in 2000 when I'd covered the Amazon from Iquitos to Belem, so the Angel Falls trip "wasn't necessary for my original-compulsion reason." Glanced at the first half of Jean-Pierre's letter when I skimmed the mail on Saturday, only deigning to finish it about 8:30 this morning, taking it in to Carolyn to have something specific to talk about. No real PRESSURE to find a lover since the disappointment (both with him bowing out and with me not really NEEDING it) of Michael, which reduced my "Absolute Must Do List" from five to four. Then Angel Falls reduced it to three: 1) the Emil Jannings movie Way of All Flesh" (happy that I saw the second-last Academy Award-missed film To Being Again on 10/29), 2) the John Wyndham book Love in Time, and 3) publishing at least one book, which would be satisfied with a website containing that book. Then REALLY started spending mental money: last night I figured I REALLY NEEDED a couple more suits, willing to spend up to $200 each at either Sym's or Today's Man; this morning I thought about the advantages of buying a WHOLE NEW SET OF MODULAR BOOKCASES for my new apartment, as well as new carpeting, a new desk, possibly a new computer, and new furniture for my new (and as John insists, last) apartment. Turned on WQXR at 6AM Sunday to find RELIGIOUS programming, so I played Yma Sumac's two albums for the first time and went through some Vaughan Williams before WQXR became listenable again. Just check that these notebook volumes go to page 100, so this is NOT YET the last page of this volume. Finally finished the last of the Sunday Times last night, but stuff still litters the apartment: 1) stuff to check to take to my 101 Clark Street meeting on Wednesday, 2) stuff still to unpack, 3) stuff to take care of before making a list of 4) stuff to do before having no stuff I MUST do before 5) stuff to get rid of before my move, like A) clothes, B) old electrical equipment from the file drawer, C) books, D) more stuff. Slight headache from jerking off twice yesterday, though there were no fabulous bidi-dreams to transcribe from them. Getting hungry now at 9AM, practically back on my time-schedule, depressed that it doesn't even get light until about 7AM and gets pretty dark by 4:30PM. Rather happy that the Games Group was canceled yesterday, giving me more time to catch up: even if it DID happen, the group of me, Piri, Rose, Blanche and Mark and Barbara didn't appear to be the best, even if the Barking Dog did NOT contain a screaming kid last time. The real MUSTS today are 1) calling P. about Wednesday, 2) finding a substitute for AARP for my Wellbutrin prescription from J., 3) getting groceries, 4) going to the gym, which I'm reluctant to add, 5) sending out the films to be developed, 6) watering the plants, 7) phoning people, 8) updating and printing the VENEZ journal, and 9) other things. Also in the back of my mind is borrowing Spartacus's binoculars for Fidelio on Tuesday and Dance of the Vampires on Wednesday, not to mention taking mine apart to see if the prism can be reattached. Then phoning Rita to see WHEN Helen's money might come through. Then lots of other things I don't have to think of now because I've finally gotten to the last line and I can print it out and then have breakfast!

11/25/02: 8:40AM: Had to take a sleeping pill the night before last (Saturday), when I found I was OFFICIALLY getting apartment 20K (calling Spartacus, Vicki, Mildred, and Sherryl to tell them), because of all the thoughts whirling through my head about getting ready to move. Last night was OK because I'd tired myself out by going to the gym and watching TV tapes all day, and phoning people (Charles, John, Rita, Bob L., Bill P.) to tell them of my move. This morning I wake and think some more, but ONE of the things I think of is starting a MOVECHRO, a chronology of my move as compared to COMPCHRO, the chronology of my computer experiences. But before starting on MOVING, I have to finish up with the few things left over from my VENEZ trip, mainly printing out the TR\VENEZ pages and updating my dreams-list, slides-list, and desk calendar. So let's start that now, before breakfast, having already trimmed my beard, one of those things that have to be done ANYWAY. Lots of lists coming up! Also note that it's just ONE MONTH before Christmas, by which time I should be ALMOST COMPLETELY moved! Noon: Finished printing VENEZ journal, DREAMS from trip, and Slides and Summary Page. Phoned Shelley and Carolyn and Bill P. and P.: closing 5:30PM Monday 12/2!

12/14/02: Woke this morning and started an Actualism session on CLEARING OUT, and [A] first of all decided to put out all the magnetic reel-to-reel tapes in case I catch John going down to carry something, though I think I missed him when I DID get them out at 9AM. In packing them up, I looked through the catalog (which of course I'm SAVING) and was tempted to pick and choose, but I decided I'd DONE that in three phases: 1) original recording and playing on Wollensack for YEARS, 2) later playing on Uhers (two sets of them) for years, 3) final try at Actualism's enormous player, trying to copy copies (which didn't work), and put it away to NEVER touch it for YEARS, so I decided to THROW IT ALL out! [B] Then really AGONIZED about books, thinking about THREE levels of throwing them out: 1) sorting through and taking off covers and pertinent pages as I did with the Heinlein collection---but will I EVER look at it and WHY am I keeping THOSE parts of it? 2) trying to sell some to Montague or Strand Books, or just putting out boxes and stacks of them in front of the building, saying, "Take them," or even of putting out a sign telling people to come up to the fourth floor to take them down themselves, but WHY do I need to do THAT? 3) simply packing them up and throwing them out without regard to value or other people taking them: WHY be concerned that other people look at MY MARKINGS in most of the books I'd just throw out? I certainly don't need the MONEY, and/or whatever money would come from them just wouldn't be worth MY EFFORT. And, like the reel-to-reel tapes, I still have my LISTINGS of when I READ them and when I threw them OUT! Then [C] started thinking about travel stuff, and lots of the PAPERWORK can go, now that I know I CAN and HAVE traveled and don't have to keep stuff as a hedge to PROVE (to myself and others) that I CAN do it. Then REALLY get into the purifying energies of Actualism to think that I'll STILL have lots of books (Proust, Nabokov, Huxley, Clarke, Heinlein even yet, two or three Pilcher, huge tomes like Recognitions and Gravity's Rainbow and Quincunx (HEY, I think I did that BEFORE for Charades, but what a GREAT one!); lots of RECORDS of what I'd had and what I've thrown out, not to mention notebooks, and think of all of my [D] PROGRAMS: 1) keep the whole thing? 2) clip out only the cast and pictures and histories? 3) keep only the covers, as I did for some time? 4) or just be content with a LIST, which I've kept. Which leads me to consider all of my [E] body functions: do I keep my 1) pulled teeth? (yes), 2) fingernails? 3) old clothes? 4) SHIT? No, I flush it away, get rid of it to clear out space for MORE cycleable food, so I should do the same with EXPERIENCES: flush them away so I can enjoy NEW ones: I HAVE my memories, and NOTHING can keep the joys of former orgasms, the caresses of lost loves, the ecstasies of ballet highpoints, the laughter of spontaneous conversations from me, and think of NOT being like Arnold (with brochures) and Ken (with CDs), and finish this at 9:40AM, hungry! 9:45AM: Just finished saving NOTEBOKD (almost complete with 2001 and 2002), and will start NOTEBOKE when I finish with THIS 100 pages.

12/15/02: 8:25AM: Good Actualism session ELIMINATES and ASSIMILATES: I'll throw away MOST of my written-in books, only keeping a LIST of them as I throw them away, and it will really HIGHLIGHT what I've read: Barth's Letters and Sotweed and Giles Goat-Boy; Clarke's hard-cover; Heinlein's hard-cover and classic titles like Manchild; multi-volume works like 1001 Nights, Journey to the East, Remembrance of Things Past, and lots of Nabokov, but only Shell Seekers by Pilcher, the really remarkable book which was never again equaled in my readings. Just HEARD and found the metal shim that tinkled as it fell from the cooling riser, and that leads me to the things [A] I'll BE HAPPY TO BE RID OF: 1) ticking riser as it heats, 2) dirty kitchen floor, 3) smelly bathroom carpets, 4) cracked kitchen linoleum, 5) leaks from upstairs, 6) cracked paint in the hallway, 7) noises from upstairs, 8) scattered stamp collection, 9) impossible-to-reach sections of bookcases, 10) difficult bathtub, and I guess I can stop at 10. Then there are the things [B] which are so much better: 1) the view, 2) clean carpets, 3) fewer plants, 4) accessible storage units, 5) white-noise background to muffle neighbor-noises, 6) elevator instead of stairs, 7) doorman for deliveries, 8) handymen for problems, 9) nearness to subway, newspapers, Arnold, 10) fewer things to manage after I've thrown out lots. Which leads me to all of the [C] steps to be taken in moving: 1) putting everything into boxes, 2) leaving behind antlers, wrecked souvenir display case, ad hoc street-found storage shelves that really never "belonged," but were only "temporary storage," 3) getting rid of marked-up books, 4) consolidating stamp collection, 5) winnowing old kitchen stuff, 6) getting movers, 7) marking items for "first move," 8) sleeping HERE for the last night and THERE for the first night, 9) checking new telephone connections, 10) replacing old GO video with new. [D] But still I worry about how things will BE in the new place: 1) will the large storage cabinets be against the balcony-facing wall or the balcony-next wall? 2) how many files-on-top-of-files will be necessary in the bedroom? 3) will I throw out the venetian blinds or make them usable? 4) which way will the television face? 5) how can I control the excess heat? 6) where will the phones go? 7) how much darkness can I incorporate without elaborate maneuvers? 8) how much will cable be? 9) when will I get top lock? 10) when will it be FINISHED??? At least I finish this at 8:45AM, hungry for breakfast and starting the day.

12/16/02: 8:32AM: GREAT Actualism session this morning, clearing things out so that I can make the first of what I hope to be a daily series of do-lists, with any items not done in a day transferred to the do-list for the next day: 1) mympths file, 2) MY and JV to Bernoulli, 3) condense and print Taylor index, 4) get phone calls: a) Ikea delivery, b) Paul assembly, c) R. OK price, 5) Carolyn M. calls to transplant plants, 6) Carolyn A. visit and Actualism intro, 7) check on HSBC new checks, 8) Schwab address change and new checks, 9) JV file to Vicki, 10) vacuum and to Bill, 11) videotapes and Bernoullis to Arnold, 12) video my place and 101, 13) review Arnold's copy of my insurance, 14) insurance on 101, 15) give CA intro, 16) check clockwise assimilate? counterclockwise eliminate?, 17) buy L-arginine, 18) check Rx needed, 19) Beard/dates. Then REALLY get into DIMENSIONS: since a limitless number of flatlands can exist in three dimensions of space, and an endless number of status-instants for the entire universe can exist in the fourth dimension of time, so innumerable time-universes can exist in the fifth dimension of INDIVIDUALLY CREATED time-universes, and these can be INFINITELY LINKED in a sixth dimension, with many left over for unthinkable elaborations. Put on TV to find that subway talks are continuing so there isn't a subway strike AT THE MOMENT, and I finished the Sunday Times finally this morning at 12:30AM before having a snack and getting to bed and waking up and finishing this at 8:45AM, ready to MOVE!

12/22/02: 2:10PM: Though most of these days are recorded in MOVECHRO, I made the note this morning that I got to bed at 12:33AM, tossed and turned and possibly dozed a BIT, but kept looking at clock and turning in bed and finally up at 5:03AM to take a sleeping pill, and STILL don't seem to get to sleep, getting up at 8:56AM feeling tired, which is what I feel as I type right now!