2004
SATURDAY, 1/10/04: 5:30PM: Everything's getting DONE! Picked up the laundry after going to the gym, the only thing on my list besides packing and going to the gym on Monday, before meeting Arnie for the movie? Dining with Ken at Azafran at 7PM tonight on IGT, and went through the mail and have my HEAVY Guatemalan blanket over my knees for the 18° cold outside, not as bad this evening as it was when my feet were freezing as I finished the Haux index in just over 5 hours, planning to Express Mail it off on Monday for $740 before going to the plane for my 7PM departure for London and 4PM landing the next afternoon in Malta. Haven't been WRITING much lately (and not proofreading at ALL), but I managed to get Word 97 onto the computer today, had hooked up the printer's A/B switch, and waiting for my keyboard/monitor A/B switch from Dell, hoping it would come today, but it didn't. Now 5:40PM, ready for Spider!
SUNDAY, 1/11/04: 11:23AM: Type the dream from this morning, have an early breakfast but don't feel like lunch before meeting Arnie at noon for the movie, so I'll take the opportunity to finish off most of Susie's cookies while watching Ebert and Roeper before leaving, dressing in the commercials and hoping to get there not TOO late. All caught up with everything except mailing off the index on Monday, and PACKING for the Malta trip. TRAVEL:MALTA
FRIDAY, 1/30/04: 11:22AM: Finally print the LAST of the Malta journal, with the summary on the last page, the slides taking up four pages, the copying of the dreams goes over SIX pages, and I've GOT to get out to the GYM! Do the Exercycle for 15 minutes at 4, don't get videotapes, pick up Larium Rx, don't leave it off, get to Mildred at mediocre Mark until 3:30, when I go to Metropolitan for 1) Treasures of the Lost Art (Medieval Art) 3:15-3:21, 2) Gifford Hudson River paintings (Cole- and Church-like) 3:25-4:07, 3) Braveheart: Men in Skirts (many SEXY mannequins, lots to read) 4:12-5:40, tiring, 4) Amish quilts (only 9) 5:55-6:05, 5) Klee creatures (28, not 30) 6:13-6:19, get my coat at 6:30, take BUS to Penn Station, home 7:35, put rest of Malta souvenirs in a manila folder in the bookcase at 8PM, update the calendar by 8:30, finish with everything except getting slides back. Eat a grapefruit and get to bed at 10:25, skimming through an awful Young Hercules, and he doesn't even have a nice body! Ridiculous special effects on the Ballet on the Burning Poles. No Czechs accepted.
SATURDAY, 1/31/04: Up at 6:30, out to watch for no sunrise yet to 7:14AM. Catch up on my\mympths and my\medical from the week, and transcribe a note I took when Charles said we dined at Cellar in the Sky when we got sick with the egg appetizer, when I thought it was Wild Blue. Checked to find I went to Wild Blue only at Christmas 2000 with Mildred, and took it off my list on August 7, 2001, when they said they didn't serve pig anymore. Checked that we went to the NEW Cellar in the Sky (after the 1993 bombing closed the original) on 10/24/96 for "awful food." Charles went with me to the Beard NINE times: 1/31/94, 5/25/94, 6/19/94, 2/8/95 (veal at Nonny food court), 3/20/95, 9/20/95, 10/14/96, 10/29/96, and 8/27/97. Mildred went with me FIVE times: 9/13/95, 10/5/95, 12/27/97, 2/12/98, and 8/12/98. Then Fred and Ken took over. Changed the sheets and my wearing apparel to take to Chinese. Will get videotapes from Malta, if Marty has them, and catch the last day of the Russian exhibit at the library. Then another Sunday Times, with egg foo yung?
FRIDAY, 2/6/04: SUNDAY, 2/1/04: DID get Chimes at Midnight and Popeye at Marty's, which I watched on Sunday, along with Mercury from Audience Extras that wasn't very good, and went to Shelley's for snacks and Normandale until 4:30, took Melitonin and got to bed at 9:24, still feeling tired. Up at 4:52 and bed at 11:25 SOME night. Pee at 6:10, my note goes, then up at 7AM, bed at 10:04, not really progressing, and then on 2/3 j/o 2:30-3:28AM, get up and 7:54AM, almost on schedule, looking for that first glimpse of sunrise, but though it seems close on the clear morning of Thursday, 2/5, Friday 2/6 is clouded and rainy over new-fallen snow. Still feeling tired at night and getting up before dawn, which is OK but I'll be moving out of it soon, if only after the lunches, which seem to dominate the week, along with television: watched tapes of Lost in Translation and Northfork on Tuesday, with the start of Matthew Bourne's Nutcracker, and on Wednesday I watched the last five half-hours of Sex and the City to get it back to Spartacus "by Sunday," as he demands. Thursday I get up about 7AM and from 7:15-12:15 watch the 6 hours of the new Traffic, good enough, and then Blue Smoke with Mildred and Charles, after which we go uptown to the Marlborough Gallery for Desiderio and his "painting-photos scattering the floor under the table" paintings and lovely Fragile Remains of Hampi, Machu Picchu, Angkor, etc, by Pagliuso, then Rothko at Pace, and back to bed by 9:20PM, up 7AM to see no sunrise-sign.
SUNDAY, 2/8/04: 11:10AM: Note after DREAM [DREAMS:2/8/04]: THEN think of a way of expanding GIFTALIE and putting space between the "scientific" explanations: have the Alien make sure Barry LIKES him (so he can get his orgasm, without talking about it)---maybe even demanding to feel Barry's cock to make sure it's HARD, and maybe he can change the shape of his nipples to Barry's taste, as further proof of his powers invisible to an audience. Allen: "Are you SURE you like me? Am I TOO handsome? Should I change? Give more REASON for Barry to be excited---feel him hard? Much more sexual byplay. Maybe have Allen go TOO FAR and HURTING Barry, making him suspicious and move away, bringing more SUSPENSE to the action. And maybe cut down SOME of the "science." Have him seeing OTHER things from Barry's past, too. Maybe even a political jibe at Allen's existence where an oppressive government has outlawed sex of ANY KIND from a religious-right extremism, to meld ANOTHER kind of message into it, checking to make sure it hasn't gotten that bad here YET! AND it's now 6:43AM, the sky outside is CLEAR to the eastern horizon, as it has NOT been for the past few days, AND the sunset is IN the paper for today at 6:59AM, a REAL time that I can check to see if I can see the sunrise at, but I still have 15 minutes to kill before dressing and going out on the balcony to see the revelatory first glimpse, now on 2/8 as---12/21-12/31 is 10 days, 31 in January, 8 in February is 49 days after the solstice for my first sight of the sun---7 weeks exactly? ALSO it's only about the last THREE days my nose hasn't been bloody when I blew it, so it's been about THREE WEEKS that I had the aftermath of my Malta cold? Now 6:48, but 10 minutes is still too much time to spend outside. Solstice was on MONDAY, 12/22, this year, but 12/21 WAS a Sunday and THIS is a Sunday, so it IS 7 weeks on either side I see no sunrise. Today, at EXACTLY 6:59, the sun became visible in the corner of the buildings at the right of my view, "setting" at 7:03 as the bright left edge of the sun JUST cleared the top of the obstructing building, and I could LEAN OVER and see it for a minute longer, but from the EVEN-with-the-side-of-the-BALCONY VIEW it was only visible for four minutes. Hope to see it TOMORROW to see HOW FAST IT ADVANCES now, seeing as sunrise tomorrow is STILL listed at 6:59AM. There were no sunrise-brightnesses on any of the Manhattan buildings, but at the very end the St. George lit up, and I could see the shadows of my head and my air conditioner against the westward projections of my building. So it's 14 weeks---and use my AlphaSmart CALCULATOR here to find that 29.6% of the year---that I miss ANY direct sun AT ALL. 23° at 7:03AM. Another note from last week, maybe Thursday, 2/5/04: Take Ambien #1 at 2:50AM. Only get to sleep about 3:15, determinedly NOT using Actualism, but wake at 6:20AM, not such a GREAT deal, but better than nothing. That morning, up at 8:17AM, logy. Do a LOT on Saturday: 1) Take the old monitor back to Spartacus, 2) Check that he doesn't have wires that fit, but phone Owen to be told the keyboard-convert should be simple, but the mouse-convert he's never heard of, but that I should try RadioShack, who doesn't have it and suggests either Staples or CompUSA, whom I guess I could TELEPHONE, 3) Return his last tape, and he hasn't heard of Bel-Ami which we now guess is a movie that I add to my list for Marty, 4) Deposit my check, 5) Buy two 300-watt bulb replacements for $13, at the place that still doesn't have Golden Fleece, 6) Get groceries, and 7) Pick up my laundry, getting back JUST in time to put stuff away and get to Quo Vadis (better than The Pharaoh), at 4PM, out at 6:50, home to get the Times, finish it all by 10PM, with dinner at last of pastrami and a somewhat limp salad already a week old, having had no lunches here for essentially the past week. So my TO-DO list devolves to about 6: 1) finding what IRS forms I need, 2) finish moving computer around with replacements, 3) index, 4) expand GIFTALIE, and 5) proofread, 6) get a DVD recorder. The sad thing is that none of them are TRIVIAL, and I've fallen behind on the gym, letting it go for three days once, and now FOUR days behind, but it's nice to have gotten back two rolls of the seven from Malta and finding that they're quite good---got to call Fred NOW, and he's coming 2/16 to see apartment, Spanish slides; I take him to dinner at Mezzo!
TUESDAY, 2/10/04: 12:35PM: The meeting of Mildred after her right-eye cataract operation was better than it might have been: I phoned the number she gave me for the doctor, who gave me a number at New York Medical Center at 520 East 70th Street, and she said she'd phone me when Mildred would be ready: that she was already being worked on at 9:10AM. I finished a draft of GIFTALIE and made breakfast when the phone rang at 9:40AM and told me to be there in 45 minutes. I wolfed down breakfast while dressing, got out at 9:53, made good connections with the subways to Borough Hall, 42nd Street, and 68th Street, walking down 70th to see new high-rises and restaurants, but my set of four old apartments still there and looking the same, except with new mailboxes inside. Get to the Hospital about 10:30, elevate to 9, but ask someone where the Payson Corridor is and he directs me to Urology, where I wander around until someone else says, "This whole wing is research, you want to go back the other way," and pass the guy who observes that I didn't go in the right direction? Do, in fact, THEN notice the arrow pointing to the left from the elevator for the Ambulatory Care Center, and go in to ask for Mildred, who has to phone her to ask for her locker number, gets "45," and an attendant takes me into the Women's Changing Room and hands me a bag with Mildred's clothes in it, along with her overcoat and her shoes, and tells me to elevate to the 10th floor Stage 2 Recovery Unit. Wait long for the elevator, and finally get to a chipper Mildred about 10:50, who's glad she doesn't have to wait until 11:30, and "You're joking" when I asked why she didn't bring something to read. She said she joked through the operation, felt Dr. H. was more casual while operating than in his office, liked the woolen shawls here in the recovery area, and she went to the ladies’ room to change and return and said she wanted to go to the "yellow bus that's on the corner of 86th and Lex from 11:30-12" to get her new subway card, and I said she should do whatever she wants. We bus up York, my card saying "One Xfer," and then across on the M86, my card saying "Pass." She gets off at Lexington at 11:45 and I continue across the park to Broadway, looking for but not finding either a Staples or a CompUSA, and my downtown 1-train gives me a "Xfer", so I'll try to remember to check my statement to see how many fares I PAID for my SEVEN vehicles that got me home at 12:30, in time to get to the Dorothy Lamour slide-show at 2PM, but not (how sad!) leaving me enough time to go to the gym, since I want to have lunch now, and then pick up the Proscar prescription at Rite Aid and find out what it was that they phoned me about on SUNDAY to pick up before the 15th. Day pleasant outside, though there were so many clouds on the 7AM horizon that I couldn't tell how many sun-radii northward the sunrise has progressed since the questionable "between one-half and one diameter" between Sunday and Monday mornings when it was perfectly clear. Have to do more work on GIFTALIE: took out MOST of the scientific stuff, which seems unnecessary now, added some erotica and conflict-conversation, and ended up at the top of page 40, which means I ended by cutting out most of three pages, since I moved page 42 up to page 1, so I cut out 40-42. Now I have to add more back. Finished adding the last two subentries for the PLA index, and phoned Springer to make sure my old address was removed from their files: he DID say that all the 1099s should be in my hands by the end of January, so maybe I'll get it today? Wanted at least 2 rolls of film back yesterday, but just got one, so there are still 4 out there to come back. Made six NICE piles on my table of things to do: from rear to front: 1) DVD, 2) proofread journals, 3) computer-finish, 4) IRS forms to order, 5) index to print and mail off, 6) GIFTALIE. Still haven't moved the Dell mini-tower from the top of my desk, and moved the PC around so I have an even LONGER reach to the keyboard, but I managed to get through the index yesterday and this page today without too much trouble, nice that it's warm enough out at 46° that I don't have to put on the heater, which "blew the fuse" on my APC power-strip the SECOND time, so I knew to press the black button to get everything into operation again. Will be nice when my workspace is FINALLY organized, and I can begin to look into making DVDs and CDs GALORE!
WEDNESDAY, 2/11/04: 11:50AM: Things going almost ridiculously well. Yesterday I cut GIFTALIE to 40 pages, today I added 5 pages, making it almost OK, but needing to add "No SEX in his world." Phoned Staples and they MAY be sending me the two cables I need! So, of the six tasks above, 3), 5) and 6) are in abeyance, and Springer-Verlag phoned to say they sent me a new 1099, so 4) is in abeyance, so that means I start on PROOFREADING JOURNALS. Decided to phone Marj to 1) thank her for coming Watson-Guptill index, and 2) ask her to the 2/24 Village Playwrights for GIFTALIE. She can't do 2) at all, but we talk from 10-11:38AM---ridiculous! NOW I'll start back on proofreading, having been downstairs and there's no 1) new indexes, 2) slides from Malta. And phone Shelley to tell her it's not "Shortcuts" but "Supercuts." Things going WELL!
SUNDAY, 2/15/04: 11:45AM: An almost perfect morning: up at 6:40 to look at the PERFECT sunrise, about 6 diameters from the edge, at 6:50AM that lasts until 7:12, then watch Michael Jackson documentary (skating), while breakfasting, then cum, read the Times, set up TV, have a muffin for snack. More Times, clip articles, decide to see BOTH the Joyce for Eclipse, and Nijinsky at City Center this week, and record Ebert and set up for Shrek---junky?
MONDAY, 2/16/04: 7:15AM: Sun rose in clouds, most probably at 6:49AM, and the last bit of light disappeared from the edge of my balcony when the clock read 7:14AM, so it was definitely 15 minutes, and the sun-height over the building "centered on building and horizon yesterday" is somewhat less than a diameter and more than 3/4 diameter. So I've got it down until I watch to see when the first glimpse of sunSET occurs in May, hopefully when I'll be home instead of on vacation [and I have started setting the right margin for the same spacing for the last seven lines, only substituting "instead" in place of "rather" to make sure that line came out, and phonying "spacing," but the next 2 spacings came out on their own, which was a lie to make the line ABOVE come out evenly without too much difficulty]. Busy day today: bills to pay, gym to go to, Fred to prepare for, lunch with Mildred and Spartacus at Eleven Madison Park, at 1 [to make THAT line come out], and Eileen phoned to say that she can only charge $35 for a Scientific American year, which betters $34.97 by 3¢ (they surely know what people like her can charge). Have trouble keeping the heater on, and I really have to be careful to turn it off when I leave the room: a dangerous possibility of overheating and catching something on fire, prompting a memory of yesterday's article about old, somewhat incompetent, people being coerced, unwillingly, out of their co-ops because "she left the stove on," or concerns about other forgetfulness-caused disasters. Only ten days left before the bad 13.5 hour flight to Auckland, but maybe my frequent flying will make pre-trip jitters minimal. Have confidence that Ken has planned to get the most sights, in one way or another, into all the stops by the ship. Then just waiting with bated breath for the Amazon to be scheduled by Paul, or Ireland by Fred, or I see another trip that I just can't pass up, starting in July when I should be finished with the series of indexes from Pearson. Still not gotten that 1099, "mailed on Monday," SURE, from Springer, to finish looking at those tax forms that I'll need to order, and ribbons for my printer in "two business days" (which I presume won't be here until Thursday or Friday to print out The Gift of the Alien and Two Guys for Village Playwrights on Tuesday, followed by tickets for The Boy from Oz on Wednesday, and then the flight on Thursday. I'm near the bottom of the page, looking at the ads for Nijinsky and Eclipse lying on my desk to be seen this week, with maybe the Tuesday Evening Club to claim my membership-drawing-winning Photography book, but probably not the Sage Men-Over-50 discussion group before the trip. Owen hasn't called back yet to resolve that problem with connecting the mouse through the two computers with one keyboard and monitor and mouse switch, but I SHOULD start looking at making CDs before going MUCH further into proofreading my journals, which are quite interesting since I'm getting into movie and play reviews from 1976 with many good names.
WEDNESDAY, 2/25/04: 12:29AM: Bed at 9:23PM last night, but can't sleep, turning over and over to see 11:11PM at last, then at 12:21AM wake with a dream that I record on the AlphaSmart and transfer to DREAMS:2/25/04, printing now. Type this to 12:32AM and debate taking an Ambien, but don't. Then wake at 3:42, having seen 2:12 and 3:11 and 3:40, and decide to take one Ambien; there aren't that many LEFT. Up at 7:35AM, slightly logy, not feeling I've slept enough. Dress in the 29° cold and catch up with this at 8AM, ready for my last full day before the trip. Checking that I return on 3/22, I find the note that "Arnold got me a birthday present," which he gave me yesterday: a tacky 7-note not-quite-workable accordion, priced at $29.95, which he said wasn't cheap, but I sure hope he didn't pay THAT much for it. Now I've got to think of a "comparable gift" to get HIM! Managed to do all three indexes, the Analysis of Variance not being very good, but that's the way a super-quick job goes, and I'll tell them that if I need to. Didn't get nearly as far on the "before-trip" list as I'd wanted by today, only about 28 hours before leaving on the car to the airport, looking forward to ANOTHER about 28 hours of transit before resting in Auckland. Only 3) Paid John on Monday and 7) Order IRS forms on Tuesday. Still left: 1) Pay rent, 2) Pay visa, 4) Pack, 5) Get Proscar, 6) Get haircut, 8) Phone Bob L. to pick up my mail, 9) Wash dishes, 10) Go to gym, 11) Clip toenails, and 12) Ken--WHEN do we take Aralen for malaria in Vanuatu, or wherever it is? May come back to this today or tomorrow, so I won't bother to print it out now. When I clipped my toenails I also clipped my fingernails, plucked my ear-hairs, and added 13) Trim beard to list. Did and did and did, had breakfast and lunch, and finally did all but 4) Pack and 9) Wash dishes, both of which have to end tomorrow anyway. Now at 5:15, "fresh" (meaning fagged) from the gym, and at this time tomorrow I'll be in the air toward Los Angeles. Cleared out the "alternative-take" bags to one, and found that the seasick medicine I was looking for was Bonine, so I got THAT when I went to pick up my five Proscar before the haircut. Spartacus called that he'll meet me in the seat for The Boy from Oz," and the office actually put rent bills under all the doors on MY floor, but I don't know about the rest of the building. Can always go back to proofreading my journals if I have spare time, but now at 5:17PM I'll finish this and check e-mail one last time from Pearson. G. did phone to say he got his index. The Boy from Oz is GREAT!
THURSDAY, 2/26/04: To bed about 11:35PM but toss and turn and can't sleep, so at 12:34AM I take an Ambien and seem to drop right off! Sleep till 5:42, lie thinking and worrying, and get up at 8. Transfer almost-last of Vicks to my regular jar and powder and Vicks and deodorant myself up before breakfast, the oatmeal going down in lumps while I watch the old film of The Mikado. Made a NEW list of things to do TODAY: 1) brush teeth, 2) get out Odor-Eaters, 3) phone RadioShack for camcorder battery, 4) find snorkel and mask (which I did before I went to bed, to allay THAT fear), 5) phone car service, 6) record phone message, 7) set up TV taping, 8) wash dishes, and 9) pack, and will now get to the PILLS at 8:50AM. 9:35AM: Fucking PANIC: don't have enough GEMFIBROZIL for the trip! Thought I'd CHECKED that before! Then mess up the FIRST message to Rite Aid, and finally it says I pick it up at 11:45, obviously not early enough, so I've got to GO there, unless they CALL and say I can't get THAT authorized through my insurance! Not much left to do, but not much TIME left, either! TRAVEL:KENPAC
THURSDAY, 4/1/04: 11:40AM: Ready to crow about how much I've done, when battery-replace beeper goes out of its mind---then stops, but with the red light still on! Finally finished everything but slides for the KENPAC trip, ready to put THAT stack away and check the rest of my Visa bill, go to the gym for the second time since I've been back, and wait for the final form to send off the IRS checks and all the others, John not yet called for his monthly $700. Still coughing a bit but my cold is virtually gone and I'm feeling GOOD!
SATURDAY, 4/3/04: 9:05AM: Went out yesterday and 1) picked up a passport-renewal form at the post office, 2) ordered a ridiculously expensive VCR battery (delivered) at RadioShack and picked up two camera batteries for just over $15, using my $15 gift card but STILL getting ripped off, 3) stopped at Rite-Aid to fill up four cold items: a) Suphedrine, b) Nyquil night-caps, c) Fisherman's Friend, d) cough syrup, but couldn't find the right-size cylindrical intertooth brushes, to be looked for today when I go for groceries to keep up with milk and bread, at least. Marvelous revelation yesterday that I CAN play DVDs on my computer! Ask Spartacus for the Academy Awards, but he first has to finalize the disk before I can play it---IF I can play it! Then went down at 5PM to find that SIX of my seven rolls of KENPAC slides came back, and SOME are quite good, but many are mediocre, but I lay in bed this morning fantasizing cropping, lightening, darkening, intermixing slides on my computer when I get THAT system working. Got Picture Brides and The Triplets of Belleville at Marty's, and will buy new 12-tape card today and ask if it also applies to DVDs. Sent e-mails to Fred about his benefit and Susie about cherry blossoms in Jersey, and will check now if Edgardo has replied about Eugenio's staying here starting 4/18, what replies I might get, and check Audience Extras again for Truth about Blayds. Busy, busy!
THURSDAY, 4/8/04: 4:50PM: Note from 4/3: 1) Phone call that 4/17 Beard wait-list has been CONFIRMED, just when I get MAN offer for that date and wonder if I can make it; 2) I'm pressed for time to meet Charles at 12:30: he phones to ask if I couldn't make it at 1PM. Great! But still no Truth about Blayds.
SUNDAY, 4/11/04: 10AM: Getting caught up, but not REALLY caught up. 1) Have to get my Cadman Plaza income statement notarized before handing it in; 2) Have to get Arnold to finish the Academy Awards (Part II) DVD so I can see it; 3) Need to buy a mop before cleaning the kitchen floor; 4) Still want to see Truth About Blayds" on Audience Extras; 5) Should try Arnold's this afternoon for evaluating restaurants to get a free Zagat; 6) Should get through more volumes of proofreading; and finally the last TWO tasks are beginning to weigh me down: 7) Buying a DVD player-recorder, and 8) Learning my computer, but still have to 9) Pay my Visa bill and mail two IRS envelopes on 4/15, not to mention 10) Cleaning the rest of the apartment for slide-showing on Tuesday and 11) have breakfast, which I break off now at 10:10AM to DO!
THURSDAY, 4/15/04: 11AM: Did all the above but 2), 4), 7) and 8), not bad, but they STILL weigh me down! Pausing now before calling Arnold and proofing more.
TUESDAY, 4/27/04: Things SHOULD look GOOD! 1) Saw ONE of the two Milne plays at the Mint, 2) In three attempts found I can copy a) diskettes, and b) "Select all files" onto CDs, 3) Finally a break in the fog so that I can stare agape at beautiful WHITE FLUFFY CLOUDS in the blue sky, rather than drippy fogs and hazes, 4) Two consecutive Actualism sessions seemed to clear away some of the blahs, 5) Spartacus is actually ACCEPTING the buzz on my telephone and has stopped complaining about it, even when he got me a ticket with him for Embedded, tomorrow’s matinee through Audience Extras. 6) I found the penthouse-on-Court article that I'd been looking for for Charles, right where it should have been, in the "Luxury apartments" folder, but now I have to get rid of the ton of stuff on my dining-room table. 7) Will PROBABLY go to the store today for long-overdue groceries, now that a) it's not raining, and b) I'm running out of absolutely everything! 8) Remembered this morning that I'll be getting my SOCIAL SECURITY check about now, so I don't have to worry about paying EITHER the rent OR John with my $800 checking-account balance. 9) Calendar is filling up nicely with Beards and plays, 10) Decided to SEE the Kennedy presentation as grist for my "let me show my travel slides at the Heights-Hill showroom down on Cadman Plaza." And now THIS page is finished!
FRRIDAY, 5/7/04: 1:30PM: Feel that shrouds of "musts" are gradually being pulled off my head, allowing me to stand more upright, with more clarity and less encumbrance. First it was the eternal wait for the camcorder battery, the passport, and the $30,000 check, all of them either from the trip or just after it. THAT was enormous relief last Saturday, but there was still Audience Extras to check, sometimes 3-4 times/day, for Truth about Blayds, which I finally saw last night. Then yesterday I FINISHED sorting through the "apartment" files, separating "moving in" from "current" and throwing about two inches of junk-paper away, and then winnowing some stuff from my OLD "apartment" file in the filing cabinet to allow room for "moving in" to be incorporated with it. AND rather than spending the time NOW to sort through and separate "Brooklyn" from "Brooklyn History" and just plain "New York City," I just piled everything onto the shelf below the chair and will look at it LATER. Now today I tried twice to see P. about my last-year's STAR refund which Del said HE had to authorize, transferring it from Joan M.'s name on HER list, and feel that I MIGHT get to him at 1:50 when I drop down before going to lunch with Shelley at Mezze. Then the tasks of setting up the Museum of Natural History with Bob R., and the KENPAC slides with Ken and Charles, and the Tribeca tasting on 5/22 with Charles, are only brief phone calls away and I can concentrate on proofreading, down to THREE volumes again, as I'd been down to TWO before, but John brought in two MORE on Monday, and then I can get to DVD-choosing and computer-familiarization. AH, yes, ALSO the Time Warner guy on Wednesday showed me that I CAN program two different channels the same evening! But other things float to the top: 1) check again at bank to prove $30,000 check CLEARED, 2) buy hammertoe-lowering braces, and 3) got to check my HIP files returned from AUDIT so I can a) schedule my Urology appointment, b) find how to submit a semen sample, and c) get my 7:30AM blood test. BUT THINGS ARE CLEARING OUT!
SUNDAY, 5/16/04: 9:25AM: Lay comfortably in bed this morning (before dream on DREAMS:5/16/04) thinking I had the Sunday Times to go through (looking into EB for some too-scientific doublecrostic words), then maybe finish the last volume of proofreading (with an incomplete section, I fear, that John will have to replace when he gets back from Russia on June 10), but looking above I find that 1) Mezze had closed so we ate in Amin, 2) my check cleared on Monday, making my payment to Go Ahead OK, 3) ordered the hammertoe brace from AARP with about double for shipping, but it's on the way, and 4) have the other things still to do. Fantasized getting a huge TV for the living room and moving my "smaller" one into the bedroom so I don't have to get out of bed to jerk off to porno videos and DVDs, or even getting another, larger, COMPUTER screen to play everything through my computer processing of tapes, slides, DVDs, etc. Begin to accept the idea of going private, if the Cadman Plaza study, uncannily passed, goes that way, since I'll OWN a quarter-million apartment which I'll be able to "reverse mortgage" or SOMETHING; even as I'm resigning myself to more years of the economically, environmentally, ecologically evil (and other negatives starting with E) administrations of the money-grubbing Republicans, thinking maybe it'll lead to a REVOLUTION to change the country completely, bypassing the outmoded two-party system, since the electorate seems too stupid to want to be rid of them through the regular electoral process---and they get what they deserve! Think of sorting through my "Scrapbook" files, keeping what I want, finding the "Most Populous City through Time" write-up, making more room; and sorting through "Letters" to find what's to be transcribed after the few small remaining volumes (and I guess John DOES have "John" NOW!), and I get to the enormous task of 1) sorting out the scrambled-date-data travel files into chronological order, 2) finding a way to sort the WHOLE thing into contiguous diary-page order, 3) putting the whole thing on the Internet to maybe get FEEDBACK or REACTIONS or PUBLISHING of something or other (ah, PLAYS yet to be put in!) as a RESULT of my efforts!
SATURDAY, 5/22/04: 9AM: Yesterday was a WONDERFUL day for doing things! Had gotten a call on Thursday from the bone-density scanners, making an appointment for 12:30 Friday afternoon, so when I went to bed at 11PM the night before, I figured I'd handle a NUMBER of items on Friday, so I 1) got up at 7:10 and washed my face and got out to the HIP office to be almost refused entry at 7:35AM by the door-guard, who said the lab wasn't open until 8AM, but I just kept shouting back, "The doctor told me to get there at 7:30!" The "doll" secretary said that she'd call R. and tell HER that the lab doesn't open until 8AM, so she should stop telling people to arrive at 7:30! Waited until 8:15AM, as #2, to get my blood taken, after a long dialogue between two nurses about whether she asked for testosterone TOLERANCE or TOTAL testosterone, and remarks that she didn't ask for FREE testosterone, so I piped up that this is why I was TAKING these tests, but my voice didn't seem to matter. Dropped off my Urology slip with Donna, who checked that C. STILL hadn't phoned for THAT appointment with Special Services, who would call me with the date. So only the FOLLOW-UP appointment with R. needs to be made, I think. Leaving that office at 8:25AM made it easy to continue my day by catching the R-train to Queens Plaza, an asshole-dreary part of the city, and find my way to Hunter Avenue and the lab, with a door-buzzer that didn't work and a cute kid sending me downstairs to the doctor, who had me fill out forms, then wait, then gave me a sterile-capped jar and ushered me into a tiny square room with a sink, a ratty chair on which I put a paper-towel slipcover before sitting down, and an open "porno-box" which, as I'd predicted, contained only heterosexual porn. Took my pants off and got out MY porn, and felt VERY unexcited by the whole thing, but did my duty for a TINY specimen, after which I dressed and delivered it to the doctor and his dykey-looking large-boned female assistant. Then home for breakfast, continuing to bind pages for John's final typing of my journals, and then out at 12:15PM for the walk to 81 Willoughby, again in a poor neighborhood, but lots more poor people on the surrounding streets, and rather quickly got to the laser-lighted slow-moving boom that took my bone-density scan, being told that the results would be ready in a few days to be sent to C. Then looked for one of the two Burger Kings which were the only two addresses (both on Fulton Street) in Brooklyn, and got two double cheeseburgers, one awful one of which I ate on the steps of Borough Hall in the humid steaminess of the afternoon, then came home to eat the other with very welcome cold glasses of apple juice, which I seemed to need a lot of: salt in the burgers? Back to assemble FOUR MORE volumes for John to type, get a call from Sherryl that I brush off---when WILL she learn NOT to call me, as Mildred has obviously learned not to do? Then leave word with Ken about my Tuesday notation for "slides?" and he phones back to say he CAN see the KENPAC slides that night, so I phone Sherryl and SHE'll meet us at Kapadokya at 6:55 before the slides that night. Had also finally gotten the Taste of Tribeca tickets online, and will ask Charles, presuming we'll speak today, but when I call his Manhattan number now at 9:15AM it's STILL busy, as it was all morning a couple mornings ago and last night, so I assume it's just out of order! Then check that I DO pay $25 a year for IGT and NEVER use, membership up in June, and will try to get iDine to waive their $49/year charge or I'll cancel THEM in June, too. So for a lovely moment my table-stacks were down to TWO: 1) computer familiarize and 2) DVD-recorder buying, but I think I have to find out FIRST what my COMPUTER can do with my VCR tapes and DVDs so that I'll know what kinds of features my DVD-player and/or recorder will have to have. Pulled my ear-hairs and trimmed my beard and fingernails this morning before breakfast, typed DREAMS:5/22/04, and have the typing bills to solidify, and probably postpone the gym to tomorrow, hoping to get to galleries with Charles between finishing the Taste of Tribeca about 3PM and the Tom of Finland 7PM event at Leslie-Lohman. Intend to call Bob R. this morning to settle a date for our Museum of Natural History viewing of Petra next week, and be able to START LIVING FOR REAL DAY TO DAY.
MONDAY, 5/24/04: 12:45PM: Taste of Tribeca on Saturday barely worth it, terrorized by masses of baby-strollers! The food from Danube---a nice, long-braised beef goulash with chive mashed potatoes; and Bouley, a tasty, young-garlic soup with coconut ginger and one fresh prawn---came early, without lines, as we sat in the shade until 11:45, but then the band started too loudly and we moved to Greenwich Street to share a table, and I went for Odeon St. Louis ribs, fabulously seasoned and tender and meaty, and then send Charles to Chanterelle for cured salmon with crushed coriander and sweet pepper vinaigrette by 12:31, and then he gets three tarts for dessert from Ceci-Cela at 12:34, so I get to Trois Petite Cochons for their four patés, terrines, and mousses by 12:41, all pretty good, but the sun and humidity and crowds weren't cool. Charles was going back to the Island immediately, so I didn't go to the Tom of Finland (nor did I go to the gym Saturday OR Sunday!). In the Sunday Times saw a DVD/VHS player/recorder ad for $500 that looked pretty good, as well as a digital camera AND printer for $200. On Sunday I tried Pinnacle, first hanging up on the Serial Number, thinking I had to call them, but then trying it AGAIN found that the diskette started ANOTHER way and took the WHOLE 20-character serial number rather than "a 10-digit" number that didn't work in ANY combination. Then the MAIN MENU wouldn't come up, so I was frustrated AGAIN. But NOW, as I looked at the disks, I see that the THIRD diskette is labeled PROGRAMS, so THAT'S where the main menu probably is!! Then eat and watch TV and play lots of Spider (until 2:30AM!) in my computer frustration, except that in the MORNING I duplicated ALL files in JV, WP51, C6, AR, to ONE half-filled CD!! Then this morning I woke, lay until 9:20, thinking to do Actualism, but THEN decided I really HAD to look AGAIN for the "lost list," which is lost, and look through ALL the sheets in the OLD Apartment File, then go through the NEW Apartment stack in the black case for what MUST have been the FOURTH time---and there it WAS!! Fill that in, then empty out the "Personal" section to get more room in the desk-file and put THOSE into the box, finding MORE photos that I consolidate in Mom's-stuff drawer in the bedroom chest of drawers, feeling happy as I sort out personal cards and membership cards into my pre-existing box in the mirror-cabinet. ALSO, I'd DETERMINED to find if I still had "John," since yesterday I found it was NOT at John's, and THERE is "John" AND "Essays" AND "Playwriter" and a few OTHER little books on the shelf BELOW the EB-rack which I'd emptied out last week, not SEEING those below! Phone Arnold to tell him the news of finding the lost "lost list," and we laugh about it. Then, typing this, Jennie R. calls from Pearson to say the index is fine, and someone from C.'s office calls to say I have to sign some papers THERE for my next appointments. BUSY! So I stop now at 1:10PM to water MY plants, having watered John's yesterday.
TUESDAY, 5/25/04: 3:20PM: Did too much Spider yesterday, leaving things out to finish today. Tried loading Pinnacle, finally using the 20-digit Serial Number, but the Programs disk still asked for 10 digits. Tried frustrating website until 10:35 when I PHONED them and got a number and it seemed to WORK! Then hack up the computer box to get two stove covers to see how they work, take down scrap from the computer, at last, and pick up contract for Pearson and gather everything into bedroom after packing ANOTHER bag of papers, including "John," to take to John's next time, and sort everything out, clearing the coffee table for essentially the FIRST TIME SINCE I'VE MOVED HERE! Put the DVDs and CDs on top of the white bookcase next to the desk and move the printer ribbons to the far rack. Make a Dell file for the orders and stack the disks atop the disk-container. EVERYTHING CLEARED AWAY! Nicely cool outside, window open, and finish a prior-noted dream and Taste of Tribeca timings, and have ONLY the very early bon mot pages to see if I'd entered them before, but everything still to be done is now at John's, and I can start seeing how to USE Pinnacle! Oh, also canceled iDine, ordered a GO DVD/VHS player for $490, a digital camera and printer and paper coming tomorrow and can fool with THEM!
THURSDAY, 5/27/04: Tuesday afternoon, after setting up for the slides that evening, I had NOTHING TO DO but sit on the balcony, first looking at the view, then reading Bradbury, but it got too cool outside so I moved a chair by the air-conditioner window, using that light, and then had a disappointing meal at Kapadokya with Sherryl and Ken and rather unexciting KENPAC slides, from which Ken chose only 13, and they left about 10:15PM, not eating any of the butter-pecan ice cream and hot fudge that $8.67 bought at Haagen-Dazs. Put things away from the slide-show, read more, and to bed. Yesterday, Wednesday, I debated depositing the $6795 IRS-refund check I picked up last night and getting my blood tested for LDH and AFP, but it looked like rain and I decided it'd keep until Friday when I took the last papers over to John's to water his plants. Lying abed in the morning I thought, "Today I'll reorganize my videotapes!" Well, after sorting through all the video PAPERS and setting up new files with all the materials, taking Pope's VCR to Arnold's with the Sopranos tape before going to the gym, after going through his RAI-video dozens of mailings to sort out tapes that I'll want to see if I can rent at World of Video, and having lunch of the reheated Attila Bey from last night, it was 4PM and I'd gotten the big box with the digital camera and photo printer, so I started putting THAT together, finding that Arnold might have the USB cable that Canon didn't supply, so I took over my old Panasonic VCR with the ice cream and hot fudge to pick up what turned out to be the proper cable, but he didn't want dessert just then, so he took some of the goody, giving me lots of chocolate truffles (well, that was before the gym, earlier), and I got home to actually download my first three photos to the computer, having had to MOVE the USB wire OVER a slot when it at first didn't recognize the camera as being connected, and the 2-3 "Replace battery pack" messages were a pain, but the factory-enclosed batteries are still in use, for now. THEN Arnold called me over for DINNER at 9:45, so I played some Spider and took over the THIRD VCR, my one-side-broken OLD Go Video, leaving me only with my one-side-broken NEW Go Video before my DVD/VHS dual arrives next week. Mail tells me Heather D. is moving, and Center/Meetings took out BOTH phone numbers for Village Playwrights! ALWAYS MORE TO DO! Lie in bed this morning, vaguely Actualisming, feeling VERY happy about the upcoming possibility of merging ALL images: videos, slides, photos, porn---via computer to easily handled DVDs and CDs. LOVELY! But already my "empty" coffee table contains my photocopier, which I hope can substitute for a XEROX machine, too! Finish this at 9:20AM, pleased with NO calendar requirements until Carnegie Hall on Sunday, sonogram on Wednesday, and Beard on Thursday. GOOD TIMES!!
SUNDAY, 5/30/04: 10AM: Went to Joyce on Friday and Normal Heart on Saturday matinee, both not very good, and played too much Spider. Got the DVD player in Friday night, but still haven't installed it. Read in spare time, looked out over the sunset, and thought about LACK of friends to DO things with: only Spartacus when he wants, and Charles when he's in Manhattan. Mildred and Carolyn have essentially dropped off my list: I don't call them, they don't call me. No debates about Audience Extras: I'll take just one, thank you. Finally decided to make out a do-list: 1) Set up DVD, 2) "Combine" DVD and computer facilities, 3) Sort "letters," 4) Sort "scrapbook" (both of which I put out on the dining-room table to "assist me" in doing them), 5) Integrate TD4/TD3, 6) Integrate USA trip, 7) Integrate RTW, 8) See China Institute before June 6. Came twice and edemaed my penis-shaft, finished updating my videotape list but haven't typed it yet, told Spartacus I wouldn't mind seeing The Day After Tomorrow and the new Harry Potter in a theater with him, and really enjoyed moments of being caught up, with no pressures to do anything in particular, and looking forward (as I once did to "writing") to incorporating ALL my journals and videotapes and slides into one humungous website, which would become so popular that I'd become sought-out worldwide for my writings and wisdom and---well, I'm not beyond such flights of fancy YET, am I not now?
SUNDAY, 6/6/04: 10:20AM: Progress continues to be made! But just call Charles and his line is "busy." Is it really? LOVED not having much to do last week, and [from above] 3) sorted the letters on 5/31---they went back TEN YEARS!, 8) saw China Institute's jade and gold on 6/2, disappointing, 5) integrated TD4 and TD3 surprisingly easily: just duplicated the DIARY PAGES from TD3 (doing LOTS of proofing corrections, too!) into TD4 and saved that as being "the best record so far," 4) sorted the scrapbook scraps and let them lie on the table for a few days before filing them into the filing cabinet (still more work to be done THERE, too!) on 6/3. Then woke with fierce determination yesterday and 1) registered, plugged in and connected, and PLAYED my DVD, though when I tried the unfinalized diskette in the computer of course it didn't work, and duplicated from video AND from VHS onto my DVD-R, checking only today to find that I HAVE NO DVD+RWs, and when I look through the Pinnacle manuals they only refer to DVD without subclasses, only mentioning that "different disks have different formats, and may not be usable." It also worked GREAT with freezing, fast-forwarding, reversing, and infinite increments of slow-motion both forward and backward, quite a lovely thrill! 7) made great progress with RTW integration, finding that TE1 had 91 pages and TE2 had 92 pages and MOST of the [[[entries]]] needed only to be reinterpreted as [Written 4:30PM, 8/22] and left where they stood, but I think when I finish (hopefully today) that I'll start going over it for "readability" and final proofing before putting it away. So, seeing as that would leave ONLY 2) combining DVD/computer and 6) integrating USA trip, I hastened yesterday to add 9) handle Schwab funds, since I LOST about $1000 last month, and my $34,000 is essentially interest-free at HSBC, and 10) check MetroCard usages, which has been on my mind for a few months, but keeps getting pushed lower in the priority list. So, being successful with THAT list, I made up a list for today, Sunday (to be done after I jerked off, first time since I noted it LAST week, inspired by the reappearance of the large-dicked jerk-off artist in the showers at the gym yesterday and the slow-motioning through John's legacy DVDs showing me a lovely touchless, throbbing, shiny, stimulating cum), as follows: 1) set up DVD/VHS for Ebert, 2) bind and take newspapers and magazines out, 3) buy groceries, 4) finish TE integration, and 5) does Arnie (I haven't) have ANY DVD-RWs for me to experiment with, and included in 2) would be, of course, seeing if my computer/Pinnacle system can even WRITE on DVD+RWs, which is all the rewritable DVDs I HAVE! Lots of stuff on my desk from reading the Sunday Times last night: 1) William Grimes on a $200 lunch, 2) a knock at Bush (hearing about Reagan's death on WQXR this morning) from the June 7 New Yorker, 3) the Pathfinder puzzle questioning Charlie Brown's baseball player which seems to HAVE to be Shlabotnik, since its opposite MUST be Fireball, to be checked next week, 4) Piri H.'s letter to the editor about Nabokov's "cribbing" Lolita, 5) full-page ad for Target's fireworks at SOUTH STREET SEAPORT, so supposedly visible to me, at 10PM June 19, 6) an updated picture of Ground Zero, with very little progress on re-building Building 7, 7) programs for the Ashton celebration at the Met 7/6-17, (Charles's line STILL busy at 10:45!), and 8) a bill from Go Ahead with the $140 supplement (ridiculous!) for nonstop flights each way, WITH a $75 late-payment charge! Amusing to look outside for the second consecutive cool and cloudy and rainy day, having sent the e-mail about "not using these beautiful sunny spring days outdoors" to Susie two days ago. That leads me to add 6) Juno a) Audience Extras check and b) restaurant week information supposedly for the end of June? to my list. But I'm getting so "things to do" oriented that I'm starting to include "eat breakfast" and "have lunch" as things of ACCOMPLISHMENT that have to be done in the proper order to give shape to the days (and my stomach). John due back tomorrow, along with Harry Potter tickets, which I hope will give a better movie than The Day After Tomorrow" did in the Imax theater with the laughably small "free" popcorns that I should have at least gotten butter on MINE with. Remind myself of the Kobe beef unfreezing for Spartacus for tomorrow's dinner.
SUNDAY, 6/13/04: 9:50AM: Woke, jerked off, typed the dream from this morning [DREAMS:6/13/04], and then typed this set of observations: 1) My orgasms are becoming almost non-existent. Woke feeling erotic, and thrashed about in bed feeling my body, playing with my cock, arousing myself, and then got out the rubber bands and the bidis and came in a "conventional" way, but though I played for a pleasant time at peak-feeling, the orgasm was only a heightening of the highest plateau, not really coming to a peak, and there was NO emission after I came, only a slow ooze of a drop as I removed the rubber band, and then after lying, thinking about other things (see below), and I went down, there were two or three more droplets of slime that I finally rid myself of by urinating. Will this reduced feeling be permanent? Will medication stemming from my urological suite of tests improve matters? Will the feeling be further reduced as time goes on? One area of concern. 2) My do-list has ALMOST reduced to a career-summarization of travel, notebooks, slides, videotapes: having finished "integrating" the RTW trip with John, I started on the US bus-trip (in the wrong way, knowing I had to go back and enclose the notes in brackets to set them off from the chronology of the trip, so that they wouldn't "jolt" by their sudden isolated appearance in the daily events), and yesterday added the two trips that I'd remembered being so difficult to type with their GGGs and CCCCs: the trip to South America and the IBM RTW trip. Then, as I lay in bed, I wondered how many of the subsequent trips were actually in good order---do I still have [[[notes taken currently which should be integrated with the day, sometimes many days later, to which the notes applied]]] other trips to "integrate" before I can consider them finished. But the current remaining do-list is bearable: 1) integrate the DVDs from DVD-recorder/player to the computer; 2) the three "current" trip-integrations: a) USA-bus, b) South America, c) IBM RTW; and 3) place money more usefully in my Schwab accounts, getting rid of much of the $34,500 in my HSBC account. 3) But then my mind went to some "final" form: a) amalgamating the plays into files which can be saved; b) finding other things for John to type, like i) letters, ii) old writings for various scientific books still filed as manuscripts in my filing cabinet, iii) other odds and ends when my files are finally looked into for keeping or throwing out; c) DVDs which might contain i) trip-diaries, ii) my slides from the trip, iii) my videotapes from the trip, iv) even digital photos of the souvenirs I got from the trip [that thought added as I type, showing the benefits of getting thoughts down in print to free the mind to flow to other thoughts]. So that at the end of my life I have a vast, computerized, Internet-available, comprehensive ARCHIVE of my life, which can then live on, electronically, after me---in some sense (here we go again!) IMMORTALIZING me. Well, yes, I DO have two indexes I have to do this week, and groceries to get, and laundry to do, and files to be sorted through---and I didn't take advantage of yesterday's tag sale from Cadman Towers to get rid of ANYTHING that I might have wanted to try to sell to free up space for my coming reorganization of my apartment around my computerized immortalization!
SUNDAY, 6/27/04: 10:40PM: Even when adding 1) Met Museum in June, and 2) the last remaining index, which in fact I finished today, to get the PENULTIMATE item off the do-list, the last being "combine" DVD/computer, which, in fact, I actually DID, finding that I could NOT read "slowest recorded" DVDs, but COULD read the "fastest/best" speed porno very well! Saw the pasta-restaurant fireworks from Liberty State Park LAST night with Sherryl and Dennis and Winny after the free Audubon boat-tour to Brothers Islands, after U Thant Island furnished poor digital photos with my first digital camera-use, and then just finished watching the GAY fireworks from Christopher Street from 10:25-10-37PM or so. Played a LOT of Spider after trying unsuccessfully "stitching" a panorama of my view, but actually did a FILM of the street---but something MIGHT be wrong with my camera GOBBLING UP AA batteries, or they just might be weak from age. And then felt I had to type a page before having a filet mignon dinner and TV movies!
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