2004 continued
THURSDAY, 7/1/04: 10:55PM: Fresh from the Beard, having had TOO much wine, with the sexy (WHAT did Nabokov call a male nymphet---faunlet?) Max to my left, confiding confidences (what ELSE do you confide) to his stepfather Roger, handsome and suave and a little TOO knowing, with Susan smiling and trying to communicate, next to the falling-asleep Bob with his friend---oops, forgot her name, and then Ken, sharing table 10, and Lumiere is QUITE the place, being the ONLY Canadian restaurant in a particular Relais de Campagne brochure they handed out, along with their spectacularly photographed recipe book, and a 50 ml bottle of their ice wine, and an aluminum-foil-wrapped cup-shape given me mysteriously by Rose toward the end of the dinner, which turned out to be a plastic cup filled with cut strawberries from one of the desserts, a WONDERFUL gift that I put into the refrigerator and will have to phone Ken about, except that I'm seeing him the day after tomorrow at a Brooklyn restaurant, and then have been invited to his place at 8:15 on July 4 for his ROOFTOP to view the fireworks. Today finished proofing the "N" volume put together for John from spare pages from lots of documents, and recovering from yesterday's triumphs: having gotten TWO gym cards from the black assistant, Ilse having done NO good so far, except that I tell EVERYONE to contact HER because of the decision to have no more cards, AND the mattress WAS delivered at 3:45PM yesterday, when I had fantasies of needing to put the OLD mattress back on the frame and putting on the already-dumped sheets that I'd taken off, and used Dennis's DustBuster to get the crud off the platform, handing off the growths on the backs and fronts of the two semi-porno posters I'd stored under the mattress---which seems a BIT too stiff from last night's first night's sleep, but maybe tonight will be better: coming back to find the video still recording, having TRIED to record, and succeeding, with Big Fish, but Arnold found that he COULDN'T copy City of God, so I just chose the wrong one. Could NOT play his three non-finalized DVDs, so I could only play the Carter interview on 60 Minutes before the SST transfer to the Intrepid and Fahrenheit 9/11, which I'll watch tomorrow before returning the bag to him. Decided I DON'T care that much for the digital camera, STILL have to try the camcorder with Pinnacle one of these days, and, properly drunk now at 11:05PM, will go to bed and try to sleep!
TUESDAY, 7/13/04: 10:18AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Haven't done one of these in AGES: 1) CONCERNED ABOUT ALZHEIMER'S!: a) Awful search a couple weeks ago for my MetroCard, which I'd taken out, in the unusual-dark of an evening, onto the entry-bookcase, and then it'd slipped to the floor and been caught under my shoe when I pushed it under, and I looked and looked for it before a lunch with Spartacus until finally I found it, DETERMINING to find it because why should I buy a two-for-one slip when I'd exhausted my month's card-supply and was currently getting FREE trips? b) Awful search a few days ago when I'd AGAIN put my stuff on the top of my TV-chair in the dark, and Marty's black bag had slipped between the chair and the bookcase, quite invisible, while I tore my gym-bag apart, looked EVERYWHERE without finding the tapes and wondering how much I'd have to pay Marty for them. c) Awful forgetting to record the three-hour slot on Channel 13 after midnight on Sunday, even going to globetrekker.com on the Internet to find they DON'T list times for replaying their Dubai trek. And then the "luck" of turning off a tape to find an infomercial on NGEO for Aricept, sending out an "Alzheimer's evaluation questionnaire" which I phoned for, having thought I'd start THAT with C. after I finished the interminable (since February!) round of tests and trials for any urological/endocrinological problems with my mini-cums and penis shrinkage and libido disappearance. 2) CONCERNED ABOUT THE FLIGHTS around the Rome trip, thankfully brief at 9 days, the whole thing being FINISHED in just 13 days from now, so much so that I did an "Ego release" (if that's what it was called) to get rid of the HABIT of anxiety before a flight, rather than concentrating on the GOODNESS from the trip, which led me to the Actualism session that seemed to conclude that I 3) DON'T HAVE ANY LOVE IN MY LIFE NOW! a) not for myself, since I'm down on my sexual body for lack of libido and cum-sensations, b) not for others, since I'm not even PHONING Mildred or Vicki anymore, have minimal contact with Sherryl and Carolyn, let Rita and Shelley phone ME all the time, despair that Charles has no time for me while Bill's actually IN Manhattan for the first time in ten years, consider Spartacus too much of a pain to actually love, John is too much involved with his own affection-resistances, Fred is just too busy with his time-occupiers, and Ken is so desperately unattractive most of the time that I can't see intensifying our relationship. Have had SAGE meetings from week to week in my calendar, but haven't gone yet; wanted to get OUT to museums and shops this week but the WEATHER is so grim, actually only 63° now and very cloudy during periods of rain. Started back to Marty's on June 30 to finally start playing DVDs on my new set, disappointed to find that most of them are copy-protected, though I managed to get a digital shot of Seann William Scott with his alabaster-perfect body in an outtake from The Rundown, and THAT took most of the time with my over-long “Eight Hours with Tom Cruise” with the 2:37 minute The Last Samurai watched twice, once for the commentary, and over two hours of special features on the second DVD, and then watched The Rundown THREE times because of TWO sets of commentaries that I couldn't resist since I'd rented the DVD and HAD to see it all. So I haven't even BEGUN to integrate the random pages that I'd removed for OCR tests from my journals, now that I've finished proofing the "N" volume from John by July 1. The only UNALLOYED joy in my life is my APARTMENT: now, though cloudy, still spectacular with gulls sailing directly past my window, billows of rain-cloud curling south on Henry Street, pigeons flying at random below, cars piled on the on- and off-ramps of the Brooklyn Bridge, and my stomach beginning to demand BREAKFAST, though I haven't gone to the grocery in ages, have been depleting my supply of green beans and soups and meats, and now much will be thrown away (though much might ALSO last the mere week I'll be away!) when I DO shop today, though I DID debate just eating out (or ordering in) for the few days before the trip so I don't HAVE to replenish anything before I get back from the trip. 4) THE DENTIST is still in the back of my mind, though the condition of my upper-right molar has improved from about a month ago when I thought it was really getting terminal. And then 5) DID find yesterday that I'd promised myself the Metropolitan Museum before July 25th, which means THIS WEEK if I'm to see it at all for what I want to see. Also 6) the "self-improvement aids" from the past continue to pile up: a) the tooth-bleaching stuff from my drawer from about six months ago, b) the hammertoe aid which I used a bit but found the engineering faulty, c) the Lana Yoga tapes which I sorted and noted but still haven't used, d) the facial stuff that I ordered and used twice and got concerned about how it hurt my eyes when it got old. But I DO seem to be keeping to my demand of every-other-day gym-going, now with a triumph of my own cards with me at all times---but 7) OTHER things are lost in the lurch: a) the restaurant list hasn't been touched---SINCE DECEMBER 27!! b) the book-wanted list has been on my mind via a trip to Strand Bookshop, at least for the 365 Views of the Earth by Abrams, c) and I'm milking the VERY last few from the video-tape-want list, down to the "fewer (actually, equal) to be added than were taken off the typed list" state, but figure to get maybe two MORE today, to occupy myself before the busyness of tomorrow when I finally see the urologist at 9:45AM and have the Beard, and then the ballet with Charles on Thursday and then nothing before the flight to Rome on Saturday, which anxiety got me to the Actualism session this morning that led to these two finished pages. The mattress is now great, lots of garbage to take out and dishes to wash, the DustBuster to use on the disintegrating TV-chair cushion, and MAYBE get out to SOMETHING, since it's a blessed non-gym day and I've already finished with Marty's tapes, which I could take back RIGHT after breakfast since I'm finishing now at 10:48AM!!! 11:02PM: If I wasn't depressed before, I sure am now after watching "Thirst" on POV: multinationals and the World Bank are conspiring to take over the WATER OF THE WORLD and make a profit selling it to EVERYONE! How can I THINK to go to sleep with this disgusting, depressing, inhuman, greedy turn of events festering in my mind. NOW find that I have ANOTHER cushion to replace: the disintegrating one in the TV-chair! Took the Lumiere Beard-recipe book to Spartacus, deposited the checks, took out all three garbages, and even found a plastic stove-cover while returning with FIVE bags of groceries! Then spent the DAY with the F.s, not even having time for Trainspotting for tomorrow. Maybe this is enough, and I can finish the evening with Spider. Ah, and RadioShack does NOT have GameBoy-type mini-computers.
WEDNESDAY, 7/14/04: 5:13PM: Another "forgot": to take my glasses off before going to the shower at the gym! Caught the video-want list up to date and printed it out, so I wanted to finish THIS page to print after it. Couldn't sleep last night, possibly worrying about what the Urologist's report would be at 9:45 this morning, and was relieved to hear that everything looked normal, except that I don't produce any SPERM, with the implication that I haven't for a long time! So not only am I not guilty of being a "sodomite," I'm not even killing unborn children by masturbating! Paid for the gym renewal on Monday, picked up the Ambien (14 this time: he trusts me!) and new Proscar, which my scheduled appointment with C. on the 28th may show NOT to be necessary if what Dr. S. says is true: my prostate is normal. Looking out at the dark clouds gathering on the northern horizon, with the temperature down to 71° and a peripheral glimpse of a bright flash of lightning now at 5:17PM, followed by rumbling thunder. Plastic chairs on sale at Rite Aid for $4.99!, but I resisted, thinking I HAVE chairs I can use outside ALREADY, and these can't be folded up and put away like mine can. Surely indoor cocktails at the Beard tonight! Finally finished with Marty's for the summer, had resisted getting a stamp catalog until I get back from Rome, and got the five opera tickets to the Met and just called Charles to tell him to bring me a check for $333 tomorrow. Now raining outside at 5:28PM, VERY dark to north. Interspersed Ken's duplicated SPACIFIC slides yesterday, and just threw away old indexes to leave three spaces for all known indexes coming in. Heavy, straight-down rain outside, down to 69° at 5:35PM. Charles won't be joining me at the Met Museum tomorrow, but since it's open till 9PM I can stay there before meeting Charles at Europan Cafe at 6:30. Groceries I got yesterday (milk, turkey pastrami, salad stuff) I HOPE will last until I get back next Sunday. Bob L. called today to talk about smooth-bodied Christian Bale's heavy bush in Metroland, and agreed to pick up my mail Saturday through Sunday. John already said he'd water on Friday, picking up the Mutual Funds section. Keep telling myself that the trip to Rome is so SHORT it's not worth worrying about: I've had MANY more MUCH longer flights and survived them, and now I can even take TWO Ambien if the first one doesn't work. And maybe I can get a window seat on the return flight when I check in on Saturday, having called Promenade, which will pick Ken up at 3:30 and get me afterward (WITHOUT a $5 waiting fee, as they've noted to phone me beforehand) and get to the airport at 5PM. Debated going to sleep earlier to get me time-changed, but with the Beard tonight and the ballet tomorrow, it's not really practical until Friday night, the last night sleeping here anyway. Wish I could LOOK FORWARD to the trip with ANTICIPATORY PLEASURE without this horrid pre-flight jitters and day-counting to paradoxically TRY to make time pass FASTER while of course it slows it to a painful crawl. At least there's not that much to worry about clothing for a nine-day trip, even counting both flight-days. Maybe even have some time to incorporate some of the journal pages, or finish watching the 6-7 hours of VCR tape I have yet to see. Maybe get the magazine section early from Spartacus for the puzzles for the plane? Still not checked Toys R Us for GameBoy or its ilk. Anyway now less than an hour before leaving for the Beard.
FRIDAY, 7/16/04: 9:30AM: Took an Ambien at 11:40PM last night, fearing I wouldn't get to sleep with my flight anxiety, and glanced at the clock a couple of times before it clicked over to midnight, so I probably got to sleep something like 12:05AM. Woke at 4:35AM, feeling groggy, and peed, though it didn't seem like I'd had enough pressure to pee for THAT to wake me. Doze to 6:10 and then lay engulfed in anxiety and fear, so I tried Actualism with a primary view of getting RID of these fearful egos, but IF it worked, the fearful egos were just replaced by egos just as fearful. Mentally kicked myself for the hundredth time about RUINING any PLEASANT anticipations of travel with this morbid concentration of the nine long hours in the plane to Rome, not being able to sleep, nothing to watch out the plane window, fearful of every little bit of turbulence and plane-jounce, trying to keep terrorism and spark-induced fires and engine trouble and insane pilots and metal fatigue out of my conscious concentration. Get up and shit that strange, clingy, smelly shit that I've had for the past few days (the turkey pastrami? my anxiety? some terminal disease?), then back to bed to brood some more. I HAVE trip insurance: I can just CANCEL the trip. But then stay at home and recriminate myself, not to mention opening myself to Ken's derision for staying home just because I don't like the flights that start and end the trips. PLAN NO MORE TRIPS, I shout to myself. Except that if Fred volunteers the long-planned long-Ireland tour, I'll surely want to do that; and if I can convince Ken to come up with a lovely Saint Petersburg, Helsinki, Riga, Talinn, Vilnius tour, I'd love to have it. Just get up and start the day! But I have nothing to really DO---except gym, meals, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden free-day, getting to the book-list at Strand, getting a GameBoy from CompUSA, or whatever the shop on 14th and Fourth was that Spartacus said I could probably get one at. Then, somehow, it comes back to my sadness that I have no one to CONFIDE in with all these awful thoughts---though Shelley comes to mind. But then, in addition, I have no one to LOVE, which makes me feel ALONE, which leads me to think to confide in "Dear Noterepl," which is poor consolation. Then, somehow, comes the thought that what I need to do is ACCEPT myself: LOVE---MYSELF! Not to try to CHANGE how I am, but to ACCEPT how I am; LOVE precisely that which I AM---not what I MAY be, or what I MAY HAVE BEEN, or even what I WILL be, but JUST PRECISELY WHAT I AM RIGHT AT THIS MOMENT: fearful, anxious, lonely, frustrated, aging, Alzheimer's-fearing, too fat, gym-hating, emotionally constricted in who I'll confess what to. Call Marj? No, don't want her MANIC quality at this point. Call Vicki? Did, but just said to her machine: "Hi, it's Bob; Friday morning; talk to you later." So there. Can't call Shelley until 10AM, at earliest. Look out my window and feel consoled by the continual life out there, including low-flying helicopters. Maybe still depressed by last night's VERY mediocre "divertissements" by the Royal Ballet which Charles liked, even to the awful Stravinsky score to Scenes de Ballet, and saw the younger, more enthusiastic Elvis Costello crowd exiting Philharmonic Hall with something like envy. Depressed about how Charles recognizes that Bill's slowness and capriciousness and aging will he HIS (and mine) when (and if) we reach 85. How Charles can be "allergic" to fluoride but think it must affect everyone the same way. So, now, at 9:52AM, at least I'm thinking of other things beside my terrible morning in bed (debating STAYING in bed but recognizing that THAT would be not helpful AT ALL), and look at my gym-card for today, my note to take Melitonin today, and start packing to see what I've forgotten to stock up on (puzzle book? video film? camera batteries?) for the trip so I can shop TODAY rather than making a panic of tomorrow---so I can clear the deck and REALLY obsess over the flights TOMORROW when I can't get away from them except by DOING them. Recalled a phrase that helped yesterday: it will ALL PASS---it will ALL COME TO BE IN THE COURSE OF TIME. Just WAIT and STAND IT and it'll be over, finished, another trip over to print out the notes and file the slides and enlarge the accumulation of a lifetime of trips and memories and writings like this, which will never seem as immediate as today.
SATURDAY, 7/17/04: 5:35AM: At which time the sunrise seems to be behind the Witnesses' building at its 5:36AM sunrise-time. And the crazy soaring cruising pigeons are already using our balconies as their early-morning courtship pavilions. Watched TV yesterday to remove my mind from its obsession on the upcoming flight, feeling quite tired from 6PM on, my anxiety-knotted stomach not even having digested its 4PM lunch, so I took an Ambien with my evening and night pills at 9PM and went to bed on an empty stomach at 9:10PM, falling asleep rather quickly, blessedly, but wake at 10:44PM, 11:55PM, and some time after 1AM, and up to pee at 2:27AM. Do a whole Actualism session, possibly while dozing off momentarily, but at 3:47AM I note that I can't sleep, my right shoulder is sore (and has been for a few nights now), and I pee again. Then dream (see DREAMS:7/17/04) until 5:09AM, when I decide I've HAD my eight hours---in bed, if not asleep---and now at 5:48AM I console myself with the fact that in TWELVE hours I'll be at the airport with Ken waiting to take off, and in TWENTY-FOUR hours it'll be 11:48AM in Rome and we'll already be in the hotel, with any luck. Rather weary, but at least somewhat hungry for breakfast, and have 3 hours of a TV tape to watch from last night if packing doesn't fill in the intervening hours to the taxi with Ken outside around 4PM. TRAVEL:ROME
SATURDAY, 8/7/04: 1:30PM: Just finished updating my restaurant list, adding 26 in roughly a year, so only one every two weeks, a nice rate, but if I add ten more in the five months remaining in the year, making a total of 46, I'll have to go roughly ONCE EVERY FIVE DAYS to "catch up" by the end of the year. Lots to go. Much of the notebook for the intervening time is in the ROME notes: after the trip the leak on Tuesday, 7/27, REALLY threw me off, not finished YET taking the stuff off the dining-room table, and now the living room is piled with New York City- and Travel-folders waiting to be reorganized before putting them back on the bookcase shelves. Watched a lot of Spartacus' recorded VHS and DVDs, went to a lot of restaurants to enable me to catch up with the list at "a good time," having taken off five (six, counting the assumed closed Lunchbox) restaurants in fewer days. Lovely cool weather the past few days, allowing me to finally turn off the air conditioner after it was on for a solid week to ensure getting rid of the damp from the leak; finally put the ionizer in the kitchen; but taking out the garbage, cans, and bottles, and washing dishes, caught me up a bit, and I'd done two indexes, but still with three to do, and have to go to the gym today to make up for the holiday I gave myself yesterday while watching TV, playing Spider, even lots of FreeCell on BOTH machines, and even read a few books, though The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is going a bit slowly for its heft. Wonderful clouds out the window, but then decide I don't HAVE to print this page since I printed TWO copies of the restaurant list, so I have mine out of the printer and now I can attend to eating lunch at 1:50PM, before meeting Vicki for "a talk" at East of Eighth at 6:30PM, then time for the Times, and remind to water the plants TOMORROW to catch them up to my usual-Monday schedule NEXT week.
SUNDAY, 9/5/04: 8:55AM: Woke this morning about 5AM (having gotten to bed about 11:30PM after quickly doing the Times) and had to make a list of things to do today: 1) make list of wallet cards, 2) add $325 to Amazon expenses, 3) brush teeth, 4) water plants, 5) gym, 6) Modigliani at Jewish? 7) set up TV for 11AM, 8) write notebook on a) yesterday's good day [NOTEBOOK: 9/5/04], b) "foci:" indexes, stamps, Marty's, Olympics, proofing, reading books, restaurants, museums. So by now I've done everything but gym (open only 9-1PM today and closed tomorrow, Labor Day) and this writing. Thursday was good because I got to see After the Fall for $7 with Spartacus's new plan and did NOT have a conflict with the wait-list for Per Se; Thursday not so good because Spartacus didn't call until 4:30, too late for my plan to buy stamp hinges on 57th Street, see the Dahesh exhibit, dine at Hallo Berlin before the show. But Hallo Berlin on Thursday and SheepMeadow Cafe on Saturday finished up the two "summer outing" items on my restaurant list, which is gratifying. Then I called Sherryl, who ALSO wanted to see the Met Museum on Saturday, so we brunched in Central Park, with LOTS of humpy bodies, many shirtless, passing temptingly by, and then went to the Museum, where I saw 1) Art Deco, 2) Ruhlmann's Art Deco, 3) American Impressions (early impressionists nice: Sargent, Cassatt, Homer), 4) Childe Hassam, no big deal, 5) African couples, some nice cocks, and 6) Olympics art, sort of an ad-hoc labeling of items showing athletics. Then, tired from standing, I LUXURIATED sitting on the M4 bus down to Macy's, where I tried finding hinges but they have no more stamp department, and subwayed home at 7PM to find the Times out already, and phoned Mildred to brag about the goodness of the day. NOTEBOOK:6/13/04 shows me still proofing in June; NOTEBOOK:7/1/04 has me FINISHING proofing (for the year?) and getting last things off my list like the new mattress; NOTEBOOK:7/13/04 showed that the start of July found me catching up with Marty's DVDs, and the end of that entry showing what I'd done and what's STILL left. Then came the Rome trip. NOTEBOOK:8/7/04 has me updating the restaurant list on August 7, still working around the piles of stuff from the leak on July 27, which I guess I SHOULD put back in SOME form before the people come to measure for the new windows on September 13---I DO need deadlines, which helped on many indexes that I've done in the past few months, maybe now finished with the EComics index and will do the Blog index tomorrow. But I delayed everything with STAMPS, which I'm almost finished with now, having gone through the catalogs, having FOUND the "lost" stamp-sheet list but STILL not found US #1, which I'm really WORRIED about now. The Olympics obsessed me for their two weeks, helping me get through the tooth-pull anxiety with a 7-day trial of Effexor, during which I also started to READ: going through four books during the end of August, now in the middle of Marrow, which I'd like to finish and get to Strand for more from my list to fill my shelf. With the Met out of the way, I still want to see the Dahesh and the Jewish before 9/19, and then the Skyscraper and the Tibet are next on the stack, left on the tabletop for immediate action, as should be the plane-ticket ordering for the Florida flights before the Amazon on 11/25, still refreshingly long-time away. So THAT'S done: I can stop at 9:25AM and go to GYM!
SATURDAY, 9/11/04, 9:20AM: Just typed fragments of dream [DREAMS:9/11/04]: SHOULD have gotten up as they CAME and transcribed them THEN, not as tentative and allusive as they were when I typed them AFTER they had a chance to evaporate. Finally getting to the "end" of stamps in THIS cycle of activity (though I've already started on a time-consuming, though pleasurable, depending on the book, pastime: reading---though E.B. White isn't as good as I thought he might be in Second Tree on the Corner): only two or three pages more of Korea, Democratic People's Republic, to put in, then the stock-books to fill and the duplicates to be incorporated into the duplicate-box, and then return the last two volumes to the library and maybe I can at least get the NYC stuff off the table before Monday, when they come in to measure for the new windows, which I DO hope will be put in before winter, so I don't have to worry about cleaning the hard-to-clean old ones. Catching up on my "one museum per week" schedule, will soon have to do my research into cheap flights for the November Florida flights before (and after) the Amazon trip with Paul M., and getting restaurants from the list and books from the list, but then there's the increasing stack of proofreading from John, the incoming ASME Catalog index, and at last getting the colorful bindings out of the colorless filing cabinets onto the shelves to make my living room more livable, according to Sherryl and even others. But still in the back of my mind: 1) replace the chair foam cushion, 2) total my IRAs and investments to update my will, 3) finally permanent-file my a) slides, b) travel videos, c) old journals, d) books---making more room to 4) finally unpack my tchotchkes never unbagged from my move almost two years ago, and now at 9:28AM I can raise the blinds, shit, and start into day!
MONDAY, 9/13/04: 2:07PM: Checked that the ASME index will be in next week at the latest, got my windows measured, called C. for my liver-test results (normal), and played lots of Spider while it's getting hotter out. Now to have lunch so I can get to the gym. Started reading Gain waiting for the measurers, and, well, nothing much more to write about.
THURSDAY, 9/16/04: 10:18AM: Trying to compose my e-mail to SciAm: Reading your September issue, I noted the "shenanigans" of "action at a distance" at the top of page 90 and then the wormhole diagram opposite, on the bottom of page 91, and wondered why no author suggested that the faster-than-light communication of information between vastly separated complementary particles might be explained by wormholes connecting them outside the "normal" four-dimensional spacetime continuum. Also, I keep wondering why a continued (failed) search to "unify all forces" doesn't take into account Wheeler's definition of gravity on page 226 of his classic Geometrodynamics [Academic Press, 1962]: "Gravitation: defined by curving of geodesics in a Riemannian space," which implies that gravitation is not a force. You quote Wheeler yourself on page 81: "Matter tells spacetime how to curve, and spacetime tells matter how to move." Yet the search you describe on pages 71-72, for "a quantum theory that unifies gravity with the other [sic] fundamental forces of nature" continues, including, on page 95, "gravity...as an externally applied force." Why?
MONDAY, 9/20/04: 10:28AM: Stayed up until well past 2AM watching the taping of the 2004 Emmy Awards, gratifying in that Angels in America and The Sopranos won most of the major awards, along with the now-finished Sex in the City, though the Larry David show managed a few surprise take-homes. Then, since I'd scoured the bathroom sink, put away the New York stuff from the table, and rented two DVDs from Marty on Saturday, I was pleased to move around my clean apartment, knowing that I'd finished proofreading whatever John had finished for me, and I had only to telephone him about where he was in the J-volume. As for other activities, my do-stacks contained ONLY 1) the pricing of my Florida flights surrounding the Amazon trip with Paul, 2) the allotment of the misplaced pages from innumerable journal files with the "small" final volumes that I had John type first, and 3) the tiny Photography index to do while waiting for 4) the ASME Catalog to come in early this week. I still had 5) the note on my desk to NOT see the Skyscraper Museum and eat at Smorgas with Sherryl on 9/28 because, awful as the group is, I DO want to see the Antarctic slides at the Tuesday Evening Club. But the only task for today is the however-many-multiple viewings of The Passion of the Christ on DVD would be necessary to exhaust that, hoping that Jim Caviezel's beauty and sexiness will meliorate the vaunted bloodiness of Mel Gibson's propaganda. But things are getting wonderfully caught up, again, and I can look forward to 1) putting the last four of the seven leak-removed shelves' contents back, 2) finishing updating my slide files before my next slide-entries from the Amazon in December, 3) taking another stab at understanding my digital camera: mainly how to display the last picture taken, 4) seeing if I want to keep Arnie's give-away external fax machine, and finally, 5) phoning Pinnacle to see how the hell I duplicate videos onto DVDs rather than just CDs. While continuing my lovely re-started book-reading habits which have given much pleasure (not to mention releasing me from much of the obsession with Spider and TRUE time-wasting, as opposed to relative time-wasting). Still hoping that the windows, really dirty from the recent rainstorms, will be replaced before winter arrives, and that my journals can be kept undried by not using the radiator under them until I can restore them---somewhere! Hoping that the travel-stuff reallocation onto the shelves can liberate me enough to throw away quite a bit of outdated travel stuff to free up a number of shelves so I CAN throw away the old Door Store systems without thinking I'll need more shelves sometime.
TUESDAY, 9/21/04: 1:32PM: Notes taken (in disgust) while watching Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ yesterday: 0) Did Christ (unschooled) really know LATIN? 1) Christ to Pilate: "He who sent me to you is guilty of sin": he MEANS to say Herod, but it REALLY is God the Father! 2) Why "remember the servant is not above the master"? 3) Bloodshot eye in CLOSEUP, but pretty, clear, brown eye to "thank" Simon for carrying his cross. 4) "I have the power to take my own life and bring it back. This command is from my Father." So the Father didn't do it, HE did it! 5) NO blood's going to drip THROUGH a nail hole in the back of the cross! 6) What's holding the cross up when they turn it over (an undocumented miracle?). 7) Which gospel has a crow pecking out the eyes of the bad thief? 8) What if Christ DID come down off the cross and PROVE he was the Messiah? Wouldn't history be a LOT simpler? (Implying, of course, that God had nothing to do with it---or with ANYTHING.) 9) Does an eye DILATE at death? Or is this Gibsonian license. Poor movie when I have no feeling WITH the (decidedly unsexy) Caviezel as Christ, and sit around picking holes in the plot and picturization. But, of course, I'm glad I watched it, and that it DIDN'T have a passel of extra features to watch.(But note that a promo DVD can't play the extras.)
MONDAY, 9/27/04: 12:08PM: Getting so caught up that the only thing I can think to do NOW is type this. Managed to catch up with John's proofreading last night, saw the last videotape to be watched while having breakfast and brushing my teeth this morning, and e-mailed the last indexes in my possession last night also. Waited for calls from them this morning, but they'll have to come in this afternoon, when I still have to go to the gym and pass the time before leaving for the Beard at 6:40PM. E-mailed Rita, too, when there was no answer (or machine) on their number yesterday morning, and then got the e-mail saying they'd be leaving AGAIN Saturday afternoon for they didn't know how many days, except that Jeanne seems to be safely into Georgia at this point. Still waiting for two overdue indexing bills, and two more indexes due in to DO this week. But the stacks on the coffee table include ONLY 1) the preparation for more pages from John on Friday, the first of October, 2) the determination of my flights around the Florida trip at the end of November, 3) the digital camera to figure how to use (and print), and 4) the external fax machine given me by Spartacus because he didn't want to fool with it. When I finished trimming my beard and plucking hairs from my pinnae, I looked at the travel stuff on the sofa, on the shelves and in shoeboxes, but could come to NO conclusion as to what to DO with all of it: 1) throw much of it out? 2) put the "non-edge-titled" material into Pendaflex folders in my filing cabinets? 3) organize the visitor-visible shelves into geographic formations for Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania (including Antarctica), and South and Central America, to go above my United States arrangement above the NYC arrangements already mostly "settled"? But no complete solution came to mind (not helped by finally doing a thorough Actualism session before getting out of bed this morning), so I came to type this page, at least coming up with the three possibilities enumerated above. Look out the window at the growing Number Seven at the World Trade Center area, knowing now that Freedom Tower will rise IMMEDIATELY south of that, hopefully impressive even though it's the farthest-west building that would be visible from my vantage. Signed up for the Internal Move List, which might satisfy my curiosity of the views from the 30th and 31st floors, now that the inhabitants of 31K, the dancer and his lover, seem to be permanent fixtures in my next-best choice of location. Now the thought floats into my head: do the SLIDES next: lots of tedious work involved there, which has to be cleared up before I can store my slides from the Amazon in December, and maybe the processing of THOSE remnants of past trips will clarify how I want my PHYSICAL remnants to be organized when I finally get to it. And before, when I debated slightly whether to continue to the bottom of the page, now it seems at least clear that I can print out this page, satisfying restaurant and book-buying lists sometime in the future, and now all's HAPPY with me and my life!
SATURDAY, 10/2/04: 1:23PM: Week started with nothing much on the calendar, and then it just GREW! And, like last Monday's prior entry, I AGAIN have to go to the gym and pass the time before the Beard tonight. No new indexes have come in yet, nor has John brought over more to be proofread. Since I could NOT conclude what to do with trip souvenirs, I simply put everything back onto the shelves because I had to get down to the slide-save boxes to put in all the new "discards" and "shows" from the past two years, which took most of the spare time this week when I wasn't finishing reading The Abomination by Thursday and starting the poor Sabbath's Theater immediately after, and doing all the OTHER stuff: watched TV on Monday and had a good dinner with interesting people: old couple, Bunny D. (who took lessons from Beard), and a young couple who ate out a lot. Tuesday watched the second two hours of Question of God, not very good, and saw a program about a disappointing non-circumnavigation of Antarctica on a trip that MISSED landing at Deception, another place before that, AND MacMurdo! What a DISASTER! We caused our own disaster afterwards, me and Charles, plowing through the torrential rain to walk about ten blocks to Moutarde for a GREAT dinner, sharing snails and my great duck breast with Pommes Sarladaise, and profiteroles for dessert, with a good $20 Pinot Grigio, shorter walk in still-rain to the N to change to the R to walk home wet. Wednesday met Charles for meteorites and frogs and jewels at the American Museum of Natural History, eating a tiny lunch before a large disappointing dinner at Nice Matin, where my sweetbreads were NOT crispy nor was my five-napkin hamburg worth $17. Slow walk along Central Park to the City Center, where I climbed to the top balcony for five not-very-good dance groups, though Spartacus RAVED about all five of HIS groups the next night. Dreams through here, too. Watched Origins on Thursday, by coincidence about the AMNH and meteorites, then Friday Sherryl called and we lunched at Smorgas on a VERY busy, noisy, dusty Stone Street, my good chicken better than her foie gras, then to Federal Hall, after getting our ears good and bent by a guard from the Stock Exchange who lengthily explained the auto-stop installed across the street, for the Portraits from the Uffizi from Florence, mixed with the history of the building, the basement, and a short video, then out to walk to see that Number 7 was up to 42 stories in orange and 50 in steel, then up to St. Paul’s to see the throat-clutching 9/11 memorial, then over to the Winter Garden for something to drink, and a pee, and looking at the closing crafts stalls taking up the balcony there for the Florence exhibit. Then out to walk up the Hudson to see the new Teardrop Garden, and she finally poops out about 6:30, after sunset, and I get home to relax. Then out this morning at 11:15 to see the Montague Arts Fair, not much except a pickup band just off Clinton and another stage being erected just off Henry, with the junk-plate place with a table set up "outside" the Fair toward Hicks, and then I buy groceries since I'm over there, getting three bagfuls, and back to box many of the newly typed "show" slides, finally type up the Show Spain '03 100, and decide to do this page to get THAT page out of the printer. THREE indexes now coming in, and Paul called to say I should come down to Miami two or three days before the 25th to stay with him in Dick's apartment, bringing down HIS tickets that he told them to send to ME so they won't be lost in HIS mailing-address changes, and I finish and stare at the sheet of 8½x11 that I taped to the end of the white shelf by my desk when it wasn't wide enough to provide a slide view that I could type captions from. Still haven't changed the calendar sheet from September to October, nor have I put up the shades yet since I'm waiting for the final Rome slides from Ken tonight at the Beard to incorporate with the Show Rome slides which will be the only ones remaining in the ten trays (and only the porn in the plastic box) when I finish filing all of them away, and Sherryl couldn't help by telling me what the LAST show she may have seen may have been, though she thinks it was only one at 101 Clark, in the bedroom, with Ken, so I'm a lot behind and MAY start phoning people who may want to see them. Now lots of STUFF to look through at LUNCH before Beard.
FRIDAY, 10/15/04: 12:10PM: Notes from Murasaki: The Tale of Genji (Library book): p.43: "...he laid the boy beside him on his bed. He was well content to find himself lying by this handsome young Prince's side, and Genji, we must record, found the boy no bad substitute for his ungracious sister." p. 185: "...though he knew that she (Murasaki) would be very much upset he determined somehow or another to get his own way. There came a morning when the gentleman was already up and about, but the young lady was still lying abed.... That THIS was what Genji had so long been wanting came to her as a complete surprise and she could not think why he should regard the unpleasant thing that had happened last night as in some way the beginning of a new and more intimate friendship between them." Disappointing dinner at Per Se last night, rainy today, Sherryl calling for a Dumbo loft tour tomorrow with the Duane Park loft tour on Sunday with Charles, and nothing good on Audience Extras, and kid screaming in hall and dog barking outside necessitating radio on. Humid, feeling warm though it's only 62° outside.
MONDAY, 10/18/04: 8:38AM: Finished printing DREAMS:10/18/04 and tiredly get into a day that MUST see me to the gym for the first time in FOUR days, the worst in a LONG time, and renew my Proscar prescription, check about a flu shot, get an anti-malaria prescription for Peru, check a mysterious HIP charge of $45 for "DME purchase" on 9/0/04, thank Yama for more stamps, put stuff away from yesterday, and do the first of four indexes coming in! Not to mention brushing my teeth and reading more of Pilcher's Winter Solstice before getting MORE books to read from the library. At least I'm caught up on outside activities except for Beard, MAN, and hopefully ABT. Decided to take the Baltic tour booklet to Ken tomorrow at the Beard, though he may still plump for Madagascar if his Morocco trip with Laurence falls through. Fred is in Moorea for six weeks and seems almost out of my travel-life forever. And WHEN will I get to the humungous task of sorting out the various to-be-interpolated DIARY pages, not to mention the two enormous boxes of "not on specific trips" slides to be catalogued and put into showable shows---don't even THINK of SHOWING any of these showable shows!
THURSDAY, 10/21/04: 9:23AM: Just finish transcribing my dream on DREAMS:10/21/04 and still feel sad and depressed. Thought of the Cadman Plaza board meeting last night that I sat dejectedly through from 8-11PM, people talking because they so loved the sound of their own voices, taking up the time of the hundred or so tenants in the audience to pursue their own little petty questions and quibbles, contradicting and hollering out information that had no basis in reality, and then offering the feeblest of "I'm sorry" and "Pardon," when it was clear that they would do it again (and they did) and again and again, with no sense of propriety, courtesy, or efficiency. And then I could flay myself because these were obviously agenda-items that had to be dealt with through agencies that "refused to sign off on anything," refused to give estimates, tried to falsify and mislead, and didn't want to commit to anything. In turn I'm reminded about the 14 phone numbers I took down in my search for yellow-fever vaccine until the Manhattan immunization hotline finally said that I had to talk to a Travel Clinic (the first time I'd heard the term, though Spartacus said he'd heard of them) at St. Vincent's Hospital, and I left a message and got a call back from a doctor who authoritatively told me that I'd need a vaccination, since my last was in 1992 and they only lasted 10 years, and that I could call his secretary for an appointment (but when I did she'd left for the day) for the $100 shot. When I went "Whew!" at the price, he rather huffily said, "That's the standard, there's nothing to be surprised about," and I vaguely wondered if the OTHER two BROOKLYN messages I'd left for information with the Health Centers would call back. Also, lost my EARPLUGS someplace, still haven't found my US #1 stamp, have to e-mail the Pipeline index today, and found that I'd not even made DISCARDS from the Yangtze trip!
SATURDAY, 10/23/04: 9:37AM: WHERE AM I NOW? This seems to be the ONLY title, alongside NOTEBOOK, that these pages ever have. Think about this as I ponder the humungous task of organizing my DIARY pages into some kind of computer document: how can I ACCESS a specific page without going to a table of contents and looking for a DIARY-page number? Or, of course, just doing a content-search for a WORD. But that wasn't the purpose of this page. First, I wanted to write about the seeming fruits of my last few Actualism sessions: sparked by a comment from Sherryl that a spirit can't actually SEE anything because the spirit has no EYES and no BRAIN components with which to process a scene into a VISUAL image. I tended to deny it, but at some level it seems intuitively true. Which brought up the word inCARNating ego with a new flair: FLESHing the ego so that it CAN see, and taste and feel and enjoy all the OTHER senses, known and extra-. An ego, or spirit, eager for SENSATION has to RE-flesh that ego FOR those sensations. But there was also a sense that the "essence" of the sessions was floating away: it's only WISHFUL THINKING with which I bathe the cells in my body with energy, hoping to abort cancerous beginnings. Since Paul M. called to say he's having a biopsy to see if he DOES have throat cancer, my throat has been sore, my thought that I'm ill has been countered by the thought of my flu shot on Monday that this ill-feeling might be a consequence of, but my knee hurts, there's a random pain in my stomach, taking aspirin for a headache after the Beard on Tuesday night leads me to fear deterioration of OTHER components of my body: maybe I won't even live to celebrate my "two-thirds through 105 years" 70th birthday in just over 17 months. DID phone OAT to find that my maximum loss from the Amazon trip cancellation is just the $204 premium for the trip insurance which he says WILL refund my full amount for my partner's medical reasons. Then my mind takes a detour: just throw out the external fax machine: it didn't cost me anything, and why should I exert effort to see if it works if I'll seldom use it and it'll just take up more room that I don't have to park things? But I don't throw it out just yet. Still pages to sort into the proper DIARY volumes, slides to go through (Carolyn coming over Sunday to help edit my long-left-undone Yangtze slides from 2001), with the "non-trip" slides from NYC and NYS and small tours now on the desktop to be handled. The penultimate index is NOW on my desk to do. MAN tonight. Energy of going to ABT last night got me a $28 seat (price for a series of three) when the "lowest" box-office price was $35, and it was good enough that I marked ANOTHER possibility at the start of November. BOOKS now my new passion: get them from the library and READ them: disappointing ones like A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain and what seems to be a fetching Yellow Dog, but don't feel I need to finish The Tale of Genji and only have about 50 more books to get before THAT's over. Restaurants and videotapes still on the list. Ken might consider southeast Africa after Madagascar if he doesn't go to Morocco with Laurence. I found a good Baltic-Russia trip that I might even take on my own if no one comes along. Fred L. seems out of my travel life currently. Soon the whole apartment complex will vote on the future of financing my apartment, though I note that if my apartment is worth $500,000, my Keogh-IRA-Schwab One ascendance to $500,000 now means that I'm actually, truly, verifiably---A MILLIONAIRE, which makes amusing reading after proofing pages when I'd started freelancing and feared ending up homeless and impoverished. But of course if the Antichrist Bush's angering of the entire world against the US results in Armageddon (how's THAT for mixing religious messages?), I won't have to worry about ANY future of ANY kind (disregarding the "immanent" supervolcano going off in Yellowstone when we're there in July!). Look out the window at the topped-out #7 in downtown Manhattan, the hazy-clear hills of New Jersey beyond the midtown skyline, the cars glinting over the Brooklyn Bridge, along the FDR Drive, up the surprisingly steep hill at the base of the Bridge, along local streets with their pedestrians, though my dirty windows that don't seem to be replaceable this year, and it's 10AM and I've got to breakfast and get into DAY!
WEDNESDAY, 10/27/04: 9:19AM: Had first hoped that my DREAMS:10/27/04 transcription would be at the end of a page, but it started a new page, and now that THIS would have been maybe eight lines from the bottom, but IT was a new page, so I determine to finish it off so I can print it and get the second page of my Yangtze slides out of the printer to finish THAT phase of getting "caught up with everything." Forgot to note in the last entry my revelation that the slide-screen doesn't HAVE to take up so much room at the base, with the screen so far out from the cabinet that I have to move the screen or hop onto the corner of the bed to get past it: if I just CLOSE UP the base from an 18-inch diameter to about a 6-inch diameter, the screen is a bit higher, which is OK, but it rests about 3 inches from the filing cabinet behind it and I can EASILY move past it while it's up. And I've had the screen for about 20 YEARS and it never occurred to me to make it so manageable before! Felt a great sense of completion as I started two new boxes of "show" and "discard" slides in preparation for the about 1000 slides---maybe more like 2500 slides!---of my "non-trip" slides that I got down onto the table to handle, which would SURELY make my total number of catalogued slides MUCH more than 10,000, since the count before the last thousand or so was over 8,000, in pencil-dimming numbers on my master-saved list. Then Shelley called yesterday, seemingly annoyed that I never call HER, and I intimated that I was waiting to see that she had recovered fully before asking her the favor of getting and sending me a fax so I could at last test the external fax machine that Spartacus gave me---[and I KEEP hitting the WRONG keys! 1) the awful time I hit "whole document" rather than "this page" on my PRINT menu that tied up the computer for TWO WHOLE days while it "didn't print" the whole thing, 2) hitting "PRINT-Enter" rather than "PRINT\" for "Print\file" in CINDEX which freezes the computer for about an HOUR "formatting page 1, then page 2, etc" while formatting THAT, 3) hitting some Scroll-lock or key ABOVE Home while paging through my index in WP which caused the SCREEN to go blank, and only random tries at various "error" hits got it BACK, and 4) just now hitting---a key NEXT to the Ctrl key that I never even SAW before that looks like an arrow to the top of the page which MAYBE reduces the program to an icon at the bottom of the desktop-page, from which I had to hit "restore" to get the page back---which is still sitting under my desk waiting to be processed]. Then when I read the Village Playwrights update from Robert L., I noted that HE was on Juno, and I thought maybe I could get some information about what I'd have to do to update WITHOUT paying a monthly fee so I can keep up with whatever shit Juno is now telling me to make it even MORE difficult to stay free on the system that started by saying "The Internet should be free" and now seems determined to make a liar out of itself. The HDC-information meeting last night was reasonable: lots of people in the synagogue, most of whom behaved except for the few stupid women (AND men) who insisted on COMMENTING when they were only to ask QUESTIONS of the board and Ezra, the lawyer, who impressed me with his knowledge and patience, and Montanya, who everyone insisted on calling Montoya, another expert who seemed to KNOW the annoyers who were going to heckle him and treated them with gritted patience, but they came out with essential information that I can pass on to Mildred today after our two-hour conversation yesterday and what I should DO, and I was amazed to hear that a preliminary feasibility-study report will be scheduled BEFORE our November 9 vote. One index left, which I hope to finish today, and then tomorrow, I think it is, Paul will get his throat-cancer results and I'll know if I even have to CONTINUE having to make a NYC-Florida plane reservation for the Amazon trip, as well as get the $100 yellow-fever shot, which I won't if I don't NEED it, but decided to get the $75 Hepatitis A booster on general health principles, though I AM worried about a persistent cough and runny nose I've had for a WEEK now since I got the flu shot last Tuesday, and I HOPE it's a reaction to that, rather than something on its OWN which will continue to last---or even, as my paranoid mind keeps hinting, my OWN case of throat cancer "caused" by my worry about PAUL'S! 11:07PM: Fabulous MOONDAY! Phoned Rita, who told me there was an ECLIPSE of the moon about 9-10PM tonight, the night BEFORE the full moon according to my calendar, and I'd watched "Chernobyl" on Seconds Before Disaster, talked to Mildred, went for groceries to get a rain check for the 4 Progresso soups for $4, then to the gym, then had lunch, washed dishes, and decided to download Juno 5.0, which seemed to WORK, making me very happy by 7:05PM, and then decided to see if I could see the moon, and COULD I! Bright and full-looking, halfway between the Witnesses building and the edge of mine, about level with the top of the Witnesses building. Loaded some non-trip slides during and after downloading Juno 5.0 (worried that the Audience Extras website wasn't available, but I could get to my Met site and ABEbooks WITHOUT going through Netscape, only Juno, so I HOPE I'm OK!), then looked at the moon STILL in view at 8:30, had dinner, then watched as the bottom-left of the moon smudged darkly, with a tiny crescent out as I looked through my binoculars, and stood outside watching ALL the planes go overhead until the moon vanished around the corner of my building at 9:27PM, and I decided to keep my jacket on and put on my shoes and go down into the park on Cadman Plaza to watch the full extent of the eclipse, seeing other people more to the south, but I went to the northern part, where there was beneficially a path-lamp out where the bench afforded me a clear view of the moon between two trees. Worried in the morning because it was TOTALLY cloudy, but then it cleared up about 4PM and was totally clear as the moon went into eclipse. When I FIRST looked up about 9:40 it seemed just about half, and somewhat later I thought it was LESS, so maybe it wasn't full up here? Then looked again and the bright section got smaller and smaller, until finally at 10:22PM it vanished completely, leaving the moon looking sullen, orange, and quite DEAD without its bright whiteness. At first the lower left looked damaged, or smoky, in contrast with the bright-white rim from 11 o'clock to 4 o'clock, and I thought it would NEVER disappear as I watched almost Close Encounters configurations of vee-shapes and constellations of lights from planes CONSTANTLY flying past: there were at least EIGHT in the air at one point, ALWAYS three or four. As the bright crescent got smaller, the orange-look at the base grew more intense, and I started by gauging the movement by the shadow-line at a particular set of craters that looked like North and South America, but then only the bull's-eye at 2PM was brightly lit, and the sullen lower part looked IN FACT like a dried, somewhat dirty, emotionally sullen, actual ORANGE looming in the sky like a foreign planet, not our brightly reflecting moon. I wondered if the orange cast were due to light from cities and fires on the earth, fantasized about seeing silhouettes of mountains in the diffuse shadow of the earth on the face of the moon, which, when the orange increased, TURNED INTO a down-looking face with round eyes and a round mouth toward the end. When the light "went out" at 10:22 I despaired that it was over an hour to eclipse, and the curve of the earth made it look about six or seven times the diameter of the moon, so that the duration of totality would be MORE than an hour. Watched, moving from bench to bench as the changing moon-orbit put it behind one or another tree branch, getting somewhat colder, and at 10:45 nothing much had changed about getting brighter, and the upper curve STILL looked brighter than the lower curve, so it wasn't even halfway through, and then about 10:50 there were the light gray shapes of CLOUDS that finally obscured the face of the moon while it remained eclipsed, so I came inside at 11PM and got my mail and typed this until 11:22PM, thinking maybe to watch SOME of the ten trays of slides for the non-trip ones, STILL not knowing how I'm going to HANDLE them: thinking 1) get rid of real JUNK, 2) discard some duplicate-types, and 3) somehow, store "show" segments in some kind of order. But the doing will be more difficult than the thinking about it, since I suspect MOST of the slides are ALREADY pretty good and to be kept, and I have no idea how to label all THESE boxes. Find an announcement for a FEASIBILITY-study meeting on November 3, when I'm free, thank goodness, as well as a Mae West show on 11/9.
THURSDAY, 11/4/04: 8:22AM: Cloudy the last few days, so I can't tell if I can EVER see the sun rise past November 2. Just GOT to Audience Extras, with a somewhat different \-follower, so I took THAT note off my desk. Paul M. called yesterday to say he has to CANCEL the Amazon trip, so he'll be calling the insurance company to cancel and refund for BOTH of us, as I'd already contacted OAT to say it depends on his medical condition; so I put the flight-getting information into the travel slot, clearing off THAT space. The slides are going well: counted how many I'm discarding today and it came out EXACTLY 100, and since I estimated I filed at least 800 others, that's pretty good. Still lots to go, however. Got three new books from the library yesterday, coincidentally all by gay authors: White, Merrill, and Laurents, so I have something ELSE beside slides to do. Will pick up the last of my current prescription refills today when I drop my Watson-Guptill check into my account, leaving ONLY the Anita F. lunch-do on my desk, and ONLY the first batch of ACTUALISM pages to proofread from John, who's now down to the last THREE volumes, so I have to start looking for more for him to do into NEXT year. Gym today, having been pretty good in going every other day, except for the few busy (or lazy) days when I treat myself to a "mini-vacation" and stretch it out to three days. Almost finished with the four quarts of ice cream, which gave me my first REAL case of lactose intolerance, with five or six shits the other day when I ate somewhat over a quart of ice cream in one day. Still kicking the external fax machine around under my desk; will soon phone Shelley after I hook up my phone (which seems to be broken, since "memory-1" seems now to be functioning as "redial"---HEY, just thought that I can MANUALLY dial Spartacus, and THAT would put HIS number where it BELONGS, now that the "store" button doesn't seem to be working) to test it, since she called a couple days ago, somewhat peeved that I haven't called HER at all. Pinnacle comes floating to the top of my mind as something to handle---haven't saved files for a time now, MUST learn how to operate DVDs with Pinnacle, and also hope to get SOME kind of response from Juno to make sure I can e-mail after December 1, whatever they mean by saying what they say. Vaguely debated taking off on SOME kind of trip since I have nothing until Yellowstone in June, or whenever, but Ken said he sent ANOTHER letter to Laurence, and is buying a book on Madagascar (and replacing his and my lost Africa-tour brochure by calling the company) to see if we can't go somewhere BEFORE that. Seemed to have managed to turn OFF the radiator in the living room, which only Carlos could do before with his custom-built wrench, but I DID manage to turn it ON, somehow, before, and now off, so maybe it'll work. November 2 vote turned out to be disastrously for Bush, DAMN, and now wonder how the November 9 vote for the HDC support will turn out. Will take Mildred on faith saying that it'd work for me EITHER way. Le Bernardin coming up with her next week, and idly think, while lying in bed this morning, about getting back to my restaurant list now that MANY are more than a year on it. Puzzled as to why my slide-list was on the screen when I came out of Juno just now, but I guess I didn't bother to close it before?? Some small slide-list decisions coming up today: 1) will I make lists for SMALL trips like Garnet Hill and Letchworth, which I have in my travel-writing file, but not yet in my travel-slide files; 2) will I make a final list of slide-shows available when (or if) the woman from Heights and Hill calls back to talk about my showing monthly at their gatherings, so that I might videotape the slides for later website incorporation; 3) will I take the trouble to transfer the three "discard" files seemingly in the "show" boxes to their proper place? Then the idea of going back to World of Video for more movies that Marty doesn't have comes back up. Like est said, there's always something! Think to try to switch my mornings earlier to take advantage of the shorter days, depressing already that it gets dark by 5PM. And still spending lots of time with Spider, but it doesn't seem like TOO much, since I can excuse myself and get off after I've won two consecutive times, but it seems I'll NEVER get above 46%, as on---HA---9/11.
WEDNESDAY, 11/17/04: 9:15AM: Seem to be lots of things to keep track of: a) My nine-item list for "Day of Frustration," which was something like last Monday, which I ignored for a few days while reading, then got into VERY slowly in the past week: 1) DMV for license (tried Internet, seemed to say I couldn't fill out a form if I wasn't at the recorded address, so I got a local phone number and called them to get a renewal/replacement packet in the mail, which I haven't gotten yet). 2) Audience Extras for plays (after not being able to get the page after I downloaded Juno 5.0, I got the site by searching for it and replaced the bookmark and it's since worked, but there NOTHING on the list that I have any interest in). 3) Bargemusic site for Stef (and it's not great, but it's not bad, and she may work cheap, and I could benefit by getting started on it, though I'm reluctant to add HER retainer fee to my monthly expenses while they still include John's $700/month, which no longer seems TOTALLY endless: may be finishing in about a year; just figured that through John's 10/04 payment it's $32,671, so another year of him will take it over $40,000). 4) Stef for my website (not done yet). 5) Shelley for external fax (phoned her Monday, talked to her Tuesday, put fax on "portable shelf" where it seems OK, and at least it's a good PHONE (see 9, below). 6) Google for Zolnerzak, and got the usual indexer's listserv, index-credit in Zinzer's Microbiology, TasteOfBrooklyn mentions, but ALSO got "do you want to see Robert Zolnierzak?" and when I said yes, got MANY Zolnierzaks listed, but the most astounding was "Robert Zolnierzak (bobz@access995.com) on 5/23/2002 my father Edward A. Zolnierzak passed away 5/16/2002" and he was a S/Sgt gunner in World War II! 7) Dell for register/Norton Antivirus Viruscan removal (not done yet). 8) Pinnacle for DVD use (not done yet). 9) Fix phone buzz, and did that with the fax machine, returning the green phone to Spartacus to throw away, throwing away the old white phone that no longer seemed capable of storing numbers. b) Talked with Vicki on Monday about my last sexual relations with Michael T., and find out from Shelley on Tuesday that he'd come back from a trip to Rome "with Jerry (or someone)" in October, looking awful, went into a hospital, then died of cancer on October 24, after two weeks in a hospice. ANOTHER reason to feel depressed: 1) Bush winning again, 2) Paul M. cancels trip because of throat cancer, 3) Michael T. dies, and 4) WHAT is that growing blister-pimple below my right eye!? c) Really obsessing now with my READING! Finish 11 books in 33 days! Now 10:45AM and I've unplugged and replugged the external fax, tested it on Audience Extras, put in 17 numbers and still have 31 I can enter into the two-digit system, but remember that Shelley WORKS today, so I won't call her to test the fax until tomorrow. Decided to do SOMETHING out today, so phone Sherryl and set up Tibet for Friday at 2PM. She doesn't want to see ICP, so I'll do THAT today. Have I done enough yet today??
TUESDAY, 11/23/04: 11:45AM: Yesterday was a "maintenance day": going to the library and getting out four pre-reserved books, taking out the Chinese laundry and getting groceries, and going to the gym. Then dinner with Carolyn at Cardamom cutting my restaurant list down to an all-time low, probably, of 13, down to 12 today after lunch with Mildred at Lever House. Carolyn said I should see a doctor about my cheek-mark, so I phone C. at 9:15AM and get an 11AM appointment, stop in Supercuts to find them with two waiting, so go to C. at 10:40 and out at 10:50 with a colonoscopy appointment for 12/22 and a 7-10 day wait for a dermatologist's appointment for my "skin polyp." Want to make a new list of "outside" places to see, including World of Video, I now think, and a complete list of slide-shows for Heights-Hill (and my own records, most importantly). Just found my fax machine can COPY, something else to try, and phoned Stephanie ($50/hr!) who put me off getting her as my advisor on a website, and tried "e-mail on the Web" with Juno and it just SUCKS, but I'll have to read their whole thing to find if there's any way to keep their OLD system still for FREE! AND talked with the 20-B guy re Cadman.
MONDAY, 11/29/04: 9AM: Note from Viagra #11 yesterday morning at 7:05AM, starting to play at 8:15, getting serious at 8:45 and cumming at 8:57, unsatisfactorily: I know I came, but there was NO emission at all, and when I finished at 9:05AM I gradually seeped a bit of what seemed more like pre-cum than actual semen. What "cums" now every eight or nine days will probably get even less frequent, and I'm really curious as to what some TRUTHFUL elderly at SAGE might say about what happens to their sexuality over the years---assuming there are men there in their seventies, which there actually may not be. Finished two indexes over Friday and Saturday, with two more coming in. May go with Steve H. by train from Beijing to Moscow in October, and with Ken's trips to Madagascar and Yellowstone, 2005 looks active, because I'm to call this morning to check on Ireland for the March 21 trip, and wonder if he'll really hold me to my amused agreement to go on the German trip with him if he goes on the Ireland trip with me, which means that he has to cancel his two favorite opera evenings: Cav/Pag and Rosenkavalier, but not as sad as my giving up Cyrano to extend our trip in Madagascar, which is certainly worth it. Took one entire day to sort all the DIARY pages into order for the first five thousand pages on Friday, and yesterday managed to get through the next four thousand, leaving five thousand and then the task of going through the unnumbered and 90000-numbered pages. LOTS for John or me still to type, but KNOWING that I won't be integrating the diary-numbered diary-contents pages in order, but keeping them as a table of contents, means there'll be other exceptions when I get to the end. But the thought of coming up, in a few days, with an ACCURATE, CUMULATIVE number of pages typed, and then finally finishing my SLIDE-numbering list and coming up with an ACCURATE, CUMULATIVE number of slides, before my first Heights-Hill slide presentation, on January 11, is gratifying. Huge bizarre banner-poster for something called "Cloud 10," greater than the width of the Woolworth Building, being dragged across the sky! HOW I LOVE the views from my apartment: the ominous dark clouds before rain, the masking fogs, the bright clouds of sunrise and sunset, the glorious full moon of a few days ago, the boats in the river, the passersby below telling me what jackets to wear in the ambient temperature or umbrellas to open in the rains, even the reflection of the sun from 75 Henry that makes me happy I don't have the DIRECT sun streaming in most of the time. The now-gone leaves except for the still-green willow almost directly below. But now that it's almost 9:20AM, note that I have to start shopping for Christmas cards and write a double-spaced year-letter, since I don't think there's THAT much to talk about this past year!
TUESDAY, 11/30/04: 12:55PM: Found I had to stop sorting pages because so many Learning-volume pages were still missing: so John has that AS the ACTUALISM pages included? He'll call tomorrow, I guess, to bring over more pages and get his payment, and I can check which volumes he still has then. So I cleaned off the dining table and started on slide-pages, updating the slide-summary page 70 to reflect all my show-possibilities, and the show-and-discard boxes, coming up with 6487 show-slides! Then updated the slide-catalog evolution with my handwritten updates from the slide-shows, and then typed the contents of the two slide-boxes in pages 6-8 of the slide-catalog evolution, but had to finish THIS page so that I could print the last of THOSE pages. Spent $119 on Anita F. at Sumile last night, but the food was GREAT and she actually agreed to TAKE Ken's Spamalot ticket for $109 (show comes during my Ireland trip), which I GOT for me and Fred, so I hope he LIKES it (though when I called Beard for Friday's lunch, I could only be #4 on a waiting list, and he IS going, as is Anita, who put the idea in my head), AND was willing to buy my Cyrano ticket for the Met for $66, which I couldn't use because of the extended trips in Madagascar, which Ken is concerned about because insurance for the FULL price has to be bought within 14 days of deposit, and they haven't YET told him how much EXACTLY the extensions are, but they average about $278/day, he said, but also as he said: it's only money. So she will send me a check for $175 for both ALONG with a free pass to the Modern, which I will NOT use for the $8 movie but to replace a $20 admission! Talk to Spartacus on the phone until 2PM, which stops this page dead. But printed the page before already.
THURSDAY, 12/2/04: 10:38AM: John did NOT call yesterday, but that was about the only thing that DIDN'T happen (along with not yet buying Christmas cards): went to bed late and got up late and watched Burnt Money while having breakfast about 10AM, then finished Adams, Fred: The Five Ages of the Universe and went to the gym, followed by getting groceries and picking up my laundry, getting back about 3:30, so late that I had to grab a quick lunch and get out in the VERY windy day to the R train to Prince for the Blade exhibit at the Leslie-Lohman gallery, and since I was the only client, the watchman had to come from the office to make sure I didn't take anything. Blade's work is VERY idiosyncratic, especially in color, as all the clothing is blue and the cockheads are red and the bodies are angular and 95% of the cocks are uncut. Not really much of a turnon, though some of the old photos were fun, some of which I have, and really sorry that I threw out all the old Physique Pictorials, which now seem to be worth quite a bit. But even I have a slide of Steve Wyngren---was that the blond's name?---erect. Leave about 10 to 5 and walk over to Sixth and up to Greenwich to get to World of Video at 5:15, not really enough time to check old movies at the computer, since there's no one there anyway, so go down to the porno section and pick up three movies from the monthly newsletter pages that I selected from a bunch that Arnold gave me before I threw the rest of them out. Then dash (getting TIRED!) up to the Center at 5:27PM for an early start to the Men's 50+ rap, and it was NOT the most interesting: leader and his partner, both on the sofa, intelligent enough, but the slow-talking Black next to them was a real pain. Tom next to me KEPT clearing his throat, looking tense in his suit, but he talked interestingly of his lover's and his week in Chile, hoping to move there to protect their dollars, which the group was convinced were going down the toilet because the administration wants cheap dollars so the deficit won't seem so enormous, but the Chinese and Japanese will end up in control. The fat slob who nodded to sleep during the session did NOT call himself Don G., as I'd convinced myself he had. One guy to the moderator's left was intelligent and seemingly interested in me, but the other Black across from him was petty and one-note, and NO one seemed particularly sexy or even interested in sex. The awful orange-haired George was there, whom I didn't like during my FIRST set of raps with the 50+ group, AND they ask for $3 for SAGE members, sort of a rip-off, since they use their OWN room for the meeting. Fidget a bit toward the end at 7PM, not saying much: they took my info about the good Tibetan Museum free with a Channel 13 card, but were scandalized that ANYONE would suggest that a restaurant, even down the block like Sumile, would possibly be worth over $100 for a meal, though some who didn't protest may have taken note. Mainly movie reviews, or people doing not much of anything. Then walk west and south to 11th and Spotted Pig about 7:15PM, being told in the jammed place that I might get a seat at the bar, but then he found a table next to a CUTE guy facing me who was entranced by the taller, younger, very naive-seeming guy sitting next to me (who refused to lend me his knife to spread my mustard on my burger, even though he didn't use it at all), and I had a flavorful, greasy-meaty oxtail ragout to start, with two bottles of Young's English ale, and then the burger and shoestring fries REALLY filled me up, but then the group was active and pleasant: a real New York corner-bistro-type place. Out at 8:30 and back to read a bit to keep awake, not even looking at the mail or putting my laundry away, and got to bed at 9:50PM with a STUFFED stomach that persisted through the morning when I skimmed through three porno flicks from World of Video, all poor, and finally jerked off on MY stuff!
MONDAY, 12/20/04: 7:49AM: Felt pressured on Saturday about 3:40PM, feeling, "Now I have an envelope to post, videos to return to Marty's, the gym to get to, and back in time to dress for MAN at 9 Avenue A that I have to get to by 6PM, then buy the Sunday Times." So I just do it and do it and do it, and finally get home to finish the puzzles by 9:30 and the rest of the paper by 11, but then figure I MUST brush my teeth, so I start watching De-Lovely and finish brushing by midnight. Then wake and finish watching that DVD and have breakfast and watch the extras, finding that I hadn't realized 1) that this all took place in the "ten seconds before he died" and that the Jonathan Pryce character wasn't a friend from his past but the Angel Gabriel taking him to death, and 2) that the "Love for Sale" gay-bar scene was taken in ONE Steadicam shot with MANY changes of costume for Natalie Cole as the singer and Kevin Kline as Cole Porter, and think my mind must REALLY be going, since I'd had similar "Oh, I didn't see THAT" experiences with the Hero DVD also, and then I go to Piri's, leaving late at 1:25PM, but actually catching each elevator and subway almost PERFECTLY, getting off at 2:05PM---at 68th Street rather than at 77th Street on the 6 local! Walk, forgiving myself, and they're still waiting for Barbara N. when I arrive at 2:25PM, but she never DOES show up, and I do OK at Boggle and Charades and Scattergories, and was glad I got the information about the M31 bus because it WAS raining when I left and waited for the bus and got to Cité at 6:37PM, Mildred there but not annoyed by my lateness, and we laugh and have lots of champagne and wine, and my shrimp cocktail and her foie gras, my 8-chop rack of lamb and her blackened Colorado Rib Steak, and more white wine and more red wine, then her banana-chocolate sundae and my profiteroles with more champagne, and leave at 8:30PM in the beginning snow to walk to the 50th Street station and sit petrified, afraid I'm going to be sick, VERY drunk, waiting for the local to Grand Central, and another longish wait, counting the stations yet to go when the train finally arrives and I get a seat, and control myself up the stairs and across the street and into the elevator and undressed and into bed without throwing up, taking two aspirin and then at 3:33AM getting out another pillow so that I'll merely burp rather than regurgitate acid reflux, hoping I'll be functional in the morning when I have to e-mail the questions about the Statistics author index to the editor, and have two dreams which I transcribe and print one page of [DREAMS:12/20/04] and then this page by 8:03AM, having to get into the day, looking at my calendar to see the only "event" for today was the 7:43AM minute of solstice this year, which I managed to type through. So from now the days will begin to get longer! And now I have to shit, cold in the 17° cold of the first cold day of winter, first snow lightly on the ground, first frost on the inside of my window when I pull the shade aside to look out.
THURSDAY, 12/23/04: 10:54AM: Woke at 4:11AM after getting to bed at 11:11PM and could NOT get back to sleep, so got up at 6AM and started reading, then did an hour and 45 minutes of the horrendous Statistics author index (now at 11 hours for an estimated $2000 job, so I HOPE I'm more than half through!), then eagerly ate breakfast, still reading the colorful At Swim, Two Boys that creates a real world of ridiculous religiosity, and then change my colonoscopy from 5/19 when I would still be in Madagascar to 6/1, and phone Spartacus to tell him he should be by the phone to get ready to pick me up to bring me home about noon. But he has to call me back, so I do this, rather than phone Schwab about the $16,000 free in my Keogh now that my 4.05% First Premier Bank (with "DIC [not FDIC] insurance" from "IOUX Falls, SD" obviously SIOUX) has matured. Actually put away the last of the slides into "Box 2" after getting and sending a fax to Shelley, clearing away the LAST TWO long-time stacks on my do-table, but then got down the CDs and DVDs and can get to THOSE before getting to stamps (and can wait for stamps until after Christmas cards come in, too) and more journal-page sorting. Also started tooth-whitening strips yesterday, and the "beauty cremes" today, getting things DONE!!!
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