2010 1 of 7
2010 Journal
FRIDAY, 1/1/10: Order meals and watch "Little Dorrit" for eight hours, almost turning it off at because it moves so slowly and she's SUCH a dweeb! Then, VERY inadvisably, get to Spider at 10:55PM and just keep messing up and messing up, feet cold in the freezing breeze from the air conditioner, and don't even record when I stop, because my score and my feelings are so totally miserable.
SATURDAY, 1/2/10: Spider from 12-1, after doing the Times and puzzles, deciding to bite the bullet and record my downfall: 50.89057 at 355 up after 2 wins. Take Paul's two bottles of Laurent-Perrier to Fred's party at 5:45, about the second person there. Didn't realize that, with the Clark Street Station being closed this weekend and next, that the construction caused the C train to stop at Jay Street, making us transfer to a bus making all local stops. Thankfully it was clearly marked, and the driver announced he was stopping at South Portland. Leave my coat in the front bedroom, James and his kids in the back bedroom, and his "wife" helping Fred serve. Fred's delighted with "my choice" of champagne, and we start off drinking that, killing the first bottle among the first guests, so I open the second. Others bring more later, and I end up tasting as many as four or five different champagnes and a couple proseccos. I fill up on snacks: nuts, cheese, paté, salami, crackers, and talk mainly with tall, elegant, black, I-forget-his-name-always, who was with Fred and me on the ship to the Caribbean. Metche shows up, touting her brownies, and when I go down to sit at the dinner table for 15 I find that one of her 16 is gone already, so I reduce it to 14 to make sure I have one. Unpleasant Jack is there, but his friend Gus, called Gustavino by Metche, sitting across from me at the table, is pleasant, and the woman to my left (forget her name too) and the black to my right makes a pleasant dinner, of which I take rather little since I had a too-big lunch too soon before leaving for Fred's. When Metche's brownies go around the table again, I take the second-last one, sure everyone who's WANTED one has HAD one, but I'm momentarily embarrassed when Metche asks if I'd sure Fred had HIS, and I said I was, since I suspected he'd taken the first one. Leave just after 10PM.
SUNDAY, 1/3/10: Have a slight pain in my lower left side about 7AM, but when I can't get comfortable in bed, I get up and start moving around, and the pain vanishes. Start Spider at 12:45 and, after three successive "up"s, finish at 6:30PM at 50.90335 (breaking the magic 50.90 again) at 361 up after 7 wins, than which I cannot hope to do better. But that sure killed THAT day! Watch "If I Had a Million," and fragments of other things, making a list of which channels I can surf through in the hopes of getting something good to watch. Have the impression I got to bed as late as 2AM.
MONDAY, 1/4/10: Up at 5AM in great pain. Figure it might be for the worst and take a shower so that my body's clean if I have to stay in the hospital. Also phone Charles at 8AM to say we'll have to cancel meeting at the Rubin Museum today at 2PM. Most of the day in LICH. See MEDICAL page. Finish Adrian's "The Children's Hospital," having been GREATLY impressed with Jemma's healing splurges on pages 244-271, and noting that on page 452 the SOUL leaves a body. Home just before 6PM and watch a dreary "Fahrenheit 451."
TUESDAY, 1/5/10: Spider 12-12:30 and get to Bouley just as Mildred arrives at 12:55PM, for a beautiful restaurant with disappointing food. The apple-smell in the entrance is magical, and the arched room is very beautiful, as is the stone floor and the original-Bouley-like luxurious basement hallway. The starting amuse bouche is good, but the porcini flan turns out to be a mushroom soup holding large gobbets of crab and what (I hope) may be undercooked eggwhites. Not that great. Her halibut is VERY fishy, and my cod comes as a strange white mound buried in black pepperings, and the taste isn't appetizing. Her duck is perfectly ordinary; I didn't want to order the strip steak, but the chicken was also quite ordinary, despite an attempt at truffling up the sauce. The chicken just had no distinctive character. Her molten chocolate soufflé was the best dish, my mango mountain being undistinguished, though the thin-sliced pineapple under a lemon sorbet was good for the two of us. Maybe we should have had wine, but since I was on Cipro I figured it might not be wise. Ken suggests later that I COULD have asked for a different course on my tasting menu, but Mildred pooh-poohs that by saying they'd just have said, "Then select from the ala carte menu, sir." Get back to find a HH delivery, which I have to store in the drawer in the bottom of the fridge since there's no room on the shelves. Paul C. calls to say that Paul M. had a stroke a few days before Christmas! Then back to Spider at 7:25, stopping momentarily at 10:40 at 366 up, tying the highest, but not with the best score, and continue through to 11:30 for the very highest at score of 50.91954 at 368 up after 3 wins.
WEDNESDAY, 1/6/10: Probably start the day with Taipei, since I don't want to touch the new Spider high. Have breakfast and decide to FINALLY type the datebook to 7/20/09. Feeling righteous, I may even do a bit of Solitaire and get back to Taipei, not seeing Sharon this evening, and then probably check out what's on television: not remembering clearly since I'm filling in these dates on 1/14/10! Might even take a sleeping pill out of nervousness at seeing my dentist tomorrow, fearing my loose tooth might have to be pulled.
THURSDAY, 1/7/10: See Dr. DiMatteo at 10AM, having to come back next Wednesday for a filling. She's only willing to give me a silver star for hygiene, so my trying to catch up the last few evenings didn't work. She says the loose tooth is dangerous because, even though it's had a root canal, it might harbor bacteria which can get infected at the root. She uses 33% carbamide, says it must be kept away from the gums, doesn't like the tray furnished by the company, and says "as a Christmas present" she'll make an impression next week and make me free trays! How lovely she is, though I don't really anticipate the bill for today which I get on Tuesday for $280. Finish typing the 2009 datebook. Watch the end of "Eagle Eye," and also "Earth 2100."
FRIDAY, 1/8/10: 10:58AM: Did MANY things just to START the day: 1) Moved bed away from chest of drawers to stop noise, 2) Cleared all traces of pine from table, polished it, and stored components, 3) Filled pillbox, 4) Finished last of hot chocolate powder, 5) Finished third-last orange, 6) Found lots of work still to be done on pile of CDs and DVDs, 7) Put carbamide in refrigerator and dental stuff on shelf, 8) Made do-list of 14 items because I just can't STAND having so many little things on my mind: 1) buy bidis! 2) get ambien from CVS, 3) pluck ear hairs, 4) get haircut, 5) see Rubin Museum, 6) file CDs "away," 7) Shelley: got 2009 letter? (not yet!) 8) order HH meals today, 9) make organized piles from desk-litter, 10) print 2000s lists, 11) catch up on DH, 12) catch up on NJ, 13) latest cx to Tris, and 14) gym today. NOW, at 11AM, to call Marj! Talked for over an hour, and then HAD to have breakfast! Ordered meals at 2PM, returned the library book and slipped the 2009 letter under Shelley's door before going to the gym, where it felt good to actually EXERCISE for the first time since 12/23, 16 days ago, hoping it will clear out my physical lethargy. Added 15) return library book to the list so that I could honestly check off five items today when I finally printed out ALL the 2000s lists by 8PM. When sorting the entries for the printing, I found to my horror that I'd typed the 2009 list with dates in order mo-da-yr, rather than yr-mo-da as before! AND I found it AFTER I merged 2000-2008 with 2009 WITHOUT SAVING 2009!! For a while I thought that meant I had to retype everything after 7/20, but I found that WP51 had done an intermediate backup of the file as I typed it, and THAT file was complete to 9/24, which meant that I could "clip off" all the 10-12/da entries from the complete file, because there WERE no years 10-12! Then made a macro which, for each line, spaced three times to get to the spot to add "09-" at the start of each date, space five times to skip over the correct mo-da, and then delete the erroneous "09" at the END of each date, and go to the end of the line and the start of the next for the macro's operation to be repeated. WHAT a relief for such an "easy" solution for a STUPID mistake! So now the correct file sits as LIFE0-9, and I recorded each of the 132 pages as I printed them out, the last ones slightly marred by a skidded black smudge on carriage returns. Also checked Tris's added Mattachine and two "private" files, finding that I left Arthur Mitchell spelled out (for his underwear) in SEXINMVHS2. Then, with relief, to television for the end of "Nick of Time,", and alternations between "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," which when Shelley called to say she got her 2009 letter, I said made "Funny Games" look like "The Wizard of Oz" as regards gratuitous brutality and blood-letting by psychopaths. Probably got to sleep quite late tonight.
SATURDAY, 1/9/10: Start to jerk off at 6:06AM, take Viagra, and cum without ANY fluid at all at 6:45AM, even though the level of excitement was VERY great for a VERY long time, first time in 18 days. Checked the voluminous "sexual" parts of the website, pleased to see so many sections with so many added pages. Have a late lunch, and add three items to my Friday do-list: 16) get library book, 17) CDs to Spartacus, and 18) MAN pool-party---just to do four things today, also trying to help Spartacus make copies of his documents, getting ambien from CVS and going to the library for two coincidences: looking for a 915 Dewey-Decimal-system book to find that PRECISE section being winnowed at the desk, and then, not finding anything but a small Winterson book from my list, checking the Recent Fiction to find "Complete Collected Stories of J.G. Ballard" and a new book of stories by Ray Bradbury! Leave for Keith and Kevin's pool party at 7:15, finding that the R train actually let me out right AT the closest exit from the Atlantic-Pacific Avenues station. Jammed with people, Steve already with a plate of food, and I just snack on deviled eggs and nuts since I'm still full from lunch. Good white Zinfandel later has to be replaced with mediocre Chardonnay. Steve introduces me to his friend Eric, Dennis talks about financial investments, and a personable black fills my ears with information about the nudist Hillside encampment in Pennsylvania. I leave about 9:45, having had enough. Seem to remember getting, tired, to bed about 11PM.
SUNDAY, 1/10/10: Wake, perhaps energized by finally getting exercise at the gym, or by handling the 2009 lifelists at last, to make a Sunday do-list: 1) check Irwin for progress; 2) website memo #19 about a) "private" expansion, b) all the travel to the website, c) the "tag" advances, and d) a copy of Tris's "maintenance" memo; 3) add Gay-male-sexuality over 70 with a) MAN meetings, b) Saturday evening's activities, c) Saturday morning's cum, d) JOYI followup?, and e) Prime Timers events; 4) Charles for Rubin on Monday?; 5) Verizon for Outlook Express codes?; 6) Mildred to ask (for Marj) if DiMatteo PHONES?; 7) Steve to ask who's Eric? Then have breakfast, look at the Times, pluck ear hairs by 10AM, talk again longly on the phone with Marj, who's delighted that Mildred reported that DiMatteo did NOT phone her when she didn't respond to the every-six-months' cards, and get to the piles on the desk to MAKE discrete piles by 3PM. Watch the 1999 Italian-sited "Midsummer Night's Dream" with a beautiful Oberon by Rupert Everett and an over-the-top Bottom of Kevin Kline. Again tired to bed by 11PM, though I AM aware of the slowly lengthening daylight hours. [Note typed 1/14/10] Temperature 97.7 at 6:55PM, after napping because I just feel sort of SICK! [Typed at time] 9:20PM: So MANY times I'll just take to Taipei to waste some time and relax my mind from what I "should" be doing, and I go through the ENTIRE sequence, winning every single one. Which I just did right now, after a very productive day of sorting out the piles onto the desk, tearing the 100+ sheets of the 2000-2009 LIFELIST and putting them into the proper folders, along with the 2009 LIFELIST itself (still in the wrong mo-dy-yr format). But strangely I've not got to SHIT for about the FOURTH time today! Something's WRONG with my system (maybe I didn't have enough Cipro?). Find that I'm OUTRAGEOUSLY behind on the notebook pages, having essentially STOPPED when I got notice that the REFRIGERATOR was coming in the next day, AND NOT YET HAVING TYPED 12/15/09! The last page I PRINTED was page 3 of the NJ pages! DAMN!
MONDAY, 1/11/10: 8:37AM: Wake to note a depressing DENTAL pain in LOWER LEFT jaw. Will trouble with teeth NEVER end? Feeling slightly better than last night when I get up, but then at 8:04 I dial HIP, at 8:05 get two rings then silence, and at 8:22 I get the dreaded "If you'd like to make a call---." Redial at 8:23 again to two rings, and cut off again at 8:29. At 8:30 I try the THIRD time, and a woman answers almost immediately. I complain about being cut off, she dapologizes, I ask for a Holter appointment, she verifies my address and birth date, says I can just walk in Monday through Thursday starting at 10AM. "Can I have an appointment at 10AM today?" And I'm IN! Finish playing the Taipei I'd started (and won) and type this to 8:39AM, ready for breakfast! Finish "jotting in" previous days to 9:45AM. The Sage tour of the Plaza is filled when I call about 10AM. In to Hip at 10AM and told to sign on the EKG list. At 10:30 I complain that I HAD an appointment for the Holter at 10AM, no one ELSE has it, but assistant patiently tells me that the EKG person has to do it, so other EKG patients have to be seen before me. Finally get it about 11AM, and told to bring it in at 11:15AM tomorrow. Back to get a Verizon e-mail bill of $38.51, start adding material to NJ, but at 1:11PM (on 1/11) when I save it I find that I inadvertently have it as WP51\MC/NJ, which won't save, and for a moment I fear I've lost all that I've typed so far, but when I go to WP51\MC\NJ it's all THERE, so I don't know WHAT happened. Checked more of the website, making notes for future additions, having more time because Charles calls and postpones our meeting at the Rubin Museum from 2PM to 2:30. Get there just before then and he shows up quickly, and we look at the Red Book in the basement, rather surprised to see the ORIGINAL book here, but not much else beside. Looking at the copy laid out for visitors, I don't particularly want to own a copy of it: maybe they'll come out with a text-only paperback later. Then we're up for the crowded guided tour of the mandalas, leaving it quickly when the guide is rather boring. Down to the views of the cosmos, then to another exhibit, but we're both getting tired, and I'm anxious to get back home before I have to urinate, still searching for my stone. Leave at 4:45, pretty close to closing anyway, and home to finish Bradbury: "We'll Always Have Paris," with two suspiciously gay stories, and watch the first half of "Bright Young Things," which I've seen before, but have totally forgotten. Spider from 7:10-9PM, to 363 up after 2 wins. Get to bed at 11PM, sort of uncomfortable with a belt with the Holter attached and a T-shirt to cover the contacts of the Holter. But drank wine with dinner and seemed to get the same palpitations that I was worried about. Urinated at 11:15PM and the tip of my penis felt SORE when I wiped it. Thinking the stone might be just inside, I tried to open the urethra and see, but it hurt a bit, so I ended up hoping that I'd just scratched it and it would heal. Back to bed and couldn't sleep and got up again at 12:48 to pee painlessly into the urinal and THERE was the STONE, looking like it might be coated with a small blood clot! Fished it out and felt the hardness and sharpness of it, and put it on a piece of toilet paper to dry. TRIUMPH! Felt SO happy that it took another HOUR for me to fall asleep!!!
TUESDAY, 1/12/10: Up about 9:30, still feeling great about passing the stone. Started crowing to people about it: Spartacus at 10:17, Mildred at 10:22, leaving word with Charles at 10:25, telling Woody to tell Carolyn at 10:27, talking to Marj 10:50-10:57, leaving word with Dr. Chin at 11:05 and with Dr. Irwin at 11:35, send Don O'Shea an e-mail at 12:45, leave word with Steve at 1:20, told to call Fred in two days, when he's back, which I do NOW, and it turns out I hadn't TOLD him about it! Only Paul C. left to tell, and he said he'd call later in the week. Later sent an e-mail to John Googe and to Edgardo, who responded that he treasures every wonderful e-mail he gets from me. Decided to look at more of the website, sifting out prior "change" pages, adding five more corrections, until I'm tired of looking for more errors. Watch "The Great Waltz" on TCM, where they're celebrating Luise Rainer's HUNDREDTH birthday (she's still alive and living in London, having had a long married life and appeared in some plays after her 14 movies, 9 of the for Hollywood) by showing many of her movies, so I watch the start of "The Good Earth" and CD the rest of it, and VHS six hours of four other films. Rita calls about 7:50PM to tell me that I hadn't TOLD her about my stone! We chat, and for the first time in ages we mention Edward and Anne as being the last survivors of the older generation. We hang up and at 8:15PM she calls back, saying she thought she heard clicking on the phone, as if someone were trying to get her, and it turned out to be someone telling her that Anne had died at 1PM that afternoon! Feel VERY odd about having just TALKED about her and Ed.
WEDNESDAY, 1/13/10: 7:55AM: Dream of "visiting a dictatorial Caribbean island" BEFORE hearing about yesterday's 7.0 earthquake in Haiti! 9:35AM: Managed to survive busy morning of 1) writing condolence cards to Ed, Lorene, and Dan about Anne's death: "May your fond memories of dear Anne console you in this time of loss. Peace, Bob," 2) calling Elsie and reserving for free Avery Fisher at 2PM Friday, 3) brushing and cleaning teeth for DiMatteo's appointment at 10AM, 4) getting ready for Mallet appointment at Nostrand Avenue at 2:15, 5) wondering about Sharon at 4:45PM. Put on clean shirt and went to gym yesterday for DiMatteo this morning, and will take some gel to see how to put it into her tooth-forms. Hope she doesn't take ALL of my two-hour appointment with WORK. She numbs me with usual skill and then starts digging into the tooth, which hurts a bit so she really jams the needle down between my teeth and I don't feel anything afterwards, but the bite-block rather hurts my loose upper left tooth. She works and works, and at about 11:10 says that the tooth material is still soft down near the root, so it needs a root canal. Am I up for it today? Yes, so she calls and schedules me with Goldberger, who's moved to Montague Street, for 1PM. She takes a cast of my mouth, and then I stupidly say that she's not giving me the trays? "That's what I just took the casts for." Oh. Talk to Marj "because there's nothing better to do," and get there at 12:50, hoping to be taken early, having phoned Mallet's office to be told I could be late, but I'd better get there by 3PM. But he doesn't take me until 1:20, and doesn't even inject me (without a local swab, it HURT) until 1:35. He takes pictures and says the one-root tooth has two or maybe even three branches of the root. He goes in quickly and it hurts AGAIN, and I waggle three and then four fingers. He leaves me alone for a time, and comes back with white powder around one edge of his nose. Is he drugging? He works until 2:35 and says I have to make an appointment to come back to FINISH the root canal! I say I'll phone for the appointment time since I'm in a hurry. Get to the Boro Hall station with people coming up the stairs, probably from the 3, since the next train is a 5, which he says is following the 2-route, and THEN comes a 2, and then a long wait for the 3, which is then HELD UP at each station because of the trains ahead! Get out to ask which way New York Avenue is, and walk along to get to the Elite Center at 3:25, dashing in to say I hope Mallet is still here, because it took me 45 minutes on the subway. He's there, but STILL I wait until 3:45 to talk to him. He's happy to see my stone, tells me to make an appointment next month to see him again, and says to take the stone to the Montague Street lab so it'll have less chances of getting separated from my records. Out at 3:55 and get a subway back home at 4:15, pee, talk to Marj yet again, and leave at 4:30 for Sharon. Exhausted session. Back to gorge myself on four or five courses of dinner, including popcorn, which turned out to be a poor idea, and watch the end of "The Good Earth," and continue with "The Big City" and "The Emperor's Candlesticks," with a rather one-note Luise Rainer: all big eyes and self-sacrifice. Exhausted into bed.
SHARON B. 123 1/13/10
Traumatic day just getting there at 4:40PM, and she passes through on her way to the bathroom and smiles out, "Oh, you're here." I review the dream-card I'd written this morning on waking just before 8AM and am ASTOUNDED to read "Visiting a dictatorial Caribbean island---." I wrote that BEFORE I heard anything about the catastrophic 7.0 earthquake yesterday, centered near Port-au-Prince, Haiti, at 4:58PM! Start my session with that, mixing up the stories of the awful day (which Sharon certainly agrees sounded like an exhausting experience) about the filling replacement with DiMatteo at 10AM that resulted in a root canal with Goldberger at 1PM that put me late for my Mallet appointment at 2:15 which put me in danger of being late for Sharon's appointment at 4:45PM. Then had to rehearse my kidney-stone history, feeling more and more just plain physically exhausted as I reeled off the agonies, adding the coincidence about Anne's death just after Rita and I complimented Ed and Anne as being the last of their generation. Recounted the endless feelings of guilt about not starting the transcription of the 2009 calendar until the sixth of January, and she asked where the pressure came from, and I said it came from ME: I want to do so MUCH, but end up doing so LITTLE, particularly when Tris is talking about the website "if he dies" and Anne dies when I mentioned her (well, not really) to Rita, and the pressure comes also from all the old sources: mother, Catholic church, early teachings. She again says she appreciates long periods of my being here (and not on trips) because of the depths we can reach. I say I've been happy how people have been willing to do things with me, like Shelley to the movies tomorrow (which Shelley cancelled the next day) and Leon to Avery Fisher on Friday, and the Games Group on Sunday. We change next week's appointment to Monday because of my slides next Wednesday. Other points may have been made, but I forget them by Friday, when I finish typing this---anyway, that's part of the point that I'm seeing her. Also remark that things have seldom been "flat" for me: up and down, yes, but not WITHOUT affect, as it was when I first started seeing Sharon. SOME progress.
THURSDAY, 1/14/10: 8:52AM: Woke at 7:55AM with a dream (did I even get up to pee AT ALL this morning?), and decided it would be a perfect day to do my laundry, not done since September 2. Decide NOT to retrieve the cart from the laundry room to take my stuff down, so I get out my rolling tote and three large carrier baskets and unload my laundry into two of them and the Guatemala plastic bag, getting out my (now illegal) non-HE laundry liquid, and take it all down to the laundry room at 8:15. No one's there (so I COULD have borrowed the cart with no one seeing), but the two large washers are full, with 15 minutes left. I debate for a second waiting, but then decide to fill two smaller machines with my stuff, and it's a much more comfortable fit, though it might cost (gasp!) a dollar more. Less-than-usual reinsertions of the card are needed, and I put in maybe a quarter-cup of liquid, hoping I'm not overdoing it with suds, as warned on the label. Resist the urge to go down and check on the soap level as it operates. Finish at 8:33, so I figure the 37-minute cycle puts me through at 9:10AM. Come up to type the dream and this entry to 8:59AM, and can now type up last night's session with Sharon. Work away until noon, when I have to eat lunch to be ready for the movie with Shelley at 1:30, but while I'm eating it, watching a TV Nova about building the Pharaoh's boat, Shelley calls to say she's getting a cold, reserves dinner with the Kahns on the 28th, and postpones the movie. I get back to typing, printing old pages, and at 3:30 finally retire the December calendar page, followed by the return of the 2009 datebook at 4:25. The printer ribbon finally gives up by getting twisted into itself and having to be CUT from the printer. Get a ribbon out that I punch in the reserve button to see how that works: OK, it seems. Marj and I talk TWICE about the lion-picture in the AARP Bulletin, maybe an hour and a half in all. I work through to 6PM, up to 11AM Monday, when I go down for the not-much mail, and now at 6:45PM decide I've had ENOUGH and just want to have dinner and watch TV! But play Spider 6:50-7:35, getting to 50.90812 at 364 up after 2 wins. Finish Winterson: "The Stone Gods," rather good, but somehow incomplete. Then finish my Luise Rainer marathon by watching "Toy Wife" and "Dramatic School" until 11PM.
FRIDAY, 1/15/10: Up at 5:50AM to pee and try to nap, and maybe do, but get up at 6:55, deciding it's close enough to eight hours of sleep. Have an early breakfast, since I'll have to have an early lunch before meeting Leon at Avery Fisher at 1:30PM. Grind through adding stuff to the missing days, checking Google for Paolo Szot, singing in "The Nose," and ordering HH meals off for the first half of next week and the menu for the second half. Finish catching up AT LAST at 12:50PM, having talked to Spartacus and found where Costco is in Brooklyn. Still have to pay taxes. Do the taxes, have an early lunch, and take the kidney stone in to the Montague Street lab, and she says it should be analyzed in a week! Subway quickly to Avery Fisher by 1:20PM, and Leon isn't there yet, but an elegant white-haired woman is obviously looking for him too, and when she walks in my direction about 1:35, we look inside and there's Leon. Seats way in the back of the orchestra, but it's an actual CONCERT, not just a rehearsal. Not that great, but Hampson makes some of the Whitman wound-dressing touching. The Schubert Unfinished isn't that big a deal, and the following Berg is just noisy and loud. Out just after 4PM, take the local down to the Christopher tobacco shop where I buy four bidi truncated cones for $36. Another item off the list, which I get home (getting the HH meals, coincidentally all three last lists from Thursday-Saturday) to transcribe onto the website-do list, so I'm back to a manageable set of DOs. Go through the mail while eating a snack, and then indulge in Spider from 5:45-9:15, getting to an all-time high of 50.92015 at 369 up after 4 wins, feeling VERY good about it. So good that I catch up with THIS to 9:20PM, ready for dinner and an early bed. Watch most of a reasonably charming "What Happened in Vegas," recording another awards show.
SATURDAY, 1/16/10: 1:25PM: Up at 5:50, as sort of usual, and out of bed at 7:50AM to hear the Times plop in front of the door. Determined to do lots today, so I have an early breakfast, go through both Times puzzles by about 11:15, and finish reading the Saturday paper just after noon. Sort through the papers and mail from the past few days and put everything away, including the Schwab Visa in almost record time, phoning Ken to say I finally got his Mexican postcard. Then, since Patagonia was the last slide-show I showed HERE (but back in October of 2008!), I expected to find them still in the trays, but find that I've shown many SLIDE shows at Pierrepont through 2009, so the trays are filled with THOSE. Drop that as being too cumbersome to finish, type this morning's dreams, and catch this up by 1:35, ready for lunch, slide transfers, and then the gym. Busy, busy! Play Taipei 1:35-2:25, starting to keep a notecard list of times for THIS, too. THEN have lunch and rather quickly go to the gym, determined to be back by 5PM before it gets totally dark outside. Watch Critics Choice 2009, not much interesting.
SUNDAY, 1/17/10: Read the Times and have breakfast. Go through the website checking which corrections have been made and which still have to be made. Write Tris Memo 19 for the passed Fourth Anniversary of ZolnerZone. Leave rather late for the Games Group, getting to the Clark Street platform just as BOTH trains leave, and decide to take the next, which is to Boro Hall, which is a mistake, since the 4 and 5 aren't running, I have to go to the OTHER end of the station to get the J train on the R line to change to the 6 local through the tortuous passage at Chambers Street on the East Side. Eight of us try Alexandra's awful "Jeopardy" board game, then a boisterous Charades, and then three me-winning Scattergories. Leave just after 5PM and get home after 6PM in the rain, with wet feet and coat. Finish watch "Jezebel." Do the Budapest Remark and realize I don't have a Budapest summary. Watch Golden Globe Awards 8-11PM while putting away many slides from slide trays back into boxes and having a late dinner.
MONDAY, 1/18/10: Up at 8AM feeling lonely, go to the Budapest pages and find the summary AFTER what I left out of the website. Breakfast at 9AM, and then send three items to Tris and decide to "come back from vacation" with Netflix, but they won't let me watch "Lost" at 10:30, when I "come back," and phone them to have them say it'll take "an hour or two." Phone Tris at 10:35 and talk through to 12:37, doing lots of good stuff, then phone Marj 12:38-12:48 to say that our talkathon records have been broken. Then watch four episodes of "Lost 5," interrupted by Paul calling to say Paul M.'s walking, but not progressing very rapidly. To Sharon, who's talking on the phone when I enter at 4:40. Home to sort out the HH meals, finding I'm mostly through with last week's food, and have only one dinner left for tonight. Then wrote up Sharon's session by 6:15, again feeling I didn't really do it justice. Then, perversely, back to "Lost." See nine episodes in all today, which means I can finish it tomorrow.
SHARON B. 124 1/18/10
She's on the phone, then calls me in at 4:45. I'm stiff from sitting and report on that, saying I've been too sedentary too long. Then report the feeling of loneliness in the morning, saying that others being sick have contributed to it, and even at the end saying it's partly due to my changing my appointment to this afternoon because Wednesday will be "so busy with people coming to my show," and then having to concede that NO one's coming to the show, so I didn't have to change my appointment, to which she says that SHE'S planning to be there! Talk about hearing my heartbeat listening to television last night and in bed this morning, worried about the results from the Holter and looking forward to the echocardiogram on the first of the month. She assured me I'll feel better when I hear the satisfactory results of the tests. I kept talking abou the "loss of attention" by not having a trip, like someone just facing retirement and wondering how to spend the time constructively. She even talks about facing a vacation with so many things she wants to do and not feeling like doing any of them. Repeated my quitting Prime Timers because of all the poor meetings, though I'm happy that the pool parties for MAN at Dean Street may be starting up again (not mentioning that I didn't see Charles Busch there, but DID see him on Channel 13's Saturday movie evening). Repeat my depression over Carolyn's and Paul's strokes, both concerned with high-blood-pressure medications, which I still don't have to take, though I may have to start with something for palpitations if in fact they ARE worse. She asked how I could feel LESS lonely, and I said that cruising was NOT the way to do it, and she agreed that if I was feeling low it wouldn't be a good time. Talked a lot about Marj's seeming dependence on talking with me, so that I feel more responsibility for her than she feels for me---and awfully conscious that she'll be reading this some month. Told of my sadness over the poorly organized slides in the trays: things weren't where they were supposed to be, my "orderly" sheet was totally out of order, and I'm still not finished with the task, feeling not quite up to all of it. Just feeling slower and slower. Spartacus not calling as much any more, though I'm not sure he's aware that I WOULD like to be going to more shows with him. On and on, repeating and moping, and finally signing her forms and leaving at 4:45 or even a bit earlier.
TUESDAY, 1/19/10: Checked that my Schwab balance finally hit the magic "$4X" mark (which it will probably never get to again!). Watched more "Lost" and then got to Chennai Garden at 12:25, which I thought was early, to be hailed by a very gray Elliot Linzer from a table for 6 and was told I could make the 12th at the next table for 6. Get food from the vegetarian buffet, assuming the red sauce wasn't that hot (and it wasn't), and asking for a knife to cut my spread-out parathas covered with sauces. The fat old fart to my right ceases not his monopolization of the conversation about how publishers don't want to "annoy non-scholarly book buyers with elaborate subentries in indexes." I think it's bullshit, but when I leave the table at which I uttered not one word and moved to a vacated seat across from Elliot, he verifies that that, indeed, is the case. Have two portions of a decently savory mashed pumpkin dessert and then just pay my $8 and leave just after 1:30. Home to watch the final eight episodes of "Lost," season 5, and fill out the evening with dinner while watching Laurel and Hardy's "Blockheads," which I'm slightly impatient with.
WEDNESDAY, 1/20/10: Up early to remove the last of the slides from the carousel trays, making new boxes to contain South France and North France shows. Then put the 240 Patagonia slides into carousels 6-8, replace batteries until I get at least one flashlight working, and then go through the show to rehearse it while the workers bang away outside on the K-line window frames for waterproofing. Have an early lunch and leave at 12:45, when two women in walkers help me move the chairs around for the wall-screen showing, and women are seated early chafing for the show to start, which I do by 1:15 on my watch, a bit ahead according the to room clock. Show goes well except for 6-7 slides hung up when the transport prong unaccountably hits a wall rather than the slide itself; I'm happy I brought the plastic prod to dislodge the off-center slides. It's actually over at 2:20, and I'm surprised that Charles showed up just to be there with Fred. Shelley comments loudly a few times, and the Brazels liked it as usual. Home to dump the stuff off and get out for a haircut at 2:55, Donna taking me quickly and dispatching me by 3:15 for $14, including $3 discount and a sizeable tip. Watch "Duplicity" and don't understand the twists at ALL, and hope to get clarification from the writer and editor on the commentary, but it's just TOTALLY self-indulgent and says NOTHING about the plot twists, so when 8PM comes and I want to watch the Pixar cartoons, I just shut it off about 2/3 through with no regrets. And then the cartoons are really only for children and, particularly the Cars, just turn me off. Bed early.
THURSDAY, 1/21/10: Up early to search for the 1958 Washington 9 days, going through JV to note the TA-TF contents after TA1 has no Washington trip, and then look through AR to find JA with 1958-1960, interesting enough to read snippets of, and conclude that the "9 days" were "19 days" which were only two days at a time on weekends. Then search for EUR2MOS, going through Scripsit Saves to find the date-range in Scripsit SAVE3, but no travel documents. Then up to the printed pages atop the bookcase to FIND Europe/Turkey in 1988 on its OWN set of pages, stopping at page 29 with the "towering trees," and then pages 30-40 PAPERCLIPPED together. Do I have to SCAN these? How did this happen? Have breakfast about 9AM and then decide I MUST get cash from my Keogh account, so I go to the Schwab website and don't read my own note: first print out two distribution sheets that I can't use, as I find when I phone Schwab, then print out TWELVE pages of the Keogh distribution form when my note clearly says I need only pages 2-6. Fax the five pages at 10:45AM and start the calls between Kit and Charles to finalize tonight's meeting, changing the coats from the basement to the ground floor ("You meet interesting people standing on the coat line," insists Kit), and then the meeting with Charles from 3PM to 4PM at the top of the stairs. So frustrated with all these torments that I phone Marj and start with "Life is so COMPLICATED!" She goes off on her OWN tangent, and then I tell her about the complexity with Kit and Charles for tonight, and then just MENTION the EUR2MOS and she RECOGNIZES that I'd sent her the last ten pages which she did SEPARATELY, and comes back to say that it's E2M30-40, and I don't have to redo ANYTHING (except send it as an addition to Tris). GREAT, and what a wonderful, positive COINCIDENCE that I'd MENTION it at ALL, since I didn't expect SHE could help with MY problem with EUR2MOS. Have lunch while still watching the ARTS 4.5 hours I'd recorded on Sunday, and leave at 2:30 for the Museum, happy that I don't have to meet Charles at 3. Get there at 3:30 and look at the North Italian drawings in the basement, then get to the top of the stairs at 4, duck into the next gallery for Pollaiuolo's great battling naked men, and Charles arrives about 4:05. We look at the Bronzino drawings until the place closes at 5:15, and down to the lobby to find Kit and sit on a bench with others waiting for the 6PM reception. I hear the violin quartet from upstairs, and a woman sitting next to us says that's where the reception is, so Charles and I simply pass the woman guard, go up the escalator, and a guard permits us to sit at a table at 5:50, though another woman won't let us touch the canapes until 6PM. Kit comes up, I have a gin and tonic and lots of bread and ham and salami and wonderful dried cherries. We chat, I have another drink and a refill of canapes, and later get a glass of red wine for Kit and cherries for Charles and another gin and tonic for me. We take another look at the Bronzino, go to the john down the silent Chinese-art hallway, and talk with another couple who sit at "our" table. I remark to Charles, "Could you imagine, in Akron, sitting on a balcony looking at a Patron's Reception at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?" Wonderful, wonderful. Get home about 9:30 QUITE drunk and get into BED.
FRIDAY, 1/22/10: 9:20AM: Sit down to type then [but actually start typing here at 11:54PM], but decide to check e-mail and try to forward Fred's "one-letter-removed series of words from one nine-letter English word," which is Startling, Starting, Staring, String, Sting, Sing, Sin, In, I, but it seems to freeze. Hit "Forward" six or seven times, but nothing seems to be done. Phone Verizon at 10:30 in a snit, but the screen seems to unfreeze and it turns out, when I check "Sent" that I SENT it six or seven times! ANOTHER reason to HATE Verizon Internet. Get Hal Valentine ("Didn't I talk to you before? Or does EVERYONE use that name?) who shares my screen, tries to fix it, which doesn't work, then tries again, which DOES work, and I GET MAIL FROM OUTLOOK EXPRESS again! Lovely! Look at the batch of mail and one is from E-Rewards, and the domain-name is NOT CLICKABLE! Solved TWO problems! GREAT! Call Marj and talk till 11:30 about my triumph, then search for Pallaiuolo until I check with Google and it turns out to be POllaiuolo! Turns out the Outlook Express problem has been sitting on my table since OCTOBER 10, 2009. No WONDER it preyed on my mind! Wanted to send the E2M3040e to Tris, and at 9:20AM, after breakfast, I felt OVERWHELMED by all the things I had to do (influenced primarily by my dread of the renewed root canal tomorrow morning!), wanting to do everything at once: 1) update the Christmas-card list, 2) check latest website corrections, 3) phone newest corrections to Tris, 4) ask for NYS tax forms, 5) start on MIR visa applications, 6) use my Choice Visa year-end bonus, 7) cancel my other Visa, 8) handle the long-term Olympus problems, 9) transcribe the week's dreams, and other things, though at 9:15 I DO phone Schwab to verify that my Keogh request HAS been entered in the queue. And at 10AM I phone Kit to thank her again and she get off quickly because she's talking with Spartacus. Reminds me that I want to check Audience Extras, too. Finish this by 12:08PM. Go to the gym, pass the day, and end with the two-hour Haiti Benefit on which I know fewer than half the performers, though I guess one was Madonna. Brush my teeth, take an ambien and a pain pill and a valium before my morning with Goldberger tomorrow.
SATURDAY, 1/23/10: Get to Goldberger after breakfast and a final tooth-brushing and it goes absolutely painlessly, thank goodness. Now just have to schedule with DiMatteo to finish up the crown. Talk to Spartacus and he mentions Ikea and I remind him that I'd like to go with him sometime, and he suggests we go today, and I figure that'd be a good way to take my mind off my waning novocaine. Get on the bus at Court Street quickly and the sun is just about setting when he suggests we go to Fairway for some of his shopping. It's big and crowded and a long walk from Ikea, and then we have to walk back, too. Into Ikea and it's very much like the one in New Jersey. I ask for a particular dessert, but they happen to be out of it, so we leave without getting anything. Back on the bus and I have dinner and watch "The Hurt Locker" twice, the second viewing making me like the film MUCH more than I did the first time around without the writer's and director's commentary. Maybe, during the day, I looked at the Saturday Times.
SUNDAY, 1/24/10: Read the Times, watch the Screen Actors' Guild Awards for 2009, not very surprising, and get to MAN at the Leslie/Lohman at 4:30, finding it an agreeable venue for the mostly unpleasant naked bodies. Dennis and George talk to me a lot, and a few others strike up a conversation as I sit at the foot of the table and enjoy the tuna and roast beef wraps, pleased that I can get as much wine as I want from the friendly, long-dicked bartender. Back to watch "Five Hundred Days of Summer," a Netflix that Spartacus lent me when I lent him "The Hurt Locker." [Maybe at some times during the weekend I did some looking at the website, but since I'm typing this on 1/31, it's not at all clear.]
MONDAY, 1/25/10: Been getting to bed early (always before 11PM) and getting up sometimes even before 7AM, when it's just starting to get light outside. Weather is really unseasonably cold, being in the 20s most of the time, dipping to the teens at night. Today I felt ENERGIZED and started a DONE-list for the week. Just GOT to get stuff off the 13-14 piles on the coffee table! So of course I start with Spider from 7:43-8:20AM, getting to a new high of 50.92204 at 370 up after 2 wins. Then, in many, many steps with soap and water, get the stain out of my double-breasted suit-jacket. Take a long time to update the Ballard stories from the table of contents of "The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard" and my story-list, reading many of them for the first time, I think, finding MANY that I've got on my list and MANY in the book that I DON'T have on my list. So much for THAT. Then go through all the Christmas cards and update the received list, getting 32 and sending 31, and then continue my productivity by taking the Patagonia slides from the trays, so that now they're ALL empty, and file the slides in SOME sort of vague order, happy to clear THAT up! Then dress in the now-cleaned double-breasted suit, with Paul's striped tie on my striped shirt, and get to the Beard to find Fred and Gregory there already. Stand apart from them until sexy Andrew and beautiful Alla appear, and have very many appetizers and go up to a table to find we're sharing with Fred W. and Shanta, but the two women sit at the wall and I find myself between Gregory on my right and Andrew on my left: talk about pig heaven! The Tuscan food is good and copious, so much so that when Rose piles TWO additional servings of beef short ribs on my plate I wrap up about 6-7 pieces of it in a large wad of aluminum foil that just fits into my jacket pocket---I'd taken my jacket off and Gregory complimented me on my striped shirt, and I showed off the metal whatzit at the bottom of my tie to Andrew, who admired it, and then leaned in confidingly to tell me about his sex-enhanced marijuana in Mexico after I told him about the aphrodisiacal power of bidis for me. SUCH a LOVELY guy! Fred W., to gain attention for himself, kept calling "Robert" across from my left, and then Fred L. echoed him from my right, demanding my attention with "Robert," taking it away from Andrew or Gregory. What a delightful evening! AND I made arrangements to meet Fred and two others tomorrow at DBGB, and Craftbar on Friday, and Southgate NEXT Friday. And I didn't even have a hangover afterwards, though I drank my fair share of wines.
TUESDAY, 1/26/10: Up without breakfast to sign the 1099 form I got from Marj yesterday to slip it into the mailbox for the 10AM pickup and get to the gym about 9:30AM, surprising John, who was there unusually early too. Then thought to be early to La Fonda del Sol for Mildred at 1PM, but there was NO entrance to the restaurant from Grand Central, and I had to walk all the way north to go all the way west and then south to the only street entrance, to find a pissed Mildred telling me they told her we had no table! They condescend to seat us at a quiet table for six WAY in the back, which is fine with me, and I even order a Cava for $10, feeling good, though they charge me $12 for a Prosecco when I turn back the original bill because they FORGOT to charge for my wine, eliciting the expected remark from Mildred: "You surprise me." Sure. We both decided that the Spanish menu (as opposed to the original La Fonda's Mexican cuisine) wasn't worth returning to, though I DID fill out a $50 refund (for a bill without drinks exceeding $50) card which would be nice to get back. Home feeling plotzed to turn on TV and watch the end of "Evil" which I'd watched before, enjoying the "good kid" winning out over the "evil kid." Continue with "Savage Grace," with Julianne Moore's unpleasant-faced son fucking her after she jerks him off, though she doesn't switch him from being gay, and then he's so ungrateful as to stab her, then his grandmother, then puts a plastic bag over his head to commit suicide on Riker's Island in 1981. Pays not to have been related to the Bakelite family. Continue with watching "Oldboy," which is not at all understandable even AFTER he's released from his fifteen years in captivity for some unknown reason; the naked backside of the enormously handsome Japanese young man doesn't make up for the incomprehensibility of the movie. Another whole day mesmerized by the television set.
WEDNESDAY, 1/27/10: Spend the morning watching the end of "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" with a ditzy Keanu Reeve and the end of "The Time Machine" with a very appealing Guy Pearce with stupidly amateurish animated Morlocks. Then early to DBGB to meet Don, who turns out to be the "McGee" who made the reservations for Fred's Restaurant Weeks, and detour to Plain Foods, or Fair Foods, or whatever the place is that doesn't have elderflower concentrate but seems to have everything else edible in the world. Back at 12:05 to an attractive crowd in the restaurant, save for our table of Fred, Don, Madelyn, and me. The hamburger, sadly, isn't even as good as the one at Five Guys, though the dessert is whipped creamy and tasty. Don says he's going to the High Line, so I go along, taking the 6-train to the L to Eighth Avenue and walking through Chelsea Market to get to the 16th Street elevator to the wintry High Line which only goes up to 20th Street, though I follow it back to its start at Gansvoort. Though I'm physically tired, I get home to order NYS tax forms, write three checks to Tris for $180.75, Schwab Visa for $1499.75, and Goldberger for $1150, WHEW! Get my Schwab Visa limit raised to $12,000 by lying and saying my yearly income is $50,000 (well, it IS, but only from SAVINGS, not from INDEXING). Make a DiMatteo appointment for next week since she's out this week, and get to Sharon right on time. Buy light bulbs at CVS on the way back for my fifth Chase billing for the month and type session after playing two hours of Spider from 6-8PM to another highest of 50.94123 at 378 up after 8 wins! Maybe tonight was the night I heated up a bowl of soup for dinner while watching filler TV.
SHARON B. 125 1/27/10
Get there on the dot of 4:45 and she calls me in. I say how exhausted I am from Restaurant Week, and I certainly don't feel lonely any more. Then pull out the dream and she asks what I may be feeling guilty about. I dig and say I might be guilty because I told Mildred I was going to DBGB on Wednesday and she said she'd asked if I wanted to go BEFORE, and I said NO, so I felt slightly guilty about "rather admitting" to her that I preferred to go with Fred than with her, though Sharon said that that was perfectly normal. I said I didn't usually feel guilty, even when watching the two-hour Haiti special and not sending them one single cent---let the Haitians watch out for Haiti! Then started talking about the website and astounded myself by reminding myself that I'd glanced through my memories from 1958 and 1959 and was surprised to find how many notes I'd taken while I was working for IBM, and THAT could have explained why the subject of my dream was working back at IBM, which I hadn't connected before. When I was talking of the website, I remembered Andrew getting it on his iPod, or whatever, and feeling good about his showing it around, and then, after confessing to the STRONGEST impression that I'd told her before, I went though my infatuation with Andrew's talk about his sexual stimulation with marijuana when I mentioned and explained what bidis were when he looked at me and said, "You certainly don't smoke," and I explained their sexual enhancement for me. I said that Fred looked at me with envy for my closeness with Andrew, which I loved. Then puzzled over the "dead" wife who was alive, which part of the dream-note I'd forgotten, and said that I was still concerned about the results of my Holter and my upcoming echocardiogram, and she again assured me that I'd feel better when the results came back that everything was OK. Talked about my lethargy and the possible solution by alternating days of treadmill for my legs with weights for my upper body, though I'd made good resolutions like this before and then finked out on them. But I said I didn't like the tiredness I felt after looking at the High Line this afternoon, and felt that maybe I was becoming too much of a couch potato, contrasting my two or three events per week (except for this extraordinarily busy two Restaurant Weeks) with the almost nightly activities I'd recorded in 1958 and 1959, glorying in the happy intimacy of casual sex, which I'd missed so much, and could hardly expect to get any more, but which made the happy evening with Fred and Andrew and Alla at the Beard all the more to be treasured. Sharon said that I even looked better, and particularly praised my haircut, and I left all smiles a few minutes after 5:30PM. Back to two hours of Spider before even putting on my trousers!
THURSDAY, 1/28/10: Feel sexy enough to jerk off this morning, watching the lovely foggy snowfall outside, and then had breakfast. Listened to the second part of the Learning CD, the proto-language part being about as uninteresting as the neuron/behavior/genetics first part. Ten minutes late to Aureole for Spartacus and Mildred waiting for me, and the short ribs weren't as good as the Beard's. Back full, worried about how I was going to have dinner with Shelley and the Kahns, but, as usual, Shelley calls about 4PM to cancel because of "the snow forecast for tonight," which doesn't happen. Then Leon calls to offer a $3 ticket to the NYCB "Sleeping Beauty," which Spartacus saw last night and LIKED a lot, so I say OK, though I'm feeling tired. Have no dinner before going, but treat myself to a brownie for $3.75 at intermission, more expensive than the ticket, and giving more pleasure than Fairchild and DeLuz (woefully underused and underathletic compared with what I saw him do in the past in "Romeo and Juliet") and particularly a VERY unenergetic Bluebird from Carmena, but the audience seemed to LOVE it, cheering and standing. Ugh! They don't know how good it CAN be with the Bolshoi or the Kirov. And found that Bouder and Vyette did it last night, and, though I've never seen them, they can't be THAT good. At least the production qualities were lavish, though why the costumes looked so TACKILY Russian I don't understand. Maybe THIS was the night I had the soup to have something in my stomach when I went to bed just after midnight, after putting in my order for next week's HH meals.
FRIDAY, 1/29/10: Watch an unpleasant "Role Models" with a hairy-chested Paul Rudd and a Minotaur-bulky Seann Scott and get out to Craftbar just after noon for Fred and Madelyn, having a tasty gin/Lillet/elderflower cocktail because I KNEW they would have wine and coffee and then would insist on splitting the bill on three credit cards. The smoked pig-head terrine was fatty and a bit gristly, though the tiny mango cubes next to it were good; the pork belly wasn't that great, but a small portion; and sadly they had no pork dessert, so I had to settle for the corn sundae since the two others were having the chocolate cake, none of which are memorable. Celebrate the start of my eighth year at 101 Clark Street. Back to duplicate ten passport photos for the Mir visa applications, phone for filling-out information and get told that THEY will change my seats to windows-not-above-the-wing seats, and I can charge the lower-priced $2100 plane tickets by Visa, which I DO. I could EIGHTEEN blank passport visa-pages, enough for the five for this trip, probably the four for the next trip, and maybe enough to last to the April 2014 passport expiration date. Put everything into a UPS envelope which I mail, after warming up most of Monday's Beard short ribs for a snack, before leaving for what I THOUGHT was the 7:30 pickup time for "As You Like It" at the Harvey Theater at BAM, but find it's the CURTAIN time, but they give me no hassle with a good L-row seat in the orchestra for a disappointing first act: Camargo wasn't recognizable as the Army psychiatrist from "The Hurt Locker" and was too American for Orlando, and Stephen Dillane started out VERY low key as Jaques, but when in the second act everyone got married to the right person, and the musicians fit better into their places, I liked it a lot better, partly to make a liar of Spartacus who said I didn't seem to be enjoying ANYTHING these days.
SATURDAY, 1/30/10: Passed the morning with the Times, doing the two puzzles though the Crostic seemed impossible at first, but then words IN THE ANSWER led to many puzzle solutions. Snacks at noon got me to Spartacus's for a number of CDs with many movies, and I picked up two books from the library and dropped off the three that were due today. Decided to start reading McCarthy's "The Road," stopped at 3PM to get to the gym for a good session (ending with a CUTE athlete in the steam room), and then back DETERMINED to clear things off my coffee table: 1) There IS no font that has a straight-up-and-down quote. 2) Tried to start proofing Marj's work but had a DAMNABLE time finding how to keep the "ribbon maximized." 3) Sent Rita two shots of Labrador, firstly HUGE copies, then smaller JPEGs, which she said she GOT that night! 4) Tried and tried to switch the "Album 3" Wales shot back into the full Wales album, but could only send Olympus two e-mails, one about that, one about how to copy ALBUMS to CDs. Hope they answer. 5) Found that Wildlife and Nature Travel had NO west Africa tours for 2010, but printed out the Universal Travel System 2009 tour-pricing sheet for 9 countries for 18 days and 11 countries for 24 days, EACH of which is just over $18,000 including single supplements. Two VERY expensive trips for 2011??? Finish reading "The Road," rather good, but I'm not really so inclined to see the movie, unless all the nude scenes from the book are transfered to the screen. Bed just after 11PM.
SUNDAY, 1/31/10: 11:30AM: Read Sunday Times, watched "Baraka" while having breakfast, watered plants, shifted humidifier into bedroom to go with the on radiator since it got down to 13 last night and this morning when I jerked off. Then decided I had to update the journals and dreams on this last day of the month so that the calendar sheet (and the datebook page) could be turned ON the day, rather than holding-over for a few weeks into the next month when I'd finally catch up. This week looks to be about as busy as LAST week, starting with my echocardiogram tomorrow morning and lunch at Smith and Wollensky and dinner at the Beard. Whew, already! Check e-mail and Rita GOT the Labrador shots, so THAT'S done. Finish recording through Saturday by 1:23PM! Woke this morning just after 6AM, put the radiator on in the bedroom and started jerking off, then went to the TV with my "sexy bods" CD, hidden since Paul's visit, and came fairly quickly by 7:15. Had oatmeal for breakfast after trying the nothing Cheerios sample that came with the Times. Watched "Baraka," happy to recognize that I'd BEEN to most of the places shown (except Persepolis). Now to catch up with the dreams, smaller now that I'm just jotting notes as I have them. Finish that at 1:32PM, starving for lunch. Skim through much of the hokey "Meteor Storm," recorded last night, and get out the first of Spartacus's CDs with "Femme Fatale," which I'd seen before but totally forgot. Follow through with the 1932 Frederic March "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and then fill out the evening by eating too much and watching junk TV. Bed just after 11PM.
MONDAY, 2/1/10: Breakfast while tearing up all through "Taking Chance," which really hits all the buttons. Got Choice Visa to send me a check for the balance and cancel that account, and try to do the same with Citi Visa, but a supervisor has to get back to me. Change the calendar sheet to February and put away the last month's sheet on the FIRST day for the first month in many. Then catch dreams and this journal up to date by 9:47AM, ready to get ready for my echocardiography. Ride subway to Nevins, expecting to get out on Atlantic, but of course it's Flatbush Avenue. Walk south and eventually see the sign for Atlantic Avenue ahead and the entrance to the center before I get there before 10:30, not many people ahead of me, and in to take my shirt off, lie on my side, and don't think to look at the display, as Spartacus says he does. Hear my heart, and she says the results will be ready in about two weeks. She asks who my cardiologist is, and I say I don't have one, so they will send it to Chin. Out and decide to walk back, taking 25 minutes and feeling great having done it. Get to Smith and Wollensky at 12:45 and told my table isn't ready yet, so I sit on the steps and wait for Mildred, who comes in at 12:55, and we're told we can go upstairs. Wait for a bit to be seated, and steaks are $10 extra so I order the hash, to be confronted with an ENORMOUS portion, which I don't even eat HALF of, since I'm going to the Beard to night. Mildred loves her crab cakes, and we both share her large calamari salad and I like my pea soup. Subway home and waste time until leaving for the Beard, pleasant with two older Chinese gentlemen who annoy Fred by being OLDER than we are and still looking so good. Lots of talk about travel and restaurants around the world. Home full and bed after 11PM.
TUESDAY, 2/2/10: Got a response from Olympus and DO move the single slide back into its proper place in the Wales album. Watch "Ghajini," a rip-off of "Memento," and then "Forbidden Kingdom," in the spot that Spartacus said was "International," with Clive Owen, but it isn't. Citi calls in the middle to tell me that they WILL send me a check for $28.50 and close my account---though Mildred later tells me they paid her $50 to keep her card active! Go to the gym, proof GERMFRED, and watch the summary episode of "Lost," followed by the two-part first episode of Season 6.
WEDNESDAY, 2/3/10: Make my do-list for the day, actually forgetting to put on Indochine with Mildred at 6:30. Hmmm. Determined to get things off my coffee table, so I call Schwab and find they have to mail me RMD forms for my Keogh also for last year's distribution. Call Chin for an appointment on Monday to find out about my cardiology results, MAYBE with a cardiologist? Call IRS to send me forms, two of them on back order already. Print an entire dream page for Sharon this afternoon, and then get to Marj in just UNDER an hour to finish her notes for GERMFRED, feeling good about having sent the last check needed. She tells me about the card from the Census, and I phone them to make an appointment to take the test for work for them next Friday! Maybe THAT way I'll make some money. Get to Mallet at 1:30 and get taken at 1:35, the last person waiting for him. The stone was calcium oxalate, I should thoroughly hydrate to keep from getting more, and only Dr. Chin or an endocrinologist can tell me what balance to keep with calcium, vitamin C, and stone generation. Out in just ten minutes. Sharon calls to postpone this week's meeting to Friday, so I watch the first part of "Miss Mend," an old Russian silent. Then early to Indochine to have a tastless elderflower martini with coconut juice, and SHE likes the guinea hen and my spring-roll like appetizer, but I'm not impressed, and the place is VERY noisy. Take LOTS of THAT home, too, and finish watching "Miss Mend" and then a following documentary about MGM until about 12:30, exhausted.
THURSDAY, 2/4/10: Up about 6:45, just wanting to get to sorting out the CDs and DVDs, and find that many of them are still blank, which makes my job easier. Have an early breakfast and take a valium and a pain pill, worried about DiMatteo's work at 11AM. Check the Census address and find that Livingston appears to be closer than Gold, and the appointment (which I listed for Saturday the 12th) is for Friday the 12th. Vacuum the roach bodies off the living room rug. Get to DiMatteo and get taken right in, and she doesn't need to deaden my gum until the very end, but I'm there for most of 75 minutes, not having to come back until the 24th. Get called to refill my HH meal Visa card authorization for $809.70. Spider from 7:55 to 9PM, when I watch "Coraline" on HBO, rather charming, and finish Spider 11:10PM-12:25AM, cold near the window, but get to a new high of 50.96527 at 388 up after 7 wins. Get to bed after that, tired again.
FRIDAY, 2/5/10: 7:22AM: HIGHLY energized this morning: wake at 6:27AM to type elaborate Elizabethan sex-comedy dream after recording note to Chin about vein "condition" in early morning. Then think about DOING things, and my thinking starts with the enormous accomplishment, yesterday, of FINALLY filing (to a satisfactory, though not nearly COMPLETE, state) CDs and DVDs, removing a pile from the coffee table that had been there (at least in my mind) probably since I got the box of fifty jewel cases from Sherryl's funeral apartment. And that left one of the smallest numbers of "piles" on my table in a LONG time: SEVEN (and for a moment I was even tempted to make it SIX by adding the "Tris corrections" pile to the "general website" pile): 1) Tris corrections (on my desk, as "to be done next"), 2) Olympus folder-to-DVD question (the "next easy" task which has "only" been there for a few months), 3) IRS pile (in abeyance until I get my Schwab statements, though I COULD start by sorting through my desk-files to generate my starting sheet of income and expenses for 2009, but that abuts against the "reorganization chronicle" ["REORGCHR"] in a sense), 4) Menu note (not actually dated, but stemming from my proofing of FRANBYCAR), 5) Website-paper pile (which I'd started recently considering putting in sections in my alphabetic file-folder on the bottom shelf next to my desk, replacing the not-used-for-a-few-years, therefore-outmoded, computer files), 6) Videotape-Pinnacle pile (which impinges BOTH on the website AND on the REORGCHR), and 7) Slide-scanner pile (which merits the same consideration as the pile above). It's now 7:37AM (sun up, but behind clouds).
Now to REORGCHR: based on COMPCHRO (chronicle of computer adventures) and MOVECHRO (chronicle of apartment-moving adventures), REORGCHR will be a new computer file of the reorganization of my apartment in MANY ways: 1) Primarily, based on my NOT REALLY wanting to erect my double-sided bookshelves between my bed and my "computer room," making my bedroom even more crowded than it IS, consolidating my travel files (which take up MUCH too much space on my prime shelving in the living room) into a) actual BOOKS that would look good, and be much more easily accessible, on the shelves, b) boxes in the closet, which, at first thought, would include i) written notes from all trips before my AlphaSmart outmoded them or, later, recorded them, ii) notorious bills for special hotels, meals, or trips themselves, iii) objects not quite qualifying for look-at-me-now shelf-space but definitely to be kept, iv) other not-displayed-but-certainly-kept collections. Start it NOW, at 7:50AM, with this paragraph.
Now to WEBSITE: TRIS MEMO 20: Decide I need a new format for a DO-LIST for the website. What tasks should I do next, with three dates: 1) when the idea for doing that particular task entered the list, 2) when the task was done and communicated to Tris, 3) when Tris added it to the site. Many of the piles could be added to the list: a) current Tris corrections, b) addition to EUR2MOS, c) 1956-1960 quick-journals dated by Marj, d) plays, e) 130-day RTW, f) 99-day USA, g) slides, h) videotapes.
Now at 8AM I can be satisfied with having recorded my thoughts and can now have breakfast while watching "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," Part 6. Select my HH meals only for the second part of next week. Phone Olympus twice to find that I CAN'T save albums, they're not really "there," only "pretend." Go to the gym to try to learn the bicycle, but can't get anyone to instruct me. Get to Sharon and croak through session. Play Spider 6-8, AWFUL. Watch stupid TV: there's just NOTHING on! Bed about 10:30, figuring to sleep pretty late anyway. Supposed to be lots of snow tonight.
SHARON B. 126 2/5/10
Different guard lets me in with no problem, thank goodness, since it's 5PM. Tell her about my getting through my piles of stuff to do, even though the last one was disappointing. Said that the last two weeks were certainly not LONELY with all the Restaurant Week activities. Mentioned the transvestite dream from this morning that I couldn't recall very well, and she said she'd take the page I'd printed out for Wednesday. Complained about Express Mail being no longer available, and we laughed about "Click-N-Ship." She was pleased with me about the possibility of earning money through the Census. About 5:25PM I said I didn't really know if I had much to TALK about any more, and she said that my current situation seemed conflict-free, and we COULD stop, or we COULD try "something more like psychoanalysis, if I wanted." She didn't think every other week was a good idea, but she'd think about it and we'd talk about it next Wednesday. I managed to talk through 40 minutes, but still didn't feel as if there was anything to talk about, still waiting for the results from my various heart tests.
SATURDAY, 2/6/10: Out of bed at 8:30 to pick up the Times and finish with the puzzles, after having breakfast, at noon. Go to Spider 12:10-3:25, managing to come up from the poor showing last night by ending at a new high of 50.97123 at 391 up after 5 wins, VERY cold at the window, though I now have BOTH radiators on. Wind really whistles outside, and it blew snow for a bit, and I decided to bite the final bullet and consolidate the last of Tris's corrections, finally phoning him to leave a message about 7:30, after finding that EUR2MOS on the web is NOT AT ALL right, having NOT yet been replaced with Marj's corrections to the date and italics from the FIRST 30 pages, to which I added the LAST 10 pages, making out a list of website tasks to do which now includes scanning the summary page, which I didn't do yet in ANY form. UGH! Just realized I hadn't mentioned the South Gate lunch yesterday, pleasant enough with Don and Madelyn and Fred, the latter even saying he wished someone would come with him for a weekend in Atlantic City! Maybe it was ALSO for ME? Print out updated dream and journal pages by 8:37PM, ready for dinner and "Temple Grandin" on HBO at 9PM. But when I go to the TV at 8:40, I find that "Temple Grandin" started at 8PM, so I'm back to computer to Netflix and find "Iris" playing free for 90 minutes, and I'm impressed by the acting of Judi Dench and Jim Broadbent. Then at 10:25PM heat dinner, good chicken with raspberry topping, and even palatable rutabaga, and am SO impressed with "Temple Grandin" that I request "The Way I See It," early Sunday morning, hoping to be FIRST of those who watch the HBO movie and want to know more about her. Bed at 12:50AM, radiators both on.
SUNDAY, 2/7/10: Wake early and pee three times by 7:10AM, by which time I've 1) written a note to Chin that I want a stress test because I have LEG pain, which is just as worrisome as CHEST pain, 2) recorded a CRAMP in the back of my left upper thigh, the SAME PLACE I had the pain on Friday morning, 3) noted two dreams, 4) noted to add to Sharon on Friday that a) I'm STILL irritable, but my "reactions are under control," b) IF I stayed for "analysis," I warn her that I DO try to PLEASE people, as I did with i) the hypnotist, dutifully calling out "Hooray for the Yankees" and ii) the past-life therapist, coming up with a number of (rather improbable) past lives to "explain" my fear of flying. Pee again and check that the Sunday Times isn't here by 8:10AM, so I start typing this, and hear it plunk at my door about 8:25AM, and finish this by 8:35AM, with plans for BOTH more progress on "website processes" sheet AND the start of travel-shelf reorganization. Look at Times except for "Week in Review," which I read while having breakfast. Distribute pills for the next two weeks, water plants, and fill out the "website processes" page with notes from Friday. Then catch up with this by 11AM, NOT about to call Marj, and think NOW I'll take out the alphabetic folder from the bottom shelf to the right of my desk and see what can be thrown away and how my website materials could be distributed into it. FEELS GREAT TO BE DOING SUCH ACCOMPLISHING STUFF! Throw away lots of stuff from the box which turns out NOT to contain an alphabetic folder, only folders divided into five sections that I discard most of and keep only I. Ancient History of 1) Zolnerzak's computer-indexing draft of 1979, 2) TRS landmarks 1982-1992, 3) Zen and the Art of the Internet 1992, and 4) "IBM" computer landmarks 1992-1993; II. Permanent Keep of 1) Windows 1992, 2) Commo 1992-1995, 3) Cindex 1993-1994, 4) MAS (goodies to keep) 1993-1994, 5) DOS (endless directories of programs and files) 1993-1995, 6) Life, 7) Fractool, and 8) Fractint; III. Current of 1) Free Cell 6/29/98-10/19/03, and 2) Spider 4/4/04-Current; IV. Website. Have lunch at 3 while watching "National Treasure: Book of Secrets," then go to the gym, then return to TV-sit ALL DAY for "Buckaroo Banzai in the Eighth Dimension," "Eight and a Half," and "Cube," which I may have seen before but not recorded. That puts me to bed about 12:20AM.
MONDAY, 2/8/10: Have breakfast while watching the first part of "The Donner Party," and get out at 10AM to HIP for Chin to tell me that neither cardio test is BACK yet; I should call him on Friday. Stop at Grand Opticians to get my eyes verified for the DMV driver's license renewal for eight years, sending them $80.50, and then catch up with these notes by 11:40AM, ready to return to sorting website information, having taken about an hour trying to print out the Site Map on one page, but getting only bit-maps until "Print Screen" furnishes me with three sets of tiny print of the page. WHY?? Tris still hasn't called me back from my Saturday night message about more corrections to the website. Watch "Burden of Dreams" and "Babe: Pig in the City" on HBO while fielding calls from Marj, Rita, and Tris. Fill website files with 1) Empty files, 2) Pages through the ages, 3) "Originals" to website, 4) Detailed contents of files, 5) 30 Sheets to sort, and 6) 104 Cards to handle. And then retreat to Spider 7:30-8:55 for a new high of 50.98331 at 396 up after 6 wins. Down for the mail and watch "Departures," very effective, while having dinner.
TUESDAY, 2/9/10: Have an early breakfast, dig out my little sack of earphones from my trip bag to take to the gym just after 10AM, hoping that "Departures" departs with the 10AM mail pickup. Find that the white earphones work in the stairmaster variant, but the most interesting channel is NY1, which passes the half hour while I gradually lower the slope and intensity just so I can make it through my demanded half hour of walking. Feel energized enough when I get back to sort through the 104 cards to handle to, with a slight fudge, reduce them to 52 cards to handle; but don't have the same luck with the sheets, only reducing 30 to 22 by the time I'm totally "worked out" by 4:45PM. Treat myself to Taipei from 4:45-6:10, then Spider 6:15-9:50, struggling to a new high of 50.98486 at 397 up after 4 wins. Watch junk TV while eating dinner and get to bed early.
WEDNESDAY, 2/10/10: Wake to an absolutely glorious snowfall which closes the schools and causes Sharon to call, as expected, at 12:15PM to cancel this afternoon's session. Take time out for a quick Spider 10:30-11:10 to a new high of 50.989632 at 399 up after 3 wins, resisting the impulse to continue to break 400, fearing it might take forever, or not even happen. Back to distributing cards and sheets, coming up with many more folders, and reduce 52 cards to 7 and 22 sheets to 19. Tris finally calls for corrections at 4:20PM and we go through a great session---I minimize the website screen and play Taipei during his lulls in adding corrections---and we finish at 5:30 when he says he has to stop to make dinner, which is just when I've finished the bulk of the corrections, condensing the remaining to just three added to the bottom of the corrections list. Feel great. Watch the Clooney "Solaris," this time from the beginning so that it actually makes a bit of sense, and follow with a relatively non-sexy Colin Farrell in "The New World" with a simpy set of indians in old Virginny. The snow stops earlier than expected, so that we really only get about five inches rather than the (I) hoped-for eighteen or so. I move my card of dreams to next week for Sharon, not forgetting that I haven't transcribed them yet. Feel great to make so much progress on website papers.
THURSDAY, 2/11/10: Don't feel like working today, so I go back to the Spider I started yesterday 7:20-7:55PM and stopped to watch "The New World" "live." Back 9:30-11:50 and finally break the Spider 400 mark to a high of 50.99652 at 402 up after 6 wins. Feel really triumphant, since the next play, which I resist now, will probably break out to 50%! Watch "Up," not bad, but I quibble about adding cutesy creatures and an unlikely villain. Play Solitaire, which I haven't started recording yet, though I'm really getting into it, until deciding I just MUST get to the gym for the regular session, the last one four days ago, and go at 2:41PM to feel SURPRISINGLY energized: could it actually be WORKING? Back at 3:15 for lunch, play Taipei 4:50-6:10, then RECORD Solitaire to 8:30, and have dinner while watching junk TV, then back to Spider 9:30-11:45 after losing many, but finally end with a new high of 50.99836 at 403 up after 3 wins. Shut off the bedroom radiator since the apartment is just TOO hot.
FRIDAY, 2/12/10: Order HH meals after an early breakfast, play Solitaire, read some of the Stewart book since I should finish it soon, and find that a new book is waiting for me at the library. Play Spider 12:15-12:45 to break the magical 51% with a high of 51.00069 at 404 up after 2 wins, then have an early lunch before the census test. Decide to rather optimistically start a new "Sharon-type" section for the census, for which I hope to devote many profitable hours.
CENSUS - 1 2/12/10
On 2/3/10 Marj tells me about a flyer in her lobby asking people to call 1-866-861-2010 for an appointment to take the test to be a census enumerator. I vaguely recall the job being interesting back in 1970, earning me not only money but unemployment insurance for a good length of time. I phoned and was told to phone 347-360-3940 because I was in zip code 11201, but when I call them at 12:47PM, I'm told to phone 718-360-5150. He tells me about their two testing sites at 200 Gold Street, at Duffield, and 111 Livingston, the BEOC building, between Adams and Court, and when I chose the latter he schedules me for a test that I mark down at Saturday, the 12th, at 2PM: arrive at 1:30 with two pencils, a pen, my social security card, a photo ID, and proof of my Army experience with a DD-214 if I want extra credit toward being hired. I have to call them the next day to clarify that the appointment is for FRIDAY the 12th. Find my social security card in my scrapbook, but the only relevant document seems to be my promotion from second lieutenant to first lieutenant in 1960. Mark both locations on a Brooklyn Heights map and the Livingston location does seem to be the closest: straight down Cadman Plaza to Court to Livingston. Think about how I'll ace the test, make maybe $1000 a week for 20 or so weeks, and pay for some travel. Snow has cleared from the sidewalks on Thursday, even more on Friday, so only the corners are slushy when I leave for 111 Livingston at 1:25PM Friday, depositing the two Citi Bank credit-card-payment checks, and see 110 Livingston on the south side of the street, but only the numerals 111 on the building on the north side whose facade-name is being renovated. In to ask the placid Black behind the desk where the census is, and his Hispanic standing neighbor has to repeat "second floor" before I understand him. Up to find all doors locked. Down to find that the school, and thus the census, is closed today because of the snow! I charitably think that I probably did NOT give my phone number when I made my test appointment, so they couldn't have called me to tell me it was cancelled. Back by way of the library to pick up my book and phone them at 2PM. "Would I still like to take the test today?" "Yes." "Well, there's a 2PM at 111 Livingston." "That's just where I was." "Oh. How about 280 Cadman Plaza at 4PM, show up at 3:30?" "Can't locate that; which side of Cadman Plaza is it on?" "It's the Business Library." "OH, I was just THERE!" Play Solitaire to pass the time and get out at 3:25PM to find four or five people already in the library auditorium filling out their application forms. Brian Patchett is kind of cute in a spiky-haired way, and I offer him a chair when he checks my application form so he doesn't have to kneel, which he confesses messes up his back, for which he suffers later. Finish my form at 3:49 and watch more people come in: ten of us take the test from 4:36-5:06. He said that most would finish, but I found it HARD and noted questions 20 and 21 to return to when I had time at the end, and BARELY had time to correct my answer to question 20, a problem because my eraser didn't work and I had to borrow his. Two Black women who came in at 4:30, who had gotten off at Boro Hall and gotten lost, were told to phone and reschedule. He said we could wait for our grades, a Black woman fusses ENDLESSLY, and only two or three of us did, and he called "Bob" first and showed me my score of 26, for 97%, and said of course he couldn't tell me the correct answers to the two I got wrong. He handed me a sheet which I JUST read, which discouragingly startes that "Census field positions, in general, will last 1-3 weeks." Seems strange to have a few days of paid training for so little product. "Smaller field operations begin in March, but the greatest number of jobs will be available in late April." Debate calling Marj, but don't want to get involved in a long conversation. There go my fantasies of large government paychecks.
Continuation of FRIDAY, 2/12/10: Chin left word at 1:50PM that my Holter results were held up because something was wrong with the computer that processed them. I should check again next week. I went though lots of MC DREAM files to try to find what happened to CURRDRMS, and also added a couple of items to my corrections list. Phone Marj at 5:35 but her phone went off the hook, she tells me when we talk on Saturday, at 5:26PM. Play Solitaire until 5:55 when I heat up a can of soup for a semi-dinner before the concert at Alice Tully at 7:30. Leave at 6:25 and get there just at 7PM, the new box office at the extreme north end of the building, and she first goes to the S-slot when I say "Zolnerzak" and I shout in "Z." She asks how I pronounce it and gives me the ticket. In past a full cafe seating many people eating and people-watching, wide entrance doors, but the auditorium isn't open yet. Look at the reviews of the Riverside Symphony, which Ken pooh-poohed as terribly mediocre compared with all the top-class symphony orchestras HE attends, and get in for my first look at the new Alice Tully Hall. My first impression is of being inside a sleek Danish-Modern cabinet with its light-caramel-colored walls and gentle curves, though I idly wonder how they're going to keep some of the sloping sides and inaccessible flat spots free from dust. Then the side boxes strike me as strange since they seem to slant UPWARD, taking the stage view away from the second seats from the rail. My seat is dead center in the second row of the four-row balcony, perfect for the seemingly pin-point directionality of the sound from the stage, sadly including the LOUD scrapes of chair legs when they're shifted against the wooden stage floor. None of the pieces, including the Mozart #36, is really that great, and Biggs got an inordinate amount of applause for his inconsequential world premier. Decide to indulge in a crust-perfect Fascati pepperoni slice for $3.25 for my second semi-dinner of the evening. Back home just after 10PM to watch the last two hours of the Vancouver Winter Olympics Opening Program, moderately entertaining, and record the last fifteen minutes before going to bed at 12:25AM.
SATURDAY, 2/13/10: Read the Times with breakfast, watch the last fifteen minutes of the Olympics Opening, and struggle through the puzzles by 1:30PM. Don't feel like working on the website, so I determine to finish the book on the walk through Afghanistan, stopping, when my eyes start closing, to play Spider 4:20-5:15 to a 51%-strengthening high of 51.00787 at 407 up after 4 wins. Skimmed through the taped start of the Olympics Opening, much concentration on the Georgian luger who died that morning. Then had dinner during the two-hour premier of the BBC's "Survivor," somewhat gripping, but quickly becoming rather formulaic. But I set it up to watch next week to see how it continues for a bit. Didn't feel like going to bed at 10PM so I sat and finished Rory Stewart's "The Places in Between," more or less a study of Islam-psychotic primitives in central rural unliveable Afghanistan. I trip I would NOT want to emulate. Finish just before midnight and get to bed feeling slightly guilty about not having been to the gym today, according to my "new" every-two-day regimen.
SUNDAY, 2/14/10: Wake at 6:35AM with an EXTRAORDINARY nightmare, which I record until almost 7:30AM, when thankfully the Times has already arrived, then back to bed for another dream at 9:33AM, which takes me almost to 10AM, when I have breakfast with the Times and finish it about 11AM. Then to transcribing dreams and journal notes until 1:25PM---lots of stuff to catch up with! Now decide to bite the bullet and GET to the gym for my regular exercises. It seems much harder this time, but at least I get through it, and the steamroom isn't sending out its alarm this time. Back to pick up yesterday's mail at 3:20, which I address after having a can of soup for lunch. Start by sorting through frequent-flyer plans with Lufthansa, Continental, and United, all of which appear to be members of the Star Alliance, so I have no idea which numbers MIR wants for my miles on the itinerary that now has window seats. Then I get to the Schwab Visa bill, deciding to sort out the piles for the old cancelled Choice Visa and the cancelled Citi Bank cash-back which I also cancelled. Put my AA Visa with that file, keeping it for American Airlines mileage safety. Get that all out of the way (and check that I have enough to pay the Visa bill this month, but no more) by 5:35PM, shit a bit, and catch up with this by 5:45, having solved the problem of what to do before leaving for the Beard at 6:40 tonight: Taipei from 5:45-6:30! Meal was good and better for giving a $25 discount for Spice Market!
MONDAY, 2/15/10: All day watching television: three hours of "Spartacus" from 2010, "Secret of the Grain," and four hours of the Olympics. Record playing Spider from 10:45-12:15, I guess in the morning, to a high of 51.01242 at 409 up after 4 wins. Maybe today I went to Spartacus's to find him in back with extreme back pain.
TUESDAY, 2/16/10: Watch "Le Schpountz" and four more hours of the Olympics. Spider recorded from 4:35-5:40 to new high of 51.01455 at 410 up after 4 wins.
WEDNESDAY, 2/17/10: Spartacus calls to say his back hurts so much that he won't be going to the Wintergarden Chinese Dance Festival. I go anyway, getting a good seat by luck, but the program isn't really that good, with odd Chinese "acts" like a male quartet and a soprano solo. Valery Gergiev is associated with the awful Russian-ballet-plus-Peking-Opera mashup of questionable entertainment. I get a Chase-charge for a rather tasteless ice at Ciao Bello for $4.75, and thought that I might have stopped for a slice at Fascati's today, but check on my calendar and it was last Friday! Memory really going! Go to Sharon and watch "The Pink Panther" with a rather effete Steve Martin, and I sort of don't "get it" until I watch the commentary by the director on Thursday. Continue to push my luck with Spider from 9:20-9:45, stopping until 2:50-4:10 to get the very highest: 51.02141 at 413 up after 4 wins.
SHARON B. 126 2/17/10
Get money from the bank and enter the office at 4:46PM, so she calls me right in. Tell her about the nightmare from earlier in the week, and we talk a lot about what it feels like, again, to not be in control. I told her about the fantasied levels of "waking up from the nightmare" from 1) the nightmare, 2) the aging life, 3) the afterlife of one's choice. Said that I'd printed out over a page of the dream, but figured it would be best to SAY it, adding or taking out details AS OF NOW, and she said this was by far the best way to deal with dreams, and that the "quiet moment" after everything is said is the perfect time for DEEPLY unconscious matters to come up. She'd thought a lot about what we could do next, somehow getting the idea that at one point I'd suggested a 25-minute session, which I said I couldn't remember even thinking of, but she didn't like the idea of going to every other week, or going more frequently than once a week, but she thought of continuing the one-a-week and going more deeply into "unstructured time," as if she thought I STRUCTURED what I wanted to say before each session and ran out of THAT at the 25-minute mark, after which I was "on my own" for whatever might come up. Mentioned the "random thought" last week of "not having anyone to tell me what to do," which on the ONE hand meant total freedom to do anything I wanted, but on the OTHER hand seemed to mean that no one CARED enough about me to want to tell me what to do. Part of the feeling of loneliness, and of having time in which NOTHING was pressing to do. Told her I'd gotten into a valuable restructuring of the website materials, and I'd past the point where I thought the whole thing was worthless and maybe not worth doing: bringing up the CHOICES I'd made: the first being "to absorb entertainment," but now that my senses were "running low," I was absorbing LESS entertainment, but that STILL didn't make me think I should have opted for a family and children to grow THROUGH. Nor should I have NOT opted to start the website, since I still have great hopes for my future THROUGH the website when it's "more nearly finished." I mentioned that I kept phoning people, saying, sort of in jest, "You never CALL me," but SAYING that meaningfully at one level. I DID enjoy going to the dance concert this afternoon at the WTC Wintergarden, even though Spartacus decided not to go---as I enjoyed, for what it was worth, the Beard Thursday without Ken, who'd just had an emergency tooth extraction. And she was pleased to hear, as I was to report, that some evenings I just lay in bed PLEASED with what the day, and my life, had been to this point. DID still play lots of games, but that was OK. Still haven't gotten to reorganizing the apartment shelves, but that day is also getting closer. Talked right up to the closing minute and said we'd talk more next week.
THURSDAY, 2/18/10: Damn! Forgot to record that I went to the gym yesterday. Doing NOTHING these days and NOT keeping up with this journal has really produced trashy notes and recollections. To continue with people "avoiding" me, as Spartacus did with the WTC dance yesterday, Ken calls to say his HIP is so sore he just can't make it to the D'Artagnan this evening. I watch "The Man Who Skied Down Everest" for the second time, remembering nothing from the first time. Played Spider starting at 5:50 to pass the time and did DISASTROUSLY, leaving it on-screen at a terrible low. Sat at the D'Artagnan table with six Musqueteers, from Toulouse, who were here to induct two soccer players, a number of writers, chef Eric Ripert (still sexy after all these years), and Stanley Tucci (for playing Julia Child's husband in a film?) into their order. So they mainly spoke French among themselves and their one female companion, while I had to settle for a very gabby female former member on my left and a relatively taciturn woman on my right. Left after the induction to get to the Gansvoort Hotel, no problem getting to the penthouse, where they were serving endless glasses of awful "black" red wine from the south, of which the jarringness of Cahors seemed quite representative. Looked at the almost-nothing view, into the snow, and left after about a half hour.