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2010 3 of 7

SHARON B. 134 4/14/10

Get called in as I enter, and at the start I remark about the screaming girls I'd passed on the way here: I can't recall EVER screaming as a child. Maybe my "current problems" are partly caused because I DIDN'T? But Sharon agreed that kids hardly screamed when SHE was growing up, parents seem much more, sadly, permissive of ANY behavior now. Kids just aren't socialized, monopolizing areas with screaming and carrying on where adults had formerly been in total control. My grandmother would have been "annoyed" if I'd misbehaved in her presence, and I knew better than to do it: it was simply a GIVEN, though I suppose I maybe had been trained into such behavior before I could retain memory of it. We dwelt on that for a fairly long time. Then I'm full of current news: the process and "clear" results of my cardiac catheterization, my concentration on Spider with only the two tasks of reorganization and the website to occupy me, good plays seen and movies rented, details from the few dreams, with Sharon asking about my grandparents. I had little contact with my grandfather, and my grandmother was this rather distant figure who simply commanded obedience and respect. Then I touched on Marj, and Mildred, and my upcoming plans for Martha's Vineyard, and my concern about the political unrest in Kyrgyzstan. I kept talking, commenting that I was rushing from topic to topic, which she again said she'd stop if she felt it were necessary. The time just flew past, mainly with current activities and concerns, with seemingly very little psychological insight or value. Felt I should record this on Wednesday, but it finally got done only by 8:45AM on Saturday.

Continuation of 4/14/10: "666" is wordless and I only read later that these four convicts are sentenced to death, and these are their final fantasies! So much from getting it from the play itself. Minetta Lane has no cancellations, so I return to the Heights and decide to dine at Bread and Butter, having their burger and fries which is pretty good and VERY filling.

THURSDAY, 4/15/10: Channel surf while having breakfast and get hooked into watching the rather unsatisfactory "Time Machine" from 1960, followed by the truly awful beginning of "War of the Planets" which I actually turn off because it's so bad. Play Spider 2-2:25 to pass the time before meeting Spartacus for the movie at MoMA, picking up the tickets and going to the park on 53rd just east of Fifth to get a hamburger from Hamburg Heaven, with a lemonade, not great but not bad. Then to "World on a Wire" from 1973 by Fassbinder, over three hours long and rather complicated, with an attractive lead who's since died in 2002. Back to Spider 8:40-10:20 to 50.98802 at 416 up after 7 wins. Order HH meals before going to bed.

FRIDAY, 4/16/10: Go through old receipts and entertain myself as described in REORGCHR. Have lunch with Charles at SHO Shaun Hergatt, place elegant but practically empty, almost everyone's jackets over the backs of their chairs. Decent food for $20: my good pea soup and his smoked chicken to start, then the juicy but uninteresting lamb, and two ornate but not greatly tasty desserts, both having no wine, but Charles adding a $5 coffee, breaking his bank so he can't pay for his past-due tickets. He wants to see the Beekman Tower, so we get lost and wander to the riverfront to locate it, cold in the cloudy afternoon, and back for Paul McLean to call: he can't walk since his stroke! Spider 5:30-9:45, shitty to 50.98957 at 415 up after 1 win when I just STOP. Then watch "The Box" from Netflix, thankfully with no commentary. Also finally dragged myself to the gym today after last going on 4/10 before my catheterization. To protect my vivid scar-slit, I do only the leg and stomach exercises and the final 25-pound arm-lift, but at least I've showered!

SATURDAY, 4/17/10: 8:45AM: Woke at 8:02AM with a vivid dream which I recorded, and then wrote up Wednesday's session with Sharon. Then outlined this morning before stopping to shit while scanning the Times. Down at 11:20 to get my cell phone, two laptops, and my camera secret-marked against theft by a cute cop at the reception for the Appreciation Award to Joan Millman, who says she'll come up to see her apartment when the festivities are over after 2PM, but of course she doesn't show up. Piri calls to say we're only three for tomorrow, so the Games Group is cancelled. Winnow old receipts as described in REORGCHR. Spider 3:10-6:35 to 50.98847 at 417 up after 3 wins. Think that I'm starting "Riverworld" on Syfy but it turns out to be a junky "Open Graves" about a stupid board game where losers die. Then watch "The House by the River," not very good by Fritz Lang from 10-11:30.

SUNDAY, 4/18/10: Note dreams at 3:45AM and 7:30AM. Spider 9:25-10:35AM after the Times. Watch "Shrek 3." Decide I can take Spartacus's walking tour because the Games Group is cancelled. Interesting group, starting late because I'm handed Lana's cell phone to talk late arrivers into parking spaces and walking to join us on Henry, then Orange, then Hicks. He goofs on the site of the "Prizzi's Honor" outdoor dinner, and he actually checks and calls me tomorrow to say I was right! About six people get coffee and come up to see my apartment, and they sit and chat until about 5:30, which astounds me. Get to St. Ann's for the organ recital, sort of interesting because I sit on a chair FACING the organ, while the rest of the congregation gets to look at ME. Then a HUGE buffet of sandwiches, veggies and dips, fruit, cakes, Elsie's great brownies which I pocket four of at the end, having had "only" three there, and cranberry Schweppes, avoiding the free wine. Shouldn't have bothered to eat BEFOREHAND. Back to Spider 9:25-11:35, FINALLY getting above 51% at 51.00184 at 423 up after 6 wins. Watch Spartacus's "Precious" Netflix. Bed exhausted at 1AM.

MONDAY, 4/19/10: Pee at 3AM and note dream at 5:35AM. Watch the even more interesting commentaries on "Precious" most of the morning. Somehow watch the four-hour "Riverworld" with "all my activities" today. Play Spider 1:45-3:05 to 51.00861 at 426 up after 5 wins, and then THINK to go to the gym, but lassitude takes over and I play Taipei 3:05-4 and Solitaire 4-4:55PM. Then look at the restaurant list and phone Shanghai Pavilion to find they're open at 5PM, so I take off to them, getting there about 6:15PM to look at Honey Shank on the menu, find that it's pork, and get the sweet ham-slice dish flanked by cold litchis and bedded on what I take to be chestnuts from the texture and taste, but the shape of little balls doesn't square with chestnuts and the waiter says they're lotus! Interesting filling meal which I finish in enough time to get a free transfer on the crosstown 79th Street bus, but of course have to pay a new fare on the subway home. Bed late again.

TUESDAY, 4/20/10: Go through 19) Tibet/China for a long time, many interesting books and even a DVD that I'd forgotten about. Decide I have to separate Tibet from China and Hong Kong as described in REORGCHR. Then drag myself to the gym after four days, having no problem with my wrist scar with all the exercises done for the first time since my catheterization. Play Spider 5:40-6:10 to pass the time before leaving for Fred's, waiting TWENTY MINUTES for a jammed C-train at Jay Street, getting to his place at 6:50, twenty minutes late, the house-sitting talk practically over. Drink cranberry juice with ice, and Fred then takes some since he's not drinking since he passed out over the weekend, maybe breaking his nose, and he hasn't touched liquor since. So we agree on that! He has huge pots of meatballs and chicken thighs with a large salad and a wonderful homemade cake for dessert. Gregory is very attentive and extremely pleasant and attractive. I leave about 9PM, subway back home, and end with Spider 9:45-10:50 to 51.02185 at 432 up after SIX wins, great. Probably end the evening with unrecorded times on Taipei or Solitaire.

WEDNESDAY, 4/21/10: Note a dream at 6:15AM. A day in front of the TV: I'd taped "Sita Sings the Blues," since Ken recommended it so highly, and I didn't care for Sita, wimpily subjecting herself to whatever the gods threw at her, and I didn't care for the Blues, which I was actually tempted to speed through. Liked the cartoonization of the animator's REAL-LIFE marriage and separation and divorce much better, though there were some clever gimmicks in the Sita story, and one bit of new information: Hanuman was an incarnation of Shiva! Then watch an hour of "Lost" and three hours of "The Pacific," more interesting when they're not actually battling it out in the night. Then to Sharon, which I delay recording until Saturday, and back to leave at 7:05PM for "The Creditors," by Strindberg, which I've never seen, and which we both didn't like for its staginess and dated marital conflicts, but which, Spartacus said, the critics loved. Sure. It's over at 9:05PM and I get home (with a free bus transfer thanks to Spartacus's suggestion) for Spider 9:25-11:40, good but long, to 51.02832 to 435 up after EIGHT wins, fantastic, then probably more Taipei and Solitaire, unrecorded times.

SHARON B. 135 4/21/10

Again there at the dot of 4:45PM and she calls me in to the room directly. I say it's COLD out there, and I didn't wear a jacket, and at the end it's even raining! Report that I'm absolutely not hassling anything, feel good about going to plays with Spartacus and making meal appointments with Carolyn and Mildred, and fascinated with what I've been finding in going through my folders of old trips. Had taken a printed page of dreams, but when I read it, my main interest was in DESCRIBING the scene, rather than looking into any EMOTIONS evoked by the scene. I suggested that when I wasn't anxious or conflicted, I tended not to have very interesting dreams, and she did admit that they're often a result of attempts to resolve conflict. I said, struggling for words, that I didn't really FEEL EXACTLY LIKE MYSELF: I wasn't hassling anything, which I'm not used to doing, so I feel a little bit like another person. She again emphasizes the idea that I WORKED to come to this place, and so I should enjoy it because I DESERVE this tranquility, but I say that I'm so ACCUSTOMED to feeling anxious that I hardly know how to treat NOT feeling anxious. Kept talking about the support I've been getting from friends, how Mildred likes to talk to me on the phone, how Spartacus is supportive of relieving my "cabin fever," and how, even though I'm playing HOURS of Spider, it's all JUST OK! Partly my satisfaction with a third trip this year, certainly due to my having FINISHED my taxes and GOTTEN the cash in my accounts I need to pay my bills, and ALSO thanks to the GREAT news that my arteries aren't clogged. I've had a LOT of things happening, she suggests, and it's taking an effort for me to ASSIMILATE all of it. I keep on, sort of trying to make myself feel uncomfortable in not feeling myself, and end at the dot of 5:30, refusing an umbrella and a "not very masculine" sweater, rushing home getting wet in the rain. This written ONLY on Saturday, 4/24, at 10:30PM.

THURSDAY, 4/22/10: Record a dream at 8:10AM and 10AM, so I must have gone to bed VERY late. Watch two hours of "Spartacus," finally interested in the actual STORY and able to overlook the blood-and-gore gladiatorial sensationalistics. Determined to get back to my 440 up record, I play Spider 11:55AM-2:20PM to 437 up, getting there. Record Solitaire, which is becoming predictably boring, from 2:30-3:25PM. Probably lunch and mail intervene before getting back to Spider 5:25-9:20PM, ending at 439 up at 51.03601, nowhere near the 51.05465 at 440 up from 4/6/10. A total of 6:20 for Spider today! Bed at 1:45AM after who-knows-what. Also forgot to record yesterday that I started into the LAST shelf-overflowing cardboard box for 20) Caves, separating Spain and France, just piling stacks on the shelf.

FRIDAY, 4/23/10: Pee at 7:42AM and note dream. Shit, bring in the Times, and get up at 8:52AM. 1:20PM: The height of unproductivity: played Spider 6:20 yesterday and 2:55 (9:15-10:05AM and 11:10-1:15PM) today (so far---not willing to bet on ANYTHING). Finally get it back to tie with the high of 440 up, but nowhere near the average of 51.05+, only 51.03+. Solitaire is becoming quite boring, but I still play it. Taipei is still unrecorded (save for time) fun. Hit something on my desktop this morning and it totally rearranged the icons, so I have to search for new places for everything and can't figure out how to get the thing back to where it was. DAMN! Groceries are down to one slice of bread and no more apple juice, for which I have to find a non-sweet replacement to keep my diabetes threat low. Seemingly pathologically opposed to recording Sharon's session until much time has passed, though I've settled into the routine of ordering HH meals well before the Friday deadline. Updated my Restaurant List yesterday, too, and think a good way to spend the spring would be to walk to some of these places for lunch in Williamsburg, just to get OUT and exercise my LEGS. The trip to Martha's Vineyard is progressing nicely, since Ken insisted I prove the validity of my assumption that the Isensteins ARE putting us up in their house for our week there in July. Now to update the REORGCHR file. Do that until 2:10, phoning Mildred, Carolyn, and Spartacus about walking to restaurants on my new list: Mildred will call back, Carolyn only got a message, and Spartacus says he's busy, and then leaving next Friday for a small trip. At 2:15PM decide to go to the gym and have lunch afterward at La Pizzetta! Then DON'T go to the gym, and La Pizzetta has changed to Casa Tua, and the pizza is NOT my style: very thin crust with a bit of tomato and mozzarella, but then fresh, uncooked arugula atop it, with slimy uncooked and fatty-edged prosciutto, flaked over with parmesan chips. I eat half of it and bring the other half home with me in an awkward box under my arm. Love the junk-mail pail in the lobby, getting most of my OAT and GCT and Yale travel brochures unread. Watch "Food, Inc." and two more hours of "Spartacus," as well as playing Spider 6-8:50PM to 51.03906 at 441 up after 3 wins. Again late to bed at 12:30AM.

SATURDAY, 4/24/10: Pee at 4:25AM and feel erotic, so I turn on TV at 7:15AM to jerk off and am appalled to see the FLESH TONES have turned GREEN! Try rebooting the cable box, but of course it's a problem with the TV screen, which I fear has BROKEN! Sit glumly, trying DVDs and tapes and still getting the discoloration, until in desperation I turn the TV off and turn it back on---and it's OK! WHEW. Got the Times when it dropped about 8:05AM, and then continued to jerk off until about 8:45. Breakfast and Times and puzzles until just after 1PM, and phone Carolyn again to suggest lunch and she's already on Atlantic Avenue looking for lunch, so I say I'm leaving now to meet her at Mile End on Hoyt just off Atlantic. Since there's an hour's wait to sit inside, we decide to order takeout, which takes about a half-hour on its own, but the brisket sandwich is quite yummy, and her Mishmosh of eggs and salami and potatoes is a mishmosh, but good, in her cardboard box. We eat in the shade on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall, Carolyn disappointed that they've removed the tables they'd had set up in Cadman Plaza Park. I stop by the More Than Rugalah shop for a brownie for $2, and she gets a sugarless muffin for $2 after she takes ages shopping for herb sprigs in small black pots. She pees in the library, then we stop at Spartacus's for water and a plate for her muffin as we sit in the shade on the third-floor walkway between the two Cadman Towers. I'd feared she'd want to sit at my place until her 5PM meeting somewhere, but she has two or three OTHER errands to run and leaves about 3PM. Ken calls with our flight information on Monday, 7/19, and Monday, 7/26, to and from Martha's Vineyard, direct, for $478. The third trip of this year is SETTLED! I'm tired, so I finish Adrian: A Better Angel. More of the day passes and I type this at 10:40PM: Just finally typed Sharon's session from Wednesday, having spent ten minutes on the chilly balcony listening to VERY distant fireworks exploding, wishing I could at least see where they're coming from, but it could even be to the south and the sound is just reflected off the buildings to the north of me. Just finished a PHENOMENAL Spider session, having played hours each day all last week, culminating with 6:20 on Thursday, 5:45 on Friday, and 4:05 today, the last session from 7:05-10:10, with an incredible streak of EIGHT wins, bringing my total to a completely new high of 51.06403 at 452 up! I'm recording Al Pacino in his Kevorkian HBO film, which ends at 11:15PM, and I don't want to watch it in the middle, so I'm trying to delay dinner until it's over and I can watch the last unwatched "Spartacus" from Spartacus's DVD while having dinner. Now at 10:45PM determined to go back and fill in the previous week! Finish up to Monday by 11:15, ready for dinner and TV. Watch the "Spartacus" and do other stuff and get to bed at 1:15AM.

SUNDAY, 4/25/10: Pee at 6:40AM and note dream. Bring in the Times at 8AM and back to bed and up at 9:30AM. Finish the Times after breakfast, water plants, make notes of when Marj proofread and when I checked her questions, and then about 11:30AM start in on transcribing dreams and journal entries, which becomes VERY complicated, and I even have to reprint a page when I'd confused notes and transcribed them on the wrong days. WHAT A PAIN! Finally finish, printing all pages, by 1PM, ready to leave for MAN! Then Rita calls and asks me to say hello to Steve from her. Get there just after 2PM and tell Steve hello, and he in turn says he wants to organize a friend coming to his place to cook an Indian meal for four of us, and I say that sounds fine. Drink Mist, have a lot of strawberries and melon and cantaloupe, stare at the new hunky guy, get talked to by George, Dennis (who tells me he "mercy fucked" Robert, who then became his lover; he sympathizes with me about my not having liquor and dropping out of the Beard dinners), and someone who tried to do me at Prime Timers. Have a good roast beef wrap, and then final cookies while watching the "art of Japanese rope bondage." Leave about 4PM and home to watch "You Don't Know Jack," about Dr. Kevorkian, then an hour's Discovery on the Universe, then the first hour and a half of Stephen Hawking's Universe, getting to bed at 10:45PM, tired, SORE in lower middle back, and on right.

MONDAY, 4/26/10: 12:45AM: Get chill, cover with heavy blanket, pee, and try, but fail, to shit. Read New Yorker to 1:10AM. Pee at 5:23, at which time I note a dream, and pee again at 5:50. NOW my left pointer-fingertip hurts like hell! Up at 7:35 with another dream; feel "not like me." Stay up for a few minutes, but get back to bed 8:01-9:26AM. Watch the end of Stephen Hawking's Universe with breakfast, having only a half hour left to watch. Read some of my library book, but my eyes start closing, so I'm back to Spider 3-7:15PM, for the MOST INCREDIBLE SESSION EVER: getting the MOST WINS, going from 14 to 16, ending at 51.09344 at 465 (an increase of THIRTEEN!) up, almost 51.1%. Have dinner while reading magazines, then get to the 28-page TRINIDD notes from Marj at 9:35-11:35PM, then spend about half an hour isolating and distributing copies of BUDAADD to complete BUDASEND, and write the check for Marj and seal her envelope for delivery tomorrow, getting to bed at about 12:20AM.

TUESDAY, 4/27/10: Again awake early with a chill and pull up the heavy blanket; spring hasn't really arrived yet, and this evening at 11:50PM the temperature is only 41 as I type this. Up and have the last HH breakfast and work on Marj's 26-page BUDASEND notes from 9:30-11AM, when I phone her and go through TRINIDD until 11:45AM, when we finish. Oh, and I'd mailed her envelope about 9AM. I wash my face and get out to Dr. Sai for my noon appointment at 12:02PM. See MEDICAL. Out at 2:04PM, hungry, and head for Five Guys when I figure I should see what Grand Canyon's burger is like, since I haven't been there for ages. Get, in fact, the Grand Canyon Burger for $7.95, with a chocolate egg cream, both pretty good, feeling good to be eating outside. But the best part are my neighbors in lunching: 1) a pair of young women from Frankfurt, who said that the airport has been open and operating normally since 4/20, they're staying with a friend who's been here five months working for the UN, they're impressed with my next two grand travel itineraries, and they're next going (for some reason) to Hewes Street on the M train. They take off and their table is taken by an older couple from Nantes, ALSO for their first time in NYC, ALSO bewildered by the amount there is to do, and I suggest they look at the Promenade just down the street. My French is pretty bad, but they continue rather than trying their rudimentary English. I pee and pay my bill inside, and when I come out they're almost finished, so I say I can escort them to the Promenade, and then can take then to see the Eagle Warehouse, which he'd pointed to in his guidebook, after jotting down the Dallas BBQ location for baby back ribs on West 42nd Street, since the guidebook has no restaurant recommendations. He takes a video from the Promenade, says they'd already visited the Statue of Liberty (which is still closed to the crown) and Ellis Island, and appreciates the vistas of Manhattan AND the old, colorful buildings of Brooklyn Heights. We walk down toward the River Cafe, and he takes a picture of the Eagle Warehouse, and we continue up Henry Street, where they accept my invitation to my apartment, liking the view, and thanking me very much as they leave, as we probably both at the same time realize we haven't even exchanged our NAMES, though I'd already said I'd probably never return to Nantes, though they might return HERE. Call Marj at 4:23 to talk about my day, and we go through BUDASEND to 5:15PM. Then I try to rent a car for Martha's Vineyard, as directed by Ken, and sort out Lufthansa, Continental, US Airways, and Star Alliance numbers and codes for almost an hour, getting almost nowhere, and have to leave to the Tuesday Evening Club at 6:10, getting there at 6:27PM, and finding that the China-presenting duo are both sick, so we're getting a program on the Grand Canyon, which I duly note in my Coincidence file because of my first-in-ages lunch AT the Grand Canyon this afternoon! Good slides over many years, in many seasons, from all levels and sides of the Canyon. Back at 8:05PM to find that the hour of ResidenSea isn't being shown anywhere, anytime. Put my pork butt back to reheat to watch an annotated repeat (which is VERY helpful) of the "Lost" episode about Richard Alpert, where everything essentially starts, and the basic plot: that the island (in the form of Jacob or his successor) stops evil (in the form of the Man in Black) from spreading over the world. And we MUST believe Jacob has power, since he's allowed Richard Alpert his wish to live forever, so far, and has even "returned" the spirit of his wife to give him courage to continue. Then get to the auto reservation to the point where I need a USAir Dividend Miles Account, for which number I phone Ken, who bitches to me about calling him; I bitch back, "I'm just doing what you ASKED me to do!" Get my account number, make the reservation, and call him back, which he says is totally unnecessary. I refrain from reminding him how many times he's call ME which I thought were unnecessary! Then catch up with my MEDICAL file, my DREAMS file, and now finish with this NJ update by 12:17AM, ready for bed today, another busy day, including the gym.

WEDNESDAY, 4/28/10: Details in REORGCHR about files 21) - 24), and taking 33-pound bag #2 downstairs. Leave at 5:40 to be a few minutes late to Char #4 to meet Carolyn, clearly tantalizing my abstemiousness, sipping a red wine at the bar and asking me to take her glass of water to the table in the back. She makes some remark, and I suggest it would be easy for me to knock her glass of wine over. But she continues to sip with put-on lip-smacking. She orders a bouillabaise with more rice than anything else like sausage and clams, and has one of my ribs which I can't finish, rather tough, meaty enough, well cooked, but not worth going back for. Leave before 7PM and walk back to talk to Spartacus before watching the rather mediocre "Hamlet" with David Tennant, with Patrick Stewart playing father and uncle. Bed quickly afterward.

THURSDAY, 4/29/10: Start through 25) Restaurant File I, then leave at 12:27PM to get to Met early at 1:17PM to chart day and wait for Charles and chat about penises until exhibits: 1) Victorian Photocollage 1:54-2:40, which might start a new fad, 2) Surface Tension, lousy photos 2:41-2:52, 3) Hamilton Prints, not that interesting 3:08-3:21, then to the roof for 4) Big Bambu by the Starns twins, where I have a sandwich for lunch, 3:34-4:04, and 5) Mourners, with constant shouts "No photographs!" 4:08-4:28, at which time we're both tired, so we bus across to Columbus and down to Shake Shack for five-minute line at 5PM for a Shake Stack (too messy) and a caramel shake, delicious, until about 5:30, when we walk down to wander a Barnes and Noble which I leave at 6:25 to get to Lincoln Center Plaza for a great fountain display for the gala guests on the balcony of Koch Theater. Meet Spartacus without cash to pay for the $24.50 Theatermania ticket to good second-row seats in Ring C for lousy Millepied "Why am I not where you are," to non-interesting music commissioned from Thierry Escaich and a vibrating peacock's tail by Santiago Calatrava, thankfully only 20 minutes, and, after a 33-minute intermission where the gowned ladies and mostly-white gents mingled and drank below, Ratmansky's hour-long "Namouna, A Grand Divertissement," at least entertaining, with an athletic, crotchy, Daniel Ulbricht outshining a taller Robert Fairchild, in a non-story ballet that makes me think of the undersea opera pictured at the Hermitage whose name I didn't recognize. Look at list now, and it turned out to be "Sadko." Tired toward end, getting home about 10PM and going to bed amazingly early, just after 10:30PM.

FRIDAY, 4/30/10: 9:13AM: Finish transcribing FIVE dreams from last night, again feeling "not myself" in that the detail and complexity of the situations I left behind in my dreams are more rich and compelling and REAL than my actuality in getting out of bed, defecating, and taking notes so I won't forget the basis of my detailed dreams. My back is now CONSTANTLY sore, and I'm uncomfortable sitting in front of TV, or at the ballet last night, boding ill for my long plane flights connected with my two upcoming long trips this year. Update REORGCHR and this to 9:47AM, hungry. Have breakfast, then phone Fred to find that Alan will meet me at ART at 11:45AM Sunday to tell me what to do. Phone Leon to say I'm not interested in a singer on Monday. Then get to old menus again, spending lots of time with REORGCHR, and, tired at 3:25, start Spider nicely 3:25-3:50 to 51.09564 at 466 up after 2 wins, and continue with Taipei, winning most, 3:55-4:45, then Solitaire 4:40-5:35, when I go out in my Galapagos T-shirt to Sharon's. Back and type up the report by 7:07PM, having called Mildred to accept changing tomorrow's restaurant to El Quijote at 2PM. A tiny fly that could clearly fit through the screen buzzes outside when it's still too bright to see what the temperature is today, supposedly into the 80s. Now back to the effort of putting the restaurant information in date order, having made out a Visa card billing for my Sage membership renewal. Then make folders for the stuff I sort out of the "paper box," putting the folders into a NEW "paper box." Then have dinner and finish reading Tower: "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by 11:45PM, tired enough to go to bed right after. Put up the May calendar sheet EARLY, and even lie in bed and watch the clock tick over from 11:59PM to 12:00AM for the advent of the new month, of my trip!

SHARON B. 136 4/30/10

Again called in directly on my arrival at 5:44PM, and I pull out the typed sheet of dreams from earlier in the week and this morning, going through in some detail, agreeing that they echo the richness and detail of my actual life, with people, museum-going, restaurants, interactions with two women from Frankfurt and a couple from Nantes, and am not really YET concerned about the trip, yet I go into my "non-thinking" about Richard Thomas, my roommate, my getting Spartacus's luggage for the trip, my worries about my back and other pains (though she assures me that lots of HER clients get arthritic pains in joints that DEFINITELY come and go---none of them are permanent), and being thankful that the volcano is currently on hold. Say also that I'll save the next two weeks' puzzles for working on the plane if I can't sleep. Insist that I "don't feel like myself" in that I'm not counting down the days to the trip, yet I'm certainly thinking about it. Told about my clear arteries with Dr. Sai on Tuesday, my fatigue yesterday at the Met, and the DETAIL of going through the restaurant reviews, menus, thinking of what to keep and what to throw out, and throwing out POUNDS of material, for which activities others of my friends envy me. AND finish with my delight in looking at the photos of myself from the 70s and 80s and being amazed to find that I was CUTE. She DOES take the typed page, because she said she'll be meeting with her supervisor, and they'll be talking about exactly this, so I've given her the sheet at the perfect time. We agree that next week's meeting will be on Wednesday, and I might be in a very different state regarding the trip.

SATURDAY, 5/1/10: Note dream at 7:38AM and get the Times just after 8AM. The secondary puzzle is a diagramless, which I do with some small difficulty, and tear out the primary puzzle to take on the plane with me next Monday. Start reading Scott Smith's "The Ruins," and, true to the blurbs, get caught up in the reading of it. Leave at 1:25PM for El Quijote to meet Mildred, getting there early and continuing reading my book until she arrives at 2:10PM, complaining about the subway changes, which I know about since I had to take the C rather than the 2 or 3. The lobsters are quite good for $22, and I have a half-carafe of alcohol-less Sangria which is quite good and filling. We finish by 3PM and go out side for me to try on some of the shirts that Mildred found in an abandoned Metropolitan Museum bag at the Lexington-86th Street station and just took along with her. By coincidence, Steve Hayes passes in the street and we chat, and then they move off east while I go west to the subway and get back home about 4PM to continue reading, finishing "The Ruins" by 7:45PM, taking maybe six hours reading what was variously described as an eight- or nine-hour book. Quite good, but somewhat of an anticlimax that another group is about to enter for their deaths. Watch "Ice Age" for about half an hour, rather childish, and the two hours of "Katyn," somewhat confusing and quite chilling at the end with the constant shots to the back of the head. Bed at 11:45PM

SUNDAY, 5/2/10: Note dreams at 4:30 and 7:45, taking a valium to ward off my nervousness about today at the Fort Greene House Tour, and the Times arrives at 8:14 and I'm out of bed at 8:20, finishing the Times with breakfast by 9:30AM, making a list of about nine items to accomplish before my trip, and then catching up with dreams and this by 9:45AM, ready for the day, already rather hot and humid, though yesterday's temperature only got to 85, not challenging the previous high of 87. Today may be less warm, but there are supposed to be thundershowers later this evening; I hope after the after-party at the House Tour. Get to A.R.T. at 11:35AM to find no one there, and walk to the park to see Gregory and Fred and get handed two envelopes with a list of names, supplies, and nametags. Back to talk to Jerry and Stephanie and look at the space and the john locations and the ice water fountain. Day starts slow, and I don't have to worry about too many people waiting, since we can take everyone. No one very attractive shows up, and my replacement isn't to be seen by 2:40PM, so I phone Fred for a replacement, and then Natasha says, "Well, I was greeting people outside." Sure. Race through the ten houses on display, telling many that the outermost house is mislocated on the map. Finish just at 5PM and get wonderful ice water while sitting talking with Madelyn from the Beard, telling her of my abstemiousness. Awful soprano performs, but good Bach cellist. Then the upstairs is open with food, and I get early on line for a plate of decent food and a glass of ginger ale, sitting on a windowsill near Gregory, watching Anthony and Alla eating, happy to find from Fred on the phone later that they HAD helped out, as opposed to the shitty Fred Weiss who just wanted to barge in for free with his wife. Good desserts of cake and strawberries, and I leave about 6:30, happy that there's no sign of rain. Spider 7-8 and 11:15-11:25 to finish at 51.10473, highest ever at 470 up after 5 wins. Watch "Into the Universe" with Stephen Hawking for two hours.

MONDAY, 5/3/10: Up to Spider 9:15-10:25AM to 471 up, still higher. Shelley calls to cancel Kittichai because of her allergies. Go to the gym for the first time in FIVE days. Start on Marj's notes 4:15, probably not continuously, to 8:10PM. Probably spend a lot of unrecorded time on computer games. Bed 1:40AM.

TUESDAY, 5/4/10: Note dream at 6:41AM. My loose tooth seems to be growing---rising higher in its loose socket, with some degree of sensitivity, and I start worrying about it in conjunction with my 22 days away from NYC's dentist. Brush it and it seems to recede and lose tenderness. Take valium so as NOT to worry about the trip. Up at 9:42AM. Empty my camera for the trip. Breakfast and get to Marj's notes 10:30-11, but she can't talk now with groceries coming, so I finish 11:10-11:30, happy. Get a haircut after having kidneys with Spartacus, getting his perfect rolling luggage, getting cash from the bank, and then pick up my simvastatin. Start back with Marj at 3:20-4:20, doing about half and leaving the other half to finish tomorrow. Spider 2:20-3:10 and 4:25-4:55 to 476 up after 6 wins! Feeling sorry for myself and can't decide what to do for dinner, so decide to subway to Brazil, Brazil for a mediocre dinner, getting another restaurant off my list. Watch an hour of "Lost" when I get back.

WEDNESDAY, 5/5/10: Lots of WQXR with Cinco de Mayo music. Start in with Marj at 11:25 and piss her off about asking her to mark what she doesn't change, only questions, and she hangs up! To pass time I play Spider 11:40-12:10, waiting for Marj to call back, which she does, and we restart with notes at 12:35, finishing SPANFRAD at 1:10 and TUNISIA at 1:30, and she'll put one more set of pages into the mail today, which I'll get tomorrow or the next day and finish before I leave for the trip. More Spider 1:30-2:20 to 51.12478 at 479 up after 3 wins. Go through REORGCHR files 29-34 through the day, going to Sharon and buying two boxes of cylindrical Proxabrushes at CVS, then obsessively doing Taipei and Solitaire until 11PM, when I channel surf while having dinner, watching the end of "Romancing the Stone," rather trivial, but then getting up to calculate my days and expenses of travel, and THEN getting up to see who's ruled longest: Victoria ruled 64 years, which means that Elizabeth would have to reign until she's 90 in 2016 to tie her record. Bed about 1:35AM.

SHARON B. 137 5/5/10

She calls me in again, and I start in with my REORGCHR breakthrough, and then other nice things, including calling Mildred to tell her off, which Mildred actually LIKES, for which Sharon praises me enormously, and also relate the anger of Marj when she hangs up on me. Then I ask about her work on my dreams, and she says she's found many analogies with my earlier life: looking on at the start, and then participating actively, and she sees ME as the lolling prince on the back of the elephant, which surprises me. And then I surprise HER by saying that my early trips were "brought back" with me with AS MUCH AS I COULD CARRY, because I wasn't taking pictures, and feared each trip might be my last, just as I unlock my gym locker to relieve the thought that now they won't have to cut it off if I die before opening it, and she says that MANY obsess about different things when their minds are idle. She is amazed that I've just described to her what she hoped to give ME as a revelation from the study of my dreams, which she says she actually spent a great deal of time on. I SAY I'm not worried about the trip, but actually I guess I am more than I'd like to let on. She says she looked at my website, not to read anything, but just liking the design, particularly mentioning the Jewel Box. I also mention that I'd gotten a haircut for the trip, and she says it looks nice. We talk more about my aloneness in DOING things, like going to the restaurant last night just to eat out, even alone, and checking it off my list even though it was mediocre and had no sweetbreads at all. Then I actually leave a few minutes early, saying that our next session will be June 2.

THURSDAY, 5/6/10: Up 9:45, peeing twice and adding items to my list for Chin at 3PM today. Clip my toenails. Phone Spartacus about Audience Extras and recording my "Lost" programs, and reserve two more shows for me tonight and tomorrow night, keeping busy to stop brooding about the upcoming trip. Start catching up at 11AM, getting materials with which to fill out my journal. Finish with this at noon, going to record Sharon's session and REORGCHR. Go to the gym. Then get in and out of Chin within a half-hour between 3-3:30PM, recorded in MEDICAL. Out at 6:30 to try to find Sandwich Planet, and just about give up that it's not at 40th and Ninth Avenue when I see it on the corner of 39th and Ninth, and order a good Black and Blue Burger which I take with me way west to Baryshnikov's 37th Street Arts Center, eating it in the lobby while others look on me with disdain, but it's GOOD. But Gaff Aff is NOT good, wordless like "666" and even sillier, with a Fernandel-face of a mime always, as the critic rightly noted, looking straight out at the audience. Tiresome.

FRIDAY, 5/7/10: 9AM: Bed at 11:30PM last night---and JUST type those words when the PHONE rings, literally at 9AM, and it's MARJ, saying "You won't believe this, but after I peed at 4:26AM and lay back down, I had the flash that I DIDN'T send NHA!!!" I can't even think what NHA might BE that she didn't "send," (as in "send the thought" or "send the message," which to compulsives like us would be "write a note" or "record a thought"), but when she pressed me for my first thoughts, I suggested N for No or Not or (interestingly ortographically by adding single letters) Note, but she said that wasn't the case, and the only H I could think of immediately was Hand. At length, after my stating MY coincidence that I'd gotten up YESTERDAY at 9:45, so that a 9AM call WOULD have been a pain, but that TODAY'S getting up at 8:45, and my sitting at my desk to start typing my journal WAS at 9AM, made her TOTALLY unusual 9AM call PERFECTLY OK. "I didn't send NOTEBOOK H part A," she manages to gasp out. It takes me a SECOND to connect that (a bit of Alzheimer's, to which she totally attributes her NOT sending NHA) with the contents of the flashdrive she sent me two days ago which should arrive today. And we finally agree that she'll send a SECOND flashdrive, containing ONLY NHA, today, which I'll hopefully get tomorrow or at LEAST before I leave on Monday. As we talk, I make a note reminding me to back up my LAPTOP to my EDGE, so there's a copy of all the new website material in MORE than one storage drive (in addition to the easily losable flashdrives). We talk until 9:45AM, and I finish this at 9:55AM, a completely new way of getting into the day! Now for breakfast! Phone Charles to try to get him to join me at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens this afternoon, but he never calls back. Finish Trips Resorted Card A with 35) Carib Cruise, and start Trips Resorted Card B with 36) Costa Rica, which I don't finish and end up putting on a stack on a shelf on Monday before I leave for the trip. Then just WANT to go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, so I leave at 3:33:33 at the elevator on my floor, taking my camera, and take 25 wonderful shots before I get back home about 6PM, totally exhausted. Go right back out to get up to Rack and Soul at 6:45 and have good ribs, macaroni and cheese, and candied yams, taking half home in a bag that I trundle down to Symphony Space, getting my ticket at 7:45, and the Uptown/Downtown dances and dancers are no more than ill-trained amateurs, along with the "new" music for most of the dances. Not the best evening. Home and put the food in the fridge and get into bed at 10:45PM, hoping for a good sleep. Also got Spartacus's money to him today.

SATURDAY, 5/8/10: Pee at 5:02AM and take a valium. Have great sexy dreams that I don't record, and get up at 6:54AM to j/o to 8:15AM, not very effectively, but DOING it just to DO it before the trip that will PREVENT me from doing it. Start going through Hawaii at 9:15AM, after scanning some of the Times, and finish at 10:20, having breakfast when Marj calls at 10:31 when I didn't call HER at 10:30 as planned, and I say I'm having breakfast and call her back at 10:37, and we finish the first half by 11:30, an hour good enough. CENSUS person calls again yesterday, and I phone back at noon to someone who DOES seem to say that my vacation can NOW be recorded, and they'll call me back after 5/31 for work. Out to meet Charles coming onto the ticket line outside St. Ann's at precisely 12:30, and we get our tickets and get into the first house at 12:45. They're not very interesting this time, and we rest at the church with loads of sweets and many glasses of lemonade before seeing the last house, finishing exhausted at 4:45. I get to "Restoration" at 7:40 and it's a great play with the playwright Claudia Shear effective as the lead. I'm very happy with it. Home tired, have a late dinner, and get to bed at 12:10AM with valium.

SUNDAY, 5/9/10: Pee at 6:32AM and take another valium, and get up at 8:43AM, still tired. Skim the Times, leaving the puzzles for the trip, make a silly lunch appointment with Shelley for tomorrow. Rita calls and it seems the phone never stops ringing, including Mildred calling to send me down to find that the Gristedes' pharmacy no longer had a Notary Public after getting a fax copy of something I must sign and notarize for her. Gobble down half a lasagna from HH meals and out to "Gabriel," which isn't as good as Spartacus thought it was. Back to plow through all of NHA, finding it MUCH easier to answer all Marj's questions and THEN go through the corrections: I don't have to flip back and forth between headings so much that way. Finish that about 10PM and send SIX files off to Tris, two of them completely new, and one an addition to the journals for 2008. Then finish watching the stupid Sid and Marty Croft "Land of the Lost" with a booby Will Farrell, finishing the lasagna and lots of other stuff from the meals, determining that I'll have to have three MEALS tomorrow to finish the stuff in the fridge. Still exhausted, get to bed at 11:30AM, taking yet another valium.

MONDAY, 5/10/10: Up at 7AM and type dream. Had made a list of the ORDER of tasks today: breakfast, pack, gym, lunch, tasks, pack, tasks, dinner, airport. Shit and shave and wash by 7:30AM. Breakfast (of beef and rice and vegetables, while finishing the Times Book Review) by 8AM, and take to catching up with dreams and journals until this moment, 9:15AM, when I'm feeling like I'm going pretty well, even to clearing the reorganization stuff off the table onto an empty shelf and polishing the dining-room table! And putting out some of the first rudiments of packing, like my camera-battery charger and Mildred's form to be notarized, which I think I'll go down NOW to see if the manager will do it for me. And she DOES, and, on the second try, Mildred GETS it (bitching about my signature). GREAT, by 9:32AM! Now to see what dreams need to be printed. Do, finding that if I SAY to print a page that's not written yet, it doesn't print the page AT ALL. And no medical pages need to be printed, so I'm caught up with THIS by 9:42AM. Paul C. calls quickly to wish me a good vacation. 10:10AM: Thick ash clouds from volcano on map as of midnight TODAY Greenwich time even NORTHWEST of Iceland, implying our flight has to go WAY north to get around it! GOT to call airport before leaving! 10:15AM: Shelley calls to CONFIRM, and I tell her about smoke and my crowded schedule and she says we'll celebrate when I get BACK! Great! Phone a message to John to remind him to water my plants, and to call Spartacus if he can't. Also reconfirm with Bill Petersen, who's saying that Obama's nominated his choice of the woman for the Supreme Court. Sort through travel stack and call Tris to alert him that I sent six items last night. Mail and seal check and TWO flashdrives to Marj before calling her for final proofing at 11AM, manically doing and doing and doing! Talk to her to 12:05PM! At 12:15 call her back to ask her NOT to cash the 4/8 and 4/26 checks until 5/30. 12:30PM: Take valium before lunch. 1PM finish lunch and confirm flight. 2:30 got books, money, and CVS, and now to gym. 4:15 back from gym. 5:10 Tris calls, and I pack pills and start packing clothes. 5:45 turn off computer.

TRAVEL TO FIVE STANS May 10-31.

TUESDAY, 6/1/10: 1:43AM: Pee and type dream. At 4:43AM try Actualism, but I can't get back to sleep. Up to pee and jerk off to 6AM. Make a list of things to do: 1) Copy Hoeg excerpts before returning books; 2) Call HH about delivery on Friday by mistake, and will I get a delivery today? She says yes; 3) Order two prescription replacements; 4) Note to call Verizon on porn, which I never do. Return the library books about 1:30, getting groceries, and picking up two bottles of peroxide and three prescription renewals and a new, too-large, supply of imodium at CVS. At 2:30 add 5) Send Schwab Visa confirmation; which I do only very much later. At 2:48 remember 6) Switch phone message. At 3:07 I add 7) Olympus: question about numbering, which I never get around to [though I later find the original numbers ARE kept!]. Note that I talked to Marj 11:30-12 and left word with Mildred. DETERMINED to get to the gym, and go even though it's about 3:55PM, and THERE'S NO ONE MANNING THE DESK! First time in AGES that's happened; and JUST WHEN I NEEDED IT! Fill up the day by watching HOURS of the final programs around "Lost." Phone people, too. Glad I have lots of HH meals to choose from. Get to bed at 9:57PM.

HOEG EXCERPTS from "The History of Danish Dreams" 6/1/10

P.58: "And strange orders they were: for the printing of books by authors as yet unborn, from countries that were not yet nation-states, in languages that as yet boasted no alphabet, and dealing with events several future generations removed." P.72-73: "Thorvald Bak was wise enough not to interfere when these meetings developed into appalling relapses during which these saintly souls would start giving themselves alcohol enemas and singing disgusting songs, before going on to tear down the mission house, rip off their clothes, and hare around the village---stark naked and with seaweed from the roofs in their hair---on the hunt for kerosene, because the aquavit had run out. When that also had been drunk, they rubbed their gums with axle grease, which drove them right out of their minds. Thorvald Bak waited until their ravings subsided because he, too, was familiar with sin and knew how closely related it is to remorse, and remorse to loneliness, and loneliness to a longing for fellowship, and fellowship to the religious submission that brought these righteous folk even closer together. Then he would preach to them and berate them until they wept and wailed and had to put their hands over their ears, because all around them they heard the laughter of hell." P.145: "Their dream---like ours---was the dream of the Village." P.234: "...with the contemporary dream---which is also our dream---of affluence in the Copenhagen of the 1920s." P.254: "...a printing machine so sensitive that it could print the Lord's Prayer on the yolk of a fried egg." P.291: "All things considered, we should all be grateful that this is not a novel, since Carsten is far too complex a character to figure in a novel. It is a hard enough job portraying him as a historical character." P.332: "All the talk of boarding-school years being the jolly days of French postcards and wild school dances and booze and condoms and eighteen flushed-faced boys whacking one another off in a twelve-foot-square bathroom is, in all probability, a myth---at any rate, it was not true of Soro." P.407: "And I know what I am talking about, because I am he---from now on, you can call me Mads. And if I persist in writing the history of my family, then it is out of necessity." P.408: "...the loneliest thought in the world is the thought that what we have glimpsed is nothing other than ourselves. But now it is too late to think like that and something must be done, and before we can do anything we will have to form a picture of the twentieth century." END OF BOOK.

WEDNESDAY, 6/2/10: Pee at 1:59AM. 3AM: Shit. 3:30AM: Type dream. 7:17AM: Type dream. 7:21AM: Pee. 11AM: Been meaning to catch up, but have been just too lazy. Finally tackled the 5/16 Times puzzles and finished them. Spent lots of time yesterday watching "Lost" programming. Phoned Spartacus Monday, Mildred Tuesday who had no chance to talk; Marj Tuesday, who wanted to talk more but had to pee; Carolyn Tuesday night, and will, for the hell of it, try Charles now. He doesn't answer, so I try Shelley, and we talk for about 20 minutes to 11:30AM. Had breakfast at 8AM, so I'll try to leave lunch until after Mallett at 12:45PM. Wrote his visit up in MEDICAL. Tried keeping a list of porn spam, but it didn't show any consistency: constantly changed. Listed two of the rip-off "program" addresses. Got to bed at 10:28PM, too tired to finish the New York puzzle.

SHARON B. 138 6/2/10

Actually get there early enough to read a few sentences before she comes out, smiling, to ask me in. I warily start by saying I survived the trip, but at many times it FELT like survival: now I'll freely admit that, before, I thought of myself as being in my older middle age, but now I feel that I've advanced to being a somewhat younger old man. I described the makeup of the group, but said that I was somewhat behind many of them, even though I was the only one to climb the minaret that I "stole" for $3, but I really had VERY sore thighs for the next five days: never in the past would it have taken me so long to recover. Then I described my sickness, and going to the nurse-practitioner to find, to my amazement, that even though many in the group were sick, only Richard and I had the "wit" to call upon the services of the nurse-practitioner. Reviewed many of the events of the trip: Richard and my eventual "fed-upness" with Lisa; the goodness of the guide and the promptness of everyone in the group for meeting and getting back on the bus. But I again addressed the problem of seeming to describe the trip's NEGATIVES without giving any flavor of the GOOD parts: the unusualness of the people, the customs, the (awful) food, the "feeling of firstness" of being there, even though I had to admit this was one of the MOST widely traveled group I'd ever been with, primarily because the destinations were so unusual to start with. Described my putting up with the worst of the series of roommates I'd ever had, though I'd still try for a roommate, since Richard was, bad as he was, "worth $1100" of the single supplement that he freed me from. Had nothing really to say about "normal" life, since I had so little of it since my return. DID report that I seemed unusually quick to adapt to the current time of eating and sleeping, though I did still, in some ways, sense the weariness of jet lag. She again praised my adventuresomeness in taking the trip in the first place, even though I said I was sure I'd be MUCH more anxious before the four-destination trip because of its possible physical demands, though at least it would have the benefit of DIFFERENT types of destinations, so there was little danger of falling, as early as this trip, into the "been there, done that" mode that affected me (and Richard) so early. Said something that made me run just a few minutes over the allotted 45, but got downstairs and smiled at the entry guard who was talking on her cellphone as I left.

THURSDAY, 6/3/10: Pee at 4AM: 5.5 hours with one pill of Avodart and Uroxatral. Maybe doze a bit, but get up at 5:25AM and take a Viagra, then do a complete Actualism for just over twenty minutes, to get "into shape for an ultimate orgasm." Out of bed at 5:45 and began paging through numbers of Spartacus's magazines, finding three or four DYNAMITE photos that get me in the mood for putting on porn at about 6:25, just an hour after taking Viagra, which I understood to be a pretty good place to start. Locate a good scene (but was actually looking for a scene that I finally found on Porn 3, which DID work when I put it in and clicked on number 44, or whatever, for the scene I wanted, and it came on [yes!] with no problem) and get to the point of orgasm at 6:50AM and REALLY GET OFF with the third bidi, with many routines keeping me going, so well that at one point I decided to call it Level 11, a step above the fabled Level 10. That kept up (yes!) to 7AM, and I actually finished the orgasm at 7:05AM, which was indeed totally satisfying. Watched a bit of TV until 7:35, then located Porn 3 and lined them all up in order Porn 1-6, checked what was on the tape in the machine, and put the "selected" photos into the file drawer and piled up the "discarded" magazines and put them under an OAT offering on my magazine-discard shelf. Emptied the ashtray before a VERY satisfactory shit, and decided I HAD to record what just happened, finishing now at 8:25AM, with enough time to have breakfast and "fix" the apartment for its scheduled inspection at 9:30AM. Through e-mail to 8:40AM. Two inspectors come in about 9:50AM and take bags out from below kitchen sink and find that some joint has to be repaired soon. I should check under the bathroom sink myself to see if it needs repair. They test the smoke alarm and it works. Then I meet Ken at Hotel Breslin at 12:45PM and he has drinks that (I presume) protect him from the bad bugs in his Caesar Salad, which I share and get sick from. Feel so awfully tired afterwards I wonder if it could be a combination of three things: 1) A VERY intense orgasm at 6:50AM, 2) A bad Caesar Salad, and 3) Starting Avodart and Uroxatral yesterday. Go through much of the 5/23 Times, trying to catch up with one every day before a new set comes in on Saturday. Bed about 5PM. Take my temperature at 98.9F at 6:40PM. Can't shit at 8:37PM. Back to bed at 9PM. Shit #1 and take my temperature at 100.6F at 10:20PM.

FRIDAY, 6/4/10: Shit #2 at 1AM. Make a note to myself to order HH meals! Shit #3 at 2:51AM, and at 2:56 my temperature is 99.8. Make myself a cup of green tea and get back to bed at 3:20AM. Shit #4 at 3:40AM, debating taking imodium, and write note "One last 'dry' try" that I have no idea WHAT I was trying to say. Shit #5 at 6:30, temperature 97.8. Up at 7:06AM. On phone with HIP from 8:03-8:12, when they say I might have to meet with another doctor since Chin's schedule is full, but finally they schedule me as an add-on with Chin at 2PM. Shit #6 at 10AM. Happen on the movie of "Hair" when I'm eating some meal or other, and watch the end of that very unsatisfactory movie. Chin's appointment goes fast, nothing really done, except he tells me to delay starting new prescriptions for a week. Fill up my pillbox accordingly. Shit #7 at 3PM. Go through a lot of the 5/30 Times, including puzzles. Bed much of the day. Shit #8 at 5PM. Take two imodium. Up at 10:25PM for dinner, because I'm HUNGRY!

SATURDAY, 6/5/10: 4:15AM: Type dream. 5:56AM: Type dream. Start moving Neo files to WP51 at 7:16, taking 36 minutes to move file 1 to page 12, file 2 to about 8:30 to page 24, and then file 5 from 10:25-11:04 to page 35. Print out the pages, but record where the inserts in file 4 will fall, which probably means that I'll REPRINT all the pages to make the narration smooth. Dreams go onto pages 44-49. Get the Times at 8:10AM and read it and finish puzzles. By 1:37PM I've finished proofreading to 5/22 on page 21 line 8. Read 3:15-4:45, eat yogurt, shit twice, take imodium. Also DETERMINED to get to the gym, having not gone in four days, still doing a limited program because I'm still just WORN OUT from the trip and the shits. But I manage to get to Neumeier's "The Lady of the Camellias" by 7:45, Charles early too, and it's VERY emotional and "Neumeier-y" and I can see how it might get bad reviews. Julie Kent makes a very effective Camille, and Gillian Murphy and David Hallberg actually make quite IDEAL Manon and Des Grieux in the ballet within the ballet. Touched that the ballet is "For Marcia," and I keep seeing Haydee and Cragun in the choreography for the leads, Bolle being incredibly sexy as usual, but sadly his crotch is ALWAYS minimized in black satin. Had a lovely brownie to quiet the gnawing of my empty stomach. Charles tried and failed to re-see his "6'6" doll" that he'd seen on entry. Sorry about that. Hideous time back on the subway: we actually can USE the northern entrance to the platform, and a train comes INSTANTLY. I get off at 42nd only to realize that there is NO service from the west side to downtown Brooklyn; so I end up going over to the N-line, which IS stopping everywhere, but get home WELL after midnight, almost on the verge of shitting my pants. Bed at 1AM.

SUNDAY, 6/6/10: Take NEW imodium at 3:40AM and shit again. Take SECOND imodium. Suspiciously orangy-pink shit. Sneeze 5-6 times; cough. Put on shorts and get to bed at 3:47AM. At 4:10 take temperature of 99.2. Cough; try Actualism. 7AM: Shit again and type dream. Take third imodium. Up 8:35AM. Read the Times, and leave at 12:45 to get to Piri's just before 2PM, Mark already there, and then the awful Robin and John arrive to try their games. The first is terribly confusing and John just blows up whenever anyone says ANYTHING to try to help or correct him. Misery! The second game, which I win, I'd decided was pretty much fun even BEFORE I won. The third game, started about 5PM, was another disaster; I couldn't wait to get out of there. Left about 6:15, took AGES to get home, and lay down at 7:55PM. Guess I got up at 9PM to watch "Getting Home," about the Chinese corpse being carried, carted, and trucked through various landscapes to some-good, some-bad encounters with people. Bed 11PM.

MONDAY, 6/7/10: 1:01AM: Type dream, shit, eat a bowl of soup. Bed at 2:04AM. 6:47AM: Feel just as confused and "out of focus" as in my dream transcribed starting at 6:16AM this morning. Shit a vague diarrhea AGAIN at 6:30 and take ANOTHER imodium, not knowing how to handle my intestinal condition. Up at 7:15 to start list. Though last week (interspersed with HOURS in bed) I managed to 1) read all the Times, 2) catch up on magazines, 3) at least majorly sort out MOST of the mail, 4) transfer the Neo files to WP51 and proofread to May 22, 5) go through about a foot of Spartacus's porn, 6) catch up on the phone messages, particularly from the weedwhacker and Edgardo and Ken, 7) sift through 144 e-mails, flagging many for Spam, and replying to Don's request for other things to do on his NYC trip, and 8) discard four full bags of plastic bags from under the kitchen sink, there's still a (pardon the expression) SHITLOAD of things to catch up with: 1) clear the dining table of packing, 2) finish unpacking everything else, 3) tackle the awful Schwab credit-card-number change, 4) look into the $1435 income-tax hassle, 5) finish clearing out the junk under the kitchen sink, 6) clear out the junk under the bathroom sink so they can look at the drain joint when they repair the joint under the kitchen sink, 7) file away the FOUR new prescription scripts, bottles, and information, 8) temporarily fix the corner of my bottom sheet so it doesn't ride up before I dirty it enough to throw it away, 9) get details of the St. Ann's Toy Fair, 10) catch up on transcribing the enormous number of notecards on which I've temporarily indicated my life during the last week. Well, that will do for now, though I'd fantasized typing to the end of the page so that I could print out a duplicate page to be an ACTUAL checklist for what I hope to be the first REAL productive day back from the trip---well, I don't have far to go. DID want, also, to note that THIS week has NOTHING on the calendar except Sharon [ah, 11) record Sharon's session last Wednesday] on Wednesday, though I'm even NOW concerned with the 12) slide show on the 19th and Don's visit on the 21st, so I can be sick all week if I want to be---HA! CANNOT figure WHAT is causing my intestinal problem: it probably WAS the Caesar salad on Thursday from which Ken killed HIS pathogens by drinking alcohol throughout the meal, but why should it be lasting so long? At least I'm glad that when I replaced my totally vanished toilet paper supply on Friday I got in a new imodium supply, as well as TWO replacement bottles of peroxide. Not to mention, 13) (to get to that terrible number) checking Tris's updating of my website files so I can clear THOSE e-mails from my roster. Can fill this out with bitching about the Clark Street Station being closed last weekend, forcing me to the A-train on Saturday for the ballet, for a heart-stopping moment when I saw there was no service in one direction---but thankfully that direction was toward Brooklyn, and then I had to use the THIRD, BMT, line, for my return from the ballet when there was no West Side service to Brooklyn AT ALL. Well, can't type this page for the journal ANYWAY, since I have to fill in the data between 6/1-6/6! 7:48PM: Exhausted from "doing nothing" all day (which isn't true), and just finished proofing the 39 pages of FIVESTAN, printing 38 pages though I've got TONS of editing to do and may reprint the whole thing---well, I just found a SECOND box of unused printer paper on an upper shelf in my closet, so I might as well USE the stuff! Still SO much to catch up on, though I did a LOT today! 8:30AM Edgardo calls; he's back from JORDAN, with two days in Petra! Find that my Schwab One account has a NEGATIVE $616.23!!! Nap 4:30-6:25PM. Watch "Smash His Camera," a documentary about Ron Gallela, and "Away We Go," which I have to check on GOOGLE to remind myself that it was about a couple looking for a place to live and have a child, directed by (Spartacus couldn't believe it) Sam Mendes, and written (which was maybe why I wanted to watch it) by David Egger, and it's not in the movie books because it's listed as a 2009 movie. Dinner 9:45-10:15. Shit 11:35PM. Take two imodium AGAIN and simvastatin. Shit again at 11:55PM. Bed at 12:10AM.

TUESDAY, 6/8/10: Pee at 5:40 and 7:29AM. Transfer $330 from Ridgewood to Schwab One, but still not enough. Talk to Marj 11:30-12 and Mildred will call back. Phone Chin and he says he'll leave orders on the computer for the lab to give me three containers in which to leave stool samples. I get to lab at 4PM and have to WAIT for the containers, and then leave three samples at 4:35PM, being told that "Two and two-thirds filled is enough." Nap 5:20-7:20PM. 8:17PM: Finally dragged myself out of bed, finished another half hour of Solitaire before finally tackling Sharon's last Wednesday session, finishing with SOME energy, so I decided to at least fill in SOME of today: talked to Spartacus about my worry of taking imodium for the fourth day when it says I should check with the doctor---and then my food comes, I put it away, and prepare dinner while watching two hours of "The Tudors" and get to bed at 11:40PM.

WEDNESDAY, 6/9/10: 5:51AM: Type dream and pee. Up at 7:20 and find I can get ALL SIX 2008 Scott Stamp Catalogs AND the US Specialized Catalog for $66! 7:45AM shit some old-style pinkish turds, unlike yesterday's relatively SOLID stool that I left as samples. Also DETERMINED to go to the gym, again after four days, and struggle through my REGULAR program, which leaves me almost at the point of exhaustion. I think I even lay down before getting back up to go to Sharon at 4:45. Record that I played Taipei 5:50-7PM. Recorded that I watched much of the 2010 season of "The Tudors" through most of the rest of the day. Bed at 10:20PM.

SHARON B. 139 6/9/10

Stated at the END that I had NO agenda in mind when I got there, and she assured me, at the end, that I'd just had a perfect session. I simply told her about what happened, good and bad, the previous week, saying how depressed I was to still feel sick, and she repeated her remark that the trip was obviously very demanding and exhausting (as well as possibly rewarding), and I might still be recovering from it. I guess I should be heartened by it, but I don't like to think of myself as needing two weeks to recover from a 22-day trip, no matter how demanding. I probably stated bits of luck, or coincidence, things that I did (like going to the ballet) that I loved; and talked about my frequent doctor visits, even to my last deposit of excrement for which I have not yet to get the results. Really should record these sessions after they happen, since now (Monday, 6/14) I really remember very little of the session, except that I talked a lot, she was always very supportive, and I left feeling that I'd vented my bad feelings in a safe atmosphere, which might be the best part of our continuing relationship.

THURSDAY, 6/10/10: Pee at 3:15AM. 6:49AM: Type dream. 6:58AM: Theoretically time, MORE than time (since bed at 10:20PM) to get up, but with an arthritic two tip-joints in my middle right finger, and a sore inner left elbow when extended, and an urge to shit which would get me out of bed ANYWAY---I just felt like going BACK to bed! Some time during the day, paging through Spartacus's porn magazines, I just feel like jerking off, and I put on a DVD and, without rubber bands and without bidis, I just simply jerk off. First in a long time. Phone for an appointment (for an ENT appointment for a possible throat polyp) with Dr. Palgon for 9:10AM June 23. Phone Dr. Mesh's office, but only get a machine on which I leave word that I want an appointment. Record that I watched movies from Spartacus's DVDs: "Sergio" (about Viera de Mello from the UN and his tragic death after being pinned for hours in the terrorist-trucked building); "Ramona," with Mary Pickford, from 1910, only about 19 minutes of silent trash; and "Wild Oranges" by a going-crazy King Vidor, about a totally fear-crazed grandfather and granddaughter, a psychotic killer who terrorizes them, and the "hero" and his boat's captain who rescue whoever they can. Looked up the Toy Museum and saw that it was viewable an hour before the performances, so I leave at 6:10PM and get there at 6:20 to watch part of a documentary being filmed, look at the about-a-hundred tiny stage sets, most not very remarkable, and then decide to have a wonderful $3.50 peaches-and-cream ice-cream cup from the riverside, note that we have a weekend Lobster Pot and a new pizza place around the corner from Pete's Downtown, and walk into the new Brooklyn Bridge Park to take some pictures, and find that I can see MY BALCONY from the top of the hill, so I take a picture FROM my balcony of the SAME hill. Pleasant day, which I recount to Spartacus, sort of blaming him for not coming along with me. Bed 11:35PM.

FRIDAY, 6/11/10: Pee 5:21AM. Dr. Mesh's office calls at 9:30AM and says I can come in at 11AM! Have breakfast while watching "The Big Parade," which is really pretty awful, and get out at 10:30 to stop by the library and pick up "The Pesthouse" (slip printed at 10:39AM) to read while waiting, deposit my General Motors check (with balance printed at 10:36AM: clearly ONE of these is WRONG: so much for "printed verification of what happened when!"), and check with Grand Opticians that I did NOT have a glaucoma test when I got my eyes examined for my driver's license renewal. Then walk to 258 Henry Street for the lengthy appointment described in MEDICAL. Then to HIP for an X-ray, then to Grand for a glaucoma test, finishing that by ordering bifocals for a Visa bill of $54 at 3:14PM. Record that I played Taipei 7:20-8:30PM. Also selected and watched "Sanjuro" from the four Kurasawa films on another Spartacus DVD. Bed 12:27AM.

SATURDAY, 6/12/10: 4:38AM: Cramp in right leg; pee. Up 7:51AM. Just can't get the symmetry of the diagramless puzzle, and the "Flag Day" puzzle is so extraordinary, with the COLORS of the flag taking up the three spaces, that I'm impelled to phone Marj and describe the six solutions in detail to her. No notes otherwise from the day, except that I watched "Flight of the Red Balloon," not very good, with a harried Juliette Binoche and a cute little boy with an almost faceless Chinese nanny who's trying to make her own tribute to Lamorisse's "Red Balloon." Also watched another Kurasawa, "No Regrets for Our Youth," about a mystical anti-war activist who marries a long-suffering heroine who ends up debasing herself in the countryside of his parents. Really rather stupid. Then determined to see the Village Playwrights plays, but mistake the starting time as 7:30, rather than 7, though Bob said he couldn't even REMEMBER the first play, that I missed, because it was so bad. The others were bad, too. Got back just after 10PM so I missed the start of "Flight." Bed 12:05AM.

SUNDAY, 6/13/10: 1:38AM: Type dream. Up (FIRST TIME) at 8:08AM! NO pee for 8:03! Go through the Times quickly. Sit at my desk waiting for Charles to phone, which he does at 10:15AM, and asks, "When is the latest we could meet at the Met?" I figure it could be as late as 3PM, so of course I say 2PM and he pushes back for 2:30 and I agree. Have a late breakfast and get out at 1:25 to find that the Clark Street Station is open, but then foiled by the Puerto Rican Day Parade when the 79th Street crosstown is closed to traffic and the bus goes up to 86th Street to stop at the NORTH end of the Met, rather than the south. Get to the "meeting bench" just at 2:30, reading until 2:55, and decide I've given Charles enough time, so I see the last day of the Contemporary Aboriginal Painting from Australia from 2:57-3:05, and then down to the Limbourg Brothers and the "Belles Heures" of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, from 3:08 to 5:04. Charles shows up about 3:15, but quickly leaves. I end up looking through the book to verify that two OTHER masters were responsible for the marginal painting. Get out, dropping $1 beside the register as I refuse to wait in line to buy the Summer Program, to find it pouring rain. 79th Street is closed by street-cleaning equipment, so I try walking across to Park Avenue to see if I can catch the re-routed 79th Street crosstown bus, but I don't see any stop, so I continue to Lexington and head north for the 86th Street East Side Subway station, but I'm so wet that I drop into the Lexington Candy Shop Luncheonette at 83rd for a supernal bacon cheddarburger for $8.25 + .75 tax + $1.50 tip for the best $10.50 burger in town. THEN handed a free loaf of Italian bread by a purveyer clearing out after the parade. Sopping to the subway, change back to the Clark Street Station at Borough Hall, and collapse into bed until the start of the 2010 Tony Awards at 8PM that goes to 11:03, when I discover that my TV-side clock is slowing down: battery is running out. Also watch "Dodeskaden," the third of the Kurasawa films, during the day sometime. Bed 12:40AM.