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2010 5 of 7

WEDNESDAY, 8/11/10: Pee 8:19AM. 12:45PM: Woke at 10:10AM, had oatmeal for breakfast, then determined to catch up with printing pages and updating REORGCHR file. Sift back through old record, and journal pages, to do that, and NOW have to go back to add recent thoughts and additions to REORGCHR. 12:55PM: Spartacus calls to say he WON'T be joining us tonight at Vinegar Hill House. Try phoning Mildred twice but her phone is busy. While pages are printing, I put the "next trip" stuff from the dining-room table (including the addictive sudoku books) into the "next trip" bag in my closet, and put the empty plastic bags with my old roll-on, to be used for the next trip. Find I'm still way behind in printing out NJ. GET Mildred and SHE decides not to come this evening. Now back to CLEAR OFF my dining-room table before having lunch before going to the gym before seeing Sharon before meeting Charles here at 6:30 to go to dinner at Vinegar Hill House. Back from the gym at 4:25PM to a message from DiMatteo's secretary saying she'll be there until 4:15, but I phone and make an 8:30AM appointment to get my tooth pulled! DO clear off the dining-room table, but then think to put EB11 on the shelf that has the computer-manual lineup, and put THAT on the dining-room table, sorting through to find MANY strange things in it. Then out to Sharon, picking up my library book beforehand, get to Sharon, and when I return at 5:35PM I find CHARLES looking for me in the lobby, where he INSISTS I said he should come to my place at 5:30 to get to Vinegar Hill House at 6PM. I don't bother to say I couldn't POSSIBLY have said that since I don't get out of SHARON'S until 5:30. He comes up, looking exhausted, has some ice water, while I change clothes and show him my Indian gods and goddesses atop the bookcase. We leave about 6:25, walking to Vinegar Hill House in the humidity to get one of the last two-person tables before the place fills up and gets UNBEARABLY loud! Good chicken-liver mousse appetizer with marinate onions, shared; he has a glass of wine that he doesn't like and doesn't finish; I ask for ice cubes for my tepid glass of water; and his beef-ragu-filled papardelle isn't that great, but my short ribs are quite good, and I like my Guinness chocolate cake while he's not crazy about his peach-polenta cake. Walk the long way back by way of the Commandant's House, which he and Bill had had a chance to buy (or demolish or move), and the Main Street Clocktower building that he tried, to no avail, to find if it's rental or condo, and then we stroll through the crowded sections of the Brooklyn Bridge Park, surprised to see so many people out on this mild night---though I think it's STILL very humid! He buys Bill coffee in Starbucks and goes into the Clark Street Station while I go up to my apartment and turn on BOTH air conditioners to about 70 and take a valium at 9:25PM while starting Crace's "Continent" just to relax from the evening's walk and humidity. At 10:36 take ambien and simvastatin, wash my face, and get to bed at 10:41PM, feeling exhausted, not really CARING much about my extraction tomorrow.

SHARON B. 146 8/11/10

Remark about how COLD she keeps the office, after she's alone, for when I enter at 4:43PM. She says she loves it that way; I add that I've slept with my air conditioner on for the last three nights, even though it might be as low as 73, I still do it to counter the HUMIDITY. Also immediately reschedule next Wednesday's appointment (she says she'll attend the slide show!) for 8:15PM next Tuesday night. Then I repeat my remark to Marj: "Maybe one of the reasons I like to procrastinate is that it feels so GOOD when I finally DO what I've been putting off for so long (not mentioning the similarity of prolonging the moment of orgasm)." Sharon laughs and says she sometimes feels the same way. I talk about feeling SO good when I FINALLY clear off my dining-room table from the stuff from the Martha's Vineyard trip, even though I quickly put a shelf-full of computer manuals on it; including DVD mailers and a $100 tasting menu from Le Bernardin back in 1996. Say that I've settled in with the idea that I can FOREVER find new things on my shelves, and ended up recapping my 1) luck in finding the cartons for my books in front of the Rite-Aid service entrance; 2) luck in getting $5000 from 167 Hicks to move out, which enabled me to rent TWO apartments while moving stuff, even after painting, carpeting, and installing the mirrored cabinets; 3) putting things behind doors that I'm JUST NOW finding, and even 4) the "luck" of taking out the souvenir shelves, wondering where to put my gym bag, and opening the "box-blocked" mirrored door to find a pair of boxes that PERFECTLY SUBSTITUTE for a place to put my gym bag. I really feel that I'm HAPPY, and she verifies that I LOOK better now. Quickly mentioned my dental appointment last Thursday, saying that I have a lot of work coming up before I get a DENTURE. She mentions a friend who has one. Then started talking about my "not remembering" "Mysterious Skin" (which I just now add to my Netflix list), maybe because Spartacus's DVD CUT OFF before the end, and later Charles verified that the END was part of what made it so WONDERFUL for him---and telling Sharon that the day I SAW it, 9/22/2006, was my FIRST DAY MEETING HER! She was amazed when I said we'll soon be starting our FIFTH year, saying she thought maybe we'd been seeing each other for "only" THREE years. I asked "How'm I doin'?" and she laughed and she said she thought I was making progress, and I said I KNEW I'd made progress in being easier on myself without feeling guilty about it, and no longer REALLY worrying about Alzheimer's, and she ended by ASSURING me that I hadn't changed AT ALL in that way since the beginning: I was still quick, sharp, with it, in control of my thoughts, and I hadn't changed in that way at ALL, so I REALLY had nothing to worry about. Left even a minute or so before 5:30, but in part that was because she'd called me in a minute or so before 4:45!

THURSDAY, 8/12/10: Pee at 6:50AM and take valium and hydrocodone. Up at 7:36, have oatmeal, and get out to Heather at 8:35PM, guilty about being slightly late. She novocains me painlessly, and the tooth comes out almost effortlessly! I ask for it and she puts it into a self-seal sterilization pouch. She presents her three plans, I opt for the denture, and she insists I don't wait another 6 months for an appointment, so I make one for 11/10/10, just THREE months, so she can evaluate how my extraction is going and how my upper right is progressing, or not. Out at 9:30AM, relieved, and home to sit reading more from "Continent," just to relax. Almost finish watching the two-hour "Christopher Columbus" when Mildred calls for her stock quote. Then have lunch, careful not to eat on the tooth-extraction side. 3:30PM: Again just catching up in real time: 1) put in next week's HH order, before I forget; 2) told Piri last night that I'll be coming to Sunday's Games Group; 3) reported when Spartacus called that I liked the food but not the noise or the walk to Vinegar Hill House; 4) checked a stock price through my Schwab site for Mildred, who I hope doesn't do this often; 5) still kicking myself for not yet recording Sharon's session last night---which I'll do NOW! Continue catching up on transcribing Taipei and Solitaire and Spider records onto the previous days, filling in movies and what I remember of other things, throwing away notes as I transcribe what I'd noted on them---having to "postdate" two dreams because I'd already printed the prior pages---and doggedly continuing until I finish with this at 5:40PM, exhausted. Played Spider from 5:40-6:15 to 51.26546 at 544 up after 2 wins for AGAIN the highest, now a series of six, then Taipei from 6:15-7PM, and then Solitaire 7-8:10PM. Put on the Netflix George Kuchar trilogy, watching each TWICE for his nutty commentary: "The Sins of the Fleshapoids," with really ugly people; "The Secret of Wendel Samson," so forgettable I don't even remember what the secret WAS: probably that he was gay; and "The Craven Sluck," which was at least vaguely amusing. Got to bed at 12:20AM.

FRIDAY, 8/13/10: Pee and up at 9:20AM. Determined to put Netflix on hold for as long as possible, so I watch "Caligula," which is HORRIBLY cut, though some commentary mentions that many of the REALLY pornographic scenes were included in some European version. Then checked Joseph Gordon-Levitt and watched "Brick" with Lucas Haas as a creepy dealer in "bricks" of cocaine and rules a mob who kills people at will, and then continued sitting at my darkened computer to watch "Uncertainty," which SAYS it discusses possible alternatives to their jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge, but it's SO confusing it's IMPOSSIBLE to report on its plot, and I'm even getting sort of tired of Joseph Gordon-Levitt! Played Spider 4:45-5:15 (at least THIS is clearly PM) to another highest of 51.26761 to 545 up after 2 wins, another highest. Then leave at 5:25 to get to Lincoln Center at 5:55PM to sit on the corner of the amphitheater, with most of the people on the steps below, for the introduction to an American gamelon, which really isn't that great, and I don't know why I'd even HOPED it would evoke memories of the marvels of Bali. When they started moving toward the Lincoln Plaza fountain, I walked uptown to Spiga to get another restaurant off my list, the veal osso buco rather tough, though nicely flavored, and I again sort of missed having wine, which would have made the food less mediocre. Back to play Taipei 9:25-10:45 and Solitaire 10:45-11:40. Get to bed at 11:50PM after minimally preparing for the exterminator at 8:30AM tomorrow.

SATURDAY, 8/14/10: Up at 7:52AM after LONG dream of opera rehearsal viewing, which, checking DH, I find I didn't transcribe! Dress and start scrubbing the kitchen floor, and the stupid exterminator knocks forcefully at my door at 8:12AM! Look at the Times and do the puzzles. The rest of the day is described in REORGCHR:8/14/10 which, when I check it, has information on what I ALSO did on reorganization on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Bed at 12:35AM.

SUNDAY, 8/15/10: 10:12AM: Cleaned up the living room, as described in REORGCHR:8/15/10. 10:25AM: GOT to finish this to go to the gym early, now that I've had breakfast and watered the plants to do THOSE tasks for the day. Hope the gym will let me in EARLY! It does, though the red "DO NOT ADMIT" flag comes up on the screen. Then sit on the phone, playing Solitaire, from noon to 1:25PM, when the Met finally answers and gives me six tickets for $510, each ticket with a $10 surcharge! Phone Piri to say I'll be late, and get there at 2:40PM, finishing Boggle, then Charades, then Scattergories, and leave at 6:25 to find it RAINING, so I don't bother to stop at the dance at the Damrosch. Home to watch "The Secret Garden" with a surprising segue into color for the garden. Bed at 12:53AM.

MONDAY, 8/16/10: Pee at 7:11AM and up at 7:30AM. Got Marj's new work about a week ago and have still done nothing with it. Nor have I done much of anything ELSE. Watch "Welcome," about an Iraqi youngman learning to swim so he can drown trying to swim to England from Calais. Tell Spartacus it was certainly depressing! 1:15PM: Work on REORGCHR:8/16/10 and start retyping the MENU and POSTERS pages. Did that, then wasted the rest of the day. Played Spider 1:55-2:55PM to the EIGHTH (and last) consecutive highest at 51.26964 at 546 up after 3 wins. Met Spartacus at 5:15 to get into the lofty lobby of the new Times building to see the new cast (Marin Mazie and her husband) of "Next to Normal" for exactly an hour between 6 and 7PM, no extra questioning time added. Maybe dinner then, maybe after game. Played Taipei 8:15PM-12:10AM!! UGH! Bed 12:20AM.

TUESDAY, 8/17/10: Pee at 6:50AM. 8:05AM: Woke with the idea of typing a WHERE AM I NOW? and ended up deleting many "sent" e-mails and watching many YouTube videos to 9:55AM. Then I do a short "WHERE AM I NOW." OK, now at 10AM I can have breakfast, before lunch with Mildred at Aldea at 1. It's almost empty and
not noteworthy. Rearrange the sofas and start vacuuming and watch "Our Vines Have Tender Grapes," before going to Sharon's at 8:17PM. Watch "TV Guide's Sex on TV" for two hours. Bed at 11:08PM.

WHERE AM I NOW? 8/17/10

Decided that my life has THREE major components:

1) My INNER, PHYSICAL life
This includes A) daily maintenance, B) health care, C) travel

2) My APARTMENT
This includes A) daily maintenance, B) REORGCHR, C) stamps

3) My WEBSITE
This includes A) creating JEWEL BOX pages, B) continuing file transmission, C) eventual slide transmissions, D) eventual video transmissions

SHARON B. 147 8/17/10

Finish watching "Our Vines Have Tender Grapes," which I'd seen 6/4/07, at 8:04 and get out to CVS to wait for one person ahead of me, getting to Sharon's at 8:17PM, two minutes late, and going right in. Say what a busy time it's been with my three areas of endeavor: 1) Self, 2) Apartment, 3) Website; talked about irritability when things aren't wonderful, noting that Spartacus actually asked me if I were enjoying things less because of all that I'd seen---even though he manages to LOVE most of the foods he eats, movies and plays he sees, and groups he leads; but NOT irritable when it's not "directed against me," as having to wait 100 minutes to get an order for Metropolitan Opera tickets on the first day of offering on Sunday, which made me late for the Games Group, which was good nevertheless, but when I left it was raining so I didn't go to the dance at Damrosch, but just went home; as I'd left the gamelon program on Friday at 6:30 because "it wasn't as good as being in Bali," and then went to the mediocre restaurant Spiga, but it was on my list---and did NOT mention that I "mastered" my compulsion to go to EVERY restaurant on my list by crossing off one that Zakarian no longer worked in. DID compliment myself on LETTING GO of finding the date and restaurant for two menus, at which Sharon positively BEAMED, saying that I'd either find it later, or I wouldn't, but that was that for now; though I found a wonderful website (as people, pace Mildred, will find MY website wonderful either BEFORE I die, or AFTER I die---and as Sharon mentions, gives me intense pleasure NOW in working on it) with restaurant-course photographs, and then finally found the restaurant and date for the 1989 Bi-Centennial tasting menu "consulted" by Haeberlin. Talked of Mildred's surprise when I noted that when I didn't talk, SHE talked, just as that awful woman on the trip who insisted that the air had to be CONSTANTLY filled with travel observations on a trip---again referring to the wonderful EASE of being with the Isensteins, in the same room, each following our own interests in perfect amicability. So I was in no danger of falling back into anhedonia (which Sharon professed not to know the meaning of) but sometimes wished people would just leave me alone so I could do what I wanted to do, though I did NOT want people to leave me SO alone that I felt LONELY. Brought back the LSD "knowing" that records were useless to possibly explain the two few-months' gap in my journals, which I may still find, and my delight in realizing that N1, which I for a few moments feared hadn't been transcribed, HAD been transcribed, and even MINED for previously needed pages. Didn't really PURSUE the core realization that the "ME, I AM important" moment of the LSD trip is a prime mover in my current activities: A) Self: treating myself and my health and my tasks to make myself as GREAT as possible; B) Apartment: changing IT to reflect my best possible picture of myself as traveler, reader, fascinating person; C) Website: "giving everyone in the world the opportunity to see that I AM a great and important and intelligent and well-written person." Glanced at the clock at 9:05, thinking for a moment that I'd started at 8:45PM, but then realized that I'd started at 8:17PM and was actually running OVER, and she insisted "That's MY job," to keep track of the time, and I should finish my thought, which was that I'd even decided not to finish my "souvenir wall" for the group tomorrow---I could do it LATER; and saying that I felt good about KNOWING that two people weren't going to be using my sofa-beds in the forseeable future, so I could put them in an L-shape which permitted the use of only ONE bed, unless, of course, I moved the sofa back again. Even bragged about finding that Fabreze removed wine stains from my carpet! Left, happy that she'll be seeing my show tomorrow, and saying that we'll meet next Wednesday at the regular time, and she got a phone call that she said she'd return in two minutes (when she was finished with me) to "a compulsive," and we both laughed when we agreed we knew a few such people. Left feeling good at 9:07PM and finished typing this at 9:40PM, feeling good about THAT, too. AFTER reading an e-mail from Tris about encoding my files to "interest" the webcrawlers who'd take note of my files. WILL have to get to website work SOON, after clearing off my coffee table! And finishing the busy tomorrow! But this is more JOURNAL than SHARON!

WEDNESDAY, 8/18/10: Pee at 2:41AM. Up at 7:38AM to take valium (now officially into my current prescription with about 26 left), shit (while reading New York magazine), and then clean my comb and the toilet rim, and spraying Glade to minimize the smell, in preparation for my gathering this afternoon. Now, at 8:30AM, I've added what I wanted to add to Sharon's session from last night, and have added the NEW activities of PHONING PEOPLE FROM THE PAST to see if they might want to be included in my future: 1) Fred Lasker, 2) Bob Rosinek, 3) Anita Fishbone. But really MUST get to breakfast so I can be ready for a noon lunch with Ken and maybe Susie and Charles, and then put away the "wall decor" items that I've decided NOT to put up for this afternoon's gathering. AND very aware that I'm coming to the hundredth page of MC\NJ. Finish vacuuming, and Ken and Susie arrive together at 11:50AM. She brings snickerdoodles for everyone, and we three have lunch. Rush to 55 Pierrepont and arrange for at 11/17 showing of Dubai and Africa. Show goes well: Leon says it's my best ever. Susie phones John, who FORGOT to attend, but joins us at my place for snacks and drinks until 5PM, when they leave. I go to Bouley, mentioning it's Ken's birthday, and we probably get an extra course of foie gras because of it. The food is good, but not great; Ken agrees with me. Watch "Bad Bascomb" when I get home and get wearily to bed at 11:25PM.

THURSDAY, 8/19/10: Up 7:35AM to have breakfast while watching "South Pacific" from Lincoln Center, finishing in time to meet Mildred at Alto, very elegant, at 1PM for a good lunch, almost worth the two Michelin stars it got in 2010. Determined to go to the gym, and then watch "Armida" with Renee Fleming, not a very good opera. Then watch the last (and probably most interesting) half of "Madame Curie." Bed at 12:41AM.

FRIDAY, 8/20/10: Pee at 6:12 and 8:20AM, and up at 9:40, still tired. Just before noon I realized I hadn't ordered my HH meals yet! My mind is REALLY going when I don't pay attention! Watch "Mrs. Miniver," taped last night. Then watch "Heaven" with Blanchett and Ribisi, good players in Italy against corrupt police. Played Spider from 6:25PM-12:30AM, starving for dinner, but making such a MESS that I wait until the next morning to calculate that I ended with a score of 51.25121 at 539 up after MISERABLE losses. Watch the end of "Bringing Up Baby" and get to bed at 1:50AM. Can't sleep, so I take an ambien at 2AM.

SATURDAY, 8/21/10: Pee at 8:13AM and up at 10:36AM. Played another messy Spider 4-6:35PM to 51.24744 at 538 up, just miserable, after finally eking out 2 wins. Watch "Open Water 2: Adrift," stupid; and "Mad Max," almost as stupid. Bed at 12:35AM, but up for Hepburn's death on Google and Solitaire to 1:45AM, STILL having done nothing REALLY USEFUL except FINISHING NOTEBOOK J.

SUNDAY, 8/22/10: Pee at 4:10AM and 7:03AM. Went through the day and typed this at 7:38PM: Sure, sure: this morning I decided I HAD to get back to clearing off the table to see what had to be done; and I knew that I was getting to the last pages of NJ, so I had to finish notes from MANY days of not recording---and worrying that my right thumb was beginning to hurt when I typed almost ANYTHING. AND pills to order. AND money to transfer. But I read the Times, had breakfast, sifted through six more of the porn magazines, jerked off in about 45 minutes, then sat down at Spider from 12:45-4PM, doing miserably to a score of 51.2464 at 538 up, merely tying yesterday's lousy score, after three hard-won wins---it seemed to go win, lose, win, lose, win, lose, ENDLESSLY. Then at 4PM I went to see if "The Promotion," with Seann William Scott, was recording, and it was, so I watched it to 5:15. Then had an almost chicken-less lunch with a good mango sauce, and then indulged in Taipei from 6-7:35. But now I HAVE to start this, just HAVE to! First transcribe all the games played, taking to 7:46PM for Taipei, to 7:47PM for Solitaire, and to 7:56PM for Spider! NOW I know where my time goes, even when I'm not actually PLAYING games. Now to transcribe the calendar pages! Print NJ page 97 and at 8:28PM check for the print quality---and the paper's JAMMED in the printer! DAMN! Try again, and it jams AGAIN, and this time the problem seems to be the RIBBON. Change it, and then realize I put the paper BEHIND the carriage, rather than INTO it, so I do it AGAIN, finally printing out the goddam page 97 by 8:58PM, and let's hope that 98 prints OK! It does, and I finish printing pages 99 and 100 and making this the first page of NOTEBOOK K at 10:23PM. Made my tuna casserole and started baking it at 9:38PM, so now at 10:25PM I can stop this and get ready to eat, seeing what's on TV while I eat. Had typical video soup of oceans, megaquakes, and JFK's assassination. Bed 12:24AM.

MONDAY, 8/23/10: Look at the clock at 12:45, not able to get to sleep yet. Force myself to start Actualism, which puts me out in about five minutes. I'd put the fan on, even though it was down to 70( outside, to counteract the humidity, but at 2AM woke chilly and turned it off, relying on the slightly open window for circulation. 5:45AM: Wake after TYPICAL, hour-long, terrifying nightmare! Transcribe it starting at 5:52, ending at 6:20. Wake about 8AM with a second dream, but go back to sleep for a third dream, getting up at 9:27 to transcribe them to 9:40AM, getting a relatively late start on the day. Breakfast at 10, and then start in on table: 1) put many batteries into trash and tester with good batteries in drawer, 2) put camcorder papers with camcorder pile, 3) mail Tuesday Evening Hour check and raffle stubs, 4) sign Charles's check, 5) check August Visa statement, 6) call Ken about last charge to settle MVTRIP bills, 7) replace Center card in wallet, 8) Fabreze dark spots in two rooms, 9) find form to request distribution from Keogh, 10) find that $1.50 minimum interest charge on last Visa statement was incorrect and will be credited on next bill, 11) put Delouvrier dates onto poster pile, 12) put Canon photo copier note on Canon photo copier, and 13) sort piles on table into TWENTY APPALLING PILES (from oldest to most recent): 1) slide scanning for website, 2) camcorder scanning for website, 3) tooth whitening pile, 4) exercise book, 5) vitamin reordering, 6) Met Museum next visit, 7) DiMatteo's bill until I get my Visa card refilled, 8) Tris's bill, 9) NYC Opera schedule, 10) MVTRIP bills, 11) under-sink problems, 12) back-up laptop note, 13) trip possible medications, 14) Spartacus disk-wants, 15) Miles and More protection, 16) Verizon questions, 17) HH meals, 18) website current work, 19) Keogh distribution, and 20) Marj's editing notes. GHASTLY! Finish this note at 12:25PM, ready to doctor old Keogh distribution statement for faxing next. Do that, and later phone at 5:45 to get someone in Phoenix to say they GOT the request form; it should be processed in 48 hours; if there are problems, they'll phone me. GOOD! Check what vitamins I need (have PILES of folic acid!) and charge another $238.88 to my Visa card for Puritan's Pride. Then, taking advantage of momentum, go to the GYM! Back to throw out more porn magazines, do the New York magazine puzzle, have lunch, and then improve on Spider from 4:30-5:45 to 51.25532 at 542 up after 5 wins. Print out the first page of NK, and feel GREAT about today's work by 5:55PM! Ken phones with his $7.11 phone bill, demanding that I take $3.56 off his $202 check, and says he'll mail it to me, finishing THAT pile off (when I get the check). Decide to check progress on the website, now that Tris has e-mailed me his latest bill. JOHN is in TEN parts, and has most of JOURNAL to 12/31/73. RTW WITH JOHN is in SEVEN parts, with many errors inherent. All the memos are now IN. FIVESTAN should probably be in ASIA! Make lots of notes about corrections. Then tear bags at the top of my closet apart before I look to the bottom of my travel shelf to find my Vaccination Certificates and make a list of questions for Chin to 8:45. Treat myself to Taipei from 8:45-10:20, winning most of them. Then have dinner, a large HH helping of chicken and awful vegetables, while watching "Ocean Blue" on Green Earth Channel and "Apocalypse Island," some South Pacific island with an old MAYAN viewpoint of the 2012 eclipse and Venus transit of the sun AND the earth-sun-galactic rim alignment that "could subject the earth to a once-every-23000-year death ray from the black hole in the center of the galaxy." Sure. Record three more hours for watching tomorrow. Bed at 1:15AM.

TUESDAY, 8/24/10: Pee at 4:36AM and think about the outrageous idea of asking Mildred for $200,000 at 6% interest to solve BOTH our financial concerns for the rest of our lives. Pee again at 6:31AM, when I think to get up, look at the old photos from Canada/Alaska in 1980, and get DIZZY doing it, so go back to bed at 7AM and up at 10:23, having dreams that I don't bother to record. Up to breakfast watching a recorded hour of TV, get rid of seven more, not-very-satisfying Unzipped, porn magazines, leaving only 14 before I can throw them all out. Then sit down to Spider at 12:30, after leaving word with Mildred to phone me, but first call Palgon's office to find how to get there tomorrow morning, going through SEVEN switches before I get a PERSON to ask, and check e-mails to find another message from Miles and More. Get out the Lufthansa file, find them part of Star Alliance which also includes US Air, on which I flew to Martha's Vineyard, so I call Lufthansa and find "it doesn't work that way: there are only two ways of avoiding the AUTOMATIC cancellation of unused frequent-flyer miles after 36 months: 1) make a MONTHLY purchase, no matter how small, on a MasterCard costing either $59 or $79 per year, or 2) fly 35,000 miles a year." I say neither of those fit my current life-style, so he suggests I buy something from their site, which I intend to do. With that, I decide to call Marj at 12:57 and talk about ALL my "doing" Sunday and Monday, and my idea for Mildred today, and end at 2:20PM, when I pee again, drink water, and catch up with this to 2:30PM, feeling VERY virtuous, even closing the window because, marvelously, it's too COOL out, now nearing the end of August, to keep it open. THEN start Spider 2:30-3:30 to 51.26198 at 545 up after 4 wins, very good. Then scan more porno, have lunch, and do Taipei 6:10-7:15 and Solitaire 7:15-8:15 and have dinner while watching "Apocolypse Island" and checking Palenque books and EB articles about Mayan culture. Bed at 10:25PM for early Palgon tomorrow.

WEDNESDAY, 8/25/10: 12:01AM and 3:23AM note dreams. When I wake at 3:23 I have burning, swollen feet that feel like they want to be OILED. After I note dream, I write that I'm feeling "oddly ill." Start Actualism, maybe doze a bit, and feel I have to write my want-list when I see Chin: 1) four trip vaccines? 2) cough? 3) burning feel wanting to be oiled and massaged? At 4:18 list the possible guests for my FIVESTAN show HERE: 1) Elsie Brazel (and Leon for a repeat viewing?), 2) Carolyn, 3) John, 4) Fred?, 5) Shelley, 6) Mildred?, and 7) Stephanie Sweda (as an afterthought). At 5:08AM write a place-card for coffee-table list for Marj's proofing. At 5:10AM write a place-holder for NEW TV remote with workable slo-mo button. At 5:12AM write a place-holder to finish scanning and discarding porn magazines. At 5:21AM write a place-holder for printing information pages from websites about possible future travel to 1) Libya, 2) Malaysia, and 3) West Africa for eight countries in 14 days. At 5:27AM write current website tasks: 1) new corrections to Tris, 2) old corrections to Tris, 3) "code-words" files for webcrawler access, 4) N1 handling, 5) journal dates found, filed, and organized. At 5:31 write note for "trillions" page: 1) Ocean Blue narration, 2) Actualism levels, 3) star-filled billions of galaxies in TINY bit of space, 4) cyclic/alternate universes/big bangs, 5) books/memories/travels/place-holder notes (of which this is the TENTH!). 5:45AM finish TEN notes and THOROUGH Actualism and get up to wash face and pee and start day with sheet for Time of accomplishing/Accomplishment. By 5:55AM I've gotten up, dressed, washed face, combed hair, peed, drunk water, and raised bedroom blind. 6:33AM: Finish penultimate seven porn magazines. 6:51AM: Checked that there are NO more Lufthansa gift purchases possible. 6:57AM: Write check for Tris's bill. 7:20AM: Finish breakfast. Finish THIS journal at 7:43AM, ready to leave for Palgon. Dress for the cold (62() rain and leave at 7:48AM, hoping to get there at LEAST ten minutes early, but I just miss the Atlantic Avenue-bound subway at Clark Street and wait a LONG time for the N-train at the Pacific Avenue station, so I sign in at Palgon's office at PRECISELY 8:39AM, one minute before my 8:40AM appointment. All I have to do is sign and date a sign-in sheet, since I'm a return patient, and at 8:43 the nurse, with bright orange fingernail polish, calls me in to take my temperature by pointing a laser-like scanner into my left ear! She then asks my height and weight, and leaves, and Palgon immediately enters at 8:49AM. See MEDICAL:8/25/10. Back at 9:55AM to get a message from Mildred. I return call at 10:02 and she suggests I might ask for a lesser amount for a loan, say $50,000. Talk to 10:25AM. 10:26AM: Leave word with Charles. 10:48AM: Finish Martha's Vineyard finances and trip-list update. Get the last box of index cards from, I think, the not-last carton of boxes. Play Spider MUCH too long from 10:50AM-1:10PM, managing only to TIE the "biggest up" at 546 with a much-lower score of 51.26353 after 5 wins. 1:37PM: Pay FIA Services for Schwab visa after transferring the rolled-over Keogh funds from my IRA to Schwab One. Then have lunch while watching junk TV to 4PM, when I start watching "Meet Dave" with Eddie Murphy as a spaceship manned by Eddie Murphy. That's over at 5:40. At 5:50 compulsively go back to Spider to 7:55 to GREAT session to the VERY HIGHEST everything of 51.27445 at 551 up after 7 wins. Start new card for it. Have dinner to 8:30, glancing at the not-very-interesting Spike Lee follow-up on Katrina, recording it, and reading magazines. 9:57PM: Scan LAST of porn magazines, but don't pack up stack to take out, yet. Then, tired, can't resist Taipei from 10-11:30 and Solitaire 11:30-12:40, getting to bed at 12:48AM.

THURSDAY, 8/26/10: Pee at 5:11AM and up at 9:27AM. Breakfast and magazines and check Schwab and Audience Extras and Legoland at Rockefeller Center. 10:22AM: Just CRAZED with the minutia of details of things to be done that took up so much of yesterday (and will, I'm sure, later, take up so much of today): swiping at "easy" things, like scanning the last of the porn magazines, just to get them done; making place-cards to remind me of what all I have yet to do; yet devoting hours [by actual, ghastly, count, SEVEN HOURS AND FIVE MINUTES YESTERDAY] to Spider and Taipei and Solitaire (and having STRONGLY to resist going to one or the other when I check e-mail and open WP51 at 10:22AM today). So determined yesterday to keep track of "many things done" that I start a list, which turns into the blandest trivia, which has to be transcribed today, which adds to the list of things that I must do. Sharon calls at 11:42AM to cancel (AGAIN, is she REALLY sick, or does she just use that as an excuse because she simply doesn't feel like traveling down for her work?) tonight, vaguely implying she might call with a make-up session later this week, but it sort of addles my expectations for the rest of the day. Left word with Charles yesterday, about going to the Met Museum today or tomorrow, who finally calls me about 8:15PM, and then gasps, "Someone's here, I've got to call you back," and I wait a bit before starting dinner and finishing the evening: he hasn't called back YET. Now to catch up with recording yesterday, and this morning, here on page 3 of NK [useless trivia, again]. And THEN I spend till 11AM Zud-ing the plastic mat, cruddy either from the crud of years, or the ground-in remnants of the plastic around my Tokyo Marathon pen, on which my desk chair rolls. [Kill a tiny roach at my DESK at 11:25AM! So much for extermination!] At 11:22AM Sharon calls to schedule my session for 6:30PM today. Decide to print out the long dream last Monday, finding two corrections that I add in ink on her copy and on the actual page which hasn't been printed yet. At 12:10AM I decide to USE the de-crystallized honey, which is CONGEALING again, on my cottage cheese as a kind of lunch before subwaying to the Met Museum, without Charles, and then bussing down to Legoland at Rockefeller Center, and getting to Sharon at 6:30, taking MANY things off my do-table! Count that I'm actually down to EIGHTEEN piles, even counting the place-cards for many jobs that hadn't been part of the original 20 piles, having actually TAKEN CARE of SEVEN of Sunday's original 20 piles. Leave at 12:45PM, getting in to look for 1) Oberlin's Masterworks at 1:50, but the few in the Modern Paintings Gallery aren't that interesting, and others are scattered IN the collection, so at 2PM I decide it's not worth seeing more. 2) Sounding the Pacific, 2:05-2:30, sadly, has no SOUND, and even the guard regrets having no video of methods of playing. I'm intrigued to note that a Papua New Guinea male initiation ceremony is called AIDA, after a fabled hero. And they display JAW harps, which might be the origin of the term JEW'S harp; or, as Charles suggested, they didn't want to "offend" by calling them Jew's harps. 3) Stroll the Africa, New Guinea, Oceania area to 2:40, impressed by their holdings. 4) Tut's Funeral, 2:46-3:06, is interesting, having found the LEFTOVERS before having found the TOMB. 5) Shit to 3:14. 6) See that the Italian drawings from the Tobey Collection have been extended to 9/19, and it's a GREAT exhibit 3:20-4:02, lots of drawings of since-lost frescos and paintings. 7) "Facing the Figure," on a mezzanine that's hard to get to because the ground-floor entrance to one side is closed, isn't very interesting from 4:04-4:12, except for a face-to-face pastel of Rosamund Bernier [just got about a 15-second "Please Wait" on WP51---ANOTHER disadvantage of being constantly hooked up] and her husband. 8) "Prismatic Eye," on the other mezzanine, 4:13-4:18, feature Anne Ryans collages inspired by Schwitters, some of which are fun. I add up my times to find that I'm terminally fatigued after only 2:28! Leave, get on bus at 4:30, and get off at 4:50 at Rockefeller Center Promenade and walk down for the new Lego store on the corner, stuff VERY pricy, colorful constructions, and out at 5 to subway to 5:39 to find that Fascati's is closed until after Labor Day! Two messages: Marj with a "total flip-out" and Ken with a "visa problem." Have a quick second lunch and get out to Sharon's at 6:20, a good session, and lug 38 pounds of groceries from Key Food for a record-breaking $81.98. Charles calls to sympathize with the 33 Chilean miners facing four months of imprisonment before being freed at Christmas. Back to treat myself to two wonderful ears of corn (four for $2 unshucked, compared with $3.99 for four SMALLER ears shucked) and more of my caramelized (here I always thought the word was CARMELIZE!) honey on lovely blueberries and milk, with, followed with a yogurt, served as my dinner while watching two hours of Spike Lee's "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise." Perversely can't resist Solitaire 1-1:45AM. Bed at 1:55AM.

SHARON B. 148 8/26/10

Get in early at 6:25PM, seeing a slow-walking-with-cane lady leave who Sharon says is 89 years old and still sharp and traveling! Describe my "classic" dream from Monday, saying this may have been the first time I connected this type of "lost upper Manhattan" dream with taking the wrong subway to Columbia and getting off at 110th Street in Harlem, rather than on Broadway. Described it as feeling VERY REAL, even though there was the "been here, done this" feeling in addition. She gladly accepts the two-page printout, talking a bit about ANOTHER dream that includes my mother, and I go on to describe the wonderful coincidences with Ken [which I just transcribe into my COINC file and print out another page of it]; the "shake-down" of Mildred for $200,000, and my amazement when she suggests I think about $50,000; and my great day at the Metropolitan Museum WITHOUT Charles, followed by Legoland, and a closed Fascati's. Rattle on about clearing piles off my table and feeling "good" when Ken worries about HIS energy-level for the gorilla part of the upcoming trip; she hastens to assure me that it's USUAL to feel good when we're proven to be "better" than someone else. Confess to feeling manipulative with Mildred, letting her KNOW that I'd like cash from her, maybe even in her will, and to feeling arrogant about Ken's diminishing energies. She dismisses those feelings. Talk about my follow-up with Palgon, and she agrees it might be the anxiety of "saying the profitable thing to use our time together" that contributes to my hoarseness with her, and she says I wasn't hoarse at the FIVESTAN show, which she enjoyed very much, even identifying Ken and Susie and Charles from the people in the group. SHE confesses to being anxious and hoarse with HER supervisor at her weekly sessions with him. Time, again, goes very quickly, and I leave, reminding myself to shop at Key Food before returning home.

FRIDAY, 8/27/10: Pee at 6:21 and 9:14AM. My back is sore, so I take a meloxicam. Do an energizing Actualism session and get up at 10:05AM to have an oatmeal breakfast to get it out of the way, finishing another magazine, which I bind with all the discarded porn magazines and take to the hall room at 11AM, being late calling Marj back, getting a busy signal until 11:10, when we talk about her envy-making refusal to take more jobs until 11:40; talk to Ken about the Ethiopian visas, which he says costs $50 there, though they're only $20, as I tell him, while the embassy here will charge $70, but he still wants to do it, even though I warn him he might have to wait for ME. We have to talk. Spartacus, as usual, suggests they won't GIVE me a visa there and I'll have to FORGO seeing the country. Finish this up-to-date at 1PM. Transcribe Sharon's session to 1:15PM, and now want to address two place-cards on my desk: 1) "Trillions" page and 2) "Future trip" print-outs. The "Trillions and Trillions" page exhausts me by 1:30PM. Print out 1) Libya, 2) Malaysia, and 3) West Africa pages by 2:13PM, getting rid of ANOTHER stack from my desk. Mail DiMatteo's bill by visa by 2:15 and decide to go to the gym NOW! Back about 3:30 and have lunch, then decide to save WP51 onto Edge, which takes about twenty minutes, then transfer file "Bob" from laptop to Elite flashdrive from 5:10-7:13, having first been estimated at ELEVEN HOURS, and from the flashdrive to Edge from 7:15-8:50, having been estimated at 190 minutes, while playing Taipei from 5:15-8:15, pleased that I can do BOTH at once, and playing Solitaire from 8:15-8:55, when the whole thing is finished, and I catch this up-to-date by 9:03PM, not starting Marj's corrections, yet. Decide to have dinner---AAAAHHH! Forgot to watch the START of "If God..." at 7PM! Now all I can do is READ during dinner, which is absolutely perfect in three courses: a perfectly broiled steak with resurrected hickory-smoked steak sauce; one ear of tender, delicious corn, gobbled with gustatory glee; and a penultimate bowl of blueberries with almost the last of the old, caramelized honey. Absolutely marvelous. Then at 10:25PM start watching the end of "If God..." and then space back to watch the beginning, which I'd missed. Bed at 12:03AM, but up to make a note for Saturday: 1) WHAT is edamane?, and 2) HAS John Archibald Wheeler died? And record that I'm down to 14 piles on Saturday.

TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS 8/27/10

David Attenborough on "Ocean Blue" talks about TRILLIONS of plankton and fish and reef creatures. I think of that as I go through the BILLIONS of cells and TRILLIONS of atoms and molecules in the levels of my Actualism processing. Also reminded of the astronomy program that had the Hubble Space Telescope focus on one TINY "starless" segment of the sky to discover, again, BILLIONS of galaxies with TRILLIONS of suns; truly BOGGLING vistas of the immensity of the KNOWN (let alone the UNKNOWN) universe. And UNIVERSES, if there are alternate universes branching from each quantum choice, or if the Big Bang is really only a Big Bounce between INFINITE pairs of collapsing and expanding universes. And my mind soars off to the huge numbers of books and records and travels---and place-holder notes (of which this is the TENTH, from 5:31AM on 8/25/10) on my coffee table! The billions of neuronal connections in EACH brain are amazing, as could be the yet-unknown-but-possible INTERconnections, at some psychic level, AMONG all brains, at least at the end, at Chardin's Omega Point. EACH COMPONENT is so incredibly complex, and NUMEROUS, that my mind reels in exhaustion even enumerating them. Well, ironically, it's A thought. Add later: the Akashic Record, which is out there in SOME form or other, contains ALL the moments of previous earth (and other-earth, also) history. All the four-dimensional details IN THE WORLD.

SATURDAY, 8/28/10: Pee at 3:38AM and up at 8:32AM after two great DREAMS:8/28/10. Bring in the Times, dress, and type dreams and this to 9AM. Add "6) add glossary" to the current list of tasks for the website. 9:10AM: Edamame is a variety of soybean, maybe including the pod, maybe even the tough stem, and the bean itself. John Archibald Wheeler DID die 4/13/08, aged 96. Article states that the later abandoned geometrodynamics as a possible united field theory. Now to read the Times and have breakfast. Puzzles take a long time, interrupted by Ken's calling to ask if I want to see Al Pacino as Shylock, and I say I already have. And he doesn't push on Ethiopia, saying Bestway said the visa was $50, so the writeup is wrong. I don't think so. Then work on Marj's stuff about 1:40-2:20, then over to Spartacus's to return his DVDs and blow up his air mattress for him and get a DVD that doesn't work, and a DVD of "The Great Sinner," and old-fashioned mellerdramer with Gregory Peck gambling (after Dostoevsky and a screenplay by Christopher Isherwood) and winning Ava Gardner, which I watch. Have lots of lunch: Spam, an HH bar, the last of the blueberries and caramelized honey, and then play Taipei 5:45-7:25, and finish this to date at 7:30. Then decide to investigate the New York Times article about the 9/11 videos on YouTube---some are repeats, some are conspiracy-driven, some are new, but none are REALLY worth forwarding to anyone else---but I'm mesmerized by the selections until 11:30PM, when I HAVE to catch up with this and have SOME kind of DINNER! But then I put the temperature chart in my top drawer, the number of piles on my table (plus one for Marj) is down to TWELVE piles, which I triumphantly enter for SUNDAY, since it's less than a half-hour to then, now. Bed at 12:45 after having a third-last Progresso soup for dinner, leaving the last ear of corn for tomorrow. Then get up to write notes for 1) get Franzen's "Freedom" with e-rewards? and 2) interleave "get prescription" sheet in datebook pages where needed.

SUNDAY, 8/29/10: Pee at 9:08 and 9:55AM. Note two DREAMS:8/29/10 at 8:02 and 9:07AM. Do an ENERGIZING Actualism before getting up at 9:54AM. Decide to start a page of "8/29 ENERGIZING Actualism starts ACTIVE day." 1) Wash and dress and start day by 10:05; 2) Re-tape leather slipper by 10:15; 3) Breakfast and Times and water plants by 11:10; 4) Go to Spartacus's to return DVDs (and find he's already GIVEN me the two feet of porn he thought he still had to give me; and I put in a request for him to tape "The Cove" so I can watch the Emmys instead) to 12:10PM; 5) Try Marj (and get busy signal) at 11, 11:10, 12:10, 12:15, and 12:28, so I conclude she's NOT receiving; 6) Pay RadioShack bill by 12:15; 7) Update Actualism page by 12:20; 8) DH and NK up-to-date by 12:30; 9) Check e-mail and Audience Extras by 12:32; 10) Tris chat to 12:47---he'll call tomorrow PM; 11) Interleave "prescription get" sheet in calendar to 1:05 after ordering FIVE prescription refills for Monday; 12) Try for Border's e-rewards to 1:30; 13) Start FIVESTAN list to 2:05PM; 14) Empty and scrub under bathroom sink to EXHAUSTION at 2:50; 15) Lovely salad-and-steak lunch to 3:35; 16) Get Marj at 3:35 and talk to 3:42: she'll call ME when she's ready to talk about her notes; 17) Finish Crace "Continent" at 4:15: it's good, different, but not great, and now ready to be returned to the library; 18) Scrub bathroom under-sink shelves one last time to 4:30; 19) Google carbofed DM (cough and cold medicine) and catch up with NK to 4:38PM; 20) Treat myself to Spider 4:40-6:30, getting to new high of 51.27849 at 553 up after 4 wins; 21) Finish sink storage at 7:10; 22) Start tooth gel at 7:15, taking it off at 8:15; 23) Put metal 2-shelf atop last bookcase; 6-bin organizer out at 7:45, construct to 8PM; 24) Dinner and Emmys to 11PM. Bed 11:38PM.

MONDAY, 8/30/10: DREAMS:8/30/10 at 3:09 and 4:25AM, transcribed from 4:48AM to 5AM, when I pee again, and go out to cool (77() and breezy balcony. Put Gold Bond Lotion on flaky, tingly feet to 5:13AM; it seems to help. Up at 9:55AM, feeling singularly UNenergized. Decide to keep another list to "energize" my day: 1) Wash and dress (and pee on floor) to 10:14AM; 2) Try to get Mallett appointment by 10:23AM; 3) Breakfast, watching "The Cove," to 12:20PM; 4) Elsie, Leon, Piri, and John for FIVESTAN show on 15th; Anita and Fred on 10th; Carolyn and Shelley not called yet; 5) Try Borders book order---no good---to 12:42PM; 6) Work at "old Tris questions" to 3PM; 7) Call maintenance about sinks: Julio on vacation till next week by 3:02PM; 8) Lunch and read New Yorker to 3:53PM; 9) Corrections to Tris to 5:20PM, playing Solitaire during long pauses in conversation; 10) Compose two correction e-mails to Tris to 6PM; 11) Scan EUR2MOND Summary Page; attach it to EUR2MOND, and send it to Tris by 7PM; 12) Junk TV, dinner, and watch Marx Brothers' "Horse Feathers" and Laurel and Hardy's "Another Fine Mess," and get, tired, to bed at 11:30PM. But Borders preys on my mind, so I get up to find their e-mail and try to follow it to 12:11AM. At 12:23AM get up again and lotion feet to 12:27AM.

TUESDAY, 8/31/10: Note DREAMS:8/31/10 at 5:19AM. Pee, drink water, and pee again. My mind a MAZE of website considerations WEBSITE:8/31/10, I get up at 7:10AM---DAMN the "eight-hour sleep" for today. Start my sheet (my shit!) again: 1) Up at 7:10 and check e-mail to see Borders HAS $15 of my e-rewards by 7:30AM; 2) NK and DH updates, decide to start WEBSITE:8/31/10 site (!?) by 8:30AM; 3) Breakfast and "Chickens Come Home," with Laurel and Hardy, to 9:30AM; 4) Borders again: HAS #15 in account at 9:35; 5) Website check to 9:50; 6) Conglomerate map of website to 12:05PM; 7) LW with Tris (simple questions) 9:56AM; 8) Shelley says 9/15 to 10:27AM; 9) Marj phones 12:05-12:59PM; 10) To gym and back at 2:40PM for Spartacus to tell me to get "Abe Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party" from Audience Extras; 11) Lunch to 3:20 while paging through new New Yorker; 12) Glossary work and sent to Tris as Memo 23 by 4:40PM; 13) Spider 4:40-5:25PM to 51.28288, highest at 555 up after 3 wins; 14) Catch this up-to-date by 5:32PM, ready to put things away to leave at 6 for play, after updating REORGCHR:8/31/10. "Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party" isn't as good as Spartacus said it was, but I'm glad I saw it anyway: it certainly has won a lot of awards on its way to the Acorn Theater. Bed at 12:02AM after dinner and junk TV with the start of Laurel and Hardy's "The Devil's Brother."

WEDNESDAY, 9/1/10: Up at 8:21AM, joyously noting "No pee!" But the situation alters drastically when I DO pee and it starts with a dark ellipse that I hope, at first, might be a dark kidney stone which I just passed, but I dip my hand into the toiletful of pee and retrieve a soft, slug-like, blood clot. I smash it onto a piece of toilet paper, which I then put into a glassine envelope for Dr. Mallett to see. Check the internet to find that it's often dangerous, and it's often not dangerous. Phone HIP at 9AM to see why they haven't called me back about my Monday request for a follow-up appointment with him, and when I say it's an emergency they schedule me at 6PM at the Elite Center on Nostrand, accessible by the 3-train. I get to breakfast, trying to fill the pillbox for the next two weeks, and decide I'd better pick up the waiting prescriptions at CVS so that I don't have to re-open the pillbox later to fill in the blanks. Breakfast is after 11AM, since I started Solitaire while waiting for the HIP phone, and then continued to play, an event that figured largely in Sharon's meeting that afternoon, from 9-10:50AM. Then do a rare FIVE-TASK trip: 1) return the library book, disappointed that their new hours have them opening on Wednesday at 1PM instead of 10AM, so I trust them to process the book due today that I put into the slot; 2) deposit the two sizeable checks from Charles and Ken; 3) drop off laundry, having decided to pay the extra quarter for folding because I don't want a large array of clean shirts always hanging in my closet; 4) buy thirty pounds of groceries just to really stock up, primarily wanting maple syrup for my remaining (and future) cottage cheese, since honey just doesn't "do it" like I like it; and 5) pick up FIVE prescriptions for $85.83, making a note to Mallett to see if there isn't a generic for the $3+/pill uroxatral at over $111 for a 30-day supply, of which I must pay $55.83. Home feeling very virtuous, watch more TV, then go to Spider from 2:15-4:02 to a new highest at 51.29852 at 562 up after EIGHT wins. In a sort of state of limbo as I eat HALF an enormous HH lunch of teriyaki beef before leaving for Sharon at 4:28PM, hoping to start early to get out early for the subway to Mallett's 6PM appointment. I DO start at 4:35 and leave at 5:17, a bit early, to get a 2-train to Franklin Avenue, and then a 3-train to Nostrand, getting into the now-familiar office at 5:50 and being called IMMEDIATELY: told 1) there's nothing to worry about: maybe my stone shifted and cut the inside of my kidney, and 2) to schedule with him on Montague Street on 9/15, and leaving the office at 6:02PM! Back to return Spartacus's call about the odd "March of Time" booklet he got from MoMA which has HBO all over it and NOT ONE WORD about the fact that the program, starting today, is at MoMA, not on HBO. Then resort to Taipei from 7:30-9:30 and Solitaire 9:30-10:45. Have a glorious ear of corn, a yogurt, and a half piece of fudge for a tremendously satisfying dinner, and then get out my very first recorded VHS tape, from 1984 of the Met Gala, and watch that until bed at 12:56AM.

SHARON B. 149 9/1/10

Get there early at 4:35PM, peek around the corner to see that there's not a patient with her, and call her name and ask if I can start early. She stops her work at her computer and we start. Tell her the tale of the appointment-making and my "solace" with Solitaire after making the appointment. I describe it almost as a set of welcoming, consoling arms, and she chooses to describe it as a sort of meditation to which I can resort when I need to allay what may be my current anxiety. I think that's a great, comforting, relieving analysis. Go on to mention my "session" with Spartacus in which I describe my Actualism meditation as "energizing," and Sharon AGAIN compares it with my "relaxing" with computer games, and I realize they can have multiple uses, as I ALSO rely on them to "wake me up" when I start nodding, mid-afternoon, over a book or a TV show. Again describe my "three areas," and remark about the intelligent-looking child at CVS this noon who kept being handed interesting objects by his nurse, and come to the MARVELOUS insight that, when I don't immediately find "something to do" and resort to computer games, I blame MYSELF for not "handing myself something to do!" She's taking frantic notes. "I'm just like a BABY, DEMANDING to have something INSTANTLY to occupy my mind!" "That's great," she beams. Talk a lot about the productive weekend, "cautioning" myself not to expect ALL days to be like that, though in the past I could have gone on for a WEEK in a state of heightened production; now I have to recognize my limitations and not criticize myself when I have a following "down day." She again goes back to my childhood, when I had to find ways of entertaining myself (though I was also privileged to be the only child with gift-giving aunts and uncles, glad that my sister didn't come along to share the attention until I was 12), and when I get up to leave at 5:17 she says I may have had a quick session, but it was certainly productive. Indeed it was: if only I can REMEMBER the wonders that it revealed and produced.

THURSDAY, 9/2/10: Pee at 7:52AM. Note DREAMS:9/2/10. Up at 8:57AM and pee again, checking with relief that there's still no more blood. 9:42AM: Again a whirl of thoughts as I wake, noting a dream, at 7:52AM to pee: 1) Haven't recorded Sharon's session yet; 2) want to do more proofing, since now that Marj doesn't have the fucking Girl Scouts, she might be calling me today; 3) my starting WEB actually CONCRETIZES my segmentation of life into three areas: a) my personal life is recorded in JOURNALS, b) my apartment reorganization is in REORGCHR, and c) my website work is now in WEB; 4) think to get MANY DVD-RWs and put them in the will-be-empty-when-I-throw-out-old-VCR shelf below my TV to facilitate my reorganization of VHS tapes into DVD format---I actually measured that there's lots of room for over a hundred of them---now all I have to do is BUY them! Already 1) answered Mildred's call confirming lunch today at 1:30, 2) phoned HIP to Mallett-ize my 9/15 appointment with him, 3) phoned Robert Workoff to repeat my vacation schedule and my request for last year's catalog. Type furiously till 10:26AM, printing two whole pages, and still have to record this morning's dream, since I actually REFERRED to it above as DREAMS:9/2/10. Figure that Marj will call me at 11AM for STPETE comments, so I start at 10:30, and continue to 12:30, nearly to last page, and then dress for the hot subway to South Gate, remembering only when I search in NJ that I went there with Fred and Madelyn and a fourth person on 2/6/10. The $26 menu is VERY good, though the acidic tomato soup needed more mint leaves, which were brought me. I talk most of the lunch about my breakthrough with Sharon yesterday. She sits in Sheridan Park while I continue east to the Wally Findlay for paintings that look, to me, much better in the brochure than actually hanging on the walls! Home at 4PM to return a call from Marj, who bends my ear until 5:15 about her problems with the Girl Scouts project, as I amuse myself with Taipei. I started the conversation with "Assiduously: putting the ass in front of Sid, you, us, and Lee." Then start clearing off my desk, looking through the Brooklyn!! paper, mainly a trumpet for Marty Markowitz, and phone for a free copy of Zagat's Brooklyn Restaurants, then phone Mildred about my previous visit to South Gate, and catch up with this to 6:05PM, cooling in front of my air conditioner set to a new low: 74(. Back to clearing desk. Down to website material by 6:35PM, looking again at the 186 pages in N1. Eventually find that I HAD collected all the NOTEBOOK pages from the Scripsit files. Have two ears of corn with LOTS of butter for dinner, and finish the Met Gala on TV and get to bed at 12:44AM after Googling Cragun, Vasiliev, and Osipova, and my Corsair in St. Petersburg, Kuznetsov.

FRIDAY, 9/3/10: Up and pee at 8:15, first (again) in over 8 hours. Do a RIDICULOUS Spider from 8:30-12:20PM, eventually finishing at a high of 51.30181 at 564 up after 8 wins. Breakfast, then out for haircut, getting a loquacious, dark-skinned, married fellow who charges $15 and change, has no card, so he gives me the receipt, and I ask for $1 back, leaving the rest for a tip. Home to get mail, including a SMALLER City Opera brochure that I use because it has a smaller footprint on my desk. Make out a Magazines card, checking when I renewed my Scientific American and New York magazine, and get a cheap TV Guide renewal with Blue Dolphin Magazines for $20, which they say I'll be warned in the future when I'm up for "continued" renewal. Finish that at 2:55PM and sit, still humid, in front of the air conditioner, clouds for the purported storm today not looking ominous yet. Now I'll make an exhaustive list of my NOTEBOOK or JOURNAL pages through the years. At 3:17PM I start looking for missing pages and noting which are DUPLICATED in N1-N5. That leads me to my datebooks to find that one "missing" segment of time was mostly taken by the Hawaii trip with Jean-Jacques, and to the Table of Contents, where I'm reminded that that only goes to something like 1982 when I finish with the DIARY pages. At 8:30 I start back on Marj's notes, but get hungry before finishing at 10:15PM. Have the last ear of corn, start reading "The Color of Magic," slightly funny, and get to bed at 12:01AM.

SATURDAY, 9/4/10: Pee at 3:26AM and type three dream segments to 3:36AM. Do the same at 7:20, and then after typing dreams go back to the Verizon website to top up with a new credit card number, I think---and send them a SCATHING e-mail about their (lack of) phone service. 7:32AM: Recognize VERY STRONGLY that I USED to be interested in FINISHING what I had in mind to do (or piles up in stacks to accomplish) so that I could be faced with NOTHING that I had to do. NOW I'm interested in ALWAYS being structured so that I can ALWAYS find something to do NEXT in the "critical three areas" of 1) myself, 2) apartment, 3) website. A TOTAL revolution (as in "Revolutionary War" mention in a dream I just transcribed?) in existential BEING. Also, just thought I'd check, and the Saturday Times was at my door at 7:23AM!! Oatmeal with the Times Book Review and Magazine, and finish with both puzzles, nicely difficult, by 11:30AM, when I check e-mail and finish this, ready for the rest of the day, which has to include the gym. Finish proofing Marj's notes for MARE2000 from 11:37AM-12:45PM. Copy files and write her a check and put it in the mail at 1:30PM when I leave for the gym. Back starved for lunch, finishing a HH meal I'd eaten half of last night. Then play Spider 3:35-3:55, when Marj calls, and we go through STPETE from 4:09-5:20PM, and then I'm back to Spider 5:25-6:30PM, finishing at another high at 51.3037 at 565 up after 3 wins. Decide it's time to get to the knickknack cases, putting up three near the front door and filling them with junk from trips, and then put up a large, odd-sized one just outside the bathroom door, putting paintings on some of the shelves, but feeling VERY tired from the physical activity. Watch another hour of "Living Planet" from VHS tape A, and then end up watching the last hour of "Cold Wind in August," sexy for 1961, which I'd seen in a theater in 1962. Record three "cougar" movies for 6 hours through the night. Maybe I'll only skim some of them. Catch up on this from 11:30-11:40PM and go to update REORGCHR. Finish that at 11:55PM, ready for bed, aching in spots from the energies used putting up six knickknack cases today, ready to put up the remaining six tomorrow. Gold Bond Lotion on feet and bed at 12:13AM.

SUNDAY, 9/5/10: 6:36AM: Pee, powder crotch. Up at 7:30 and write top five Google categories for each alphabet letter to 8:25AM. Go for the Times and find that a shelf blocks the door's lock! Take shelf down and get paper. Breakfast and read Times and water plants and finish this at 10:10AM. I'm ACTUALLY OPERATING AT "EVERYTHING'S DONE!" Transcribe Google page to 10:25AM. Phone Tris, who's going out to fix Tori's car, so I determine some things WEBSITE:9/5/10 to 10:48PM. Change MC\WEB to MC\WEBSITE to be consistent with the future site. 11AM: WHERE did I see the CONTINUATION of WEBSITE to GLOSSARY? Oh, on the very top of WEBSITE. Up-to-date AGAIN at 11:15AM; I guess Marj's not going to call NOW, so I go back to SHELF mounting. Then Spartacus called and reminded me that I should be watching the three movies I taped last night so that I have tape for the four hours of "The March of Time" on TCM this evening. So I watched "Summer of '42" with a 15-year-old Gary Grimes, not really grown-up enough, and a pretty but not very sexy Jennifer O'Neil, whose husband is killed in the war; "Love and Pain and the whole damn thing" with at 18-year-old Timothy Bottoms being quite adult, and a "30-ish" Maggie Smith being VERY funny in many of the scenes, and they end up getting married (seemingly as Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, in---whatever the section of the country they roamed about in, which I've now forgotten the name of); and "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," which I have recorded that I saw only ONCE, when it opened, which I can hardly believe, though I didn't recall the ending where the strange boy is thrown the keys, comes into the apartment, comes closer and closer to her, and then The End. Had a HH lunch of more zucchini than I've ever had before, with overcooked artichoke. Type this to 6:30PM after setting up the VCR to record six hours tonight also, insurance if there's too much dead space in the remains of the half hour, after each 16-19 minute episode. Now, WILL I get to putting up the last six shelves? Put up the first three before "The March of Time" starts at 8PM, then do the next three during the long intermissions, getting VERY hungry for dinner, but determined to put up the last three, which I do by 9:30PM, then have another HH dinner with loads of zucchini and cubes of that very hard, light green, tasteless squash they seem to have found to fill out the vegetable portion of too many meals. Watch two more episodes of "The March of Time" before playing Solitaire 10:28-11:30PM just to digest before going to bed, and get to bed at 11:47PM, feeling WONDERFULLY accomplished today.

GOOGLE'S TOP-FIVE-IN-EACH-LETTER LISTING 9/5/10

A: AOL, Amazon, Apple, Amtrak, AIM [AOL Instant Messenger]
B: Bank of America, Best Buy, Bing [Microsoft Search Engine], Bed Bath, Barnes
C: Craigslist, Chase, CNN, Costco, Citibank
D: DING [Southwest Airlines, others], Dictionary, Droid X, Dell, Drake
E: eBay, ESPN, Expedia, Eminem, Express
F: Facebook, FIFA [football], Fandango [movies,other], FedEx, Firefox [browser]
G: Gmail, Google, Glee, Games, Geico
H: Hotmail, Hulu [videos], Home Depot, Hopstop [NYC subway/bus], H&M
I: Ikea, IMDB [Internet Music Database], Inception, iPad, iTunes
J: JetBlue, Jersey Shore, JCrew, Justin Bieber, Jones Beach
K: Kmart, Kayak [air and hotels], Kohls, Katy Perry, Kesha
L: LIRR, Lowes, Lost, Linkedin, Lady Gaga
M: Mapquest, Myspace, MSN, MTA, Maps
N: Netflix, NJ Transit, NY Times, Nordstrom, NBA
O: Orbitz, Oovoo [free video conferencing], Old Navy, Optonline.net, Overstock
P: Pandora, PayPal, Petco, People, PC Richards
Q: QVC, Quotes, Queens College, Quest Diagnostics, Quicktime
R: Realtor, Rite Aid, RUN [games/videos], RadioShack, Redbox [DVD rent kiosks]
S: Staples, Sears, Skype, Sprint, Six Flags
T: Target, Twitter, TD Bank, TicketMaster, TMZ [gossip/news][Thirty Mile Zone]
U: UPS, ISPS, Utube [YouTube], Univision, Urban Outfitters
V: Verizon, Victoria Secret, VLC [video LAN/media], Vuvuzela, Vimeo [videos]
W: Weather, Walmart, White Pages [address, e-mail, map], Wikipedia, Wachovia
X: XBox, XM Radio, XE [currency converter], XKCD, Xanax
Y: YouTube, Yahoo, Yelp [shopping], Yankees, Yellow Pages
Z: ZolnerZone(!), Zoellner Stamp Collection Auction '98, Zadchiel, Z100, Zappos

MONDAY, 9/6/10: Wake about 7:20AM and lie comfortably until 7:44AM, when I get out of bed, noting that this is the first time I had to pee in almost eight hours. Also note that my only "do stack" for the day comprises 1) the Solitaire times to record here from last night, and 2) the bed- and wakeup-times for last night and this morning. Now for a good HH breakfast, watching more of "The March of Time," and get into an absolutely "MUST-FREE" day! GREAT PLACE TO BE, now at 8:08AM on Labor Day. 8:17AM: Just to be obsessive, already: 1) checked e-mail, 2) sent e-mail to unsubscribe to Skywards/Emirates air monthly newsletter, 3) checked Audience Extras, 4) checked Schwab, 5) caught up with this by 8:18AM. Breakfast to "The March of Time," episode 6, and then start on more shoeboxes, taking time to "catch up" with my filing system, tying three rubber bands together to make a keep-box-top-open device for my souvenir envelopes. Find WONDERFUL things: my "crossing Equator" certificate from KLM between France and Tanzania, "climbing Kilimanjaro" certificate, and "1 elephant $20" receipt, where $20 was 20 shillings, worth about $1 US. Call Spartacus to get HIM to try Google, and he gets ZolnerZone with my name, and we talk until 12:05PM. Lunch of a corned beef sandwich with another "March of Time" episode, and back to shoeboxes, finally overwhelmed with richness, so I phone Marj to pass some time. Then have an AWFUL Spider 3:20-7PM, down to 51.29493 at 562 up after 3 wins. Back to shoeboxes, see REORGCHR:9/6/10, filling most of the empty shelf. Watch the last "March of Time" with dinner and start "The Pagan," with a boyishly bodied Ramon Navarro (but he has good legs), interrupting for the obscenities of the Hasselhoff roast from 10PM-11:30PM, finish "The Pagan," with Donald Crisp being eaten by sharks, and get to bed at 12:05AM, greatly happy.

TUESDAY, 9/7/10: Pee at 5:54AM, back to bed to think of how to handle things as described in REORGCHR:9/7/10, and get up at 8:17AM to do lots before breakfast, dressing so as not to shock the workers on the scaffold at the A line of apartments, right below my balcony, and then write this to 10:40AM. Watch "Transamerica" while having lunch at 3PM. Very happy to do the last of the shoeboxes, and put them all atop the corner mirrored cabinet, and watch "Hidalgo," quite unbelievable, with Viggo Mortensen, while going to other channels during their interminable intermissions. Make a long list of things to do tomorrow: 1) 8:45AM cupcakes, 2) gym, 3) make Mallett's appointment at 1PM, 4) Sharon 4:45, 5) HH meals, 6) Julio, sinks? 7) pick up Rx. Bed at 12:12AM.

WEDNESDAY, 9/8/10: Note dream at 6:48AM: "Hadn't we said you weren't to work here? "I don't know, not me," on the island of Truk, starting with IBM again. Pee. Pee again at 7:45, having started Actualism at 7:25, getting up to check MEDICAL to see that my last echocardiogram, which checks EF, was 2/1/10, and it consisted only of pads on the chest monitored with ultrasonography, not the bloody angiogram that I had later. Finish Actualism at 8:25, get up to wash and dress, with shoes, for a quick breakfast before going down to check on those cupcakes. Look out to see that the scaffolding in the east has actually been taken down! Have a banana cupcake, buttonhole Julio, who said my drain had been rusted out and I should see Mark to make an appointment for Carlos to repair it. Have a chocolate cupcake and go into the office to see Paul, who calls Carlos and tells him to check it out immediately. I'm back up to take out the garbage, clear out the area under the kitchen sink, and begin to finish my oatmeal when Carlos knocks on the door, checks, says that the kitchenb drain needs replacing, and starts in to work. I clear out the bathroom sink, and he checks that to say it's OK. I type this to 9:23AM, Carlos's intercom constantly working among all the staff---what a great place to be! Do I tip him? Print another REORGCHR page by 9:30. Maybe if I just sit here at the computer Carlos will leave without hinting for a tip. Fill in more notes on my Chin-list for tomorrow's appointment with HIM. Now for my HH meals for the coming week. Carlos says he's leaving; I fumble in my wallet but have nothing but singles and twenties; I thank him; he leaves, saying that it wasn't an EMERGENCY, but it was useful maintenance. I check e-mail and they've delivered Franzen on 9/7. Order meals and prepare to go to the gym early for a change. Have third cupcake when I leave for gym at 10:05AM, talking to John, who's going to DC 9/23-10/3 and wants me to water him twice. Back to find they're actually WORKING on taking down the rest of the scaffolding, and at 11:30AM all the cupcakes are gone. Realize that I forgot to take my WALLET to the gym: no personal ID on me except for my laundry-marked clothing! Now to my daily Spider at 11:50AM. It goes against me until after 1PM, when I call HIP, they try to put me off, and I INSIST that I be put through, and get a resigned "It's Pat," from Mallett's secretary, and she says that I should come in early, as early as 11:30, to sign in and get seen quickly. Feel triumphant that I DID it. Also, by 2:55PM, manage to get a new high in Spider of 51.31627 at 572 up after 5 wins. Then lunch, while reading Pratchett, and then continue to read it until 4PM, when Marj calls, spoonering that it's 8/9/10, and I remind her that, in LIFELIST order, it IS 10-09-08! We work on her proofreading notes until 5:01, when I have to leave for Sharon. Back, getting prescription for dexilant for $25, at 6PM and sit for Taipei 6:35-9:20, calling Piri to get Alexandra's e-mail address, ask Alex for information, and she calls back IMMEDIATELY with encouraging information about Ken's way of seeing the cities. I phone back and forth, then finish with Solitaire until I'm sick of it from 9:20-9:57, finishing this at 10PM, warm inside though it's 67( outside. Watch (truly) junk TV while finishing tuna casserole, HH meals not having arrived even TODAY! Get into bed just before midnight, then read a bit of Pratchett until 12:15AM, then sleep.

SHARON B. 150 9/8/10

Report on that MOMENT of blank thought on the way here, after being HAPPY about the scaffolding coming down, that was DREAD. She said that this was FEELING breaking through when there's no thought to govern it. She suggested it dates to very early times in childhood when I had nothing to do and nothing to look forward to doing. I mention that Actualism had levels, and one lesson was to "bring down" the unobstructed soul level, first to mental, which I did pretty well, and then to emotional, or feeling, which I never got very far in doing. "But why do my BASIC feelings have to be NEGATIVE?" I whimper. "I usually think that everything starts GOOD, and is only made bad with misuse." She says that such unpremeditated feelings usually ARE bad, or negative. That's just the way it IS. "Do you think that because you enjoyed the cupcakes, and liked the scaffolding coming down, and MADE your appointment (all of which I'd told her earlier), you were now going to be hit from above?" I said it was almost AMUSING to hear the same pattern being repeated over and over. I told her about John's reactions to my tchotchka'd apartment, which I liked very much, even to the five koalas making their way along a dangling cord, and which the repairman remarked about as he fixed my kitchen drain at last. Told Sharon about Caesar's phonecall about retirement, saying that I only went to therapy about growing old, not about retirement, and that was up to him. Mentioned the heaviness of talking to Mildred about not having a Living Will, though she DID help me with investing cash from my Keogh account; and putting up with Marj's INCESSANT obsessing about my words, but it was WORTH it, responding to Sharon's question of what I thought about it, because it was her very obsessiveness that made her so valuable as a proofreader of my complex materials. Even remarked about getting a statement about her (Sharon's) services every week, and she said that was HER filling out her requests for payment on-line, which meant I'd no longer have to sign those forms for her. "So there CAN be progress and efficiency even THERE," I remark ruefully, saying I just file the papers every week now, rather than just every month. Also remarked that this was our 150th session, over four years of them, "Happy anniversary," she said, and how I'd mentioned her in my Glossary for the website. Got out at 6PM on the dot, got my dexilant for $25, and got home to finish this at 6:35PM, wondering why I haven't gotten my HH meals delivered yet, though I have the last of the tuna for tonight's dinner, if needed.

THURSDAY, 9/9/10: Up at 8:10AM, feeling nicely rested, and take care of a slew of personal things: clip toenails so they won't snag on socks, razor nose hairs, trim beard, brush gunk out of comb, Ajax sink, get out new soap, wash face and glasses. Breakfast with Pratchett to read, not having enough unread magazines to occupy both the toilet top and the dining table. Phone HH to have Janis say "FedEx said they tried to deliver three times yesterday; I don't believe them; they just didn't deliver. Check food when it arrives: if it's not cold, toss it. I'll give you credit for the three days." Phone Ron (called 1900 rather than 1901 and was directed to 101 Clark security desk) not recognizing his voice on the phone, and he said there could not have been an "attempted" delivery. Then check website to find in place the 13 corrections to Levels of Knowledge, looking good. Phone Tris and get Tori to leave him the message. Then try to send a trial meta tag set for MARE2000, but it's not on my computer yet. Find it's not even on my black flashdrive. So I have to get it from my Dell laptop! Do that now at 10:15AM. Encountered another mess with two WP51s running and got that damned "insert WordPerfect disk 2" message again, and had to restart computer. Checked to make sure files were OK. Copied MARE2000Me and STPETEMe to black flashdrive and added them to TR. Got a crazy "Renaissance Wireless" wanting to connect message, but it disappeared before I could call Verizon and complain about it. Also got a scheduled virus scan that I postponed for 90 minutes, but it pushed me out of WP51 to tell me about it! Then made a METATAG file for MARE2000 and, in sending it, found I CAN "copy a text file into the message," so I asked Tris which form I should use. Progress! And now it's 11:08AM and Marj is still busy with tennis today. Nice and cool outside with window open and fresh breeze on my bare knees. Call Charles? He'll call tomorrow at 10AM with plans for lunch and my viewing of the "construction out to the middle of the street" around Chanel building. Then I get a pop-up about Renaissance Wireless, and phone Verizon, getting shunted to three or four operators, taking down that I should opt for DSL and Technical Support. The guy is VERY helpful: since I don't HAVE wireless service, he removes Renaissance Wireless! He allows AskService, but I later check to find "I'd remove it from my computer," and I DO remove it. Guy from India also tells me that I'd have to REMOVE Adobe Player 9.1.2 if I want to update to Adobe Player 9.2.0. VERY helpful. ANOTHER PILE GONE, down to EIGHT! Then Janis calls to say that someone ELSE investigated FedEx and found that the DRIVER CRUSHED my package, so I won't be getting anything from them this time. At least now I KNOW! Now I'm ready for SOME kind of lunch at 1:10PM. Call Bouley Upstairs, and now it's only Japanese dinners upstairs on Thursdays and Fridays, but downstairs is open now for walk-in eating or take-out. So I'll GO! And cross off my last restaurant on my list from 2006! Have a ham-and-egg croissant, greasy and large and tasty, for $4.50, and the enormous chocolaty brownie must be $2.50, since the entire bill is $7.62, on which I add a dollar tip for almost nothing. Eat lunch at a windy table outside with a pair of mothers cooing over their infants in prams. Home to get New York magazine, very late this week, and TV Guide, neither of which has been updated with its new expiration date. Marj calls with an over-long recommendation for some pasta-skillet meals, and we finish with the current notes, and she says she may send the next batch of 61 pages as early as Monday. I can't finish the TV Guide sudoku before I leave for Dr. Chin. Great appointment, see MEDICAL:9/9/10. Get a load of groceries, since I'm getting no food from HH this week, and have dinner of too-thick whole wheat buns around too-thin burgers with mustard and barbecue sauce, with one runty ear of corn. Read Pratchett and get to bed at 12:23AM.

FRIDAY, 9/10/10: Dose fitfully 3:30-5:30AM, trying but not succeeding with Actualism, heart racing at first. Up, weary, at 8:15AM, for breakfast, a quick (how great!) phone call to schedule a tetanus and meningitis shot with Dr. Chin on Friday, 9/24, and catch MEDICAL and WEBSITE and NK up to date by 9:50AM, waiting optimistically for Charles's call at 10AM while playing Spider. Spartacus calls during, agreeing to bring black tape when we meet at 5:40 at the St. George before going to a veal sweetbread dinner at John's on 12th Street before seeing "Orlando" at 8PM. I hang up quickly, waiting for Charles's call. Finish Spider at 10:30 with a new high of 51.32275 at 575 up after 2 wins, and just updating this when Charles calls and we agree to meet at the northeast corner of Canal and 6th Avenue at 12:30PM to see the Chanel store outcropping and have lunch somewhere. WHAT A BUSY DAY! Now at 10:40AM I'll go back to REORGCHR:9/10/10. Leave at 11:50AM to meet Charles at 12:30PM, and we walk to Chanel to see people drinking champagne inside, then he goes down three blocks trying to find "The Twelve Chairs" where we have lunch. I'm tired! Play Taipei 4:18-5:18PM before leaving to meet Spartacus for dinner at John's of 12th Street of rather mediocre veal sweetbreads in a too-sweet sauce, but the mushrooms are good. Sit in front of the firehouse on 13th Street watching the passing parade before "Orlando" starts at 8PM, and we're WAY on the side and it's VERY poorly directed so we can't hear half the words! GREATLY disappointing! Home to look for the 9/11 memorial lights, but they're not on. He bangs the door-latch on the shelves! I always turn the knob when I enter and leave! Then play Solitaire 11:25PM-12:25AM because I don't want to go to sleep much before the Times comes. Bed at 12:30AM.

SATURDAY, 9/11/10: Up to pee at 2:53AM, chilly. Pee again at 5:27AM and up at 8:06 to get the Times, misplaced in front of 20J, with 20K clearly marked on the paper. The puzzles are difficult and fun to 1PM. Lunch about 2PM of a vaguely satisfying Weight Watchers lasagna, and finish Pratchett: "The Color of Magic." Liked a quote on page 116: "It was a backward memory of an event in his future so terrifying that it generated harmonics of fear all the way along this lifeline." Only other noteworthy passage was a typo on page 176: "Doesn't anything every worry you?" Think to return it when I sit lazily, not wanting to do anything in particular, but check that the library closes at 3PM on Saturday, after playing Solitaire from 1-3PM. Settle in for a VERY long Spider 4:15-8:25, ending at a new high of 51.33048 at 479 up after 5 wins. Then catch up with this at 8:45PM after looking out at the memorial lights, just visible about three blocks south of the WTC site. Just felt LAZY today! Check rates for Times advertising: at least $100,000 for a page, up to half a million for a fold-out cover! Astounding! What these fashion houses pay the TIMES! MILLIONS!!! Think of Channel 75 for watching during dinner, and see "The Time to Live and the Time to Die," from Taiwan in 1986, rather like watching paint dry: the father dies of tuberculosis, the mother of throat cancer, the grandmother rots on one side as she lies dead for a number of days before being discovered, and the son gets involved with the wrong people. Then tune in on the end of "The Flight That Fought Back," and finally get to bed at 1:25AM.

SUNDAY, 9/12/10: Dream of indexing "ceramics" streets. Pee at 6:44AM. Have an energizing Actualism session and up at 8:52AM. Read the Times and Ken calls at 9:20AM to request dim sum at 88 Palace at noon, so I quickly have breakfast. Don't quite know what I do between breakfast and leaving at 11:15AM to meet Ken at 12:05PM and have very mediocre dim sum, getting home to find a delivery of Franzen's "Freedom" that had arrived yesterday. Call Ken to say that Spartacus had recommended Ping's Seafood for dim sum, on Mott Street, but I'm not attracted to the "seafood" part of their name. Play Spider from 2-3:15 to a new high of 51.3393 at 583 up after 5 wins, and then just sit and idly do Solitaire from 3:15-5:15, at which time I just FORCE myself to go to the gym, which seems harder than usual: I think I'm wearing my energy down by not doing ANYTHING to keep my body in shape. Watch the start of "The Flight That Fought Back," thinking it was only an hour, but it was two hours, but there's not another showing scheduled. Then read the first 118 pages of a pretty good book, but I'm not quite sure that all the effulgent praise is merited. Bed 11:55PM.

MONDAY, 9/13/10: 2:25AM: Cold. Note DREAMS:9/13/10. 5:26AM: Up, HARD, from last dream, and grab the porn and j/o, rather ineffectively, for the first time since 8/22, hoping for a good cum, but having to be satisfied, after abrading my skin, with a perfunctory orgasm, and at 6:30AM sit at the computer to type the dreams before they vanish. 6:47AM: Finish typing the dreams, quite lacking in the details I might wish I'd captured, just as the orgasm was quite lacking in the details I might wish, By 6:10AM my cock was more sore than stimulated, and I simply wanted to complete the orgasm before I lost all interest. I was like a child with a new toy: my remote that I'd gotten from Spartacus that easily froze the picture, moved the CD at any speed forward or back, and did just what I'd gotten accustomed to doing before MY remote just didn't work any more and I had to rewind by using the "segment reverse" button, or whatever it's called, rather than the two "central" buttons that didn't work AT ALL, even with the adamant pressures that had succeeded for the past few months. Not to mention my depressed feelings caused by my replaying of the events of 9/11 nine years ago. So now, just as the transcription of the dreams was inadequate, my description of my sex-session is inadequate, but it's all I can do, now at 6:52AM, when I have to return to clean up the living room to make my recent activity invisible to the terrace painters, should they even arrive. I'm not exactly unhappy with the last hour and a half, but it's not, again I say, what I'd wished for. Back to bed at 6:59AM after discarding the used aloe I applied to my tortured flesh and putting the porn supplies back in their drawer. Start an Actualism session, hoping to go back to sleep, but make two notes at 7:13AM: 1) Could the "beings of light," trying to appear to loved ones after "the creation" dies, be GHOSTS?? 2) Try Discovery Channel on the Internet to see when "Earth: The Movie," will be on---and it's not even listed when I try it later. Up at 9:28AM, have breakfast, and then at 10:15AM leave on a wonderfully full "five trip": 1) Return the first Pratchett book and take out another one, later finding that the second and third volumes aren't readily available from the library at this time: "Consult librarian" the site directs. And the science-fiction section has moved to the far rear wall. 2) Then go into the basement at the back of Brooklyn Boro Hall to find the Brooklyn Tourist agency, where the women say that they may have been saving up a group of the Zagat guides to be sent out in volume, but I take a free one anyway, making a list of the 3 rated 27, the 10 rated 26, and the 13 rated 25, and the 13 most expensive, with River Cafe way at the top with $127 and Rasputin a runner-up at $89, Peter Luger coming in third at $76 as one of the 27, The Grocery at $60 for the second 27, and Di Fara, the third 27, for pizza, only $16. 3) Stop in at HIP, easier than phoning, and on 4 get told to look for nurse Walters in Orthopedics on 3. She can't be found, so I go back to the lab on 4 to be told to go around the corner to nurse Baker, who says that my blood test shows that I'm NOT immune to hepatitis B, which means that I need the FIRST shot on 9/27, because the second shot has to be in a month, on 10/27, when I'm back from the trip, and the third is in six months, or 4/17/11. 4) Pick up my laundry in two packages. 5) Pick up expensive emery boards and two prescriptions for a total of $72.01, feeling VERY accomplished for the day. Back to bring NK up-to-date, and checking my typhoid pill, I see that it's FOUR pills, to be taken every other day, an hour before a meal, so I take the first one at 1:20PM, preparing for lunch at Hill Country, the third-last restaurant on my list from 2007, having made an on-line reservation for Charles and me at Resto on Thursday at 2PM, leaving only Shopsin's on the list from 2007. I've just decided to GO OUT to restaurants more, and READ more, interspersed with my (largely absent) website work and (increasingly boring) travel discarding. Finish this at 1:42PM, figuring to take about half an hour on the R-train to get to Hill Country and lunch by 2:20PM for my typhoid pill. Strange place: you get a meal ticket, order from one counter, take it to a table where a waitress brings your QUART of lemonade, with, ha, a nice glass of water on the side. Good food, but you have to sit through that awful Hill Country MUSIC. They charged me an extra dollar for the more expensive side dish. Home about 3PM, getting lots of mail, and play a "perfect" Spider session from 5:10-5:35, ending at 51.3393 at 583 up after 2 wins, and then I decide to send Tris FOURTEEN "unproofed" files, interrupting to watch a rather spectacular, but short-lived, thunderstorm over Manhattan, by 7:45PM, at a quick count of 2074 pages, for the years 1958, 1959, 1960, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, and 1978. Ken calls with news that Poonjah has given him almost everything he wants, including clarity about hotels and restaurants, all except for the detailed itinerary of our day in Abu Dhabi. Now I have TV to watch at 8PM. Next I'll tackle SC\NOTEBOOK.DOC with over 300 pages for 1983-1992. The World's Fair program is not bad, but it's pledge week. Then back to "Freedom" to read to page 232 to 11:40, bed 11:56PM.

TUESDAY, 9/14/10: Note DREAMS:9/14/10 at 6:02AM. Make a TWELVE-item list for today at 7:37AM: 1) Shopsin's, 2) Piri---games, 3) Workoff---catalog, 4) Borders---Pratchett (get to Borders MARKETPLACE, which seems to have no relation to Borders. Try to phone but they're only open at 9AM. Fugeddaboutit!), 5) Amazon---Pratchett---order both for $16.16, so THERE, Borders! 6) test TV/slides, 7) clean for Wednesday, 8) Baker---flu shot, interactions with other vaccines? 9) Journals 1961-1967? 10) stool softener for trip? 11) HH meals (done by 8:45AM), 12) buy slippers, because black tape is coming undone on terminally bad leather slippers, and the "warm fuzzies" are VERY tight and will probably split---but maybe not. Up at 7:55AM and type this to 8:53AM. Then play Spider 8:58-10:25AM, long before winning to 51.34303 at 585 up after 3 wins. Then call Piri and Workoff, and check my restaurant list on the internet and find that Grayz, Tailor, and Fiamma are CLOSED, so I go out to lunch at Anthos only to get there at 1:45 to find they're closed for vacation! Their website should have MENTIONED IT! Or, of course, I COULD have phoned. Hope I remember correctly that Mia Dona is at 206 E. 58, and walk up to find it there; I'm their last customer, finishing my lunch in an empty place, the hot butternut squash soup filling, the burger only mediocre, and the zeppoles are over-filling, but I have only FOURTEEN restaurants left on my list! Though of course I haven't caught up with 2010 additions since April 22. Test the setup for the show tomorrow, and it works effortlessly. Leave the cleaning for tomorrow. Taipei 4:10-5:10, followed by Solitaire 5:25-9:45!!! UGH UGH UGH! Dinner while reading more of Franzen's "Freedom," taking more notes in addition to what I noted on Monday: p.169: "He banged her into ecstasy;" p.179: "freedom" mentioned twice; p.181: "...pitied herself for being so free..."; p.204: depression = stongly disliking yourself; p.205: "This was definitely a weird one. No other man had warmed Katz's loins the way the sight of Walter did after long absence. These groinal heatings were no more about literal sex, no more homo, than the hard-ons he got from a long-anticipated first snort of blow, but there was definitely something deep-chemical there. Something that insisted on being called love." Tonight I add p.267: freedom = thinking what you want. Read to page 344 to 12:16AM. Bed 12:37AM.