2011 5 of 8
WEDNESDAY, 6/22/11: Pee at 4:30 and up at 8:11AM to find the bathroom occupied. I type until 8:30, when I hear a door closed, so I can shit and find they've gone out, at least for breakfast. Order HH meals, put on a shirt in case they come back, and catch the journal up-to-date at 8:54AM, then e-mail to 8:56, ready for breakfast with some TV program. Watch "Wikileaks" while breakfasting, and O'Sheas return and glance through my menus, and decide they'll want a car at 8:30AM tomorrow. They leave for MoMA, may return early to relax before dinner tonight, and I call for the car, search for the Joigny bill without finding it, and type this and return to my FRANFOOD accounts at 10:37AM, rain looking to be imminent---in fact, looking out at wet sidewalks, it appears to have started already. Talk to Marj 11:05AM-12:07PM, then decide to update my Expensive Restaurant List, stopping for lunch 1:20-1:50, and then continuing to finish, counting that I have 32 of the top 60 expensive restaurants OUTSIDE the US, with only 28 WITHIN the US. I go to the gym about 3-4:30, doing a second level of "getting used to it." They return to change for Corton; I talk about the restaurant list but they express no interest in looking at it, as they've not asked to see the gorilla films from Rwanda; pity. I decide to put on my clean striped shirt over my black pants; Don wears a pale blue jacket over his pale blue shirt, and Helen wears her fancy red outfit. Get to Corton just before 6PM to be seated with them looking over the diners, while I watch the toque-less Liebrandt bopping about the kitchen. Ken arrives, in jacket and tie of course, just after 6PM, not having brought my Georges Blanc menu because he thought it might rain. We agree on the $155 tasting menu, and everything that comes out even BEFORE we start with the asparagus-langoustine first-item on the menu, which I ask for a copy of, we have four or five intricate productions placed before us, and by the time we're into the third announced course, I remark to Helen that we must have had AT LEAST 75 ingredients in various dishes. Many courses are composed of two elaborately plated structures, with a broth or sauce poured over one or the other structure. The green butter had seaweed in it; I thought it was fish. The thin-sliced crisp breads, loaded with sectioned nuts and seeds and spices, are dreams in themselves, and then the tiny baguettes are heaven, too. I could easily fill up on those alone. The food keeps coming: the squab is presented like a large sausage, total breast meat molded ("Pressed duck?" suggests Don) into a cylinder and encased in what might be skin, or skin covered with "cherry glaçage." Ken says it's too smoky and doesn't even finish his cylinder, so I take part of it, and end up taking his entire plate and finger-wiping it as I've done most of my plates already. I think everything is fantastic: even their red wine is an adventure: the sommelier pours Helen and Ken half-glasses and Don a "full" glass, and will charge them for two glasses. I think it's one of the three best meals I've ever had, along with Alinea and Michel Guerard, though I think Pic might be in the running also. Ken's not impressed, though Helen thinks it might be the best meal she ever had. Don isn't very forthcoming. Ken fusses endlessly with the bill, abetted by Don, until the waitress suggests that only the actual bill-items be allocated to the three credit cards (Don makes no effort to pay for my meal, which makes us both happy) and the computer will figure each tax amount. I tip her extra for her extraordinary patience with us. Also, when I tasted the Saffron Vanilla Fudge and thought it might be the best dessert I ever had, Ken waggishly suggested I might ask for a second one: since our waitress is right at the table, I ask her if she'd do it. "You have a lot of mignardises coming, but if you want another one after those, I'll get you one." There are a lot of mignardises, and I take two of the brandy balls covered with powdered chocolate and one of each of the four proffered chocolates, and, well, OK, each of the two macaroons. AND then another dessert. I've also finished a few other dishes that Ken left uneaten, and again he talks about my "trou Normand." Finally get my bill of $221.35, which I add that evening at position 38 of my Most Expensive Restaurants list. Eat from 6-10PM, and then home to put them to bed and I go to play Spider from 10:30PM-1AM, ending at 51.4475 at 721 up after 5 wins. Tired, and bed at 1:16AM.
THURSDAY, 6/23/11: Wake groggy at 7:44AM, record a dream that I later transcribe to DREAMS:6/23/11, and check that Don's in the bathroom, but Helen has probably noticed me as I checked from my doorway, so I put on my bathrobe and go out to find that they haven't had breakfast yet, and she again praises Corton last night. I sit for a bit as she fusses about packing, and then tell her to have Don call me when he gets out of the bathroom. Go to take a little shit, noting that they've not yet packed their bathroom stuff, so I take a match to the toilet bowl and go to my bedroom to put on the computer and catch up with this at 8:07AM, ready to tell them that I stayed up to 1AM proofing my FRANFOOD journal, just to digest, so I'm still looking forward to a small nap after they leave. Already told Helen to leave the sheets on the beds, as I didn't particularly want them finding how decrepit were the beds on which they slept, insisting that they were perfect for the apartment and it was really impossible for me to think about replacing them. Look outside at the cool fog over everything, and think to ask them if they've checked the flight to make sure it could arrive in the fog this morning. They said they would. I excused my "still in bed" state, and Helen laughed and agreed. She sympathized with my "never being alone" when I mentioned the Italian couple who were supposed to arrive in a few days. They're packed and ready to go downstairs to wait for the car when the phone rings at 8:27AM: perfect timing! I check my e-mails and get a message from Allesandro that he'll be here Monday-Thursday of next week---just the news I need. Don't feel like doing a thing other than catching up on the TV I stored on my DVR during my trip, so I watch the end of "This Is the Night," the first starring role for Cary Grant as an Olympic javelin-thrower who "gives" his wife to an older friend, taking a young French actress for himself. Then watch the "Iphegenie en Tauride" from the Met, which I saw in person, but the TV gives much more telling detail than I could see from the next-last row of the orchestra on $25 Saturday-matinee tickets with Charles. Continue with the last two wonderful hours of "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King," and then the rather boring two-hour premiere of "Falling Skies," which I'm not interested in continuing, since the more-evil enemies are human rather than extraterrestrial. Watch the HBO Movie about "How to Die in Oregon," with touching examples of self-ordained dying. Finish the evening with a TERRIBLE 2005 version---that I can't stop watching---of "King Kong." Bed at 12:05AM, worn out from the day of sitting on my ass watching television and eating.
FRIDAY, 6/24/11: Pee at 5:03, note DREAMS:6/24/11, and then decide at 8:45AM to REALLY indulge in jerking off, trying it first in bed with paper porn, then into the living room for TV porn, getting to a WONDERFUL state of plateau orgasm, and even manage a few drops of pre-cum, but am basically disappointed in the dwindling intensity of the actual orgasm at about 10:30AM. Watch "Nixon in China" while having breakfast, nodding off during some of it, and having lunch during the end of it. Allesandro says he's coming alone, will arrive on Monday at (I don't notice this at first) 10PM at Union Square. Send him directions. Play Spider 2:15-3:35PM, OK to 51.4491 at 722 up after 2 wins. Then proofread FRANFOOD to 6/11 on page 24, and then get to Sharon for my 5PM appointment, ending up changing "permanently" to 6PM on Fridays, avoiding the slide and Wednesday matinee-possibility conflicts. Back to some mail, and then get back to Spider at 7:30-10:07PM, WOW, ending at 51.45825 at 727 up after 6 wins! Watch a few scattered things on my DVR and get to bed at 12:05AM.
SHARON B. 182 6/24/11
She calls me in a bit before 5PM, and I start by saying that I'm so relieved that the O'Sheas have gone that I did nothing but sit in front of the television set all day Thursday. Then I got the e-mail that Allesandro is coming Monday through Thursday of NEXT week. She asked if I felt better about Ken from the trip, and I had to admit that I did, though I wasn't troubled by his incessant weekend telephone calls yet. Talk about incidents from the fabulous dinner at Corton on Wednesday, said that I actually felt "a moment of happiness" while doing EXACTLY what I wanted to do in the freedom of my apartment after the O'Sheas left, but insisting that they were the easiest-possible guests to have, and they treated me royally, though I didn't mention my disappointment that they didn't request a special showing of the Rwandan gorillas. Talked about Spartacus's helpfulness, but railed against "everyone" who droned on endlessly about their problems: specifically, Rita with her details about the cottage in Canada: tax problems, right-of-way problems, bank-account problems---which I said I thought she did in order to make her life sound more interesting to me, that her life was rather boring, though she was about to become a grandmother and went to celebrate her son's 30th birthday, and tried to entertain me with some details she thought I might find interesting---like Spartacus's cooking details that he insisted I endure in return for my bending his ear about whatever I wanted to bore HIM about. Sharon charitably said something like, "You're very quick and very intelligent, and you just wish everyone could be more like you." I sort of smiled and sort of brushed it off. I rambled on and on, saw that it was getting close to 5:45, and suggested we PERMANENTLY change our meetings to Friday, and she said she "was taking no more clients, but could fit me in at 6PM on Fridays," and we agreed we'd both try it for a while, noting that we didn't have many more sessions (four, as I counted) before I leave on my NEXT trip, after which, I said, I'd be embarking on another totally unstructured part of my life which I was bound to find uncomfortable for some reason or other. This is progress?
SATURDAY, 6/25/11: Pee at 2:45AM and at 3:45AM wake to a phantom phone-ring and pee again. At 6:26 note DREAMS:6/25/11. Up at 7:32AM with the Times already delivered. Finish both puzzles and get to Spider 11:30AM-1:55PM, OK to 51.45938 at 728 up after 2 wins, and STILL don't feel like doing anything, so I indulge in SOLITAIRE 1:55-4:45PM!! Then have a late lunch, get lots of messages from Ken about "Silence" on St. Mark's Place, and paying $150 for "Atys" because I didn't set a ceiling on what I was willing to pay. He CAN be a PAIN! But he tells me to put the $150 onto the FRANFOOD bill, so he won't have to pay me back so much. Maybe talk to Marj and Mildred, and maybe it was today that I got a call from Charles, who hadn't gotten EITHER of my messages, but we chat and say we've got to get together soon. Mildred and Spartacus also think that Restaurant Week will start soon. Leave at 7PM for "One Arm" at the Acorn Theater, a good, sexy production that runs from 8:03-9:23PM. Back to finish proofing FRANFOOD at 11:50PM, finding that my starting kilometer was 7269 and my ending was 8646, so I drove 1326 kilometers or 796 miles, very roughly a hundred miles a day for the eight days, Saturday to Saturday, we had the car. Then have dinner while watching TV from 12-1:11AM, and get to bed at 1:16AM.
SUNDAY, 6/26/11: Up at 8:46AM, happy at sleeping 7.5 hours through. However, my throat is sore AGAIN. Read the Times quickly with breakfast, transfer 563 photos from the camera to the Edge, but when I try to find how to transfer the ALBUM to a flashdrive to copy it to my laptop, I JUST CAN'T FIND IT! Then sort of remembered that I'd transferred the photos to the LAPTOP DIRECTLY and edited them THERE for showing. Disgusted with myself for not knowing how to handle the Olympus program, and Spartacus gets VERY mad at me when I, at first, say I don't know WHERE I crossed the Victoria Falls bridge, and THEN said I went from Zimbabwe to Zambia, and he almost refuses to let me come over past 1PM to pick up the "Tony Awards for 2011" that he'd watched at Bob's last night and THOUGHT of (but didn't) leaving it on my doorknob. My e-mail is leaving the black box on my screen again, but I go to Verizon to find that "Ale" IS going to be alone, and IS coming at around noon, not midnight, so that means I can't go with Spartacus to Tully Hall from 12-2, which I probably didn't want very badly to do anyway. I transfer photos to laptop and start editing them, but get very tired around 1:30PM and get to Spartacus's to pick up the Tonys and the Borgias, then to the gym, at last packing up the papers and magazines and taking them to the hall room, along with a garbage bag, and then start catching up with the DREAMS file and the journals, playing Spider from 8:25-9:55PM to 51.46292 at 730 up after two series of 2 wins, and continue with journals, interrupted from 10:31-10:51PM by the gay fireworks on the upper west side, and then watch Bear Grylls risking his life on the North Irish coast while having HH tilapia with hoisin sauce when they forgot to include the mango chutney with the overcooked peapods. That goes to 11:45PM, and I get back to finally catching the journals up-to-date by 12:35AM---except for Sharon's session on Friday! DAMN! But put ONE of the beds back after I watered the plants today, and am ready to receive Allesandro---today! Put new earplugs in at last and get to bed at 12:50AM.
MONDAY, 6/27/11: Note two DREAMS:6/27/11 at 6AM and 8:09AM, write myself a note to look at the index pages, pee at 6:32AM, and at 8:27AM I note a six-item "Finish Trip" list: 1) write summary page, 2) write photo page, 3) print all pages, 4) finish financial accounts, 5) clear out trip-slot on shelf, and 6) fill in calendar pages. Then at 8:51, rather desperate, I start an Actualism session that goes, limply, to 10:15AM when I get up for the last HH breakfast, putting the meal slips in order, and catch dreams and this journal up-to-date at 11AM, ready to get the house prepared for Allesandro. AH, AGAIN forget to type Friday's session! Do THAT to 11:15AM! Fuss with the rest of the stuff: towels, weather forecast, my stuff out of the way, to noon, when I call Ron to "just let him up." Check through stuff on my coffee table, "reducing" piles to 15, not to mention all the stuff on my Finish Trip list. Start on Summary Page at 12:15PM. Ale rings my bell about 1:40, I show him the view from the balcony, explain the shades, which he says may be left up, and orient him on the subways to the places he wants to see, including the top of the RCA building as opposed to the Empire State Building. He leaves at 2:30, I have lunch with the first episode of "The Borgias," and look up historical backgrounds in BOTH copies of EB until 4:15, when I get back to the Summary Page, which is becoming more and more of a chore, recording pages on which I need to extract photo information, and finally he returns at 8:30, takes a very quick shower, and then I suggest we can go to dinner somewhere on Montague Street, and I aim for Teresa's, where he has the buffalo chopped steak and French fries, while I, appropriately with a guest from Milan, have veal Milanese with sauerkraut, and he eats most of the cucumber salad while I finish my enormous tossed salad with bleu cheese dressing. He has two beers and I have a raspberry lemonade, and we finish about 9:40PM, he insisting on paying the $50 bill, and then we walk down to bright-lit Manhattan where he takes a couple of photos with his tiny camera, and my hip starts to hurt. Just DELIGHTED to find my Form 5500EZ in the mail, along with my adequate-balance HSBC statement. Back for me to start Spider at 10PM, he making sure I don't want to use the living room just because he's staying here, "After all, it IS your apartment," he says with a smile. I say that I planned to use the living room while he was gone during the day so that I COULD do the work I had to do in the bedroom when he was here in the living room. I end up with a HORRIBLE set of Spider failures, ending at 11:25PM at 51.44756 at 723 up after only 1 win, desperate for bed. I get to bed at 11:35PM, more exhausted than I think.
TUESDAY, 6/28/11: Astounded to wake at 8:27AM, having slept straight through for 8:52!! Go to the john for a small shit, say "Good morning" to a maybe-vacant living room, and he responds, going in to brush his teeth while I settle in with a chapter of the Borgias while he prepares to leave, saying he'll be dining with friends and will be home very late tonight. Fine. I finish another Borgias and get back to partial redemption with Spider from 10:10-11:45AM, ending at 51.45292 at 726 up after 4 wins. Then call Marj to feel sorry for myself, after phoning Mildred to do the same, and she even offered, then withdrew, to put up PAUL if he overstays here before Christmas. Decide to treat myself by closing the balcony door and putting on the A/C in the bedroom to get rid of the oppressive humidity. Phone Charles, desperate to do SOMETHING outside today or tomorrow. Finish catching up with this at 1:07AM, after rebooting the computer for a good screen the next time Ale checks his e-mail on my computer. Decide to change the printer ribbon to start printing the enormous backlog of pages. Print ten journal pages to 1:30PM. Then seven dream pages, go shopping at Key Food, mainly for apple juice and chicken, have a lovely chicken lunch looking at new New Yorker, printing FRANFOOD all the while. Play Spider 3:40-5:40, OK to 51.45417 at 727 up after 2 wins, and then print the pages to 5:45PM and finish the FRANFOOD PHOTO PAGE by 6PM, printing THAT all out. So now I have the material to fill out the calendar pages. Do that to 6:35, put the pages away, shit a bit, put lunch dishes away, and prepare for some television with grapes at 7PM. Watch a good two hours on Bio of Queen, lots of great shots of Freddy Mercury and their best songs. Watch other things to get them off my list, and then put off the air conditioner and get to bed at 11:06PM, assuming Ale will come in much later.
WEDNESDAY, 6/29/11: Pee at 6:14AM, noting DREAMS:6/29/11, and at 7:18AM note that I want to look up 1) Restaurant Week, 2) July 4 fireworks locations, and 3) FIA balance. Pee again at 7:33AM and get up at 8:03AM after thinking of doing Actualism, but just want to get out of bed. Say "Good morning" in Ale's direction, but see his bare feet sticking up under the sheet so I leave him to sleep while I make my oatmeal, pouring out a sour serving of old milk, and take it to the computer where I make a list of nine restaurants that I want, five of which Mildred later makes reservations for (and it appears that Ducasse is not on the list this year), find that the fireworks are starting as low as 20th Street on the West side on the Hudson, so Ken's roof will be good for them, and find a balance just over $4000 in FIA, heartening. Ale's up about 9AM, saying he got in at 3AM and asking for medicine against constipation. I watch two hours on "Egypt's Animal Mummies," while he leaves, saying he might be back at noon, and wants to go somewhere for dinner around 7PM. I go to the gym at 11, leaving a note saying I'll be back by 12:30, but he doesn't return. Spartacus doesn't want to join us for dinner this evening, and Mildred begs off too. Then I decide to watch the last large remaining program on the DVR, "Lucia di Lammermour," while having more of Key Food's roast chicken, and that finishes very well with Natalie Dessay and Joseph Callejo about 4:15. Put up the fallen bookshelf with Shelley's "Magritte" volume, prop open the balcony door for a somewhat cool, somewhat less-humid breeze, and catch this up to date by 4:40PM, having hoped to get to the bottom of the page so I could print it out and get the photo page to finish the FRANFOOD collection of pages. Signed back on to Netflix but I couldn't watch anything RIGHT after I reinstated myself, but then got a notice they've sent out my first film. Ale's plane leaves something like 7PM tomorrow night, so he'll be able to check in on my computer 24 hours before that. Had hoped to get the accounts finished today, but that doesn't appear to be at hand, but at least I can print out this page that I've filled with vapid words. Keep avoiding my note to make an appointment with Dr. Sai. Play Spider 4:45-7PM, good to 51.45324 at 727 up after 5 wins, at last. Back to accounts 7-8:30PM when Ale returns, wanting to go somewhere for dinner. I think to expand his touring of NYC with 1) some place at South Ferry, but he's been there, he says, 2) maybe the Boathouse in Central Park, but he says he's been THERE, too, and then, exhausted with the attempt, agree that we can just go somewhere in the Heights, and we walk to Montague Street and turn left, passing hamburgers (Five Guys), Italian (Traviata), hamburgers (Grand Canyon), Italian (Buon Gusto), and hamburgers (Montague), before settling on Eamonn's (had to go to GOOGLE to check spelling!), where Ale asked what "stew" meant, and he seemed happy enough with it, with two Guinnesses, which he was happy to find were not watered, as they sometimes are in Italy. He again wanted to pay, this time $51 with tip, meaning that he spent about $30 on my food, so $10/night for my bed-sitter isn't bad. Back at 10PM, when he wants to go out and walk across the Brooklyn Bridge to take pictures, so I'm back to accounts to 11:30---he's not back yet, and get to bed at 11:43PM, longing for him to be gone.
THURSDAY, 6/30/11: At 1:59AM and 6:31AM I type DREAMS:6/30/11 into my Neo file 5. Pee at 4:31AM, and up at 8:21AM. He's not up until 9AM. We'd discussed whether he should do the Staten Island Ferry or the American Museum of Natural History today, and, since his girlfriend would appreciate pictures from New York's museums, he ended up leaving for the Natural History Museum about 10AM, not even bothering to get there at its 10AM opening. I work on accounts from 8:45-9:45AM, finally ending up with FOUR sets of piles: Ken to split, Ken to share, me to split, me to share. Have breakfast while watching "The Book of Eli" until noon, then finish "I Know Where I'm Going," noting that it was made in 1945, I saw it in 1978, 33 years after it was made, and am reseeing it in 2011, 33 years after I saw it last. Phone Spartacus about it and he's not impressed. Phone Rita and Mildred to catch up, to 1:30PM. Back to trip accounts at 3:10, and see Ale off at 3:37PM, hoping he gets to his plane with subway and bus OK. Continue with accounts to 5:15, astounded that my totals have reached OVER $10,000!!! Can't wait (but, of course, I DO) to figure Ken's totals in comparison. Get his $1000 check and arrange for a grand deposit to HSBC tomorrow. Pam e-mails that she's working on the pages and will send them to me as soon as possible---I sure hope I finish trip accounts before I get them. Then watch "I Love You, Phillip (have to check Netflix for the double-l) Morris" twice, sad that both their great acting jobs got absolutely no notice. Watch all the extras and get to bed at 12:57AM.
FRIDAY, 7/1/11: JULY AT LAST, changing calendar page at 11:20AM Sunday! And I'd only put the MAY page away on Tuesday, when I finished printing the FRANFOOD pages! Type DREAMS:7/1/11 7:50-7:51AM, pee, and lie in bed, happy that Ale's gone, and do a thorough Actualism session 8:30-8:50AM. Trim fingernails and toenails (been wanting to do this for a WEEK!) to 9:15AM. Then attack the Schwab Visa bill: calculate that I NEED $6000 (momentarily forgetting about the $804 Cadman bill on 7/1), and the HSBC site says that I HAVE $4,911. So I add up Ken's $1000 check; Ridgewood's check for $130, cleaning that out; and move back and forth, at first thinking I could keep $200 cash at home, then deciding I had to deposit ALL the $570 cash---making $1700, which gives me $5807, but I need $6000. Check Schwab and I have $211 in cash THERE, so I add THAT check and deposit $1910 about 10AM, hoping it clears by the time my FIA Card Services check gets to HSBC. Then stop at Radio Shack with my two not-working slow-speed remotes, and they have a discount on a remote that he SAYS will work, and it's only $5. I think to pay in cash, thinking maybe it won't work and I'll have to return it, but then succumb to paying with my Schwab Visa, since I'm not as short on THAT as I am on CASH. Back to update my HSBC checkbook and am appalled that I have over $800 as a balance, so I didn't need to deposit that MUCH? Then it dawns on me that I hadn't, at THAT point on my checkbook page, deducted the 7/1 $804 Cadman bill, so THAT was why it had to be $6000! SUCH A MESS IT ALL IS! Left a temporary phone-machine message that I'd be back at 10:30AM when I left at 9:45 on my errands, but Charles doesn't phone until 11AM, suggesting we take the new East River Ferry. I say I have to be at Sharon's at 6PM, so we should leave as early as possible, which for him is 1PM. I watch "Borgias" #3 while having breakfast, find that #4 is missing from his DVD (he later says it might be on his "other" DVD), and later watch it on my computer from some website. Out at 12:35 for the R line, which is very slow, and the Q pulls out just as we pull into 14th Street, so I get to 34th Street only at 1:15PM, at which point Charles is convinced he's waiting on the wrong corner: we'd hassled the complicated 6th Avenue-34th Street intersection and decided to meet at the southeast corner of 34th and 6th, since I couldn't picture 6th having a southWEST corner, nor could I picture Broadway having a southEAST corner; and I have an enormous argument with Spartacus later, who insists that it IS the southeast corner of BROADWAY and 34th, while I insist that the block is SQUARE, and since Boardway SLANTS, the block has to be SIXTH AVENUE, though in fact, Charles informs me, the corner IS labeled BROADWAY, and 6th "disappears" for a block, and I blithely tell Spartacus that he, the map, and the city is wrong: it IS the southeast corner of 34th and 6th since the block is SQUARE (I insist, though, of course, I might be wrong). [At 11:52AM Sunday I check Hart's Guide, and we're BOTH right: the NORTHERN part of the block IS square, but then the SOUTHERN part of the block SLANTS WITH BROADWAY.] I tell Charles that it's all OK since we've met: he'd given me until 1:30 to show up and then decide he'd go home and get a phonecall from me asking where HE was, since I was on the RIGHT corner and HE was on the WRONG corner. Then he says that there's a free shuttle bus along 34th (showing me on the map he'd printed from the Internet) to the ferry stop on the East River. But he hadn't seen one while waiting for me, though he admitted that he was looking at the people (CROWDS on the intersection!) rather than at the busses. [I find on SUNDAY that the ferry schedule STATES that the shuttle busses run ONLY 6:49-10:39AM and 4:39PM-7:09PM, and I call Charles to tell him that it's good he suggested we take the crosstown bus, since there WASN'T ANY free shuttle bus AT THAT TIME.] We get to the river to find the ferry docking, so we get on what would have been the 1:39PM southbound ferry to confront a fat guy with a walkie-talkie and a fistful of money. Charles is insisting we pay $12, since it's $4 only if we get off at the next stop, which is Hunters Point, which we don't want. I look at the Temporary Schedule and find, looking at my Brooklyn map of the restaurants I'm looking for, that we want to get off at the South Williamsburg stop, the third stop after Hunters Point. I tell the guy that and he asks for $4. Charles starts to protest that he wants to give him $12, and I tell him to shut up. We enjoy the ride: he keeps insisting there's no reason for these stops at Hunters Point and Greenpoint, but people keep getting on and off and I say those are reasons enough. We get off at South Williamsburg and find that many of the waiting Hasids can't get on with their kids in prams because there's a limit of five children on each ferry! They can either wait a half hour or leave; most leave. We pass Giando's, which looks appealing, and since I'm not sure if the restaurants on my list will be OPEN at 2:02PM, we see that they're serving their $25 fixed-price lunch, so we have salads, mine great with LUMPS of fresh blue cheese to go with the oil and vinegar, and his veal and my chicken isn't that great, but my ricotta cheesecake dessert is dynamite, so we leave after TWO HOURS pleased enough with the meal, and Charles has given me $31.50 in cash when I pay with my credit card, so we're all happy. Walk to Schaeffer Landing for him to get a number to phone to look at a riverview condo, and I find Fatty 'Cue to be a real dump, but the Roebling Tea Room is very attractive and close enough to the L subway line to be accessible, though Spartacus tells me that there's a bus from Cadman Plaza that stops right in front of Peter Luger, which we also see. Attractive gay people pass on the street, spice shops smell good, and we get on the L train about 5PM. Charles gets off at Union Square, I ride through to 8th Avenue and transfer to the A to get home at 5:40PM to get a message from Sharon that she left at 3PM! I phone to say that I'm glad I went home first to get her message, and I'll see her next week. Do the TV Guide sudoku and then get to Spider 6:45-9:25PM, getting up to SEVEN consecutive losses, and just doing MISERABLY on it, ending at 51.44203 at 722 up after a hard-won 3 wins. Then, out of frustration and refusal to do anything USEFUL, I spend time on unrecorded Taipei and Solitaire, eventually going to bed at 12:20AM.
SATURDAY, 7/2/11: 4:50AM pee, type DREAMS:7/2/11, and put Gold Bond lotion on my feet to 5:04AM. Doze, think, worry about all I'm NOT doing, do a good Actualism session, and get up at 8:39AM. Dress and get down to put the Schwab Visa check in the mail for the 1PM pickup, finding that I missed the 8AM early pickup. Now I have to worry that all the checks clear and pass and work smoothly over the July 4 non-mail holiday! Have breakfast with the Times, find the doublecrostic difficult to start, mess up drawing the "ice cream soda" glass with, I guess, a spoon and a straw, for the "regular" puzzle, and finally force through the doublecrostic and finish the Times at 2:10PM. Do ANOTHER (just don't LEARN!) Spider session 2:10-4:20PM to 51.43917 to 721 up after 2 wins. Have a good HH lunch of smoky steak salad, again with good blue cheese, while watching "Borgias," eventually watching all nine episodes of the first season. Try a second time to "customize" my Radio Shack remote with my DVD player, and it DOES work with the slow-speed buttons, but I still have to turn it on and off, and switch from DVD to VHS, with ANOTHER remote. At least I can now (but I don't) put the packaging away since I won't be returning it immediately. Finish with "Borgias" and STILL don't feel like doing accounts, or even OPENING the DHL package of index pages (but I SHOULD e-mail Pam that I DID get them!), so I'm BACK (STUPID!!!) to Spider 8:20-11:40PM to a DAMNABLE 51.42788, lowest since 5/13, at 716 up after 3 wins. Curses; curses! To bed at 11:54PM, managing to get to sleep while thinking about the WASTED DAY.
SUNDAY, 7/3/11: Pee at 3:57AM and 6:55AM, do a complete Actualism just to TRY to EMPOWER me for a day of DOING THINGS! Up at 8AM, determined to try the new remote with porn, and it works GLORIOUSLY on Porn 1, and I cum at 8:55AM, not great, but feeling good about it ANYWAY. Have breakfast with the Times to 9:25AM, sort out the pills for another two weeks to 9:45AM, transfer the Neo dreams to WP51 to 10AM, then phone Mildred to see what SHE does with her no-duty days---and she's having the same problems I have: if she has a book to read, she's OK, but she's too weak from emphysema to walk around the neighborhood except on essential errands, and has no apartments to worry about. We talk to 10:30AM and I get started proofing dreams and printing out two of those pages, then catch the journal up to JULY at 11:20AM, when I put away the JUNE calendar page (just days after putting away the MAY calendar page), and put up the JULY calendar page! An accomplishment! Print journal pages 62 and 63 and catch up with the journal, at last, at 12:35PM, ready to get to the Saturday Times, put other stuff away, and try to finish ACCOUNTS before getting to Ken's at 6:14PM! Water plants to 12:40, read Times to 1:15, and have lunch while watching Ebert to 1:45. Then put stuff away in apartment to 2:25, and do mail and look at the index pages to 2:50. Go to the gym to 4:20, lucky that I went at 3PM, because I'd forgotten it was closing at 5PM the two days before July 4. Reply to Pam's e-mail and to ASI's biography index to 4:45. Do accounts to 5:50, finishing enough to estimate that I spent about $10,000, Ken spent about $5,000, which means he owes me roughly $2,500, of which he's already given me a check for $1000. Get to Ken's at 6:10 and he suggests we subway down to Houston to Grand Sichuan, which has AWFUL beef, but good pork appetizers and decent chicken entree. I stop at Gourmet Garage on the walk back to his place to pick up hot-fudge sauce for his six kinds of ice cream. Watch "Silence of the Lambs," remembering essentially NOTHING except I didn't like the fact of the murderer being gay. Have some ice cream and chocolate, and leave about 10:40 with my Georges Blanc menu and his 2010 French Michelin. Get home to a message from Charles, so I ask him if he wants to see the fireworks from Ken's roof, and he does, so I call Ken, waking him at 10:58PM, who says OK. Look at the 2010 Michelin to 12:25AM, when wash face, brush teeth, lotion feet to 12:41 and get to bed at 12:54AM.
MONDAY, 7/4/11: Pee at 5:41AM and up at 9:44AM after lazing lazily. Breakfast to 10:45, watching Rita's messing up the answer to some rock star's wife (Fergie, of Two Black Beans, or whatever group) on Regis and Kelly Live from New York. Then phone Carolyn, who seems to have talked to Charles---who says she didn't---and I say we'll be there in a few hours. Charles says he'll ring my bell downstairs at 12:40 ("Not 12:30, because I'll be late") and now at 12:57PM he's CLEARLY late. Finish accounts, except for some niggling detail I call Ken back about (after forgetting to add in his "drinks extra" amount!) the correct amount of his MasterCard added Finance Charges, but he doesn't answer, so I can only leave a message. Figure that FRANFOOD was only the SIXTH most expensive-per-day trip at $440, and the FOURTH most expensive trip at $10,000+, after the two $20,000 Africa and Antarctica trips and the $15,000 Japan trip, which Mildred says she doesn't remember at all. I put most of the trip stuff away and get ready to come back HERE after some time in Prospect Park, because I'm not dressed for Recette, and still Charles hasn't rung downstairs, so I decide to catch up with dreams and journal, which I DO by 1PM, and he STILL hasn't rung downstairs! Thank goodness I put the air conditioner on. NOW, at 1:01PM, I get a call from downstairs. Take a few minutes to finish dressing and get downstairs to find no one in the lobby by a security person behind the desk. I finally ask him if he called 20K about someone here, and he stares blankly at me for a moment until Charles comes out of the elevator lobby, and the guard says, "HERE he is." Charles smiles and says he supposes he shouldn't have gone upstairs. I talk confusedly, apologizing about having to walk to Atlantic Avenue to catch a bus, and maybe should have brought a Brooklyn map to see how we're going to come back by subway, but we'll just wing it, won't we? Day is pleasant as we walk to Atlantic, and find a B61 stop with seats in the shade on the south side of Atlantic Avenue. Bus comes in about ten minutes, but when I say we're going to Prospect Park, he says we have to get on the bus going the OTHER WAY. It doesn't make sense, but we cross the street, let a B63 bus pass, and it's followed by a fairly crowded B61, and I have to explain that I already USED my "invalid" Metro card on the bus going the wrong way, and he's puzzled to find that Charles's card WORKS, since he hadn't tried to board the east-bound bus when I found it wasn't the right one. We ride down to Columbia Avenue, turn on something like Hamilton while Charles keeps asking when we're going to get to Red Hook, and we pass many public gardens and plant-sales offices, and he keeps exclaiming about all the available space, the fields overlooking bays and channels with boats in them, and some rundown buildings, many with Red Hook names. We get seats quickly, but I have to shield my right ear from the Spanish woman literally SHOUTING across the aisle to her daughter on the other side, while I try desperately to listen to Charles's insistent quiet voice. Finally the Spanish couple get off, but the silence is again shattered by an enormous Latina in a wheelchair, who I'm convinced is in the chair only as a matter of convenience so she doesn't have to move her own girth on her own legs. Bus goes forever, but I finally get oriented as we move north on 9th Street, passing 2nd and 3rd and 4th Avenues in an increasingly familiar Park Slope neighborhood, and get off at 9th Avenue as the bus turns right at Prospect Park. The entrance is crowded with people, but we go down the left path and immediately see a yellow sign pointing to "Carolyn's party." Continue through MASSES of people grouped around fixed and portable stoves and masses of tables and blankets and PEOPLE. Charles had said that his streets were almost empty, and I said, "Sure, they've all come HERE." We pass three or four more nicely-placed yellow sheets of paper, and then come to one that says, merely, "Carolyn's Party!" Look at the people scattered around and recognize her sister, who I THINK is Izzy, but I don't trust that enough to CALL her that; but she recognizes me and welcomes me to the table. Charles and I sit in the only available chairs, and I immediately get a plate and open the roast chicken box, tear off a leg, take some slices of "Jersey home-grown tomato" that Izzy cuts from an enormous red globe, accept a fork that Sabrina comes up with a handful of to put on the table, and we're told that Carolyn has gone to look for another table, with the wife of the stranger with enormous ginger handlebar mustaches. Charles doesn't take a plate, but gets some cold water from someone who takes a quart bottle out of a nearby cold-box, while Mustache says he doesn't know anything about cooking, yet is broiling chicken and finally hamburgers, which he puts on a plate for Izzy, saying, "I'm not sure how much fire they got," and I'm not willing to eat uncooked meat. After about half an hour, some pleasant runners' bodies passing shirtless on the path, I tell Charles that I'll probably be leaving in half an hour, or at least after Carolyn returns, which she finally does, followed by a couple of people carrying another table and paper tablecloth. Izzy's young companion says that Carolyn told her to be here at 6:30AM to claim a fixed firepit, but they were wall taken by the time Carolyn arrives at 7:30AM, and a nearby Latina bursts into a loud diatribe against someone who clearly stole a firepit and table that she'd claimed by possessions which the usurper ignored. I'm VERY uncomfortable not knowing Izzy's husband's name, and he lolls back in his chair, saying he's going to take a nap. Carolyn gets involved with showing Sabrina how to ride Carolyn's new motorized red tricycle, but finally lets me say goodbye and Charles suggest we take her to a restaurant of her choice in repayment for her enormous effort for this party that we're leaving so early because "Charles has to get back to his partner." He, madly, suggests we walk farther INTO the park, and I say he's crazy, we'd just get lost. Back to 9th Avenue to find it one way, and Carolyn said we had to take the bus in the OTHER direction to get back to Atlantic Avenue, and after we wander around blindly for a few minutes, I ask someone for the nearest subway, and they direct us two blocks south on 9th Street. After what I think is only ONE block we find the Seventh Avenue F and G station, and get down, where Charles's card balks with "See the agent," with, of course, no agent in the station. Some guy swipes his card for Charles---and maybe these people who do it so freely have week-long unlimited service. We sit waiting for the train, while I wonder why I felt so INTIMIDATED by the group at Carolyn's party, while Charles goes on about how attractive Joel, as Carolyn said his name was, though I half-remembered him introducing himself as Webster or Wayne, is. Even flirtatious. Train comes, I get off at Jay Street while Charles continues into Manhattan, saying he'll meet us at Racette at 6:30. I get home at 4PM, put on the air conditioner, and play an AWFUL set of Spider from 4-6PM, ending at 51.42116 at 713 up after 3 wins. Then dress for Racette and leave at 6:10, passing many people getting OUT at Brooklyn Heights, getting a train stopped in the Clark Street station while a subway cop walks down the platform toward the back of the train. As soon as I board, the doors close and we go into Manhattan. Get to the restaurant about 6:33PM, both of them already seated, defying "the bitch" who said they couldn't sit at their table until I arrived, but Ken "outbitched" her. The waiter's cute, saying we can have practically anything for the $75 five-course tasting menu, giving me hamachi without the umi, giving Ken his $15-supplement lobster orza, and Charles's wanted fried duck tongues on the corn soup, which is really good, with little frizzles added that impress me no end. The trout is clearly salmon-trout, which Ken says is widely available, but I insist I haven't seen it on a menu since that long-ago restaurant outdoors on Seventh Avenue with Charles that introduced me to the fish that I wanted again and never got. Then the sweetbreads are perfectly cooked, though a smallish portion, and the waiter is just lovely, pouring Ken's and Charles's wine, and making sure my waterglass is constantly refilled. Service is great, the food is great, I sign the card with my e-mail for their specials (the next one, on August 8, I'll be in Turkey), and we leave about 8:15 on streets crowded with people going toward the river while we go to Ken's apartment. I think the fireworks start at 9:40, Ken says 9PM, and we go to the roof at 9:12, where they start at 9:26. I think they've improved, with a beautiful section of gold-only showers and a few bursts of bright pink, and they're over at 9:51 with their usual climax. Back down for Charles to get ginger ale and me to eat three pieces of waxy Godiva white chocolate from Ken's guarded full box. We leave about 10:40 to find the platform jammed with people. I sit at last at Chambers Street and get home about 11PM to head directly to bed at 11:25PM.
TUESDAY, 7/5/11: Wake at 1:11AM after a snatch of dream in which I'm sitting at a desk, trying to work, but distracted by my aroused cock. I play for a bit, thinking to cum in bed, and then get out the vibrator, and at 1:35AM decide to move into the living room and get more benefit from my new remote's slow-motion capabilities. Put on Porn 1, but it refuses to read, so I get to Sexy Bods and dial in track 33 at random, and get caught up in segments I haven't seen in a long time. Play and play, smoke one bidi in two steps, and finally manage a deep-felt orgasm at 2:45AM! What a way to come off a long weekend! Get to bed, but thought I heard what MAY have been my front door click, so I get up to check that it's firmly closed, and then put the j/o stuff away and locate Charles's "Titus" Mountain gorilla on Channel 13, ironically finishing its first repeat at 3AM. Back to bed at 3:10AM! Continue adding to my bed-note: MUST EXCUSE weekend to Pam on Tuesday when she phones. 3:36AM: Obsessing about the index: 1) ASI winner, 2) advice to Pam, 3) career boost, and 4) get $3-4/page job TOO. Go to Actualism to get to SLEEP. AND: Charles: Carolyn to Corton as a treat? 4:01AM note: Eliot Linzer (for ASI best-index chat ages ago), Peter Rooney (to get "into" ASI more firmly for "my award"), Steve Hayes (to share Corton with Carolyn and Charles?), Mildred (to say WHY Carolyn didn't invite her to Prospect Park), Marj (tennis over? my many notes now), Shelley (who doesn't need any attention until her memorial on August 28), Tris (not at Prospect Park, I FINALLY look at his 6/2 memo), AGHHH! Add Egyptian/stamp guy's visit, and recontact the Prime Timers guy, at least with an e-mail asking where he's gotten to and MY vacation dates. FINALLY start Actualism and doze off at last, mind easing to a stop, cock easing to rest. 8:46AM: Up to type DREAMS:7/5/11 and try to get into the day before Pam calls. Print three notebook pages, take the telephone into the john while I shit and wash my face and NOT succeed in pushing down my Cameron-Diaz cum-upswept hair. But still Pam hasn't called, to my relief now that I finish this by 10AM, ready to get into the day, but prepared to nap at some point, since I barely slept four hours! Got to start a day-done list! Herewith: 1) Notebook to 10AM, 2) LW Mildred 10:01, 3) Dr. Sai WCB 10:12, 4) Google Heartbreak and Black Market, 5) LW Ken, two Googled restaurants 10:13, 6) e-mail to 10:25, 7) FIA to 10:34, 8) HSBC to 10:40, 9) Breakfast to 11:08, 10) LW Charles 11:10, 11) Marj (about EVERYTHING) to 12:13PM. 12) Find Ukraine slides and sheets to 12:21, 13) LW Pam/index 12:22, 14) Ukraine slides to 1:30, 15) LW Carolyn---slides? party? to 1:35, 16) Steve to 2PM---he's coming, 17) Spartacus argues to 2:10, 18) LW John---slides tomorrow to 2:12, 19) LW Bill P---slides tomorrow to 2:14, 20) Piri to 2:22---Games Sunday; she might make slides, 21) "Shrek Forever After" and lunch to 3:35, 22) Dr. Sai's office: 10AM 7/25 appointment by 3:40, 23) Watch firework video to 4:30, 24) Set up TV recording to 4:40, 25) "Mao's Last Dancer" to 7:30, 26) Form 5500-EZ to 7:53, 27) Charles OK with Carolyn to Corton at 7:55, 28) Spider 8-9:30, good to 51.43267 to 719 up after 7 wins, GOOD!, 29) "Heartbreaker" to 11:35, with sexy Romain Duris, and 30) Bed at 11:58PM.
WEDNESDAY, 7/6/11: Pee at 6:04AM, and do Actualism. 7:35AM: Up, because I can't stand depressing thought of losing apartment due to bedbugs! Where whould I go? Make a list of who I think is coming to the slides, have a late breakfast, and call Pam at work at 10:52AM, worry that she hadn't returned my call from yesterday, connect through to Pam Someone-Else, who connects me to Jennifer, who says she'll look for Pam. This takes to 10:57AM, when I read my e-mail, to find that Pam had SENT me an e-mail about 8:30 this morning to say she'd call me about 11AM! She DOES call and we work from 11:05-11:45. Ready for slides by 12:15PM, so I go to Spider to 12:35, leaving it to go to 55 Pierrepont and find some guy helping me set up chairs, and a new, stern, woman in control of the show. She puts me down for the next two dates: September 7 (France:Food) and November 2. It's primarily my people at the start: Piri comes early for a good seat, then Spartacus, Bill, Steve, Carolyn, Nancy, Charles, and Fred M. I start just before 1:15 with narration, and end about 1:50 to high praise from everyone, and I didn't think it was really that good. Back to find HH meals waiting for me! Onto the site to cancel more weeks, since I think I'll be getting another batch on Friday or Saturday. Up to dump the slide-bags in the hallway and don't put things away until Saturday! Finish the Spider session from 2:30-2:37, OK at 51.43449 at 720 up after 2 wins. Watch TV while having lunch, and at some point watch "Paris" with Romain Duris, a completely different character from his happy-go-lucky "Heartbreaker." Back to Spider 6:42 to take score at 8:22 at 51.43983 at 723 up after 4 wins, then think I'm on a good roll, so I continue to 9:51 to 51.44324 at 725 up after another 4 wins, and continue to 10:55PM, too long, to 51.44483 at 726 up after 3 wins. Bed at 1:04AM.
THURSDAY, 7/7/11: Check FIA to 1:20AM, and back to bed. Note DREAMS:7/7/11 at 4:50AM. Pee at 8:15AM. at 8:26AM I get up to try dubbing, but the "stop" button doesn't work and nothing's transferred to the DVD. Try it twice, and finally just play a DVD to jerk off to finish what I'd started over an hour before. Then look at what I have on the DVR and find "Helen of Troy" from 1956 with Jacques Sernas and Rosanna Podesta, with an unrecognized Brigitte Bardot as a slave girl. The battle scenes by Robert Wise are impressive, but Sernas is just a pretty blank. For that matter, so is Podesta. VERY long film! Get to the gym in the humidity, and I'm so exhausted when I get back that I simply collapse on my bed with the air conditioning on, feeling the sweat drying on my chest. Start a disastrous Spider at 3:30PM which I stop for the restaurant. Have a late lunch, poor because Spartacus has set up a Groupon ticket for Water Street Restaurant at 6:50PM, and I'm not hungry for the mediocre ribs and VERY dry cornbread that I get in place of collard greens. He's stingy about sharing his Groupon discount with me, but finally pays most of my overwhelming one-peach-and-two-butter-pecan-scoop hot fudge sundae with three scoops of hot fudge! Manage to do NOTHING on index all day! Get back to endless Spider, finally finishing at 12;30AM at 51.43697 at 723 up after 3 wins, UGH! Bed at 12:434AM.
FRIDAY, 7/8/11: 7:50AM: Reluctantly awake after less than seven hours' sleep, anxious about my appointment with Chin at 9:45---mistyping 8:45, which I thought it WAS, and worried about oversleeping and missing my appointment. As so often in the past, I just don't FEEL like doing anything productive: had intended starting on the index the past two days, and simply watched television and played Spider, doing NOTHING on the index, as if to---silly idea: "prolong the pleasure of the work." More realistically, I don't want the job to be OVER, because then I would be WITHOUT WORK, and have no source of income to pay for more trips, which means I will either have to withdraw from Schwab---and I now go to see what I HAVE there---over $19,000 cash now in Keogh, GOT to do SOMETHING with it. And now, at 8AM, to Spider! Play to 8:35AM, OK to 51.44072 to 725 up after 3 wins. Dress and get a new pills list and get to office for MEDICAL:7/8/11. Work on index, at last, 1:25-3, leaving word with Pam to call, then have lunch, a heavy HH meal with a salad, during which I worry about Pam calling, and then work from 3:45, and Pam calls about 4PM, and I get lots of good answers to my questions, and she still seems pleased with my work, but I finish at 4:40, exhausted with decisions. Forgot to record that I played Spider 12:40-1:15PM, again OK to 51.44253 at 726 up after 2 wins. Frustrated by not working, I play Taipei 4:45-5:50PM, winning about half of them, and get out to Sharon's in the rain. Back to watch "The Wrong Man," rather anemic Hitchcock film, with Vera Miles just simply going out of her mind, and then in an end-title recoving completely after 2 years in a sanitarium. Not very satisfying. Back to Spider 11:35PM-1:15AM, good to 51.44797 at 729 up after 4 wins. Bed at 1:20AM, apartment a mess.
SHARON B. 183 7/8/11
Get there a minute after 6PM and she calls me right in. So I didn't NEED to bring a magazine to read! Wince as I move, saying that I had to walk slower to get here because my back "has gone out," a saying that I remark I'd hoped I'd never have to utter. She sympathizes, and I go on to say that I had an x-ray of both sides of my hip, but there's a controversy with Spartacus about whether Dr. Chin can read my x-rays directly or he has to go to another "box" to read it, or whether he has to get the advice of an orthopedist. Then I tackle my negative feelings about my HATING the gathering organized by Carolyn on July 4 in Prospect Park. I describe the negatives, and focus on my CONDEMNATION OF SELF by "looking down" on the gathering, "feeling above" it, and hating myself for that feeling. I wallow in that for a bit, but Sharon finally asks a crux question: Why did I get SO angry about the situation? And it occurs to me in a flash that I did it so that I'd have the COURAGE to say to Charles, "I'm leaving in a couple of minutes." I had to WORK MYSELF UP to that point. She comments that I don't have to feel bad about not wanting to be there: it just wasn't something I wanted to do, and so my LEAVING was a SOLUTION to my problem, produced by my WORKING MYSELF UP. I felt the guilty burden lift as I found a GOOD EXCUSE for my bad behavior: leaving Carolyn's hard-planned party, AND gloating about her REWARD for her unrequited efforts: dinner at Corton, shared by Charles, whose idea it was, and NOT for many wines, which was MY limitation on our generosity. Sharon thought it was a good deal all around, and I frankly confessed I hadn't DREAMED that working this out would make me FEEL BETTER about my feelings and subsequent actions. GREAT! Then I changed the subject to my OTHER area of concern: I didn't think my Ukraine show was that great, yet MORE PEOPLE had MORE PRAISE for that program than for any other! What was wrong with ME that I didn't feel good about it FOR MYSELF, though I made it clear I accepted their thanks and didn't let on that I thought their opinions were of no value to me, who still thought it a mediocre program. When she probed into THAT feeling, I could only say that it was part of the aftermath of "being down on myself" that I CONTINUED to "be down on myself." I couldn't tell them my TRUE feelings, and Sharon seemed to think of that as some kind of revelation: "You mean you weren't allowed to show negative feelings to your family?" No, I wasn't. Had I been punished for negative feelings? If I had, it was so early in my life that I had no memory of them, but KNEW that it wasn't good to show my negative feelings. Took a detour into Amy's "revelation" that my GRANDMOTHER may have been the true cause of my mother's meanness and strictness---making my grandfather ineffectual as my mother made my father ineffectual. Sharon didn't pursue that, and soon it was 6:45 and time to leave, and I said I certainly felt better about myself than when I came in.
SATURDAY, 7/9/11: Up at 8:15AM, first time since going to bed 6:55 ago. Get the Times, think maybe to shit with the collecting tools, but only pee, reading the Times. Since I'm having dinner at 5:45PM, I decide to have an early breakfast, with the Times, and then settle into the puzzles about 9AM, taking a long time with the cryptic, and the bottom corners of the crossword, but finally finish at 11:25AM, not having read the PAPER yet. But, ineluctably drawn to Spider, I have a great session from 11:25-12:30PM to 51.4516 at 731 up, the highest "UP" yet, though not near my highest SCORE from 2/5. Phone Mildred to sound her out about getting another loan from her or taking part of the $19,000 out of my Keogh account, and she demands that I do the paperwork to find WHEN my income will start making my Social Security taxable, and I have to agree it's a reasonable request, but I don't like the idea of the work! Then type Sharon's session from Friday, and start on journal, then go into the kitchen at 1PM to find that I'd taken the HH meals out of the bottom refrigerator storage drawer and left them unsorted on the stove top! Put those away and get back to journal, clearing desk of messy index pages, and catch up with today, anyway, by 1:25PM, when I really have to get to lunch. Finish at 1:53PM, having read the article about Savage and "nonmonogamy" in previous Times magazine. Then decide to update my MEDICAL:7/7/11 to 2:05, thinking, again, that I might try to shit. Do, to 2:15. Then back to notebook, printing three pages and catching up with this by 3:10PM---where DOES the day go!? Clean up stuff in the living room and finish the Saturday Times by 4:05PM, desk now piled with stuff to handle. Handle things to 4:17PM, e-mailing David Neiderbach at neiderbach@optonline.net. Then, conpulsively, go to Spider 4:25-5:07PM, stopping because I have to leave for Heartbreak, dress in jeans and my tacky old shirt, and get to the A line to find no trains going into Brooklyn! Damn! Go into Manhattan, and the only choice is to go all the way to West 4th Street and transfer to the Brooklyn-bound F train, which takes more time, but I'm still only 5 minutes late when I get to 2nd and 2nd to find the restaurant right on the corner, and Ken's sitting at the very rear, so I take a short cut over the red plush rope from the sidewalk and sit next to Ken, ignoring the dirty look from the waiter. My veal in cream sauce on rosti is wonderful, but he doesn't care much for his raclette, but likes most of his sauerbraten dish except some strange buttery cabbage that I finish for him. My red-berry gelee turns out to be a soupy semi-tart dessert that fills me up wonderfully. We talk and pause over his espresso and still leave early for the play, talking to the bartender son, Lorcan Otway, of the long-time owner, and "Silence: The Musical" is funny, with a wonderful athletic and comedic stint of Clarice by homely Jenn Harris. Act I is over at the dot of 9PM and Act II at 10PM, and I walk through the crowds on First Avenue down to the F, which comes quickly in the quiet, muggy station, to Jay Street, where the A, incomprehensibly, arrives, and takes so long to get to High Street that I fear we may end up on the bridge back to Manhattan. Home to check for my empty mailbox, and then for a possible HH delivery, and find a button by my name, and it's an envelope from Marj! Open it to find her bill dated July 8, just yesterday, so it was TODAY that the delivery wasn't entered in the book for me to sign for, and the material is dated from OCTOBER! I plan to call her at 11AM tomorrow with "And what to my wondering eyes should appear..." Watch Bill Maher, brush my teeth, and get to bed at 12:04AM, but compelled to get up to finish the Spider still on my screen from 12:08-12:47AM, getting UG to 51.4491 at 730 up after 2 wins, and back to bed at 12:52AM.
SUNDAY, 7/10/11: Pee at 5:37AM and lie tranquilly until I'm up at 9:26AM to get the Times and immediately type DREAMS:7/10/11 and catch the notebook up to date by 9:49AM, thinking maybe to take my second shit-dip for my bowel test. Stupidly brush what might be hemorrhoid blood onto my card, then realize that's not the way to do it and throw the thing away, needing to get a replacement tomorrow. Have breakfast while watching part of Nova, Ken calls about a date for the Lovecraft piece, and I phone Marj at 11:02AM to talk about my shock at getting her envelope yesterday. She talks about lots of things, Ken calls back, I put Marj off, call Ken back to make date, and call Marj back to talk till about 11:25, when I say I have to get ready for the Games Group, but start Spider at 11:25 to 1PM, getting to 731 up while still winning, and fuss with dressing until phoning Piri about 1:10PM saying that I'm running late. Make good time as it is, getting there third, after Piri and Diane, at 2:10PM. Wait for Alexandra and Barbara to arrive soon after, start with Boggle that I win, then to Piri's "book's first sentence" contest that Barbara and I end up with zero, Piri and Diane lie in the middle with six points, and Alex wins triumphantly with ten points, saying that I probably wouldn't want to play it again. I blame it on competing with women authors. Then we play Scattergories, where I fall two points behind Barbara. Leave about 5:40PM, getting onto the downtown York Avenue bus to 57th and 8th for the slow subway home about 6:50. Finish the great Spider 7:08-7:38PM to 51.45634 at 734 up, new highest, after 5 wins. Then have dinner while finishing Nova on smart animals, and spend about an hour filling out a sheet of how much I lose on Social-Security taxation by taking $10,000 and $20,000 more out of my Keogh. Then decide to start entering items into Cindex, having trouble FINDING it (and having to go back to guide to recall Alt+ for inverting entry-subentry), and work from 9-10:25PM, e-mailing about 90 lines of a test index to Pam, and then end with "Despicable Me," mostly awful, and get to bed at 12:27AM. But suddenly struck with the thought that I have just TWO WEEKS in which to finish Pam's two indexes, AND have to resolve my financial problem with Mildred at lunch TODAY, AND have many restaurants on two Restaurant Weeks AND want to see the Mariinsky Ballet---I can't get to sleep, so at 1:03AM I get up for an ambien and fall asleep then.
MONDAY, 7/11/11: Up, logy and sweaty, at 8:42AM, have breakfast of oatmeal with apple juice because I used up the last of the milk yesterday, and watch the first part of the Loud Family Summary. Then make sure I catch up with the notebook by 9:55AM, ready for indexing before gym before indexing before lunch before indexing before ballet tonight. True to the last sentence, I index from 10-11AM, go to the gym to 12:30, index from 12:50-1:05PM, and leave to meet Mildred sweating in the second-floor 55 Wall Restaurant at precisely 1:30PM. She wants to leave, but I plead that it's getting cooler, my seat is cooler than hers, and we're HERE: where would we go if we left? She's persuaded, and her salmon appetizer and my hot mushroom soup are just great, and then she loves her tough chicken breast and my lovely lemon-soaked tilapia, though we hardly touch our sides of al-dente rice, and I fill up on ice water and she has no Prosecco. The house dessert of cream-filled molded-dark-and-white-chocolate cups is very good too, and she looks at my financial papers, sort of dismisses them, and then later calls to say that she's willing to bring me a $7500 check at Wednesday's lunch, for which she wants to charge a 2-3% interest, which I was about to suggest to her. I'm just delighted! I glance into the "real" 55 Wall entrance to find the revolving door admits me to a cavernous, violet-lit "Cipriani Ballroom," just as the western door admitted her to the luxurious lobby of "Cipriani Residences," though I said I'd hoped the 55 Wall Restaurant had been in the larger ground-floor room. She just made it to her 3PM therapist's meeting, and I marked the index from 2:50-3:10 and then entered hundreds of items into the Test Index and sent the second set off to Pam by 6PM, and at 6:05PM she e-mailed me that she was taking it home to work with tomorrow, also proofing the new Appendix pages to make sure they're in the order she specified. Glance through the mail and decide to chance getting a ticket to the opening-night Mariinsky "Anna Karenina." At 7:20 it's already sold out, so I buy tickets to Thursday night's last AK and Saturday matinee's last "Humpbacked Horse," hoping I'm free both times. Look at the set being taken down for some kind of Harry Potter presentation in the Plaza, and on the subway sit next to a woman who says they had all the stars there from 5-6PM for the movie opening later this week. Back home I phone Carolyn about our dinner, which we agree will be after I get back from Turkey. Feel delighted that BOTH my financial worries and index worries appear to be appeased. Mildred had thought Charles must be in the hospital with gallbladder-related problems, but I phone him and he calls back, saying he'll call her tomorrow. Doubt for a moment whether I had lunch, and only after moments recall that I had it at 55 Wall with Mildred! Watch "American Family" through dinner, and then the start of "Don Carlo" to take a chunk out of its 4-hour performance, and get to bed at 12:15AM.
TUESDAY, 7/12/11: Finally drop off to a hot and sweaty sleep, get up at 4:52AM to pee and turn on the air conditioner, having had the first of DREAMS:7/12/11, and then wake, chilled, at 5:43AM to pull the sheet up to cover my shivering body. Up at 8:15AM to turn the air conditioning from 70 to 75 and catch up with dreams and notebook to 9AM, printing a page of each and happy to get productively into a good day. Got to check to see if Pam hasn't already sent me an e-mail this morning! [At this point I've started catching up with these notebook entries at 3PM SATURDAY, 7/23!] With her on the phone from 9-9:45AM, and then have breakfast while watching "Don Carlo" from the Met in 2010 with Alagna a pleasant singer. Play Spider 12:01-12:30PM, OK to 51.45815 to 735 up, HIGHEST, after 2 wins. Work on the index 12:55-3:40, stop for lunch, and continue working 4:35-5:25PM, when I have to leave to meet Spartacus at Pier 16 for the Hidden Harbor tour for $22 at 6:15PM. We're on the Zephyr, and his friend (Diane?) and he talk about leading tours on various boats. I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the tour, looking out at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, the red-and-green signals to tell boats they're in the deeper harbor, on a line with the Statue of Liberty, and we go up Buttermilk Channel to enter the Erie Basin with its remote parking lot. Then into the Kill van Kull, past the hidden-by-trees Sailors Snug Harbor, much of which has been moved to Virginia, or some other state, and under the Bayonne Bridge, the roadbed of which has to be raised 60 feet to allow large container ships into the harbor. Then we're north into the Port Newark and Port Elizabeth Container Terminals, not that interesting, where we turn around with the sun setting so that it'll probably be set when we pass the Statue of Liberty. I get out my camera to take the picture of the large ship in the small drydock next to the small ship in the large drydock, which struck me on the way in, and we pass the "Teardrop" Memorial which was moved to New Jersey because it reminded some New Yorkers of an irregular vagina. Not to ME! Everyone's standing at the rails now, so it's necessary to stand to just see what we're passing, and I take a picture of the Bayonne Golf Course, built up from harbor dredging that goes on constantly. PAss the Statue of Liberty when it's almost too dark to see her face, and dock well past the scheduled 8:15PM docking. Diane's limping and needs to be helped, and I'm not that interested in staying with her, so I take off for the Fulton Street subway and get home about 9PM. Have dinner, watch TV, get to bed at 12:23AM.
WEDNESDAY, 7/13/11: Up at 7:10AM to shit and type DREAMS:7/13/11. Back to bed to 8AM. Work on the index 8-9AM, have breakfast, and work 9:30-10:10AM. Get out to Freilich for MEDICAL:7/13/11, 10:45-12:10. Home to work on index 12:30-1:30PM, have lunch, and work 2:10-4:10, happy with my progress. Play Spider 4:10-5:35PM, pausing to talk to Pam 4:55-5PM, and leave to go to Shaun Hergatt, meeting Mildred as she's going in the front door, and the meal is VERY good, with a TERRIBLY handsome waiter, and even Mildred agrees with me. Out to find, to our surprise, that it had RAINED while we'd dined. Home at 8PM to resume a disastrous Spider to 10:50PM, going up to SIX LOSSES, ending at 51.44419 at 729 up after 7 wins. Bed at 11:30PM.
THURSDAY, 7/14/11: Pee at 4:37AM and at 4:40 note DREAMS:7/14/11. Pee again at 5:34AM. Think to use my new remote to help make more porn extracts, and take a long time to select sections from Porn P, but it turns out that the dubbing won't STOP, so nothing is read onto the DVD, though I tried twice, taking a long time but not succeeding. Finally just jerk off to cum. Play Spider 9-10AM, awful, to 51.43966 to 727 up after 3 wins. Then have breakfast, and work on the index 11-11:40AM, when it's time to meet Spartacus and subway uptown to 125th Street for Marcus Samuelsson's Red Rooster, choosing to sit outside over Spartacus's objections, and it's fun watching all the fat people on the street. Have their $24.07 special, but I'd like to go back for his special burger. We wait a LONG time for the entree, getting served TWICE with the soup by error. Take the bus downtown, and Spartacus gets off at Lincoln Center to shop for his shoes, and I get off at 42nd to subway home to get the Handbook pages, taking 4:35-4:30 and 4:55-5PM to look at them. Play Taipei 5:10-7PM, winning MOST. Then get back to Lincoln Center for the Mariinsky's "Anna Karenina," just awful with tuneless, formulaic Shchedren music and mediocre dancing. Very disappointing, though the Times critic also warned that it was awful. I console myself with a $6 brownie which isn't bad, but not as good as it used to be. Back to watch "Burlesque," rather sexy, with a very attractive "straight" Jack played by Cam Gigandet, who I later look up on Google to find he IS straight. Bed at 12:30AM.
FRIDAY, 7/15/11: Pee at 7:03AM and decide to get to the Met for Alexander McQueen's "Savage Beauty" show at the 9:30AM opening, since Mildred went and said everyone has to wait on line anywhere from 30-120 minutes to get in! Get on the ticket line at 9:35, and a woman sends me to a newly opened desk where I pay my $1 quickly. Up to a line on which I have to wait about twenty minutes before being admitted to the jammed rooms with truly magical costuming and effects and music and lights and videos. Great stuff, lots of interesting people to look at, and I thoroughly enjoy every bit of the exhibit to 11:53. Out for awful Richard Serra drawings 11:54-11:59, really a waste of time, then up to mediocre junk-assemblage Caro on the roof 12:17-12:21PM, and down to the mezzanine for Cretan drawings from the turn of the last century from 12:24-12:36, and then out to meet Mildred early at Lincoln Restaurant, elegant at Lincoln Center, and the food's OK, though Mildred likes it more than I do. Look at the mail and play Solitaire 5:20-5:35PM, just because I don't want to do anything else. Have a rather mediocre session with Sharon, and get to Under Saint Mark's early, but they won't let me sit in the air-conditioned theater, where I later worry about the possibility of bedbugs in the grungy seats. Ken arrives, we enjoy the Lovecraft readings with a sexy "doctor" using his good looks to give a homoerotic tinge to the stories, and then Ken refuses to join me at Crif Dogs for a wonderful Good Morning hot dog with a refilled root beer float. Delicious. Bed at 12:28AM.
SHARON B. 184 7/15/11
Get there early, but there's no one in with her. Start with my Sunday night ambien because of my inability to sleep while worrying about the index and finances. Then relate how, on Monday, both problems were solved: I made enough progress on Monday on the index to know that I could finish on time, and Mildred agreed to lend me another $7500, bringing her total up to $10,000, which she insisted I pay 1.5% interest on ($75) and pay back by January 1. What a relief! Mentioned my extreme impatience at lunch with Mildred on Friday---I just couldn't wait for it to be finished, valuing my privacy and aloneness. Said that was also annoyed a bit my Marj's digressions, which really wasn't fair since I used MUCH more of HER time than SHE used of MINE. There were lots of pauses as I tried to think of something else to say to fill up the time, finally coming to the metaphor that I was touching on all the "previous scars" from life, seeing if there was anything "hurting" about them at this time, repeating that Mildred was benefiting from using her pills AND from her therapist. Said that I was so busy with the index and restaurant week that I hardly had time to think about the trip, but that was all taken care of and was only 20 days anyway. Mentioned getting angry with Spartacus asking extraneous questions about almost ANYTHING that I spoke to him about, and praising Ken for his getting me out to plays, operas, and restaurants. "What are you thinking about now?" Sharon would ask when I couldn't think of anything to say, and she said that whatever I was doing was perfectly OK. Again brought up something from the distant past that she seemed to think was significant but which I've forgotten already, recording this Friday session only on the following Tuesday, so it's VERY incomplete. At the end, said that I had just one session left before my trip, and then I'd be back early in August.
SATURDAY, 7/16/11: Up at 8:02AM. Get the Times and sit and just do both puzzles until 10:55. Then have breakfast and finish reading the Times to 12:10PM, accurate, with exact times, and wonderfully brief. Then, sadly, can't resist playing Spider! Play 12:15-1:05PM, when I have to stop and dress for "Little Humpbacked Horse," which, sadly, ISN'T much better than "Anna Karenina," mostly due to Shchedren's TERRIBLE music and AWFUL balletic pandering at the end, when the dancers weren't even that GOOD! Watch "Barney's Version," taken with the "Boogie" character played by Scott Speedman, who also, according to Google, is depressingly straight. Spider 9:40-11PM, at last finishing at 51.4427 at 729 up after 3 wins. Bed at 12:04AM.
SUNDAY, 7/17/11: Note DREAMS:7/17/11 at 5:13AM. Pee. Up tired, at 8:09AM. Start a "Sun DEW" note, hoping to accomplish a lot today, including AT LAST going to the gym after SIX days away: 1) check that "When Worlds Collide" is NOT available on Netflix, 2) put HH meals off from 7/23-8/15, and changing my program to ONLY Web-Thu-Fri. 3) Too much of the day with Spider: 8:25-10:10AM frustrating to 51.44213, again to 729 up after 3 wins; then 12:30-3:25PM GREAT to 51.44709 to 732 up after NINE wins; but then 6:35-7:05PM, stupid but good, to 51.44795 to 733 up after 2 wins, but unwisely CONTINUING when I just STOP at 9:30PM at 51.44795 at 733 up after 2 wins, 4) breakfast to 10:50, 5) talk to Spartacus 10:50-11:30, 6) Mildred doesn't REMEMBER "Barney's Version," which I thought was great [but don't remember it THAT clearly just by Saturday 7/23!], 7) finish Times at 12:25PM, 8) again talk to Spartacus and play Spider, 9) Paul McLean calls! 10) call Rita on the road to Canada 4:20-4:50, not much to say, and 11) gym to 6:30. Back to watch "Step Up 3D," another sexy guy. Such BODIES they have on TV now! Then FINALLY get to indexing the Handbook from 9:30-10:10, stopping for dinner, and finishing 10:40PM-12:45AM, e-mailing the index to Pam for the morning. Bed at 1:03AM.
MONDAY, 7/18/11: Note DREAMS:7/18/11 at 2:25AM at 5:29AM. Pee both times, and again at 7:53. Do a good Actualism session and get up at 9:11AM. Have breakfast and get to finishing up the index 10:25-11:30AM, and then 11:40-12:50PM, phoning Mildred that I'll probably be late to Cafe Boulud because I'm leaving so late. She's pissed because they kept her waiting for a table until I got there about 1:40PM, but she relents and hands the waiter an extra $3 tip when he accedes to her wish for BOTH desserts that I don't get. We're pretty full at the end of a good meal, the place still crowded when we leave about 3PM. Daily Spider 4-5:30PM, TOTAL MISERY, to 51.43543 at 727 up after 2 wins. Finish the bulk of the index 5:35-8:10PM, sending off a final test version. Then finish watching a very sweaty "Rigoletto in Mantua" with Domingo taking the baritone role with a good young Polish soprano, and stay on to watch a sexy (though maybe those lush tits were a body double?) Julianne Moore in "Chloe," where, again, she gets to neck with a woman. Bed at 12:25AM.
TUESDAY, 7/19/11: 6:34AM: Note DREAMS:7/19/11. Pee and up at 8:20AM. 9:50AM: Put on both air conditioners to get away from sweating, and yet still sweat from the exertion of using a rug cleaner on the multitudinous spots on the living room carpet, and sweat even more during shaving, getting little hairs over my forearms and the sink. Panting from postural hypotension after stooping for the rug cleaning, but the rug clears up remarkably easily when I start using the sponge I rubbed the cleaner with as a "magic eraser" on other spots using just the cleaner-soaked sponge. Then decide I MUST get Sharon's session, long-ago Friday, out of the way while waiting for phone calls from Dr. Chin and Pam about the final six questions on the index. Had to get out of bed to record that I'd seen "Rigoletto from Mantua" and "Chloe" last night, and again to record that I'd eaten at Crif Dogs after "Lovecraft." Make a note to myself this morning that I should buy an adult diaper, "just in case," for the Turkey trip, and that I should clear out the "travel-take" bags at last. Even got up to move the sofa to get three OFFICIAL chair cushions to replace the pillow that keeps falling off my desk chair. Also think it's about time to start adjusting my waking hour for my six-hour difference in Turkey. Also think that Spartacus hasn't called in a long time, and that my circle of friends is narrowing: go though the males: Spartacus, Ken, Charles, Steve, John, Bill; and then the females: Mildred, Piri, Carolyn, Marj, and Rita---to stretch, lamenting the loss of Sherryl and Shelley. Now at 10AM have to start filling in the PAST, starting with LAST Tuesday! Ah, but first to Spider! Do that to 11AM to 51.435 at 727 up after 3 wins, just holding fast. Phone Pam, get her, and work to 11:30, when I have to dress for Gotham at 12:15PM with Mildred and Steve. Hot as blazes, which Mildred uses as an excuse to have no booze, thank goodness. Steve is a bit late, and then he's attractive, talkative, charming, and suprised that I'm as old as 75. He also drinks a lot; the food is good. I stop in at the Forbes Galleries to find that they not only sold the Fabergé eggs, they sold all the toys a number of months ago, so there are now only three rooms with art showing. Not worth the time. Home to finish editing the index 2:55-3:30PM, sending a note about how [MDASH] is the m-dash, the "unbreaking hyphen," longer, is the name-date hyphen, and the "other" hyphen is the n-dash, separating numbers in page ranges. She says she'll take it home on Wednesday and will call me with questions. She hasn't called by Saturday! She said she put in rush requests for my checks, so I hope I get them Monday or Tuesday. I order calcium and glucosamine from Puritan's Pride, but forget to order Omega-3. Chin calls to say my x-ray showed "minor arthritis in the hip," so I should take Tylenol for arthritis, which is only acetaminophen which I get CVS generic. Called Freilich about my back, and he said I had "a mole with a few atypical cells, a little irregularity, a dysplastic nevus." Spider again 4:15-5:30PM, OK to 51.43849 to 729 up after 4 wins. Then watch FIVE HOURS of "Game of Thrones," well produced with good characterizations. And some spectacle and blood and bodies: all to the good. Bed 11:47PM.
WEDNESDAY, 7/20/11: Up at 7:17AM to shit, and back to bed 7:49-7:56, but get back up and start a did-list: 1) check the TV weather to 8:05, 2) check for a file with 2011 for my photos, but it's not on the Edge, but in C at Documents and settings\ bob zolnerzak\ my documents\ my pictures\ Olympusmaster2\ 2008\ 06\ 01\ 2011\ 05 26-31 and 06 01-19 for FRANFOOD. Copy them to Edge. 3) Spider WASTE OF TIME from 8:40-11:10AM to 51.43758 again to 729 up after 3 wins. 4) e-mail to 11:15, getting LOTS of spam recently. Spartacus calls as I'm finishing an early lunch to say he's going to the 1:45PM "Harry Potter and the Ghastly Hallows, Part 2." I join him; happy to see the picture over. He stays to see if he can sneak into a 3-D showing with his glasses. I'm home to finish his DVDs of "Game of Thrones" for another 3 hours, missing what turns out to be two episodes in the middle. Then watch Netflix's "The Adjustment Bureau," not really very good, but Matt Damon's always convincing. Then watch, incredulously, Ken's recommended "Air Guitar Nation." Does the nude remind him of Jay? Then an OK Spider session from 10:20-11:30PM to 51.44118 at 731 up after 4 wins. Bed at 11:40PM.
THURSDAY, 7/21/11: Up at 7:40AM. Find the two missing episodes (6 and 7) of "Game of Thrones" on the HBO website, watch while having breakfast of the last of the mild with oatmeal. Decent Spider 11:20-11:45AM to 51.44299 at 732 up after 2 wins, but continue out of inertia with Taipei and Solitaire to 2:10PM! Start watching "Nurse Jackie," get to the gym for my penultimate session before my trip, and back to watch THE WHOLE EIGHTEEN EPISODES through the rest of the day---I guess I'm rehearsing for the 10-hour flights to and from Turkey. But they're really enjoyable, too. Bed 12:52AM.
FRIDAY, 7/22/11: Pee at 5:34AM and note DREAMS:7/22/11. Up at 9:01AM after minimal Actualism. Study trip people and itinerary to 9:25, look at e-mail to 9:35, play Spider 9:35-10:35AM, decent to 51.44456 at 733 up after 2 wins, and have breakfast LATE to 11:15, talking to Spartacus and watching start of "Count Ory." Then phone in prescriptions to 11:30, put Mutual of Omaha Accident Insurance yearly payment on automatic by 11:40, and clear desk of indexing material---including filling out my INDEXES page for 2010 and 2011---souvenirs, Visa bills, and other stuff to 12:30PM, ready to start catching up with notebook, seeing that I have EIGHT perfectly empty days to fill in, starting way back on Wednesday, 7/13, though I see that Tuesday, 7/12, isn't even finished yet. And my desk is littered with FIFTEEN notes that I have to handle before I'm "caught up." Fill in Taipei, Solitaire, and Spider through 7/18 by 12:55PM, when I've GOT to wash my face, comb my hair, and dress and subway to Post House by 2PM for my LAST lunch with Mildred. Check temperature and find it's 101 and with a heat index of 115! Get there early and read before Charles arrives just after 2PM and Mildred after 2:05PM. The selections are great (though we ALL have hot split-pea soup with ham and bacon; thank goodness it was very good) and portions huge, so that Mildred takes a hunk of Charles's filet with her one pork loin, and I have a hunk left of my filet. Desserts enormous too. Home to have to reboot computer to get e-mail, and find I'm getting the last Netflix on Saturday. Back to journal at 5:10 after having called Spartacus to thank him for Post House recommendation, and John to respond to his call asking when I was out of the house: he'd been without power for about ten hours, but said they'd fixed the infrastructure so it wouldn't happen again. Down to THIRTEEN (only!) cards, having gotten rid ONLY of two game cards before I left. At 5:15, looking at the 727, 729, 731, 732, 733 progress on Spider, I go to Spider before Sharon, stopping at 5:40 after loss, loss, loss. Low-key session. Check that laundry room is unused on the way up to my apartment, and take the laundry down, my card thankfully working. But get only one 20-minute dryer session, so I take all the clothes out of the bags and distribute them over the floor to dry until Saturday. Finally finish a DISASTROUS Spider session at 11:25PM after 5 and 6 and SEVEN losses, at 51.42519 at 724 up after 5 wins. Really just a pathetic disaster. Bed at 12:48AM, taking two acetaminophen.
SHARON B. 185 7/22/11
She comes into the office at 6:02PM from outside and calls me in. I remark how cold she keeps the rooms and she laughs. Try to get water but it's almost empty. Say that I just indulged in TV when I'd finished with indexes, wanting them to go on forever. Anticipating the trip will be good: four couples and five single guys, inanely saying that they may even group us in cheap hotels if they feel like it. Talked about my "embarrassment as suppressed joy" as Steve congratulated me on looking so good for my age, and then Sharon proceeds to do the same thing. I tell her of my mild hip arthritis and my OK stool sample. I say that I'm "blaming" my not doing much because I'm about to leave on a trip; I'm ALWAYS attributing my laziness to SOMETHING. Again many pauses, and tell her the dream about the fountains, concluding that I was "finishing" my trip along the path as the fountains were "starting," rather like my website coming to life after I die. She made some remarks about it, saying things that I've forgotten in the day since it happened. I'm not happy with my record of the session, but there it is, now at 9PM on Saturday. Just not worth struggling to remember any more of the mediocre session. She wished me a good trip. [Added 7/24:] Also discussed my decision to have beer, if free, with meals on my trip, just as I "indulge" in eggs, though I don't have them at home. Sharon agreed that would be OK. I mentioned that Steve had the same alcohol prohibition from a heart doctor---and he changed doctors.
SATURDAY, 7/23/11: At 1:30 have mild reflux. Think of dexilant and at 6:18 take it, deciding to get rid of the pills. Then try to shit to 6:51, but can't. 7:43AM finish minimal Actualism and get Times and start j/o to 8:25AM. Do puzzles to 10:25 before breakfast, and watch Bill Maher with breakfast, finishing with Ebert, and then finish the Times at 12:45PM, and, ineluctably, go to Spider. Play to 1:15, starting a slow up to 51.42699 at 725 up after 2 wins, then move to Taipei to 1:50PM, winning about half, and then to Solitaire to 2:25PM, when the typical dizziness takes over and my eyes swim and I have to stop. Note that I still have THIRTEEN cards to transcribe to my notebooks. Sort out cards and call Charles about meeting 11:40AM tomorrow for the "church" on the 40th floor of 7 World Trade Center. Get organized to start completing notebooks at 3PM. Stop for a large lunch, with the last of the HH salads, with the end of the first act of "Count Ory." Try another stab at Spider 5-6:15PM, just AWFUL to 51.42621 at 725 up after 4 wins. Back to updating notebook, agonizing in the heat, but doing and doing and doing, throwing notes away as I transcribe them, printing pages as I finish them, and finally get caught up to date at 9:03PM, dark outside but still 91. Took DVDs back to Spartacus and picked up the mail with "Unknown" from Netflix. Now I can "put it on vacation." Put on WQXR to listen to science-fiction-movie soundtracks while I put away the laundry until 9:30, and then watched the end of "Count Ory" while having dinner, trying to catch up with HH meals before I leave. Three breakfasts left for the remaining three days. Bed at 11:35PM.
SUNDAY, 7/24/11: Pee at 5:55AM, Times already at my door. Take two acetaminophen (acet, hereafter) and pee again. At 7:06, after great Actualism session, I make a note to myself to e-mail Pam about boldfacing major pages for Goodyear, Jackson, and Knox; and adding two headnotes for boldface and italic page numbers. Really had a productive session: felt like my body was being handled well, felt real pleasure about the upcoming trip, and felt good about all the things I'd be doing today to prepare for the trip and organizing my life better now that I'm finally caught up with the notebook pages. Clip finger- and toenails to 8:06, have breakfast and finish with the Times to 9:15AM, water the plants, and e-mail Pam and catch up with this by 9:30AM, ready for the rest of the day. Starting, of course, with Spider. That's BAD 9:30-11:20AM, ending at 51.42128 at 723 up after 5 wins. I seem to have lost some kind of KNACK, or LUCK, or PERSISTENCE that enabled me to win in the past and that has failed me now. Leave too late to meet Charles at 11:40, since it takes a long time for the subway to come, a crowd waiting for the downtown bus makes getting past West Broadway a chore, and I find the street blocked and go over to Greenwich to find it dead-ending at the building I want. Find Charles slouching at the door to 250 at 11:50, and in to find cheery faces at River desks, greeting us as first-time visitors, and telling us to enter floor 40 at the elevator. Never saw elevators like that, which allow MANY to enter different numbers in the lobby, and then there's no number panel in the elevator car itself! Up to 40 and immediately see the floor-to-ceiling windows looking east, to which we gravitate, me finding my building, disappointed that we can't see 1 World Trade Center going up. We take tea from the table, not daring to ask for the bagel others are munching on, and are told we can go into "the church" at any time we like. Charles says, "No food," but I take tea in and others are drinking as they sit in scattered seats and listen to the accented Park talking about renewing one's life. I'm quickly bored, though interested that the room is on a corner facing north, and we leave to talk more about the gardens atop some buildings, ignoring requests to be helped, and we leave about 12:30, lobby almost empty, rented from the National Academy of Sciences, which has documents and busts of generations of Darwins all over the place. Down to the lobby, where Charles wanders off looking at the marble halls, and I sit and chat with the Riverites about the neighboring building, which they say is for NYU. We're out to the humid street and decide to go toward the Financial Center for lunch. Look up at the rough-bottomed glass-sided tower, and then up an escalator designed to deny anyone a look at anything around them. Out on the bottom level of the Conservatory, pass where Joe's shop had been, and then see that the Grill Room is closed, and then P.J. Clarke's won't seat us at a table for 4, so we're back out into the heat, where I think I remember indoor dining south of the boat basin, and Charles dawdles to look at the wooden sailing ship, and we find Merchant's River House with a table near the river, good hamburgers with petrified-top buns, and lots of water and ice and lemonade and ginger ale to drink, trying to get to Charles's recommended "half your weight in pounds, converted to ounces of water," so 100 ounces would be about THREE QUARTS of water a day! That's even more than eight glasses! I don't want to walk all the way back to Chambers Street east, so we're out onto Chambers Street west and I see a bus that goes to South Ferry, so I get on that, tootle around empty streets, and get out at the entrance to the 4-5 train at Bowling Green, which takes me right to Borough Hall and the train back to Clark Street. Put on air conditioning and get a strange message from Mildred who says she's "never been called a cunt before," and I figure it MUST have been at our climactic argument about my taking the food-list from Post House---and I'd repressed the memory of it. I COULDN'T let it fester, so I phoned her, and it turned out to be my discussion of Kinsey's "continuum" on which I couldn't be considered EXCLUSIVELY gay because I'd once been in a CUNT, which I said with impish emphasis, looking at Mildred to enjoy her shock, and she said she thought I was ANGRY and calling all women, particularly HER, a CUNT! And went on, embarrassingly, to say that if I'd entered HER, it would be entering a warm, caressing, welcoming HAVEN, not an unfeeling cunt. I challenged her to call Charles to verify that I did NOT say it at HER in ANGER! And was relieved that I HADN'T repressed the memory of it in the FINAL argument. She ended wishing me a good trip, and I hope she DOES call Charles--- though when I called him Monday at 1:10PM she hadn't called him yet, he was appalled at her reaction, and HE had to leave for a doctor's appointment and said he'd call me back. Then FINALLY finished the edit of the FRANFOOD photos, finishing what I'd started, then cycled back to the beginning and took out even more photos, ending up with 443 out of the original 572, knowing that all the SEXY shots that I removed from the ALBUM are still in the ORIGINAL! Which I just checked to SEE! That took till about 6PM, and then I took down the laptop and printed the diskette notes for SANTAFE and went through THEM until 6:45; I'll sure surprise Marj when I call her tomorrow with THAT! Then, still feeling industrious, I tackled the task of weeding out the two messy "take on trip" bags, sorting and throwing out and putting soap under the sink and shampoos on the rim of the tub and shower caps in the bag in the cabinet over the vacuum cleaner and trying to figure what to do with all the extra odd-sized emery boards (or lime sticks, as some are labeled). Get involved with that, starting my "take with" pile on the dining room table, and end up piling my night table with stuff just to clear the bed. Warm up an odd "salmon-stuffed portobello mushroom" HH dinner and watch a surprising "Unknown" with Liam Neesen ending up a killer who gets away with it, apparently. Bed at 12:23AM, fairly anxious about the trip, and end up getting out of bed at 12:32 to take an ambien and a valium (a bottle of which I found in one of the "take with" sacks that I'd forgotten I'd had).