2011 7 of 8
THOUGHT-CLOUD 10/5/11
WEDNESDAY, 10/5/11: 7:47AM: Couldn't stay in bed any longer with "THOUGHT-CLOUD" whirling through my mind. Started when I considered that my "missing" Indian plaque---the 6-7-9 Hindu dieties carved onto a 7x15" wooden panel---might be atop my eastern wall of mirrors, and I got up to check, finding mainly plastic bags full of probably-unidentifiable stones from many parts of the world---though I know that I can identify some as being from the fabulous beach on the west coast of central Newfoundland; not to mention the pop bottle from the same location, MARKED Newfoundland, as I recall; and the witch-riding-broom-shaped driftwood found in Chile, I think on the shores of Lago Fria, but it could have been elsewhere between Bariloche in Argentina and Puerto Montt in Chile; some of the stones from Antarctica may be still, somehow, labeled, if they're not in the packets in the metal file at the bottom of the shelves to the left of the "dining-room window." Went back to bed with the image of the hardly-ever-used "spot" lights from Ikea on the eastern mirror shelf, and it came to me that I could move them to light up the souvenir shelves in the hallway, making a more spectacular nightlight for visitors than the clamshell light danging beside the bathroom sink---not to mention being lit when visitors come, like the unknown-size group for the China slides before Carolyn's birthday dinner at Henry's End. Then think of RECORDING all this---with my Olympus camera---which leads to thoughts of putting MANY recordings on the camera and transferring them to YouTube---like recordings (and should I start them now?) of my slide programs with my commentary, but AGAIN think that I should do them at HOME, WITHOUT an audience, so that they could be "just me" and not interrupted by comments and questions from others. But blanch at the thought of over fifty programs at over an hour each. The thought of Warhol's "boxes" of periodic souvenirs is inevitable: I could record ANYTHING on my Olympus and transfer it to YouTube: my porn DVDs; my Huxley book collection, which I envision ending up across the double bookcases, thinking the 40-odd volumes might just fit into that space, displaying my erudite prior readings and collectings of the COMPLETE works of important authors, starting with Huxley and going through---and it takes me seconds to come up with Clarke's name---Clarke and Heinlein and Bradbury and Sturgeon and many others whose names I could easily exhaustively list by going to my LISTS book by my desk, but I won't, now; a ZOLNERZONE-like periodic recording of the state of my apartment---a ZOLNERZONE of a different format: reality rather than computer-virtual---month by month---or, better, "change by change," since there's no guarantee that changes will be visible monthly as I make my snail-like progress from "travel out, books in" to "books out, travel in"---with lists after lists of travel destinations and names and brochures on sheet after sheet of computer printout fastened to the inner doors of the mirrors behind which lurk the locatable-at-last brochures from all the countries I've visited all the times, which LED to the collections of rocks that I fantasize "locating" mentally by holding them and "seeing" where I got them---how's THAT for a fantasy??; but, now at 8:07AM, the idea comes crashing in that I haven't even managed to catalog the flashdrive contents of "my" black flashdrive and "Marj's" white flashdrive as a basis for my not-late-yet October 26---what a relief, I'd always thought the anniversary date was October 6---ZOLNERZONE 6th Anniversary Memo; and I look back to find that this series, separated by semicolons, has changed from YouTube Olympus transfers to---what, LIFE doings? Time to start a new sentence. And now at 8:12AM I look out the window of my marvelous apartment---the window still clean enough after its cleaning a few weeks ago despite a few rainstorms' interventions---to see the Gehry apartment building glittering wrinkled, reflecting unevenly the rising sun; white ferries churning up white wakes in the river; the still-cloaked-for-some-still-unknown-reason Brooklyn Bridge; and the intense green of the trees spotting the low brick buildings of the Heights, the green not yet starting its parade through yellow and orange and red to autumn color; the long shadows of pedestrians cast against the facades of Fortune House and Fascati Pizza and the tree-obscured new awning of the eatery north of those; the widely spaced cars passing on Henry and Cadman Plaza West; the steady streaming eastward of the cars in lanes from the Belt Parkway and the Brooklyn Bridge off-ramp; the passive, perspective-offering-and-blocking-at-the-same-time 75 Henry building bulk, whose windows STILL have not offered anyone of interest to binoculate; and now a sun-bright flock of brown birds that are NOT pigeons---so what ARE they? Only TWO lonely pigeons on adjacent ledges of the building---what happened to the usual flocks? The darker birds could be starlings, whose sounds I hate, but just now a possibly-yellow-but-maybe-only-sunlit-yellow solitary bird flies past with a wing pattern I associate with a HAWK!? A short-sleeve-shirted bicyclist hints it might be warmer out now than it was in the high 50s earlier this morning, can I open the window? Do, and it's refreshingly cool as I glimpse a silver airplane neatly bisecting a grayish cloud that scrapes the top of the Gehry cloudscraper. Trucks, taxis, and busses lend their noises to sift through my open window. A bright orange-red man-purse is carried past Fortune House. Bare man-legs under shorts catch my eye. A lone pigeon flies north on Henry. A white van turns west on Orange. A smaller, zebra-striped ferry tootles north on the East River. Trees toss tops in south-blowing breezes on Henry. The Watchtower clock's time is whited out by the sun. A sparrow zigzags south. I rub my tongue against my now-jagged lower teeth, reminding me that an appointment with Dr. DiMatteo is on my do-list for today. A bulky black motorized possible-tricycle moves coppily [like a cop, that means] south on Henry. More short-sleeved pedestrians stroll; clearly they've got time. Even now, at 8:28AM, the sun is surprisingly far north; I'll bet I could have seen sunlight on my air conditioner earlier today. So my thought-cloud, strengthened by my chair-top apartment view as I searched for my Indian plaque (the forward-tilted cardboard display case holding my travel videocassette tapes; the arrayed souvenirs atop my western mirrow-wall; the tilted array of temporarily stashed travel brochures atop my double bookcase; the McGill [GOT to find how these are spelled!] Masterplots now stable on their shelf, rather than on their earthquake-drop-prone shaky-spindly black bookcase; the stamps---oh, God, the stamps and all their catalogs; the piles of posters hidden behind the left-most mirror) has dissipated into what-I-see-now observations. Time for breakfast? Now at 8:33AM seems good enough, having started this whole process at 7:32AM.
THURSDAY, 10/6/11: Pee at 7:33AM and take a Valium for DiMatteo's visit with my hypersensitive teeth because I used the rubber tip, wooden probe, and interdental brush to excess both before and after dinner last night. Back to bed and Mildred jolts me awake at 9:05AM to talk about how affected she was by Steve Jobs' (Jaw-bs, she insists, not Joe-bs) death, while I counter that, contrary to her, I was MUCH more affected by John Lennon's death. She then goes on about my lack of knowledge about some woman's trial in Italy for killing her roommate, saying that I "ignored the article in Sunday's Times," so I went back and looked and phoned her back to say there was NOTHING about it that I "ignored," and she said maybe, then, it was LAST week's Times. That goes to 9:45 and I catch up with my notebook to 10:05AM, ready for a bout with Spider before having breakfast and having to scour my teeth AGAIN for DiMatteo's appointment at 1PM. Charles calls to say he'll be at the opera tonight. Count AGAIN that my number of piles exceeds fifteen. Then figure, fuckit!, SKIP breakfast, since I'm not particularly hungry, and I won't have to traumatize teeth again. Play Spider to occupy my mind from 10:10-11:40AM, ending at 51.44411 at 754 up after 2 wins, and, just to pass the time, continue to 12:50PM, LEAVING the winning streak on the computer to finish after I get back from the dentist, whom I get to LATE at 1:05, surprising everyone, but it's a good session, see MEDICAL:10/6/11. Home by 2PM, look through mail, and finish the Spider 2:25-3:10PM to an incredible 51.45504 at 760 up after EIGHT wins! Have a VERY late breakfast, watching TV, and have a bowl of soup before leaving for "Anna Bolena" at 6:45PM, getting to a cramped corner looking directly down at the orchestra pit from Box 1 of the Dress Circle. Charles doesn't show up, giving me a better view to a mediocre opera: though the audience stands and cheers Netrebko, they STOP after the final curtain comes down, only four minutes after her first (loud!) solo curtain call. Gubanova DOES rather give her some good competition, too. Home to leave word at 12:15AM for Charles, who didn't leave me a message. Bed 12:40AM.
FRIDAY, 10/7/11: 8:26AM: Note DREAMS:10/7/11, which I had intended to, but don't, expand for Sharon, who calls at 2:25PM to cancel, saying she'll see me next week. Shit at 8:35AM and back to bed at 9AM! Do a good Actualism and get up at 9:55AM, STILL tired! Start a Fri-Did list with HH meals ordered at 10:03, e-mail of 34 messages, 29 spam, looked at C-storage of 956 mb free and deleted 2015 deleted messages and STILL have 956 mb free? [OH---they're still in the Recycle Bin, which I delete on Sunday and my free C goes from 887 mb to 1.04 Gb!] Update Netflix lists to 10:25, watch "30 Rock" with breakfast to 11:05, talk to Marj to 11:45, leave word with Charles and talk to Mildred to 12:03, go to the gym to 2PM, look at the mail and Schwab funds to 2:15, and talk to Charles to 3:20PM, while playing Spider 2:15-5:25PM, too long but glorious to 51.46389 to 765 up after 8 wins AGAIN! But I just WASTE the rest of the day with eating peanut butter on my toasted Lots-Less white Italian bread, Cheez-Its, roasted almonds, and surfing junk TV, watching fragments of movies I don't even bother to record. NOT the most productive period in my life; I guess, partly, I MISS reporting to Sharon this evening. Bed 12:12AM.
SATURDAY, 10/8/11: Pee at 3:55AM and up at 8:26AM. Use Google to check two names running through my mind: Jane Houdyshell (who won an Emmy for something) and Rachel Dratch (who was on "Saturday Night Live" and appears regularly as an ugly extra on "30 Rock"). E-mail to 8:48AM. Shit, clip toenails, and dress to 9:20, and breakfast to 9:45AM. Do the (tough) acrostic to 10:55 and the crossword (using Google for Ezer Weizman and Dole's running mate Kemp) to 12:15PM, killing half of THAT day. Finish the Times at 1:25PM and IMMEDIATELY jump back to Spider from 1:25-3:55PM, getting to 51.46507 at 766 up after 3 wins, SLOW up. Lunch while finishing "Scientific American" for October, and then BACK to Spider from 5:20-8:10PM, GREAT, AT LAST, to 51.47379 at 771 up, A NEW HIGH, after EIGHT WINS AGAIN, FANTASTIC! Can I please stop now? Well, no, not then, since I continue with Taipei from 8:10-9:55PM, and watch junk TV, along with the second part of the documentary on George Harrison. Bed 12:33AM.
SUNDAY, 10/9/11: Pee at 7:05AM and up at 7:59 to get the Times, noting two things: 1) DO in AM (to get SOMETHING done before I wear myself out doing nothing otherwise), and 2) Order calendar to get THAT out of the way. Have breakfast with the Times to 9:30, send in an application to Chase Sapphire because I can bill ONE HH bill to get 100,000 points for my next year's trip! Do e-mail to 10:10, Susie NOT getting me cheap booze. Correct Marj's Morocco "offical" on three files to 10:37, and catch up on notes for NOTEBOOK to 10:25AM, CLEARING MY DESK OF ALL NOTES, and see that I STILL have 15 piles, though one INCLUDES the weather forecast for the week, very pleasant and summery and NOT humid, and I'm DETERMINED to get rid of the pile for the pix to the TURKEAST people today. AND I DON'T FEEL I HAVE TO STRUGGLE WITH DAILY NOTES WHEN I'M NOT ACCOMPLISHING ANYTHING! Off this to order calendar at 11:29AM. Get confused by a bizarre notation that LOOKS like it includes shipping, and then only says it WILL include shipping costs, but finally order one for $10+, with a confirmation number. Then send three pictures to all the TURKEAST people by 12:01PM, have a good talk with Mildred to 12:30 when Marj's line is busy: she want to see Skyscraper Museum and "Mormon," but not Gandhara or "Follies." Have soup to 12:55 before leaving in 80+ weather for subway and bus that get me to Piri's by 1:59PM. Tell her about matches doing away with methane in an enclosed bathroom, which she never heard of, nor had Diane, though Mark and Caesar and Germain had HEARD about it, but not Barbara nor Alexandra, and I didn't bother to ask the zhlubby Jules, or whatever his name was, who clearly wasn't having fun and I hope NEVER shows up again. We start with Taboo, fun, the "women's team" winning, and then to Charades, where Barbara, Mark, Germain, and I win, and then Scattergories, playing two games until Mark protests he's hungry and we stop about 5:45. Out in the continued warmth, getting home to look at the fullish moon from my balcony, and then prepare my tuna casserole by 7:33 and then get an e-mail from Judy, saying she'd enclosed another picture, which didn't seem to be there. I'll have to try the method she described to ATTACH photos, rather than enclosing WITH the e-mail, which is not saveable. Catch up with this to 7:50PM, feeling VERY virtuous, and debate doing something ELSE good, but just decide on Taipei before dinner at 8:30. TV-surf to find a Syfy-mislabeled "Path of Destruction" which isn't very good, and then look through free cable-TV lists to find "Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Movie," REAL trash! Follow that with two episodes of "30 Rock" with a big batch of overly buttered popcorn to follow my tuna casserole. Bed at 1:30AM.
MONDAY, 10/10/11: 2:06AM: Put T-shirt on and note to add hardening pimples to Chin's list. 7:20AM: Type DREAMS:10/10/11, take off T-shirt, and pee. Do a good Actualism that puts me to sleep to be wakened by Spartacus at 10:15AM: he wants to see "Follies" too, which has been mainly sold out, and will end in January. I then RE-SEND the three TURKEAST photos as attachments, messing up Sigrid's e-mail address by "not seeing" that it's knudsen.sigrid@gmail.com, NOT MERELY sigrid@gmail.com. Correct it at 5:30PM. Check Marinol on Google and am turned off because it INCREASES appetite, something I DO NOT want. Breakfast, finishing penultimate New York Magazine, talk endlessly to Marj, get to the gym, and back for a huge HH lunch for Charlie Rose's memorial program for Steve Jobs (it IS Jaw-bs, as in work-a-day jobs!). Scan OAT's tours for 2012, cutting out Mongolia, and finish this to date by 5:42PM. Then play a DISASTROUS Spider 5:45-7:20PM, down to 51.46361 at 766 up after 3 wins. That depresses me so much that I turn to junk TV, watching "Terra Nova" live because a football game delayed its start at 8PM, and play Spartacus's DVD of Hugh Jackman on SNL, but can't get his other DVD to play at all, but since I've taken out Porn 1, and put it back in, I look at some of it and decide to try to jerk off even though I don't feel sexy. DISASTER AGAIN! Nothing works, and I end up VERY depressed, partly anxious about my presentation at Tuesday Evening Club tomorrow, and then watch two "30 Rock" episodes just to clear it off the DVD list, and get to bed at 1:45AM.
TUESDAY, 10/11/11: Pee at 7:05AM and take Valium against tonight's presentation. Phone rings (?) at 10:20AM and I pee again at 10:22 and get up at 10:40 to check e-mail again for TURKEAST responses. Phone Spartacus about his DVD not working, and he suggests I try it on my computer, which I do, and it still doesn't work. Try to go to Netflix and it won't GO! Fuss with that, writing COMPCHRO:10/11/11, and finally get Varis just before noon, when the results are announced, and I just want to see what was offered since I forgot to register yesterday for the lottery. Catch up with this by 12:12PM, thinking if I have breakfast late enough I won't have to have another meal before meeting Marjorie Grimm at the Fulton Street dining room at 5PM. Just an AWFUL period of time, though I hope to tackle one of my 14 remaining piles today! Go through the show, just to make sure everything looks OK, and then start on IBMRTW until I leave for Marjorie at 4:35PM. Decent-enough dinner of chili, salad, cake, and awful collard greens, with Marjorie saying the Tuesday Evening Club was founded over a hundred years ago for lectures, then about twenty years ago converted to slides, when Marjorie took over from the previous leader who'd died. The show is a smash, even though it goes to 7:50PM, and Phyllis and Jeff Cohl even show up! Lots of questions, lots of good comments at the end, and I find that her projector WORKS for me, with all its wiring, so all I have to take for the 1/17/12 show, heavily publicized in the session by me, is my laptop, mouse, and charger. Home to lots of mail and a crazy Prudential-claim added pile, and Scottevest is really a PUBLICITY stunt, though I think about it and come up with MINDAREEL:10/12/11. Watch a "30 Rock" and get to bed at 1:23AM.
WEDNESDAY, 10/12/11: 8:32AM: Pee and type DREAMS:10/12/11. 8:56AM: Pee again and back to bed. 9:04AM: Note: 1) Pam: two books? and 2) Scott two entries: a) "How disappointing," minimalist entry, and b) "PERFECT" and up at 9:34AM with MINDAREEL:10/12/11. Think to photo me for Facebook, and DO that to 10:30, sending three photos, PA120030 from Egypt in 2008 with a Nile crocodile on my head, and PA120028 and PA120029 from Guatemala in 1980, two of my faces that I've found very attractive. Start MINDAREEL at 10:35AM. Rita calls because the downloads are annoying Denny by taking too long, and we talk to 11:30 about all kinds of things: Paul's cancelled band concert, Rita's Bridge parties, and the fact that I should scan the red-sweater Atitlan picture and use that for Facebook. She knows nothing about Twitter, but Wikipedia has an exhaustive entry for it. Go to breakfast at 11:33AM. Call Mildred about Prudential mailing and SCREAM at her for not listening to me, and almost hang up. Fill out the form and send it in. Late lunch while watching "Prohibition, Part 2" and get off early to "Warhorse," interesting, but the TV program was better in being clearer. Had trouble understanding the dialogue from the last row of the balcony; though some of the effects were great, some really didn't work, and it must have been sort of miserable for people in the first six or seven rows with the bright lights, loud noises, and raised platforms for "no man's land." Really did NOT like the coincidence of finding Joey JUST as the Armistice is announced. Thank goodness the reunion climax wasn't milked for tears. Home after midnight, have the last of my peanut-butter-and-jelly slices, and get to bed at 1:33AM, raining out for tomorrow's possible Asia House trip.
MINDAREEL 10/12/11
At first I'm disappointed that Scottevest is really a publicity stunt, then think to twist it into publicity for ME!! So I should SEND a copy of my "Trip of a Lifetime" to Facebook, with ANOTHER notation to look into ZolnerZone. Send a copy to MTP, hoping to get people to want to come WITH me, as rules specify, editably, "one winner and their travel companions." Send something to LinkedIn; send ZolnerZone videos mentioning it to YouTube; maybe find how to get to Twitter. But, as usual with these waking fantasies, I'll probably do nothing about it until MUCH later.
THURSDAY, 10/13/11: Up at 8:06AM to pee and type DREAMS:10/13/11. Play Spider (cursing myself) 8:20-9:50AM, crap to 51.44612 at 758 up after 2 wins, and then shit, pee again, leave word with Charles at 10:10AM about Asia House, and back to bed. Do a sketchy Actualism and get out of bed at 11:23, calculating that I'd been in bed a total of only 7:46. Finish breakfast just before noon, watching more "Prohibition," and scan the New York Magazine that came in yesterday, doing the puzzle, and then going back to Spider AGAIN from 1:15-2PM, slow up to 51.44775 at 758 up after 2 wins. Catch up with notebook by 2:15PM and, with determination, glad it's not raining, get out to the gym, again after only THREE days, MAYBE feeling more energetic because of it. Spider again 6:25-7:50, stopping after 7 losses! Watch junk TV and can't remember anything else of day. Bed 1:19AM.
FRIDAY, 10/14/11: 8:15AM: Pee. Dream of newspaper article on cashing in "other" money, like bitcoin. Up at 9:21AM. Work on IBMRTW 9:50-11:35AM and talk for five minutes to Marj before having breakfast, without pills because I'm too rushed to fill in the pillbox before leaving at 12:35PM to meet Spartacus on-line for the 9/11 Memorial, getting in just at 1PM to a slight sprinkle, saddened to see brown-yellow pockmarks on part of the elegant inscribed name roster. Take photos, look around, and leave about 1:50PM. Take the bus (free transfer) uptown to 49th Street and pick up three tickets for "The Book of Mormon" for October 21, 2012. But price above $69 (cheapest) is $155, and even those are gone, with about fifty people waiting for cancellations. Phenomenal! Lunch at Shake Shack, just marvelous caramel shake with double cheeseburger. Get seven WINS with Spider 5:40-7:20PM. Ken calls and arranges for dinner tomorrow night, so I get out to Village Playwrights tonight at 8PM for six mediocre playlets, but a good crowd, and Emanuel asks me to ask Steve to e-mail him about Bill Petersen. Soup for dinner with morning pills. More TV and bed at 1:22AM.
SATURDAY, 10/15/11: 7:46AM: Pee and take evening pills from yesterday. Pee again and get to bed at 7:54AM. Up at 10:51AM! Do two puzzles, questioning "deking" as one word in "Split Decisions," and finish about 2PM with the Times. Spider again a disaster 2:15-4:40PM to ELEVEN losses to 51.4265 at 749 up after 4 wins. WHAT is going ON!? Watch TV and get to North Shore just one minute before Ken arrives at 7:03PM. Good dinner, and home to watch the Guthrie Theater's updating of "H.M.S.Pinafore," rather more Broadway than Gilbert and Sullivan. Bed at 12:29AM.
SUNDAY, 10/16/11: 5:18AM: Pee and type DREAMS:10/16/11. Make four notes of things to do at 6:54AM: 1) Record Frank Kameny's death on 10/11/11 at 86, 2) Call Steve with Emanuel's Phryxus e-mail, 3) Scan photo for Facebook, and 4) Call Pam for 2 books. Then do Actualism to 7:20AM and up for the Times. Manage to do the first 2 after watching "Doctor Who" after finishing the Times. Charles calls and 10:15AM and will meet me at Asia Society at 2PM, so I catch up with this to 1:05PM and get ready to leave to meet him. I'm hoping for a late lunch at Lexington Candy Shop Luncheonette for their wonderful cheeseburger afterwards. Another page printed! Get to Asia Society at 1:58PM and Charles is there already! Up to second floor for great items in the Gandhara exhibit, using Charles's cellphone to hear commentary on individual pieces, another first! Then watch the last 20 minutes of Satyajit Ray's "Rabindranath Tagore," and call Charles in to watch the first 31 minutes, and then I say I'm hungry and he confesses to having eaten NOTHING yet today! We walk, slowly, with stops for his fatigue, up Lexington to the almost-empty shop for wonderful cheeseburgers and overflowing tins of Broadway (coffee ice cream and chocolate syrup) and strawberry shakes, getting out at 5PM as it fills up with screaming children before they close at 6PM. Home to watch "Bicycle Thief," grittily acted, and "Bitter Rice," with Silvana Mangano totally unbelievable in her naivete, followed closely by Vittorio Gassman in his evilness. Then watch the one-hour Johnny Depp interview by Larry King, well done. Bed at 12:24AM.
MONDAY, 10/17/11: 12:38AM: Up to jerk off, with great effort and sweat, to recalcitrant DVDs that I have to pull the plug on twice to unfreeze, and cum copiously, for me currently, at 1:37 and continue watching porn to 2:25, brushing teeth and getting back to bed at 2:27AM. Note DREAMS:10/17/11 at 8:58AM and get a CVS call about my prescription being ready AGAIN (they'd called on Saturday morning) and calling back SPECIFICALLY for Tamsulosin, find that they've renewed THAT TOO! Do a quick Actualism and get out of bed at 10:39AM, terribly late, to get a call from Sharon at 10:55AM that her father has died and she won't be in the office for two weeks, and she'll call me when she returns. So SHE ALSO is off my list! Call Marj and talk to 11:40AM, crowing about how much I'm accomplishing, and Spartacus uses call waiting to tell me about a New Victory "Complete History of Sports" on Saturday at 7PM for me after MAN. I catch up with this so I can turn my calendar page at 12:20PM, ready for breakfast at last. THESE ARE WONDERFUL DAYS! Watch TV, then go to CVS, and then to the gym, and back to get WILDERNESS wall-calendar rather than Engagement Book from Sierra Club. Continue Spider disasters 4:35-7:45PM to 6 losses at 6:30, to 51.41595 at 744 up after 2 wins. More TV with an enormous chicken HH lunch at 5PM, then watch "La Strada" and "Terra Nova" and two more episodes of "30 Rock" and get to bed at 11:56PM.
TUESDAY, 10/18/11: Pee at 5:23AM, and up at 7:41, obsessed with calendar, and jot DREAMS:10/18/11. Down just after 8AM with RETURNED calendar, which Ron takes without comment, and back up to catch up with this by 8:13AM, having checked that my NEW Amazon order IS for the Engagement Calendar. And, of course, back to Spider 8:15-9:55AM, getting to 51.41834 at 745 up after 2 wins. Watch a strange "Les Formidables" from Korea, "The Love We Make," about Paul McCartney in NYC after 9/11 halts his plane to Britain, and two episodes of "30 Rock." Talk to Mildred about going to the Skyscraper Museum Wednesday or Thursday, and simply can't get myself to work on my Scottevest Trip of a Lifetime. Find that I'm on the Met stand-by list for "Anna Bolena"! Work hours on the website (forgetting I have a website JOURNAL going), seeing what travel journals are needed (54 of them!). Popcorn after soup for dinner while watching TV. Bed at 12:35AM.
WEDNESDAY, 10/19/11: Up at pee at 9:05AM after 8/5 hours! Oatmeal breakfast to finish the milk before starting a two-quart container, freezing one quart of it. Two episodes of "30 Rock." Have a "long and good (um)" Spider session 12:35-2:15PM to 51.42737 at 750 up after 7 wins, good. Waste more time on television, exhausting what I've taped so I have to read a magazine with lunch. STILL don't want to do Trip of a Lifetime, so I'm BACK to Spider 4:25-6:10PM, still going well to 51.43444 to 754 up after 5 wins, increasing by 10 in just three days. Two more spates of that will get me back to the record. Mildred calls to say that Charles says tomorrow is OK for the Skyscraper Museum, and phone him to make it 2:50PM. Call Mildred back. Try getting another "Anna Bolena" ticket by calling on the dot of 5PM, but they say they're sold out. Spend hours, again, charting anomalous entries (notebook pages, dreams, old letters) in WP51. Will probably do nothing with the lists. Down for the mail in the dark day with lots of rain and clouds scudding past, obscuring the Gehry Building and One World Trade Center. Mess up the TV Guide sudoku but get the puzzle anyway, and look through New Yorker. Back to computer at 7:30 to catch this up to date by 7:40PM, KNOWING that I'm going back to Spider! 7:40-8:30PM produces 51.43607 at 755 up after 3 wins, and then I ACTUALLY get to Trip of My Life, finishing a page and a half and sending it to contests, Rita, Susie, Carolyn, Spartacus, Edgardo, and Don O'Shea! Then have dinner with TV of Nova and "Doctor Who." Check to see if anyone's responded to my "Trip" before bed at 12:32AM, but no one's said anything yet.
THURSDAY, 10/20/11: Pee at 3:01AM and 6:12AM, and note dream of Paul McLean humidifying his apartment while I wait before walking to catch a bus as I get up at 9:13AM. Breakfast with a bit of TV, and catch up with this by 10:14AM, ready for my daily Spider before the gym and the Skyscraper Museum. Start Spider at 10:14 and have to get off at 11:20AM to get to the gym. Easy session, and back to finish Spider, SHIT!, from 1:15-1:55PM to 51.42781 at 751 up after 2 wins. Comb hair and subway to walk across Battery Place which, it turns out, curves north and actually HOUSES the Skyscraper Museum on its north-bound end. Charles is there at 2:49AM and Mildred had stopped in some other building, confused, and arrives as we're looking at the exhibit about 3PM. She sits immediately, I take a picture of the comparative heights of other buildings against the Burj Khalifa, think that there's much too much left about the World Trade Center, and we leave at 3:55 because Mildred insists she's starving. We walk under her direction to T.G.I.Friday's, loud and expensive, but at 4:10 we talk our way into the $10.99 lunch special that supposedly ends at 4PM. I have mediocre fish with awful chips, while Mildred enjoys (ALL!) her shrimp and Charles finds his pasta tastes of lemon, which he says isn't right at all. The Guinness-stout milkshake is dreadful, and costs $7 after the waiter said it was $5. I take cash from everyone and lose a bit in the process, though I'm still getting 2% back, so I make $1.36 on the $68 bill. Leave Mildred at the top of the stairs trying to help Charles, who somehow can't get through the turnstiles to the Rector Street subway, and in my distraction I end up taking the UPTOWN express from Chambers Street, which means I have to cross the bridge at 14th Street to continue downtown to Brooklyn. Look at mail or watch TV to pass time before leaving at 6:10 to meet Spartacus at Clark Street at 6:17 for $7.50 tickets to the New York Philharmonic's playing all-Strauss: Alpine Symphony, grand; Horn Concerto #1, forgettable; and "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks," not so hot. But our seats are far to the side and not the best. Home determined for a hot fudge sundae, so I get makings at Gristedes and overdose on lactose before bed at 12:35AM.
FRIDAY, 10/21/11: [10/26/11: 1:05PM: Tore my wastebasket apart twice, and went through the pile of old note-cards on my desk THREE times, but I've LOST {for now, anyway, and Marj wants me to call her when I DO find it} the early-morning card for today; so I have to roughly reconstruct it.] [FOUND cards 12:15AM THURSDAY, 10/27, and DEBATED not recording from them, since I'd already printed pages 12 and 13, but then just HAD to keep it chronological! NOTE read: 5:40AM: Reflux! Cough! Pee. Take a LARGE swallow of Tussin, and FIVE Tums. Lots of water. 6:55AM: Up to shit HUGE lactose-loose shit! Then Google Hunter Johansson and get hooked on 163 comments about Joey Lawrence's body. Back to bed at 7:55AM, having been up for one hour. Up, tired, at 10:39AM.] About 3:30AM I had a tremendous lactose-loose shit from all the milk products I drank yesterday. Did NOT record a dream from that morning, though there may be a note of one on the lost card. Probably got up very late, [Thursday-morning-found-notecard adds this: 6:08AM Actualism, noting for 1) Chin: testicular cancer, and Google it, but I don't before seeing him. 2) Double-check Minimum Required Distribution to find I took $12,000 out of Keogh and $6700 out of IRA, well above minimum. Pee again. Note: Fantasied Travel: FIRST SIX of the Trip of My Life destinations as my trip for 2012! Check my Schwab balances to find that I GAINED $6484 since 9/30! Would it always be so! 6:24AM McAfee anti-Spam FINALLY lists 3 Spams---and doesn't after that! Back to bed at 6:26AM and get up at 6:32 to find WHERE antipodes from travel from NYC would be: Actually Vietnam is the farthest attained by going west, and India is the farthest attained by flying east. Back to bed at 6:42AM.] since my first note LEFT is 10:45-11:25AM: TRIED to download photo to Facebook, but KEPT getting "not responding"! Then watched 3 "30 Rock" episodes while having breakfast to 1PM. Played Spider 1-2:30PM to 51.43497 to 755 up after 6 wins, up again. Then worked on Facebook entries and photos to 3:43PM, when I left for MEDICAL:10/21/11. Back to a call from Marj at 5:15, but she says I can call her back after I have lunch. Edgardo phones about 6PM to say that he's "in love," and I recommend he stay away from his temptation, like I don't buy food I don't want to eat. He thanks me, saying I was the only one he felt would understand, and says he'll take my advice (which was clear what he wanted to hear). I watch TV until 8:10, when I phone Marj and talk until 10:10PM about all SORTS of stuff, centered around my SCOTTEVEST entry. Couldn't find the original ad from the Times though I searched the piles and wastebasket a number of times. Then at 12:20AM I got up and found it with the SLIDE sheets! Back to bed at 12:35AM.
SATURDAY, 10/22/11: 6:22AM pee. Note dream of hotel room with Ken's clothing for DAYS laid out on a series of shelves. 7:22AM jot notes to Marj: 1) FOUND page at 12:20AM!, 2) Is winner and THEIR companions REALLY OK? Sorta. 3) Tie-in "my luck" with January plan and contest? No. 4) Facebook responses ALREADY. Add a note to Spartacus to ask if he wants me to get a "Follies" ticket for him; he says not to. The Times comes at 7:35AM and I stay up. Do the puzzles with some difficulty and find that they ACCEPT "deking" as a word, which disappoints me: I don't think it IS a word! Out to MAN and find the apartment's owner attractive, and there is a nice erection being fondled as I have my lunch sitting on the owner's bed, debating if I want to renew for next year or not. Leave in plenty of time to take the R train up to the "Follies" box office, which I have trouble finding, and buy a ticket for Tuesday for the cheapest seat: $45. Another pile taken care of! Down to an almost crowded Victory Theater for the "History of Sports," which has some funny bits, but the whole thing seems reasonably pointless. Get to bed, exhausted, for no good reason, at 9:55PM. Why is the apartment so HOT??
SUNDAY, 10/23/11: Pee at 2:52AM and lie in bed thinking about handling piles of stuff to do, and at 3:41AM note a "piles page": INDEXING, with ASI and EFA. WEBSITE, on Facebook, on MTP with travel-to-add. APARTMENT, with next tasks. ENTERTAINMENT, with Tavern on Jane, DeKooning exhibit, Met Museum, Netflix. SCOTTEVEST: to Facebook and to MTP. MAINTENANCE, with credit-card comparison, handle the heat, get a bedroom blind, fill in the 2012 datebook, type the 2011 datebook. If this could replace Spider, Taipei, and Solitaire as card-times at my desk, I may fuss PRODUCTIVELY, rather than just with computer games. That takes to 3:51AM, when I pee again, and find roaches: I should get exterminator! Start Actualism at 3:55AM. 4:12: Did I do HH? Turns out not. 4:19: I should call FIA and Bank of America to find if they WANT to lose my credit-card business by reducing what I get from them. 4:32: Ask Spartacus how to get the gizmo that allows watching Netflix streaming on my television screen. 4:42: Travel/slides/movies handle. 5:04AM: In midst of Actualism, I take penultimate Viagra. At 5:18 I get out pictures, and at 5:35 move to TV, managing to stay at the edge 6:25-6:30, but still not sure that I came, but the leading-up-to-it sure felt accomplished. Pee at 6:47 again and back to bed, tired, at 6:50. Times comes at 6:35, as I hear it being dropped, and I bring it in. Up at 10:15AM, still tired. Call Spartacus to find A train goes only in to Brooklyn, so I call Leon to tell him, and we agree we'll go separately by the R train. Meet him at 1:35 and the Vietnamese orchestra comes out in gloriously embroidered native costume to play our and their National Anthems, and then a good lamenting Barber "Adagio for Strings" for the 9/11 attacks AND the Fukushima earthquake and tsumani of 3/11/11. Le Hoai Nam is very feminine on violin for a forgettable Concerto "Thang Long" for Violin and Orchestra by Dam Linh, a dead Vietnamese composer. Dvorak's Symphony #8 finishes the quick afternoon. Get home and Ken tries to get me to do an Insight trip to the Channel Islands, and it sounds OK until I find that the $2400 DOESN'T include airfare! So it's just too expensive. Call Ken to listen to his moans that I'm hard to please. Get out to pay $15 for an Evening of American Opera at St. Ann's, interesting enough, but these poor singers will probably never get anywhere professionally. Sad. Work more on Facebook and get to bed at 1:05AM.
MONDAY, 10/24/11: 4:47AM: Note for Zolnerzone-Facebook-YouTube-Twitter-Most Traveled Person-VIRUS! View, Friend, Retweet, Enjoy Zolnerzone, Help Scottevest Contest Trip of My Lifetime Winner Bob Zolnerzak. Pee at 6:43AM and note that I have to tell people the Pierrepont Street slide show is NOT November 7 but November SECOND. Up at 9:50AM and start on TWITTER to 10:52AM. Organize my notes to type from 2-2:30, but never really get to typing before I count to find that I've taken TWENTY trips with Ken during the past 13 years, going to a maximum of THREE trips during the year 2006, so he really can't complain. Get an Odyssey brochure and e-mail him two possible trips: Senegal and Gambia, and the heel of Italy. He hasn't responded by Wednesday, so maybe he didn't get them? Phone Spartacus and find he got his Roku for about $75 at J&R. Maybe I can do it online? Out to Liszt piano recital at St. Francis at 12:30, getting a good lunch from the reception of fruit, cookies, chips, and a Sprite, telling Leon and Pat (whom I started calling Elizabeth) of the slide date, and later getting Inez's number from Leon so I can tell her. Watch the first two hours of "Prohibition" on Spartacus's DVD, and then "Remembering Alexander Hamilton," which I MAY have seen before, earlier this year. And then it turns out that "Great Famine" isn't on the DVD he said it was. Disappointed to find that Netflix destroyed my "Instant Queue" and doesn't show me mailing queue since I'm not on that plan. Shit! Bed at 12:01AM.
TUESDAY, 10/25/11: Add to note: "Limitless" as instant? Pee at 4:07 and note a definitive Tweet at 4:23AM: Emulating Scottevest's marvelous tactic, I deem myself tweet collector for my conetst. Also check out my website. Up at 10:24AM, STILL tired! Spend hours going through MTP, going from position #131 with 365 destinations (507 left) to position #114 with 386 destinations, with 486 left, to 4:35. Late dinner watching TV and get out to "Follies," cursing them for not having good signs to the theater, and the miking is almost flawless: no trouble hearing from the next-to-last row. The stars are wonderful, the production is lavish, and the supporting cast is exemplary. One of the good shows in town. Treat myself to a Shake Shack dinner after, knowing that I'd eaten there recently, but couldn't remember when: NOT Saturday when buying the ticket, because I'd just eaten at MAN. Not Sunday from Carnegie Hall, either. Check FIA to find it was 10/14, not REALLY that close in time! Looking for my credit-card slip, I FOUND the "lactose shit" card I couldn't find BEFORE: and so as NOT to reprint old pages, I'll supplement the information from the cards HERE---NO, I take MANY MINUTES to add information and REPRINT pages 12 and 13. Get to bed 12:25AM.
WEDNESDAY, 10/26/11: 7:59AM: Type DREAMS:10/26/11 and pee. Take 2 acet for lower-back pain. Up at 9AM, eager to MTP, Tweet, Facebook, Scottevest. Start trying to add 14 trips to MTP to get me over 400, but by 10:50AM I've only managed to add 8 trips to get to 394, which brings me to #108 with 478 left. It'll be a struggle to get over 400, but not today. Breakfast while watching news on TV, and then hassle Mildred and Charles over NOT going to the Finance Museum today. Then, proud to have accomplished so much, I "sneak" back to Spider at 1:15PM and at 2:45 hope to stop at 51.43449 at 755 up after 3 wins, but can't RESIST continuing to 4:35PM, TOO LONG, ending at 51.44148 at 759 up after 5 wins. Have a big HH lunch while watching "Neverwas" with an always-attractive---oh, FUCK!---had to reboot computer to get to Google to get Aaron (I knew this was his first name, but I thought I'd get too many Aarons if I tried to Google that, so I went directly to "Neverwas") Eckhart---and "In the Company of Men" lists him as Eckart---and more junk TV, constantly checking e-mails, and try to type a bit of notebook catchup but get ineluctably back to Spider 8:50-11:05PM, SICK to 51.43106 at 754 up after 2 wins: AWFUL! Then, to castigate my body, I start in on notebook, at last FINDING lost cards, and type and retype and finish TO DATE by 1:08AM THURSDAY! At least I've DONE it, and can throw away all the transcribed note cards, keeping all the "data" from the sites and lists I've made. Now I have to figure what to do about EATING. Have a light Progresso cream of mushroom soup while watching two "30 Rock" episodes to 2:05AM, almost dizzy with fatigue and lack of sleep.
THURSDAY, 10/27/11: Pee at 5:25AM, and hiccup. Obsess on MTP. Pee again at 6:21 and start Actualism to get to sleep. Type DREAMS:10/27/11 at 8:41AM and pee again at 8:54. Make note at 6:30AM to get slides on China ready for Carolyn's Nancy tomorrow, and to list "Neverwas," end of "Toy Story 3, and episodes of "Boss" and "Homeland" as watched on TV. 10:02AM dream of shitting, and get up to shit. Set up slides for Nancy of Beijing, Xian, and Singapore from 1981 Russia-China, 1997 Tibet/China, and 2001 Yangtze River trips, 178 slides precisely in two trays to 1:06PM. Call Carolyn and Charles (who's in TERRIBLE shape: when he eats, it goes into his lungs and he SUFFOCATES, and THREE doctors who said they'd call to give advice and medication HAVE NOT CALLED) about tomorrow to 1:45PM. Get to gym to 3:30, look through mail to 4:35, have lunch to 5:30, nothing recorded on DVR to watch, and try to fix phone to 6PM, but the broken wire-input box refuses to function when I seem to fix it after YANKING it off the table by its wire. Ken returns my call to say he didn't get Odyssey's e-mails, so I e-mail them to him, and he calls to say they're not perfect, but he'll think about them. Send ASI announcement of "best index" competition to Pam Hatley by 6:30. Then, perversely, go to Spider 6:45-8:25PM, getting up to 51.43822 at 758 up after 4 wins, too SLOW. Finish this at 9:15PM at last, getting ready to clear desk, and maybe try to use e-rewards for a free copy of Hollinghurst's "The Stranger's Child," which sounds like a minor masterpiece from the New Yorker review of it. But e-rewards has NO bookstores, and Macy's does't have THAT book, so, more out of laziness, I get a $25 gift coupon for Macy's for 45 points. Then fill out 2012 datebook, and at 10:25PM, VERY laboriously, add THREE more MTP destinations to get to #103 at 12:20AM. Watch TV with dinner and bed at 1:28AM.
FRIDAY, 10/28/11: Pee 7:07AM and type DREAMS:10/28/11, then pee again at 7:25. Start Actualism, but obsess about MTP at 8:17 and give up trying to do a session and get up at 8:46AM to try a MUCH easier Wikipedia to check where cities are, getting to 400 destinations (472 left) at #102, the lowest in the Hall of Fame, making a mistake crowing on Facebook about getting to the lowest at the Platinum level, but I've gone ABOVE that, but no one notices my mistake. 402 destinations would put me at #100 (due to ties) and it would take 406 destinations to get me to #98, the lowest two-digit place possible. At last get the age 70-79 list to find that I'm #23 there, no big deal. That takes to 10:15AM, and I vote for Nunatsiquut because I WENT there with Steve, and that takes to 10:30AM. Look at e-mail and call Marj 11-11:12, who "can't talk for more than five minutes" because she's waiting for a call about possible index pages, and she just HYPERVENTILATES. Is she getting worse? Do Spider 11:15-12:30, OK to 51.43962 at 759 up after 4 wins, when I have breakfast. Go through the slides, not at faded as I'd feared, and decide to lower the blinds to make them darker, and that so disguises the dirt in the apartment that I don't have to clean ANYTHING, even leaving the toilet seat down to cover the dirty inner rim, and telling everyone as they come in to sit in the dark to get their eyes accustomed to dimness, so the slides will appear brighter. I have lunch and go to the Brooklyn Heights Library at 2PM to find the concert is TOMORROW at 1PM. Play Spider 2:15-3:55 to await their arrival, and Carolyn and Nancy walk in at 3:55, when I start the slides, and Tris and Vicki enter toward 4:45, just before the second tray, and then PAUL McLEAN calls, and we agree to talk later, and I finish slides at 5:20, Tris looking out on the balcony for a bit, and we get to a table for ten at Henry's End at 5:30. Very slow ordering, and I have a glass of bubbly, and we're only 7: we five and Scott (Carolyn's former roommate) and Virginia (a Vicki Moss lookalike who fusses about EVERYTHING). I leave at 7:55 to try to see fireworks, but see only smoke in the sky, but guy ON Promenade assures me fireworks haven't gone yet, so I sit in cold until 8:30, and get back to Henry's End to find everyone still at the table waiting for their bill, and Tris has paid MY $110 bill (impossibly high, but I can't complain because I wasn't there) with his credit card, so I have to write him a check and mail it to him tomorrow, using the stamp I saved on his invoice-check by handing it to him as he left my apartment. Finish my Spider 8:55-11PM, TOO LONG to 51.44026 at 760 up after 4 wins. Chilled sitting in the window, and it's so cold that I get out the electric blanket and put it on before climbing into bed at 11:40PM, really feeling chilled and hoping I don't get a cold from it.
SATURDAY, 10/29/11: Up at 9:42AM: having slept OVER TEN HOURS! I don't think I've EVER slept that long, without peeing, except MAYBE catching up from a trip! Dream of a magazine cover featuring an enigmatic gold chain around a woman's neck, extending above her hear, and then of a large container of SOURING milk. Phone Leon to say that the concert isn't at 2PM today, as he'd told me, but at 1PM, but when he describes it as "jazzing-up Jewish music," I say I probably won't be there. Then look out the window to see that it's SNOWING, and not just a small flurry, but HUGE WET FLAKES that melt on the sidewalks and street, but accumulate on grass and my air conditioner covers. Call Marj and Mildred, and then try Frugal-Cafe.com and KoloTV.com to try to find out why the fireworks didn't take place last night, but there's a YouTube video of the twelve minutes ending at 7:58PM! Also find the VideoCam atop the Statue of Liberty! Amazing that I didn't hear anything, though Henry's End was loud, as usual. And the guy on the Promenade who said they hadn't gone yet was obviously crazy. Talk with Marj 11:02-11:15, then Spartacus calls to offer me a great MoMA movie tonight because someone from North Jersey can't make it into town through the snow. And I can see the de Kooning exhibit! Talk to Marj again 11:30-12:03PM, then Carles 12:27-12:50PM, who's improved by drinking thick shakes that don't travel into his lungs as water does. Talk to Mildred 12:50-1:15, who says Charles doesn't know what he's talking about, but, as usual, it's SHE who's talking from NO basis in fact WHATSOEVER. Meet Spartacus in slushy snow, downstairs at the A-train at 3:25PM, transferring at 42nd Street and getting to MoMA to FREE entrance at 4:15, and look at de Kooning to 4:45, noting that I might just as well have studied the photos in the New York Magazine review for all the good I got out of peering at the actual monstrosities themselves. Look down from 6th floor on swaying curtains for viewers on the second floor, and look at "Sum of Days" 4:47-4:50, with sounds from yesterday, and pee 4:51-4:53 and get in for 3-D history and lots of clips 4:54-7:48PM, when we dash out to Smiler's for late lunch of a tuna sandwich, getting back for the 1947 Russian "Robinson Crusoe," not that good in actuality, and ludicrous with the Friday character's over-the-top emoting and crowing and mugging. Back for soup with junk TV, still snowing, and bed 12:50AM.
SUNDAY, 10/30/11: Pee at 8:08AM and up at 9:43AM, noting dream of guy looking at Edgardo's and Marina's necking and turning to ME to kiss passionately. He looks like Chuck Coe. Make note to call Carolyn, who called me yesterday when I was going out to MoMA. The diagramless is impossible to start, so I work on the crossword and finish it with breakfast. Quite sunny today, snow gone from sidewalks and streets, but still little piles where large buildings shoveled their walks. Leave at 1:40PM, too late, and get late to Leon inside the Alice Tully lobby at 2:40PM, getting a good center seat for the Grieg program of his Symphony #1, his Piano Concerto, an awful dirge by some Norwegian composer to commemorate the shootings on the island in July, and I get all hot and bothered by the black-clad legs of the guy sitting to my right. Home to try to jerk off, but the TV isn't working and I finally stop, finish the diagramless puzzle, and just watch ENDLESS TV: not even worth recording: "Boss," "Bedlam," the Turkey program by Maxa Mildred wanted me to see, taking notes that I'd seen Bodrum, Lycian tombs, Ephesus, column from Temple of Artemis, Perge gate, Aspendos amphitheater, but not Bodrum Underwater Museum, not earthquake-sunk coastal city, not Myra amphitheater, not Antalya Museum. Watch the great documentary on the 7th Regiment Armory on Park at 67th. Had two meals, pills, yogurt, and just INDULGED with TV until 1:05AM, again heating bed beforehand.
MONDAY, 10/31/11: Pee at 7:05AM, noting dream of 200 aspirin, 70Q, slip with cashier and contempt, which I can't make sense of now. Pee again at 7:08 and up at 9:50 to spend lots of time with TV again, getting out to the gym to 2:45PM, then out to buy a 9-volt battery (they promptly changed the squeaking fire alarm battery in the hallway that made me check to see if I had any spares for MY alarm), the CVS brand of reflux medicine that Chin recommended for my hoarseness, and, when the local Radio Shack didn't have a telephone, I started toward the branch on Court Street near Atlantic, but stopped into the basement hardware on Montague and splurged $23 for a 13-memory AT&T phone. Home to lunch with MORE TV, putting in for the Met lottery, and looking through SOME of the Times before indulging in Spider 7:40-10PM, TOO LONG to 51.44145 at 761 up after 3 wins, and then DETERMINED to catch up with notebook, so I cleared off my desk, finding that I end up with TWELVE piles on my coffee table again, and LABOR to finish to date by 11:12PM, now ready to turn my datebook page, get a new calendar sheet for November, and have dinner with MORE "30 Rock" episodes. E-mail to 12:37AM and bed at 12:56AM.
TUESDAY, 11/1/11: Awake, coughing, at 1:40AM, 2:15AM, 3:20AM, and up at 4:40 after dream of shitting, trying to hold it in my pants, walking upstairs to be blocked by saucy young politicos, one of whose faces I swipe with my shitty hand, saying, "Badge of merit," and wake and have to shit. Shit again at 9AM. Up, still tired, at 10:38AM. Attach phone to 10:45, breakfast, with "30 Rock," to 11:15, and check Google to 11:45, finding nothing LIKE the 100 most-endangered monuments of 1999. Pluck ear-hairs to 11:45AM, get uptown by subway and crosstown by bus to El Parador by 12:42, one seat left for me across from Peter Rooney and a vacant seat later taken by Eliot Linzer, who says the lunch is $45, and I can send a check to the treasurer afterwards. The LinkedIn presentation is a lot of blather, but the handout may come in handy. Aaron Schott goes on from 1:45-3:15PM, and I'm out for a bus and subway back home. Look at mail, check nothing from the Met Opera, phone Sheila at St. Charles to set up my next show on January 7, and then succumb to Spider 4:40-5:05PM, good to 51.44318 at 762 up after 2 wins. Fabreze coat, which works until it dries. Finish the Saturday and Sunday Times, then back to Spider 7-8:40PM, too long to 51.44447 at 763 up after 3 wins. Then broil a delicious rib-eye steak with green beans and applesauce while watching "30 Rock," and pig out on ice cream and the last of the hot-fudge sauce. Then catch up with this to 9:58PM and set to editing more slides from the TURKEAST show. Only take out about 20, leaving me with 1012 for the show, deciding to stop around 488, the start of the Cappadocia ballooning. That takes to about 11PM, when I have dinner watching TV and get to bed at 11:30PM.
WEDNESDAY, 11/2/11: Pee at 3:10AM and look at my piles to 3:40AM, thinking to get rid of many soon. Up at 9:04AM, over 9 hours! Breakfast with "30 Rock" and start with washing dishes and scrubbing the toilet, then do the kitchen and bathroom floors, and then vacuum, interrupted at 10:32AM by crazy Spartacus calling and asking "What time is it?" I respond, "1:15," which shows where MY mind is, and he laughs and says, "No, it's 10:32." I say I'm busy preparing for this afternoon, is there anything more he wants to say? We then hang up and I continue vacuuming. Susie calls from BROOKLYN about 10:55, saying she took an earlier train, and wants to come up if it wouldn't bother me. Thank goodness I'm as ahead as I already am, so she comes up, I change clothes and chat with her, hastily packing everything up (and forgetting the laptop charger), and we have lunch together and leave for 55 Pierrepont early at 12:35PM. Find at 12:55 that I've forgotten the charger, and dash home, returning at 1:13PM to find the place CROWDED. Have a few minutes of frustration setting up the projector, and start my intro at 1:16. Talk a lot during the show, getting lots of questions, and at one point (when John enters, Susie says) the slide show takes off about one a second, which takes me a minute to correct. Consequently, I'm just getting to Ankara at 2:15 and I'm thinking about stopping, and then continue to 2:25 as I just get to the "Fairy Towers," even earlier than I'd planned, telling everyone to come back on January 4th. Lots of compliments, comments, and questions as I pack up. Spartacus leaves for an errand, Steve leaves for the bank for Bill Petersen, saying he'll be up later, which he isn't, so only Charles, Susie, and John join me back in the apartment for wine, blackberry, and cashews and crackers. Phone Noodle Pudding, which opens at 5:30, and we get there at 5:25 to wait a bit as the waiters stop eating and begin serving. John likes his polpo, which I don't care for; Susie says her lasagna is good; and my short ribs are only passable, and thankfully the cash-only bill works out: Susie puts down three fives, one of which John takes as change for his $15 bill, and two of which I take for my $30 bill, too much for what we got. Back home to leave for the Fall for Dance program at City Center at 7:10, getting to exact-middle seat of last row in sparkly-new auditorium for enormously sexy Rudy Hawkes in "Gemini," a silly five-minute rapid-tap show by Steven McRae of the Royal Ballet of London, then a short intermission so the second half starts at 9PM with the beautiful body of Adrian Danchig-Waring as the central tableau in Pontus Lidberg's "Faune," cleverly changing costumes so ALL are central dancers until Lidberg himself allows his trousers to be removed for the Faune's spots to the Debussy music. Ohad Naharin is still dreadful to 9:55PM with his "Three to Max." He STILL thinks he's a riot when he's only a bore. Home to do the TV Guide sudoku and get to bed at 11:33PM.
THURSDAY, 11/3/11: Pee at 5:42, taking two acet for back pain, type DREAMS:11/3/11, and pee again at 4:56AM. Up, still tired, at 9:38AM, have breakfast, wash dishes from last night, and watch two "30 Rock" episodes with breakfast. Catch up with this at precisely noon. Actually CONSOLE myself with the thought: I'll wash dishes, catch up with the notebooks, play Spider, go to the gym, and THEN worry about what I'll do usefully today. Do a GREAT Spider noon-2:30PM to 51.45689 to 770 up after EIGHT wins, just one short of "highest up." But then am too hungry for lunch to consider going to the gym, which I postpone to tomorrow. Don't even go down for the mail today. Start watching "30 Rock" and sit there through SIX episodes, followed by a new "Terra Nova," still bad and still watchable. That goes to 7PM, when I start Wikipedia to check out MTP destinations, finding that I can add Sapmi in Sweden, Mato Grosso do Sul in Brazil for Sete Quedas, and Roraima in Brazil for Boa Vista on the Amazon. By 10:45PM that gets me up to #98 with 405 visited, 467 remain. But then I continue with India, Italy, Indonesia, Japan and Russia (following the Trans-Siberian Railroad to get three new Russian destinations) to 11:55PM, ending up at #94 with 408 destinations, pleased because it puts me in the top 1% of the 9496 travelers. At the very end, I read that one must "put two feet on the ground" to qualify for a visit, which would ELIMINATE Brazzaville, Libreville, Khartoum, Baku, and even Brest; but I don't think about that: their odd country partitioning has probably obscured AT LEAST that many places I've BEEN but haven't checked off yet, so I just consider myself FINISHED with MTP, and have a HH salad dinner while watching two more "30 Rock" episodes to get me to bed at 1:11AM.
FRIDAY, 11/4/11: Obsess with palindromes when I get up at 6:52AM to pee, and stay up at the computer, looking into Mirror Words, and finding one site that uses the word SEMORDNILAPS, which I reverse to SPALINDROMES, a neat coinage for words that reverse on themselves: straw-warts, swam-maws, strap-parts, strops-sports, drawer-reward. Then look into Wiki again to find that Saipan IS in the North Marianas, sadly Aitutaki is the same as Rarotonga, and Brest is in BELARUS. That all takes to 8:40AM, and I'm back to bed at 8:42, doing Actualism to nap me out to 10:27AM, when I get up for a late breakfast, watching an affecting hour on Steve Jobs, and then, on a whim, I look at the MTP Hall of Fame to find that, of the 103 members, 41 are (male) from the US, of which 6 are in New York State, including Forest Hills and Poughkeepsie, and 4 are in NYC, with two in Brooklyn, me and #9 Larry Leventhal, retired, who's been to 702 destinations and all but two of the listed 193 UN countries. And #13 is 33 years old, from NYC, at 664 and determined to see EVERYTHING before he reaches 37 years, the current record-holder. Having reduced piles by two yesterday by putting the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum in the calendar for me and Paul to do in late December, and knowing that I just have to bill one HH meal to Chase to get my 100,000 points, I put SCOTTEVEST onto one of the vacant index shelves, determined to REDUCE PILES TO FEWER THAN FIVE! Look at the ABT site and find that they charge $7 for $25 tickets, which I can undoubtedly get at the box office on the day of performance, so I file THAT pile away on the calendar in MAY. That takes me to 1PM, when I call Marj, and we talk to 1:30, I change my credit-card number with HH food, and then I get out to the gym, knowing I'm ALMOST CAUGHT UP WITH LIFE, ready to crow about at my first meeting with Sharon at 6PM since 9/30! Back to get a STACK of mail, throwing all away except New York, New Yorker, and MIR, which has LOTS of expensive rail tours, but some MAYBE of interest to Armenia, Belarus, and Georgia. That takes to 5PM, and I ALMOST catch up with this when Spartacus calls, and I brag about my pile-reduction methods. Finish this now at 5:40PM, ready for Sharon, but not before putting all the MTP stuff onto a SECOND index shelf! Good session to 6:45PM, home to get 28 e-mails at 7PM, 17 of the Spam, many EFA, and Suze got 11/11 of the Pew Political Questions that I got "only" 9/11 of. Then throw away the "piles left" card (which had started with 19 on 9/2, 18 on 9/3, 17 on 9/4, 16 on 9/12, 15 on 9/16, 14 on 10/9 when I send 3 TURKEAST pix to all, 13 on 10/11 when I send TRISMEM25, 12 on 10/14 by buying "Book of Mormon" tickets, 11 on 10/16 by seeing Gandhara exhibit, 10 on 10/18 by sending Rita and Facebook Brooklyn Botanic Garden slide, 9 on 10/20 by going to the Skyscraper Museum, 8 on 10/22 by buying ticket to "Follies," up to 9 on 10/23 adding Brooklyn Museum exhibits, 7 on 11/3 by putting Brooklyn and Met Museum exhibits in Paul's late-December dates, 5 on 11/4 by "shelving" Scottevest and MTP, 4 on 11/4 by putting ABT at DAY for box-office ticket buying, 3 on 11/4 by THROWING THIS CARD AWAY!) now that it's down to the FINGERS ON ONE HAND: 1) slide scans, 2) website, 3) Roku (which Spartacus says is the GENERIC name, AND that J&R has a SHOP in Macy's, which may accept the Macy's gift card!), and, which I put on my desk as "next," 4) Marj's notes. I guess at the EXTREME I could add 5) apartment-continue-discard-old-travel, but I won't, just waiting for the gift card to arrive in the mail. Print YET ANOTHER notebook page and empty the wastebasket at 7:30, before transcribing Sharon's session. Did that to 7:45PM and decided to treat myself to Spider 7:45-8:30PM, getting to the HIGHEST up at 51.46046 at 772 up after 3 wins. Things are going SO WELL!!! Now for my luscious steak dinner and TV into the night. Bed at 11:42PM.
SHARON B. 193 11/4/11
She has no one in when I get there at 5:55PM, but calls me in at 6PM. I express sorrow for her loss, and she admits it was a rough few weeks, but they were in Staten Island, so she didn't have to travel far, and her mother is still alive, though Sharon was much closer to her father, "Who was just like me," as she described it sadly. I started with the luxury of time for my obsessions with palindromes and spalindromes this morning and with MTP, and then getting back into bed. I got into the triumphs of my month: great show with maybe 40 people on Wednesday, a success as Tuesday Evening Club also, my ending MTP at #94 with 408 destinations---my not being phased by seeing that by THEIR rules I couldn't include five of my airport transfers, as I wasn't phased by having to go back home for my charger on Wednesday, nor by missing the fireworks last Friday. Crowed, as planned, about my reduction of piles to the fingers of one hand, feeling "almost as if washed clean of obligations except what's right there." I even praised the coincidence of J&R having a shop at Macy's where I have a gift card. Told about Bill Petersen's returning home, my calmness with Paul C.'s impending visit, and my general contentment, even with a few times playing Spider after I told Marj it was "dead." Did mention the odd dream of a naked woman, saying I'd probably bring it in next time, but I figured there'd be enough THIS time to take up the time, though I found myself pausing toward the end to think of what ELSE to say. Loved the snowfall, loved all the concerts and 3-D movie histories and plays and exhibits I'd been to. There may have been a few down moments, but not nearly as bad as they'd been before. She again admitted to a sad time, and I said I happy to have her back, had missed her a few times, and she said she was happy to be back to ME again, too. I left on the dot of 6:45PM.
SATURDAY, 11/5/11: 7:18AM: Dream of absolute DARK in a country park; borrow flashlight to get back to the car---where IS it? Pee; no Times. Note items to ask Mallett on Wednesday. Up at 7:55, do doublecrostic to 9AM, puzzle to 9:50, finish Times at 11:35AM, and start a spate of TV watching: "Boss" #3, two episodes of "30 Rock," the finale of "Bedlam." Do Marj's notes on SWISSALS 2:30-5:50PM, and Spider 5:50-7PM to 51.4638 at 774 up after 4 wins, when I'm starved for a very late lunch and more TV. Then start good-dating archives, doing ATCA1951 9:15-9:55PM, ATNC1956 to 10:30, ATFL1962 to 11PM, and ATEU1962 to 11:59PM. A later-still salad-like dinner while I get caught up in lots of skating on Universal Sports Channel 464 and get to bed at 2:02AM.
SUNDAY, 11/6/11: 9:11AM: Pee and get Times. Up at 10:12AM, tired. Start watching the Ing Marathon, interspersed with skating, and Marj calls at 11, I reset clocks 12:05-12:25PM and talk to Rita 12:35-12:50, putting Marj off to 12:50. We do SWISSALS notes 12:50-2:20PM, taking us 1:30 to do what I did in 3:20. Then out to a great "Tempest" with Christopher Plummer at Symphony Space, find Five Napkin Burgers jammed, and home to an enormous HH swiss steak dinner while watching more junk TV. Spider 9:10-10:30, highest to 51.46725 at 776 up after 3 wins, and catch up with this by 10:45PM, still stuffed from dinner. Will get to bed early. Decide to look at AT again, and start correcting ATSA1965 to 12:20AM, more complicated that I might have wished. Bed at 12:32AM.
MONDAY, 11/7/11: Pee at 5:55AM, nap, do Actualism and get up at 9:26AM. Note MEDICAL:11/7/11. Look at Cluny Museum Guide to 10:30AM, prompting me to look up Pierre Soltykoff on Google. Then print two pages, glance through the Symphony Space brochure to get interested in Thalia Film Sundays. Catch up with this by 11AM, Marj not calling yet. Play Spider 11:10-11:30AM, stopping to watch TV with breakfast, and Paul calls 12:04-12:25PM to say that his coming trip is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN HIS LIFE, and talks about all we'll do together, saying he'd love to try the $245 fixed-price new-restaurant meal, looking forward to meals and museums and shows. I finish Spider 1:15-2:15PM to 51.47264 at 779 up after 4 wins, again highest. Marj calls 2:15-3PM, just after a HAWK lands on my air conditioner: I hear a thump of a bird landing, glance out to see what I think is a pigeon that I reflexively whack the window to get rid of it, and it turns to look at me with the large round eye and hooked beak of a BABY HAWK! I tell her about that, and then ask, "WHAT'S DOING with me that first Edgardo and then PAUL seem to value my time so much?" Play Taipei 3-4:30 just to clear my mind. Also to avoid thinking about not going to the gym today. Forgot to mention that yesterday or Saturday I glanced at www.aasm.ch to look at archives from St. Maurice Monastery. More TV with lunch, never going down for the mail. Back to Spider 9:40-10:25PM to 51.4762 at 781 up after 3 wins, again highest, and can't resist continuing to 11PM to 51.47792 at 782 up after 2 wins. Snack on HH lunch for dinner and get to bed at 12:15AM.
TUESDAY, 11/8/11: Annoying cough for about an hour before getting to sleep, finding that I'd coughed a lot, interestingly, EXACTLY ONE WEEK AGO. Up at 8:50AM for the first time! Fuss with e-mail and Spider from 9:50-11:40AM, an awful session where I fell back to 51.47531 to 781 up, disappointed in myself. Breakfast, and stop in to vote, having the pleasure of "my" woman RECOGNIZING MY FACE and getting my name for the judges' voting, and Angelo (I think) at the next table PRAISES my TURKEAST show, getting the fellow next to him, and others in the voting room, interested in my NEXT show. Quite gratifying! Get to the gym later to wash for my doctors' appointments tomorrow. Check that I'd won no Met operas this week at 1:40PM. Then get to Macy's J&R Express shop to find that they're "not permitted" to handle more than the few items they have, but he says I can easily get to J&R downtown, so I continue, getting misdirected to Door 1, to two different floors, and then to Door 8, where a smiling Manager takes one out of a bag and gives it to the cashier---who rings up $99. I show them the slip I'd gotten from Macy's shop and the Manager takes off $20, and I'd gotten the BETTER model for the LOWER price, making it "worth my while" to having shown up in person to GET it. Home at 3:20PM. Lunch while watching "30 Rock" again, and phone Spartacus, who later calls to try to tell me how to wire it, and I say I have to wait until I'm DOING it. Start Spider again at 5:10, recording a good session to 6:30, getting up 51.48069 to 784 up, another HIGHEST, which impels me to continue to 7:20, pushing to 51.4823 at 785 up, another highest, which urges me to go AGAIN to 8PM, to 51.48402 at 786 up, and can't resist one more shot, truly tempting fate, as so often in the case of getting close to a new high, and at 8:35PM ATTAIN the new high, at 51.48574, finally surpassing the 9/8 51.48526, at 787 up. VERY HAPPY! Decide to catch up with this to DO it, rather angry with myself that I still have the $25 Macy's gift card to use. Finish at 9:15PM, ready for dinner with more TV, not knowing WHEN I'll set up my Roku! Random TV and bed at 11:57PM.
WEDNESDAY, 11/9/11: 4:28AM: Dream of wanting to convince Mom and JJ to dine in an exquisite expensive Paris boite, and drink water in a hotel. Pee. HEAVY Actualism for HOURS! Positional hypotension SEVERE after hunting for vibrator knob UNDER BED! Pee at 8:01AM. Nap to 9:28AM. Breakfast and sign in at Freilich's at 10:50AM for my 11:15AM appointment, four people ahead of me, and he's not in yet, so I say I'll be back in a half hour and walk down to the Promenade to enjoy the view in the spring-like air! Back at 11:30 for my MEDICAL:11/9/11. Home to watch TV and Mallett's office calls at 2PM to ask if I can come in EARLY for my 4PM appointment, so I leave just after 2 and get there just before 3PM, having to wait a half hour ANYWAY before getting in to be told I should have a scrotal sonogram at Doshi on Bond Street, for which she REFUSES to make me an appointment, and she doesn't know anything about the new Doshi office at 195 Montague Street. Home to a late lunch, but with plenty of time to get to ABT and buy a $25 ticket in the next-to-last row, dead center, with a great view of the stage. Ratmansky's "Seven Sonatas" improves slightly as it goes along, some of the later dancers sexier than the earlier ones, but I don't care for the solo piano accompaniment. Cunningham's "Duets" are colorfully costumed, but the choreography is almost non-existent. Tharp's "Known By Heart Duet" is the ONLY thing Gomes does in the first two evenings of this one-week ABT season at City Center, and he's always wonderful, even though the woman he's dancing with doesn't have much to do. Paul Taylor's "Black Tuesday" has AWFUL shoddy, drapey costumes to overcome, and the pop music of the Thirties is not that great, and even Daniil Simkin, in the finale, is lost in the black baggy pants. Home to more TV and probably soup for dinner and get to bed at 12:10AM, having AWFUL leg cramps!
THURSDAY, 11/10/11: Pee at 2:40AM, and start j/o at 4AM with vibrator. Then FIX my new remote, that somehow had to be reprogrammed again, and CUM to 5:20AM. Then watch Spartacus's "disaster" DVD and find many parts aren't there, finishing at 6:55AM and getting back to bed at 6:58AM. Up, exhausted, at 10:10AM. Call Piri [and call her at 9:30PM 11/29 to hear they had a very successful group of six, with Mark and Caesar and Piri and Diane and her friend and, maybe, Alexa; and I told her I was happy to have attended the MAN square-dancing afternoon] to find that there'd be a group on Sunday WITHOUT me, so I told her I was going nude square-dancing, and she wished me a good time. Call and reserve for MAN. Talk to Marj 1:25-2:15, try phoning Doshi at 2:25PM but decide to TAKE FORM IN for an appointment rather than trying to get satisfaction from endless menus and phone calls. Then at 3PM try unsuccessfully to install Roku, because the directions didn't bother to tell me how to find the data they needed. Laugh at "Setup is just a few simple steps." "Press OK to continue" and I get told at 3:12PM to go to roku.com/setup. But get "Website experienced an unexpected problem." I finally went to Roku on-line chat, difficult with Internet in the bedroom and the TV in the living room, and at 3:30 he told me to unplug and get SAME setup, "going back and fort." He told me at 3:35 to RESET the remote with a paper clip and at 3:40 he told me to hit the purple button inside the battery case on the remote. Then he told me how to get the Actiontec router code, ESSID LPPM2, off the box, and go to HTTP://192.168.1.1 to try the User Name admin and the password admin, and both of them don't work and the Roku chat-guy tells me that I'll have to call Verizon to finish this. I chatted with Marj and Spartacus 4:05-4:25. When I talk to the fellow at Verizon, I realize that I'd copied down the password from the router wrong, and corrected it from 67D7FD5656 to 67D7FD565C and the crazy thing finally connects! List the movie sources I want: Netflix, Amazon Instant Videos, Hulu Plus, Flixster, and Facebook Photos and Videos. Have to go to my computer for Roku.com/link and enter AWJU, and I try turning the router on and off, and that doesn't work, and have to reset the Roku site to Factory Default. And at long last it finally WORKED, and then I phoned Spartacus and we BOTH looked through many possibilities and got lots digested about Roku's possibilities. Bed at 11:45PM.
FRIDAY, 11/11/11: 7AM: Dream: At a play like "The Fantasticks," the conductor says I condust the next two numbers, and maybe El Gallo comes out and does an a capella solo. I don't even know "The Hoop," [and have no idea what this notes means]. Pee. Up, still tired, at 9:20AM, deciding to postpone gym to tomorrow for Sunday's MAN. Meet Mildred for lunch at La Silhouette at 1:45PM, a rather pleasing modernistic place down a few steps from far west 53rd Street, and the meal is quite a success, since he lets me try three different wines until I find one that I like. Both appetizer and entree were very tasty. Home late and get early to Sharon at 6PM. Maybe this was the night I listened to the climaxes of both Beethoven's Ninth and Mahler's Second on the Classical Arts section of Roku, because I didn't get to bed until 12:59AM.
SHARON B. 194 11/11/11
This established, I fear, a new record for "late transcription," now being 11/29, or EIGHTEEN DAYS after the session. I thoroughly described the problems with Roku, talked about eating out, said that Ken was working on the itinerary for our trip to Italy in March-April 2012, and probably talked again about Paul and Edgardo so looking forward to seeing me. I probably mentioned with pleasure the upcoming square dance with MAN. May have even talked about the possibility of the Gujurat trip at the end of December, and even thinking that I may live only until age 90 so I can spend MORE of my savings on travel before I REALLY get too old for adventurous trips. More than that I don't remember after 18 days---also, now at 11/29, I haven't seen her SINCE then.
SATURDAY, 11/12/11: 8:30AM: Dream of riding a horse in a park, and it goes off the road and lies down in the grass! Get the Times, pee 8:35AM and shit. Up at 9:23 to j/o and cum at 10:05AM. Do the puzzles, read the Times, and start watching "30 Rock" on Roku, watching all 17 21-minute episodes in Season Five. Have meals, leave the gym until tomorrow, and watch four episodes of "The Kennedys," rather good. Follow those with the disgusting "Human Centipede." Bed at 12:03AM.
SUNDAY, 11/13/11: Pee 6:15AM and up at 8:50AM. Read the Times, do a "quick" Spider 10-11:30AM AWFUL to 51.4748 at 782 up, have breakfast, get to the gym, and maybe even start watching some of the "Kennedys" before going to MAN, rather late at 5PM, and sad to see that they've started square dancing ALREADY. Get some red wine and a blond, plump, early-50s type asks me to dance: it was his first time to MAN and he'd had experience with the Times Squares (or whatever it's called) [I try to look it up 11/30, but it implies you have to take a training course that starts in September.] Enjoy dancing for about an hour, but it's tiring, and I'm glad I didn't start at the beginning. The dinner is quite good: the ribs are by far the best, and I drink three or four glasses of wine and talk with a few people and really enjoyed being there. [Call Piri 11/29 and tell her about it.] Leave about 7:30 and get home to watch the rest of the "Kennedys" and then "The Story of 1." Bed 12:18AM.
MONDAY, 11/14/11: 7:11AM: DEFINITE phone ring! Dream of HUGE ovum that ENTERS a woman and self-fertilizes into an enormous alien pregnancy. Start j/o at 8:04AM and skin four commercial DVDs, cuming at 10:04AM. Start a list for my "Catch-Up Monday": Breakfast with "Dexter" to 10:45AM, watch TV for "Boss" and Bill Maher to 1:30, out for errands to give Ron $20, mail the check to Visa, deposit Ken's $100 check at 2:07PM, take the sonogram requests to Doshi at 195 Montague and they ask if I want it NOW! I say SURE! See MEDICAL:11/14/11. Get the sonogram and then leave blood for my PSA test. Go to CVS and they haven't gotten a renewal OK for my Proscar variant finasteride. Then buy lots of groceries, including four boxes of Sun Maid raisins for which there's a discount sign saying 2 for $5, making them less than the Key Food raisins, but since they're signed out first I realize only when I'm home that they did NOT give me the discount. [Take the slip back on Friday, 11/18, to find that the discount was for THE NEXT WEEK, when I ONLY BY CHANCE went back to the shelf to see if they "left it over," only to find that it was "out early." Joyce tells me to bring the raisins back, return them, and then buy them AGAIN, at the discount price next week. I make a list of MORE groceries to get and buy lots more stuff on Wednesday, 11/23.] Pick up the mail and get back to my apartment at 3:50PM, having done GOOD THINGS! Then put in for the Met Lottery for this week. I know I'm behind on the notebook entries, but I'm totally absorbed by television and Roku, even though I start having trouble with it late today. Watch "Men in Black" on regular TV, then the recorded "Terra Nova," which is getting less interesting, and "Matilda," adapted from a Dahl novel, which I seem not to have seen before. Have a GREAT Spider session 9:20-10:40PM, getting up to 51.4819 at 786 up, just one behind my previous all-time high. Feel like a "different" person because I'm just writing on my bedside notes and simply piling them up to be transcribed later, and not feeling AT ALL like continuing with proofing Marj's notes. Really feeling out of it because I eat VERY late and then maddeningly sit down to ANOTHER Spider session 1:10-2:40AM, a disaster again to 51.47563 to 783 up, TOO LATE! Get to bed at 2:59AM!!
TUESDAY, 11/15/11: Shit at 8:17AM and get out of bed at 11:20! Breakfast with junk TV. Spider 12:25-4PM, just AWFUL to 51.46859 to 780 up after 4 wins: a TRAGEDY! Watch 4 episodes of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie," and then nothing on Roku seems to work. Try moving series out of "Instant Queue," fearing I might be overloading something, but that doesn't work. Finally go onto Roku Live Chat and he directs me to get information that I have Software Version 4.1, build 2669, and then says I should have "at least 1.5 mbps." He tells me to go to www.speedtest.net and check speed, and find that my download is 20.95 mbps and upload is 5.11 mbps. That frustratingly directs me to Uniblue Registry Booster 2012, where I get 652 system-related errors, 88 user-related errors, and 1 third-party error for a total of 741 that they try to sell me their system to correct. I don't believe them, though typing into WP51 HAS been slightly jerky lately. Maybe I'm heading into disaster. He seems to download a new program and it finally works again. Maybe watch some of the programs that I recorded as watching later: I'm just not capable of making everything perfect! Bed 12:30AM.
WEDNESDAY, 11/16/11: Pee 3:52AM and up at 8:24AM. Watch the wonderful "What Dreams May Come," again. Talk to Marj 11:15-Noon. Watch five episodes of "Mad Men." Found that I'd gotten a waiting list ticket for the Met's Saturday Matinee "Satyagraha," and phoned and got a $25 ticket for that. Tried to have an early breakfast and early lunch since I met Mildred at Shaun Hergott at 6PM to find they didn't SERVE a Bordeau wine-tasting DINNER, only lunch, but they said they'd "Take care of us," so we ordered the next-most-expensive appetizer, the sweetbreads, and next-most-expensive entree, the beef cheeks, since they were so good on the tasting menu Ken and I had the week before, and they poured her a red and me a white and charged us only $40 each, so we left a LARGE tip. Home to watch "America in Primetime: The Misfits." Spider 8:25-9:55PM, GOOD to 51.4775 at 785 up after 5 wins, and then, spurred on with unreasoning optimism, continue to 12:05AM, AT LAST getting to 51.48447 at 789 up, again at 5 wins for the very BEST IN BOTH SCORES. Bed 12:35AM.
THURSDAY, 11/17/11: Pee 3:33AM and 5:25AM and 7:47AM. Up at 9:56AM to type DREAMS:11/17/11. 10:06AM: First entry here in nine days, just after entering first dream in TWO WEEKS. My life has REALLY been taken with TV, Roku, Spider, and events, without recording ANY of it! Watch "Microcosmos" and "The Song of Lunch." Get to the gym after "only" four days. Try watching "Que Viva Mexico," but the system started balking on me: freezing and not progressing. Met Spartacus at 6PM to wander downtown streets looking for The Spur Tree on Orchard Street for one of his discounted meal coupons. Not bad for $25 each, essentially. Watch "Valhalla Rising," a total exercise in nihilism. Might have watched "Nubia" in "Lost Kingdoms of Africa." Bed 1:05AM, but them get up at 1:10AM to check Roku remote BATTERIES. Set up the system AGAIN and get back to bed at 2:08AM.
FRIDAY, 11/18/11: 4:33AM: Dream of giving Ken a shave and a head-wash, but I can't find RAZOR. MYMPTHS! 9:44AM: Dream of TV programs being done, one by one. Shit. Maybe watch some "Torchwood" with breakfast. Have an EXTRAORDINARY talk with Marj from 11:08AM-1:06PM. My opening statement (of which I told her I'd at some point request a complete list) was "I hate a change of life," which could have transmuted to "I HAVE a change of life." Told her about watching the programs on string theory, and then talking to Mil-DREAD, which we both think is a wonderful nickname for her. Remark how years ago I "disbelieved" entanglement as "spooky action at a distance," per Einstein, because it's like saying that the 2-D sheaves of universe which could be pages of a book SHARE a dimension between pages 72 and 22 where the words are barely separated at ALL. I thought it would be very unlikely that I would "take three $10,000 trips and starve at age 103." I thought to say to Sharon: "On my deathbed: 'Oh, shit, I didn't do my website.'" Don't understand my penultimate statement on the notecard: "NO, not troubled mind!! and VIEW from my apartment!" The conversation ended: Me: "Love you." Marj: "Love you too, m'dear." Then get out to deposit my $109.95 settlement check from the illegal foreign-currency Visa transactions in the 80s and 90s, and take in the "overcharged raisins" bill to Key Food to have Joyce tell me I had to bring in the raisins, return them, and rebuy them at the discount that's in effect THIS week, not LAST week. Get out to the Office of Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer at 1 Center Street, 19th floor, for Carol Tanenbaum's photos among dozens of others, along with LOTS of food and snacks and wine and soda and people. Watched four episodes of "Torchwood" and "Limitless," not as good as expected, but Aaron Eckart is always sexy. Bed 11:08PM, taking two aspirins.
SATURDAY, 11/19/11: 5:30AM: Dream of changing Scientific American articles on ten most productive and/or expensive oil and/or gas works in world, by continent, by product, by cheating and graft and damage caused. Pee---am I getting a cold? Take two aspirins and sneeze a few times. Up at 7:45AM with COLD! Do the puzzles and read the Times and have breakfast and watch TV and get out to "Satyagraha," which was even worse than I remembered: nonsense music, sexless costumes, aleatory-sounding singing, incomprehensible mottos projected onto the backstage newspapers, Sanskrit translated only on a paper sheet that didn't carry to the performance. I kept stuffing my handkerchief into my nose so I wouldn't sneeze. Miserable afternoon. Back to watch more Roku stuff, including a 1964 "Doctor Who: The Aztecs" with an old fart as an ineffectual Who. Maybe two more episodes of "Fry and Laurie," which is getting old. And maybe three more "Torchwood" episodes. Bed 12:30AM.
SUNDAY, 11/20/11: 4:46AM: Take more "Nyquil." Get Times at 9:55AM, and out of bed at 11:15AM! Probably finished "Lost Kingdoms of Africa" with Zimbabwe as episode 3 and West Africa the last, with Mali, Benin, Timbuktu, Jenne, Jenne-Jor, and Dogon. Spider 4-5:15PM, GREATEST YET to 51.48972 at 792 up, BOTH BEST YET! Watch many "Mad Men" episodes, not even Netflix keeping accurate track of what I saw when. Bed 12:04AM, coughing. 1:10AM, take anti-tussin mouthful.
MONDAY, 11/21/11: 5:23AM: Take second shift of medicine medications. Up at 10:15AM, cough-pain in abdomen less! Two more episodes of "Torchwood." Many episodes of "Mad Men." Registered for the Met Opera lottery. I kept thinking I should transcribe notes, but I never did! Spider 2:10-2:50PM GOOD to 51.49326 at 794 up, AGAIN BOTH BEST YET! Bed 1:25AM.
TUESDAY, 11/22/11: 5:25AM: Wake for 5:30 anti-cold pills. Up, possibly better, at 11:50AM, BUT then sneeze three times. My crotch is really getting rank so I go to the gym just to sit in the steam room and take a shower; my cold has made me too weak to even try to exercise. Find I'm on the Met Opera waiting list for Friday's "La Boheme." Charles actually calls me to say we should lunch on the cheeseburgers and strawberry shakes at the Lexington Candy Shop. I'm impressed that he's phoned me. Watched much of Season Two of "Mad Men" these two days. Bed 1:35AM.
WEDNESDAY, 11/23/11: Pee at 7:03AM, bed fetidly WET! Try doing STRONG Actualism. Up 8:55AM. 9:15AM: Roku may have changed my life: I want Mildred to come see three programs on Physics, Charles and Marj to see "What Dreams May Come," and want to inquire of Spartacus how it may have changed HIS life. Talk to Mildred to 9:45, and now I'll have breakfast, having "broken into" my notebook. I call Charles to suggest we could have the cheeseburger lunch today, but he says he has to see his doctor (actually, his psychiatrist) at 4:30PM so he can't. Turns out he sat to rest on his way there with heavy bags of groceries, a kindly man took him to the psychiatrist's, and he, in turn, called an ambulance which took Charles to an incompetent nearby hospital. Maybe see most of Season Three of "Mad Men" today. Bed 1:34AM.
THURSDAY, 11/24/11: 8:38AM (over seven hours' sleep!): Type DREAMS:11/24/11 at 8:58AM. Pee. Up at 10:02AM! Only thought to try for "La Boheme" wait-list tickets at 9AM, but they're all gone. Watch TV until 6PM when I dress to go out to the A train for North Square, Ken there already, for a mediocre Thanksgiving dinner: he liked his traditional turkey, my Filet Mignon wasn't bad, but nothing else was much good: I should have had some booze, as Ken did to feel very good. Speaking of Ken, he's called three or four times to do various arrangings for our trip to Italy in March-April 2012. Anything he says is OK by me. No idea what TV I may have indulged in today. Bed 11:57PM.
FRIDAY, 11/25/11: Pee 5:51AM and up at 8:51AM. Type DREAMS:11/25/11 at 8:55AM.
Watch "Medicine Man" with Sean Connery finding, and losing, a cancer cure in the Amazon, filmed in Mexico. Watch Season Four of "Mad Men," each season taking about 13 hours to view. Best program since "The Sopranos." Bed 12:45AM.
SATURDAY, 11/26/11: Pee at 5:35AM after noting DREAMS:11/26/11. Up at 9:31AM! Do Times and puzzles to noon. Watch "Boss" and other TV most of the day. Spider 10:25PM-12:05AM GREAT to 51.49657 at 796 up, with NEW RECORDS IN SIGHT!
Get to the gym early because I know they close at 5PM, and meet John entering at 3:45 and tell him they'll close on him. He said he thought they were open to 6PM, but I hear him asking at the desk so he'll know he has to rush a bit. No idea how the rest of the day went. Bed at 12:24AM.