2012
WEDNESDAY, 2/15/12: Pee at 5AM and type DREAMS:2/15/12. Pee again at 5:15AM. Up, tired, at 9:18AM. Have a HH breakfast reading a magazine, first in long time. Get an e-mail from GoAhead saying I can have two tours for the price of one, so I phone to GET my two tours, and she explains that it's two PEOPLE on the SAME tour, but since Ken had complained much in the past, she GIVES me BOTH tours for $29, "suggesting" I can share my savings of $74 with Ken, so I call him, get the details of his problems with them, and he says that the $37 I owe him is just about the return he'd expected. I ask him to find when we're going to be in Naples, for Edgardo, even e-mailing him a reminder, as he requested. Start updating the notebook when Marj calls at 12:35AM, and we start on VENEZ at 12:45 to 1:32PM, when Pam calls and we get questions answered and I discover I've been using n for ILLUSTRATIONS when page numbers should be UNDERLINED! ARGHHH! Pam says, "Don't mind, this is causing everyone to go mad," and I oil the gears by saying, "This is what happens when I work 12-hour days," and she continues, "With this awful deadline we've set up for you." And then we talk a bit about price, but she says that's no problem. We finish at 2:20PM and I call Marj and we finish VENEZ 2:32-3:03PM, finding that she's gotten through THREE MORE trips, and clearly would like to send them to me, and will accept a check for THIS set dated 4/15/2012, when I'll HAVE to have the cash. Then I make a HORRIBLE mistake of comparing KEN'S relating of details to HER relating of details, rather than MY relating of details, which REALLY SETS HER OFF, made better only when I TOLD her I'd first considered using MYSELF as an example. We part on good terms, I think, at 3:50PM! I talk to Spartacus to 4:13PM and have lunch, again with a magazine, to 4:45PM, when I tackle the changing of the n to pp, which becomes easy with, say 155\ln\L by simply pressing the key for \l IN FRONT of 155, and spacing ahead three and deleting three, ending with \l155\L. WHEW! This goes to 5:30PM, when I send it to Pam as a second draft, taking the quotes out of "Norton" and correcting two O.J. Simpsoms, and noting that Sarah Evans STILL has a n. Finish this at 5:50PM, almost totally dark outside. Now to enter the "long names" and the Checklist pages. That takes to 7:50, and I follow it, starting at record #796, with half the checklist, to 9:50, ending at record #937. Watch "Smash" with dinner, then a "South Park," do my bandage, soak my neck, brush my teeth, and get to bed at 11:55PM.
THURSDAY, 2/16/12: Pee at 4:44AM, twice, and make three index notes by 5:18 and pee again. Up at 7:37AM after MANIC thoughts of Being of Light = Conway's glider; love=all=shit=anything=nothing; a brief but convincing dream of sucking on good stiff cocks, one encased in an inverted clear-plastic cone filled with pre-cum; and alternative universes of winning lotteries, fucking Brad Pitt, comets hitting, dying, eaten by/eating Godzilla, with all my numbers still representing all reality: hoping to get this into a Jewel Box. Then pee again, change bandage, soak neck, load hall with envelope to send to Marj, groceries to get, key-fob to buy, gym probably later. Breakfast of oatmeal while reading New York magazine until 8:30, and finish this by 8:38AM, ready to get back to index work. Enter Checklist to 9:20, then pause to mail Marj's envelope and get groceries and get back to Checklist to 10:50, then to proofing and adding and editing to 1PM, when I change 100s page-ranges in WORD---not in Cindex, dammit, so I have to do it AGAIN on Friday!---and e-mail it to Pam before subwaying off (coming back up to get an umbrella for the surprise rain) to Symphony Space at 1:46, buying a bag of junk food to mollify my lunch-less stomach, for a Nova Scotia-Cajun hillbilly band and step dancer that I leave at 3:30 to subway to Fascati's for a slice of pizza to 4:15 and get to Sharon primed for my session. Out to get Pam's e-mails about maybe getting back to me for a different character/line count. Then just indulge in Taipei, actually making card #6 for my listing, 5:35-7:35PM, and continue with Solitaire 7:35-9:20PM, or dizziness. Then heat a FABULOUS 5-jumbo-shrimp HH dinner with GOOD veggies and sauce (but still the damn non-opening tops) to start watching "Mysteries of Lisbon" and can't stop, so I finish it, mail the two disks back, and get to bed at 2:40AM!
SHARON B. 205 2/16/12
Ask for a john at the desk downstairs and get told there's one in the laundry room. Go up, and a woman points around the corner to the clean toilet. I pee and get into Sharon's office to greet a number of people coming out. In to RAVE about the goodness of the busy week with the index work AND with Marj's proofreading, and then get into GREAT detail about Marj's and my argument yesterday, and Sharon keeps INSISTING that I'm just GREAT with my patience with others' stories, and that I'm only HUMAN if I make a mistake and "say the wrong thing at the wrong time." "You mean I'm not perfect?" I laugh as she does. Also talk briefly about my dream sequences as I hand her my typed sheet, but I'm still embarrassed by the megalomania of it, ADMITTING that I'm hoping I'm in some way capable of changing, and that way saving, the world. Also get into the "complicated to explain" idea of "going through the events leading to my death at, somehow, the 'wrong' time, actually DYING. I seque from the "pit" that I try to get Marj out of into the PIT on my knee from the biopsy which has had RENEWED bleeding when I got this CHUNK from my leg. She sympathizes. Get into the details of my busy day today, feeling rushed through the whole session and vaguely exhausted, as I say I am from the indexing work. Drink a glass of water while she notes down my Bhutan-Nepal show 1:15PM on Wednesday, March 7, which she hopes to attend. Out faily BUZZING with data given.
FRIDAY, 2/17/12: Pee at 8:47AM, after dream of having to go to church at 6AM Sunday to distribute sets of twenty pink pictures for teens to wear on their clothes for some religious holiday. Put the phone by the bed so I can go back to sleep without worrying about missing a phonecall from Pam about the index. I write a note about calling Workoff on sending last year's catalog. 9:43AM: Start Actualism, continuing work with images from the past few days, making a note to Google "Being of Light." Write another note about INSISTING that Olympus MUST have a way of preserving albums! Pam calls at 9:05AM to request the index to 30 characters/line, and when I ask about possible future jobs, she says that two MORE books will be needing indexes by the end of the year, the first in October! GREAT! We walk to 10:25, I phone Mildred to tell her the good news. Phone Fred at 11:15AM about my $50 discount to Le Bernardin, and he says he'll call me with possible dates. I note for Sunday's Games Group to get Alex and Piri to agree on a home-show date for Bhutan-Nepal. Note that I now MUST change the page ranges---including the 102-3 that Pam reads me from Chicago Manual of Style---in Cindex, not in Word! Have HH pancakes for breakfast while skimming Scientific American to 12:05PM. AGAIN search through ALL file cabinets for WHERE I put the old stack of notes from Marj, and even call HER to try to clear my mind of them, and I can't do it. THAT goes to 12:28PM. Decide at LEAST to bring this up-to-date by 1:27PM, and DO change the printer ribbon at last, and NOW must start on yesterday's Sharon session! Finish that at 1:35PM, not having done my best with it, but now I've just GOT to get to the index-change before going to the GYM by 3PM at least. Still buzzily energized by my work on the index, still having TV Guide to go through, and lots of items on my table to file away, still obsessing with a part of my mind as to WHERE the former stack of Marj's pages could BE! But, she assures me, I WILL find them, and that will be the end of THAT, as it is of that PAGE! Finish the 30 characters/line index 1:35-2PM and get out to the gym. Back to probably watch junk TV or play games before meeting Spartacus at Teresa's at 5:30, where we order two of their roast ducks, still fabulous, and the item gets crossed off their menu before we leave at 6:55. I even have a glass of mediocre red wine to celebrate the index-end. "The Foreigner" at the Heights Players starts off promisingly, with perfect casting, but the second act turns ugly with anti-Semitism and other reprehensibilities. Take LAST bandage off knee and get to bed at 12:34AM.
SATURDAY, 2/18/12: Up at 9:04AM after 8.5 hours!! Get Times and look at the "Style" section on toilet to 9:32AM! Puzzles after that and go through miscellaneous TV programs all day, maybe "South Park," maybe "30 Rock," until I go to Towne Liquors and buy a cheap champagne for $11 and get to Fred's just as Greg and Robert arrive first at 6:30. Fat Richard comes soon after, and a woman I'd met before, and another Bob, and Fred's theater friend arrives later for dessert, making us 8. I drink fairly much, but his beef stew is nothing special after I stuffed myself with nuts and kirs and crackers and dips, but the store-bought dessert pie is good. I leave about 11PM and get home to do whatever before going to bed at 11:33PM.
SUNDAY, 2/19/12: Up at 8:29AM (after 8:56 hours' sleep!) with Darmstadt dream I transcribed in DREAMS:2/19/12 to 9:05AM. Then looked up Darmstadt and talked to Mildred to 9:22AM, and I forgot to mention the Katzenlenbogen connection to Arthur Ellenbogen who gave me that great message: If the higher wants you to concentrate on some area of my body, it can certainly contrive to get the sun to shine on that spot. I have a late lunch, hoping to fill up before Games Group, for which I leave at 12:50, getting there first at 1:58PM, but eight others rapidly join us, and we play Taboo and Charades and Scattergories until I leave about 6:30, getting home to watch "Downton Abbey" last hour and a half until 10:30, and then a "30 Rock" episode and get to bed at 11:59PM, tired.
MONDAY, 2/20/12: Pee at 5:02AM and 6:05AM, and at 7:26AM take two aspirin for what I note as "a buzzy heart." Up at 9AM. 9:29AM: Finish recording DREAMS:2/20/12 and want to capture my current miserable mental state: I'm starting to count the days before I leave on the Italy trip in less than four weeks; I "slept" from midnight to 9AM without really feeling rested; my folliculitis at the back of my neck refuses to go away, and I wonder if it might not be somehow aided by the knots in the back of my eyemask; the knee wound is much smaller but still worryingly red on the edges and unhealing in the deep center; my desk and table are loaded with things to do, none of which I really feel like doing; and when I finish with this, even before breakfast, I'll probably indulge in some unknown, too-large quantity of time with Spider, Taipei, and/or Solitaire. Just to start finishing this, I quit this at 9:32AM, starting Spider to 12:50PM, TOO LONG to 51.58825 at 869 up after 9 wins, again by far the highest. Breakfast, register for the Met Lottery, move stuff off of desk when I can, and at about 2PM I try to go to Roku to watch "Season of the Witch" and just can't get the remote to work, and phone Roku, which is really an Adaptec number, who tells me to phone Verizon, who tells me to phone Roku, so I at 4PM I go to the website, which has me #13 in queue at 4:45, but I'm on a chat at 4:47, try different things, and at 5:05 I'm directed to "hit the purple pairing button, remove the remote batteries, unplug the Roku box, put the batteries BACK in the remote and put it on the Roku box, then re-plug the Roku box," and I STILL get the "dancing Roku" with "Hit OK to continue" which does nothing. At some point when "Irish" goes for additional help, I check BOTH sets of batteries that I used, and BOTH are dead, so I put GOOD batteries in, but it STILL Doesn't work, so at 5:45 I get "a new remote by USPS in 5-9 business days, Case ID 1232210, and I can call 1-888-600-7658 for other Roku help. Then try it again at 6:30 and it WORKS, so I watch "Season of the Witch," really not that bad, with Nicholas Cage and Ron Perlman and a few other familiar faces, and a Christopher Lee who I don't recognize. Then watch two episodes of "Lilyhammer," rather funny, and I call Spartacus to tell him about it, not mentioning the LARGE number of times I had to pee while struggling with running back and forth between computer and TV for my Roku problem. Bed 11:55PM.
TUESDAY, 2/21/12: Pee at 4:41AM after recording DREAMS:2/21/12, and pee again at 5:43AM. Do Actualism and get up at 8:05AM. Have breakfast and watch a bit of TV, but just feel SO tired that I go BACK to bed 9:50-10:41AM. Start clearing up more junk from living room and desk. 11:05AM: In the middle of catching up, just decide to use the one-number dial of Pam, and get her in the office to say that it all looks good, so I should send her the bill and "I'll walk it right over. Do it right now." I obey. Then decide to look up It's About Time, and both Danielle Bouchat-Friedman and Jillian McKiernan are gone, but Matt Buco asks for my resume, though he has no indexes coming up. Spartacus calls to ask me to buy a movie ticket for him at BAM this evening, and recommends "Pompeii, the Last Day" on Roku. 4:40PM: Lots of little stuff done: talked to Marj, watched three episodes of "South Park," had toast and jam for a mini-lunch before 5:30 dinner, put stuff away, packed out newspapers and magazines, plucked ear-hairs, tried catching up with NOTEBOOK M but didn't succeed, and checked off lots of TV to see in the upcoming week. Also, Mildred called thinking Obama (and even Michelle) is gay, and when I told her I was looking for work, she said she'd think of places I could apply. Good for her! Told her I decided NOT to get rid of any more of my savings in annuities or donations. Dress and subway to meet Ken at Caffe & Vino at 5:30PM precisely, he's drinking the first of his two Proseccos, and I have only the pork loin with bacon and mushrooms, VERY good, and when they don't have the dessert I want they suggest what I heard as "limoncello marscapone," but it's a layered cake with limoncello flavoring, quite delicious. Out early so I can buy Spartacus's movie ticket, and then at 7:04PM discover I left my bag, with binoculars, at the restaurant. Dash back and forth by 7:16PM, Ken complaining about the heat in the seats, and "Prima Donna" impresses me very much with its wonderful lyrical orchestrations setting moods and forebodings, but Ken's not as pleased by it. It's over at 10:03 to great ovation, particularly for Rufus Wainwright, and I forget to pick up a program, but the brochure says most of it, including that it's only here for four performances. Home at 10:40PM to pick up "Drive" Netflix, and it's a captivating story, featuring Someone Hendricks, the sexy secretary from "Mad Men," as the head-blasted-off Elizabeth. Bed at 12:45AM.
WEDNESDAY, 2/22/12: Up, tired, at 8:53AM, after 9:08 solid sleep! Consider maybe I'm energyless because I haven't been to the gym in five days? Start an informat do-list with 1) Fuss with e-mail and account balances to 9:18AM before toileting and dressing, 2) one 50 turd while reading magazine to 9:44AM, 3) breakfast with start of movie to 11:02AM. 11:08AM: Again that awful, awful ennui. Watched TV much more than I'd intended---waking up, thinking to accomplish EVERYTHING during this nothing-doing day---and ended up telling Spartacus that I'd bought his movie ticket for $12, and then saying goodbye to let him get back to bed. GOT to go to the gym today---in fact, let's do that NOW, just to be sure I get it OVER with---and maybe it'll energize me?? Sure?! Continue with list: 4) gym to 1:11PM, 5) read mail (no package from Marj, which I thought she promised Monday) to 1:45PM, 6) wash and sew winter coat, 7) talk to Mildred to 2:37PM, 8) lunch with more movie to 3:43PM, 9) Freilich referral talk to 3:55PM, reservationist blaming it on Dr. Chin!, 10) look through more cards, 11) leave another message with Bredison, 12) leave message with Hennessy, 13) talk to Lauren Bahr, retired with broken-leg husband, to 4:35PM, then 14) DETERMINE to catch up with NOTEBOOK M, doing so by 5:45PM, actually printing out two more pages. That leaves "only" the Bhutan show on my desk to be reduced one more time, and THIRTEEN piles on my coffee table, which I'll get to TOMORROW, since now, at 6PM, I just want to relax with Spider! Play from 6:05PM, after checking nothing e-mail, and by 8:24PM I've gotten up to THIRTEEN CONSECUTIVE LOSSES! Play on to the abyss by 9:45PM, getting down to 51.5593 at 854 up after 2 wins. Continue with Taipei from 9:45-10:40PM, then defrost a rather awful lasagna dinner while watching the end of "L'auberge espagnol" with a sexy Romain Duris, and the start of a DREADFUL "Your Highness" with a NOT very sexy James Franco, getting to bed at 12:35AM, tired.
THURSDAY, 2/23/12: Pee at 4:58AM, after noting DREAMS:2/23/12. Up at 8:38AM, deciding to 1) salve feet by 8:46AM, 2) change snot-rag by 8:47AM, 3) change eyemask by 8:48AM in hopes of curbing folliculitis, 4) clean comb by 8:50, and note to 5) publicize travel in my website on Facebook, and 6) publicize my indexing contacts in LinkedIn. But only 7) shit-read to 9:10AM, 8) breakfast and TV of end of "Your Highness" at 11:10AM, and then back to Spider AGAIN 11:15AM-2:15PM, time JUST GOING, TOO LONG, to 51.55628 at 853 up after 5 wins, just AWFUL. Then dizzily continue with Taipei 2:15-2:25PM, getting off the phone to get a call from Robert Workoff that I had AT LEAST WETLVE PAGE ERRORS in the catalog! I ask for a copy so I can CHECK why it happened! Catch this up by 2:42PM, having done NOTHING, really, today! DAMN IT ALL!!! Decide to go through Bhutan again, but decide to just see what the TIMING is, going through the first 327 of part one from 2:50-3:30, eliding much of the videos, and then SPEED through 442 of part two to 3:50, for a total of 769, but it ALL seems almost TRIVIAL now. Put on Progresso Cream of Mushroom soup to watch with the whales (and the nine-foot penises of the right whales!) to 4:15, when I dash out, meeting Toba going down, and the beautiful dancer from 31K on the way back, talking to Spartacus and Bob Lambiase in the lobby, Spartacus giving me $12 for the ticket that I'll give him tomorrow. Got Marj's new notes, so I leave her a message (she's getting the mail) and she calls back to be amazed that it's taken so LONG, since she mailed it on Saturday! Then I start weeding down the piles on the coffee table: put 1) the Chase Sapphire miles with the Chase file, 2) the index contacts in front of my file box with a reworded Mc index-card, 3) the digitizing information on the scan-pile, 4) throw out an old to-do card for which everything now has a pile, 5) put the T-test material with the subway directions I got in the mail today in next week's calendar, and 6) Sharon's arthritis medicine's name in my Medical file---so taking 6 away from 13 leaves me with 7 piles on the coffee table: 1) scanning (with possible sources), 2) website (with task-list coming), 3) taxes (with all forms ready), 4) Henry's End invitation (to be calendared when scheduled), 5) Visa bill, 6) Cadman Towers income form, and 7) Olympus album-bug note. BUT in addition to Bhutan one-more-delete-set on my desk, I now have Marj's notes for VIENCRAC (3 pages) and YANGTZE (7 pages). Now at 6:04 I just GOT to play Taipei! Do that until dizzy, at 8:30PM, and then GOT to do tonight's session. Finish that with a SPATE of words by 8:45PM, feeling sore, probably ready for dinner and an early bed. Watch three hours of "Ocean Giants" as part of a great series (which I probably already saw) called "Blue Ocean," or something like that. Bed at 11:53PM.
SHARON B. 206 2/23/12
People shouting in the adjoining office force Sharon to come practically to my chair to call me in at 4:32PM. I say that I'm still coming down from the good feelings of working last week on my index. Much later I say that other jobs are coming from that source by the end of the year. Then get into my laziness, thinking it might be caused by my not going to the gym for five days, and yesterday felt pretty good, but today was quite a waste. "It's like I have this SWITCH, and when I do just so much, the switch clicks off and I lose it all after that." She questions it, but I can't get much clearer about it. Talk about the difficulty of maintaining a half-hour talk on the phone with my sister, saying that SHE has nothing to say and I have nothing to say, yet she seems to insist on talking to me. We agree that I could come to a time-limiting excuse: "OH, you caught me just before I was going to---" and limiting the time with that. Said that I'd contacted people for indexing, and happened to mention the ad on Google, and she really strongly encouraged me to contact them and find out if it helped them. But I insisted that I was always disappointed with MY business on the Internet: no interest was generated by my ScottEvest entry, no interest in my trip on the MTP site, people that I tell to go to my website on my Christmas letter don't even go, or they'd probably have told me. But when asked if it gave me pleasure to work on the site, I insisted that it did. My BIG hangup for the past week, I said, was doing THE FIRST STEP of taxes, and she actually INSISTED at the end of the session that I GO HOME AND START ON MY TAXES. But, no, I just didn't. Said that I had no trouble talking about my Roku failure to everyone's satiation, but SHE said that she didn't think I liked talking about myself at length---except here, where I sort of had to. Moaned about forgetting my shoulder bag at the restaurant before BAM, necessitating a quick walk back to get it; and not even checking for rain the other day when I had to go back upstairs to get my umbrella, making me late. But I said I KNEW I was suffering withdrawal from work, and IT WOULD PASS. She asked about my leg, and I said, again, that I was quite sure the FINAL scab, smaller than ever, would fall off on its own at SOME point. Even mentioned the amusing discovery of TWO dermatology appointments, and how the HIP operator actually BLAMED Dr. Chin for being slow at giving referrals, sympathizing with me, and insisting she'd call me back when I got, or didn't get, my referral for next week. Also said that I'd been accepted for the first step of the Testosterone Test. Took some tiny bit of water from her empty bottle because I was HOARSE during the session, saying that this was the ONLY place that I felt it---maybe because ("No offense," I insisted) I felt "on the spot" here---to USE the session productively. Said that I'd be back next week, that I'd had no luck reducing Bhutan on the last time through, even finding it trivial, which I'm sure it wasn't, and would be leaving for Italy, which should shake things up, on the 18th. Lots to say about pretty much nothing session.
FRIDAY, 2/24/12: Pee at 6:21AM and up at 8:18AM, making a "Website do-list" to 8:25AM, "cheating" to get another item off my mind's do-lists. Shit-read to 8:50AM, and find that my knee biopsy was at 9AM on 12/7/11, so that 24 days in December, 31 days in January, and 24 days in February total 79 days that I've been IN PROCESS of getting rid of that SCAB! [And this explains, at 12:15PM 3/1/12, why I couldn't find the "80 days" when I searched NOTEBOOK M a few days ago, and the number of days is now 85.] Breakfast with the end of 1959's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" to 9:50AM. Find "Peter Ronson" on Google to 10:03AM. Then bite the bullet with the most-feared item on my desk: called Olympus Camera and got Mike, with Case # 1222264 (so I can get BACK to this wonderful, knowledgeable, intelligent man) who TELLS ME HOW to transfer an ALBUM to a FILE which can be copied onto a DVD, or flashdrive, and SAVED! I'm ECSTATIC! That goes to 11:05AM and, in ecstasy, I phone Marj and get bound up in all KINDS of shit until I hang up, exhausted, at 12:13PM! Then I try to copy the file from my laptop onto a DVD, but it doesn't read a CD (which, anyway, doesn't have sufficient storage), nor my DVD, appearing to take ONLY a DVD-ROM, which Spartacus gives me a hard time about, so THAT is still as yet unresolved. But Mike also told me how to separate my Bhutan/BritWales/TV album into many parts, making easier my editing of the Bhutan-Nepal show down to 584, a definitive album (pair) by 2:10PM. GLORY!! Lunch with "Giant Squid Hunt" to 3:10, a cheat since they don't FIND a giant squid! File my 2011 Schwab Visa papers to 3:20PM. Finish Visa calculations and transferring of funds to 3:50PM. Then Mark, from Ridgewood Annuity, referred by Mildred, calls to say they only offer something like a 3.2% return, so I tell him no and phone Mildred to tell her about it to 4:02PM. Still energized, I start taxes, copy many forms, and phone NYS for estimated forms, which I'd neglected to do on my first automated call to their number. Then, more into taxes with Schedule D, phone Schwab for the BLESSED news (which theoretically I'd already known from before) that I do NOT report any Keogh/IRA gains or losses. That takes to 6:20PM, and I crow to Mildred to 6:30PM. She also mentions that her shrink asked her to describe ME, and I only complain that she said I QUIT IBM two times---which I changed, and charged her to tell him, to BEING HIRED by IBM two times, maybe the only one in history. Also insisted that she was telling him more about HERSELF, in what she chose to say and how she said it, than she was telling him about ME. Have something to eat and get out at 7:15 for Kings of the Dance at City Center, VERY disappointing, with AWFUL music and choreography, save for EXCEPTIONAL body of Marcello Gomez and some spectacular stunts by Ivan Vasiliev. But poor Guillaume Cote should never have taken off his shirt to reveal his aging midsection, and David Hallberg and Denis Matvienko are more embarrassing than thrilling in their pieces. It's quite a brief evening, and I may not want to see Kings of the Dance #4. Home to watch two hours of "America Before Columbus" and bed at 12:24AM. GLORIOUS DAY with Olympus album-files clarified and "no need to report Keogh gains or losses" news (again) from Schwab!
SATURDAY, 2/25/12: 7:11AM: Wake and pee at 6:52AM, drink water, find the Times not yet arrived, see a slice of sunlight on my balcony wall so that I know that sunrise has been long visible, and open the air-conditioner window to see it about twenty minutes risen already. Type DREAMS:2/25/12 and go again to check for the Times at 7:13 before returning to bed. 8:01AM: Up with Gomez "Rite of Spring" ballet in mind: fantasize e-mailing him about his NEXT Kings of Dance solo, gayly making light of his fabulous body. Pee, get Times, and Google "Gomez Advocate" article at 8:11, printing it out, and then getting caught up in YouTube ballet and sex and muscles to 10:37AM. Check e-mail to 10:41AM, do the doublecrostic to noon, the gym to 1:45PM, and talk to Spartacus to 1:54PM. Get to MAN at 3:30, cold walking west toward the snow flurries, and talk to Frank, the food person; Dennis, about his rum cake recipe and the Beard and Robert's idiosyncrasies; and Steve about my forgotten-in-bag membership renewal for the new year, also expressing interest in a possible trip to Costa Rica, though I put Dominica into his mind also. Eat, drink two tumblers of iced red wine, and eat two WONDERFUL brownies before leaving about 6PM to get to a new Select bus-ticketing system on 34th Street, across to Third Avenue and an express bus to 50th Street, walking up to the bookstop at 54th and Third to sit for an hour looking at sexy magazines to pass time before getting to St. Peter's for the disappointing "Ionescopade," bad primarily because I couldn't UNDERSTAND all the SUNG WORDS! Home to avoid calling Spartacus while my sadness at the misbegotten play is so fresh, and settle into an AWFUL Spider 11:10PM-1:15AM to 850 up after 2 wins. Bed at 1:58AM.
SUNDAY, 2/26/12: 5:56AM: Note DREAMS:2/26/12, reminding me of my comment to Steve Hayes: "If I were DYING in six months, I could EAT anything, STOP going to the gym, and travel EVERYWHERE, because I wouldn't need to SAVE so much money." But then think: why couldn't I live AS IF I would die in a few minutes? Pee at 6:02AM. 7:18AM: Get Times, Vicks nose, pee. Pee again at 9:11AM, during Actualism. 9:30AM: Up and shit-read to 9:52AM. Rubber bands break and I have a questionable cum to 10:30AM. Read the Times and spend the ENTIRE DAY in front of my TV: "Contagion" from Netflix, which I like much more than Spartacus says he did; 2.5 hours of "Independent Spirit Film Awards 2012;" "Bad Teacher," rather a bad movie, with a much-aging Cameron Diaz; three hours of "ReGenesis," which I didn't find was new until I couldn't understand the fourth episode; and "Academy Awards for 2011," another 2.5 hours, with nothing much new except for Spartacus's recommended "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossoms." Bed 1:38AM.
MONDAY, 2/27/12: Pee at 6:44AM after dream of my bathroom sink pulling away from the wall about three inches. Up 9:19AM. 10:35AM: Had to be reminded AGAIN that Roku is answering 8-8 PACIFIC time, which is 11-11 HERE, so I can't call them yet. Phoned Mildred about my AGAIN conflict about getting another annuity, and was reminded during the call that rates may go UP in the next 4-8 years, and my CURRENT 8% will look puny, not to mention my "tempting" 6.9%. And my "wish for more money" is certainly more deeply engrained in her "too much cash that I don't know what to do with" brain. AND, NOW, WHY are there almost CONSTANT dogs barking in the hall and things banging on the floor upstairs??? Still haven't NOTEBOOKed the glorious Friday, which I at least start with two lines. Phoned Charles about my going to the Met Museum tomorrow; phoned in five prescriptions, of which the Tamsulosin has to be RENEWED, for some reason; registered for the Met Lottery, and now at 10:41AM am really hungry for breakfast. Watch the last of the "ReGenesis" episodes with breakfast, and watch Mirren's "Tempest" during the day, too. Out to HSBC with a $2337 Schwab check that I deposit at 3:41PM, having filed HSBC statements back to 2009 in the living-room file on the white shelves by the A/C window, helping with my year-end desk-file clearing-out. My desk is still a mess with tax stuff, and I've not yet called Marj about whether I should say that I fill out a 1099 for her. Probably spend a lot of the rest of the day in front of the TV, making a tuna casserole. Damnably get back to Spider 11:20PM-1:20AM to 51.4928 at 850 up after 3 wins, AWFUL, down SO far from the 2/22 869 up! Bed 1:23AM.
TUESDAY, 2/28/12: 8:15AM: Pee and note first of DREAMS:2/28/12. 8:26AM: Shit. Then start Actualism, have another VERY sensual dream, and up at 10:35AM. Phone to CANCEL Freidlich's appointment, HIP having NOT YET given my needed referral, but I'm TIRED of going to Freidlich, and my knee wound, after 80+ days, seems FINALLY in its FINAL (yes, Marj) stage. Phone also to find that the doctor has NOT renewed my Tamsulosin prescription yet. Ready now to type dreams at 10:58AM. Check e-mail to find that e-rewards has put BACK my formerly expired $100 in rewards. Go through e-mail to 11:18AM. Watch "Through the Wormhole" with breakfast to noon, find that I have no Met Opera tickets, and talk to Mildred to 12:07PM, she saying she could come here Monday 3/5 or Thursday 3/8 for an E8 lecture and the Bhutan-Nepal show, depending on when Charles could make it. Leave for Met Museum then and give my $1 at 1:11PM. See "The Infinite Jest," caricatures, exhaustively 1:19-2:52, then go to the Fabergé beauties 3:05-3:20, look through Room 556 to 3:31, pee at 3:40, tired, and leave to get to CVS for four prescriptions and to Key Food for $54.67 of food with $33.01 saved at 5:12PM. Home exhausted to get the 2012 ASME catalog that was mailed 2/24. Heat up tuna casserole for dinner with TV, and then at 7:30-8:45PM look at the ASME catalog to find that A,B,C,N,O,P,Q entries in the book index were COPIED from the 2011 catalog! Leave word with him, leave word with Spartacus, Mildred, and Piri, and TELL Fred, who just got back from Las Vegas with his sister and brother-in-law, as well as saying there's no Bhutan-Nepal show here next week. Also tell Carolyn, desperate to CROW about MY NOT having made 12 errors! Spider 9:15-11:10PM UG to 51.556 at 853 up after 4 wins. Then work 11:15-11:30PM to send Bob AI12B for HIS correct index, at least. Bed, triumphant, at 11:50PM.
WEDNESDAY, 2/29/12: Pee at 5:59AM and note to BUY three regular-size pillows to try to cure my neck folliculitis. Type DREAMS:2/28/12 at 8:15AM. Do Actualism, and up at 9:16AM. Talk with Robert Workoff 9:32-9:38AM, talk to Mildred 9:42-9:56AM about my indexing vindication, then to Spartacus 10:10-10:30AM, followed by Piri 10:30-10:33AM. Breakfast with TV, then vindicate myself with Marj 11:10-11:36AM. Watch two hours on Pompeii, recommended by Spartacus, and go over to pick up three regular (somewhat used) pillows to replace my bacteria-ridden and sweat-stained two queen-size pillows. Talk to Charles 1:25-1:45PM, instructing HIM to phone Mildred about his wanting the E8 and Bhutan-Nepal shows on Thursday 3/8. To gym at 1:50, easy after four days away, exchanging glances with the BEAUTIFUL young man that send me into fantasies of encounters. Late lunch, Mildred calling me to tell me that Charles had called her, and then I indulge in TV: "What's Your Number" with a frequently nude Chris Evans just as SEXY as can be, an "Apocalypse" about early WWII, and "Nanny McPhee Returns" with an increasingly presentable Emma Thompson, who both wrote and produced this feel-good trivia. Then get to THE WORST SPIDER IN HISTORY from 9PM-12:47AM: to 13 losses and just STOP at 51.52706 at 839 up after 1 loss. Just can't STAND it any more! Bed 1:50AM.
THURSDAY, 3/1/12: Up, tired, at 9:06AM. Throw out two queen-sized, sweat-stained pillows, mail the Netflix back, and read e-mail and e-rewards to 10AM. Update my Netflix lists to 10:17AM, then breakfast with an hour with Robert Heinlein (born 1906! died at age 81) to 11:20AM. Talk to Marj about my signing "my" IRS1096 with "my" 1099 to her, in getting back to my taxes, from 11:23-11:58AM, EXHAUSTING. Check with HSBC online to 12:07PM to find that my Bank of America check GOT to them, covered, on 2/29. Start transcribing notes from last Friday, and Sharon calls to cancel at 1:30PM, making my evening before "Khovanshchina" easier with the fasting-from-10PM call from Montefiore about my visit at 9AM tomorrow morning. Finish this AT LAST at 2:30PM---ASTOUNDING how much time it takes! WAY over TWO HOURS! Then indulge in television, and eventually leave at 5:45 to get to the Met Opera at 6:25 to get a pass for Charles's ticket and wait for Piri, who got stuck in traffic and arrives at 6:40. We read the program, but it doesn't help us: I find that reading my PRIOR (1985) program for "Khovanshchina" makes it much clearer who the streltzy were and what Galitzine represents. Fred's there, too. I get a ham and brie sandwich which I can't finish during the first intermission, so I finish it while waiting to shit during the second intermission. It's over at 11:25PM, Piri goes her own way home, and I get back at 12:10AM to get a message from Spartacus that he's left the two tickets for tomorrow night in an envelope for me at the desk downstairs. Get to bed as fast as possible at 12:19AM, already having less than eight hours' sleep before waking tomorrow.
FRIDAY, 3/2/12: 4:53AM: FLASH of blue (background) and orange (lattice) mympths, and a yellow cascade. Note DREAMS:3/2/12. Pee. Up at 7:11AM, noting another dream. Check when I saw "Khovanshchina" the sole time before, in 1985, the SAME production I saw last night! Get stuff together and leave at 7:53AM, on 4-train at 8:06 and off at 8:56, find place and fill out form at 9:10, and answer questions, give blood, and be told that I'll be informed in ten days whether I qualify or not: testosterone must be between 100 and 275, or something like that. Finish at 9:45, leave and find a GLOVE that dropped out of my pocket at the entrance, and back on the 4-train at 10:03 and off at 10:53, so it's a fifty-minute trip. Home at 11:03, so the whole thing took 3:10 for a granola bar and a subway card. I get $800 if I take the whole study. Breakfast and TV to 1PM, then phone a number of people to try to replace Charles at Avery Fisher tonight, but no one takes it. Watch "Immortality" on "Through the Wormhole," which I may have seen before. Finish this to 4:40PM, ready to leave for Barbes. Ken's waiting for me, having fallen in love with our waiter. He has three mediocre glasses of wine, a side dish, and appetizer, and dessert, to my $25 for my Pastilla, good but not great, and the total bill including tip of $111+. Walk Ken to the corner of the Morgan for his concert and decide to walk up Madison and Fifth, across 59th, to Lincoln Center, spirited and warming, but I'm slightly staggering at the end. Take a small shit before taking my seat in an upper box, which everyone leaves, affording me a decent view of Alan Gilbert, the conductor for Ravel's "Le tombeau de Couperin," mostly familiar; Rouse's Violin Concerto, VERY loud; and Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," loud and effective, but not really best, as I'd fantasized, for Gomez's strip-King-of-Ballet ballet. Watch all episodes of "Through the Wormhole," not really deciding what I might show Mildred, who might not come on Thursday after all, since Charles probably won't be here. Bed 12:03AM.
SATURDAY, 3/3/12: Pee at 5:54AM, type DREAMS:3/3/12, and pee again, getting back to bed at 6:07AM. Carolyn calls at 8:08AM, saying she thanks me for the ticket offer last night, but she couldn't go. Read the Times and do the puzzles, reading the amusing "Love Story" to Mildred and Marj. Play Spider 11:45AM-4:10PM! To 51.52007 at 836 up after 2 wins. Play Taipei (when tired of watching TV) 6:15-8:10PM. Have two meals, finishing the first 1.5 quart of Edy's Fudge Tracks, which give me RUNS from the lactose and chocolate, and I really shouldn't DO it any more! Resolve not to have any ice cream tomorrow, so I'm not discomfited during the Bernardin lunch with Fred. Watch lots of junk TV, including "Use Your Brain to Change Your Age," with its seven rules: 1. Know about the health of your brain: a) memory worse than 10 years ago? b) depression quadruples chance of Alz in males, c) overweight? d) insomnia. 2. Start making better decisions todayh: a) keep blood sugar stable, b) get 7-8 hours' sleep/night, c) eliminate toxins, d) ask "Then What?", e) ask WHY you want health---their program is $3570! 3. Avoid things that hurt your brain: a) toxins/drugs/alcohol, b) caffeine/nicotine/obesity, c) low testosterone, d) stress/anxiety, e) unhealthy people. 4. Engage in regular brain healthy habits: a) use food as medicine, b) eliminate pasta/sugar/soy, c) eat like gorillas: nuts/fruits/vegs, d) calorie restriction for optimum taste: seafood, berries, green leafy vegetables, e) exercise: walk FAST, be stronger for health. f) memory games/word games/meditation. 5. Treat brain problems early: brief grief. 6. Do program with partner and get connection power. 7. Never stop being a warrior for your brain. Bed 12:11AM, but get up to do India-trip search on GoAhead, as requested by Ken, to 1:15AM, then up to ANOTHER trip search through my files and bed at 1:46AM.
SUNDAY, 3/4/12: Pee at 7:25AM, get times, type DREAMS:3/4/12, and up at 9:46AM noting dream of elegant singer at piano, opens mouth: no sound! Funny, but audience holds back on laughing. Embarrassed. Busy printing out Naples trip and summary (hard to find!) to 11:27AM, then STARVING for breakfast, for which I broil one set of the Key Food sausages with two Thomas sweetish corn muffins. Not the best. Then to Spider 12:35-2:35PM, still AWFUL to 51.52011 at 836 up after 3 wins, VERY unsatisfying, so I continue with Taipei, winning almost ALL, 2:35-3:43PM. Then out to the gym, seeing a dynamite tall foreign-looking young man with FOLDS of foreskin around his bullet-shaped penis-tip. But VERY tired walking back to pick up "Midnight in Paris" from Netflix from yesterday, which I watch, and end up phoning Spartacus about 7:30PM to say that it was even WORSE than I'd imagined: ALL those NAMES, ALL taking cheerily to the nerdy Allen-stand-in of the awful actor whose name I'm blocking out. Set off the smoke alarm with my final Spam sandwich. Then watch another gripping "Apocalypse" of WWII, some other recorded TV, and start watching Roman Polanski's "Oliver Twist," with many familiar faces. But then decide to put the Netflix movie in the mailbox downstairs and catch up with this by 10PM, suddenly realizing that I forgot to water the plants today! DAMN! Put out the card for tomorrow! Tried Squirt.com again, highly turned on by the jerk-off action, but too cheap to join. Start putting junk from the past two days off my desk to get ready to get back to taxes (DREAMING!) tomorrow, after another pee and page-print. Add a Bon Mot from Marj on agoraphobia, when I phone her to mention that the Times doesn't list agoras as one of their common phobias. Talking of agoraphobia, Marj says, "Oh, you opened so many doors!" Put away the Michelin-stars list and it reminds me to phone Spartacus at 10:30 and go over to pick up his British Airways Visa for tomorrow's lunch! This takes to 11:15PM and I finish with this at 11:30PM, ready for my dinner soup. Bed 12:50AM. 12:55AM: Get up to record "Temptress." 2:47AM: AWFUL reflux!
MONDAY, 3/5/12: Pee 7:33AM, Actualism to 8:34AM, j/o to 8:48AM, up at 8:56AM, needing to update ALL THREE cards as I have to water plants today, too. At 8:14AM I made a note of "forgotten" tasks: 1) update ASME index, 2) Marj's notes, 3) Form 5500? 4) "file" all albums, 5) laptop DVD-make, 6) website do-list, 7) PhotoShop slides, 8) Facebook/Tweet website, 9) Edgardo: Naples dates, 10) Ken: India? 11) Taxes. Then start a Mon-DID list: 1) finish "Oliver Twist" with breakfast to 10:10AM, 2) Met lottery and e-mail to 10:18, 3) water plants to 10:20, 4) clean-up from j/o to 10:25, 5) finish Sunday Times to 11AM, 6) shave to 11:15, 7) Form 5500-EZ order to 11:47AM. Then change for subway to Le Bernardin at 12:25PM, getting there before Fred and thus being treated to PERFECT spiced hull-less popcorn, seasoned breadsticks, and candied walnuts, which I motion Fred to as he checks his coat, and we take them to the table, looked at my everyone, to which I reply: "Now everyone will want one." Fred takes the inside seat, almost as bad as Ken, and we enjoy our snack with the amuse bouche of salmon rillette with toasts, and then get bread and butter with our $24 kir royales---royale INDEED. He also orders a $19 glass of Riesling and a $5 cup (or two) of coffee, to make the total bill $230.82 to which I add a $38 tip, for a total of $268.82, hopefully with $50 off from British Airways Spartacus-Visa, still rather more than I'd thought to pay, but Fred says he loves it: our chocolate-filled eggs were good to start, his pounded tuna was heaven, my shrimp was incredibly tasty and varied with foie gras and truffles, his salmon was sublimely buttery, and my striped bass had a wonderful sauce, though the flesh itself was rather bland. His fruit tart was good with a sugar-cake coating, and sadly my elderflower mousse could have tasted more intensely of elderflower, my only complaint. Back at 3:20PM, full, and play a too-long Spider 3:20-6:20PM to 51.52275 at 838 up after 5 wins, and then continue with Taipei to 7:10, winning practically all of them. Then watch a silly "Shanghai Gesture" with Gene Tierney and Walter Houston, and the last half of "The Temptress" with Greta Garbo and a sexy Antonio Moreno [and I just now Google the movie to be SURE he's the hero, not the villain]. Bed 12:27AM.
TUESDAY, 3/6/12: Pee at 6:30, noting dream of "Can I leave art-book, photos, and catalogs to NEXT time in cleaning out this apartment?" Up, DRIVEN, at 7:32AM. Breakfast watching the start of the 1935 "Mutiny on the Bounty" to 9:15AM, work on taxes (resisting starting on Marj's notes) to 12:45, finding enough astounding results to call Spartacus, Mildred, and Marj about them: LOW taxes and HIGH returns! Spartacus suggests lunch at Hanco's Vietnamese place next to the optometrist, and I borrow $1 from him to pay my bill for the $6.80 sandwich which has good pork but too much greenery-filler, but a good toasted roll. Then try to fix my reading glasses, which STILL slip off my nose, and they don't SELL those handy earpiece clips; get $200 cash from HSBC, and get $24.44 in groceries just because I'm there and need milk. Home at 2:15, look at two magazines from the mail to 4:30, TIRED! More "Mutiny" and make tuna casserole to 6:10, getting back to taxes to 7:10, finishing movie and dinner by 8:10; call Ken to find it wasn't GoAhead but InSight where he wanted me to look at Indian trips, but when I try to report to him he's pissed and shouts for "Another time!" at 8:26. I FINISH taxes to 9:15, finding that I must put $5325 into Keogh by 4/15/12, and will get a check from NYS for $1575 and from IRS for $7334, a total of $8909 that I hope comes before 4/15! Then catch up with this, and print another page---I AM being compulsive!---by 10PM when I'm downstairs to drop two tax envelopes (no longer furnished!) into mailbox. Forgot to mention that I scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors in preparation for "the gang" tomorrow. After 10PM I looked up Kickstarter and was so depressed that I threw the article mentioning it away. Filled out the Cadman income form. Then I sifted through the five "Through the Wormhole" saved hours and came up with ONE hour of the best segments. Bed at 1:05AM.
WEDNESDAY, 3/7/12: Pee at 6:06AM and note DREAMS:3/7/12. Up, even MORE driven than yesterday, at 7:05AM, after only SIX hours' sleep! Find the Bhutan travel folder and select a few items to take to show this afternoon. Take a picture of the tiny map and transfer it to album Bhutan 0 for showing while I give my introductory talk. GREAT IDEA! Find an Indian Jet Wings book that tempts me to schedule a SPECIAL trip to Ajanta, Ellora, and three or four National Parks in inner China, maybe with the $8909 and my Sapphire $1300 in flight tickets---over $10,000! Have breakfast while watching the incredible second half of the crazy Brit who walked the length of the Amazon! Then Google E8 and watch an 18-minute lecture by Lisi on TED, which I read about YESTERDAY by coincidence in New Yorker, followed by a 6-minute "imagination in science" chat by Richard Feynman. Then called Marj to talk about the coincidence and crow about my productivity: taxes mailed, map photo, readiness for tomorrow's science seminar. Catch up with this by 11:25AM, ready to wait for Susie to arrive whenever. Played some Taipei before she arrived at 11:55AM, and I had some soup while she had her lunch, and we left early, about 12:35PM, for the show, stopped for a cup for my water at the cafeteria. About six people were ALREADY in the seats set up, and I stopped by Shiela's---who greeted me VERY warmly---to set up May 16 as the next date. Susie loved my map-slide that I left on the wall when I started at 1:13PM, seeing that Leon was there, as was Steve and Charles's friend, who'd saved him the front-center seat until someone asked the "tall person" to move so as not to block the screen. For some reason the show went SLOWER than I thought, ran away at one point, and I ended up going over to 2:40 WITHOUT returning to some of the dance, which comment caused John to LEAVE, saying that the program wasn't BAD, it just went on too long. Steve, AGAIN, said it was the best program I'd ever given. A NUMBER of people expressed their gratitude for the program: Elsie among them. There were a number of ejaculations of appreciation for individual shots, too, and even Steve mentioned a few that he liked. Then to my place, five of us, for Steve's nuts added to Susie's, and I had some of her plum wine to celebrate. John wanted to go back to the Thai place on Montague, when they didn't like the idea of Jack the Horse, and then I thought of my card for Henry's End to subsidize John, who said he wouldn't want that: he would find something on his own that he could afford. So I phoned to find they opened at 5:30, we stood on the balcony admiring the view until 5:25, and got a table in front where I ordered a bubbly for $8.50 and the most expensive entree of Mixed Grill: elk chop, venison sausage, and boar belly, at $33, making my $21.78 credit worthwhile to them. Steve loved his entree, saying he'd like to come back; John was content with his pasta, a LARGE appetizer portion for $12; Susie liked her chicken with a very tasty breading, Charles ate all his salmon and enjoyed a bit of my venison sausage, disappointed that they weren't serving venison itself. John saw Susie to the subway, but sadly she missed her 7:40 train, saying she'd have to plan better in the future. I got back home to watch "Take Shelter" and cart the movie to the mailbox about 10:30PM. Got to bed at 11:07PM.
THURSDAY, 3/8/12: Pee at 2:53AM and at 7:45AM, feeling cold-ish. Shit-read to 8:18AM and get back to bed for an Actualism session, getting up at 9:48AM. Check that my Netflix billing date is 3/21. Have breakfast with a rather poor Isaac Asimov bio on "Prophets of Science Fiction," and get calls from Charles and Mildred that they won't be coming over this evening since Bill "condemned" Charles for staying out so long yesterday. Try to find David Lindberg on Google, but don't succeed, as I didn't with Whoever Oliver, finally managing to watch her Bhutan DVD once, but not again. Phoned OAT and they said they'd forward my e-mail address and phone to him, and he actually RESPONDED---albeit curtly---and I answered with an e-mail that he responded to on Friday! Took my Cadman form down to the office when I went to the gym, but the current manager isn't a notary, nor is there still a notary at Gristede's. Asked at the gym, and the guy said my bank would do it for me free. Nice reminder. Ate more tuna casserole before leaving for Sharon at 4:20PM. Had more of the ice cream, and cooked up half of the sausages for dinner, keeping the other half for tomorrow's late dinner. Watched three episodes of "Prophets of Science Fiction," finishing the Asimov and watching Verne and George Lucas, glad they're over because they're more about their PREDICTION-RESULTS than about the people themselves. Watch "Phantom of the Opera: 25th Anniversary at Royal Albert Hall," impressive enough, with LAVISH opera numbers. At 12:49AM I check that I might have ENOUGH to pay for my quite small Visa bill for March. Bed at 1:02AM.
SHARON B. 207 3/8/12
First I ask about her mother, and she said she's still ailing, thanks me for asking, and later compares her position with Charles's, saying that SHE would never allow herself to be sucked in completely, as Charles seems to be willing to be, and she actually encourages me to "be a good friend" and SAY something as serious as, "What will Bill do after he kills you?" I say that Mildred is on my side in this, trying to get Bill into a home, even to the point of FANTASIZING Bill will "be the center of attention," maybe as a sop to her guilt about advising such a drastic action, where she considers herself to be empathetic, which I have trouble being. THEN I start with the litany of all the good things I would have told her LAST week had we had a session: the details of my being told how to make folders of my Olympus albums, saving them outside the computer in their finished forms; then my joy of being told, again, that I don't have to declare profit and loss in my Keogh or IRA accounts until I withdraw the money from then that would REFLECT the profit or loss. Then repeated, as to all my friends, with GREAT detail, my relief on finding that the ASME Catalog index error was caused by a designer duplicating LAST year's contents for the letters A,B,C,N,O,P, and Q. She smiled with me at my relief. Said that now that I'm up to THIS week, I can tell of my triumph when I mailed my two tax envelopes off on Tuesday in order to speed my checks of OVER $9000 from IRS and NYS. Didn't even bother to crow about getting a reservation in for my PAPER Form 5500-EZ. But I DID mention getting the e-mail of my friend from the Nepal trip to hope to entice him into a trip, even getting into my flirtation with a Sapphire air-mile-paid, Qatar Air discounted fare to Ajanta and Ellora, then then deciding not when I found that May was the hottest month there. Told about the wonderful reception on Wednesday, sorry she couldn't make it---"I wasn't even in the office yesterday," she said. Even mentioned my delight in getting rid of my Henry's End birthday gift-card. Dismissed Mildred's and Charles's cancellation of tonight's "science lesson," but figured it would happen some other time. By that time it was 5:12PM and I expressed amazement at how MUCH I had to say. Had gotten HER to compliment my "charm" when I reminded her of David's (I think I named him George to her) "love" for me on the trip. But I said I STILL worried about doing it to someone I didn't know, for FEAR of rejection, and she again said maybe we should work with that, even though I said I was SO far out of sexual activity that I'd almost given UP on finding someone, "except maybe to hug," and she winced slightly in sympathy with me. Said that we only had ONE session left before my trip, and I didn't bother to mention that I'd been SO busy that I hardly had time to WORRY about the trip. Left in the daylight and warmth, feeling good about the session.
FRIDAY, 3/9/12: 6:49AM pee and note dream of showering by soaping my whole body and THEN wetting my hair and shampooing it. Up at 8:49AM and salve feet. Early breakfast, watching "Superfoods" and making a list of them:
DENSITY OF MICRONUTRIENTS
100 kale, collard greens
90 Brussel sprouts
85 bok choy
81 spinach
76 arugula
60 cauliflower
55 cabbage
52 romaine
46 broccoli
42 asparagus
37 flax seeds
35 carrots
34 green peppers
33 almonds, onions
28 cherries
27 grapes, strawberries, mushrooms
25 tomatoes
23 sesame seeds
19 blueberries
18 sunflower seeds, artichokes, walnuts, oranges
14 cantaloupe
13 kidney beans, lentils
11 edamame, pineapple, cucumber, iceberg lettuce
10 pomegranate juice, sweet potato, tofu
9 apple, pistachios
8 peas
7 avocado
6 mango, cashews, peanut butter
5 corn
4 banana, brown rice, oatmeal
3 white potato
2 salmon, whole wheat bread, olive oil, skim milk
1 white bread, chicken breast, eggs, white pasta
-4 beef, 85% lean
-5 feta cheese
-6 low fat cheese
-9 potato chips, French fries, vanilla ice cream
-10 cola
Mushrooms---10 grams/day; green tea, green vegetables---spinach, onions
G - greens
O - onions
M - mushrooms
B - beans & legumes/berries
S - seeds
Reduces the craving for food, satisfies hunger, loses weight.
Do Marj's notes for VIENCRAC 10:53AM-2:13PM, all of 3:20! Have lunch of the last of the frozen entrees, quite small, with yogurt, and then phone Marj and she goes only 35 minutes, from 4:10-4:45PM. Then I indulge in Spider 4:50-7:05PM, marginally OK to 51.53574 to 845 up after 6 wins, and continue with Taipei 7:05-9PM, winning many, and then catch up with NOTEBOOK M to 9:35, checking e-mail for a RESPONSE from David Lindberg, not wanting to travel until next year! Down to check on delivery, but Joshua is at dinner and I have to go back down at 10:15PM, when I finish this, to check again. Get the shoulder bag and schedule and electronic ticket for the trip only NINE days before trip departure. Maybe watch more TV and get to bed at 12:58AM.
SATURDAY, 3/10/12: Pee at 3:32AM and 7:15AM. Get the Times, type DREAMS:3/10/12, and back to bed at 7:28AM. Up at 9:38AM, rested at last. Breakfast and Times to 10:40AM. Proof Marj's notes on YANGTZE to 11AM on the dot, when she phones. We finish with VIENCRAC and at 11:45AM get to where I stopped this morning. We continue talking to 12:30PM. I watch the "Invisible Children" video when Marj gives me the name Kony, and I'm quite touched by it. Go to KONY2012.com, which has 15 million views, to 1:08PM, to find they're sold out of the $30 kit, which I had been tempted to get. Find that my monthly Bank of America Visa bill is $478.11, which I can cover. GoAhead REFUNDED $120? HSBC balance of $499. I go back to proofing YANGTZE from 1:10-3:05PM, 1:55 for LESS than two pages! Have lunch while watching a religious fanatic narrate "Journey of the Universe," and get back to YANGTZE 4-5:45PM, just plain getting tired; phone Marj and we get to the end of what I did by 7PM. Play Spider 7-8:25PM, OK to 51.54156 at 849 up after 6 wins, and continue with Taipei 8:25-8:50PM, again tired. Watch a disappointing "History Is Made at Night," particularly the iceberg collision that ends up OK. Bed 12:24AM EST.
SUNDAY, 3/11/12: Up at 7:28AM EST, 8:28AM EDT. Get Times, pee, type dream into DREAMS:3/11/12. Up at 8:01AM to shit. Finish Times to 11:22AM and change clocks to 11:45AM. Breakfast and watch TV to 12:45, when I put on good pants and leave for Games Group at 1:05PM. Long wait for #1 train at 72nd Street, but still get to Piri's at 2:02PM. Four of us (me, Piri, Ken, Cesar) start Boggle and the other 4 arrive as we complete the circuit (Diane, Alexa, Jermain, Barbara). Great two rounds of Charades, and then Alexa's "On the Road" which I help win when I'm on either side. Lots of urination! Late out at 6:50PM, getting dark. Get Great Wall egg foo yung for dinner and watch a boring "James Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," putting the Netflix in the mailbox at 10:30PM. Bed at 11:09PM, preparing for the trip, but still awake at 11:45PM.
MONDAY, 3/12/12: Pee at 4:45AM and at 6:01AM. I'm obsessing with seeds, nuts, and berries from Lots-Less, salads and vegetables from Key Foods, Peas and Pickles, and maybe even Gristede's; or, horrors, restaurants. Up at 7:46, typing DREAMS:3/12/12. Have breakfast while watching the half-hour TCM preview of movies in March---a bit late? Distribute pills, and then type this at 9:27AM: Reminded of that AWFUL feeling I have when I get up two or more hours earlier than my body has become accustomed to: incredible lassitude, like "I just don't want to do ANYTHING but lie back down." Total lack of appetite, so that any breakfast is ingested mechanically, just to get it OVER with. No energy to do or appreciate anything: at most just sitting looking at television. That typical jet-lag feeling that colors the start of the first few days of any trip---just hoping that the body will recover, or transit to its accustomed time, and the feeling will END. And now it's coupled with yesterday's time change, where I at least had the Times to read to cushion the waking-up section of the morning. Finish catching up with NOTEBOOK M by 10:15AM, still not quite recovered from waking up early after a little-sleep night. Have the Met Lottery to register, Scientific American subscription renewal to check with magazines.com, and TotalRewards.com to check for their "millions in rewards," maybe another way to waste time before the Italy trip. Print more pages. E-mailed Edgardo with my Naples hotel address and phone on the first five days of our trip. Checked TotalRewards.com to find that it's (mostly) ONLY earned and spent AT the casinos. So I throw THAT away! Still tired as I talk to magazines.com to 10:33AM and try to get back to proofing YANGTZE, but fear I'm just going to lie down for a bit. Do so. Later, think, "Lay till 12," and it's PRECISELY 12:00 on my clock! Feel better, anyway. Watch the last half of "Star Is Born" from 1937, with lunch of egg foo yung, filling, and go to gym to 4:40PM, watching another TV DVR recording, and I play Spider 5:25-6:15PM, OK to 51.54496 at 851 up after 3 wins, then continue with Taipei 6:15-7:15PM, winning many. Start with YANGTZE proofing at 7:15M, finishing at 10:15PM: 3 hours for 4 pages! Dinner of soup and more TV, getting to bed at 11:20PM, wishing that it would have been sooner.
TUESDAY, 3/13/12: Look at clock at 12:10AM and 1:40AM, and at 5:54AM and type DREAMS:3/13/12. Search for a soothing cough syrup for my sore throat but find none. Feel vaguely feverish, but hope it's only the unnatural warmth of this early Spring with temperatures in the high 60s. Pee again at 6AM and back to bed: INCDREDIBLE dream typed after gettomg up at 9:26AM---so much for progressively early waking! Salve feet, tingling and flaking more than usual. Watch end of "Purchase Price" with an appealing naturalistic Barbara Stanwyck and an unbelievable characterization of a South Dakota wheat farmer by George Brent---though all's well that ends well. Then finish YANGTZE with Marj from 11:08AM to 12:08PM, 1 hour. She reports that she's done with YELLOWST, is ready to type quries for BritWale, which will be one batch, and gives me her final list of trips to complete: Butanepa: 39pp, Chicago6: 10pp, Egypet: 30pp, Fivestan: 45pp, Iceland: 19pp, Labtrip: 19pp, and I note that it would be good to pair Butanepa 39 with Labtrip 18 for 57 pages; Chicago6 10 with Fivestan 45 for 55 pages; Egypet 30 with Iceland 19 for 49 pages, with four batches left, and we agree that I wait until I get back from Italy to return VIENCRAC and YANGTZE, possibly having enough cash from incoming checks to write a LEGITIMATE paycheck to her. Good talk to 12:22PM. Numbly watch "Frisco Jenny" with Ruth Chatterton killing her lawyer who's about to tell her son that he IS her son, who sends her to death for the murder---it also includes a minor representation of the San Francisco quake of 1906. Interrupt at 1:25PM to send another e-mail to Edgardo with ANY Saturday-Sunday time in Italy, fearing he might not be able to join us. Continue with "Central Airport" with Richard Barthelmess NOT wanting to marry Sally Eilers, and then WANTING to marry her after she marries his younger brother. Just plain SILLY! Watch start of "Flying Fleet" with an extremely appealing (and sometimes faggoty, like in the stiff-backed swimming scene) Ramon Novarro, which is mainly a puff-piece for the US Navy Air Fleet. Then leave at 5:35 for the Tuesday Evening Club and a delayed start of "Beyond Stonehenge" because of a Director's meeting with Marjorie running late. The first-time presenter goes AGONIZINGLY slowly, and the questions are TERRIBLE, and it's nice that I saw Callanish, Carnac, and Stonehenge, and the sites at Avebury, Saumur, and three places in Cornwall seem less impressive. I resist asking if he's ever been to Malta. Leave at 7:20 and buy $45.50 from Lot-Less of $3.99 17oz mixed nuts; $6.99 22oz cranberries; $6.99 15oz apricots; $6.99 14oz raw almonds; $3.99 20oz unsalted soynuts; $2.99 7oz pumpkin seeds; $3.99 10oz almond mix with cranberries, papaya, pineapple, and raisins; $1.99 16oz wheat, rye, buckwheat, kamut, spelt, millet, barley, rice rotini springs; $3.99 10oz berry nutty mix with almonds, cashews, peanuts, cherries, cranberries, blueberries, raisins; $3.59 16oz flaxseed meal for adding to oatmeal. Sadly, they had no hoisin sauce, mushrooms, parsley flakes, or onion products. Check out at 7:33 and get to subway at 7:40 and home at 8PM to phone Mildred and confirm tomorrow at 5:30 for science, and slides after so Charles can leave if he wants to. Finish "Flying Fleet" with a toasted muffin with butter, lots of mixed nuts and Pacific Almond mix and a yogurt and get to bed at 12:01AM.
WEDNESDAY, 3/14/12: Look at clock at 1:20AM and 8:12AM, and up at 8:20AM to transcribe incredible DREAMS:3/14/12 to 8:26AM. I feel "jittery inside," "clearly" due to upcoming trip in four day, so I take a valium to ease my day. Catch up with all this, including a detailed list of what I bought at Lot-Less, grateful that Spartacus didn't want anything from there. Check that I got no response from Edgardo yet, and forgot to record that I got no Met Lottery tickets yesterday. Finish with this by 10:10AM, again astounded with the amount of time it takes to keep up with my obsessive detail-listing. Talk to Charles (surprise!) to 10:18AM; he's looking forward to the science, and then is willing to see the Bhutan show again. It might be very successful. Now for breakfast! Load up my oatmeal with lots of stuff from Lot-Less, and feel quite full as I watch "Weekend at the Waldorf." Then go through all five of the "Through the Wormhole" hours, putting the DRV at the best places for the show tonight. Spartacus calls to say that his evening feel through, so he WILL be here for the Bhutan show, and I should call him a half-hour before that starts. Scrub a few black spots off the kitchen floor, and then hook up the laptop to the television screen, covering up the bed and getting ready for 5:30. Charles calls at 5:25 to say he'll be 15 minutes late, having to take a cab and getting here at 5:55. Mildred arrives and sits in the chair as I set up the TV. It goes well, both seeming to get the main points of the five excerpts I show them. Then take them to the bedroom for the half-hour Lisi TED talk on the E8 theory, Ken interrupting by phone, Mildred on the bed listening to the lecture. Back to the final excerpts from the TV, having called Spartacus to say to come over at 7:30. Ken talks about the trip for a bit after they go into the living room to chat. Spartacus arrives just as I get the map on the screen, and the show goes well, except that he sleeps. Phone for pizza about 8:15 and it arrives around 8:45, having to step around the sleeping Spartacus. Not as crisp as before, but the eight slices are perfect for us, except for the smelly anchovies that I flush down the toilet, and we're back to the show about 9PM, Spartacus leaving at 9:50 for a phone call he has to make at 10PM, and we finish just after 10PM when both Mildred and Charles are saying it's very late. I'm exhausted from the day, leave everything as is, and get to bed at 10:44PM.
THURSDAY, 3/15/12: 6:10AM: Wake after exotic dream of "do anything wonderful and that goes into nude photos." Pee and Vicks nose and take a valium. Up, AMAZED, at 9:13AM---so much AGAIN for trying to get a jump on adjusting to jet-lag. Get to Spider from 9:42AM-12:15PM, just ridiculous to 51.5579 at 859 up after 3 wins. Had wanted to watch "The Skin I Live In" before 10AM and get it into the mail, but obviously that's not going to work. Watch it with a late breakfast and slip the movie into the mailbox at 3:10PM when I go to the gym for the penultimate time before the trip. Get out just in time to get to the apartment to change into a warmer coat for the cooling evening, and get out to Sharon a bit late at 4:32, to find that she's on the phone and doesn't call me in until 4:40. Jabbery, nervous session, which goes the just smallest bit longer than 5:15. Back to wash dishes from the previous night and look at lots of junk TV while having a Spam sandwich. Also watch "Game Change," really damaging about Palin's intelligence and arrogance, and get to bed at 11:02PM, mad at myself for not having transcribed Sharon's session.
SHARON B. 208 3/15/12
Get in late at 4:32 and go into her hallway to hear her speaking on the phone. Tell her about the two valiums in the past two days---not that the anxiety for the trip is as great as it was in the past, but I'm SELFISH and I don't want ANY anxiety AT ALL. And she's reminded of the New Yorker cartoon: "But doctor, I still have feelings; I need more medication!" I say that the trip is an easy one, I'll be in towns so I don't have to worry about not being able to buy what I need, and she comes up with the wonderful phrase, "But you'll be outside your comfort zone," and I take that to heart and think of it often later. I DO like the comforts of my apartment, and I'll be leaving them for three weeks! I'm looking forward to the day with Edgardo, which actually became clear only on Saturday, and to seeing new and old sites in Italy. Also concerned that I have NO trips scheduled AFTER this! Talked about the successful "science evening" at my place with Spartacus, Charles, and Mildred. Sharon again tried to tie my "wanting to be anxiety-free" back to my mother, but I couldn't think of any connection, though she seemed to think that very early implantations might still be operative. The session was mostly about my upcoming trip, though I don't remember the details, and even at the end she said I could go over if I wanted since I'd started late, but I couldn't think of anything to add, and she repeated that I was doing something VERY adventurous, for which I deserved credit, and wished me a happy trip.
FRIDAY, 3/16/12: 6:10AM: Shit-read to 6:33AM, note dream of cleaning kitchen and opening a big porn book, and up to j/o 8:04-8:49AM, entering a question mark on my log since I'm not really sure I CAME or not, though there was a bit of pre- or post-cum after a bit. Looked at e-mail (still nothing from Edgardo), canceled Netflix (which I tried that evening, to find to my disgust that it was canceled!), checked my balance at Ridgewood so that I could write a check for $120 against it for HSBC deposit, and talked to Mildred to 9:33AM. Have breakfast and watch "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" to Spider at 1-3:40PM, long and GOOD to 51.56425 at 863 up after 6 wins. Watch more junk TV while having another Spam sandwich (and wonder what I'm going to do with one last unplanned meal before trip), and back to Spider 6:15-6:55PM, to 51.56765 at 865 up after 3 wins, tempting me to continue to 9:05PM (since I have NOTHING BETTER TO DO BEFORE TRIP!) to 51.56872 at 866 up after 6 wins, long and tempting, to continue to 9:35PM to 51.57036 at 865 after 2 wins, shit! Actually CONTINUE to 11:05PM to 867 up, not even bothering with average. More TV with soup for dinner and bed at 12:20AM, feeling awful.
SATURDAY, 3/17/12: Up at 12:45AM with what seemed to be a NOISE at my front door. Pee at 6:50AM, get the Times, and back to bed to get up at 9:27AM, again not good for jet-lag accommodation. Ken calls to bug me about the car service, Leon calls about the Martha Cardona Opera Company hour at the Brooklyn Heights Library at 2PM, and finally Edgardo e-mails me that he and Marina will be flying to Naples early in the morning of Saturdya, March 24, and staying through Sunday, so I go back and forth with Ken about restaurants, Edgardo finally calling to say that he's made reservations at 8:30 for us at Il Continello. I call the car service at 12:20PM for 5:30 service at $75 + tolls; I fill out the Cadman Board ballot by 12:25 and check the Visa bill by 12:30, finding that I have enough in HSBC to send a check. Take all that out before the reasonably pleasant, though strident, hour on the ground floor of the library, and then out to HSBC for my deposit, and to Key Food for lots of groceries, including green beans which I have with my sausage, newly discovered for lunch today and tomorrow. Watch the end of a Julianne Moore movie about a "dead child" just to have something with lunch, take a valium, and then play Spider 5-5:45PM to 51.57132 to 868 up after 4 wins---an ALMOST that seduces me into playing until 10:10PM when I just STOP at 51.55899 at 862 up after 2 wins, disastrous! 11:54PM: Take ambien. Bed 12:03AM, wondering about the sore on the end joint of my right fourth finger?? Put batteries on charge.
SUNDAY, 3/18/12: Phone at 5:28AM? Get up at 5:20 and find that the car service called at 4:43AM, waiting downstairs, and again at 5:13AM, having mistaken my 5PM for 5AM! Up at 7:33AM, get Times, and type DREAMS:3/18/12 to 7:45AM. Clip toenails and fingernails to 8:20, and shave to 8:22AM. Have breakfast, watching "Alice Adams" in part to 9:40, and catch up with this by 10:50PM, getting TWO calls from Ken about HIS getting a car-call at 5:15AM, so I call the CAR service back to find that it IS for 5PM tonight, and it'll be $82.50 on a credit card which I give them to clear for me. Print a few last pages and at LAST I can start on PACKING! Oh, forgot that AWFUL long-term care-bill in the mail yesterday that Mildred agreed to send in for me. What TIMING!!
TRAVEL:ITAPUGLI
MONDAY, 4/9/12: Talk to Spartacus to 10:37PM. Bed at 10:53PM, having weighed myself at 205 pounds. Can't get to sleep immediately, and at 11:01PM comes the thought to j/o, so I cum(?) at 11:35 and get back to bed at 11:55, peeing again to be sure to allow more sleep. Shit, too, and take 1/2 melitonin and two aspirin.
TUESDAY, 4/10/12: 3:10: Type DREAMS:4/10/12. Turn on light to feel slightly like I'm waking still in Italy: the environs feel foreign, retaining an Italian aura. Pee. Back to bed at 3:38AM. 6:24AM: Vaguely hard again, and I try jerking off again, and it just doesn't work. Start watching TV: three "30 Rock" and part of "Mad Men." Leave word with John 9:45AM. Talk to Steve Hayes 9:50-9:57AM; Mildred 9:58-10:18; Carolyn 10:19-10:27; Charles 10:28-10:48. To Spartacus's for my TV remote to 12:15PM. His DVD doesn't work on my Panasonic, nor on my desktop, nor on my laptop. Go through 216 e-mail messages to 1:13PM. Get a call from 1-800-875-0661 that sounds like the "crazy" messages I got while on the trip. Linda talks to me, saying "I'm qualified to earn money at home," and then plays a recording that's the same old shit: "New clients create credit-card billing, generating phone calls on my website," and when David Sharmode comes on to make the final sale, I say that it's like what I refused before, and please remove my name from his list. TV to 3:25PM, trying to have lunch from fruit and nuts container. Mail and lots of Times to 8:35PM. Then dinner with soup and more TV, feeling VERY tired. Bed 10:14PM.
WEDNESDAY, 4/11/12: 3:55AM: Pee and type DREAMS:4/11/12. Read. Back to bed at 4:28AM, taking 1/2 g. melitonin. 7:10AM: Find Visa due 5/7 for $1,486.19. Do 53 Zagat ratings, listing top five as Corton, La Grenouille, Le Bernardin, Gotham, and Henry's End to 8:10AM. Talk to Schwab to 8:35AM. Sent fax for $8,601.71 from Keogh to IRA by 9:30AM. Talk to Mildred 9:31-9:41, watch Bill Mahre on DVR to 11:18 with breakfast, talk to Marj 11:19-11:50AM, order three prescriptions from CVS to 11:57AM; talk to Rita to 12:32PM; Schwab to 12:37AM, being assured they'll do what I want (though they haven't by 7:55PM); and leave word with Spartacus at 12:38. Also agreed to Marjorie Grimm's time-change for my Bhutan show, which I haven't recorded yet and hope I haven't lost---but I can always call her back. Distribute pills to 1:15PM and finish with all the Times, except for three magazines, to 2PM. Watch another "30 Rock," and rest of "Mad Men," including the second part of Episode 1, with a few extras, on AMCTV.COM, with Progresso soup lunch, and leave for the gym at a reduced level at 3:25-4:45, captivated by an absolutely BEAUTIFUL penis on a muscular back and average front and face. Then to CVS who "glitches" with my finasteride, which I'll pick up tomorrow, but at least I have the tamsulosin that I wanted to start today so I don't have to record which pillbox slots remain empty the next time. Do two TV Guide sudokus, having to do the second one over when I goof, and then Spartacus calls back at 7:30PM, when I'm trying to start tuna casserole with rotini from Lots-Less, and finally put it on for its hour at 7:55PM, when I come to start typing NM. Feeling quite tired, but hope to be able to get to bed past 11PM. 8:13PM: Decide to retrieve three other notes I made the past two days. Finish much of this by 8:25PM, deciding to check DVR history---how CONVENIENT!---to see JUST what I watched these days! Finish that, rather sketchy somehow, to 8:33PM. Watch a lot of a wonderful "Frozen Planet" with dinner, still exhausted, and get to bed at 10:57PM.
THURSDAY, 4/12/12: Pee at 4:56AM. Up at 7:02AM and salve feet to 7:06AM. Shit-read to 7:30AM; look at e-mail and get fascinated with the time-line animation of some Chinese brothers, e-mailing their address to Rita, Edgardo, Spartacus, and Don, but when Rita calls on Saturday, it turns out she HAS it already. That takes to 8:15AM and I leave word with Mildred that SHE should see it [Call her 12:40PM Sunday and she says she'll be here 5:45PM]. Breakfast to 9:05, watching more "Frozen Planet," and look through all the New York and New Yorker magazines to 12:10PM, tired already. Then decide to indulge in Spider 12:45-1:35PM, getting to 51.56238 at 864 up after 3 wins. At 1:40PM I check my Schwab site and my IRA has $8,814.24, so I phone them and they assure me they've correctly transferred, for 2012, $5325 into my Keogh, putting the rest into my Schwab One account of $2828.63, so I can pay my April Visa bill with it. Then, just to be sure, I check my John Hancock long-term health care insurance at 2:05PM and am assured I'm paid up to 2013. Mildred calls and talks 3-3:20. Sharon calls to delay my appointment to 4:45PM, and I'm late after I deposit my two checks for $4,151.50 and withdraw $100 by 4:42PM. E-mail her the size-ine site as soon as I get back, but delay finishing writing the session report until SUNDAY, feeling guilty about it. I finish the five hours of "Frozen Planet," watch two hours of Bill Maher, and one more "30 Rock." More tuna for dinner after spending a miserable two hours on Spider to 9:45PM, ending up at 51.5573 at 862 up after 4 wins. Bed at 12:12AM.
SHARON B. 209 4/12/12
Get there over five minutes late, complaining about how tired I still am from the trip. Describe it in some detail: the 41-passenger crowded bus, the seven good companions, lots of wines with raucous dinners, small problems with Ken, though I still value his planning skills. Then confess to my disappointment that I tried to jerk off twice in the past two days and didn't even manage to have an orgasm. She suggests it might partly be fatigue from jet-lag, which I leap to agree with. Chatter on and on, saying nothing much new: how all my friends appreciated my calling them to tell them about my trip, how plans worked out well with the non-tour portion, and how I hope to travel with some of the new friends from the trip. Then mention the size-line, and she gives me her card so I can e-mail her the address. Run a bit over, to 5:35PM, and leave feeling---so what's new?---exhausted.
FRIDAY, 4/13/12: Type DREAMS:4/13/12 at 5:01AM, pee and shit, take 1/2 melitonin, two aspirins, and a Fisherman's Friend; get back to bed at 5:28AM. Get up about 8AM to try to arouse myself with the vacuum pump, partially succeeding, and FINALLY have an orgasm with emitted fluids by 10:20AM. Feel better about that! But then, maddingly, go directly to Spider 10:35AM-1:15PM, absolutely ridiculous, to 51.55465 at 861 up after 4 wins, just BAD! Then have my copious breakfast of oatmeal, soy nuts, pine nuts, cranberries, almonds, and raisins, eating more of the mixed nuts and many of the apricots, which don't seem to have the diarrheal effect they'd had in the past. Get rid of piles of junk from the living room, finish the puzzles from the previous Sunday Times Magazines, and watch "The Cincinnati Kid" and two episodes of "Spartacus," finally getting to bed at 11:30PM, AGAIN having done nothing really useful today.
SATURDAY, 4/14/12: 5:43AM: Pee and type DREAMS:4/14/12. 6:13AM: Up to shit-read, noting that I should add it to my Glossary, and back to bed at 6:40AM. Finally dress at 8:15AM to start my day. Concentrate a long time on the "Titanic" crossword to 10:23AM, have breakfast while watching a trivial "Newsies" from 1992 with a singing-and-dancing Christian Bale playing a 17-year-old, which he may or may not have been. Some of the other kids had remarkably adult bodies, particularly chests and abs. He himself was quite thin and didn't show anything sexy except his smooth face. Stupid choreography too, and I can't believe they're reviving it on Broadway now! Finally finish the somewhat problematic diagramless at 1:55PM after finishing the rest of the Times. Transferred the files from the Neo to WP51 during the movie. Then watched a Nova on the Lost Maya, falling asleep during the last of it; even reporting that to Rita when she called later. Also looked up her "100 foods to eat before you die," and find I had at least 88 of them, not bothering to find whether I may have had some of the names I didn't recognize. Watch yesterday's Bill Maher to catch up with current events. At 7:50PM start transferring thumbnails from my camera to my laptop, then start transferring the 1183 files [started with 1391 at 7:12PM on Friday, looking through the TV set, ending at 8:55PM, taking 1:43 to erase 209 pictures, about 15%,] at 8PM, proofing ITAPUGLI to page 15, line 10, at 3/30/12 to 9:13PM, when the camera files are ready. Edit 9:18-10:43PM to 216/1088, getting rid of another hundred shots, and then CAN'T FIND THE FILE for the shots!! Am I LOSING them? Why are there NO files for 2011 or 2012. Try something called "registering" but only get more and more frustrated, adding other files to the end of the 1088 to make 1234, the which I can't get rid of!! GOT TO CALL OLYMPUS AGAIN. Quit at 11:30PM, TOTALLY DISGUSTED! Bed at 11:47PM, doing a fierce Actualism to quell my anger at the non-working Olympus program.
SUNDAY, 4/15/12: 5:10AM: Pee and type DREAMS:4/15/12 into Neo file 7, since I've already transferred all the Italian dreams from file 8. Then at 6:01AM I can't resist jerking off again, getting my Porn 3 DVD working with NO PROBLEM, and enjoy some of the new images to actually SPURT about 8AM, regardless of the fact that the vacuum pump did little or no good at all. Shit-read some disheartening articles from the Times Week in Review. Have breakfast at 8:40AM while watching some of the excessively coy "Equitrekking," and then ineluctably back to Spider 10-11:57AM, LONG, to 51.55573 at 862 up after 3 wins. Then decide I MUST catch up with my journal, filling up my datebook with the movies from the DVR-watched list, and then phoning Mildred to find she's going to be arriving at 5:45PM this evening. Finally finish this at 1:23PM, happy to have done it at last. Do the sudokus to 2:15 from the Metro paper I picked up to read while getting egg foo yung at China Wall after the gym yesterday. Then tackle the rest of the Times to 2:40, have lunch while watching "The 39 Steps" (second time since 3/11!) to 4:25, then put all the travel stuff away, arranging them for Mildred to look at. Spartacus comes over at 5:25PM on his way to Bob's to pick up two DVDs, one of "Mad Men" that didn't work on my Panasonic. Water plants, clip dead leaves, clean up the whole place for Mildred by 5:35PM, even changing my shirt. Also made a 6:30 reservation for two at Jack the Horse under the name of Popkin. When she doesn't arrive, I finally clip my fingernails, and just as I'm finishing buffing them, she arrives at my door at 5:55PM. She doesn't like the size-line site, and Spartacus drops by to say hello. We leave at 6:25PM and she really doesn't care for the Sobarto burger, and orders collard greens instead of the wonderful French fries. We then look at the house down Hicks that she'd wanted to buy, but the seller wouldn't sell, and then we're around to Willow to look at Oliver Smith's house in which Truman Capote lived, that just sold for $10 or $11 million. Back for her to look at my first 216 Italy shots, but when we get to my unrotated ones, she leaves at 9:05PM. I watch "The Forgotten," good with Julianne Moore, and "Friends with Benefits," with a sexy-bodied---whatever-his-name-is. Bed at 12:42AM, really struggling to stay awake.
MONDAY, 4/16/12: 7:14AM: Type DREAMS:4/16/12 and shit-read to 7:42. 9:27AM: Type second dream to 9:42AM and dress for breakfast after extending Netflix vacation to May 30. But start by playing Spider 9:53-11:50AM, talking to Spartacus on the phone for about twenty minutes between those times. Then call Marj 11:55AM-12:15PM to say she can cash her 4/15 check, and have breakfast from 12:20PM to 2PM, watching "Mad Men" and part of "Peter Pan." Update HSBC checkbook by 2:35, writing a check for Mildred, who called while I was taking to Marj to say she forgot to remind me to give her the check last night. Talk to Marj again 2:35-2:38 to try to get her to accept my SECOND check for her work, but since she already filled out the form, she said I could wait to send the next check. Call Bank of America to get Hector Fernandez to guarantee I'll get no more interest charges if I pay my entire bill; invite Carolyn to the OAT breakfast at the Hilton in May; phone Charles to ask Paul if he also wants to attend the Brooklyn Heights House Tour in May; and phone for Saturday's MAN event. Then try to figure how I could have gotten SIX trips with GoAhead, adding KENTANZ to make four, but can't find the files on FIVESTAN. All this takes an incredible amount of time, and I finish this by 5:45PM, temperature having risen to the high 80s during the day, but it's gone down to 76 by now. Also sent in the OAT "quarterly mailings" form to send, and put all my drugs in my shoulder bag for my trip to Einstein at 9AM tomorrow, eating nothing after 10PM tonight. Phone GoAhead 6:05-6:15PM to find I DO have six trips with them: Spain in 2003, Pacific in 2004, Rome in 2004, Ireland in 2005, Africa in 2006, and Italy in 2012. Decide that FIVESTAN must have been MIR, because I STILL can't find it. Then go to proof the rest of ITAPIGLI to 9:05PM, having been home from the trip for ONE WEEK and five minutes. Update the last day by 9:25PM and decide I have to have dinner, eating to 10:05PM while watching the end of "Peter Pan," really UGLY in many ways: Tinker Bell is a real BRAT, the "love affair" between Wendy and Peter is disquietingly adult and emotion-wracked, and Hook changes so much (until the final credits revel the REAL change: the same actor plays the father!) it's hard to follow his motivations. Bed at 11:25PM, hoping to get up in time for Einstein tomorrow.
TUESDAY, 4/17/12: Pee at 5:55AM and think about things to DO: 1) check Netflix movies [find that all but SIX are now available!]; 2) type up prescriptions, supplements, and "current diet craze" items for Einstein's assistance; 3) Google TOURS for a) Ajanta and Ellora, b) West Africa, c) three National Treasures in China; 4) contact the Mali guy to find current availability for 2013, best time to travel, and prices for three people; 5) complete Actualism list of dates done. Type this to 6:52AM, feeling good about getting things DONE! Decide to type an exhaustive EINSTEIN LIST OF PRESCRIPTIONS AND SUPPLEMENTS, going to 5 prescriptions, supplements to 13, and even add my "current diet craze breakfast." THAT takes about an HOUR, made worse when I keep TRYING to print the page, and it doesn't print, and I panic, assuming something's wrong with the printer, until I discover that I've put the cursor on the first line of a blank page 2, so of course "print page" gets no results. This hassle lasts to 7:40AM. Get dressed to about 8:05AM, fearing I'll be late for my second T-Test interview, and I AM. [THOUGHT I'd started a FILE on T-Test, or Montefiore, but find that I didn't.] Turn left one street EARLY at 8:55AM and go around an ENORMOUS out-of-the-way block before seeing the familiar courtyard entrance, where a woman holds the door open for me. Elevator to floor 4, get announced, and Jason says he'll be taking care of me today. Phlebotomist tries first to draw blood from my left elbow, but it stops. Then there's a problem with the vacuum seal of another vial, and she has to go to my right hand-back for the rest, saying that NEXT time there'll be 26 vials needed! [But, sadly, I'm dropped from the test before that!] Jason has some verbal questions, accepts my medicine list, but then demands to know when I STARTED all these, resulting in my WILD guessing! Then he takes my height, and I'm only 5' 9.5"!!! I'm so astounded he measures me again, and I'm really CRUSHED by my loss of HEIGHT! After I finish my---rather good---scrambled eggs on a large bun, obviating my need for the tasty-looking muffin that they threw away, and apple juice, he gives me four sheets to fill out on sexual and erotic feelings, made complicated by being framed "with partner" when I HAVE no partner. Then they walk me to another building, underground, where they set up a walking course for six minutes, during which I complete what may be TOO MANY circuits---I may be TOO healthy for the study! They ask how I feel, and I dither between 2 (trivial) and 3 (moderate) and settle on 2, AGAIN hoping I'm not moving myself out of the study. Leave at 11:05AM and get home after noon. Spider 12:25-4:10PM, an INCREDIBLE session that takes me to 51.58486, STILL not the highest SCORE, but to 879 up, a 16-level increase over prior session, and a new record "up" after SEVENTEEN wins! Continue with Taipei 4:20-4:45PM. Have a late lunch while watching "Moneyball," not really very good, with an almost expressionless Brad Pitt, and then watch a rather satisfying invented conclusion to Dickens' unfinished "Mystery of Edwin Drood" on Masterpiece. Bed 11:38PM.
WEDNESDAY, 4/18/12: 6:45AM: Type DREAMS:4/18/12; shit-read to 7:16. Up 7:46AM to check Met Lottery: nothing at 7:51AM. Did a SQUIDOO lens to 8:40. Did a BUCKLIST, of travels I want to do, by 8:44AM. Then played Spider 8:45-9:35AM to 51.58824, only .00001 short of the record 51.58825 on 2/22, to 881 up after 3 wins, stopping even though SO CLOSE! Check Audience Extras and find "The Lyons" is on at the Cort for 2PM, saying to pick up by 1PM. She steals the show: she's so important she doesn't even have an understudy: if she's out, they'll just cancel the performance! Get home and then out to deposit my $7,334 IRS refund at 4:39PM. Bought $59.85 in groceries at Key Food at 5:09PM, going after I found that HSBC was closed at 4PM and I couldn't get my Income statement notarized there. More Spider 6:30-10:30PM to a HIGHEST EVER of 51.5907 at 883 up after 6 wins. Maybe I can LEAVE IT ALONE for awhile? Probably junk TV then. Bed 12:53AM.
THURSDAY, 4/19/12: 6:33AM: Type DREAMS:4/19/12 and pee. Up 9:04AM. Travel-file search to 10:15, finding that Five Stans and TURKEAST were both MIR. Make list of not-seen UN flags to 11:10AM. Update MTP to 410 destinations; I rank #102, to 11:30AM. Make map of "Yet-to-travel" world to 11:57AM. Breakfast to 1PM, Taipei to 1:20PM, proof ITAPUGLI dreams to 2:08PM. Start Summary Page, but decide that I need to supplement ITAPUGLI with names of hotels and restaurants. But to do that, I have to do expenses, so I call Mildred for advice, we argue, but agree to meet at Lexington Candy Shop at 5:45PM so I can give her her check for my long-term insurance payment. I'm late out of Sharon at 5:20, and don't get there until 6:03, but she had her sudoku to play with. She likes this burger better than the one at Jack the Horse, and refuses to get a milkshake because she's on a diet. Leave as it closes at 7PM, home at 7:30 to find a note from Carolyn: she's at an ICOPE meeting in the conference room. I go in, find her, have a chocolate cookie and a glass of sparkling apple cider, and then go upstairs, where she joins me about 8PM to look through my Paestum book and other souvenirs, then looks at slides until they're not edited, and she leaves just after 9PM. I watch the first two acts of "Rodelinda" and get to bed at 12:49AM.
SHARON B. 210 4/19/12
Again get there a few minutes late, and I'm at the corner of the tiny hallway to her office when she comes out, for the first time, she says, to get me. My first complaint is my depression and control-less sadness about being informed that my height is now only five feet, nine-and-a-half inches. She can only frown and sympathize with me---there's no getting around THIS fact. She asks about scoliosis, and I say that some prior X-ray DID reveal that I have slight scoliosis, and this might be accelerating---to decelerate my height! Then go into the items left from my trip, telling about my phone conversation with Mildred, who insists I do it HER way and refuses to listen to me as I explain MY way which is EXACTLY as honest and correct as HER way---at least we're meeting for dinner: I did NOT cancel it, as I was tempted to do, just because she refused to listen to me, insisting that she loved me, saying that she really DID want to have dinner with me. Sharon and I laugh about her recalcitrance. I say that I feel I STILL haven't recovered from jet-lag, though it's been almost two weeks. [And I have yet to receive the call from Ken on Saturday, complaining that HE still feels that he hasn't recovered fully from the trip---we're BOTH aging too fast for our contentment.] Maybe I mentioned that I DID have one orgasm with fluid release after I complained last time about that not happening. But another try SINCE then was also rather disappointing. Mentioned my last street encounter with Tina, ages ago, and my recent call to get information about my possible trip to Dominica, Grenada, and St. Kitts-Nevis. [IS Grenada where the volcano erupted? No, Montserrat.] Again, I jabbered most of the time, though I do recall periods of morosely staring at the floor wondering what to say next. Essentially active session until I left at 5:17PM to be almost twenty minutes late in meeting Mildred.
FRIDAY, 4/20/12: Up 8:05AM and note DREAMS:4/20/12. Make a do-list that I ignore: 1) call Olympus, 2) look up three islands on Google [well, that I DO do], 3) Steve: Brooklyn Heights House Tour? [and he says YES!], 4) Fred: leave word on House Tour [and he hasn't called back by Monday, 9PM], 5) Corella Ballet 8PM [which I forget about, looking at clock at 7:45PM and saying "Oops, I missed it!"]. Shit-read to 8:34AM. Up at 8:53AM: head STUFFED with snot! Make a Friday-Do list: 0) cum to 10AM, actually rather effectively, playing with the edge and producing fluid at the cum, 1) breakfast and the last act of "Rodelinda" to 11:56AM. 2) make DiMattia appointment by 12:01PM, 3) call Charles with the Met schedule for next season, and we decide on "Tempest" by Ades and "Giulio Cesare" by Handel, 4) check Edge at 2:45PM and it has NO slide files; laptop has 1, 2, 15, 16, 18, 22 or Bhutan1, but no FILES! Decide to incorporate Marj's corrections to the latest travel files. At 3:38 Edouardo calls: he's in NYC next week. 5) pay Spartacus by check for Le Bernardin with Fred of $268.82, and he'll return $50 when his Visa is credited with it, going to his place on the way to the bank, where the Notary was sick, 5) so I went to the Notary at 26 Court Street for the $2 fee and deposited my Cadman Towers income statement with a strange male secretary, who gives me a copy for my files by 2:30PM, and 6) leave word with Steve and Fred about the Brooklyn Heights House Tour. Rest of day is a blank: just know that I was playing HOURS of unrecorded Taipei and Solitaire by 7:45PM when I looked at clock and realized I'd missed the last performance of the Corella Ballet. Tough. Bed at 12:15AM.