2012
SATURDAY, 4/21/12: Pee; enter DREAMS:4/21/12 into Neo at 5:27AM, and start typing in NM at 5:56AM: Mind and world in a turmoil. 1) Depressed to see that my last entry here was four days ago. 2) Almost messed up WP51 again by retrieving another copy of it when I already had ITAPUGLI on TWO screens from yesterday---but I said "Yes, there's another copy running" and called it WWP, and exited---leaving the original WP51 unharmed, yet finding no evidence of WWP in C:\ directory---another frustratingly unsolved mystery. 3) Yesterday took minutes AGAIN looking through all the file drawers to try to find the sheaf of Marj's notes from past travel files---could I ACTUALLY have thrown them out, either intentionally or unintentionally? Try to look at the situation dispassionately: if I DID throw them out, is it really THAT important? I've made whatever corrections I made (true, some notes that I may have jotted MAY have improved the diction of the entries, had I gone back to MAKE MORE corrections to the files---but NEVER will the files be PERFECT, and they're BETTER now than they were BEFORE, and that's the whole IDEA of having Marj proofread), the files are (mostly) on the website, and I COULD consider THAT to be THAT! 4) Yesterday also showed digital shots to be in WORSE condition than I'd even feared: the Edge hard-drive appears to have LOST almost EVERYTHING. I DON'T know what I've managed to save on two DVDs, or even if those DVDs will be able to be read. And the Dell LAPTOP seems to be missing more than I'd thought! And I still haven't called the Olympus "savior" (heaven KNOWS how horrible I'll feel if he's actually LEFT!) to help me define "albums" versus "files," and "transferring" files versus "registering" files. 5) At least I managed to a) give Spartacus his $238.82 check, b) get the notarized income statement to the Cadman office---with a new guy that I'd never seen before making me a copy, c) leave messages with Steve and Fred, asking them if they wanted to join me on the Brooklyn Heights House Tour, d) meet Bill Petersen and his sexy helper sitting on the flower-wall at Cadman Plaza and Pierrepont, where Fred Mackechnie strolled past, saying he'd left his apartment at 8AM and wouldn't be back until 7PM and thus hasn't gotten any call from Charles yet, e) made a dental appointment, and f) got a list of two operas that Charles and I want to see in the NEXT Met season. 6) Yet-to-be-traveled world is scattered all over the place: good work done on it, but I need to find a PLACE for all the material. 7) Former trips still scattered over the dining room table, waiting to be put away. 8) ITAPUGLI still needs a summary page. 9) Trip expenses still have to be balanced to find out how much Ken owes me and how much the whole trip actually cost me. 10) At 6:14AM I check e-mail to find no message from Tina or Cadman Travel yet about my query about travel to Dominica, Grenada, and St. Kitts-Nevis; also, I haven't checked them on Google yet, though PAST articles on Dominica that I retrieved from the "travel" files in the four-file unit atop my dressed have been depressing in noting how difficult the eight-hour walk to some Boiling Lake had been in the past, and I can only hope that they've paved it, or put in a zip line, or found a way for mules to carry aged tourists in, or trained "natives" to CARRY aged tourists on palanquins! 11) From those four-file units I ALSO found a) two sets of IBM RTW itineraries and notes that I put out to help me get my website for IBM RTW into better shape (well, actually, found THOSE in my four-up file when looking for Marj's old pages), b) more travel folders to look through, c) a TON of play manuscripts to be sorted for the website, d) another copy of INDEXING HANDBOOK to make me want to handle THAT, too. 12) STILL haven't found CDs or DVDs that operate properly on the Dell laptop: which prompted me to play ENDLESS unrecorded Solitaire just to allay my sense of frustration at the end of yesterday---when at 7:45PM I discovered that I certainly WASN'T going to see the last performance of the Corella Ballet at the City Center! 13) Piles of stuff in my apartment are still depressing, in that I've not handled them yet. 14) More and more I'm encountering a "but it doesn't do any good" attitude when I think to try Actualism, which is TOTALLY depressing! That, actually, is what got me out of bed to type this, rather than try to enter into an Actualism session after I peed (not very much), worried about problems from not microwaving the Marie Callendar meat-loaf dinner well enough last night, finding that the Times had not yet arrived. Well, now, tired enough from typing, nose dripping, back sore, eyes gummed, at 6:27AM, I can release myself from the computer and get back to bed, trying again to pee, blow my nose, and see if the Times has arrived YET. It has, but I get back to bed at 6:30 and get up at 9:50AM. Shave in preparation for this evening's MAN event. Read the Times and do both interesting puzzles to 2PM, lunch to 2:50PM. Record Taipei 2:50-4PM, though I played before without recording anything. Get to the gym, finally doing the full-strength workout with great effort, and get back home at 6:10PM, fuss with a few things before leaving for MAN at 7:10PM. Get to the tenth floor about 7:45PM for the MAN meeting, and get directed to the actual theater space to take off my clothes. Reserve a seat for myself in the first row, somewhat to the side, and go out to get a glass and try the Malbec, not very good, and settle for two glasses of Pinot Grigio with pretzels and a bit later some celery with the tasty dip, trying to make up for dinner. Can't take food or drink into the theater. Get a wine refill, almost spilling it, and talk with Dennis about the "gourmet food" available. [STILL no Netflix queue at 7:36AM 4/23!] "The Portal" starts in complete darkness, and then a dim spot comes up right in front of me, showing two naked men 69ing with blue curved shapes taped to their bodies and legs. Slowly, other areas of bodies are illuminated, and all move slowly back and forth for too long a time, before active dancing starts, highlighted by a thin-faced man with fur on his costume and a flesh-colored jock-strap who shows some skills at spinning and leaping. It seems to become a "brown primitive" culture against a "blue ethereal" culture, interrupted by a militant hunk in camouflage pants who seems determined to do something indeterminant. [Looking for the program, I seem to have neglected to bring it home!] The guy next to me says "I hope it's over?" about three minutes before it IS over, about 8:50. The young cutie seems to hang around afterward, open to questions, and I GUESS he's the one Dennis questioned and then Googled to find he's MUCH older than he looks! Frank puts out cheese after, and I have more wine, and more pretzels, and more celery and dip, and more wine, until I'm watching the tall black friend of the director in his wonderful dancing. Talk to Ollis, or whoever the director is, about Michael Mao losing all his money with a failed "Firecracker" in Shanghai a number of years ago, but he insists Mike still has an office in "the back of Carnegie Hall." [Google has lots on him; just missed 4/21-22 performances! But nothing of his current status or studio.] Amazed myself by staying around until 11:05PM, getting home just before midnight, finally using my umbrella against the rain while coming in the back door. Shit my pants and have to rinse out my shorts before getting to bed, TOTALLY PLOTZED, as 12:22AM.
SUNDAY, 4/22/12: Pee at 6:27AM, grand hangover; take three aspirin; get Times. Up, still exhausted, at 10:18AM. Salve feet; talc groin; take two acet; and get a call from Steve that he WILL go on the house tour! Get through the Sunday Times and leave at 1:10PM to get to St. Luke's, in the rain, for a hyperactive "Danny and Sylvia: The Danny Kaye Musical," with Brian Childers trying a bit too hard, and sweating much too much, as Danny Kaye, and Kimberly Faye Greenberg playing a rather unpleasant villainess as Sylvia Fine. The audience went along with the sing-alongs, but I didn't, and was happy that it was over at 3:50PM. Out to Shake Shack, always surprised to find it as low as 44th Street, and have a Shake Burger and a caramel shake for $10.40. A-train on the F-line, which means I have to double back at Jay Street. Try to stay up, but just feel that I MUST lie down 5:20-6:15PM, and then up for more depressing Spider 6:15-9:45PM to 51.58955, staying constant at 883 up, but slipping back on score after 3 wins, JUST TOO LONG. Then watch a rather dreadful "Birdsong," Michael MacFayden, or whoever, just not magnetic enough to carry such DEAD direction of blank stares held UNCONSCIONABLY long. And Spartacus didn't even realize that his "conquest" was the guy's SECOND wife and NOT the mother of the elderly chidren from the first marriage. Dinner of lentil soup carried my through, but though I felt EXHAUSTED, I just HAD to use all my implements on my teeth from 12:01-12:20AM, bleeding much too much and hurting equivalently. Bed at 12:32AM, feeling just AWFUL.
MONDAY, 4/23/12: 5:53AM: Type DREAMS:4/23/12 and pee, but can't get back to sleep, so I just get up at 6:50AM, not GIVING a damn how I'll feel during the day. 7:11AM: Is there no end of problems? Can't sleep, so I get up and try e-mail---nothing from Susie about House Tour. Try Netflix, and it takes three tries to restore account---and then there's nothing in my queues! Have to do laundry, but remind myself that I want to get a card that WORKS first. Have to buy new shoes soon. Need to add toilet paper to my shopping list. Want to start on NM, but all I can think to do is this. What if I put this on hold and go back to Netflix? No, not there yet. Have faith that just waiting will restore my queue. If not, what an INCREDIBLE pain to get it all back!! But it MUST be there, somewhere!! Let's try adding Thursday's session with Sharon. Do that, and other things, including Michael Mao Dance, to 8:10AM, when I stop for breakfast. Watch "Rango" on Netflix, happy that THAT works, and skim through "Stark Raving Mad," just to see if Seann William Scott ever takes off his shirt, and he doesn't, so it's just as well that I didn't watch it. Only two operas on the Met Lottery this week. Then to Spider 10:45AM-1:08PM, FINALLY getting up to 51.59398 at 886 up after 9 wins, the best EVER, but really taking too long. To make matters worse, then I go to Taipei and play right through to 4:05PM, going through cycle after cycle, so rapidly that when I get to a "familiar" pattern, I think, "Oh, I thought I'd just DONE that," but after the fourth or fifth time, it all runs together. During that time I talked with Spartacus, confessing to feeling jaded and not interested in much, having missed going to the Corella Ballet---I implied it was my choice, rather than looking up from Spider at the clock to see that it was 7:45PM already. AND got a call from the T-Test Jason, saying that my hemoglobin was high in my last test, and since testosterone increases hemoglobin, I was out of range for the test. So, naturally, immediately I phoned to try to register for the Resveratrol Study, and she said she'd get back to me in a few days. By that time, my Netflix queue WAS back, thank goodness, later finding that I'm getting [had to go back to e-mail TWICE to check that the title is] "Rise of the Planet of the Apes" for Tuesday. Watched an episode each of "The Borgias" and "Mad Men." Then had dinner with another ferociously undercooked Marie Callendar dinner---and I wonder why my bowels are acting strangely. DO bring myself to give my teeth a THOROUGH cleaning, happy that it's not NEARLY as bloody today as it was, traumatically so, yesterday when I started. But there are still two or three VERY sensitive spots. Had dinner while watching "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," which would have been super on a big screen in 3-D, though, even here, the plotting was sometimes less than perfectly clear: what a nine-year-old would make of it I couldn't say. Type this now at 8:35PM, having decided AGAINST going immediately to bed. First try catching up on some NM notes, at least finishing ONE note from Saturday and Sunday by 8:54PM. Finish two more by 9:30PM: This just takes AGES! Put Spider and Taipei record-cards away at 9:52PM. Can't find bedtimes for TWO DAYS last week: probably buried on my desk somewhere. Finish this, exhausted, needing to shit, by 10:30PM, really ready for bed. Aware of MANY pages to type! Get to bed at 10:43PM without dinner, in order to protect the "cleanth" of my teeth.
TUESDAY, 4/24/12: Lie awake, starting Actualism, to 12:30AM and finally doze off. Cough, waking, and pee at 2:23AM, feet swollen. Pee at 7:26AM, start a desultory Actualism to 8:30, when I get up to clip toenails to 8:50, wash glasses and tighten ear piece, and catch up with this by 8:57AM, ready for a PRODUCTIVE day: ITAPUGLI expenses and gym AT LEAST! Breakfast reading New Yorker to 9:50AM, and finally get finished with accounts at 12:20PM; check to find that I'm on Met waiting list for Makropulos Case on Friday, and LW with Fred if he wants to join me IF I get seats for $25. Now to CLEAR DESK! Send Visa bill at 12:35PM and decide to go to the gym, which actually works rather well: maybe I'm finished with jet-lag at last? Beautiful gray-eyed guy exchanges long looks with me. Hope springing? Get and go through mail by 3:20PM and find I have nothing but tuna left for lunch: GOT to go shopping for more, and GOT to put on the three-pound pork roast. So I have my toasted curried tuna while watching "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," not that good, because, as I tell Spartacus, when the special effects are SO well done, they just appear NORMAL. Edouardo calls at 5:05PM, just as movie's finishing, saying he and a friend are going to the River Cafe at 6PM, would I join them for a drink? Sure. Then Spartacus calls and I invite HIM along, too. We meet after I put "Rise" in the mail, and check out the new Mexican menu at 5 Front Street, and see that Grimaldi's has moved into 1 Front. River Cafe won't let Spartacus in without a jacket, and later, perversely, says the Terrace Room is open for more casual customers, but with a $25/person minimum. He gives me the brochures he'd brought for Edu, and I go into the bar to order a Prosecco, making a dinner reservation for three for Caverzasi in case they want to try eating here. When they don't show up by 6:35, I think something MUST be wrong, and, sure enough, there they are in the Terrace Room, thinking THAT was the bar, and wondering what happened to ME. Edu's been shaved for about six years now, his friend-since-age-four tells me, and the conversation is cheerful; they pour me wine from their $72 bottle, and Edu insists on taking the whole over-$100 bill, including my $11 (or $14) Prosecco. He's hungry, we're talking about Italian pizzas, so they agree to stop at Fascati's, which is particularly good and crisp and flat tonight, thank goodness, and they both like it. The pepperoni slice serves as my dinner, with my Prosecco and wine appetizers. Since the friend, whose name I didn't get, is leaving tomorrow, I invite them up to see my place---Edu remembering only my Hicks Street apartment from the seven-person takeover in 1992, when he was 11. They're impressed, and Edu says he'll call again when his girlfriend arrives by Saturday to let her get a look at my place. Fred calls to say he'd love to go to Makropolus. Phone Spartacus to tell him the comedy of errors, and he extends it by saying that he greeted a pair of Italian men looking at a guide book, one of them bald, but they were from Salerno, not Milan! Take a valium at 9:15 for Goldberger tomorrow, just in case, then watch "Get Your Stuff," gay nonsense on Roku, and an episode of "South Park" and get to bed at 11:23PM, again having laboriously cleaned my teeth for tomorrow. Get up to salve my feet, and get to bed at 11:26PM.
WEDNESDAY, 4/25/12: Up at 8:14AM! 8:48 sleep straight through! Shit-read to 8:40AM. Up at 9:24AM, almost TEN HOURS---minus over half-hour shit-read. Pluck ear hairs to 9:40, check e-mail, watch part of Frontline on "Money, Power, and Wall Street," TOTALLY damning, and leave for Goldberger at 10:47AM, getting into her office at 11, chatting to 11:15, and getting a PERFECT bill of tooth-health, including x-ray check and front-filling probe---for $280!! Perhaps worth it? Shop for extras at Key Food to 12:40PM, have brunch of lovely warm, tender roast chicken to 1:15PM, and catch up with printing five NOTEBOOK M pages by 2PM. Now to check DREAMS I. Print 8 DREAMS I pages, finding many typos in pages I'd already proofed, by 2:43PM. Then decide to tackle ITAPUGLIA itself, getting names of places, hotels, and restaurants from Ken's itinerary and from various guidebooks. Keep going, adding to the Summary Page and printing out each page, finding a number of typos to make the re-proofing seem worthwhile. Finally print out all 33 pages, with the Summary Page following two lines of the last day---just too lazy to make it come out perfectly---and ending right at the last line. Had hoped that this page was close enough to the end so that I could print IT out and clear the printer of ITAPUGLIA, but it's not to be, now at 8:15PM, as I finish this to date and marvel that I haven't had pressure to eat dinner after my not-that-copious chicken brunch that ended at 1:15. Maybe I can start on my reducing again, depressed that my weight hasn't gone below 202 each morning that I hopefully weighed myself. Oh, just reminded myself to phone Leon to say I'm seeing an opera Friday night, so I can't see the B-Minor Mass. No answer after about ten rings? Hope nothing's wrong. DID phone the Met at 5:03PM and GOT two orchestra seats for Friday's "Makropolus Case," phoning Fred to let him know we've got them. GREAT! Also, feel sorry for poor Edu, phoning to ask if I could make a matinee at 2PM because his girlfriend hadn't gotten to town as early as he'd hoped. Tried Brazels' number again, still no answer at 8:18PM. The floor around the base of my desk is still a mess. Lovely last-light in the sky, darker than last night when Edu and his friend enjoyed it so much---despite my first taking a picture of them which was largely obscured by my thumb! AND, I guess, Marj hasn't gotten my package that I put in the mail late Saturday, which SHOULD have arrived today! And I CLEAR printer of ITAPUGLI! Printed out a total of FORTY-EIGHT pages, changing the ribbon in the middle of ITAPUGLI. Watch end of "Frontline" on Money, Power, and Wall Street, with two more hours to come. Use Roku to watch two episodes of "Lilyhammer," still amusing with Steve Van Zandt obviously clearly in charge of production and effect. Bed 11:14PM.
THURSDAY, 4/26/12: 12:55AM: Type first of DREAMS:4/26/12. Take some almonds and dates to have SOMETHING on my stomach but for minestrone I had at 8:20PM after chicken brunch at 1:15PM. Drink water and pee. Weigh myself, disgusted at 204#. Start Actualism, but fall asleep. 5:05AM: Type second dream onto Neo, and pee, and weigh myself at 202#. Drink water, sky JUST brigtening toward dawn, and back to bed at 5:17AM, starting Actualism again. Feel, somehow, that this is all PORTENTOUS. Do a COMPLETE Actualism, obsessing on the name of the physicist who advocated megadoses of vitamin C, and get up at 6:40AM to look at risen sun and Google Linus Pauling. Meticulously catch this up-to-date by 7:07AM, ready for another productive day, starting with going down for the mail. All that's there are the directions for my Resveratrol test. I check HSBC balance to 7:50AM, distribute pills to 8:20AM, have breakfast and watch an episode of "Lilyhammer" to 9:10AM, shift FRANFOOD and FIVESTANS and ITAPUGLI to 9L35AM, fill in calendar to 10:13AM, fingers STIFF. Sort stuff into ten piles, and call Leon (tickets gone; good I didn't want any) to 10:45AM. Play Taipei to 12:30PM. Sort ITAPUGLI stuff to 1:10; put on pork roast. Look at 5500-EZ 1:25-2:08PM, finding I don't have to fill it out because my combination Keogh and IRA funds are under $250,000. Do Spider 1:35-3:40PM to new high of 51.59863 at 889 up after 5 wins. Have FABULOUS pork and corn meal to 4:25PM, leave word with Spartacus about how wonderful it was, and talk to Mildred to 4:37PM. Then play Solitaire to 6PM, watch the last four episodes of "Lilyhammer," and a LIVE "30 Rock" episode to 9:35PM, deciding I can go to bed early---messing up the kitchen by SPILLING a half-container of apple juice over the floor---and Charles calls to say he won't be able to make Carolyn's party Saturday; I insist that HE must call and tell her. Spartacus calls and we talk about my food, and I finish with this at 9:53PM, figuring to get to bed around 10PM and get up about 6AM, with the sun. Bed 10:20PM.
FRIDAY, 4/27/12: 6:09AM: Pee and type DREAMS:4/27/12. Back to bed 6:23AM, not "awake" yet. Do good Actualism to 7:09AM, and up to j/o to 7:55AM. Phone for Chin appointment on MAY 27, over SEVEN MONTHS since my last, 10/21/11, appointment! But at least I DID it, and catch up with this by 8:16AM, ready for my OLYMPUS-SOLVE day! Breakfast, then start Olympus at 9:35AM, changing printer-paper box to 10:10AM. Disk 106:DESKTOP/2011 not responding 3-5 times, but put it in E, hit EDGE, and E:2011 comes on! Copy 2011 to EDGE; preparing to copy at 10:18AM. 10:19 will replace? copy? Yes. 121 minutes remaining, then 220, then 25, down to 8, back up to 167 through the next hour to 1:11. Talk to Olympus from 11:50AM-12:07PM: right-click on thumbnail to delete DUPLICATE. In ALBUM, select ALL, right-click on thumbnail, check box UNCHANGED. Thumbnail only on xfer on RERUN. Talk to Marj 2:51-3:37, seemed endless. To LAPTOP, and transfer 2011/05 to 12:27; 2011/06 to 1:12, /07 to 2:52, and /08 BEYOND my going to opera, to 2137 files! Bhutan 3 is 327 "to monkey;" Bhutan 1 is 248 "to monkey." New album 2 is 63 first of FIVESTAN. To #514 at 2:27PM, GET Marj, then lunch to 2:47. BACK at 3:38. START 1183, add 46 MORE. To #871 at 5:15PM, to 506 at 7:15PM. P319006.JPG. Back to Olympus, click on CLOCK to get new listings for 2011. To "Makropolus Case" and pick up tickets, Fred shows up in jeans at 8:10, production is gripping, and soprano looks better than she did at her recital. Over at 11:15, but thank goodness the train stops at Clark Street. Bed 12:27AM.
SATURDAY, 4/28/12: 3:46AM: Pee, TWICE. 7:17AM: Type DREAMS:4/28/12, get Times, shit-read to 7:56AM. Up 8:52AM. Start extra puzzle, call Carolyn and agree to meet at 11:30AM inside gate. Leave 11:10, wait for her until 11:45, and then tour the Cherry Blossom Festival myself: female Taiko drummers, few blossoms left on trees, lots of people paying $10 and more for entry. Sit a bit watching fish, then meet Carolyn about 1PM at entrance, getting home at 2PM to cook pork for her with peas and applesauce. Then she watches ITAPUGLI until she starts nodding at 3PM, then leaves. Then I do the puzzles and finish the Times, and watch a few episodes of South Park. Then eat, watch Bill Maher, and do Spider 10:40PM-2:07AM to 51.60119 at 891 up after 4 wins, BEST EVER. Get to bed at 2:26AM.
SUNDAY, 4/29/12: 8:09AM: Pee, get Times, drink water, weigh 199#! Actualism 8:50-9:10AM, then j/o to 10, not really cuming. Then find bleach and soap and do laundry in two washers, having breakfast between washing cycle and drying cycle, to 1PM, putting coloreds away before bringing up whites. Leave on bed. Read Times, have early lunch, edit ITAPUGLI 2:48-3:38PM to #663, watch "Thor," actually pretty good for that genre, and get to gym at 5:25PM; back at 7PM to catch up with NM to 7:35PM, watching sun set at 7:50PM behind Wall Street buildings. Play Taipei 7:45-9PM, winning many. Watch Nurse Jackie (3) and Mad Men and get to bed at 12:28AM.
MONDAY, 4/30/12: 8:25AM: Almost 8 hours, with a TON of water drunk before bed. Type DREAMS:4/30/12 and pee at 8:31AM, MORE than 8 hours. Shit-read, without shitting, to 9:01AM and, still tired, back to bed. Actualism, strong, to 9:21AM. Up at 9:23, determined to have a productive day, taking care of FOUR piles: 1) laundry out, 2) buy light-tubes, 3) buy shoes, 4) get haircut, particularly to clear out my folliculitis site for my new dermatologist on Wednesday. Start a Monday-Do list: 1) Met lottery 10:30AM. 2) LW Tina: got my e-mail? 10:33AM: She's in around 11:30AM. 3) Laundry/lights/shoes/haircut to 12:30PM, 4) Lufthansa, enter data for four flights, get credited for last three, phone at 1:02PM to be told "wait ten days: flight operated by United," to 1:07. 5) Bring NM to date by 1:17PM, feeling GOOD! Start ASME index at 1:25, stopping for lunch 3:35-4:20, and finish at 6:30PM, able to put the whole stack back on the shelf, ready for the new pages mid-May. That reduces the number of piles to an extraordinary THREE: 1) slides, 2) website, 3) trip, which breaks into Tuesday's THREE tasks: a) finish editing show, b) photos to travel people from trip, c) take trip-pile off table! Celebrate by playing Spider 6:52-8:35PM, on new card #79, ending at a new high of 51.60421 at 893 up after 2 wins! Continue to Taipei 8:35-10PM, winning about half. Then have dinner of Progresso soup and two slices of buttered toast and a yogurt while watching "Water for Elephants," reasonably effective with Reese Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson not really having much chemistry. Bed 12:55AM.
TUESDAY, 5/1/12: 8:22AM: Shit-read (and it IS shit: the New York magazine's scandal issue) to 8:28AM. Actualism 9:15-9:35, looking for ENERGY to do today's tasks, starting with changing to the May calendar sheet and catching up with this to 9:50AM, ready for breakfast and the start of a PRODUCTIVE day! Check e-mail to 9:55AM. Breakfast to 10:55AM. Edit the ITAPUGLI show down to 775 shots, finished until Ken sees what he wants to save from it. Take down the numbers of the two slides I want to send to Edgardo, the three for the group of five, adding Ken, and the one for Elaine. Weed out all extraneous cocks to 2012\03\07. That takes to 12:25PM. No Met Lottery tickets. Send pix to EIGHT people by 1PM, and talk to Mildred 1:05-1:42PM, starting with Bank of America tender, ending with her not knowing what to do with another million. Would that I could tell her! She wants to join Ken, so I phone him at work and he says he'll let me know as soon as he can. I slavishly finish this by 1:50PM and glory with TWO PILES: 1) Scan slides, 2) Website! FANTASTIC!!! Go down for the mail, getting my check from Ken, and scanning New York magazine to 2:55PM. Then have the last of the pork roast, more peas, and the last ear of corn, something of which gives me a bit of the shits and a breath that smells of pork. That goes to 4PM, when I CANNOT think of doing more good stuff, so I play Spider 4-5:20PM, ending at BEST AGAIN at 51.60745 at 895 up after 3 wins, and then continue with Taipei 5:20-:15PM, and then indulge in Solitaire 6:15-8:50PM, well into darkness, and check e-mail to be DELIGHTED to get a response from Manny AND a response from Tina, saying all three islands have an air price of $1385, remarkably close to what I have from Bank of America, BUT it should be before mid-June, when hurricane season starts. I e-mail Steve with the news, saying it's MUCH too soon, but EVEN IF HE SAYS NO I might be tempted!!! I can't resist keeping up with this, printing out another NM page, by 9:06PM, ready to relax with TV for the rest of the evening, maybe with soup---realizing that I LIED about last night's dinner: I didn't have soup, I had an ear of corn! But there's no more corn, so TONIGHT will be soup! AND I GLORY ON MY ONLY-TWO PILES!!! Watch second part of totally depressing "Birdsong" and not-much-less depressing "Jesse Owens." Bed at 12:09AM.
WEDNESDAY, 5/2/12: 2:10AM: Pee and type DREAMS:5/2/12. 8:08AM: Pee again and type another dream. Up at 8:43AM and shit-read to 9:05. Check e-mail and at 9:19AM send a response to Tina saying that it sounds fine, how about an itinerary starting 6/4, do I need visas or health vaccines, can I use Bank of America points for mileage, how about hotels and a possible itinerary, and are you or someone else handling it. Then Mildred calls to accept Saturday's ITAPUGLI show with Ken, and I read her my three e-mails with Tina, and she can't think of anything to add except complaints. Finish with her and with this at 9:40AM, raining slightly out for my 11:30AM dermatology appointment. Watch start of second part of "Money, Power and Wall Street" with breakfast to 11AM, and get to Dr. Ebede for MEDICAL:5/2/12. Home and finish this, ever punctual, at 1PM. Do Taipei 1-2PM, then Solitaire 2-2:35PM. Have lunch with the second Frontline for "Money, Power and Wall Street," and continue with "The Borgias" and "Conan the Barbarian" with Momoa big-chested and cut-ab'ed, but not much else to 6:55PM. Back to Spider 7:05-8:45PM to 51.61591 at 900 up after 2 wins, again the highest. Two episodes of "Game of Thrones," which I'm not really following, and bed at 11:28AM to be up before 8AM for getting to Einstein by 9:30AM.
THURSDAY, 5/3/12: Pee at 2:57AM and type first of DREAMS:5/3/12. Pee again at 6AM and type second dream, and pee again at 6:55, obviously nervous about the Resveratrol appointment. Decide to see if I can book flights for the Caribbean trip with my credit card, and start with Bank of America by mistake, but then look for my Chase credit card in the "Chase" slot in the black shelves, before realizing it's in the SAPPHIRE slot two place below! But by the time I enter all eight segments, and get "can't do it" thunk, and phone Chase to have her say she'll enter it to see what's wrong, it's 7:55AM and I have to get on my way to MEDICAL:5/3/12. That takes from 8:05AM-1:40PM, with five more visits if I take the whole course for $300. She'll call me in a week. Get a call from Robert Workoff, who drops the bombshell that index pages may not be ready until June 1! So I cancel my trip with Tina: hoping to do it IN May next year, which is the better time, and WITH someone, and WITH the improvements she notes in two e-mails that I read after I talk with her. Have brunch. Then phone Marj to 3:05PM, talking about the five trips she has left to do; leave word with Mildred; and talk to Spartacus to 3:23. Play Spider 3:25-4:05PM to 51.61753 to 901 up after 2 wins, again highest. Leave early for Sharon, sitting in office to read at 4:20PM. Good session to 5:17, stop at CVS to pick up two prescriptions from Ebede (Ay-BED-Ay), then play Taipei 5:45-6:45PM and cook up awful sausage, underdone and hopefully not dangerous, while watching "Super 8," a kind of rip-off ET. Determined to finish the difficult TV Guide sudoku and finally finish it, feeling very tired, and get to bed at 11:23PM, falling right off to sleep.
SHARON B. 211 5/3/12
Get there early and read until she calls me in about 4:32PM. I'd rehearsed my first statement: "Do I start with the good news, or the good news, or the good news?" She laughs and I start with the trip, first on, then off. Then to the resveratrol meeting yesterday, and finally end on my obsession about "the last two piles." It's like I praised myself for the first half hour, and permitted myself to express frustration in the last fifteen minutes. I said that I'd PASSED the phase of brooding, of thinking "God will punish" if I finish with everything, and we remind ourselves that we'd talked about breaking "the last piles" into SMALLER piles, which sounds good in theory, I'll just have to see how it works in practice. It's NOT "no one to connect with," as Mildred argued the next day; it's much connected with NO ONE READING THE WEBSITE, which makes me fear that the whole process in INCONSEQUENTIAL. No one from the Christmas letters reads them; I don't even know if Tris continues to count people accessing the site. I respond to Don's photos and he doesn't respond to my website. I'm happy to get pictures from people from the Italy trip, but they don't talk about my website. I mention Mildred and Spartacus saying NO ONE will read it. But then Sharon and I establish that I GET PLEASURE in working on it, and THAT should suffice. Now that I'm NOT going on the trip, next week will say a LOT about how I EXIST with only two piles to work on!
FRIDAY, 5/4/12: Up at 7:47AM, having slept through without peeing for 8:24! Feel great about it! Sit on the edge of the bed, thinking, to 7:57AM, shit-read to 8:27AM, and do e-mail and Taipei to 9:07AM. 9:08AM: For the five-hundredth time: a new beginning? Having responded to the panic of getting down to two piles by arranging for a new trip, I have to respond to the panic of having the new trip cancelled by a postponed ASME-index date. So again I have to face the I-just-don't-want-to-do-it problem of BEING DOWN TO TWO PILES! Do I file souvenirs? Start switching books with souvenirs on bookshelves? Horrors: start transferring PLAYS to website? REALLY make a list of what-to-do for the website? Or stop at 9:12AM and have breakfast to assuage my hungry stomach? YEA! Mail Netflix to 9:20, and have breakfast to 10AM. Look up stuff for Marj, losing a note I wrote myself yesterday, searching for a long time to my GREAT discomfort, and Mildred phones, and we end up arguing until she hangs up at 11:05PM. I talk to Marj to 11:47, then do Taipei to 12:02. Catch up with journal to 1:05PM and only then tackle Sharon's session yesterday. Finish that with some clarity at 1:13PM. Decide to go to the gym! Back for lunch while reading magazines, proof YELLOWST 4:07-6:22PM, and at 6:35 leave to meet Spartacus to go to Lot-Less and pick up $44 worth of stuff, getting to a check-out line that's so long that he pays for both bags of stuff while I go to Pace and wait in the long line for our tickets at 7:30. The ABT Studio Company isn't bad, some of the young boys are good leapers, but their last piece, choreographed by Susan Jaffe, is a disaster that takes away some of the delight in the evening. Out about 9:15 and subway to Boro Hall to get a bus across Court to Atlantic, where I get more of my stuff (flaxseed meal and dates) at Trader Joe's and then we go two more doors down to Nature Foods (or something) where he has a $15 Groupon worth $35, so we have smoothies, he has chicken tenders and I have a onion-filled tiny 9-oz burger with purple chips and a grapefruit wedge, and he ends up with a chocolate-mousse cake and I the carrot cake, and we leave just before 11PM stuffed to the gills. Look at the wonderful almost-full moon. Get to bed at 12:51AM, not even bothering to put Lot-Less bag contents away.
SATURDAY, 5/5/12: 5:09AM: Pee and type DREAMS:5/5/12. 8:47AM: Same. Shit-read Times to 9:42 and up at 9:49 after CONSTANT thoughts on website. Breakfast with Times and check YELLOWST with Marj 11AM-12:15PM, surprising her. Finish acrostic by 12:50PM and crossword by 1:35PM, and the whole Times at 2:40PM. Watch "George Harrison, Part II" by Martin Scorsese to 5:15, and then set up the ITAPUGLI show for Mildred and Ken, deciding NOT to fix up the apartment, particularly the sticky kitchen floor, for their benefit. Play Spider 5:40-6:10PM to 51.61915 to 902 up after 2 wins, the seventh consecutive "best ever," and continue with Taipei 6:10-6:32PM, when Ken calls from downstairs. Mildred, curse her, called at 6:15, saying she'd fallen asleep, and refused to even consider taking a taxi to the show. Ken orders a $6 salad and a $21 pizza from Fascati, paying for the whole thing in exchange for my show, which goes until 9PM, when I can't figure how to transfer his 60 items to a flashdrive. After he leaves, I manage, on the second trial, messing up ONE CD, to transfer the items successfully by about 9:45PM. Put some stuff away, then watch "How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days," with a sporadically sexy Matthew McConaughey, and get to bed at 12:51AM.
SUNDAY, 5/6/12: 7:38AM: Get Times, type DREAMS:5/6/12, and shit-read to 8:10AM. 9:56: Type another dream. Edit YELLOWST 10:07-11:15AM, call Marj and go through it with her to 12:05PM. 12:15PM: Send colorful GMHC card to Frances and Noel Yauch with the following message: "A small touch of color and sympathy during a terrible moment in your lives, but also thinking of our past times together with great pleasure. Best Regards, Bob Z." Have breakfast to 1:10PM, finish Sunday Times at 1:50, water plants, wash dishes to 2:15PM, and then SEARCH for missing note-card until 2:33PM, finding it on TV stand! Start on NM until Mildred calls 2:40-3:06PM to offer me opera at her branch library, all past arguments clearly forgotten. I catch up with this to 3:35PM, having set up lots of National Geographic programming today. Then, simply not able to start on my task of separating THE website pile into MANY website piles, go to Spider at 3:40-4:55PM for 8th consecutive best at 51.62239 at 904 up after 3 wins. Now starved for lunch! Skim Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2012 Induction of Beastie Boys, with final "In memory of Adam Yauch" with lunch, and at 6:15 start on website files: 1) slides to be digitized, 2) RTW trip to enter. But then I can't stand the pages and notes, and at 9:30 start to change TR\ATLANTIC dates, to page 24 at 11:30. Watch "Mad Men" and "James Cameron to the Marianas Trench" and get to bed at 1:25AM.
MONDAY, 5/7/12: Pee at 4:10AM and at 6:34AM, and at 7:06AM, website-obsessed, I get up, pee again, type DREAMS:5/7/12, and look at website to 9AM. Watch "Borgias" with breakfast and talk to Mildred to 11:10AM about tomorrow. Edit ATLANTIC to page 46 to 12:55PM, and talk to "an employer" to 1:23, when I'm cut off and she never calls back. More ATLANTIC, noting Niue Island visit and Zegram Co to 4/5 on page 71 at 3:05PM. Lunch and TV to 6:40PM, then finish ATLANTIC 6:50-10:25PM, watching start of "Christ Stopped at Eboli" to 12:28AM.
TUESDAY, 5/8/12: Pee at 3:46AM and 5:22AM and up at 7:37AM to finish "Christ" with breakfast and leave at 9:05AM to get to Mildred at 10:03AM, maybe taking the tests myself if Resveratrol Test doesn't conflict, and back at 12:50PM, finding that I didn't get anything from the last Met Lottery of the season. Spider 1:40-3:05PM to 51.63096 at 909 up after 6 wins, 9th consecutive high! Work on website until I can't stand it, have a late lunch with about six "South Park" episodes, Solitaire 11PM-12:15AM, and get to bed at 12:30AM.
WEDNESDAY, 5/9/12: Pee at 6:02AM and type DREAMS:5/9/12. Up at 9:38AM, still tired, obsessing with website. Have breakfast with magazine reading, then Spider 11:30-2:20PM to 51.63349 at 911 up after 3 wins, 10th consecutive high! Then lunch and Taipei 2;53-3:35PM, and Solitaire to 5:15PM. WASTE DAY!! More TV, completely ignoring website work, kicking myself. Bed 10:46PM, then up at 11:12PM to look up SALERNO on way to Paestum. 11:29PM can't sleep and do Taipei 11:30PM-12:35AM, and finally manage to drop off to sleep, doing Actualism to quiet my mind, [Realize I've just completed NOTEBOOK M page 100!]
THURSDAY, 5/10/12: Type DREAMS:5/10/12 at 2:02AM. Wake after VERY erotic dream and try to jerk off, but by 5:29AM NONE of the DVDs work for porn, but at least I had pre-cum, and just stop and type the third dream of the morning and get back to sleep with more Actualism. Up at 10:45AM! Feeling totally ridiculous! Shit-read to 11:15. Get a 10:30AM message, which I didn't hear, from Sharon, cancelling today's session. Another day to totally mess up! Spider 11:30-12:25PM to 51.63858: 914 up after 4 wins, 11th consecutive high! Have breakfast with a fairly interesting program on Infinity, which I save for Mildred, maybe, and then watch "MacGruber" with an appealing cast and lots of nudity. But stupid. Then play Taipei 2:53-3:35PM, feeling awful, and finally get to my notes to print the hundredth page of NOTEBOOK M and start file for NOTEBOOK N, catching that up-to-date by 4:10PM, ready to look up Niue Island and Zegram Co. Do that to 4:35PM: Niue Island tours resulted in multi-day stays in many resorts, not cruise destinations that included Niue. Tried lots of Adventure Travel sites, and even tried requesting brochures from one company, but the states were AUSTRALIAN states, so I just canceled out. Find that Zegrahm is spelled that way, and it doesn't have anything of interest. Now 4:47PM and I guess I'll go down for my Netflix W.E---to be greeted by a closed fence and STACKS of mail not yet distributed. Back up to watch 6-7 episodes of "South Park," not finding the one on great vocabulary. Down again to pick up "W.E." and watch it before going to bed at 12:25AM.
FRIDAY, 5/11/12: Pee at 3:06AM, 4:20AM, and 7:38AM! Type DREAMS:5/11/12. Up at 8:09AM to pee and start j/o, running Actualism. The DVDs now work with a re-coded remote, and I MAY have cum, but get only pre-cum after. Watch Today to find that weather is still great for tomorrow's House Tour. Mail Netflix back. Phone Steve, who tells me about a brass and organ concert at St. Ann's at 7PM tomorrow, so I leave word with Suzie on BOTH home and cell phones to get back to me. Check e-mail. Aliza hasn't returned my call from the brain study, and I leave word with Sharon Kim at the resveratrol study to get back to me. Do this to 10:18AM and ready to get into my day of cleaning up! Spider 12:35-3:30PM, getting to 51.64122 at 916 up after 6 wins for the 12th consecutive high. Vacuum just before twilight, play Taipei 9:50-10:15PM, and watch "Faust" from the Met from 2011, Arts NYC, and 30 Rock. Get to bed at 11:235PM.
SATURDAY, 5/12/12: Up at 7:38AM (8:13!) and type DREAMS:5/12/12. Steve arrives at noon for the House Tour, and Susie at 12:10PM, telling her that we have to leave in ten minutes, and she manages to finish her little lunch on time. Get to a fast-moving line at the ticket pick-up place, and get to the first house at 12:40PM to find it already open. The day goes quickly, seeing four of the five houses even before the Plymouth Church grounds open at 3PM. There to get three "original" brownies, which then vanish, and we sit until 4:30, when Susie takes the subway with Steve, since it turns out that the organ and brass concert is tomorrow, not today. Home to Spider 5:55-6:50PM, to 51.6463 at 919 up after 4 wins for the 13th consecutive high. Play Taipei 6:50-8:25PM, followed by Solitaire 8:25-10:40PM. Dinner with junk TV and bed 12:57AM.
SUNDAY, 5/13/12: J/o 5:30-6:10AM, shit-read to 6:50AM, get Times, and back to bed at 6:53AM. Up at 10:15AM, calculating that I was in bed 8:55! Type DREAMS:5/13/12. Read the Times before tackling the puzzles, not finish the last one to have breakfast before leaving for Piri's at 1PM. Enjoyable group of seven of us, Mark not showing because I "insulted him." Back at 7:35PM, forgetting about the St. Ann's concert. Watch "Dune" and "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2." Note to check tamsulosin and ask Steve how the St. Ann's concert was. Bed 11:55PM.
MONDAY, 5/14/12: Type DREAMS:5/14/12 7:58-8:18AM. Shit-read to 8:44AM. Up at 10:23AM, really getting lots of sleep. Directly to Spider 10:30AM-1:25PM, getting to 51.64882 at 921 up after 5 wins for 14th consecutive high. Continue with Taipei 1:30-2:13PM, finally having a VERY late breakfast while watching "Iron Lady," mainly for Meryl Streep's makeup. Go through the day and get back to Taipei 9:20-11:05PM and get to bed at 11:30PM, REALLY WASTING DAYS!!!!
TUESDAY, 5/15/12: 12:45PM: Went to the gym, mailing Netflix back, and back to talk to Mildred, who hangs up because "this stupid asshole" had insulted her! Call Spartacus, who tells me that I DO insult people, and we have a profitable talk about it: I'm curt and terse when I dismiss something that he says that I don't agree with, and I obviously do that with Mildred. He said, "If you keep saying that's what she's like, and she doesn't like that, you should stop doing that." He told of a time last week, he forgets the cause, when he thought he wouldn't call me for a while because it wasn't pleasant talking with me. I thanked him at the end of this conversation, and he welcomed my approval of his advice. Then call Carolyn to give her details about Friday's GCT meeting at the Hilton. Got a call from Marj, saying she was back in business for me. I have a NEW, REINFORCED resolution to go back to my Italian habit of "big breakfast, tiny lunch snack, small dinner" in order to lose weight: was APPALLED to find that, at five feet, nine and a half inches, at a weight of 204#, I'm RIGHT AT THE BORDER of OBESITY---not just OVERWEIGHT. AND get a call from Sharon Kim saying my liver function is OK, my resting glucose was 110 and my sugar-fed level was 160 (or 180, I forget), and I'm accepted. She sets up a morning with me on June 1, where I'll rest for 30 minutes, have my blood tested, get a test breakfast, get my blood tested, and may even take a "hospital-supplied lunch" before I leave at 1 or 1:30PM. I at least get this typed by 12:55PM. Then to Spider 12:55-3PM, struggling to keep my winning streak, ending at 51.64996 at 922 up after 2 wins for 15th consecutive high. Then have a big meal while watching TV on "Obesity in America," and play a few games of Taipei before leaving for the Tuesday Evening Hour for a perfectly DREADFUL Turkey show, not NEARLY what I'm going to show after I show the BUDANEPA show in January. Back for dinner with TV, and end with Solitaire 10:25PM-1:05AM because I didn't want to go to BED at 10:25PM. Bed 1:24AM.
WEDNESDAY, 5/16/12: Up at 8:34AM to shit-read. 11:08AM: Had Key Food fruit (for $3.39) for breakfast while watching the last of four hours of "Obesity in America," which told me, for example, that my apple juice has SEVEN TEASPOONS OF SUGAR in each serving! Then call Charles to see that he's coming, warning him about the detour caused by the lobby remodeling---and he mentions that Mildred "didn't know the person" who got so angry at me on the phone, but I promised him I wouldn't tell her; then call Marj "just to call," and get to this, having packed up the bags for the show and filling Susie's microwave gift-cup to the brim with my soup to prove that it at least FITS! Look with disgust at my tamsulosin bottle, prescription still not refilled from ELEVEN DAYS AGO! Then catch up to date, bundling the last of NOTEBOOK M together, printing the first page of NOTEBOOK N, by 11:45AM, ready for Susie's lunch here---Spartacus calling to say his plane's been moved up to 12:30PM, so he has to leave now---if I believe him. She comes in at 12:05PM, I heat up my soup in her new cup, which JUST contains a Progresso soup canful, and we leave for 55 Pierrepont at 12:35. There's already a crowd there: I hook up, fear for a moment I'd left my projector connection-cord at home, and talk through the itinerary to 1:10, since so many people are waiting. Start at 1:13, Charles not there, John in at 1:30, and go fast toward end to finish at 2:35, everyone liking it---and 23 sign in! A woman even asks if they run a collection plate for me! Home to Fu-ki plum wine, crackers, and cashews to 4:30, when we go to Le Pain Quotidien for egg salad for me and curried chicken salad for them, John complaining about the charge and getting two muffins. Susie goes home, and I read magazines until about 6PM, then just go lie down to 8:08PM, catching up on tis by 8:17PM, ready for computer games! Spider 8:17-9:12PM, getting to 51.65318 at 924 up after 3 wins for the 16th consecutive high, and then to Taipei, making a new column to keep the same card #6, from 9:13-10:30PM. Bed at 11:13PM. Up to check that I went to Italy with GoAhead, and back to bed at 11:42PM.
THURSDAY, 5/17/12: 4:21AM: Pee, do Actualism after a LONG time trying to clear my sinuses for BREATHING, and sleep and type DREAMS:5/17/12 to 7:12AM and pee again. Up at 9:13AM, weighing #202, and shit-read to 9:35AM. Check e-mail to get a message from MTP traveler #5 asking me about Scott Island, which I research my Antarctica trip to find that I MISTOOK for Scott Base, so I e-mail him back confessing my mistake, telling him about almost landing on Possession Island on 2/18/91, and then going to MTP to remove Scott Island from my travels, going from #104 to #101, then #103, at 409 places out of 872. Try looking at other lists on MTP, finding that my "next trip" would be either to the Malayan Peninsula or Liechtenstein, and then the slowness and "not responding" of the website puts me off in frustration. Call Marj, just to return her call, from 11-11:05AM. Turn to Taipei to waste time 11:05AM-12:05PM after NINE CONSECUTIVE WINS, and continue with Spider 12:05-1:10PM to 51.65998 to 928 up after 5 wins for the 17th consecutive high. Then, I guess, to breakfast [forgot to note my try for Mallet yesterday 11:46-11:51AM, secretary saying she'll leave him a message, but she never does, adding to my frustration] and eventually start watching "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps," having the chicken vindaloo lunch, before leaving for Sharon at 4:20PM, getting in at 4:29PM, and leaving at 5:16PM to check at CVS that my tamsulosin is still not there, and the clerk insists that I have to bug Mallet, because the doctors just don't pay attention to CVS's phone calls. Finish my day on TV, ignoring the fallen shelves, Marj's notes, and even unpacking and washing up from yesterday's "party" here after the ITAPUGLI show. Finish "Wall Street" and watch an hour of "Game of Thrones," not really following the plot, but impressed by the literary wordings and sumptuous sets and costumes. Then see the two twenty-minute supplements and the movie of "Objective: Burma" to bed at 12:12AM, concerned about getting to OAT's breakfast at 9AM tomorrow/today.
SHARON B. 212 5/17/12
Wait a few minutes before she calls me in at 4:32PM, start by praising yesterday's ITAPUGLI show with 23 enthusiastic audience members, and then get into my "insult trauma" of the previous week. THREE incidents are too much: 1) Mark's "wanting to kick my ass" about my "That's just Mark" insult when he left the Games Group, tired at 5PM, a few months ago; 2) Mildred's hanging up on me, screaming at "not taking insults from stupid assholes," after which I suggest she ask her therapist what an insult is; and 3) Spartacus's opinion that I've been "curt" and "terse" when trying NOT to argue with him, thereby INSULTING his trying to get me to see a play that he thought was good, or suggesting something that I dismiss out of hand. Sharon puzzles about her response before saying that I've become more honest and direct, and sometimes people won't like that. After going back and forth when reporting Charles's statement that Mildred felt BAD about assailing me on the phone, since she "didn't recognize the person who was being so awful," and wondering why she wouldn't tell ME she felt bad about it---I thought I might call her and ask what her therapist told her an insult was---like NOT my saying she "behaved as she always did" (which Spartacus simplistically told me to stop doing, since it made her mad) but HER calling me a "stupid asshole!"---but I turned out not to call her after all. Reported on my not putting the shelves back up, the frustration with the tamsulosin prescription, and my not doing ANYTHING the past few days. Left still feeling torn up about it.
FRIDAY, 5/18/12: ENRAGED with Mallet and tamsulosin debacle, I take my last VALIUM at 12:24AM, forcing another pee. Pee again at 3:20AM, and up at 7:04AM to type DREAMS:5/18/12 and then pee-read (not being able to shit) to 7:28AM and go back to bed. But up at 7:39AM to catch up on NOTEBOOK N, type Sharon's session, and phone HIP at 8:01-8:07AM to try to get a tamsulosin prescription from Chin, which the clerk says he can't do without seeing me since the last time I saw Chin was in October, not within six months, which I say is nonsense. She says she'll leave him a message to call me, which I say has to be before 8:30AM, when I'm leaving and, no, I don't have another phone that will reach me after that. I'm more or less determined to sign up for the Gambia trip for next year, providing there's no single supplement and they're still offering it. Print another page from NOTEBOOK N and finish this at 8:25AM, still not having gotten a call from Chin! Now to leave for OAT at 9AM. Get there around 9:10AM, being told Carolyn hasn't signed in yet, but she IS in the food line---and later the Chinese woman from 55 Pierrepont asked the desk if I'd signed in, and they couldn't find my name! Lousy bookkeepers! The buffet is fruit: strawberries, blackberries, grapes, melon; and rolls and orange juice. We find space at a table in the middle. The presentations are agreeable enough, and when the frequent-travelers stand up, all those with more than ten trips get bouquets; I give mine to Carolyn and take one yellow rose for myself, which had totally dried out on my dining-room table by Sunday afternoon. Our tickets don't get us any winnings, and we leave about 11:45AM. Home at 12:30PM to phone Chin to 12:32 am told he'll call back. Look at e-mail to 12:52PM, clean up to 1:20M, have lunch with "30 Rock" to 2PM, and call Chin AGAIN 2:01-2:07PM and am told he DID renew the prescription, which is ready at CVS. Put away everything left over from WEDNESDAY by 2:40, start listing the 55 Pierrepont show-lists to 3:05, when I have to get to the gym, picking up the tamsulosin at 3:06PM, with great relief. Back from the gym at 5PM, do Spider 5-6:35PM to 51.66309 to 930 up after 5 wins for 18th consecutive high! Continue with Taipei 6:35-7:30PM, when I dress nicely and go down to the Art Show reception for walnuts and dried apricots, huge blackberries and raspberries and strawberries, a glass of Prosecco and a sparkling rosé, and some crackers and cheese and other nibbles while talking to Florence Bass and Bill Petersen, looking better than he has for a long time. Up about 8:25PM to watch the end of "Devil" (in the elevator) to 9:30PM, and back down to see Toba cleaning up the final tables and have some more snacks and wine. Back up to watch the start of "Enchanted Island" from the Met, but my eyes are closing so I just stop and go to bed at 11:12PM. Then up to look at Roman's MTP entry to 11:50PM: 53 years old with 4 kids.
SATURDAY, 5/19/12: Pee at 1:12AM, 2AM, 4:56AM, and at 7:15AM type DREAMS:5/19/12 and shit-read Times to 7:51AM, and weigh myself at 200 pounds! Do Actualism and fall back asleep to 10:42AM, deciding NOT to go to MAN this afternoon to leave myself free for getting champagne for Fred's birthday dinner at 6:15PM. Also decide NOT to refill my apple-juice container, to see if I can't get well below 200 pounds before Chin's appointment on Friday. Breakfast over the Times, take a long time for both puzzles, having to get to Google to find that "Berge" leads me to BERGERAC, giving me the answers I need to finish the puzzles by 2:55PM. Back to Spider to 4:50, ending at 51.6641 at 931 up after 2 wins for the NINETEENTH (on 5/19!) consecutive high. Decide to bite the bullet and take the DIARY pages off the top shelf, put THAT back, and easily put the lower shelf back by piling up the Actualism pages on their ends. By then it's time to wash, dress, get to Towne to buy Sparkling Shiraz for $21.76 at 5:59PM. Wait a bit for the C-train, but get to Fred's after Greg, Mary Anne (or whoever, from his French class), and Marie, who's now lost 95 pounds! Soon Martin and Sugar join us, then Arthur(?) and his good-looking lover who plays the clarinet to Arthur's piano for a Kurt Weill tribute to Fred's birthday, and I finish practically the whole bottle by myself, along with lots of lovely Brillat-Savarin cheese, great steaks, and a huge slab of strawberry cake. The wine loosens my tongue, I have a good time, and am surprised when it's 11:45PM and I pull myself away, escorting Mary Anne to the C train, holding the door for her as she rushes down the stairs, and am relieved when the back door still opens to my key at 12:03AM. Bed 12:51AM.
SUNDAY, 5/20/12: Up at 9:30! Slept without reflux or peeing for 8:39! Tried j/o, but four DVDs don't work again, and then I just can't keep an erection, so I stop about 10:50AM and watch Bill Maher from last night to 11:55AM. Phone Fred to thank him for the party, inquiring what the wonderful steaks were, which he doesn't remember. Decide to play my daily Spider from 12:05-2PM, getting to 51/67053 at 935 up after 4 wins for my TWENTIETH consecutive high. Later left word with Charles to CALL me! Had DREAMS:5/20/12 which I recorded only after transferring, proofing while it ran, dreams for the past month from Neo to WP51, printing four pages. Then catch up with NOTEBOOK N to 4:25PM, having watered the plants and, thinking I might be ready for proofing Marj's notes, go to TAIPEI 4:25-6:20PM, during which time Rita calls, to be interrupted by call-waiting from Charles, so when I finish the boring call with Rita, I call Charles, and he entertains me with his forced eating of Cream of Wheat swimming in butter, and the stealing of his computer by a probably false insect-repellant Black that Charles "refused to follow around because he'd think I didn't trust him because he was Black." And is now paying, as he said, "No good deed goes unpunished." I win many of the Taipei games, but even they finally get to be too much. Maybe I can at least tackle the Visa bill? Yes, do that, and then write a $50 check for the Tuesday Evening Hour dinner. Decide to make a tuna casserole while proofing Marj from 7:35-8:28PM, eat it watching more "Enchancted Island," and then get the shits, maybe from the eight-grain rotini in the casserole? Back to proofing 9:23-9:32, stopping to shit, then 9:46-11:22, 2:38 for under four pages. Bed at 11:48PM, feeling virtuous, starting Actualism, but dropping off to sleep.
MONDAY, 5/21/12: 6:07AM: Brown-slime shit-read to 6:27AM, and then at 8:39AM up to type DREAMS:5/21/12 on my newly cleared Neo file 7. Clip toenails so I won't have to fear "bending them back" as in my dream. Finish this to 9:13AM and go to my daily Spider, making a new card, #80, to record 9:35-9:57AM to 51.67202 to 936 up at 3 wins for 21st consecutive high. Then check e-mail to 10:01AM, have breakfast while watching more "Enchanted Isle" to 10:57AM. Go through BRITWALE with Marj to 12:08PM, proof to the end by 2:20PM, and then off to the gym and go through the mail (putting Guy's mismailed-to-be booklet in front of his door at 20H) to 4:25PM, and then, with lunch/dinner, start an orgy of catching up on TV: watching an episode of "Mad Men," then one of "The Borgias," then the last three-quarters of the mediocre Shia La Boeuf in "Battle of Shaker Heights," and skim through the harrowing "Perfect Storm." Decide to have a bowl of soup while watching the end of "Enchanted Island," at last. Bed at 11:17PM.
TUESDAY, 5/22/12: Pee at 2AM, typing DREAMS:5.22/12. Pee at 5:24AM, weighing myself at 201#. Think and think to 6:14AM, when I start file 4 in Neo, then pee at 6:23AM, REALLY 201#. 6:34AM: Start Actualism and up at 7:42AM to look through Netflix to find that "The Wire" isn't available for watching, then through Google find that Amanda Lepore started life as Armand, and "she" is only 44 years old, looking through old New York Magazines trying to find issue that winnowed down the TV series to "The Wire" and not finding it; this all takes to 9AM, surprisingly. Then have breakfast watching the enigmatic "Sherlock: At Reichenbach Falls," where he dies but doesn't die, along with Moriarty, which I assume is what happened in the story, also. This goes to 10:45AM and I catch up with NOTEBOOK N to 10:55AM, waiting to call Marj at 11. We start with notes at 11:11AM and finish at 11:45AM! Then I get to my daily Spider routine 11:50AM-1:08PM, to 51.67339 at 937 up after 2 wins, 22nd consecutive high. I'd also duplicated Marj's flashdrive contents to EDGE: Marj-flash 5/22/12 to 10:59AM, surprised at how fast it went, at 31.9 MB. Then through e-mail to 1:10PM, lunch to 3:05PM, Taipei to 4:50PM(!), and Solitaire HYPNOTIZES me as I sit and sit and watch the sun set and it grow completely dark and drag myself away at 10:50PM: SIX GODDAM HOURS! Have soup for dinner while watching three "South Park" episodes to 12:22AM. Bed 12:39AM. [Saturday, 2:34PM: decide to add Neo file HERE! TUESDAY, 5/22/12: 6:16AM: Thinking, thinking, thinking: how the website has "popcorned" into a number of different areas: 1) getting unproofed files just ON the site, 2) getting recent Marj-proofed files---to REPLACE unproofed files, or as NEW?, 3) getting slides digitized---which leads to SUBSETS: a) captions? b) recording current shows? c) YouTube uploads? d) getting started with SOME just to see how it GOES, and what I have to do to SEND them and PROTECT them? 4) the enormous "stack" of Plays: a) a table of contents with titles? b) unproofed versus proofed? c) getting back to Village Playwrights and getting some ready for my "legendary $10,000 production project"? 5) going to Facebook and Twitter, as fantasized, and PUBLICIZING all these facets!, 6) just recording all these thoughts, 7) all the MAPS of the materials and the current site that I feel have to be done to see WHERE IT IS NOW! 8) and now I have to pee again and at 6:22AM get to Actualism and complete my sleep for the morning! 9) 6:25AM: And then all the thoughts about restarting the APARTMENT-FIX: a) throwing away more old travel files and piles, b) making some order out of the Actualism files that fell off the shelf when I was repairing the shelf-fall a few days ago, c) thinking of the old "travel souvenirs BEHIND the mirrors and books ONTO the shelves" switch-project, d) small bits like getting the OPERA files updated with the temporary files interpolated with the PERMANENT file.]
WEDNESDAY, 5/23/12: 7:01AM: Pee twice and type DREAMS:5/23/12. Do a thorough Actualism to 8:58AM, when I pee again, weighing 200#. I lie there, thinking, thinking, thinking, and get up at 9:25AM. Just finish shitting when the phone rings, my message starts, and someone hangs up. I'm fairly sure it must have been Mildred, and I've been thinking of phoning her anyway, so this is the perfect chance. I phone her and open with, "Why do I think it was you who just phoned and hung up?" She thinks I'm wonderfully psychic until we both decide that SHE would be the only person who would (aside from CVS) call me as early at 9:35AM! She says she missed talking with me, makes no reference DIRECTLY to our blow-up the other day, but DOES mention "But that's not an insult," at LEAST three times when she says something negative about someone. Hmmm. We agree to meet tomorrow at 6PM for a Henry George lecture on real estate, and will have lunch at Riverpark on 5/31. We talk to 9:57AM. I type this at 10:02AM: I'm so appalled at yesterday's six-hour Solitaire binge that I'm hoping, for the eighty-ninth time, to change my ways: buy hamburger for a simple patty with relish for lunch, EVERY MOMENT devoted to website details, until THAT'S finished enough so I can devote EVERY MOMENT to reorganizing my apartment materials, in order to add THEM to my website! Now for breakfast! Couldn't remember when I saw "Seance on a Wet Afternoon" and arbitrarily put it down for Tuesday, but in TYPING Tuesday I realize it couldn't have been then, so on Saturday, typing Wednesday (are you following this?) I checked on Netflix and found I would have had to have seen it on Monday, as part of that TV-watching orgy I mentioned in the evening, since it was returned on Wednesday, so I'd put it in the mail Tuesday morning. THEN, on Saturday, I mistakenly mark "Solitaire 6 hours" on WEDNESDAY, when it should have been on TUESDAY! I AM losing my mind! Also talked with Aliza at 10AM today, telling her I was accepted for Resveratrol test, and she says I might have to wait six months before doing THIS brain study, but she'll call back. Have breakfast and Mildred calls back with restaurant reservation and we talk to 10:50AM. I start my show-list of what turn out to be 38 physical-slide shows and 14 digital-photo shows, and find there are 4 digital shows that I don't even think I EDITED yet, because I never SHOWED them---at least that I RECORDED that I showed them: LABTRIP at 490 shots [but later, on the Dell laptop, I find an album labeled BHU/BRIT/LAB/TV, and LAB goes from 355-1509!], TUNISIA at 714 shots, SPANFRAD at 872 shots, and ICELGRN at 1144 shots. That goes to 1:30PM, and then I go to Key Food and buy wonderful beef sirloin patties at .4 pounds for about $2 each, checking them out at 2:32PM, one of which I broil immediately and have on wheat toast with honey mustard and India relish---and it's just delicious! Also get a beef eye round roast for $8.82, and put it beside the brisket, about which I called both Spartacus and Mildred at 10:25AM and left word for advice on how to cook it. Mildred calls back 11:20-11:28AM to say it should be out of package, in water, and served hot, at dinner, like a roast; but I should put something in the water to flavor it beforehand. IT can be sliced thinner and served cold. Spartacus calls 11:32AM-12:29PM and says to trim fat off, use water already flavored with, like, rice, and later I can microwave to heat the slices for sandwiches. Try to isolate TUNISIA from GALBUM but can't do it, frustrating me enormously, so I turn to Spider 5:40-6:30PM to 51.67845 at 940 up after 4 wins, for 23rd consecutive high. Have dinner while watching many "South Park" episodes, having another sirloin patty with frozen peas and apple sauce for DINNER, still loving the sheer BEEF of it, but DESPAIRING of EVER being able to lose WEIGHT, since all I think about is FOOD when I'm watching television. Have two slices of toast with sugar and cinnamon to assuage my hunger, and eat another orange with a handful of almonds! Bed at 1:14AM, and then, maddeningly, get out to bed to look up "appetite suppressant" on Google, to find something like Penteramine, over-the-counter for small dosages, prescription for large doses. Then play Solitaire to 2:40AM! Just feel TOTALLY SICK, wishing I had another valium to take, but managing to fall asleep DESPITE my desperate thoughts about losing weight.
THURSDAY, 5/24/12: 9:28AM: Shit-read to 10AM, weighing only 201# after that ENORMOUS dinner last night! Think to check Olympus SITE for directions that I've been doing wrong. Up at 10:20AM despite the fact that I've only been in bed something like 7:10. Have breakfast while reading magazines, and then do my daily Spider 12:35-2:30PM to 51.68326 at 943 up after 5 wins for 24th consecutive high. Then realize with a jolt that I've got to go to the GYM before cramming in a late lunch before seeing Sharon at 4:30! DASH out to gym, TRY to hurry through, but still get back home about 4:05PM, deciding there's not enough time to broil another beef patty, so I heat up Progresso black-bean soup and manage to wolf down about two-thirds of it before leaving for Sharon at 4:21PM, getting into her office late at 4:32PM. Talky session, and out at 5:17PM to get to the Boro Hall station and get an express train quickly to 14th Street, and then a local to 28th, and to 120 East 30th Street for the Henry George lecture on real estate from 6-7:30, just awful, and Mildred said I should have sat in the back with her because we would have left an hour earlier. Try to price nearby restaurants, but they're either what we don't want to eat or seem severely overpriced, so we end up going our own ways. I get back to have a wonderful patty toasted sandwich while watching a wonderfully expanded, from stage to screen, "War Horse," and get to bed at 12:21AM, slightly worried about Chin's appointment tomorrow.
SHARON B. 213 5/24/12
She's talking in the other office when I enter at 4:32PM, and I go in to share my awful frustrations about trying to diet and thinking about nothing but food, starting with my discovery that, at five-foot-nine-and-a-half, I'm on the borderline of being obese. Then SHE confesses to being obese, even at five-eleven---marveling that she should weigh something like 155. I mention the appetite suppressant, and then go through all my maladies for Dr. Chin tomorrow morning: full-body rash, itchy head, worry about being overweight. We detour into the three or four guys who've LOOKED at me in the past few weeks, and mention looking at the "bear" bars, where I've felt comfortable before, and at the end she says we really should work on my getting out to trying some of these places, even though I said I'd refused responding to two guys (not mentioning "Squirt") who said they were pudgy---which I what I'm seeing in myself! Describe the rapprochment with Mildred, and my acceptance of my 24th consecutive high in Spider, though I did NOT like my six hours of Solitaire! Also said that I'd determined to phone Olympus to solve my Tasmania-show isolation problem, again "reinventing" Einstein's "keep trying the same think expecting different results, and you ARE crazy." I seemed to be pretty up during the session, maybe avoiding how disgusted with myself I've felt recently---though I still hope to make progress with the website!
FRIDAY, 5/25/12: Pee at 7:03AM, weighing 202#. Shit-read from 8:45-9:09AM, and dress to get to the building at 9:25AM to get pissed about having to sign into the building, just writing "nonsense" in the book, and to the desk at 9:28AM to get pissed about having to sign some sort of "privacy agreement, if you haven't signed one for this year." WHAT CRAP! Put in earplugs to keep out the annoying TV, get called into the room at 9:33AM by a sweet young black who records my weight at 212#, my height verified at five-nine-and-a-half, and my temperature is 98.3 and my blood pressure is an astounding 102/70! I say it's NEVER been so low! She leaves at 9:39AM and Chin comes in a few minutes later to respond to everything on my card---which, DAMMIT, has VANISHED when I'm typing this at 4:13PM Saturday---though I FIND it at 4:19PM with my valium prescription! My rash is probably in reaction to the anti-fungal medicine, but since it's better, I should keep up with it rather than stopping it; there's no infection at the back of my head, it's only dry skin; my blood pressure is amazing: it should be checked in two months---but when I go to make an appointment in two months, I'm told I can only make it a month ahead! AGAIN I bitch at the clerk! He TAKES my list of medications and attaches it to the form the previous nurse filled out [also exchanged cheery greetings with Chin's old nurse---Brenda?]. When I say I'm concerned about my weight, he asks if I've seen a dietician; when I say no he says he'll make me an appointment. And THAT pisses me off: the assistant says she can get me to Eastern Parkway dietician quicker than Brooklyn Heights one---I'll wait until 6/22! No problem with high hemoglobin. My "brown slime with gas" was "probably something you ate." So I'm at the end of the list; he stares directly into my eyes and says my lungs and heart sound good, and my liver test came back OK. He says I'm healthy and I leave, getting out of the building by 10AM. Go directly to Key Food for the milk I need, and pick up EGGS for the first time in years, and five Weight Watchers frozen entrees for $2.50 each, and fresh blueberries and fresh corn. Home at 10:25AM and scramble up two eggs immediately, loving the simplicity and the good taste with toast. Get to my daily Spider 11:30AM-12:15PM to 51.68659 at 945 up after 3 wins, for my 25th consecutive high. Then continue with Taipei 12:20-1:45PM, winning most, and then Solitaire 1:45-2:25PM. Bite the bullet and phone Olympus, who reads me AGAIN through the process, and this time it WORKS---I got a "different" copy menu when I right-clicked this time, and "paste" works after a long wait---maybe it HAD worked before? Decide to start boiling the brisket about 3PM, getting it to a simmer at 3:15, and then starting at 3:20PM I duplicate TUNISIA, first by mistake to the EDGE drive, then to the Elite flashdrive, to transfer it to the Dell laptop, checking the boiling brisket every half hour, and start EDITING the TUNISIA show at 5:30: retrieving thumbnails 5:34-5:35, 713 files of 1.432GB; transferring images 5:36-6:15, and I find I can play GAMES while these duplications are taking place. Then EDIT the show from 714 to 578 to 7:38PM, having turned off the gas under the brisket at 6:15PM, and having a wonderful brisket dinner with frozen peas and applesauce while watching more "South Park," I guess, because now, at 4:34PM, I can't for the life of me remember what I did after I had dinner last night! Record that I played Taipei to 12:30AM, and then got to bed at 12:35AM.
SATURDAY, 5/26/12: Pee at 6:38AM, and up at 7:35AM, weighing 202#, and getting the Times. Go through the diagramless fairly easily to 8:40AM, but the crossword is more difficult, with ten states putting their eight letters in four squares and two states putting their twelve letters in four squares, taking until 10:10AM. Then have a wonderful eggbeater-beaten three-egg omelet with milk, messing up the kitchen terminally. Finish reading the Times, talk with Spartacus about my brisket and omelet, and he chides me for getting angry with signing those forms yesterday---"You do nothing but harm YOURSELF!" Then fill the pillbox to 1PM and do dishes, cleaning the stovetop thoroughly, to 1:30PM. 1:50PM: Finally getting around to catching up with NOTEBOOK N, not done since 10AM Wednesday, and not even Tuesday was finished. That takes, incredibly, to 4:40PM, sweating a bit in the heat until I take the cover off the air conditioner and put it on at 77 at 2:25PM. My stomach keeps demanding food, and I keep delaying it, and NOW think to do my daily Spider! That goes from 4:45-6:30PM to 51.68944 at 947 up after 4 wins for my 26th consecutive high! Then have a quick toasted brisket sandwich before getting too early to Symphony Space for a VERY commendably sung and staged "Turn of the Screw," before a crowded and enthusiastic audience. Thought to walk down to Five Napkins Burger, but lazed out and got home about 11PM to watch three "South Park" episodes while downing an enormously buttered ear of corn, followed by an orange, getting both corn and orange numbers down to two. Bed at 12:48AM.
SUNDAY, 5/27/12: Up at 8:35AM to shit-read Times to 9AM, have an oatmeal breakfast for a change, finish the Times to water plants and get to my daily Spider 10:52-11:58AM to 51.6908 at 948 up after 4 wins for my 27th consecutive high! Catch up with NOTEBOOK N to 12:06PM, prepared to go and get the gym out of the way, picking up three CVS prescriptions and leaving off my slip for valium. That all goes well, back at 2PM having picked up all FOUR prescriptions, and get messages from Marj, to whom I talk endlessly 2:10-2:25; and Ken, who requests AVIs on CD for the Ravello singing procession. Trim brisket of all fat until 3PM, getting only two meals and two sandwiches out of the almost three pounds, resigned to having tried something new that didn't work and I don't need to try again. Lunch to 3:30PM, and put the AVIs on CD to 4:05PM. Then tackle the website PAPERS, trying to get SOME purchase on them; update Glossary to 6PM, and stop at 6:10PM, wondering where I'd typed TYPOS. Out to meet Ken on the street at 6:55 on the way to Seasonal, which is disappointing to the two of us except for remeeting Marko from Beard, who talks longly to us, saying how Germans don't remember names and then reeling off endless names of maitre d's, sommeliers, hostesses, and contacts from dozens of restaurants, and Ken pays twice what I do for his mediocre wines. I'm content not to drink. Back at 10PM to remember TYPOS is at JV\MISTYPES, so I transcribe four of THOSE cards, deciding the BEST I can do is try to sort papers into PILES to process: ending with 19 JOURNAL/NOTEBOOK notes that I'll tackle first to "finalize" as-of-now, 7 TRAVEL notes, 7 JEWEL BOX notes, 4 DREAMS notes, and 35 yet-to-be sorted, for a total of 72. Content with my start, I play Taipei 10:30-11:55PM, and get to bed at 12:03AM.
MONDAY, 5/28/12: Pee at 4:42AM and type DREAMS:5/28/12. Up at 8:22AM, feeling disoriented from last dream, which I type before I pee and shit-read to 9AM, when I check e-mail, trying to get rid of Michael Ricci's endless LinkedIn updates, and then do a wonderful daily Spider quickly 9-9:30AM, GOOD TIME, to 51.6924 to 949 up after 2 wins for 28th consecutive high! Then realize I'd ALREADY organized my 7 piles on the coffee table on my "website card 1": 1) slides, 2) Dreams, 3) Jewel Box, 4) Travel, 5) Yet-to-sort, 6) Journal, 7) Olympus! My desk now has my Mon-Do card, my website card, and my finished bed-table card---not to mention my glasses and the A/C control. Now to breakfast at 9:50AM, weighing 199#! Breakfast and "Surviving the Tsunami" to 10:55AM. Put the A/C on 77. Talk to Spartacus 11:01-11:13, 11:23-12:01PM, and 12:07-12:17. To work on the journals to 3:30PM, VERY productive to 3:40, asking if 5/13-29/62 anywhere in datebooks? Finish list of WEBSITE journals 4:40-6:30, and look at JJ for 1977, 208 pages with no Paris trip. Then at 6:47 look at JK for 1978, finding September 25 missing, but it IS in DIARY on page 13440. Work on NA to 7:35PM. Play unrecorded Taipei, have dinner watching "Mad Men," and get to bed at 12:32AM.
TUESDAY, 5/29/12: Pee at 2:49AM and 5:17AM and type DREAMS:5/29/12. At 6:29AM note that I should print out ALZ list for Friday. 6:30AM: Start Actualism, but don't really do a session, since I get up at 6:31 and search "sent" messages for files for Tris, and at 6:32 note that I should visit Sheila for July show. At 7:01AM fantasize an expensive "expensive-restaurant booking" website. Debate asking Toba about a 7PM monthly travel-show at 101 Clark. Then up to find that an empty Olympus disk takes 2558 photos or 37 minutes of movies, so two disks will hold 1:14, a good limit for a 4GB show---60 shows, one for each travel show, would be 240GB, where the EDGE has about 365GB free now. That goes to 7:09AM. At 7:25AM check that Photobridge will do 3000 slides of $800, about 75 boxes, or ten BIG shows. Then up at 7:46AM to j/o, not really cuming by 8:40, and talk to John 8:50-9AM who doesn't really think it's a good idea to film commentary, and anyway no show should be over 45 minutes. Leave word with Mildred 9:01AM, Piri at 9:02 will call back, and have breakfast to 9:55AM, watching three "Three Stooges" shorts. Then call Mildred 9:55-10:36, who says my shows have no artistic or educational value whatsoever---"though I don't mean to insult you." Talk to Steve 10:36-10:55, and he's away 6/13 for cars, 6/23-7/1 to Atlanta, 7/17-8/1 to the West, and 8/7-9 to "summer camp." Leave word with Charles at 10:57AM (and he doesn't call back by 6PM Wednesday!), talk to Spartacus 10:57-11:30, who essentially says I'm crazy to think to record shows for ANY reason, and then indulge in Spider 11:35AM-3:30PM, fearing almost to lose my winning streak, but ending up at 51.69268 at 950 fup after 5 wins for 39th consecutive high! Then find that I SEND IBMRTW on 10/11/11, which I'd FORGOTTEN about. Lunch to 4:10PM, play Taipei 4:15-4:40PM, when I leave for the Tuesday Evening Hour dinner, getting in toward the end, but sitting with Joe Breed, who lives in Charles's building! Eat too much steak and bread and a rich chocolate-cake dessert. The Sub-Antarctic Islands are Crozet, Kerguelen, and New Amsterdam, all pretty bleak. That goes to 8PM, Work on WP51\SC\NOTEBOOK from page 201-370 to 10:34PM, then watch the three Dick Tracy serial episodes and get to bed at 11:46PM. Then up to check that I'm paid up for Netflix to 6/21, and then I do Taipei to 12:52AM, just for the hell of it. Bed at 12:53AM. Still awake at 1:23AM. Pee again.
WEDNESDAY, 5/30/12: Pee at 7:52AM and get up at 8:11AM to check churchill-safaris.com to find they go nowhere but where we've been to 9AM. Weigh 202#. Check e-mail to 9:06, and do Spider 9:08-11:15 to 51.6992 to 954 up after 5 wins for 30th consecutive high, AGAIN thinking I may have lost it at last, but only have ONE MORE DAY TO WIN---and then I hope I stop. Breakfast of two wonderful scrambled eggs and milk to 11:45AM, then finish WP51\SC\NOTEBOOK from 11:48AM-3:45PM! Have lunch of the rest of the bean soup, the last orange, a yogurt, and almonds to 5:30 while watching the two-hour special on Queen Elizabeth's 60th Diamond Jubilee. Catch up with this to 6:07PM, and will do Taipei before dressing to meet Spartacus at his place at 7PM for Melt dinner. Taipei from 6:10-6:50PM, then dress in striped shirt with rolled-up sleeves and stay with jeans. Meet him and bus to Bergen Street and Melt for decent chicken wings, poor pork ribs, his solo mussels, our good shared Melt burger, and quick desserts because it's getting to 8:32PM. To the subway and JUST get the departing 3-train, and transfer at Fulton Street for the A to 44th Street and a long line in front of the Spiegeltent. He goes to check getting the tickets from his Theatermania voucher, and we manage to slip in the doors as they first open about 9:50PM. Sit in the first row, ogling the flawless abs of a Japanese performer in baggy-seated trousers with calf-fitted legs, and see many of the cast, that Spartacus has underestimated at six. It starts just after 10PM, and the variety of acts is enormous: woman packed inside a carry-on suitcase, roller skaters flinging their perfect bodies around the TINY stage, a petite Japanese couple falling off the stage before she does the toe-point into the cup on the top of his head, a blonde inside a "world-sphere" who curls up and stretches out in all directions, three acrobatic women to whom I respond that Spartacus MUST watch the first Three Stooges episode to see a VERY like act, and a penultimate EXTRAVAGANZA of a fifteen-element Calder-mobile construction that goes on FOREVER, to be placed atop the last element to balance, and then, removing the feather, causes the whole system to collapse. Forgot the foot-flipper rotating his young assistant AT LEAST THIRTY TIMES in succession, the comic who emerges from the "costume-change tube" totally naked, and the athletic duo with the painted-gay-faced man with ineluctably beautiful skin on his perfectly formed torso, and then the climax of the guy climbing at least eight chairs to balance the tips of his toes at the very APEX of the hundred-year-old Belgian Spiegeltent. Out at 11:32PM, almost EXHAUSTED from the participation. Quick subway back to the held-open back door at 12:03AM, and get piles of mail, including Marj's package, and up to skim New York and New Yorker before getting to bed at 1:10AM.
THURSDAY, 5/31/12: Up at 8:38AM and type DREAMS:5/31/12. Shit-read to 9:08AM, weighing 203#, and get to Spider 9:10-11:45AM to AGAIN almost lose it, but end at 51.69995 (noting the .69286 of 5/29, the .6992 of 5/30, and the .69995 of 5/31) at 955 up after 6 wins for the 31st consecutive high, and what I hope to be the END of my mania with Spider's consecutive highs! Then see the note under the door with Cadman's 2/3 vote needed for more funds, with non-votes counting as "no!" This will CLEARLY kill ANY chance it has of succeeding. Phone Mildred in amazement, and we start screaming at each other: she "knows that I envy her her millions, and Charles his millions, and even REGRETTED to her that, even if I SOLD my apartment for a half-million, I STILL wouldn't be as rich as either of them, and she DOES know me so well, so why am I addressing the morality of the city opting to make privatization difficult," assuming that I DON'T want it to go private, where I was perfectly content with her past "whatever happens, you're OK." I AGAIN try to tell her she DOES NOT know me, and she gets angry, talks over everything I say, and finally hangs up on me at 11:59AM. Then call Spartacus to express my amazement, and have trouble convincing him we're looking at the same PAPER (my calling it a note throws him: it's printed, not a note), and then I tell him to read the last sentence FOUR times before he finally realizes the final sentence starts on a line by itself, and gets SO pissed at me for "not telling him what he wanted to hear" that HE hangs up on me at 12:10PM! I write note about this at 12:13PM, and at 12:17PM write: "Resolved, I will NOT call them AT ALL. Breakfast to 1:05PM, and talk to Marj from 1:05-1:54PM, getting bored with HER too, as I report getting bored with Paul and Rita's phone calls (I even mention that I'd look for an excuse not to attend Rita's funeral, if it happened), and bring up the word "isolation," loaded for her as it has been thrown to her a number of times, and she agrees, as I think, that it's good I'll be seeing Sharon TONIGHT to talk about all this! Catch up with this to 2:27PM, ready to get to the gym. Do that, and AGAIN get home in time only to finish a part of a can of soup before I have to leave for Sharon. Get back to find an apology on the phone machine at 4:40PM from Mildred, which is so astounding that I copy out the complete text of her message (so I don't have to save the message itself forever): "It's me. I apologize for yelling at you this morning. It---I've been strange lately; even to myself I've been strange, and I---I know we've had THINGS before, but I don't think I've ever whole-heartedly YELLED like that, and you didn't do anything to deserve it, and I apologize. Talk to you SOMETIME later. Take care. Bye." Click. I'm so astounded that I leave the message on Sharon's machine, call Mildred back to thank her, and then try to call Marj, but she's put her phone off. I end up watching endless "South Park" episodes and get to bed at 11:05PM. Have trouble getting to sleep and at 12:35AM I take out my earplugs and set the alarm to go off at 7:15AM.