2012
SHARON B. 214 5/31/12
Late again, and I walk to the door of her office to see her in the act of rising to come to get me. Tell her in GREAT detail about the two "hang-ups" on me today, and she expresses amazement, saying she's always noticed I've taken great pains to be exact, and I was certainly exact with Spartacus about looking at THE LAST SENTENCE, and he had NO reason to get mad at me for HIS mistake. I said that AGAIN my phone was going to be quiet, as I'd noticed it the first part of last week, because I will NOT call them until THEY call ME and APOLOGIZE. Sharon digs into it, and we conclude, OK, they won't APOLOGIZE, but at least I'll wait for them to call me---if only to act as if nothing happened. [And of course Mildred astounds (both of us, I'm sure) by leaving a message on my machine at 4:40PM, JUST as I'm talking to Sharon about her, and actually APOLOGIZING.] Say I'll be happy to have time to devote to the website, which has been going VERY well since I made the piles of discreet things to do on it [lying only a bit], Marj's proofing, which she's sent me again, and the index, which will be coming in next week, and I'm glad it's beyond the time that I might have gone on the Caribbean trip ANYWAY. I assured her that no one in my background: Mom or Dad or friends, did ANYTHING LIKE Spartacus, for example, who kept insisting that I assumed he could read my mind, so I didn't HAVE to make things clear to him. Talked about my Resveratrol meeting tomorrow, and my interview with the theater project on Monday, and she congratulated me for getting into so many interesting projects. We MAY have talked about other things, but I don't remember [now on Sunday, when I finally type this].
FRIDAY, 6/1/12: Up at 6:57AM after a restless night, looking at the clock almost each hour, and think to leave early but actually leave my apartment at 7:29AM. Get the 2 train in a few minutes, but wait a bit for the bus, and get to the office at 8:45AM, and wait until 9:15AM for Sharon to arrive and escort me through the hospital maze to the lab. They oblige me to rest for more than fifteen minutes before taking my resting blood pressure: 117/74, amazingly low. They draw blood every half hour, putting in an IV shunt at 10:30 so they don't have to constantly prick me. Thank goodness it stays open, thanks partly to the blanket they wrap my right arm in to keep the blood fluid. I eat their two tiny bowls of corn flakes with their required cup of milk, two cream-cheese-and-jelly bagel halves, and a small bottle of orange juice, and get my blood tested again. They test my occlusion-response time: putting cups on both forefingers, pumping up a pressure pad on my left arm until the circulation stops, and then frees it---they insist it was the same length of time both times, but it sure SEEMED much longer the SECOND time. She verified my premature beats (which I couldn't think of), my atrial fibrillation, and my inverted T-wave, but the EKG they gave me didn't measure my ejection fraction, which they were interested in hearing about. I couldn't remember the name of my fungal pills. Read magazines until I'm finished with the last blood draw at 1:55PM, have a terrible fish and overcooked vegetable lunch (with uneaten boiled potatoes) until 2:35PM, and leave, following the nurse outside in the maze to get to the bus stop to wait a bit for the bus, and again for the subway home, getting in at 4:15. Look at the mail, but I really don't feel like doing anything else but Spider, starting at 5:55PM, looking at the gathering rainstorm outside, and play until 12:30AM, just CRAZY, but still getting to 51.70428 at 959 up after 8 wins for 32nd consecutive high! Have soup and yogurt and toast while watching more "South Park" and get to bed at 2:07AM, having taken the first pair of my resveratrol/placebo pills.
SATURDAY, 6/2/12: Pee at 4:32AM and at 5:33AM, weighing myself at 204#. Pee again at 6:10AM and 7:22AM, kidding myself that I'm down to 203#. At 8:23AM I shit-read the Times, and do both puzzles quite quickly to 10:30AM, but continue with the Times and ignore breakfast to have the last of the beef patties for brunch, watching the Dick Tracy Serial #4-6, skim the mediocre Broderick "Godzilla," and just keeping watching "South Park" until I'm butt-sore and adjourn to the bedroom for Spider 4:53-5:43PM GOOD to 51.70931 at 962 up after 4 wins for 33rd consecutive high, and continue with Taipei from 5:55 to 8:30PM! Check e-mail to think I'd MISSED "Albert Nobbs" on Saturday, wondering HOW I could have done that---or else they didn't send it---until I realized it WAS Saturday, so I dressed and went down to get it and started watching it at 10PM, even starting the commentary repeat before getting to bed at 12:56AM, feeling slightly like Mildred: not quite myself.
SUNDAY, 6/3/12: Up at 8:01AM to get the Times, shit-read to 8:26, weigh 203#, and search for Fisherman's Friend for my sore throat, doing a few crosswords and sudokus when I come across those books in my travel packets, to 9:58AM. Then finish the commentary with my "ordinary" oatmeal bowl to 11:10, and then read the Times to find that BBC America has TODAY for Elizabeth's 60th Jubilee, and I watch the parade of boats on the rainy Thames until 1PM, when I put the rest of the series on to tape for the rest of the afternoon. Watch more until 2PM, when I go AGAIN for my daily Spider from 2-3:35PM, getting to 51.71054 at 963 up after 3 wins for 34th consecutive high, not knowing WHAT I'm going to do for the rest of my life! Then continue with Taipei, winning more than 3/4 of them, from 4:55-6:05PM, and then FINALLY get to NOTEBOOK N, finishing to this point to 6:55PM, having FORCED myself not to get involved with the trips I took in the 80s until AFTER I finish this! At 7:30PM, after cleaning up the apartment for the most part, I start looking at AR\NA, and find that it contains 88 pages of 1979 to 9:05PM, to page 184 of 1980 to 10:30PM, and to page 215 of 1981, and mere page 216 of 1982. Finish at 10:55PM, feeling virtuous. Watch the next-last season episode of "Mad Men," with a suicide, and almost finish the tuna casserole, watching more of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and get to bed at 1AM.
MONDAY, 6/4/12: Pee at 6:25AM, weighing 203#, and type DREAMS:6/4/12. Start Actualism, but it really doesn't GO, and I'm up at 8:56AM to have an oatmeal breakfast while watching more of the Elizabeth footage, and Workoff calls to say that the pages will be FedExed to me tomorrow. Go to gym 12-1:30PN, finish the tuna casserole, don't start the beef roast, clip fingernails, call Mildred back to say I'll consider the mine-sale venture I'd first refused, and for some CRAZY reason watch TV until 2:30, when I'd WRITTEN that I should be at the Mind the Gap appointment at 2:50PM!! Get there at 3:10PM, but I'm the only MAN of the 15 candidates I see of the 30-40 she says she has, so I may get it for THAT! I'm called in with the 3:30 group, which means that the FIRST group had only FOUR people, an even number, while the SECOND group had SIX people, ALSO an even number, so one of the judges deemed me "the problem solver," since my presence caused BOTH groups to be even, so that we each had someone to interview. I had Lynne, the flame-haired woman who found herself locked into the lady's room cubicle until a seventy-year-old Chinese woman crawled under the partition to show her how to unlock her door. She'd been an actress on stage, screen, and television, her whole life, and wanted to be the next Betty White, while indulging her passions of Ping-Pong, standing on her head, and still acting. I amused her greatly by telling her the tale of IBM paying for my LSD trips, and she confessed that only one toke made her high, and she'd always wanted to have LSD, but her chances had passed. When we each told the others' stories, the woman to my right said she STILL had the chance, which is what flame-hair said that I'd told her too. So the session seemed to go well, lasting until 4:15, and I zipped out without talking to anyone. Home by 4:45PM. Aliza calls with a brain appointment at the end of JULY! Back to Elizabeth's TV until 7:40, and to the computer for Spider 7:45-8:50PM to 51.71372 at 965 up after 3 wins for 35th consecutive high! Continue with Taipei, winning about 80% of them, 8:50-9:45PM, and catch up with this to 9:55PM, feeling slightly feverish: am I getting SOME kind of reaction to my Resveratrol/control pills? Feel chilly sitting at the window at 55°, having loved the silvery clouds toward sunset. Got Great Wall egg foo yung for dinner at 5PM, so what do I do now? Actually go to BED at 10:20PM, under two blankets at 54° outside!! Start Actualism, pee at 11:50PM, not typing dream because it would be the wrong date, 201#!
TUESDAY, 6/5/12: Pee at 1:46AM, weighing 200.5#. Pee at 4:52AM, weighing 200#, typing DREAMS:6/5/12 to 5:03AM, dawn coming up at 53°, and start Actualism 5:33, checking that sunrise was at 5:26AM, ending at 5:58AM, and with so much on my mind I get up at 6:01AM after only 7:41 in bed. Decide to start Marj's notes, out of my Tue-Do list of 11 items, and print out NOTEBOOK N page 13 only AFTER I printed ASME's indexes from last year, so that I can clear last page from printer. Fussing to get STARTED in the day and typing this takes to 6:45AM, having included adding Ken's ITAPUGLI show to my "here-show" list and updating my weight chronicle! Clear off my desk and file the website pages into their original stacks by 7:20AM. Have breakfast with QEII to 8:20AM, proof Marj's BUTANEPA to 11, talk with her to 12:20PM, and figure out the invitation list to ITAPIGLI on Friday night to 1:20, ending with a possible list of nine with only four (including me) confirmed. Have lunch to 2:20, with my first "eye of round" steak broiled to too-chewy a texture, watching more of my saved tapes, and then work on ASME until 7:40PM, at one point thinking that my previous four hours on the job had been WASTED (see COMPCHRO:6/5/12), but at the end happy to feel it's saved, with the first phase having been completed and Robert saying he'll call me tomorrow for my questions, fewer than ever this time. Then do my daily Spider 7:50-8:50PM to 51.71507 to 966 up after 4 wins for 36th consecutive high! Continue with Taipei 8:50-9:50PM, winning, actually, MOST of them, and then continue to Solitaire, winning relatively few, 9:50-10:50PM, experiencing troublesome pains in my lower abdomen that might feel like a hernia low down (shades of Mildred's reporting on CHARLES'S hernia yesterday, when I called him to INSIST he call me back, which he hasn't yet), and then have more egg foo yung with almost the last of the Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee (and if she reaches her 70th year of reign, when she's 96, it'll be the first Platinum Jubilee ever!) programming, and get to bed at 12:43AM.
WEDNESDAY, 6/6/12: Pee at 7:18AM and weigh 199# again! Type DREAMS:6/6/12 and pee again at 7:31AM. Back to sleep, obviously needing it, and leap out of bed at 10:22AM for a phone ad. Have breakfast of the penultimate scrambled eggs while skimming both Elizabeth's evening rock concert (a disaster), and "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl," with an athletic but VERY thin, young, Taylor Lautner, and Kristin Davis (of "Sex and the City") as his mother, to 12:10PM. Phone Robert to tell him of my lunch, Piri calls to say that Mark will attend on Sunday, no mention of our "problem," and Alexa calls to confirm for Friday. I catch up with this to 12:27PM, ready for my daily Spider before lunch with Mildred at 1:50. Spider goes PERFECTLY from 12:37-1PM to 51.71666 to 967 up after 2 wins for 36th consecutive high! Take 7th Avenue subway to 34th Street and stand on that TOTALLY MAD corner until the M34A Select crosstown bus appears and I manage to get a receipt before I board. Get off at 28th and 2nd, as that seems to be better than waiting five stops to get off closer to the restaurant, and can't find the ENTRANCE to Riverpark, so I go in through the garden and complain loudly about how it's not well marked, though I'm there at 2:05PM, and Mildred is pissed, but the meal isn't bad---she takes half of it home with her, feeling terrible from her cold---and she's out in time for us to walk to Park Avenue South for her doctor's appointment and my subway. Back at 4:05PM, phone Robert, read the mail until he calls at 4:40 and answers all my ASME questions until 5:10PM. Finish with the mail to start Taipei 6:20-8:25PM, and continue to Solitaire 8:25-10:35PM, just DOING IT, my stomach still full from lunch, my left buttock still sore for sitting on, and still feeling strange, I hope from Resveratrol. Decide NOT to have anything more in the line of meals, wash my face, brush my teeth, and get to bed at 11:03PM.
THURSDAY, 6/7/12: Pee at 5:06 and type DREAMS:6/7/12. At 5:49AM make a long list of things on my mind: 0) Steph, yes, space available Friday, done at 9:04AM; 1) Check Odysseys on Gambia, and by 9:20AM my name has been added to their want-list of two others: management will be meeting end-July to plan new departures, and she took my phone number for reference; 1.5) Set up to record "Episodes" on DVR; 2) Toba's on Fox News, not helpful to me, checked at 7:20AM; 3) Invite Toba and Ronni for Friday? Not done yet; 4) Brooklyn public-access television: tryouts for summer programs finished April 27, phone number for more information 718-683-5606; 4.5) Reduce ITAPUGLI for Friday, not done yet; 5) Joan Millman's Senior Resource Fair brochure noted with my request for Brooklyn TV to film my travel programs; 6) Mildred phoned at 9AM: her doctor is treating her for an infection, so she might feel well enough to come Friday, but she'll call me on Friday; she'll also let me buy the oil field from her and try to sell it to some stranger, leading me every step of the way; 7) Make new, clearer ASME instructions, so I don't have the SAME YEARLY PANIC I've had for the past THREE years! WHAT A LIST! Pee again at 5:52AM and start a productive Actualism before getting up at 7:03AM, weighing 200#, exactly eight hours after I went to bed. Perform the duties described above, have breakfast while watching "The Borgias" to 8:50AM, and then phone Odysseys and catch up with this by 9:30AM, feeling energized! Start working on the ASME index, editing entries 9:35-11:10AM, adding new to noon, printing and proofing to 12:45, and making corrections to 1PM. At 12:30PM Sharon cancels our appointment for this afternoon. Then do my daily Spider 1:10-3:10PM, to 51.71936 at 969 up after 5 wins for my 37th consecutive high!! Have lunch while watching "Melies the Magician," which goes for over three hours with only some new material and much narrative background by his granddaughter. Back to ASME Conference Index 5:35-6:45, leaving word with Robert at 6:30 for the last questions, and 6:55-7:15. At 7:20PM I start reducing the ITAPUGLI show from 772 to 615 shots by 8:30PM, feeling much better about the show. Then probably end up watching lots of "South Park" with dinner because I've had such a good day. Bed 11:34PM.
FRIDAY, 6/8/12: 4:11AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/8/12. Start Actualism to try to get back to sleep, but it doesn't work, so I get up at 6:03AM (only 6:29 in bed, and at most 4:37 of sleep!) concerned about this evening, noting that I should buy limoncello and nocello. Look up rosolos in my notes and fuss to 7:18AM, feeling awful. Have breakfast and go back to bed at 8:59AM to try to feel better. Then up for Spider 9:55AM-12:20PM: a DISASTER to 51.70946 at 964 up after 3 losses, which broke my streak after 37 consecutive highs! Robert Workoff calls with answers to my last questions from 10:20-10:30AM. Keep updating my attendance list for tonight as Fred calls to cancel, and I start putting the apartment together for tonight after watching a number of "South Park" episodes just to pass the time. Go to the gym and buy two bottles for an amazing $58.77---I really should have bought them at Italian duty-free! But I didn't, and I had them when I wanted them, and it's all to the good. Set up the table for dining around it, since we're going to be so few, it seems, and Piri shows up first at 6:50, just after I finish getting ready, and then Alexandra arrives with lovely little sugared donuts that she bought at Gristede's downstairs. Bill Petersen shows up, looking chipper, so I decide to start at 7:15, having ordered a half-pepperoni half-mushroom pizza. Stephanie arrives at 7:25, saying she waited for a rain shower to finish before leaving the Clark Street station. Then Carolyn shows up at 7:45, when Bill gets up, says he isn't feeling well, and leaves. The pizza arrives at 8PM, only $17 for which I give him $20, and we five: me, Piri, Carolyn, Alexa, and Stephanie, sit around the table and get besotted with limoncello and nocello, the latter with which Carolyn fills her champagne glass half full---and then complains about feeling drunk as she orders a car service to take her home at 10:40PM. The show goes very well, Carolyn saying she's falling asleep and Piri and Alexa saying they have to leave starting at 10:30, and they're gone by 10:40, when I watch Bill Maher and another two "South Park" episodes and get to bed at 12:12AM, rather drunk on limoncello.
SATURDAY, 6/9/12: Wake at 8:38AM (8:26 sleep---should get drunk more often?) and type DREAMS:6/9/12. Type to 8:55, get Times, and weigh 202#. Shit-read to 9:26AM and lie down again. Think, up at 9:51AM. Finish typing a WHERE AM I NOW? at 10:10AM. Start a Sat-Do list that ENDS with 1) dress by 10:15AM. Start watching "South Park" just to pass the time, and then watch three hours of "Hawking's Universe," with some new data: like negative energy filling the entire universe to ZERO OUT the positive energy of creation! Just veg out all day in front of the television, taking time to do the puzzles and read the Times. Don't even touch Spider. Bed 11:49PM.
WHERE AM I NOW? 6/9/12
Lie in bed thinking after 8:23 (or so) of restful sleep last night after getting through the much-anticipated ITAPUGLI program last night, as minimally attended (Piri, Alexandra, Stephanie arriving late at 7:25 because she waited for a shower to be over before leaving the Clark Street station, Carolyn arriving late at 7:45 because she had a meeting she had to attend, and Bill Petersen who arrived on time but left at 7:50 because he said he wasn't feeling well) as it was, starting at 7:15, pausing from 8-8:50 for pizza, and ending at 10:40PM, 2 hours and 35 minutes, almost more than the falling-asleep Carolyn and have-to-be-home-to-pack-before-leaving-for-Dayton-tomorrow-morning Alexandra and got-to-get-home Piri and Stephanie could take. Travel was much in my thoughts: narrowing really-wanting-to-take trips to four: 1) three islands planned by Cadman Travel but obviated by the late-arriving ASME index, 2) Ajanta and Ellora to use my Sapphire-card miles, 3) West Africa if either the Odyssey Senegal-Gambia tour goes or I find someone to share the five-or-six-country Mali-centric tour, and 4) Chinese natural wonders to be cherry-picked outside the ordinary tourist centers. My recurring thought: I'm not traveling THAT MUCH, and one-or-two-trips-a-year CAN be more expensive, and I don't need ALL that money for my ageing years, and I won't be ABLE to travel for many more years. Briefly regard my finishing the ASME indexes today, getting through Marj's proofing soon, and getting back to the multiple piles of the website tasks. But soon I must have breakfast and read the Times, and hope to get phone calls from non-attendees last night: Charles, Fred, Spart, Mildred---as many as the attendees---to see how it went and what they missed. And clean up the mess from the pizza and limoncello and nocello last night, ready to take many left-over, tasty, calorie-filled snacks to the Games Group tomorrow. And get the news early next week whether I'm accepted into the Mind-the-Gap group of seniors. And, finishing this at 10:10AM, getting into my life.
SUNDAY, 6/10/12: 4:24AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/10/12. 6:49AM I feel horny after a sexy dream of jerking off a beautiful cock, and I get up to have problems with the VCR and am not really sure if I cum at 7:55AM. Go through the Times to 9:10AM, and talk to Mildred to 9:32AM about my earth-shattering decision to buy milk at Gristede's for my oatmeal! Try Peas & Pickles to see if they might have Fisherman's Friend, which they don't, nor does Gristede's. Buy the milk for $1.29 as opposed to Key Foods' $1.09. SPENDTHRIFT!! Have breakfast with the Times, devouring the cheddar snacks left over, and clean up the place from last Friday night, and get to Spider 11:50AM-12:45PM, BAD, to 51.71093 at 965 up after 1 win. Take AGES to get to Piri's by 2:35: waited TWENTY MINUTES for a crosstown bus at 79th and Broadway, and then it detoured around the Puerto Rico Day Parade and took a long time with TWO wheelchair stair-dips. Mark called to say he was NOT coming, negating his previous decision to come. We're seven: Claudia, Diane, Alexandra, Ceasar, Piri, Jermain, and me. I joint them in the midst of a round of Quiddler; then we do a lovely set of Charades, and Scattergories to 6:15PM, rather late, so that I get home, again waiting a long time for the bus and subway, just before 8PM. Renew tamsulosin prescription to have done SOMETHING today! Watch another hour of "Hawking's Universe" in which he concludes there isn't a god, and then skim the 20/20 with Trey Parker and the other guy from "South Park," who do ALL the work THEMSELVES. Then watch the Tony's from 8-11:10PM, with "Death of a Salesman" winning for play revival and director, "Clybourne Park" getting best play, "Once" and "Peter and the Starcatcher" winning a number of greater and lesser awards, and Nina Arianda gets best actress for "Venus in Furs." I watch more "South Park" and get to bed at 12:32AM.
MONDAY, 6/11/12: Pee at 7:32AM, after precisely eight hours' sleep, but I feel BAD! Do Actualism, which helps a bit. At 8:46AM I note a dream: I'm driving in northwest Ohio, pass "Lake" on map, pass a river, and see "End Spring" sign. I shit and record weight of 202# again. Watch "The Borgias" and have breakfast to 10AM, and then tackle the final tasks of the ASME indexes from 10-11:30AM, sending Book Index off first, then Conference Index. Add 4:20 from my updating work on 2/28 to get a total of 17:15, thinking to bill $1800, having surveyed the past to see that I STARTED in 1995 at $1100, reached a low of $800 in 1997, a high of $2000 in 2010, and $1900 last year. Then get to Spider at 11:35AM to 3:35PM, TOO LONG, to 51.70935 at 965 up after 3 wins. Then don't feel like ANYTHING OTHER than Taipei to about 6PM, winning an amazing proportion of the games, and then Solitaire to 10:30PM, not winning nearly as many. TIRED of sitting. A few "South Park" episodes with soup-dinner, and to bed at 12:35AM.
TUESDAY, 6/12/12: Pee at 1:49AM, weighing 203#, and pee again at 3:32AM and at 5:37AM and get out of bed at 6:44AM, having spent only 6:09 in bed. Note that I should phone Robert to send indexes to check! Weigh 202#. Breakfast with two "South Park" episodes to 7:45AM and then get back to proofing BUTANEPA to the next-last page at 11AM, when I phone her and get told that she's staying off the phone to accept work calls (she really IS paranoid about the change of staff at Watson-Guptill), so she'll call ME about 5PM for the proofing work. Robert Workoff had phoned at 10:30AM to say that he'd sent me a copy of the indexes by e-mail, so I got to them from 11:10AM-12:10PM, found a number of errors and changes and corrections, and he said I could send him a bill, which I did, for $1900, filling in all my forms for only the second index this year. Then have lunch, because I'm STARVING, of a tacky frozen meal that I over-nuke because it asks for a 1200-watt microwave and I have only an 800-watt one, watching "South Park" for a number of episodes before getting off to the gym, just after Rita calls from the road to Charlotte, North Carolina, on their way up to six weeks in their cabin in Canada, before I finally take the as-yet-eaten candy over to Spartacus in the rain, pick up my tamsulosin prescription at CVS before getting to the gym, and get back at 4:20PM to get the return call from Rita at 4:35PM that continues to 4:55PM, finishing neatly before Marj calls at 5:10PM to finish only a little over two pages by 5:47PM, when she has to start her evening's compulsions. I then get to Spider 5:47-8:15PM, TOO LONG, to 51.71559 at 969 up, tying the previous high, after 6 wins. At 8:20PM I return to proofing to finish BUTANEPA at 9PM and continue with CHICAGO6 to finish THAT at 10:50PM, delighted to have done so! More "South Park" with another soup dinner from Progresso, and get to bed at 12:40AM.
WEDNESDAY, 6/13/12: 4:36AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/13/12. I note that I sense a clammy smell about my body. Up at 8:47AM. Shit-read to 9:03AM, weighing 201#. Phone rings at 9:05, the machine picks up, someone hangs up, I phone Mildred: "Was that you?" and she said she knew she could ask "Is that you?" when I phone her back. I said I was in the middle of breakfast, could I call her back, and I could. Thought about going to the Met Museum today, but then decided I REALLY had to watch the 2:50 of "Woman in the Moon," to send it back when I go to Key Food for much-needed staples like milk and raisins. Mildred's phone WORKS when I call her 10:25-10:27AM. Movie ends 12:25PM, rather a prophetic work of art! I research my two prior viewings to 12:38PM, dress and go out with an umbrella, though it doesn't rain, to Key Food to 1:30PM, have lunch of broiled chicken to 2:05PM, order vitamins to 2:30PM, and get an e-mail that I have NOT been chosen for this year's "Mind the Gap." Pity! Then to my daily Spider 2:30-3:15PM, nicely short, getting to 51.71888 at 971 up---a NEW BEST---after 3 wins. Then write following: 3:25PM: FINALLY get to NOTEBOOK. Happy to have done so many LITTLE things today: cleaning my teeth thoroughly while watching "Woman in the Moon," which I researched to find that I saw in a theater in 1961 and at MoMA in 1985, when I recorded that "It's a bore," which certainly wasn't my reaction THIS time; ordered Puritan's Pride vitamins for $249; bought $54 in groceries and enjoyed fresh warm chicken for lunch; plucked my pinna hairs; and sent Sandi a belated birthday wish. Now to pass the time before Marj calls at 5PM to do more proofing work, probably not finishing today but maybe tomorrow. Don't even catch up to this point when Marj phones at 5:03PM and we proof 5:10-5:50PM, getting only two pages done again, and since I have Sharon tomorrow, Marj will call back on FRIDAY! This will go on FOREVER! Happy to be caught up by 6PM, having printed three pages. Had put the JOURNAL notes back on my desk, when it was cleared from the ASME material, to research "Woman in the Moon" dates, so I'm AT LAST back to that task---except for Met Museum visit, maybe tomorrow? But now---I feel like Taipei! Do that from 6:05-7:53PM, winning about half; then continue with Solitaire, to the point of ass-sore dizziness, to 9:20PM, when I catch my journal up to the minute and prepare for my evening's "South Park" before going to bed early, to get up early for early Met Museum visit! Have an ear of corn for dinner, albeit with lots of butter, watch more "South Park," and get to bed at 11:33PM.
THURSDAY, 6/14/12: Actualism puts me to sleep quickly. I repeat the thought to myself to put porn slides onto laptop for TV. Pee twice at 3:27AM, do more Actualism, nap, pee twice (why IS THIS??) again at 5:40AM, more Actualism, another nap, and pee at 7:50AM, weighing 200#, and at 9:12AM type DREAMS:6/14/12 and shit-read to 9:33AM, weighing 199#! Breakfast with more "South Park" and leave about 10:30AM for the Met Museum, determined to DO it, since I didn't go end-April when I'd planned, missing three (relatively minor) shows. In to museum at 11:30, finding that I have to go to the fourth floor to pick up a timed ticket for the Cloud City on the roof, so after I get the clerk to get a non-displayed Summer Calendar out of a drawer to sell to me, I pick up a ticket for 12:15PM and go upstairs to look at it from the outside, sad that you can't take a camera into it, but then there are SO MANY angles and vistas and confusions and physical impressions inside, a camera really wouldn't come anywhere near doing it justice. Inside 12:12-12:32, really enjoying it, though I'm NOT pleased by my pot reflecting back to me from the many mirrors. Note that someone has an incredible duplex garden with trees and plantings on top of a building just south of 81st Street, and the castle-like building a block north must have a duplex on the top and a duplex below it, since all four floors (Heaven forfend a quadruplex!) are closed for the summer, and even the lower floors are clearly floor-through residences with identical window shades lowered. Planned my day 11:45AM-12:12PM, and followed the roof by going ALL the way across to the American Wing, and up the glass elevator to the mezzanine where they have a mere WALL for "Breaking the Color Barrier in Major League Baseball," showing maybe 30 of the guy's collection of over 30,000 baseball cards. Most minor exhibit ever. That only takes 12:40-12:47, showing that it took me EIGHT MINUTES to get there. Pee to 12:49 and then to Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, GREAT show that I see almost all of 12:58-1:57, knowing I'll be late downstairs for the start of the 2PM movie, but the start of the 25-minute "Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai: Conservation of the Mosaic of the Transfiguration" is delayed by technical difficulties until 2:12, perfect for me to pee nearby and get a few sips of water before the lights dim. Tired enough to leave museum at 2:37, onto the bus at 2:48, onto the express train at 3:09, and home to have a wonderful hamburg while looking through the new New Yorker. Get to Sharon early at 4:26PM and she cancels next week. Try Marj at 5:20 but her phone's off the hook already. Then talk to Charles from 5:25-6:10, sad about Mildred's impatience with his not returning her calls, and saying something I'd never heard from him before: "I've kept him alive by feeding him foods that he'll find interesting; touching him as he likes to be touched---if he'd gone into a home he'd have died in a few months." Hard to argue with that, even though, partly because "Bill's forgotten how to eat," Charles is always TOTALLY exhausted, waiting for the hernia operation on July 2 to ease his intense physical pain at times. Respond to Mildred 6:10-6:50, not satisfying her at all. Then to Spider 6:50-8:10PM, getting to a new highest (at last) of 51.72011 at 972 up after 4 wins, then going to Taipei 8:10-9:20 and Solitaire 9:20-10:15PM, exhausting THAT jones. More "South Park" with another ear of corn for dinner, and bed at 12:08AM.
SHARON B. 215 6/14/12
Early for the first time in a while, and start right in on my "long look" at the extraordinarily handsome guy on the subway who KEPT looking at me, and I just DIDN'T know what to DO! INSISTED on my accurate self-image as NOT being able to respond in a SEXY way, but we agree, after I agonize about it, that I could just NOD in a friendly way, to acknowledge that "this glance is more significant than others." Also told about the tall handsome fellow getting off the train a few days ago in the Clark Street station as I boarded. I realized it was ANOTHER blow to my "progress" of accepting my advancing years: I DO want them, but there's no chance of GETTING them; I have no CONTROL over how I now look (leave talk of my determination to reduce weight to next time), and that just FRUSTRATES me, so I AM glad I brought it up with her. Also connected my "annoyance" when people ask where my next trip is and I CAN'T TELL THEM as ALSO my control slipping away from me. That explains my current impatience with New Yorkers who drive crazily near crosstown busses, or kids who run their scooters in the bus lanes, or just stupidity in general that I get impatient with BECAUSE I CAN'T CONTROL IT. Said that otherwise the week was GOOD: got the index done expeditiously; played games willingly, enjoying them; and enjoyed talking with Marj and Mildred. She cancels next week's meeting because she's taking a week off to REST due to pressures with her father's death and her mother's illness and her constant coming down with colds and flu for the past weeks due to sheer fatigue. Don't mention that she sounds rather like Charles, unfortunately.
FRIDAY, 6/15/12: 4:48AM: Look at clock, decide not to pee yet. Look at clock and it's 6:08AM! Pee, and kid myself that my weight is down to 198#! Type DREAMS:6/15/12 to 6:16AM. Think. Think to do Actualism and sleep more, but don't. Decide to put in a "protest" ballot to agree with the 6/13 memo AND turn in a ballot WITHOUT a vote. Up at 7AM, only 6:52 in bed. Try to consider HUNGER pangs as "my stomach devouring its coating of fat." Check Audience Extras to 7:25AM and reserve THREE PERFORMANCES this weekend. Find that Netflix billing starts 6/23! Weigh 199#. Start looking how to get slides onto my TV at 7:37AM, getting a file by 8:30, and it doesn't quite work, since I can only "cum with a question mark" by 9:25AM. Breakfast with three "South Park" episodes to 10:50AM, leave word with Spartacus about my three Audience Extras, at 10:55 mail the ballot and get to the gym. Call to John as he's leaving and we agree to meet at 7:50AM on Monday for our New Jersey excursion. At the gym to 12:45PM, rather surprised that I'm steaming and showering for HALF AN HOUR each time. AND I looked, and then asked Ms. Cory, about a "suspension machine," but they don't have one---I briefly think about making one at home, but put it out of my mind. Then do a wonderful daily Spider from 12:55-1:30PM, to 51.72169, another highest, at 973 up after 2 wins, and then decide to get to NOTEBOOK N, finishing that to date by 2:25PM, printing two pages. It all takes so LONG! Now for another delicious hamburger for lunch. More "South Park" before having the last ear of corn and getting to "The Lathe of Heaven" at 7:40PM, not bad with dream-like projections, but the singer-alien is a bit much, along with being not understandable. First run through "Five Star Day," with an EVER-so-cute Cam Gigandet, and bed at 11:42PM.
SATURDAY, 6/16/12: 6:15AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/16/12, really weighing 198#! Up at 8:01, weighing 198# or LESS! Watch the commentary on "Five Star Day" with breakfast, delaying Times until I finish the movie and mail at 2:35PM, then do the two-week TV Guide to 3:35PM, the acrostic to 4:20, the puzzle to 5:05, and finish the Times at 6PM. Have a quick burger for a late lunch and leave at 6:20PM for "Symphony of Shadows" at a new Dixon Place on the west side of Chrystie between Delancey and Rivington. It's pretty bad, except for the nice chest of a young red-haired guy, a lean black dancer, and a double-named pretty woman. It's over quickly by 8:35PM, and I subway home by 9:25PM to watch Bill Maher and get to bed at 11:05PM. Note to Marj to do only ONE dreams/day.
SUNDAY, 6/17/12: 4:19AM: Pee and charge cell phone. Back to bed at 4:45AM. 7:43AM: Type DREAMS:6/17/12 to 7:49, still tired. Read Times, call Suzie to have her volunteer to bring food for me, watch "Crazy, Stupid, Love" for a tight-bodied---whoever [remembered later as Ryan Gosling]! Get out at 1:10PM after a burger for "Common Pursuit," rather good despite the fact the Times didn't care for it: I was surprised, though I'd seen it in 1984, by some of the plot twists. Back to play Spider 5:35-6:15PM, getting a new highest of 51.72328 at 974 up after 2 wins, and continue to Taipei, boring quickly from 6:15-7:20PM, and then catch up with NOTEBOOK until 7:40PM, hungry again, looking forward to lovely chicken. Finish that and watch TV until bed at 10:16PM.
MONDAY, 6/18/12: 4:01AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/18/12. Weigh 200#. Up, tired, at 6:28AM, weighing 199#. Have breakfast watching "South Park," and get out to meet John at the subway at precisely 7:50AM. We get to Penn Station and pay $13 for round-trip tickets to Somerville; the train leaves at 8:35, we change in Newark, and arrive about 10AM with Suzie on the platform to meet us. It's cloudy most of the day, so I'm not that much discommoded for not bringing a sunhat. The Farm Barn reminds me unpleasantly of Auschwitz, but the short movie is impressive, the plan-map is quite clear, and we get out to the tram after seeing the exhibits inside. Off at the Old Foundation, very impressive, but the Great Fall isn't turned on until 12:30PM. We sit in the tram station and talk until it comes, taking us back to the parking lot about 12:30, when we dash to the car to pick up the picnic lunch and dash back to the tram to get off at the Orchid House, where Suzie has provided a wonderful lunch of ham, cheese, turkey, potato and macaroni salads, and potato chips for dessert. John has his curried chicken and vegetables. The orchids have the greatest variety of any display I've ever seen: truly splendid. Decide to walk back, John, maybe tiring, insisting on lying on the grass before we get to the gate. Leave about 3:30 and get the 3:45 train back to Newark and get into Manhattan just after 5PM. Great day, we all agree, and I have to e-mail photos to Suzie. I watch the season finale of "The Borgias," with Jeremy Irons just being poisoned. Then a rather sketchy "Florent: Queen of the Meat Market," and I get to bed at 10:32PM.
TUESDAY, 6/19/12: Pee at 4:55AM and type DREAMS:6/19/12 to 5:04AM. At 6:26AM I started Actualism, but also OBSESSING on "Missed Opportunity" of THAT enchanted look, at THAT time, on THAT subway, and have a connection-fantasy of MEETING. Shit-read to 6:44 and weigh 199#. Then go to M4M on "Missed Opportunity" and put in the encounter on the #1 line under 2100 Broadway at 75th Street, at about 3PM on Thursday, 6/14, leaving my e-mail though Verizon cautioned me that the site wasn't safe to leave any information on. Sadly, I didn't get a response by the weekend. Do that to 7:07AM, and although I SHOULD (yes, yes) do website work, I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE IT. Spider 7:30-9:20AM, incredible to 51.73682 to 982 up after 9 wins! Taipei 1:30-3:38PM, just to do it and then I watch TV ALL DAY, starting with an episode of "Episodes," just as funny the second time around. Continue with a repeat of "The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch," and about TEN episodes of "South Park," which go down as easily as potato chips. Try to eat little: oatmeal in the morning, and I think it was today that I cooked up the pork butt, not as enthralling as it used to be: it's not easy to trim of the fat, and it's not SMOKY enough. Bed at 12:56AM.
WEDNESDAY, 6/20/12: Pee at 5:05AM and type DREAMS:6/20/12. Repeat that cycle at 7:22AM after waking with an erotic dream that inspires me to get out the paper porn, try to use the vibrator and the vacuum pump, and finally get to the DVDs and actually CUM by 9AM, at LAST! Two "non-productive sessions" are two too many. Spider 9:30-11:35AM deemed TERRIBLE to 51.74315 at 986 up after 5 wins. Watch a program about the failed attempt to use the term "Gay Olympics" via a Supreme Court decision while having a late breakfast to tide me over to the early dinner with Mildred. Watch "41 (first George Bush at 88)" and the first pass through "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie." Get to Annisa at 5:28PM and have to wait in the bar with my Kir Royale until Mildred's arrival at 5:35 leads us to the table. My pissedity is described tomorrow, but I left vowing NOT to have a meal with complaining Mildred for a GOOD LONG TIME. The two courses were glorious, but rather expensive, and it DID get too loud toward the end, when it filled up by 7PM. Back to watch the first act of "Ernani," which I saw at the old Met in 1965 and again on TV in 1983, which must have been the premiere of this production. Rather boring; ridiculous plot; klunky sets; mainly male choruses; Angela Meade's magic eludes me. Bed 11:22PM.
THURSDAY, 6/21/12: Pee at 7:11, and up at 7:33, weighing 199#. 7:34AM: Pissed about Mildred COMPLAINING during dinner at Annisa, after she ASKED me if she could complain, and I said, "No, I'd rather enjoy a good dinner." Then, after a brief respite where we talked about "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," she started in with: 1) Multiple complaints about the former treasurer of her building and how Mildred had to check things out about a) insurance and b) monthly payments and c) funds and checks used; 2) STILL complaining about "that bitch Trish," even though she's GONE, 3) Her therapist who votes for Obama, 4) Obama's move outside Congress about immigration, 5) Relatives who "needed and got" while she "didn't need and didn't get," 6) Bitched about the stupidity and anti-Semitism of the British, 7) General added comments on anti-Semitism, 8) Insisted on my lack of knowledge about Susie, 9) And STILL harped on my wanting to charge $10 for my time for her Schwab inquiries, 10) And then fussed about the $2 difference in our bills, and 11) Complained that I didn't give her the tax and tip on the $2 difference---fifty cents! 12) And ended with some hurtful threat about "I didn't know how nasty a friend could turn out to be." In addition, 13) She would probably DENY that her responses to me would be worth mentioning to her shrink. Then to Spider 7:55-9:05AM to 51.74802 at 989 up after 4 wins. Stop just in time to leave at 9:45AM for Einstein in the Bronx for my third Resveratrol visit, getting in JUST at 11AM, and Kim takes my blood pressure initially at 136/68, which I say is so unusual that she takes it again after my TRAUMA of a blood-draw, the woman having to call Bob over from the other section because he'd "entered me" successfully for the IV before, and it took TWO: one to hold the rolling vein, the other to draw the blood. Final reading is 107/76, much more typical. My cholesterol is 121, HDL is 28, LDL 58, and triglycerides 100. Get involved instructions for the next period before my fourth-of-seven visits. Leave hospital at 12:12PM, a long half-hour visit! Off subway at 1:29 and home at 1:35. Ken professes not to remember my asking him to the Mermaid Parade on Saturday, which he can't attend, and signs me up to escort him from the hospital after his knee surgery on August 28. Lunch of tepid one-minute nuked ham sandwich while watching TV, trying to get rid of LOTS of stuff that I taped just to pass time. Taipei 3:50-5:20PM, DAMN! Decide to stop Netflix DVDs, so I start 6/23 at $7.99/month for, essentially, South Park. Watched the rest of "Ernani," two hours about "Victoria's Empire," with lots of stuff I didn't know about slaughters in India in a "Bibigarh" of women and children thrown down a well after being raped, but a great sequence on the Crystal Palace, which looked to have been ENORMOUS! Very hot and humid out, and I go to bed at 11:24PM with the air conditioner on, not willing to suffer again the fan-only that I tried last night.
FRIDAY, 6/22/12: 2:!6AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/22/12. Repeat cycle at 5:27AM, weighing 200#. 6:21AM: I'm awake and thinking: stamps, cruising, travel, Netflix, "South Park," Mildred, website, books. Pee at 6:23 and shit-read to 6:34AM, weighing 200#. Start Actualism with some good thoughts and up at 8:10AM. Spider 8:15-9:40AM to 5 wins, but I've GOT to have breakfast before getting to the dietician, so I leave it. Down the other hall on floor 2 to Sharpe, an attractive young black woman who can't tell me SHIT from 10:45-11AM. Out to try Millman's Senior Fair at St. Francis, but nothing interesting. Get back to Spider 11:50AM-11:54 to not win anything more, ending at 51.74924 at 990 up after 5 wins. Then go on to Taipei 11:55AM-12:50PM, and continue with Solitaire 12:50-2:50PM, cursing myself. GREAT rainstorm 2:22-2:32PM. Another unsatisfying pork butt sandwich with "We Were Here," a depressing AIDS film from San Francisco's dark days. Watch more of Morgan Freeman's stuff. Back AGAIN to Taipei 6:30-7:55PM. Start catching up with NOTEBOOK (oh, shit, not again!) at 7:55PM. 8:51PM: Glance out at the CERISE sunset and am enchanted by a view of a commuter ferry coming south, a Circle line boat going north, the Bateau Mouche coming south, and an enormous sail going north on a ship so close to Brooklyn I can only see the sail, not the ship itself---all this framed by the silhouetted lights against the sky which has drained itself of water TWICE today, first at 2:22PM in a TORRENT that lowered the temperature from 82° to 71° in ten minutes, and then AGAIN in fog and rain about 6:30PM, temperature dipping to 68° but going back up to 72°. How I LOVE the view from THIS APARTMENT! Also note that I made my next month's appointment with Chin at 8:15AM. Finish this at 9:40PM, having printed THREE notebook pages. AND want to check Fisherman's Friend and Audience Extras! Fisherman's Friend says CVS has it, and gives a US toll-free number to call for ordering. Audience Extras has nothing. Watch the start of "Journey to the Edge of the Universe," with a portentous Alec Baldwin narrating, with dinner, and get to bed at 11:46PM.
SATURDAY, 6/23/12: 2:30AM: Pee and type DREAMS:6/23/12. At 2:54AM make a Sat-Do list: 1) Clip toenails, 2) Set up Resveratrol dates, 3) Saturday Times, 4) Transfer dreams from Neo to WP51, 5) Pix to Susie, 6) Gym, 7) Get groceries, 8) Watch Netflix movie, 9) Marj: only ONE DREAMS button per day. 2:57AM: Pee again. 6:10AM: Type another dream to 6:19AM and shit-read to 6:42, weighing 199#. Turn A/C to 75°. At 7:50AM bring in Times, opening my door at the same INSTANT that Beverly, in white pajamas, opens HER door; I close mine quickly; I hope she wasn't offended by my nudity. At 8:06AM decide to start j/o, getting Porn 1 to work and actually cuming---I guess, at 8:50AM. Watch the rest of "Journey to the Edge of the Universe" with breakfast, running out of add-ins to my oatmeal. That goes to 9:55AM and I force myself to start on my list by clipping my toenails and flushing them with the remains of my bidis at 10:15AM. Then go to the Times puzzles, doing the easy Spiral 10:25-10:40AM, and starting on the puzzle until Spartacus calls, with great good humor, from 10:55-11:30AM. Marj called at 11, and I call her back and listen to her lengthy ruminations from 11:30AM-12:10PM. Then check out the Mermaid Parade website and get turned off by the reports of CROWDS and difficult viewing and no parking and troubled traffic, so I cross THAT off my list at 12:20. Back to puzzle, interrupted by Ken calling to arrange our July 4 viewing from his roof after dinner at 31 W. 14th St. Finish the puzzle at 12:40 and finish the rest of the Times by 1:50PM. Lunch to 3:20, laboriously getting all the meat separated from the fat to finish the last of the pork butt, watching Bill Maher, then transfer the Neo month of dreams to WP51, printing out five pages by 3:55PM. Send six Duke Farm shots to Susie by 4:30PM and energetically get off to the gym, returning for the last Netflix DVD at 6:30PM. Go through the mail, getting the ASME check, and resolve the HSBC statement by 6:45PM. Then play a MUCH TOO LONG Spider 6:45-10:20PM, messing up and sinking to 51.74106 at 986 up after 2 wins, dreadful---but I can't ALWAYS win!! Start in with the Maggie Smith DVD from Netflix, listening to her recording of Wycherly's "The Country Wife" for two hours, barely understandable, and then her Alan Bennett Talking Heads "Bed Among the Lentils" to a very late bed at 1:54AM, at 200#.
SUNDAY, 6/24/12: 5:38AM: Type DREAMS:6/24/12 to 5:49AM, then pee. At 8:20AM the phantom phone rings; I get Times, pee, and weigh 200#. Start Actualism, but get up at 8:36AM to copy File 2011 to Elite flashdrive and Edge, removing it from C: and getting 5.19Gb free at last at 9:45, playing a disastrous set of Spider to pass the time. Then watch "The Millionairess" with Maggie Smith and breakfast to 11:55AM. Phone in my last renewal of Terbinafine at 12:11PM, and go out to deposit two checks for $1950, stop at Garden of Eden to do EXPENSIVE Lot-Less-substitute shopping for pumpkin seeds, plantain chips, flaxseed meal, and cherries for $17.16, and get Key Food groceries for $50.12 before stopping in CVS to FIND Fisherman's Friend, which I get with the prescription, and lug my treasures back by 1:20PM. Have a wonderful roast chicken lunch with the Times, finishing at 2:30PM, when I go back to a Spider that descends into SIX LOSSES from 2:30-4:40PM to 51.729 at 980 up after 2 wins, really LOSING! Continue with Taipei 4:40-5:45PM, losing most of them, and tackle catching up on NOTEBOOK until 6:20PM, A/C on, hot and humid out, and page PRINTED! [Can't read my note, so I go to my DVR HISTORY and find that I watched a Nature and a Nova, but I STILL can't read my note---it looks like "Cherros/Mance/2 hr TV"---AH, it COMES to me: "Eat cherries and orange while watching 2 hours of TV."] TV to 8:40PM, then start AGAIN looking at website JOURNALS to 11:32PM, updating WEBSITE site, and noting WP51\SC\NOTEBOOK and JV\N2, N3, N4, and N5, as well as look at PAGES in old NOTEBOOK binder. Have an ear of corn and some blueberries with three episodes of "South Park" and get to bed at 1:25AM, weighing 200#.
MONDAY, 6/25/12: 7:38AM: P&TD, for the usual pee and type DREAMS:6/25/12, 200#. 8:10AM: Note to TEST degree °, cents ¢, underline, and 22 where WP51 goes to DOC. If necessary, convert ° to degrees. Also, to answer ANOTHER question, Google zolnerzone switzerland. 8:16AM: Shit-read and watch rain and lightning to 8:47AM, still 200#. Up, tired, at 9:24AM, having tried an abbreviated Actualism, not recorded, that merely puts on Ring-Pass-Not and White for CLARITY, LIGHTNESS, and VISION. To the computer to find that ALL TESTS ARE OK! All four details WORK! AND delighted to find that Google, at first, gives me SIX examples of Switzerland (and Swiss, interestingly) in Zolnerzone, and, when prompted, 106 examples to 9:35AM. E-mail Susie to 9:45, and get ready for Spartacus to ring from downstairs so we can walk to IHop with his Groupon coupon for breakfast to 9:55AM. Then open notebook and catch it up to date by 10:13AM, ready for LIFE to start! Work on website 10:14-10:35 before leaving to meet Spartacus n front of his place at 10:40, where he hands me $1.10 for the bus: he's too tired and his hip hurts too much to walk to IHOP. We get there for a 20-minute wait in the understaffed space with many vacant tables, and I'm pleased to read the low-calorie side of the menu, having an ENORMOUS egg-substitute omelet with fresh fruit (and two 250-calorie blueberry lemonades!), paying him $8 for his $20 Groupon he paid $10 for against the $18 check, including tip. Almost enter the subway when he realizes our BUS transfer won't GO on the subway, so we end up walking, he resting three times on the way, and arguing that the Hop-On-Hop-Off guide did NOT express his disappointment to our bus that 10 Clinton "blocked a good view of the Heights" when coming west on Tillary. Humid and 69° as I get back to my place at 1PM---putting half the omelet in the refrigerator to have for tomorrow's breakfast. Play Spider 1:05-2:05PM to 51.73216 at 982 up after 3 wins, and compulsively catch up on this by 2:15PM, ready to return to website! At 3:20PM I note that the journal notes are down to 9 from 19. Tackle the 10/19/11 WP51\*.* question page and by 4:45 I can throw it away, making many OTHER notes about other areas of the website. Stop for lunch, raining out. Watch about five "South Park" episodes and get back to website at 8:50PM, after taking pictures of purple sunset 8:31-8:35. Finish cataloging JV\N1-N5 to 12:35AM, realizing I FORGOT to take AM pills! Bed at 1:44AM after more TV.
TUESDAY, 6/26/12: Pee at 3:12AM, 4:10AM, and 5:53AM, and pee-read to 6:04, weight 199# or a bit less. 8AM: Type DREAMS:6/26/12 to 8:10AM. Write note: Consider a boiler-plate statement before each journal-year in the 80s: Unproofed, these pages reflect a transition between DIARY pages from 1956 to 1979 and the start of the NOTEBOOK system in 1992. Entries like (see DIARY NNNN will eventually be replaced by buttons like DREAMS:DATE, PLAYS:DATE, MOVIES:DATE, where DATE is the date of the journal entry referring to them. TITLED pages in transition periods replace untitled DAIRY-DATE pages detailing events on a specific date. The date itself, 7/15/82, becomes the link. Write note to 8:15, debating what to do next, still tired after only about six hours' sleep. Shit-read to 8:32AM and weigh 197#! IS unproofed USTRIP on website? Check now: NO! PUT it on via TB1-TB3! Start Actualism 8:35. At 8:57 make GYM note: each two days, ask about exercises for scoliosis, arthritis, pull-ups, sit-ups, reducing, calories in steam or treadmill? Cute guy consultation, and I realize I can "have" either dark-haired guy teaching fatty or big-calved guy teaching others. At 9:04AM I start Chin-list and John-phone notes, and at 9:17 TRAVEL note. Decide to record current "South Park" episodes (and keep track of titles?). Up at 9:42AM. LW with John at 9:43. Talk to Mildred (acrimoniously) to 9:57. Find MC\TRAVBUCK by 10:01. Clip fingernails to 10:11. LW with Charles 10:12. Add "South Park" to DVR 10:15. Breakfast and two "South Park" episodes to 11:23. John calls about iPod 11:10. Distribute pills to 11:50. Work on TRAVBUCK to 1:15. Catch up with this to 1:42PM, ready for the gym. Gym to 3:30, lunch with four "South Park" episodes to 5:15PM. Ilsa calls from the gym and says it takes about a week to schedule a progress meeting: the guy will call me with my appointment time. Spider 5:15-6:25PM to 51.73702 to 985 up after 4 wins. Working on website I decide to COMBINE all entries (travel, datebook, essays, entertainment, journals) for the 16 years 1977-1992, just to get it ON! Change Europe trip 1962 dates on JV/TA1 pages 26-40 to 7:37PM. Look at JV\TJ until 9:15, when Charles calls and talks to 10:27PM! He talks of "needing to entertain his therapist, or he's not interested in Charles," and I suggest they actually DON'T LIKE each other and he might be better to change therapists. Tell him about my argument with Mildred about charging her for Schwab deals. He probably tells ME more useful stuff than his tells his therapist. He's hoping his hernia operation on 7/2 or 7/3 ("I don't know, but it's marked down in my book.") will make him able to go out more. Have dinner of more chicken and watch more "South Park." Bed 12:40AM.
WEDNESDAY, 6/27/12: 8:29AM: Type DREAMS:6/27/12 and pee-read to 8:52AM, weigh 198#. Still tired. Do Actualism, by coincidence, one HOUR to 9:52AM, with my new library-shelf plan firmly in mind: construct a Master Sheet:
SOUTH WALL EAST WALL
A B C D E F G H I J K L M
LIVING ROOM WEST WALL HALL DISPLAY BEDROOM U V
N P Q DINING ROOM R S T W X Y Z
LIBRARY SECTIONS (LEFT TO RIGHT):
A: South wall 8-shelf large wood 1
B: South wall 8-shelf large wood 2
C: South wall 7-shelf narrow VHS tapes
D: South wall 6-shelf 3-unit
E: South wall 5-shelf top + 2-unit
F: South wall 7-shelf top + 2-unit 41 shelves
G: East wall 4-shelf DIARY+
H: East wall 7-shelf mirrored 1
I: East wall 6-shelf mirrored 2
J: East wall 6-shelf mirrored 3
K: East wall 5-shelf 2-unit
L: East wall 5-shelf 2-unit
M: East wall 3-shelf unit 36 shelves
N: West wall 6-shelf mirrored 1
P: West wall 6-shelf mirrored 2
Q: West wall 3-shelf mirrored 3 15 shelves
R: Dining area west wall 3-shelf unit + top
S: Dining area west wall 8-shelf 2-unit 11 shelves
T: Hall displays 1 shelf
U: Bedroom west wall 3-unit area
V: Bedroom west wall 4-drawer file 7 shelves
W: Bedroom east wall 6-shelf white unit
X: Bedroom east wall 5-area black unit
Y: Bedroom east wall 4-unit area
Z: Bedroom east wall 7-drawer files + tops 22 shelves
25 areas with 138 locations/shelves
Original moves to A and B: Front: books, author-alpha-order, one-shelf John Sell
Back: souvenirs and folders-no-spines, country-size-rear
Author oversize shelf below phone machine, then NYC, US, France, Italy, Germany
Sit, looking at A and B: it will be VERY much my current situation.
10:25AM: Discover stamp-catalog shelf fallen.
A-B shelf 5 KEPT for "oversize spined travel" in country order.
A6 NYC, A7 USA, A8 travel miscellany.
D/E 4/3 remains EB.
F2 remains 1001 Nights.
K2 remains EB11.
Thoughts include: exhaustive typed lists of ALL items, eventually going to website. Souvenirs end up P3A: West wall unit, 3rd shelf, Box A, maybe 500Play
Study: Well, leave SMALL-site author books in H-J, only "nice bigger display" volumes to front of A and B.
Considerably modify "all in order" to what will LOOK best on author shelves, but ALSO service my REFERENCE needs.
Current library shelves:
A1: 2 travel boxes; non-spine travel
A2: VHS tapes
A3: Mixed travel
A4: Phone machine, mixed travel
A5: high shelf: spined and tall travel
A6: NYC
A7: USA
A8: Travel miscellany: coins, mixed travel
B1: non-spine travel
B2: VHS tapes, paper supplies
B3: mixed travel
B4: boxes, will be replaced by books?
B5: as A5: high, spined travel; Stamp Catalogs
B6: mixed travel
B7: mixed travel
B8: mixed travel
C1-C7: VHS tapes
D1: spined books
D2: spined books
D3: high, spined, mostly art
D4: EB
D5: high, spined, mostly art
D6: programs, supplies, misc.
E1: high, spined, mostly art
E2: EB
E3: spined books; yearly calendars
E4: low, spined books
E5: low, spined books
F1: Masterplots
F2: 1001 Nights
F3: low, spined books
F4: medium, spined books
F5: medium, spined books
F6: low, spined books
F7: low, spined books
G1: DIARY pages
G2: DIARY pages
G3: DIARY pages
G4: DIARY pages and Actualism and travel
H1-7: Books
I1-7: Books and stamps
J1-6: Books and maps
K1: pictures
K2: EB11
K3: pictures and objects
K4: non-spine souvenirs
K5: Screw and large books
L1-2: pictures
L3: EB11 and stack of papers
L4: 3 containers
L4: NYC clippings and high books
M1: keys, wallet, current supplies
M2: shoulder bag, umbrellas, gloves, hats
M3: old newspapers and magazines
N1-6: later
P1-6: later
Q1-2: stamps
Q3: folding chairs
R1: cassette tapes and CDs
R2: computerized records and vinyl records
R3: vinyl records
S1: travel guides and objects
S2: travel guides and old camera
S3: travel guides
S4: tin-boxed travel
S5: high spined travel
S6: high spined travel and tin-boxed travel
S7: five containers
S8: four containers and a mass of papers
T: display books
U1: slides
U2: four drawers
U3: four drawers, two with stamps
V1-4: contents TBD
W1: computerized files
W2: printed pages and easy-access folders
W3: now-list, hard disks, supply catalogs
W4: card-file, stamps, calculator, computer
W5: rolodex, souvenirs, references
W6: dictionary, computer files, file-stack
X1: slides in boxes, photos, travel lists
X2-5: 48 filing slots
Y1: boxes and jewelry box
Y2: plays and travel files
Y3: Beard and HH menus, other
Y4: mainly clothes
Z1: lots of stuff
Z2: clippings file
Z3: electrical supplies
Z4: porn
Z5: scrapbook 1
Z6: scrapbook 2
Z7: financial files
Z8: letters
To 10:45AM: time for breakfast! 10:50AM: Type list of contents NOW and find which to start re-arranging FIRST. Record on NEO and transfer to WP.
Call Marj 11AM: My compulsions take flight to 11:08AM: she can't talk now. Two "South Park episodes and breakfast to 12:10PM. Meet Spartacus 1PM for "Streetcar Named Desire." I like it, he doesn't; we dine after at Dallas BBQ 5-6:10PM. Home to read mail and do TV Guide sudoku, and then don't feel like moving at all. Play Spider 8:15-9PM, OK, to 51.73848 to 986 up after 2 wins, but decide to continue to 10:30, BETTER, to 51.74687 to 991 up (high!) after 6 wins. Continue to Taipei 10:33-11:48PM, tiring. Weigh 200# and get to bed at 12:15AM.
THURSDAY, 6/28/12: Wake at 1:32AM from an erotic dream (which I don't remember), and decide to j/o. Porn DVD 1 works wonderfully, and I cum DECISIVELY at 2:50AM, making my groin terribly sticky. Back to bed, at 199#, at 3:05AM. FEET feel TIGHT! Shit-read 9-9:33AM, still 199#. Decide to make my OWN head-stand arrangement by piling pillows against the cabinets to the north of my bed, putting my backside on them, my head on a pillow, and my feet almost to the top shelf of the cabinets. Stay there for an hour 10-11AM, waiting for Marj to call, which she doesn't. Play Spider 11AM-12:35PM, OK?, to 51.74795 at 922 up (high!) after 4 wins. Shit again at 12:48AM, 198#, and have breakfast with a NEW "South Park," but the other four are rebroadcasts. Can't resist trying for a new TOTAL all-time high on Spider, and ACHIEVE it from 2-2:30PM with 51.74953 at 993 up after 2 wins. Leave word at 2:35PM with Tris about his "Apple dropping website; I should find another host that he can download system from" e-mail, saying that HE, sorry, MUST handle it---I'll PAY him for it! Start on NOTEBOOK but decide I REALLY have to get to the gym for a "half-session," so I'm there at 3:25PM, ride a bike for 15 minutes to get up a sweat, weigh 200# on THEIR scale with gym clothes on, and shower briefly without bothering with the steam room, and home at 4:20PM to go through a Swan Hellenic catalog to mark page 23 Djibouti/Oman/15 days November 21-December 5, 2012/ $2200 and page 37 Eritrea/Oman/15 days March 13-27, 2013/$1900---maybe even KEN can do those?! Then don't want to have lunch when Marj may call at 5PM, so I start listing library-shelf contents (see previous two pages) until 5:20PM, when I decide she's not going to call. Watch two hours of "Victoria's Empire" and then finish the contents list, transferring the Neo file to WP51 by 8:30PM, and finish this by 8:45PM, ready to start on REAL website work? Decide to put description on WEBSITE:6/28.12. Watch "Queen Victoria's Empire" for two more hours 10:35PM-12:10AM when I go to bed, weighing 199#.
FRIDAY, 6/29/12: Pee 2:55AM, weighing 200#. Pee-read 6:05-6:28AM. Put feet up again about 7:15AM, do Actualism 7:55-8:15AM, and up at 8:18 to shit-read to 8:49AM, weighing 197#! Look up Dan P. Lee on Google and find nothing but his articles. Can't find "Queen Victoria's Empire" end-music anywhere. Breakfast with Tavis Smiley and a Parkinsonian boxing coach, and watch "In the Life," not so bad, to 10:30AM, when I get to the computer, check e-mail, put yesterday's website work on WEBSITE and print out that page, and catch up with this to 10:40AM, ready for more website work. Essentially finish work on travel for years 1977-1992 by 12:15PM. Relax with Taipei 12:15-1PM, continue with Solitaire 1-2PM, and then I'm hungry for lunch, finishing the chicken while watching more "South Park," and leave for Sharon 3:45PM, putting a shirt over my tacky T-shirt. Hot session in her electricity-starved office and building. Stop at Key Food for $27.68 of groceries in three bags, not heavy in heated streets. Get a phone message from Ilsa saying Rick Fink will call me by Tuesday for my free gym consultation. From Sharon, decide to call Tris, who calls me right back and we talk 5:20-5:35, and he's taking care of everything. I continue looking at website and at 6PM find that the notes from TC are ALREADY interspersed in the files on JV\TB1-3! But checking them takes to 8:45, and I catch up by doing Sharon's session to 9:07PM. Watch two more "South Park" with dinner of corn, cherries, and an orange, and then watch "Bill Maher," last show before vacation, returning August 17. Bed at 11:59PM.
SHARON B. 216 6/29/12
Get there early in heat. She calls me in, saying she's better, and I start in with Mildred, causing Sharon to shake her head in disbelief, ending by saying she's a therapist's nightmare: extreme in everything she thinks and does, loving or hating, giggly or in a rage. Describe her arguing with HER therapist and Charles needing to ENTERTAIN his, at $300 a session! Then I revert to talking of my diet, and she INSISTS on saying I look thinner, which is hardly the case YET! But she wants to be supportive. She says that she's ALSO thought of her fat cells being eaten up through her hunger pangs. I say that Spartacus has fully recovered from hanging up on me. Moan a lot about the possible changes to the handling of the website, and she convinces me that I should call him RIGHT NOW to get clarity, which I do. She says she's sure that lying with feet up is salubrious to health, she's put her feet up when she reads, and has also looked at the possibility of an appetite suppressant. She praises my health when I say that, even without vegetables, I've not been sick for over a year---though we're both conscious of my raspy throat, I'm sure. Mention I'd considered a quick trip, but didn't do it. Said that I MISSED people-contact, so I'm reluctant to give up on Mildred. I LIKE having all the time for myself, but I don't feel ENERGIZED by the RESULTS I get---I LOVE my apartment in rainstorms, and like treats, but otherwise my emotional level is rather low. Didn't talk about sex at all. Mentioned getting a gym consultation, including asking about appetite suppressants. Got to get the name of the over-the-counter medication [phentermine]. I didn't think it was a productive session, but we agreed she'd be in the office on July 5.
SATURDAY, 6/30/12: 7:20AM: Type DREAMS:6/30/12 and pee, get Times, put feet up, and get up at 8:15AM. Pee again and weigh 197#, OR EVEN LESS! Turn off BR A/C, type this to 8:28AM, and turn on LR A/C to start Times, delaying breakfast so that lunch at Carolyn's won't be far off at 4PM. Both puzzles solved by 10:30, followed by breakfast with "South Park" three episodes. Then to the gym, VERY sexy guy showing off after my shower, and type this by 2:40PM, having bought $10.80 cava for Tris's birthday, older Tris and Tori not attending. Write $30 check. Play more Taipei 2:40-3:15PM just to pass time before walking in heat to Carolyn's by 3:50PM, to be greeted on the door stoop by Tris and his new Nancy, being told that I'm the first to arrive. Up to see Carolyn supervising lovely buffet table, candle-lit, featuring a four-foot wicker giraffe they found on the street! Have some ice cider, some of my cava, and many chunks of vodka-infused watermelon from Carolyn's wonderful glass samovar-like dispenser. Eat some junky curly crisps, two buns of Tris's great pulled pork, a few spoons of macaroni salad, and lots of wonderful, soft-melting, nut-laced chocolate, and a few snacks on crackers, not to mention the obscene "banana cream pie" with no dough and all schlag. Walk out about 7:30 to a pinball parlor at the corner of Sackett and Smith, but they can't play because their turn hasn't come up yet, so I walk back to Carolyn's about 9PM and leave about 10:05, tired and still hot. Home to two hours of Olympics gymnastics trials and bed at 12:34AM.
SUNDAY, 7/1/12: 2:02AM: Wake with STRONG lower-leg cramps. 7:20AM: Type DREAMS:7/1/12 and pee, get Times, and put on A/C. Feet-up Actualism session 8:40-9:10, and shit-read to 9:33AM, 198#. Finish the Times, lots of interesting articles about carbs causing fat, Russian fashion czarinas, Romney/Gain ads, Health Care Supreme Court rulings and cliques, etc. Breakfast with "Quiet American," that I turn out not to have SEEN before, in either incarnation. Program many programs to be watched later, as I run out of "South Park" episodes to see, and change the calendar page before typing this to 1:25PM, ready for a week of nothing-happening until Ken's pre-fireworks dinner on 7/4, lowering A/C from 75° to 73°. Spider 1:25-2:40PM GOOD to 51.75268 at 995 up after 3 wins. Continue with Taipei 2:40-3:25PM, feeling sort of fed up with it by now. Then at 3:30 hit Tris's website and get "Mobile Me closed" and I can't log on to zolnerzone.us either. Start on 1977 to 4:15, 1978 to 4:40, 1979 to 5:25PM and stop for lunch with TV. Back to website at 6:55 to finish 1980, e-mailing them all to Tris after getting a computer problem until 9PM. See COMPCHRO:7/1/12. Then, frazzled, go back to TV, mainly Olympics Trials for 2 skimmed hours. Finish a rather boring "Wiseman at the Paris Opera." Bed at 12:02AM.
MONDAY, 7/2/12: Get out of bed to try zolnerzone.us, and make note to tell Tris that THAT doesn't work! 1:20AM: Put A/C off and pee. Pee at 7:17AM, 199# sadly. Feet-up Actualism to 8AM, and shit-read to 8:11, down to 198#. BROOD to 8:57AM: I think to start on moving books around in the living room to relieve myself of the pressure to continue working on the website, which I'm grindingly not wanting to do. Get to the living room and start sorting through books from Thailand and Malta, pausing to read through a George Booth cartoon book, looking in detail at the Ethnicity book from Thailand, reading quite a bit from the Malta material, finding that the index is off by 10-11 page numbers, probably due to additions for the new edition. Get suckered into watching the silly Mel Gibson "The Beaver," amazingly directed by Jodie Foster: they clearly wanted to make a statement about depression, but it looks more like some of Mel Gibson's PERSONAL craziness worked out on the screen. Have a very late breakfast, then broil a pork chop, almost "off," for lunch, with a quantity of peas and applesauce. In desperation resort to Spider 5:30-6:20PM, doing well to 51.75559 at 997 up after 2 wins, but damnably decide to try to break 1000, and end up stopping at 7:55PM at a very low point. Spartacus had called to offer me a ticket for "Voca People," which a friend of his had said was good, so we subway there from 7:05 to 7:35PM to the basement theater way west on 50th Street. It's pretty bad; he only charges me $5 for the Theatermania ticket. Home at 10:30 to not even remove my shoes and continue with the Spider debacle until 12:45AM, ending at 51.75083 at 995 up after 3 wins, first down in seven sessions, feeling LOUSY about it. Bed at 1AM.
TUESDAY, 7/3/12: Pee at 5:28AM. 8:34AM: Shit-read to 8:56, 196#! Feet-up Actualism to 9:42AM, trying to energize myself, but renew prescriptions to pick up this afternoon, play Spider 9:55AM-12:15PM too long to 51.74815 at 994 up after 2 wins. DO manage to look at zolnerzone.us to find that I have NOT YET put my US BUS trip on the site. Call Piri to leave word for Sunday's Games Group. Then have a late breakfast, watching more TV, finish "She's the One," so disappointing I barely record it. Then out to the gym, asking a new woman at the sign-in desk if Rick Fink is there today, since Ilsa Cory said he'd call me by today, and she said she'd look for him, but I guess he wasn't there, and ISN'T the big-calved guy who WAS there. Holding out for the sexy guy who's in the Special Clients area on occasion. Back with a New Yorker that I feel SO logy finishing the puzzle in that I fall into bed 5:30-6:25, wondering what's WRONG with me! Then up for Spider 6:25-9:30PM, IMPOSSIBLE, to 51.73492 at 987 up after 3 losses. Just CAN'T continue! 9:35PM: Bite the bullet and get to updating notebook, finishing that at 10:25PM, stopping along the way to enter about six past COMPCHRO entries, ending with COMPCHRO:7/1/12. Now to TRY to get back to the website work. Check e-mail and get an offer for two dinners with drinks at Bice for $99 before September-end, and call Spartacus, who agrees to go with me. Then work on WEB1981 10:50PM-12:10AM and send it to Tris and get to bed at 12:24AM, weighing 195#!
WEDNESDAY, 7/4/12: Wake lots in night, but at 8:20AM type DREAMS:7/4/12 and pee. Foot-up Actualism to 9AM. Lie in bed to 9:16AM, and up to copy New Yorker article on the mean rich, for Mildred to fill out, until 9:45AM. Then have breakfast with the LAST THREE OF 220 "South Park" episodes, and sift through Netflix offerings to find four items to add to "MI-5" on my instant list. Start to watch "Naked Boys Singing," just to confirm that they DO show cocks! Then get to computer to find that my trying to view the voucher from Bice has still left a bad block on my screen. Ignore it, and finish this by 11:46AM, NOW ready to go back to website, A/C on 75° with 82° outside, predicted to go up to 96°.
THURSDAY, 7/5/12: 8:54AM: WHERE AM I NOW? Having completed a very productive "feet-up Actualism session (FUAS)" (which I'll have to add to the Glossary), I had to summarize what I'd thought about. Mainly stemming from my "shit-read" (isn't this in the Glossary already?) about a book by Heti(?), in the last month's New Yorker, that mixes fiction with real characters with e-mails and "small essays," my FUAS covered: 1) basic mental meditation to enlighten senses and feelings; 2) physical manipulations: a) lower-limb elevation and physical massage, b) abdomen fat massage and "elimination" energies, c) foot massage to alleviate that "feeling of taut swollen skin that needed to be alleviated," d) knee-bent presses on that overly fat abdomen to convince fat cells into apoptosis; 3) lists of things to do: a) Facebook and Twitter notices of my soon-to-be added 1492 pages of Journal entries for the years 1977-1992 to the website, b) reworking of the journal notes to facilitate adding more recent years, unproofed, just to get THEM onto the website, c) additions of [1] Jewel Box entries on differences among entries for years [a] before 1977, [b] 1977-1992, [c] after 1992; [2] History addition for this new phase of website development after Middle Me; [3] this WHERE AM I NOW? Hope the hierarchy of 1) a) [1] [a] is clear enough to follow easily. Also, d) relationships among people: [1] details I'll discuss with Sharon at our session this afternoon, [2] Ken "using me" to crow about his purchases yesterday, [3] Mildred "using me" to habitually complain, which she prefers to describe as "negative information" as opposed to "complaints," [4] Spartacus sharing events with me for companionship, [5] me expanding my relationship to New York by debating going out to see "Prometheus" this afternoon. And that about does it for the FUAS this morning by 9:18AM, when I'm ready for breakfast. Noted that I'd typed DREAMS:7/5/12 at 7:38AM and shit-read to 8:09, then feet-up Actualism to 8:53 when I got up and typed what came before this. Played Spider to 11:30AM, OUTRAGEOUS, with SIX losses worst of the lot at 10:18AM, ending at 51.7274 at 984 up after 2 wins. Call Spartacus about seeing "Prometheus," which he might come with me later in the week to see, and we talk very nicely, saying EVERYTHING in our lives, to 12:05PM, when I say I'm hungry for breakfast and he's already microwaved mashed potato buds. I have oatmeal while watching the end of "Naked Boys Singing," and then write an adulatory note about my website to Facebook to 1:40 and to Twitter to 2PM, and get hooked into watching the twins' universe to 2:45, enjoying it greatly. Sharon calls to cancel today, moving it to tomorrow at 5:15, which allows me to CONTINUE to play, back to Spider 2:45-4:40, stop in the middle for lunch while watching "Under the Boardwalk: the Monopoly Story," and then BACK to Spider 6:30-10:30PM, a LONG session but even NINE wins can't get me above 51.52946 at 986 up. True self-indulgence. Catch up with NOTEBOOK to 10:45PM, ready for another snack, having gotten the shits from possibly eating too-old corn. Maybe microwave a frozen lasagna. Do that while watching "Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story." Bed 12:45AM.
FRIDAY, 7/6/12: 1:55AM: Shut off A/C, weigh 199#! 3:55AM: Pee, weigh 198#. 7:27AM: My HANDS begin to exhibit symptoms (in HEAT?) of peripheral neuropathy: tightness, tingling, heat. Pee-read to 7:40AM, weigh 197#. Put fan on. FUAS to 8:22AM. Up 8:25AM: Google peripheral neuropathy and Resveratrol to 9:25AM. Breakfast scanning new New Yorker to 10:15AM and catch up with this by 10:22AM, ready to start a productive day for Sharon at 5:15PM. Start looking at journals 2009-2012, after counting the journal notes at 7, a good low. Do an addition, WEB2008A for 2008 journal, of 31 pages to 10:50; WEB2009 of 144 pages to 11:02, WEB2010 of 157 pages to 11:18; start on WEB2011 and find that NK.TXT is missing 1/21/11 to 2/26/11, but that NK.DOC has it, so I construct a new WEB2011 from NKmod.DOC and send it at 183 pages; finish with WEB2012 at 85 pages to 11:55AM, and catch up with this, feeling virtuous, to noon. Watch a Netflix "Hercules Unchained," simply terrible gay-body exploitation film made with NO style or investment in story or production. Lunch while watching "It's Kind of a Funny Story," with some nice things in it, then send four more travel bits to Tris from 3:55-4:42 before going off to Sharon for 5:15PM. Leave just after 6PM and stop in Key Food for more bunches of meat and fruit, and get home to get a call from Ken, who has TERRIBLE fumes filling his apartment, and can he come here for a dinner that he will bring with him. Of course. Start back on website 7:25PM, giving him placemats and paper towels and dishes when he arrives, and he leaves about 9PM when I start preparing a tuna casserole. Finish six more items for the website, leaving 28 of the initial 52, to 10:25PM, when the casserole is properly burnt and strange with the new whole wheat spaghettini. More TV and bed at 12:45AM.
SHARON B. 217 7/6/12
Get there early at 5:10PM, called in late when her previous client runs slightly long. I start by raving about my website accomplishments, and she's really impressed by 1492 pages of material sent to webmaster. I DID do as she recommended last time and phone Tris, who assured me he was taking care of the transfer of the website base from Apple to somewhere else. Told about taking the opportunity to send Facebook and Twitter messages, but despair getting ANY response from EITHER of those. Say I've felt good, but also see moments of being struck by the idea that THIS will be my future life: few trips, VERY little social engagement: Mildred not calling at all, Marj not calling this week, Spartacus busy with work, Ken and Spartacus affording a BIT of socializing, but there's really NO ONE ELSE. I mention considering going out when the pressure to find SOMEONE might build, and she tells me about---is it MEETUP?---a social networking thing that I might try. Talk about NOT having gotten a call yet for my gym progress report, my efforts toward the next Resveratrol meeting on Wednesday, and maybe other things before glancing at the clock to see that it's 6:03PM and I've actually overstayed my 5:15 appointment, though she says she knows we started late. Will see her next week.
SATURDAY, 7/7/12: Wake, look at clock: 1:32AM. Decide to j/o. Porn 1 still works in DVD player and I cum by 2:20AM, really doing it for the first time in a long time. Back to bed at 2:32AM, weighing 198#. 5:24AM: Type DREAMS:7/7/12, extraordinary, to 6:49, no TImes yet, pee, weigh 197# OR LESS---GOT to get a DIGITAL scale---drink water, cough, back to bed 6:34AM, TIRED and feel slightly---what IS the opposite of intrepid---TREPID?---trepidacious in putting back my eyemask to get back to sleep---perchance to dream? Realize the great metaphor that the buildings were EXACTLY like bared gingivitis-stricken, dentin-soft teeth bases at plaque-eroded GUMS. Up at 9:25AM, do diagramless puzzle to 10:10AM, shit-read to 10:32AM, 196#!, and do regular puzzle fairly easily to 11:15, thinking but not calling Marj, getting a call from Rick Fink for a 10AM gym appointment on Tuesday, watching "The A-Team" with breakfast to 2:30PM, amazingly entertaining eye-candy! Read the rest of the Times, play a poor Spider 3:20-4:35PM to 51.72897 to 986 up after 2 wins, and then go to the gym, feeling quite weak. Back to GORGE with a largish hamburg, a smallish ear of corn, blueberries and honey and 1% milk, and a peach yogurt! All this to make the incomprehensible "The Help" seem more palatable. Diet be DAMNED! Then watch two hours of Michael Woods's "Story of England" to 11:15PM. Catch up with this to 11:50PM and then backtrack to record Sharon's session yesterday to finish THAT at 11:58PM. Then Google DOZENS of Meetups to 12:32AM, with bright streaks of lightning outside. Bed at 12:50AM.
SUNDAY, 7/8/12: 12:55AM: Note to add to Sharon (which I don't): Resveratrol COINCIDENCE factor in weight-loss, and peripheral neuropathy in HANDS that morning. 8:40AM: (woke briefly at 6:35AM) Up, shit-read Times to 9:01AM, weighing 197#. FUAS to 9:36AM. Website work on WEB50s to 11:30AM. Breakfast to 12:15PM, talk to Ken 12:20-12:45PM, finish Times at 12:53PM, in time to dress and leave for Games Group late at 1:10PM, but getting there at 2:01PM because crosstown bus was VERY fast with FEW passengers. Lovely group of eight (in order of joining Games Group): me, Piri, Cesar, Diane, Jermaine, and Claudia who went for dinner later; and Mark and Alexandra who couldn't join us. Start with two games of fun "Word on the Street" that Alexa brought, then two rounds of Charades with a quite wonderful set of 16 Charades. Two or three Concentrations ended at 6:10, and I decided to join the six at Le Moulin a Cafe, ordering a Kir Royale "to celebrate," that turned out, avant le lettre, to be a celebration of finding the Higgs boson on July 4! Great group with adequate Croque Monsieur, and home by 8:30, happy. Watch four hours of TV with two hours of "Monarchy, Royal Family at Work" and "Queen and Country," an "Episodes" episode, and "Insane Coaster Wars." Google Higgs boson to 1:10AM, weigh 199#, and get to bed at 1:18AM.
MONDAY, 7/9/12: 3:17AM: Pee-read to 3:38AM. 8:04AM: Pee and type DREAMS:7/9/12. Decide on FUAS to 9:03AM and get up, still tired, at 9:07AM. Look for video notes on five cosmology TV hours for Mildred and CAN'T FIND THEM. Must have thrown them out? Call Mildred 9:55-10:25AM, hearing her SAY that she's decided never to phone me again, saying that Charles's doctor decided he wasn't well enough to have an operation, and enjoying our conversation even after I tell her (after she tells me she knows me better than anyone she's ever known in her life, including her parents) that most of what she knows about me is wrong. Leave word with Charles to call me. Shit to 10:45AM, weighing 197#. Breakfast while watching "NYC Arts" and phone Marj 11:45AM-12:13PM to ask her about Theatre for a New Audience, after misstating it as Theatre for a New City, which she knows slightly, and about John Ford, no relation to John Ford Noonan, from whom she has not heard in over a year, which, it turns out, wrote "Lady's Not for Burning" and is from long ago rather than a contemporary name that I'd somehow missed. She rattles through some stuff; I rattle through some stuff, and after we hang up I get to proofing the dreams I transferred to WP51 from my Neo for the past two weeks, printing out two pages of Saturday's incredible dream for Sharon, printing out more dream pages, and finally catching up with this at 1:32PM, figuring to relax with some Spider to see what comes of it before returning to the website. Spider goes OK from 1:33-2:13PM to 51.73223 at 988 up after 3 wins. Then to three more travel site contents to Tris until 3:30PM, when I'm hungry for lunch. Make a substantial hamburger, watching another terrible gay movie whose name has been lost into the innards of Roku, getting a call from John that Einstein Hospital tried phoning me but my phone was reported as being out of order, so I call them back and tell them I'm coming on Wednesday and have managed to get my pedometer working, though not very well. Charles calls and moans about his problems, and Marj even calls at 7PM to report on some guy on TV who says he's going to live forever. As if. I go back to Spider 6:10-6:55 to 51.73368 at 989 up after 2 wins, then continue with Taipei 7-8:05PM, winning about half, and then to Solitaire until 9:10PM, winning surprisingly few. Then catch up with this to 9:20PM, getting back to more website work from 9:20-10:35PM, when I stop for dinner of cherries, blueberries, and a bit of tuna casserole, then back to website for two more sites 12:20-1:20AM. Bed 1:30AM.
TUESDAY, 7/10/12: 4:17AM: Pee and type DREAMS:7/10/12 to 4:24, weighing 198#, only 72° out. Pee again at 4:26AM. 8:38AM: Shit-read to 9:12, FUAS to 9:33, and get up feeling QUITE dizzy, from postural hypotension?, which I add to my list of topics for Rick Fink. Dress in a tighter T-shirt so he can see my posture on the machines, get to the gym at 9:55 and up to the desk at 9:59PM, when he arrives. Decide to record this on a GYMREPORT:7/12/12. Finish that at 3PM, having left word for Spartacus to call me (about "Prometheus," unspoken). Had breakfast with three episodes of "Futurama" to 12:40PM. Then do a BAD Spider 12:43-2:20PM to 51.72957 at 987 up after 2 wins, just not working right. Really feel somehow "not quite right." Maybe anticipation of tomorrow? Mildred calls to alert me to a Charlie Rose segment on the Higgs boson at 3:30 on Channel 21. Back to website 3:05-5:15PM, doing four more. Lunch with more "Futurama," and back to website 6:35-9:30PM for five more. Then dinner, ending QUITE late at 10:15PM for my "fast from 10PM" evening, with other TV and weigh 199# before getting to bed at 11:29PM.
GYM REPORT #1 7/10/12
Rick Fink is the shaved-head, middle-aged, married trainer I've seen around less than all the others I thought might be Rick Fink. We sit and talk about my conditions for the first twenty minutes: 1) Weight reduction, but as I describe my kneading my belly to "move the fat," he says that isn't possible. All I can do is increase my metabolism to burn fat more quickly. 2) Scoliosis and he says he'll watch posture. He has no (sharable) experience with phentermine or other medications. He mentions reflux when I tense my stomach as I should for the pull-downs. I don't even remember if I mentioned peripheral neuropathy. He notes my postural hypotension so much he asks if I have adverse effects from the steam room, and I say I don't. He summarizes by saying I should do weight-training twice a week and cardio thrice a week, suggesting shifting from seated row to elliptical (standing) machine because doing ANYTHING time after time develops a skill in THAT and not much else. The body, to be trained, NEEDS VARIETY of exercise. He says that fifteen minutes a day of cardio is good. The weights on the machines should be such that the last rep really feels like the LAST one I could possibly do. I start by showing him my leg press, and he says I should sit up straighter, moving the back from 2 to 4, feet CENTERED on the plate so that the knees are at a 90° angle. Bells should be toward END: the start should concentrate on MAJOR muscle-areas, not smaller areas like the biceps. When I get to the Lat Press he suggests I do the Lat Pulldown upstairs, putting my shins perpendicular to the ground and pushing the support down to hold them down in that position. Don't shrug my shoulders, don't lean back so much, pull it down to the chest, use a wider hand position. The chest press should be 1/3 for adjustments, and WIDE, pulling handles together in a smooth A-frame shape, which he tries and starts trembling, saying it takes much more strength. He starts saying I should totally reorganize, so I point out the other three machines I use, and we eventually agree that I'll hire him (not at the $90 he thought they charged, but at $104.50, including tax, that Craig, the desk-guy, billed to my credit card, saying I'd get ONE form that I'll give to Rick, and I guess the credit-card charge is my receipt. Rick said that he was free at 10AM on Tuesday, so we agreed on that: I should come in and warm up first on cardio, before meeting him as he leaves his previous client. He'll give me a new routine, and maybe engage him again in 4-6 weeks for a checkup. Toward the end he deigns to say that I look pretty good for my age. I'm sorry he's so directed toward a financial obligation, but I figure I can pay him once or twice to make up for the gym's loss by giving me a free session with him. He talked about exhaling on each push, sitting up straight, not exercising after a meal NOR on an empty stomach, and toward the end I felt slightly light-headed so that when it was over I merely showered and got home at 11:42AM, after buying my next week's session, for breakfast to 12:40PM. At least I got a new card out of him so I can make copies for future use.
WEDNESDAY, 7/11/12: Type DREAMS:7/11/12 at 12:46AM. Pee at 6:28AM and decide to stay up, at computer doing things until I get ready to leave for Einstein at the dot of 7:30AM. Subway OK; bus jammed, ending at Einstein with the FOLLOWING bus pulling in right behind it. My original blood-pressure reading is something like 158/92, so they insist I rest, readingless, for over half an hour and take my pressure at 118/64, much more like it. They take the blood they need and finally let me have breakfast about 12:10PM. I read, they take blood every half hour, and about 1:30 they do the biopsy. As with dentistry, the Novocain needle to anesthetize the area is the worst physical sensation, though there IS a surprising pressure and almost-pain with the instrument SNAPS with a LOUD report as it encloses the sample. I raise my head to observe a small Oriental male in a white jacket and gloves using sharp-nosed tweezers to pluck my shred of thigh muscle, bright red and very drippy, out of a needle-tip with the thickness of a very thin soda straw. I ask from how deep the sample comes, and they say about an inch. They do this four times, each easier because I know what's coming. Finish the last blood draw at 3:10, which lets me leave the building at 3:30 with all the OTHERS, who seem to be moving to another office in another part of the rambling hospital. I wait at the new bus stop, thinking only MY bus stops there, but when I travel for a few minutes along a strange road, I ask for a transfer and cross the street to take ANOTHER B31 bus back to the B21 stop that I should have used so as not to get confused. This is crowded too, and I sit next to a Parkinsonian (no, this was on the way TO the hospital), and takes a long time to get to the subway station. Get home at 5:30PM, two hours for the trip with my mistake, and over TEN hours of occupation for $100 payment, less than $10/hour! Do whatever I do, probably nothing TV, to website work 8-11:25PM, a marathon of ten items sent, finding that I still have five UNSENT, and six left. Bed at 11:54PM.
THURSDAY, 7/12/12: 3:15AM take 500 mg Tylenol and pee, 72° and 198#. 8:01AM: Type DREAMS:7/12/12 to 8:09AM, HOT! And slightly head-achy. Shit-read to 8:49AM, left foot asleep, weighing 198#. Breakfast to 9:45 and finish watching three glorious episodes of "Newsroom" at 12:50PM. Watch Kurzweil at Marj's behest to 1PM, ignoring his recommendation of phosphatidylcholine and Coenzyme Q-10. 2:43-3:15PM send FIRST five processed but never sent, so at 3:20 there are SEVEN left. Have lunch while watching TV, then stop in the middle of a "Futurama" episode because Dr. Pollock calls to check on my biopsy site and Tris calls about the website. To Sharon, have lunch, and get back to website 7:10-11:20PM, counting EIGHTY files sent in all, with TWO left: US Bus and Asia81. Then, determined, do ASIA81 to 12:30AM, US Bus ONLY left. Weigh 197# before bed at 12:45AM.
SHARON B. 218 7/12/12
Get there on the dot of 4:30 and she walks into the office just behind me. I say that the week has been very productive with the website, but get into a VERY involuted situation with my not wanting to BOTHER Tris, and never really UNDERSTANDING him: I make the motions with my hands that our conversations seem to end up PASSING each other without really connecting. She asks me what this reminds me of, and in a convoluted way I'm reminded of how I couldn't appear to be as smart as (I thought) I was because I'd incur the jeers of my classmates. I said that that kind of rubbed off on my relationship with Mildred, because I always felt slightly on the defensive, having to HIDE myself from her to not be ATTACKED by her. Told her a couple of remarks that Mildred made about not calling me, and how I REFUSED to call her about the upcoming Restaurant Week, and yet she's STILL accuse me of doing the wrong thing with her. I also connected this with my shyness in meeting new gay companions. But, I said, since I was getting to the END of a great supplying phase of my website, I might YET have the time and energy to devote to trying something NEW and DIFFERENT in the way of meeting people. We talked again about my feeling of loneliness and wanting more friends to DO things with. We didn't mention my dieting at all, but I complained mightily about the pain from the biopsy in my right thigh. Then she excused herself to go to the john, and I again re-read my dream, feeling embarrassed about showing it to her, yet thinking that THAT was the reason I PRINTED it: to show it to her. It was another manifestation of my reluctance to show my more erudite side, since I feared she would think that I was trying to impress her with my big words, but we very quickly came to the understanding that I was doing this in order to make the dreams as clear to her as possible, as they seemed to include a lot of core situations: nudity, feeling that those in "the restaurant" didn't want me in sort of the same way I felt people might not want the frankness of my website but didn't want to tell me directly about it. We DID come to the nice conclusion that I got a great RELEASE by putting things into my website that I didn't have the courage to put out into the LIVING world. I said that I was more embarrassed to show HER, who KNEW me, my writing, than opening it to relative strangers on the Internet. She again emphasized that she DID like my giving her copies of my dreams, that she would certainly tell me if I did anything not productive to our sessions, and then I looked up and saw that it was 5:17PM, running late, and she said that it was OK, "considering the circumstances," and it was only LATER that I realized I thought she was feeling obliged to make up the 3-5 minutes she'd been out of the session in the john. At the end of the session I got into the thrill I felt at finding out about the discovery of the Higgs boson at the once-in-three-year time I decided to join the Games Group for dinner afterward, and then she asked me what the Higgs boson WAS, and I found myself getting into an elaborate explanation of the energy needed to produce these new particles, the 50 years since the particle had been predicted as the FINAL particle of the Standard Model, and even got into the problems of normalization of the energy of the W meson needing SOMETHING so its probability of production wasn't more than 100%. She seemed impressed by my verbosity, and I felt just a bit like I might have been showing off, but imagined that she would think this was a good thing for me to do---to feel that someone would actually LISTEN to me and APPRECIATE what I might have to say. We both said we were looking forward to next week.
FRIDAY, 7/13/12: [And by 7:42PM, typing this, NO one had referred to Friday the 13th!] 5:08AM: Type DREAMS:7/13/12 and pee. Up at 8:53AM, not doing a FUAS as I wanted to check the title of the awful gay movie I saw on Netflix on Monday, since I realized I could check the name on the website, which I did: "Longhorns," ha ha. Also wanted to see if I could get a BASIC text of US Bus in 1963 to the site, but found at 10:02AM that AR\TB is clobbered with SOUTH AMERICAN text intruding in the US Bus, but check that JV\TB1-3 are OK, only without added notes. Have breakfast with episodes of "Futurama," noting that it has "only" 90 episodes, which I should go through in just a few weeks. Expand my grocery list to take to Chin's to get after his appointment. Work on the website 9:25-10:25AM, when I do have breakfast, and return to it 11:10AM-12:10PM, getting what may be the LAST travel component to Tris. Pile things neatly on the desk so I won't sweat-wet the papers when I play games, and type to 1AM, when I leave for Chin. See MEDICAL:7/13/12. Shop for groceries after, and get back to a message from Tris. Phone him 3:05-3:30PM, still lightly confused, but we seem to end on a positive note. Then have the lovely Key Food roast chicken with two slices of toast, having relatively little and finishing with delicious over-ripe strawberries and honey and milk, again while watching "Futurama," to about 4:30PM. Then play Spider, marginally OK, from 4:37-6:15PM to 51.73066 at 988 up after 3 wins, continuing with Taipei, losing most, from 6:15-7:30PM, getting bored with it. Then start on Notebook, coming to a printer problem at 8PM: it appears printer won't print from document 2!! At least, when I return to NOTEBOOK 36 at 8:08PM, it DOES print. So I guess I'll have to close NN and bring up MEDICAL to have IT printed! And it DOES work, so I've learned something new about WP51 after all this time! Watch two episodes of Nova, one of which I know I've seen, the other I'm not SURE I've seen, but since it's the introduction to dark matter I decide to keep it. With that, I decide that, since I'm not really hungry, I'll have an orange, then cherries, then a yogurt---coincidentally expiring on 7/13---for dinner, getting to bed at 10:45PM, weighing 197#.
SATURDAY, 7/14/12: No indication of French Independence Day on calendar. 3:21AM: Pee-read to 3:37, weighing 196# at 78°, as if they were connected. Type DREAMS:7/14/12 at 5:44AM. Up at 8:44AM, still tired, obviously from oversleeping. Start the acrostic, which is difficult, and solve the