more tales from the year of the ram
the season of the sleeptalker
1085-1087
1088-1092
1093-1095
1096-1100
be kind to your web-footed friends
1101-1104
1105-1109
1110-1114
1115-1118
dear old golden rule days
1119-1126
1127-1130
1131-1134
1135-1137
fall of the ram
1138-1141
1142-1146
1085
Good news, bad news. Definitely in the good category was finding the check in the box on Magic Third Wednesday. Nice of them to get it
there on time for a change, especially in a month when Third Wednesday was as late as it can ever be. Likewise in the good category was
the news that, unlike last year, Hamilton Library will be open on both Saturday and Sunday afternoons during the Summer Session (even if
it is closing for the entire three-day holiday weekend coming up).
And definitely in the bad news column is the almost-certain increase in bus fares starting July 1st. Okay, a jump in the monthly pass
from $27 to $30 isn't a big deal but any increase in basic overhead is, yep, bad news.
So was the announcement from Chevron-Texaco that next season at the Metropolitan Opera will be the last time they'll sponsor live
broadcasts. Texaco has sponsored them since I was a child and it's sad to see them abandon such a grand tradition.
Neither good nor bad, just weird, is a new loony at the Black Hole. He's local Japanese, probably in his mid-thirties and not
unattractive. I thought I'd seen every masturbation technique there is, but he's provided a new one. He uses the fingertips of both
hands to play with his rather short, stubby equipment. How do I know this? Because he seems to get very little sleep, continues his
unusual activity for hours, or so it would seem. And he makes no effort at all to conceal it, either. Fascinating for awhile, but not
enough to keep me awake. If I do wake up later, he's still at it, and was going at it when I got up just before five on Wednesday
morning. Maybe another icehead.
Aside from buying cigarettes (after a week of smoking roll-it-yourself) and a baked potato for dinner, Third Wednesday wasn't much
changed by the arrival of the SocSec largesse. Thanks to the Cherub, the x equals period was the most comfortable since this new
income routine began, incentive to try once again to keep it that way without extra assistance. Never mind the voice in the back of my
mind somewhere saying "fat chance".
1086
Marc in his latest entry at Kill Your Boyfriend writes: I'm not depressed or stressed
or even sick. I'm not quite sure what exactly is going on, but I'm exhausted and haven't the energy to do some of my daily activities,
and at work, I'd feel run down, having difficulty in standing up for too long. I know the feeling, although my vague aches and pains
seem to have subsided and the sinus nuisance has returned to its usual backburner status. I don't think that will ever cease, sleeping
in the constant drafts of the Black Hole's fans.
But sometimes it seems really a major task just to do all the little morning chores
like shaving, brushing teeth, moving from one place to another. Marc's search for a solution includes stopping smoking (not a chance, in
my case) and joining a gym. I wouldn't go that far, but did wonder if perhaps insufficient exercise was part of the problem, spending
too much time sitting at a computer, or reading, or listening to the radio. So I've forced myself to walk more. Part of the cure, or
was it just something that passed with time? Like Marc, I thought it was too vague to justify consulting a doctor.
My digestive system, however, seems to be getting increasingly fragile, or is it just a case of feeding it such a sparse diet for half
the month, then inundating it with luscious things like lasagna once SocSec arrives? The lasagna on Thursday afternoon tasted fine, the
after-effects proved (not for the first time) that it's an unwise choice. I should stay away from Sbarro's, either directly or via found
plate-lunch boxes.
Despite the unwise purchase of lasagna, I did manage more sensible shopping on the First Day after Third Wednesday, the usual essential
items, although I did balk at getting a better radio. This very cheap Sony has quite poor reception sensitivity, can't even get the
weaker NPR station on campus so I missed Lasser's show last weekend.
Spend more on a replacement or make sure I'm at the beach park by
four p.m. on Sunday?
Life does get so silly sometimes.
Like TIME magazine putting that sleaze NY TIMES reporter on their cover.
Wobbly appears to have won the battle of the bus stop bench, and I guess the Beadman has moved his shop elsewhere since he's been missing
for two days and Wobbly is once again sprawled on the bench all day, throwing his trash around. I'm sure the workmen at the park much
preferred the Beadman, as did I. And we're no doubt joined by the Trashpicker who is back to his routine of constantly walking back and
forth between the mall and the park.
The Bad Boys continue to be absent, no appearance by the Sleeptalker in the game all week.
I miss them, and him most of all.
1087
When a guru is needed ...
Men named William have always played a significant role in my life and they haven't appeared very often. But there is a new one. Last
week he came walking through the beach park with a white plastic bag, asked if I wanted something to eat. As is most often the case, I
thanked him for his kindness but said no. On Sunday, he came along again, with the same offer. "You don't eat much?" he asked, and I
said, yes, that was the case. Then he sat and talked for about an hour, eventually answering my question about why he was hanging out in
the park talking to me with "I'm trying to practise compassion."
He probably picked the wrong target because while he's busy being compassionate, I'm even more busy being lustful. Well ... c'mon, he's
a very handsome, sexy man, mid-thirties, an engineer (he told me) .... and most important of all, his name is William.
Falling in love again, never wanted to, what am I to do, can't help it ....
No, no, but yes, certain fantasies do intrude into my mind and have done since his second appearance.
High point of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, although meeting Helen on Monday to see "Down With Love" (appropriate title?)
was also good fun. The movie is an amusing, gentle satire on films of the late 50s, early 60s, and on life in NYC in those early 60s.
Right from the start it was clear they were going to, as the English say, "take the mickey", because our Doris Day clone heroine stepped
out of a train station and the United Nations building was across the street. Not a chance, but thanks for the instant clue. The sexual
innuendo was far more blatant than any heard in a Doris/Rock movie and the dancing gestures more outrageous than anything in "Funny
Face", but all part of the fun, and the sets and costumes were hilariously perfect. Think pink, indeed.
Otherwise ... hmmm, listened to a bit of Puccini's Edgar from French Radio on the afternoon opera broadcast. I'd forgotten how
many hints to Turandot are in that opera, but I wasn't interested enough to refrain from going back to the book I was reading.
Listened to Prairie Home Companion, broadcast from Atlanta, and late Sunday afternoon to Michael Lasser's show which, for the
holiday, featured songs from World War One. Yet again he used too damned many modern recordings. Okay, okay, I admire Michael
Feinstein, but why would I want to hear his version of a song which I know for a fact has a far better, vintage the time? And he used
Feinstein three times. Grrrrrr.
The Cat Lady stopped and talked for awhile on Sunday morning. She'd had an email from another cat lover on campus concerning the False
Prophet which she forwarded to me later:
Subject: RED ALERT!! - UH Cat Caretakers - 2-legged predator
I am so outraged that I can hardly see straight...!!!
A predator by the name of [*****] is Caucasian, tall, thin, with a long grey
beard.
For some time, at one of my colony sites that I've had for 15+ years, he
decided to take the food I leave for the cats and dole it out, mornings and
evenings. This was okay with me (I ran into him accidentally one
evening)--until yesterday.
The cats of course are used to him since he doesn't seem to have a job, and
has a lot of time to spend with them. So when he put a carrier down, my
youngest and sole survivor of 3 siblings, walked trustingly into his
carrier. ***** said in his email to me, "i had a cat
carrier that i set down with the door open and boots
walked right in. "it were no trebble at all", as
scotty would say."
He then took her to the HHS and left her there to be destroyed. She was
young, pretty, healthy and tho' not yet spayed, was not pregnant.
Apparently, I didn't have her spayed quick enough to suit him. Why he didn't
have her spayed is what I will ask him when I next see him. Nothing,
however, will justify this heinous, unwarranted act.
If he comes after my two, I will kill him.
1088
"What have you been up to?" asked the Sleeptalker.
"Nothing very exciting. What about you, been having fun?
"No, not really," he said. "I need a friend."
I assured him I know for certain he has at least two, me and Tanioka.
When he first appeared in the game on Wednesday morning he was very subdued and quiet aside from a general "good morning", but later was
more his usual lively self even if his private comments sounded a bit down. I know he doesn't have many friends in Waianae and it must
get very boring for him compared to life in town, even if it probably is better for him, certainly better than glass pipe parties.
No doubt better, too, than life at the Black Hole or in the beach park where the night population is once again increasing at a
surprising rate. Judging by the view from the bus passing there in the pre-dawn hour it's as heavily populated with sleepers now as it
has ever been, perhaps even more so. The police must have given up on the attempt to clear it at night. Hasn't helped reduce the
population at the Black Hole which is, as always in the final days of the month, packed to the limit. And it has been so hot during the
day this week, with almost no tradewinds, that the Black Hole is a real sweatbox for most of the night, doesn't cool off until almost
time
to get up and leave.
The news of Hamilton opening on Saturday afternoons this summer was even more appreciated when signs went up in the little computer lab.
After Friday it will close until September, "due to construction work". So no weekend mornings online for the next three months unless I
resort to a net-cafe.
Sandwiched in that slice of bad news about Texaco and the Metropolitan Opera is the very good news that even if NPR doesn't broadcast the
Houston Opera version, Fleming will be doing "Traviata" at the Met next season and it will be broadcast on March 6th. Dear Santa,
all I want for Christmas is a combination FM stereo/minidisc recorder.
1089
After our exchange in the game on Wednesday, fragments of which I quoted in the last Tale, I was not much surprised when the Sleeptalker
arrived in town on Thursday. He entered the game, asked me where I was playing from. Hamilton. He was on River Street [Chinatown],
evidently at one of the other local Seventh Circle player's place. He wanted a beer. I said I'd be happy to buy him one and he
said he would walk to the beach park. "It's too hot to walk that far," I said, and offered to meet him at the State Library, pay his bus
fare from there to the park.
He looks awful, the worst I've ever seen him. Very, very long shaggy hair, scraggly hairs on his chin, even more scraggly "moustache",
dirty tee shirt. I said I was going to get my scissors out. He admitted that with the hot weather right now the hair got "greasy".
Indeed.
For the first hour or so he was in full "Waianae Punk" mode, although most amusing on the bus ride from the library to the cheap tobacco
store. There was a bleached-blonde lady sitting across from me on the bus, only her hands revealing the secret that she was about my
age, and she was as amused by his animated antics as I was. But it was all "focking" this and "focking" that, and how much he hates
everyone, especially in the game.
I was not at all surprised somewhat later with the news that he has yet another Sugar Daddy out in the country, but I did twitch an
eyebrow when he said he wanted me to meet the man. Why on earth would I want to meet one of the Sleeptalker's patrons? I said I wasn't
keen on the hour-or-so trip to Makaha to meet a stranger and left it at that.
Not content with the pack of cigarettes I bought him and the beer, he wanted the glass pipe. I told him I really wasn't happy about
filling the pipe for him, but he persevered until I yielded. Only on the condition that Paulo had to be the source, the only one I can
trust.
So, the Sleeptalker, Paulo and I shared a pipe. It was, I think, the best I've ever had. I actually felt quite high.
Not long after we'd smoked, the Sleeptalker said he was going back to Waianae (or Makaha?) and I gave him the bus fare. He said he is
planning to very soon move back into town because he's, yet again, fed up with living at his mother's house (and I assume the Sugar Daddy
isn't offering shelter).
So he went on his way. Paulo came over and said we should smoke another pipe, just the two of us. Okay. But no doubt fortunately, he
couldn't find anyone with a "paper". While I was waiting for him to return from his fruitless quest, Lord and Lady Moana plus two of
their courtiers joined me, obviously hoping to leech. I said, "when Paulo comes back, tell him I'll be down there" and walked on to my
usual sunset area. Paulo had assured me that Crazy Annie wasn't around because I'd made it very clear I would not smoke with her. But
once he returned and gave me back the money (honest man), she showed up. I greeted her, waved to him and went on my way.
Interesting, spending the night in the beach park. The police came through at about 3:30 in the morning, woke everyone up and drove on.
Everyone went back to sleep again.
Except me. I wasn't sleepy. So I read a P.D. James novel all night ....
1090
JESUS RULES
DARWIN
IS IN HELL
said the graffiti on a bus stop bench. I added:
BETTER COMPANY THERE
LUCKY CHARLES
Amusing synchronicity later when William said he'd tried to buy me a copy of the Beagle book, but Border's was sold out. [?!]
Instead he brought me the Edgar Cayce Reader.
At our third meeting I was struck by how he has certain facial characteristics in common with Gertrude Stein. [Felix would be doing
backflips if he weren't too old and dignified to do such things.]
A pleasant weekend, the end of May and the beginning of June, although I surely was in a peculiar, restless mood on Sunday morning.
Couldn't even bring myself to sit still long enough to make a needed visit to the laundromat, postponed it until Monday morning.
With the libraries closed until noon on Saturday and Sunday, there's a tendency to go overboard because of starting with beer
earlier in the day than usual. But I was reminded of a recent book I'd read, one of those murder mysteries set in medieval England. It
was commonplace to serve ale with breakfast. Even in convents. So if nuns were drinking beer for breakfast, I'm not decadent, I'm just
medieval.
Such a bizarre reader I am, jumping from a Kellerman "Alex Delaware" novel (I think the only one I hadn't yet read) to Jane Austen to a
non-fiction book about a serial killer. Not surprisingly, Emma was the winner, although all were, in their own ways, enjoyable
reading.
The Sleeptalker was a brat in the game on Sunday, said absolutely nothing, privately or publicly, even when I gave him a choice piece of
equipment he was lacking. Then on Monday he went in the opposite direction and was even more of a brat publicly. That man really is a
mess right now, and not just in physical appearance. He has such a severe case of canine Bite the Hand Syndrome. I can't say I
don't know better, though, not just from my own experience with him but from his rants about Angelo being responsible for him getting
stoned on the pipe or Tanioka blamed for getting him drunk. So I should have expected to get the treatment for having filled that pipe,
no matter how reluctantly I did it and no matter that nothing else we did together that day was any reason for him to feel guilty. Maybe
it
was what he did after we separated.
Don't even bother to tell me to give up on him, if I won't listen to myself, I won't
listen to you.
I grumbled to myself about him for the rest of the day. Next morning the internal jukebox was stuck on Nilsson's can't live if living
is without you ... and I told it to shut up.
William arrived about halfway through Lasser's show on Sunday, so I gave up listening to songs about the Mississippi River and the cities
along it from Saint Louis to New Orleans and listened to William instead. He seems to have pretty thoroughly researched the local
homeless community, talked about a number of figures I instantly recognized from his descriptions. A new, young trashpicker had appeared
in the park earlier in the week, very much in the Sleeptalker style, and William was curious about him, eventually called him over and
offered a sandwich. Since the fellow has two tattoos of foxes on his chest, plus one of a cobra, I'll call him the Fox. Seen close up I
was struck even more by an idea I'd had earlier that if he were cleaned up, got a decent haircut and something better than the grubby tee
shirt and shorts he wears, he'd actually be a very good-looking young man. He said he'd be getting money the next day, so is obviously
on welfare. Since he was walking around totally barefoot, I teased William later that he should have given the Fox his slippers. "If
he's getting money, he can buy his own," said William, and indeed, the Fox did just that on Monday.
I suppose in case I got the wrong idea, William went rather sweetly out of his way to make it clear his sexual interest is in women,
young Asian women in particular, it would seem.
Probably an easier path than falling for wacky young men from Waianae.
1091
If Wine Interferes with Your Job,
Quit Your Job.
A Night of Good Drinking
Is Worth a Year's Thinking.
The Worst Thing in the World Is a Drinking
Companion with a Memory.
If You Are Drinking to Forget
Pleae Pay Before You Begin.
He Who Eats Well at This Table
And Drinks Well at This Bar
Dies of a Terrible Disease: Old Age.
Reported by James Michener in The Drifters. Wise sayings supposedly gracing a bar in rural Spain. Although I've read most of
his books (aside from his Alaska epic which I gave up on), and I've enjoyed them, I can't really say I am a Michener fan. But
The Drifters is one of the best novels about my generation, especially those of it, from the USA and Western Europe, who "dropped
out" and went wandering to exotic places like rural Spain, Morocco, Mozambique. Alas, the main characters didn't go to Nepal, although
one almost escaped her more conservative friends and started out for Kathmandu (overland) before being "rescued" and dragged back.
Of course, I got a late start. Spending the first five years of the Sixties being settled and slightly ambitious in Manhattan left me
with some catching up to do on the drop-out game, but all in all, I managed to catch up. Now all I need to do is to find as successful a
way to write about it as Michener has done.
Or just forget about it and pay attention to the wisdom of rural Spanish bars.
1092
At this point, Theodora sometimes said, I should begin to read Gibbon, or find religion, instead of speaking to myself in my own
room.
Rudolf Steiner much too often said, "as I've often said" (and I bitched to Felix about that), but as I have sometimes said, like
Theodora, there's nothing I like better than a book which makes me spontaneously laugh aloud, and that sentence from Patrick White's
The Aunt's Story did it.
The little 50-cent cart of used books at Hamilton Library does not often have anything worth considering, but recently a partial
collection of works by Patrick White miraculously appeared there and I bought them all. I read him in London in the late sixties, but
whatever you admired in your thirties you should re-encounter, whether to discover what a silly young thing you were or to find more
subtle reasons why you admired it to begin with.
So it is with Patrick White. The admiring part.
The Living and the Dead, his second novel from 1941, I do not think I read then. It seems to me very influenced by Proust,
Firbank, Huxley. I thought White was Australian but technically, he is English, born in England from Australian parents, lived his
childhood in Australia, was then sent to school in England and remained there (even if his most compelling works are set in that
wonderful island continent I have not, alas, seen).
Patrick White, of course, was given the Nobel Prize for Literature, which inspired some email exchanges and even some in-person
conversation in the past week.
After the Living and the Dead, I read Voss which I did vaguely remember. An epic story of exploration in the days when we
still didn't know how big that "island" of Australia was, still with some echoes of Proust, but more than well on the way to establishing
the writer as a unique and major force in modern fiction.
I did remember how tragically it all turned out.
I'm quite sure I also read The Aunt's Story, but as I have sometimes said, lousy memory is a blessing.
The Lost Week, when there were no Tales, contained some of the highest and lowest moments of this cycle of my life, a cycle defined by
the telling of the Tales and one which I think may be nearing its natural end. My life has always been a series of 5-7 year cycles, and
I see no reason why that should change at this late time.
It may be soon over, and that would not bother me in the least, Or it may go on to another chunk. Not given us to know, as some old
scriptural author wrote.
It is very strange and rather daunting to finally meet, person-to-person, someone you consider to be a "friend" from on-line
contact. Such a unique event happened in the past week, and the friend turned out to be even more charming and delightful than she was
expected to be.
On the other side of the coin, I had some truly awful on-line encounters with the Sleeptalker. Eventually I told him I thought he was
being so weird because he's feeling the pressure of his fast-approaching birthday and standing on the edge of "pushing 30". He shut up
and hasn't said anything since.
1093
The infirmities of old age. Mental ones, like increasingly erratic memory, are bad enough but physical ones are even more annoying. For
about a year now there has been a steadily increasing tendency to acquire ugly little bruises on the arms between the wrist and elbow. It often happens during the
night, I assume because I fall into some sleeping position where my watch puts pressure on the other arm. No pain at all, either when
the bruise is caused or afterwards, but they certainly are unsightly enough and usually take two or three weeks to fade, by which time
there's often a new patch. There are even worse physical ailments of old age I decline to discuss.
If anyone seeks a clear definition of melancholy, don't bother with a dictionary. Just read anything by Patrick White. Despite
many delightfully amusing passages, The Aunt's Story is thoroughly drenched in melancholy, Riders in the Chariot even more
so. A wonderful writer, though. Just don't even think about picking up one of his books if you're already on the edge of being
depressed.
I'm not, or at least no more so than usual, but such a marathon dose of White does put a damper on overall mood. Masochist that I
am, I continued by starting The Vivisector on Friday morning.
The Sleeptalker has been in the game every day, spending much more time there than I think he's ever done. He has created several new
characters but has almost instantly, if probably not deliberately, given clues that it is him, and in one case even used his real name
for a new character. I wonder if that will be the first of the new batch to commit virtual suicide? He has tossed a few sneers in my
direction but I've gone back to ignoring them, so there have not been any real exchanges. I remain baffled by his overall attitude,
though, since I see nothing in our last in-person meeting to justify his animosity. So I assume it, in fact, actually has nothing to do
with me personally. As Anna sang, "it's a puzzlement." That, of course, is nothing new in the long dance with the Sleeptalker.
With the Full Moon on Saturday and his 28th birthday on Monday, it's extremely unlikely to become less of a "puzzlement" in the immediate
future.
1094
Nobody is responsible for me: least of all those I love -- or worship.
Patrick White: The Vivisector
There are two distinctions in communicating in the game, privately, so that only the person you are speaking to hears it (unless there is
a snooping administrator), and the public channels.
The Sleeptalker's first volley on Friday was private, when he said to me, "you worship me."
"Always, always," I replied.
Then he went public, with his usual order of insulting barrage. "Faggot." "You should know," I responded. "Old," he said. Okay, that
round to him. Then he said "homeless" as an insult and there was nothing to do but laugh. The Sleeptalker, who has been homeless most
of his life, using "homeless" as an insult!? I said, "I'd rather be homeless than drop my pants to pay the rent." And I won that round
even if it was dramatic license, not really true.
I should not have failed to realize that he actually enjoys these verbal tennis games. That one continued for so long that one player
said, "I can't take this" and left, but most of them formed a little cheering gallery, applauding each score.
With the Sleeptalker, it is nonsense to expect anything but the unexpected.
As when he arrived later in the beach park. He looked much better than the last time I saw him, although he'd still benefit greatly from
a haircut. And he is just incredibly white. He must be sitting at that computer all day, every day, never venturing outside. How he is
managing this, he won't, of course, say, although he did refer to his "roommate" at one point. (See above remark about dropping pants.).
His first words were to ask me why I am being so hard on him in the game! Me being hard on him??!! But he did laugh, too, when I told
him I'd laughed over the absurdity of the "homeless" insult.
He was wearing something close to a tank-top, so I could see his armpit and the little hairs around his nipple. Absurd, after six years,
but he's still the most desirable man I've ever met.
[If the Nobel people hadn't given Patrick White the prize after "The Vivisector" it would have been awfully embarrassing for
them.]
1095
An unexceptional weekend, still somewhat unbalanced by the lack of online access in the mornings. Prairie Home Companion was so
enjoyable I was, as often happens, later than usual getting to the Black Hole, but Lasser's show concentrated on songs sung by women
about men, either glorifying or deriding, and I couldn't take the whole hour, gave up about halfway through. And I ended the Patrick
White marathon with his short story collection, The Burnt Ones, although I shall see if I can find a copy of The Solid
Mandala, the one major novel I missed.
I found a folder with about ten CDs left on a table. A Canadian group called Skinny Puppy dominates the collection but I resisted
the temptation to buy batteries, get my CD player out of the locker and have a listen. It can wait. But the find significantly
increased my collection of those silvery discs.
I knew the Sleeptalker would be in town on Monday, or at least that he should be, since he had an appointment again with the Qualifying
Doc, but I was still surprised when he arrived at Hamilton Library in the early afternoon since he has always disappeared on his
birthday. He went into the game for awhile and got wished happy birthday since my characters' titles all had, as always on that day,
best wishes for him. When I went outside to smoke, he joined me. He was approved by the doc, so will be getting Crazy Money again, a
nice birthday gift for him.
We went to Manoa Garden and drank a beer. He was in a very good mood and quite talkative, remained so all afternoon, and he'd been to
the beach with his sister on Sunday so looked a little less pale. I apologized for being unable to take him somewhere nice for a meal,
told him he would get a delayed celebration if he came into town later this week. Since he should get his first Crazy Money on
Friday, that's not likely to happen. But we did go to the mall and got some foodstamps food from the supermarket and more beer, then
sat in the beach park.
He talked a lot about his mother, lamenting the fact that she listens only to "classic rock", and about his brother who is still in
prison. And even though during a conversation with him not too long ago he complained because I talked so much about the other Bad Boys,
he raised the subject of each of them. He seemed a little disappointed that Tanioka didn't appear, but even if Tanioka had remembered it
was the Sleeptalker's birthday he couldn't have been expected to look in town for him. He made some of the same grumbles about Rocky
that Angelo has been making, and I made my usual "that's just the way he is" speech. (Early the next morning I saw Rocky in the mall and
he asked if I wanted to smoke. Too early for me. Then he wanted some money to buy breakfast and I told him I'd spent all mine on the
Sleeptalker since it was his birthday. "How much he made?," he asked, meaning how old was he, not how much money. "28." "28," he said
with a slight sneer.) The Sleeptalker said he sometimes saw Angelo out in the country but hadn't talked to him.
He seems to be dividing his time between staying at his mother's house and staying with his new friends. One is a gay forty-something
man whom the Sleeptalker claims not to be having sex with, and a twenty-year-old whose sexual preferences weren't mentioned nor was their
relationship defined. They have three computers, which explains the Sleeptalker's lengthy time in the game, but evidently don't have
much ready cash since he said he'd used the five dollars I'd given him last week to buy a can of coffee which they'd been doing without.
He continues to be extremely vague about the entire set-up. It was sweet of him to say the older man "isn't handsome like you."
It was even more sweet of him to shake my hand when leaving and say, "I love you."
1096
A propitious week, all in all, as predicted by Jonathan Cainer. That delightfully enjoyable afternoon with the Sleeptalker on his
birthday, Third Wednesday in fact being Magic, and Killer for the very first time greeting me with a meow instead of a hiss!
A reader sent me three art-related magazine articles, one of them about the Hispanic Society of America's museum in NYC. Yes, of course,
I visited it. Could I live within visiting distance of an El Greco without seeing it? But I was struck by the bizarre idea that the
article might be an omen of the reappearance of Angelo, since his surname is that of a notable Spanish painter. Not so bizarre, as it
turned out. I was sitting at a table in the beach park on Thursday afternoon, so engrossed in my book that I didn't notice when Angelo
arrived and sat at a nearby table, on his own, drinking beer poorly disguised in a bag. He might have thought I was deliberately
ignoring him, but I just hadn't noticed. He stayed until he finished his beer and went on his way, only Lord Moana and one of their
courtiers having stopped to briefly chat with him. Had he come to my table, he would have gotten a warm greeting, but I didn't think it
was my place to bridge the gap by walking over to him. After he left, I wondered if I'd made the right decision and felt rather
depressed by having been forced to consider it at all.
Another of the articles was about an abstract painter (I refuse to use the niche-name given to the group in which critics place
Frankenthaler, Louis and Noland, because I think the niche-name is repulsive and irrelevant). Odd phrasing, not unusual with art
critics, since it said this woman "worked with Frankenthaler"? What does that mean? She studied with her? (I can't imagine
Frankenthaler simply sharing studio space with someone.) Even more irksome, the writer paired Frankenthaler and Olitski as equals.
Jules Olitski made some very handsome paintings but was hardly in a class with Helen Frankenthaler. A reminder of why I so rarely read
art critics or art magazines.
The third article discussed painters who have been "neglected" or "overlooked". Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell were mentioned in the
opening paragraphs, although there was concentration on Dong Kingman. I don't think any of them has been "neglected". Their work has
garnered the level of attention it deserved, even generously so.
Speaking of reading, I see that if I want to continue my exploration of Patrick
White, I have a long way to go. I hadn't the slightest idea that he was homosexual.
Third Wednesday's mailbox also contained the annual summons to justify receiving foodstamps, with an appointment on the morning of July
3rd. Oh well, I suppose filling out the papers and talking to that old gentleman for a few minutes isn't too strenuous an effort for $66
a month, but I am crazy enough to have briefly considered just dropping it.
And crazy enough that I probably would have partied with Angelo had he gotten up the nerve to suggest it.
1097
Expect the unexpected, yes, but sometimes expect the expected. So it wasn't any surprise that the Sleeptalker got his money and ran
straight for the glass pipe, no matter how much he's said recently about staying away from it. Pitiful that the State provides financial
assistance for those with "mental disabilities" and in fact is providing subsidy for a drug that aggravates any such "disabilities".
Sigh deeply.
I left campus mid-afternoon on Friday, stopped at the discount tobacco store for cigarettes, picked up a bottle of Steel Reserve at
7-Eleven and walked over to the beach park, arriving at the same time as the Sleeptalker and sigh again the wretched RedEye. They
all bitch about what a moocher RedEye is, but they won't dump him. A mystery. They walked on to sit under a tree in a spot where I know
there are too many ants. Ants or no ants, I sat by myself and continued another admirable Australian novel, George Johnston's My
Brother Jack. (The fifty-cent cart at Hamilton Library is certainly producing some treasures this summer.)
They disappeared at some point which I didn't notice (am I missing out on too much by having my nose in a book all the time?), but later
I returned to the mall for another beer and a lousy chicken burger from McD's and once again, there they were waiting to cross the
street. So I sat with them, even let RedEye beg two cigarettes since the Sleeptalker wanted to work on some cards. My French Reader had
given me some pens which I'd tested by starting some new cards, so I gave those to the Sleeptalker to continue and he wrote a lot of
stuff on them which I'm not entirely sure I've yet absorbed after several inspections.
There was no suggestion of further pipe smoking which at least saved me from having to make a decision about that. And when it was time
for the Black Hole, I just got up, waved to the Sleeptalker and left.
Third Saturday, so I grabbed my backpack from the locker and stuck new batteries into the CD player. I wasn't much surprised to discover
that Skinny Puppy is not at all my kind of music. But then I wasn't much in the mood for music anyway, didn't listen to my own
collection while I waited until it was late enough to put it all back in the locker.
Lady Grey has disappeared, did not come to lunch on Friday or Saturday. Worrying.
Summertime, and the living is easy ....... more or less.
1098
What if I try this?
To the Sleeptalker, I will say: God created cannibas sativa, aka marijuana, the weed. Man created batu, ice, crystal meth. Now which
do you want to smoke, a GOD-made substance or a MAN-made one?
I wonder if it would work?
Dame Fortune seems to be concentrating her always welcome attentions on reading this summer. The Hamilton cart has been an absolute
treasure house, continued with Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Days. Wonderful, after all these years of listening to "News from
Lake Wobegon" on Prairie Home Companion, to get the history, the background. I think it's one of the most important books ever
written in the United States of America, and if you have any wish to understand this weird country and its people, you can't go far
wrong beginning your research with that one.
So many childhood memories the bastid evoked, I don't know why I even bothered to tune in my radio to Prairie Home Companion on
Saturday evening, but of course I did and laughed several times. I laughed once or twice during the book, too, but it is more the kind
of book that gives you a gentle chuckle every page or two.
Did I mention that I highly recommend it?
And then just a free find: Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's Totto-Chan. Yes, someone threw out a load of books about Japan and I looked
through it, sorry not to find more translations of Japanese novels, just critical studies of them. With that exception.
And what a splendid exception it is.
Dreadful RedEye had placed much emphasis on the Sleeptalker meeting him in the beach park at 3 p.m. on Saturday. I knew that was the way
to ensure the Sleeptalker WOULDN'T be there, but said nothing. As it happened, neither of them came to the park on Saturday or Sunday.
No, matter, I was either reading or listening to the radio.
The Snorer and his lady did walk by on Sunday evening, had some Big Island greenery to sell. I contributed to the benefit of
agriculture in these islands and was very happy I'd done so.
But even better than some splendid inhales, Lady Grey returned on Sunday for lunchtime and gobbled down her food, did so again on Monday.
1099
It's been a hard day's night ...
And I, rather stupidly, was sleeping like a log. Not in the relative safety of the
Black Hole, but at the beach park. Amazing it hasn't happened more often, but when I
woke and put my hand into my pocket to get my cigarette lighter, there was just a big
hole there. Someone came along during the night and slashed my shorts, removing
everything from the pockets including, alas, two hundred dollars.
Miraculously, they missed my little wallet, bus pass, etc., and about seventy
dollars, thirty of which is needed for next month's bus pass.
And they missed my locker key. So I could travel to campus next morning, get my
trousers out of the box and put them on, throw the shredded shorts away.
Like I said, amazing it hasn't happened more often.
I had indulged in that greenery I bought from the Snorer (wonderful stuff!), decided
to get my CD player
out of the locker, the Stones and the Fleetwood Mac 2-CD sets, and head to the beach
park to smoke some more and kick back to the music.
But Tanioka was there.
Smoking a cigarette.
At his final court appearance, he was given five years probation, so is a free man if
he more or less behaves himself, or doesn't get caught doing otherwise.
I don't remember the details of the evening ... and night. Angelo told me the next
morning (yes, he spoke to me!) that Tanioka had been at the Garage and that he'd
seen the Sleeptalker in Chinatown. I remember
smoking some more of the weed with Lord Moana, meeting a new man I quite fancied but
Lord and Lady M wouldn't leave us alone so I could pursue it. Who knows, maybe he
was the slasher? Could be.
Lord Moana came along around midnight, on his own, and shared a pipe, huddled under a
blanket together, and I touched his bare chest and said, "you're so warm." Yes, I do
remember that.
I fell asleep on my beach towel on the grass but it started to sprinkle rain so I
moved to the bus stop, between Wobbly and the Duchess, and didn't surface until
nearly six in the morning.
With almost empty pockets.
1100
The heat at night is worse than the heat in the daytime. Even with the fan on, nothing moves, and the walls store up warmth, give it
out like a used oven.
Margaret Atwood: The Handmaid's Tale
So it is at the Black Hole, where I reverse the direction of my beach towel during the night so the bit soaked with sweat is down by my
knees and my head has a dry surface for a little while. I wonder if I should take salt pills to compensate for the all-night sweat?
I had an especially restless night there on Tuesday, partly because of the heat and also because for some strange reason, my dreams got
all involved in weird ways with Harry Potter. This is absurd, because I haven't read the books or seen the film (films?), although as
soon as the new book which appeared to so much hoopla last week is released in paperback, I plan to read them all.
I want to write to Margaret Atwood and thank her very much for a horrible novel. I think she's a brilliant enough woman that she would
understand how I use the word. Before Bush the Second, I would have said her book was an outlandish fantasy. Now I am not so sure,
and can only hope to die before it gets that bad, preferably to be reborn in some other solar system, far far away.
It was another found treasure. As sometimes happens, a box of books had been left near the used bookshop, no doubt things which had been
rejected by the store. Happened again the next day. Splendid, saved me a trip to the State Library.
Summer tradewind weather is a nuisance, not just because of the steamy Black Hole. It tends to rain briefly every two or three hours,
not heavily, just enough to get everything wet (including clothes). Most of the time it isn't heavy enough to even bother heading to
shelter and it rarely lasts more than 5-10 minutes. But not only is it irksome, it also seems to create thriving conditions for
mosquitos because they are indeed thriving on campus. I was even attacked by one in the beach park, which is more unusual. I'm sorry,
but there's just no way the wretched mosquito will ever make it into my "compassion for all living beings" category.
Lady Moana walked over to me in the beach park on Wednesday afternoon, asked if I wanted to buy a black canvas bag she had. "No money,"
I said. "Me neither," she replied. "They ripped me right down to my panties." Either another victim of the Slashers or else a cover
story to deny involvement. One of the more unpleasant things about this kind of an incident is that it places everyone usually in the
area under suspicion. I find it almost impossible to believe Lord and Lady M would participate, and she has always been especially
scornful of people who steal from the homeless, but as she said, "people get drunk and stoned and do crazy things." I think the most
likely culprits are the three strangers who were there during the evening, including the one who captured my attention.
In any case, I am still somewhat astounded by my relative good fortune because it would have been so much more complicated had they
gotten my bus pass case or if they'd slashed my bag. Surprising they didn't. And, of course, if people are walking around with blades
sharp enough to cut cloth without waking the wearer, there are far worse might-have-beens than getting robbed.
Sweat or no sweat, the Black Hole seems clearly the best option during the night hours.
1101
I rarely listen to the University of Hawaii radio station, not, alas, anything like the wonderful WKCR from Columbia University
which
provided many hours of listening when I was living in Manhattan. But there was trouble getting the main NPR station on Saturday morning
(later I heard the announcement about maintenance work possibly affecting signal strength), so I tuned to KTUH and very much liked Michael Franti and Spearhead. You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't
bomb it into peace. Should be the theme song of the next Democrat Convention, since it's hardly likely to get airtime at the
Republican one.
The Snorer and his lady gave me a sample of greenery which I saved for the weekend and sampling the sample no doubt increased my
enjoyment of Spearhead, as well as the evening broadcast of Prairie Home Companion, the last of the current season. Repeats now
until September. So much of my habitual routine goes into mothballs in the summer.
I avoided all the "Gay Pride" stuff on the weekend, of course, even though both Carrier
and Cheyne performed at the festival in the park.
As I think, and usually say, every year, I just don't see any reason to feel "proud" of one's sexual preferences, whatever they are.
No sign of the Sleeptalker all week, in or out of the game, so I guess his Crazy Money binge is continuing. He'll be getting the next
installment in three days time, so isn't likely to re-appear any time soon. I've continued working on that new set of cards, though, and
hope to eventually catch him in the right mood to add more to them. See, I think that's what artists do. We're injured people. We
paint, sculpt, whatever -- to try and heal our wounds. At least a little bit. (William Bayer's Mirror Maze, another Hamilton
cart find.)
I've said before how unfair it has been, in a way, to the Sleeptalker that I've been so discreet and reticent about writing details of
our strange, long friendship. And I've acknowledged that in doing so I've probably made it more difficult for people to understand how
special that friendship is to me. Well, rather lose some of that comprehension than do anything which would seem, to me at least, to
betray trust.
At our last meeting, when he was so engrossed in talking about his mother and her love for "classic rock", he kept singing bits of songs
to me. When I responded at one point with Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love", it became a duet. Now that is classic, the song
itself, the recording, and the Sleeptalker singing it with me. I confess, I also sang a verse of "fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly" to
him and he just grinned.
You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace.
I think every American young man of my generation, and quite probably the women too although I can't say for sure, fell in love with what
they called "images on the silver screen". At least in my case it wasn't limited to males or females, no matter how my eventual
preferences turned out.
One of them I've loved through all of my life. I know all the standard things to say about how she had a long, a very
long, wonderful life ... but I was still saddened by her passing.
Thank you so much, Katharine Hepburn.
1102
As I think I reported, the Sleeptalker once told me he sometimes thought he could hear me calling him. And it does, indeed, sometimes
seem that I think so hard about him I conjure him up. So it was on Monday, when just a couple of hours after I'd finished the previous
Tale, he appeared in the game. His title recently has been "Master of Disaster" but he changed it to "Little Dragon".
I said "the pipe must be empty" and he claimed to be only smoking the weed. Good news, if true, but I have serious doubts it will be
true on Crazy Money Thursday.
When I take the bus to the Black Hole, I get off one stop too early so I have a little final walk and smoke to end the day. And there
came the Sleeptalker, walking toward Chinatown. He was drunk, stoned, or both, but seemed in a very happy mood. I should stop wishing
he'd get a haircut. Why on earth do I want the man to look more desirable? He said he hadn't been coming to the beach park because he
didn't want to see Lord Moana. Peculiar, but I know better than to ask why. He staggered on his way and I went to collapse on my mat,
happy that we're coming to that time of the month when there will be more choice of where to park in that place.
A newspaper reported on Tuesday morning that lawmakers were briefed on the "ice" problem and included the absurd statement that "an
average user tends to use 1/16 of an ounce daily, spending about $170 a day." The heaviest users I know couldn't handle 8-9 "papers" a
day on a regular basis, not a chance. And I certainly hope I never ever meet anyone who does. I think it would be far more accurate to
say the "average user" is one who does 2-3 papers a day, and even then not every day.
The Sleeptalker again appeared in the game on Tuesday, this time titled "the Mysterious One" and I suppose as part of that persona, he
said nothing publicly to anyone, even when people specifically spoke to him.
Procrastination rules. Here it is the day before my foodstamps interview and I still haven't filled out the damned form.
1102a
Reprieve!
I thought I'd better just have a look at the "damned form" and discovered I'd somehow misread the covering letter. The interview isn't
until July 9th.
So after The Holiday ....
Lasser's weekend programme was featuring "songs about cheering". I thought that meant an hour of patriotic music in honour of the
Glorious
Fourth, but he made it wider than that. Yes, he did open with a classic "patriotic" song, but also included songs about cheering for
Hollywood ...... and love.
After dropping the habit for a little while, I've gone back to listening to radio news. It's going to be quite difficult, consequently,
to get too excited this year about the Fourth of July.
Or maybe even to cheer for love, but who knows, stranger things have happened.
1103
"Oh, I am so bored."
I had no answer or solution to offer the Sleeptalker, could hardly have suggested he join me in listening to Simon Boccanegra
which had been boring me for about an hour before he arrived in the beach park on Saturday afternoon. For me, his company is a certain
antidote to boredom but, alas, the magic doesn't work both ways. It did at least provide him with a little relief as he, in his best
animated fashion, talked about recent triumphs in the game. But one problem, of course, is having money in pocket. When you have little
or no money, it's easy to blame poverty for your boredom. When you have it, you're stuck with the knowledge that you can do this or that
to relieve boredom but don't have any interest in doing this or that.
The Sleeptalker was, as always, extremely vague about what he's been doing with himself, although he did say he hasn't gone out to the
country and is evidently sleeping in one of the downtown places since he'd seen Angelo and the PL there one night. Yes, the PL is out of
jail. I saw them in the mall on Thursday, but they didn't see me. Angelo had that strangely stressed look on his face he often gets
when with the PL.
Lord Moana stopped with cheery greetings and after he left I asked the Sleeptalker why he'd said he hadn't wanted to see Lord M. He
denied having said it. His "who's in/who's out" list changes so frequently, it's not surprising he can't keep track of it. When I said
I'd also seen Rocky and Mondo in Chinatown on Thursday, it was clear that both of them are on the "out list" at the moment. (I only
spotted them from a bus. It was likely they were headed to the Black Hole for the free lunch and I was tempted to join them but decided
against it.)
After his moan about how bored he is, the Sleeptalker went on his way and I went back to being bored by Verdi.
Of all the holidays which disrupt a homeless man's life, the Fourth of July is certainly one of the most severe disruptors. The beach
park is impossible. Some people had set up camp the night before in order to secure their preferred spot for the day and the evening's
big fireworks display. Others had arrived and were staking their claims when I passed by on the way for my morning coffee at the mall.
And by mid-day, the park is wall-to-wall people, every spot of shade occupied. It stays that way until late evening, after the fireworks
at 8:30, and once the sun sets the entire park is in a fog of smoke from private fireworks.
I was on campus for the morning, then met Helen for a holiday lunch at Likelike, a very typical American lunch for me of turkey and
dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, iced tea, with a cup of clam chowder to start. I was so stuffed I couldn't finish it all,
wished I could have filled a ziplok bag with the leftovers for the cats. Helen went off to check a DVD sale and I went briefly to the
mall which was as packed as it is in the Christmas-shopping frenzy. A quick look at the park confirmed my suspicion that it would be
impossible so I went to Waikiki and found a fairly quiet spot in the shade at Fort DeRussy. The military police came swooping through so
often it was essential to be extremely discreet in drinking a beer. Although NPR did broadcast "All Things Considered" as usual, the
main station otherwise played American music all day and every time I checked it the music was just awful. The weaker station abandoned
its regular programming for an hours-long Playboy Jazz Festival broadcast, so I stayed with reading for most of the day. Reading and
watching the constant parade of barechested young men which always makes afternoons in Waikiki amusing.
Everything on campus was closed throughout the weekend, but I did spend each morning there, again mostly reading. Saturday was First
Saturday so I had to clear the locker and it was also Foodstamps Day so on Sunday the cats and I had a "luxury luncheon". Faced with the
choice between pate de fois gras and Alaskan pink salmon, Her Ladyship properly ate some of the pate first, then went on to the
salmon. Since she was late for lunch, she had the salmon leftover from her brother and the pate leftover from me. I'm sure they had the
most expensive lunch of any cats on campus.
Speaking of cats, it is unusual, to say the least, to find a book which is praised by both Andrew Greeley and Garfield [!], but so it was
with Catnap by Carole Nelson Douglas and with those recommendations, no hesitation in buying it, no surprise it deserved the
praise. I also found the good Father Greeley's own The Final Planet, witty and amusing as his books always are. I wish I
could persuade the Sleeptalker to try reading again. He seems to have no interest right now in books, films, music, any of the standard
antidotes to boredom.
What to do, what to do. Like I said, I had no answer or solution.
1104
Despite the rather unsatisfactory options offered by radio on the holiday weekend (Simon Boccanegra is surely the most boring
opera Verdi ever wrote), there was one bright and shining exception. Michael Lasser's hour featured songs by the three Tobias brothers.
Unusual, to say the least, that three brothers all turned out to be songwriters, and they evidently wrote quite a lot of them during the
20s, 30s and 40s. Most, I'd say, could be called "wonderfully awful", like "Don't Sit Under the Appletree", a huge hit for the Andrews
Sisters which was, of course, included in the programme. There were two very early tracks by Crosby which showed the influence of Eddie
Cantor more than I'd ever noticed before, plus a couple of tracks from Maestro Cantor himself, as well as a delicious one by Helen Kane
with an odd "scat" ending presaging Ella many years later. And the especially delightful "Tall and Dark and Handsome" from Sophie
Tucker.
It annoys me that NPR devotes an hour each week to Frank Sinatra. Not that they do it, but that they bill him as the "greatest
entertainer of the twentieth century". I don't think any one entertainer can be given that title, but certainly Eddie Cantor and Bing
Crosby have as much right to the title as Sinatra, not to mention Judy Garland.
For such a relatively small, provincial town, Honolulu certainly does get its share of eccentrics. There's a new one, a man of a certain
age (fifties, maybe) who walks around carrying an antelope (?) horn. Well, some kind of an animal. It is a curved thing, about four feet
long, and as I discovered on Tuesday, it can actually be blown like a horn. I've seen him around for several days now, both on campus
and on buses. He demonstrated the horn in the secluded grove. This was after he had walked over and asked me if the berries could be
eaten. (Yes, it's coming up to berry-dropping time in the grove again.) I told him that not even the birds would eat them, so I'd had
no inclination to test them myself, but I agreed they seemed to be sweet, having licked off the juice from my fingers a time or two after
picking one up to throw at the greedy fat doves which I refuse to feed because they bully the little ones. The
man-with-the-antelope-horn then walked off to sit at a nearby bench and a little
later engaged a young lady in conversation and blew his horn for her.
Let us all praise eccentricity.
1105
Jonathan Cainer's prediction for the second week of July 2003 wasn't so much inaccurate as it was irrelevant. It has been, in too many
ways, such an unpleasant week that I don't want to think about it, remember it, so I won't write about the details because with my ever
more unreliable memory, I'll soon forget it. And good riddance.
The Hamilton bookcart continues to sock it to me. [That being a term made popular by the 70s television show, Laugh-In, which has
recently been immortalized in a 4-DVD set.] "Sock it to me" usually meant getting hit over the head by an old lady wielding a large
handbag. And that's pretty much what that 50-cent bookcart has done.
The Stranger, as the title of the classic by Camus is translated. William Golding's Lord of the Flies, which made me feel
suicidal the first time I read it and has done so with each successive reading. Fortunately, the perfect antidote was in hand, Hesse's
wonderful Siddhartha, which I read twice just to make sure the antidote had taken effect. I'd have to put that book on a list of
most-often-reread books, for sure, but then most of Hesse's books would be on such a list.
The good news, I guess, of the week is that foodstamps and medical coverage are assured for another year. The kindly old fellow even
reminded me that in May of 2005 I will lose Medicaid coverage, but be eligible for Medicare. Optimistic of him to think that I will
still be around in May 2005 to give a damn. Optimistic, or sadistic.
1106
The Make July Ghastly campaign got a further boost when the annual summer cold-in-the-head arrived on the weekend. Sneeze,
sniffle, cough. Yeukh. A fairly heavy-duty one, this year, and I hope it proves as short-lived as summer colds usually are here.
Sunday afternoon was at least brightened by the return of the Sleeptalker to the game, after having been absent all week. He's doing
remarkably well with the current incarnation, better than he's done with any character up to now, and he even has better equipment than
my characters do, a first. He was in a lively and amusing mood but eventually complained of being bored. I'm afraid being bored is too
much a part of the x equals time for me, too, so I can't offer much sympathy. (See how I blame it on empty pockets?)
In the neverending change-partners-dance the Boys do, Angelo and Rocky are back together again. I was much surprised to see them get on
the early morning bus in Chinatown. They got off near The Garage, so I assume they'd been partying all night and had gone to pick up the
breakfast boost. Risky of them to be smoking in that area on a weekday morning. Although they said hi when they boarded the bus, they
sat some distance away and spared me having to consider joining them by not asking.
It seemed to be a strong Full Moon this time, with all the loonies in full rant, including Crazy Annie who was rushing around the beach
park babbling incoherently to anyone she could grab. One man eventually shouted, "oh be quiet, Annie!". When she stomped over to me,
she seemed to be asking a question but I couldn't understand what it was, just took a chance and said "no". She went on to the next
target. And Sister Mercy was wheeling her heavily laden shopping cart through the mall, shouting away non-stop. She has three kittens
in a carrier box perched atop the other junk in her cart and I do feel sorry for the poor things.
There's a major increase in the number of shopping cart people in the mall and the beach park. As always, I am baffled by why these
people go to so much trouble to wheel all that junk around, especially since none of them change clothes very often (if at all). There's
one old man, new to the scene, who wheels his cart right into McD's in the morning, parks it just inside the door before going to the
counter to order. Then he wheels it back and forth between the park and the mall all day but never touches any of the stacked bags that
are in or hanging on the cart. Why on earth does he bother?
Wondering, reading, sniffling ... waiting for Third Wednesday.
1107
The Sleeptalker arrived at Hamilton Library on the morning of Third Wednesday, patted me on the shoulder and sat at the computer across
from me. We played until it was late enough to check my mailbox. I suggested that he just continue playing while I made the trip, but
he preferred to go with me. Fortunately the check was in the box so we went on to the check-cashing place. "Where you cut your hair?"
he asked me during the bus ride, meaning "where do you get your hair cut?" So when we passed the Chinatown shop where I'd gotten my only
non-self-activated haircut in years, I pointed out the place. He decided he'd take the plunge. At last!
It was hot and steamy so I sat inside the shop waiting while the Vietnamese lady cut off most of that long, thick, shaggy hair. A
thoroughly amusing half hour watching his expressions change during the operation. She did a fine job, not too short, and taking years
off his appearance. I was reminded of asking myself recently why I wanted him to look even more desirable. Easy answer, I enjoy lusting
after him whether it does me any good or not.
I suggested having a beer in one of the better Chinatown bars but he didn't have his ID with him and despite being 28, he's still more
likely than not to be asked for proof of age. He said we should just go to the park and drink beer, so off we went to the mall. I
bought the beer and a burger and fries from L&L for him, just a little tub of cottage cheese for me because with the humid heat I had
zero appetite, ended up eating nothing else all day.
Most of his talk was about the game, but he did tell me the big problem with his new patron is that patron lives in an ultra-secure
apartment
building where guests have to sign in and out, so in order to spend the night there the Sleeptalker has to sneak in. Bizarre. I asked
how he had met the man but he said "it's a long and boring story" and grinned but refused to tell it.
Alas, the wretched RedEye came along. Lord Moana stopped by to chat for awhile and we talked about the outrageous recent event when a
visiting Marine saved some drowning teenager at the beach and while doing so, the Marine's girlfriend's backpack was stolen.
Thieves who come in the night (and afternoon). At the Black Hole, if you have to make a nocturnal toilet visit, it's customary to leave
your bag on your mat. Well, was customary. Now we have some lowlife thief raiding the place within, I'd guess, the hours of one
and three. I returned from the toilet to see him boldly sitting there going through my bag. "Excuse me," I said, "you should be ashamed
of yourself, stealing from the poor." He jumped up and ran for the stairs. I don't think my morality lecture had much effect because a
week later someone, probably him, managed to get my watch off my wrist without waking me. Smooth operator. But a pretty useless
thief. A nine-dollar radio he'd grabbed from the bag and a ten-dollar watch isn't exactly grand larceny. Of course, I was once again
lucky. It would have been a
major nuisance if he'd just taken the bag.
"Thank you for talking with me," said the Sleeptalker when he departed.
What a tender thing to say.
1108
I celebrated the Summer Solstice on Saturday in classic old hippie fashion, getting stoned with the Stones. No better way to do it.
They are calling this particular agricultural product Red and I've never experienced any better. Shine on, harvest
moon. That two-CD collection from the Stones, Forty Licks, undoubtedly evokes more memories than any
other two CDs could. Sweet, bitter, bittersweet.
When I got up from the bench to throw away my empty Pepsi can, I discovered I could hardly walk. Shine on, indeed.
The Sleeptalker has been in the game every day. He pensively said on Friday that he wished he could come into town and spend some time
with me but he hated so much "sneaking into" the cage he is staying in. Then on Saturday he said, "I feel like I'm in jail." I didn't
go online on Sunday, but on Monday his title said he "is not made of Money". I said sure you're made of money, give me twenty bucks.
"Some people seem to think I am," he replied. Sounds like he isn't having too great a time in his new
gay-owned sanctuary, but that was to be expected eventually.
Instead of online life on Sunday, I joined Helen to see Whale Rider. A beautiful, touching film.
Killer has disappeared. I do hope that creepy False Prophet didn't capture him, although I think that unlikely. It's far more plausible
that he was hit by a moving vehicle, since he'd taken to spending too much time in the parking lots. Whatever his fate, I shall
certainly miss his delightful hisses.
All things must pass ...
1109
The Sleeptalker arrived in the beach park Tuesday afternoon, having come into town with his friend/patron/lover/whatever whom he'd left
in the mall. He launched into a lengthy, amusing rant about the man, much of which was classic domestic stuff like complaining that the
guy spends too long brushing his teeth. I don't know why the Sleeptalker continues to pretend it's not a sexual relationship when so
much of what he said sounded too intimate for it to be anything else. I said at one point that I didn't understand why, if the man cares
so much about the Sleeptalker, he doesn't move to a building which wouldn't present the security problems of the current place. "He
says he's going to," said the Sleeptalker, "but then he doesn't do anything about it."
Meanwhile, the Sleeptalker has already gotten himself suspended from Crazy Money after missing the first appointment with the treating
doc. He'll have to wait three months before he can re-apply. That will, of course, make him even more dependent on and resentful of
his friend, so it doesn't look like a very promising summer for him (or them).
He said he'd seen Angelo who told him that Tanioka has gone back to the pipe. That isn't much of a surprise but may explain why Tanioka
hasn't appeared in an unusually long time, probably because he'd be embarrassed about admitting it to me. Unnecessary, of course.
The Sleeptalker was hoping The Snorer would appear with some weed to sell, but I'd seen the Snorer the day before and he hadn't had any.
I guess he didn't find any, either, since he didn't show up. Paulo has, at last, gone off on a fishing boat and Lord and Lady Moana were
missing, so the park seemed strangely empty. Eventually the Sleeptalker said he was feeling "too restless" to sit anymore and went off
to the mall.
The unsettling news next morning was that there may be a bus strike. Yikes. If so, I certainly hope it doesn't last very long because
having to spend life downtown will be a major drag, but it's far too hot right now to think of taking long walks to get from the Black
Hole
to the University and back. It's always something ...
1110
An alert reader asked about my delayed Solstice celebration: Were you just being (fashionably, no doubt) late, or did
you lose a month somewhere? Very fashionably, cosmically late. For the first time in decades I simply forgot that it was the
Solstice on the actual day. Oh well, at least I had suitable refreshments a month later.
Angelo is in jail. I saw the PL in the mall and she gave me the news more cheerfully than seemed appropriate. "We're taking turns," she
said, then sneered slightly that he's only in for a misdemeanor and should be out on Sunday. She seems quite proud of herself, making it
into the big league felony club. Strange woman.
Paulo was evidently also in jail, not off on a fishing boat as the Sleeptalker had thought. No details from Paulo but he told another
fellow who stopped by that "I just got out yesterday". Another misdemeanor case, I suppose. He was drunk and stoned and so incoherent
that, as is often the case, I could understand very little of what he said.
An amusing time in the game on Thursday, Rubella finally making it to level 90. At one point the Sleeptalker said he was going AFK [away
from keyboard] because he had to wash some rice. When he returned, I said "what a nice little housewife you are." He spluttered and
protested, "I like girls." Hmmmm. Later I asked what time Big Daddy gets home from the office (although I don't actually know what kind
of work the man does). The Sleeptalker answered, "he usually stops at a strip club after work." Hmmmm, again. I'm almost getting
curious enough to want to meet this person, after all.
That wretched cold has sent my sinuses into overdrive so it's almost as bad as the cold was itself. And the hot, steamy weather
certainly does nothing to make life more comfortable.
No doubt about it, except for the moments with the Sleeptalker, July 2003 is not going to get on my "memorable months I have
lived" list.
1111
The last weekend of July had me muttering much of the time about my beautiful wickedness and how I was melting, melting. Friday night
was without contest the worst ever at the Black Hole. One of the few overhead fans still functioning began making an odd noise, they
turned on the lights to look at it and, playing it safe I guess, they turned all the fans off. So much for my presumed good fortune in
having gotten a spot under one. It was so hot and steamy I considered leaving since it certainly wouldn't have been worse to spend the
night awake than to try and sleep in that hell. Good thing I didn't, though, because in the early morning hours a series of what sounded
like ferocious thunderstorms began, the windows of the Black Hole flashing from lightning.
It stayed dark and gloomy throughout Saturday, with thunder in the morning but little rain although there were small lakes everywhere
from what must have been quite heavy rain during the night. I stayed on campus all day in a sheltered spot, didn't go to the beach park.
The used bookshop is having one of their four-for-a-dollar sales and I was especially happy to find two more of the McNally series by
Lawrence Sanders, including the first one, McNally's Secret. Just the kind of cheerful reading matter needed in such dreary
weather.
There was so little wind all day that the slightest breeze was a treasure, and it remained that way on Sunday. After doing my laundromat
chores in the morning, I got a beer for me and a can of food for Lady Grey, returned to campus. When I got up on the bench to put her
food in
the usual place on the wall, she appeared. Not alone, but with what is undoubtedly one of the sweetest kittens I have ever seen, so
tiny and still a bit wobbly when walking. They both hissed at me! I moved to a more distant bench so I could watch them without causing
further alarm. The kitten evidently isn't ready for solid food yet but remained by mama's side while she ate. So the loss of Killer has
been balanced by the arrival of a palm-sized hisser to take his place.
The Sleeptalker appeared in the game very briefly on Saturday, not at all on Sunday. I assume he doesn't get as much computer time on
the weekends.
So much for the final weekend of July 2003. A reader said: Not that you're writing a lot, are you ? Count your blessings. In
this Summer of My Discontent, you're far better off that way.
At least they did have the fans back on at the Black Hole.
1112
... like Webster's Dictionary, we're Morocco bound.
The internal jukebox has been stuck on that song since hearing the news of Bob Hope's death. "Road to Morocco" is definitely my favorite
Hope film. I wish one of the smaller theatres would put on a tribute festival, including it, but I guess television's numerous offerings
make it too
unattractive financially. A hundred years. Can't say I agreed with Hope's political philosophy but I surely did enjoy him as an
entertainer. Another one who could justifiably be given NPR's Sinatra accolade.
The baby kitten is eating solid food, as I saw on Monday. But Lady Grey isn't as kind a mama as her own was, lets the baby eat her
leftovers instead of going second. Seeing that sweet little thing hiss at me makes my day.
Also making my day, the hideous weather finally ended
when the tradewinds returned on Tuesday. What a pleasure it was to spend time without dripping sweat.
It's NSO time on campus. New Student Orientation, with groups of youngsters being escorted around. The incoming Freshman of the Year
was an instant winner. Love at first sight. Well, lust, anyway.
No Bad Boys, in or out of the game. I wonder what they're up to.
1113
"You want to hang out together later, or are you tired of me?" asked the Sleeptalker. When I saw him, I told him that even if I lived as
long as Bob Hope, I am very sure I would never get "tired" of him.
When he still didn't appear in the game by Wednesday, I assumed something had gone amiss with his current domestic situation and it was a
correct assumption. He was at the Black Hole that evening. We just exchanged greetings and didn't talk further until he entered the
game on Thursday morning, probably playing from his friend's place in Chinatown. A very lively and amusing session it was, too, and
Rubella made it to level 92. In response to the above suggestion, I agreed to meet him in the park at about three in the afternoon and
he was waiting for me when I got there.
I bought beer and some food for him and slowly got the details out of him about what had happened with his patron. It seems to be a
combination of increasing sexual desire (for which I blame the patron not in the least) and the Sleeptalker's return to a penniless
state. His patron evidently smokes a lot of the weed and the Sleeptalker had been helping to keep the supply replenished. Without that
combination, the patron no doubt felt justified in asking for the Sleeptalker's participation in what, I must say, I think rather tame
but delightful sexual scenarios. The Sleeptalker, of course, doesn't see how being provided with room and board and 24-hour computer
access might reasonably be rewarded with a little cooperation. On the other hand, the patron would no doubt continually increase his
demands, so I guess the Sleeptalker is well out of it. If he is. It remains to be seen whether he ends up returning to what he said,
"doesn't feel like home anymore." And I am fairly certain the patron would welcome such a return eventually, if not already.
The Sleeptalker said he'd seen Rocky earlier and that Rocky was boasting about the number of fights he's gotten into lately, including
one with Tanioka! Really, these guys are too old for such nonsense, but I think the glass pipe is much to blame.
It was a delightful time with the Sleeptalker and especially amusing when I reminded him of the night at the hacienda when he'd been on
the
bench next to me, wearing nothing but surfer shorts, and said, "You see something you like? Me." A most accurate observation and it
still holds true almost six years later. So even though finances are going to be dismal for the next three weeks, when he continued his
flirting with that most treasured proposal to earn twenty dollars, not a chance I would refuse.
We first went to the Shower, but I guess Angelo has abused the place too much because they've installed a big security gate now, blocking
access. So we went to the Garage. Sweet. Very sweet.
He went off to buy pipe-filling, alas, but then he earned the money so it was his business how he spent it. He returned to the Garage
briefly but then went away again. A little later Rocky arrived and went further upstairs to sleep after a brief chat.
It was difficult to sleep with all the strange noises during the night and being on my own so I really only lightly dozed, felt almost as
awful the next morning as if I'd indulged in the pipe myself.
A surprise in the secluded grove, though. Lady Grey has two children, both adorable. She seems quite fiercely protective of them
and sat there glaring at me while the little ones nibbled a bit on her leftovers.
"What are you going to do now?" I asked the Sleeptalker.
"I don't know."
1114
The weekend was dominated by David Halberstam's What Fools These Mortals Be. Well, okay, the real title of the book is The
Best and the Brightest, but the other title would have been just as apt. A continuing domination, since it's a very thick book with
fairly small print. Rather nicely symbolic, it's also falling apart as I read it, which is, yes, nice symbolism for a detailed political
history
of the involvement of the United States of America with that little Asian nation known as Vietnam.
It has only taken me about three decades to get up the noive to read the book.
[wave to the Cowardly Lion]
[A reader puzzled by the "beautiful wickedness" reference recently must see that most favorite of all films, "The Wizard of Oz".
Not sure if the book will do, since it's been awhile since I compared the original book to the screenplay.]
As alluded to in the last tale, the Sleeptalker has returned to The Patron. Now dignified with his own moniker in the Tales.
I was more disturbed by that than I should have been. No, it is not jealousy. If I wanted to go to the effort to get shelter and, most
importantly, offer 24-hour computer access, I know the Sleeptalker would be there in a flash. He's made that clear. But I wouldn't have
any more success than all his other sugar daddies. It won't last.
And if each time they have a lover's spat, the Sleeptalker returns to me, I am not complaining.
More seriously, at least there he is safe and away from the glass pipe.
1115
Some homeless people are so tacky. There's a grubby old bearded man who occasionally prowls the campus, reads magazines at Hamilton
Library. On Wednesday someone had left a plate, covered in foil, on a bench. He looked under the foil, evidently decided he didn't want
it and threw it in the trash. Why didn't he just leave it where it was in case some other more hungry person wanted it?
Didn't bother me, the day after foodstamps arrived, time for a luxury lunch. Quiche Lorraine, oddly flown in from Canada. A bit
of a dud, far too much salt. I left about a quarter of it for the birds. Odd that birds eat cooked egg, seems almost cannibalistic. I
would have supplemented the mackerel supplied Lady Grey and Family with the egg dish but figured it was too spicey for them. The kittens
didn't seem too keen on the mackerel either, but they're far too young to be picky.
The Sleeptalker was in a good mood in the game on the weekend, but then turned somewhat sulky and argumentative on Monday, even worse on
Tuesday. At least it was aimed at everyone in general, not specifically at me, and I just kept quiet. Unlike all my other characters
who plodded along very, very slowly in the 90s, Rubella is climbing very fast, made it to 96 on Wednesday (when the Sleeptalker was
absent).
Speaking of plodding, still immersed in the Vietnam Debacle. It truly is incredible how blindly stupid some of the major players were,
especially since by all indications they were actually well-educated, perceptive men. Except on the subject of Vietnam. It's not
pleasant to be reminded of how much I despised Lyndon Johnson. I thought he'd be the worst man in the presidency in my lifetime, but
then I hadn't foreseen the nightmare of Bush2.
And speaking of politics, I enjoyed Arianna Huffington on Left Right and Center Tuesday night, was amused by her continuing
indecision about entering the madhouse political scramble in California, even more amused when I saw that she announced on the Today show
Wednesday morning that she will run. Probably not a chance in hell she'll make it, but she's sure to make the debates more intelligent
and lively. I suppose that will mean she'll be absent from the NPR programme between now and the October election and I'll miss her.
See something you like? Me. Some of these charming local young men may not be as verbal about it as the Sleeptalker was but they
surely do send the message via eyes and facial expression. Delightful.
1116
My French Reader, commenting on Lady Grey and family's less than enthusiastic reaction to human food, asked: Do you have several
kinds of
fish-for-humans like we have here, the "natural" one without any seasoning (better for cats) and the one with oil, vinegar or whatever
?
Oh yes. With sardines, there is quite a choice, ranging from "spring water" to some hot sauce. Of course, I give them the water
version. Killer liked them, I suspect more because he could grab one in his jaws and run off with it, no doubt pretending he'd caught a
mouse. Lady Grey was less enthusiastic and her children also seem to be not too enthused with sardines.
But in the case of canned, or as the British say tinned, tuna, usually a choice between water and oil. They actually prefer the oil.
Mackerel is the least expensive (and it's in water), but it doesn't seem to matter much to them whether it's mackerel or Alaskan pink
salmon. They prefer catfood. Bizarre. Especially with the little ones who haven't had that much experience between "human" fish and
"cat" fish.
On Saturday, I used one of my dwindling dollars to buy a large can of Figaro (catfood) tuna (which seems to have other stuff, including
bits of carrot, mixed in with it) and for only the second time, the entire family came to dine. I don't know if cats actually have
"identical twins" but certainly Lady Grey's children are as close to identical as they can be. I doubt I'll ever be able to tell one
from the other.
In the neverending Bad Boys Soap Opera, the Sleeptalker is apparently back in town. When I left the Black Hole at about 5:30 on Saturday
morning, Angelo was outside. He asked if I'd seen the Sleeptalker inside, said that Tanioka had told him the Sleeptalker would be
sleeping there. Well, if he was, he would have been downstairs and I wouldn't have seen him unless he'd been sleeping very near the
exit. (I've no idea why Angelo hadn't just walked in and looked for the Sleeptalker.)
The Sleeptalker had been in the game for hours on Friday but had said nothing, privately or publicly, didn't even join in the
congratulations when Rubella made it to level 97. According to Angelo, the Sleeptalker had been at his Chinatown friend's place, where
he can evidently visit and use the computer but not stay overnight. (His patrons are certainly a bizarre crowd.)
Angelo has his hair cut so short it's almost like being bald, not very flattering. He said he hadn't been angry with me (well, why the
hell should he have been?) but that he thought I'd been mad at him (with more reason). I didn't make any comment. He wanted a tee
shirt. I said I only had the one I was wearing, only later realized he'd probably thought I had clothes stored at the Black Hole. And
he said Rocky and Tanioka were at The Garage. Why he was there looking for the Sleeptalker is another mystery, unless maybe he didn't
know the Sleeptalker no longer has Crazy Money.
Oh yes, it is a soap opera.
After finally finishing that slog through the Vietnam Era, I found an unusual first novel, Monkeys in the Dark, by Blanche
d'Alpuget, an Australian who lived some time in Indonesia where the novel was set. And then another one of Jonathan Kellerman's
always-enjoyable Alex Delaware novels, Flesh and Blood, followed by an also unusual one, Lawrence Durrell's Bitter Lemons,
an impressionistic account of his years in Cyprus.
What would I do without books? Or Bad Boys ....
1117
In fine schizoid style, after having been totally silent in the game on Friday the Sleeptalker was quite the chatterbox on Saturday. I
told him Angelo had been looking for him and he wanted all the details, seemed amused to hear Tanioka and Rocky were staying at The
Garage. He calls it "The Plantation", an alias which never would have occurred to me for that dreary concrete structure.
He also talked (publicly) about his family, how they're in an uproar because his sister is pregnant again. The Sleeptalker as
twice-uncle. Not surprisingly, the family would be more enthusiastic if sister would get married. The Sleeptalker said his brother was
going to whip the guy's ass when he got out of jail. I wondered, before or after he beats his own wife again, but didn't say it.
On Sunday he was missing from the game, but Angelo arrived at the beach park at the same time I did. I'm a little puzzled. Is he trying
to edge back into my life? I suspect he had been at the Black Hole more to find me than the Sleeptalker, since they'd never connected
and Angelo knew about the Sleeptalker losing Crazy Money.
He sat and talked for a little while, told me Tanioka hasn't shaved for a long time and is all hairy, said you just saw his eyes in a
mass of hair. But it was painfully clear Angelo had his mind only on one thing, that damned pipe, and he eventually jumped up to get on
a Waikiki-bound bus, no doubt for a shopping expedition. It is depressing to see how much he has deteriorated, how utterly sunk in
addiction he has become. I wondered where the PL was but didn't ask, and he didn't mention her.
There's another Bad Boy wannabe on the scene, one of Lord and Lady Moana's courtiers. He has been stopping to chat every day and on
Saturday said we should get a hotel room and party, smoke the pipe and have sex [!]. He looks Filipino, early thirties, but says he was
born in Zimbabwe, brought here as a child. I didn't tell him there is only one person who is worth that expensive a party.
The little computer lab has finally re-opened so I have online access on weekend mornings again, most welcome. On Friday, though,
everything will be closed for the silly Admission Day holiday, but at least the lab will provide some online time when the libraries are
closed the following weekend, preceding the beginning of the fall term.
The KFC near the mall has been closed for months undergoing renovation and it also finally re-opened. Helen suggested having a meal
there to celebrate, so I met her late Saturday afternoon. The first topic of conversation, which is rapidly becoming the norm here, is
the looming bus strike. If no agreement is reached, the strike will begin on the 26th. That's at least better for me than the original
suggestion of mid-month. I wasn't looking forward to all the trekking which would have been necessary on Third Wednesday. If the strike
does go forward, I'll still have an hour online each day at the State Library (except for Sunday and Monday when it's closed), so the
biggest concern will be Lady Grey and her babies. I don't think I'm up to that hike from the Black Hole to campus and back, so I guess
I'll ask the Cat Lady if she and her friends can take on the task for the duration of the strike.
Our usual daily routine in the secluded grove is going to be in some turmoil for a week or two because they are putting in a sprinkler
system. I'll have to find out when the workmen take their lunch break and feed the cats then since the little ones are so shy they won't
come out if anyone is in the grove but me (and Lady Grey takes up a position to keep a suspicious eye on me while the babies eat).
They've quickly learned, though, not to hold back until mama has finished eating, are there waiting for the handout and start right in.
Such incredibly sweet little animals.
Rubella made it to 98 on Sunday. I wonder if I can get her to the top before the threatened strike?
1118
Rubella made it to the top on Tuesday. Happily, the Sleeptalker was playing at the time and joined in the chorus of congratulations. "I
wonder if giving up 158 hours of my life to make it again to the top in 7th was worth it?" I asked. Two of the veteran players
immediately said "no".
The Sleeptalker said he was thinking of going into a rehab center, was seeing a doctor on Wednesday. I don't see why he thinks he needs
to but didn't say so, did tell him he should take Angelo with him. If anyone needs a rehab, it's Angelo. The Sleeptalker is more
optimistic than I am about Angelo's chances of eventually pulling out of the nasty spiral he's in.
I was sitting in Philo Walk reading when a hand grasped my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. With a soft 'ho-ho", the Handsome
Statue noted what I was reading. William Prochnau's Trinity's Child. Although he looks like a brainless beach boy, the Handsome
Statue is actually an avid reader, and he obviously knew this one. I thought, well, maybe there's more than one man who would be worth
that expensive hotel/pipe party. But I suspect having sex with the Handsome Statue would be like ... having sex with a handsome statue.
Sweet man, though, and he has a new haircut which makes him even more alluring.
The Prochnau book is an alternate history type yarn where the Soviets and the Americans almost obliterate each other with nukes. It made
me realize that for most of my life, the Russians have been the enemy and yet these days we hear almost nothing about them.
As expected, Arianna Huffington has withdrawn from Left Right and Center until after
the California election and, also as
expected, the program isn't half as interesting without her. I won't be setting aside an interesting book in order to listen to it until
she returns. (I'd rather see her not return and become the new Governor of California, but
that seems highly unlikely.)
I'm as bad as the cats. Someone had left a sealed plastic bag with about a dozen pieces of California Roll sushi in the mall. I ate one
and said, "no thanks", left the rest for some less picky cat. Not surprisingly, the bag had vanished when I walked past there about five
minutes later. I suppose if I didn't have foodstamps I would have been less choosey. The cats aren't getting a choice until next
Wednesday. Sorry, guys, it's foodstamps food or nothing. Of course, even if they initially turn up their noses, whatever I leave is
gone by the next morning.
The workers in the secluded grove take their lunch break at eleven which works out fine, since that's about the time I usually feed the
cats and have my lunchtime beer. Two cans of "fishsteaks" (herring in soybean oil) already in my bag for the cats today. Poor things.
But x = 6.
1119
My mother often accused me of being "a pain in the neck". These days we tend to use another part of the body for the phrase (the one I
used in grumbling about the Sleeptalker on Sunday), but I was certainly reminded of mama's version when a major manifestation arrived
Saturday morning. I was sitting on campus reading when I became aware of a slight discomfort in my neck, rather like what happens when
you sleep too long in an awkward position. Unlike that version, this one got worse and worse as the day progressed, aspirin having
almost no effect on it. By evening I couldn't turn my head from side-to-side, had to turn my whole body to look both ways before
crossing a street. The pain was only on the left side of the neck and eventually spread to the upper left shoulder. I was eager to find
myself on that mat at the Black Hole but once there discovered it wasn't any relief. It was impossible to find a comfortable sleeping
position, only to settle for the least painful and to wake each time I shifted. At about two-thirty I decided to try a hot shower and
that did help a little so I stayed in it for about half an hour and was able to sleep fitfully until about five.
The first thing I did next morning when the computer lab opened was to search Google for "neck pain" and discovered it isn't at all
uncommon with us old folks. Oh wonderful, my youth plagued by lower back pain (for which aspirin also did nothing) and my old age by
mysterious neck pain. What a (lousy) piece of work is man.
In any case, it did slowly get better on Sunday and by Monday morning was only a hint of the discomfort it had been. If this was Dame
Fortune's way of combatting the boredom of x equals time, I'd prefer boredom.
My cheap and/or free reading sources have certainly handed me a mixed bag this summer, and that nuclear war fable was followed by a jump
back to France in the 1700s and Les Trois Mousquetaires. I've encountered numerous adaptations (probably the first a Classics
Comics version) but I think this is the first time I've read a translation of the complete work. Oddly, this translation was first
published in 1888 but there is no record of who actually wrote it. A shame someone did so much work, and quite delightfully, but ends up
getting no credit for it. That "Milady" must be one of the very nastiest females in all fiction.
That kept me occupied for several days and then I went back to some inconsequential murder tales found at the State Library on Saturday.
Friday being Admission Day meant no online access and it was a routine day of reading in the secluded grove in the morning,
joining Helen R for a holiday lunch at KFC and then sitting in the beach park saying no to all the pleas for cigarettes or beer. Paulo
keeps claiming I "owe" him a beer. It's actually more like he owes me ten or so.
The neck pain left me in no mood for computer games on Saturday, but when I went into Seventh Circle on Sunday the talk of the
place was ... sigh ... the Sleeptalker. He'd lost a fight with someone, threw a tantrum and committed suicide. Yet again. I had warned
him a few days before not to fight that fellow. He's a long-time veteran with the
best possible equipment in the game. The Sleeptalker
had no chance whatsoever going up against him. But even so, why give the guy the added satisfaction of killing off the character and
losing all the stuff the Sleeptalker had been given by friends?
Yes, a pain in the butt, that man. Sometimes.
1120
The News from the Secluded Grove just can't be as amusingly droll as Garison's News from Lake Woebegone. First, because I
can't do droll as well as Mister Keilor and, second, because the Grove doesn't have as many occupants. And Gott sei dank for
that.
It seemed at first that the herring "fish steaks" were a success with Lady Grey and her babies. The first two times. By the third time,
they'd obviously gotten bored with that option. Okay, Alaskan pink salmon then. A success the first time, more or less, but I seemed to
get vibes asking why I hadn't brought an 88-cent can of catfood tuna instead of 3-dollar human stuff. Sorry, my dears, take it or leave
it. They took it. Eventually.
Bizarre that the more broke I get, the more expensive food they get. And do they appreciate this? In one word, NO.
The irrigation system has been installed. Thus it only remained to see what the schedule would be and how much of the place got drenched
as a result. Answer: they seem to turn it on in the morning on Tuesday. Like most irrigation systems at UH-Manoa, it thoroughly
wettens the sidewalks but fortunately doesn't drench the benches. (So much for all the appeals in the newspapers about conserving water
in this summer of drought.)
I have not encountered the English author, Frances Paige, before, but she gave me many hours of pleasure in the Grove with her The
Confetti Bed and continued to do so with The Swimming Pool. A film based on the latter is playing at the cinema downhill from
campus (or at least I assume the film is based on this book,
can't tell from its over-fancy website). [Later discovered there is no connection.]
News from the Secluded Grove
1121
When I got to the mall on Tuesday afternoon I heard someone calling me. Angelo. Would I loan him five dollars? Is it too much
to suggest that young man is out of touch with reality? I think he might have more success if he were straightforward and honest, just
asked me to give him five dollars. But no matter what approach he had used on Tuesday, it wouldn't have worked because I didn't
have five dollars. He was with Tanioka who has removed the reported facial hair except for a moustache and looks to have gained some
weight. I only chatted with them briefly, patted Tanioka on the shoulder and told him it was good to see him. Which it was.
Later I was on the down-side of an escalator and passed Rocky heading up. He had his hair thoroughly greased and plastered to his head,
a touch of style [?] I'm relieved I wasn't asked to comment on.
As for that other one, no sign of him in the game, not surprisingly. He always vows to never play again after one of his suicidal
tantrums. He had been hesitating over the plans to enter the rehab place because he didn't want to give up the game for a month, but if
he's in a "never again" state of mind, he might well have gone to the rehab. No harm in living a substance-free life for a month, but he
surely will get bored and go right back to it all when released, so why bother? Of course, I didn't say that in the last chat we had
about it in the game. I wish he'd escape from his endless search for someone to take care of him.
My recent exploration of modern American history continued when I found Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail
'72, fitting, since the Halberstam epic ended with the departure of Lyndon Johnson. Thompson's book is, for the most part,
originally articles written for Rolling Stone and reads like a blog (albeit a far more brilliant one than most). It also made me
feel quite lucky to have been out of the country at the time.
The fifty-cent cart at Hamilton is temporarily a 25-cent cart and when I returned from a successful visit to the mailbox on Third
Wednesday, I got extravagant and bought nine books, eight of them by Henry James. So when I finish this American nightmare and then
Edmund Wilson's The Twenties, I shall immerse myself in James for awhile and he will no doubt influence the tone of the Tales.
There could be worse influences.
An extravagance I'm not quite ready to undertake yet is nonetheless very tempting. Just what I have been wanting appeared: a mini-disc
recorder with FM radio. Two hundred dollars. I shall own one in time to record the Fleming Traviata in March.
Meanwhile, Lady Grey and family are delighted to have catfood again.
1122
I am a sick, crazy man. I dreamed I had a mantelpiece and on the left side of it
was a stuffed bald eagle.
What more evidence is needed?
Edmund Wilson's The Twenties is such an awful book I gave up on it after a
couple of hours and threw it in a trashcan. It's rare for me to give up on a
book, pretty much unprecedented to discard one rather than leaving it for someone
else to find, but it was an act of kindness, believe me. What a pretentious
asshole.
Since my newly-acquired Henry James collection was in my campus locker, I went to
the mall and searched the used-book selection at the Japanese department store,
found Man of Destiny by Martin Gross which made a lot more sense than
reading that obnoxious thing by Wilson. After my recent more-or-less
factual reading about American politics, what better than a convincing fictional
account of a Presidential campaign?
I am worried that Lady Grey's children may come to view human beings as more
benevolent than they (generally) are, especially with that wretched False Prophet
haunting the campus. The kittens rush to mama's side when I arrive with
provisions but they've given up the hissing routine (she still does it at first,
and then gives me her plaintive meow while I'm opening the cans). But I don't
want the little ones to trust human beings.
I don't. Especially politician human beings, if that's not an oxymoron.
1123
I'm as corny as Kansas in August
High as a kite on the Fourth of July
If you'll excuse an expression I use
I'm in love with a wonderful guy.
"Cool shorts!" said the Sleeptalker, ending a week-long debate I'd had
with myself. They are impractical, being such a light color (very pale
tan or cream) and they were far too expensive. But I saw them, liked
them very much, went in
the shop to check the price, didn't scream, but left and continued
debating. So when the Sleeptalker arrived in the beach park on Friday
afternoon, finished the rest of my beer I'd offered him, and we walked to
the mall to get further provisions, I asked his opinion on the debated
shorts. "You can buy them for me," he added with a laugh. I bought them
for myself.
Yes, he arrived. Arrived wearing camouflage fatigue trousers. Now that's
downright unfair. He doesn't need to tweak my fetishes. Unfair, unfair.
He paid the price by having me gaze longingly at him for hours. Kindly
didn't even growl at me for "staring".
He's decided not to go into the rehab, has already left his "never again"
mood about the game and now is eager to create a character which he'll
keep totally anonymous, not even letting me know who it is. Alas, the
game was down all weekend so his ambitions were stymied. But if that's
the way he wants to play it, I'm all for him and even if I do recognize
him (which is highly likely), I'll do nothing in or out of the game to say
so.
It's difficult to go from a rat-a-tat-tat contemporary American novel to
The Ambassadors but after about a hundred pages I gratefully sank
into it.
1124
I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk; but he had a morbid horror of pedestrianism, and regarded my own taste for it as a
morbid form of activity. "You'll kill yourself, if you don't look out," he said, "walking all over the country. I don't want to walk
round that way; I ain't a postman!"
Henry James: The Pension Beaurepas
Well, I "ain't a postman" either, but looks like I might be doing some extensive walking in the immediate future, since it appears the
bus
strike is inevitable.
If I "kill myself" ... not the least reason for concern. Trust me, I shall not regret it.
I read The Ambassadors in a "Norton Critical Edition" which had very generous, too generous, footnotes. If the little
numbers refer to some section after the book is finished, I can ignore them. But if they are on the same page with the text, I find it
almost impossible not to glance down and see what I am being pointed to. The "editor" in this case was somewhat over-ambitious. He gave
us
the translation of every French phrase. Even cul-de-sac. And if a person is capable of reading one of the late-period
novels of Henry James, does that person really need to be told that "St. Peter's" refers to "the cathedral in Rome". [sic, and I do mean
sic].
On the other hand, I could have used a little assistance with The Pension Beaurepas, since I haven't the faintest idea what some
of French phrases are saying. But I was amused by the opening line of Part Four: "Mr. Ruck distinguished me, as the French say."
Well, they may have said that in 1879, but do they still say it? And could I, then, say I have "distinguished" the Sleeptalker?
I hope so.
That "wonderful guy" didn't appear on the weekend, but the damned song so dominated the internal jukebox I was really annoyed. "Shut
up!
Shut up!".
1125
What it had come to was that he wore a mask painted with the social simper, out of the eye-holes of which there looked eyes of an
expression not in the least matching the other features.
Henry James: The Beast in the Jungle
If I were to yield to those who urge me to write more about "The Sixties", I could use that as an intro.
In the critical essays appended to the "Norton Critical Edition" of The Ambassadors there is quite some debate about whether or
not James is a "difficult" writer to read. I really don't think there is any question, especially with the late James, post-1900. A
contemporary reader, one who admires, say, Stephen King, John Grisham, Danielle Steele, is going to find post-1900 James quite difficult
indeed. Perhaps not so much as Joyce and Stein, who are formidably difficult, but even so, not easy reading.
I put The Ambassadors back in my locker with the thought that I should, perhaps, tackle it one more time, went on to some volumes
in this handsome Penguin Classics edition of the Tales. The first volume was pre-1900 and thus not so difficult. An International
Episode [1878] with its amusing ending, The Pension Beaurepas [1879] where, as I said, I could have used some more footnotes,
and Lady Barberina. Charming stories.
Roger Gard, the editor of the next volume of tales, all 1900 or later, agrees with me about footnotes, wrote in the introduction to his
very selective collection of such, admirably placed at the end of the book rather than at the bottom of the individual pages:
James addressed his stories at first to an educated audience, and I think it patronizing to modern readers to assume they know much
less or much differently from their forebears. And ... An interruption is felt, whether the attention is directed to the small
print at the foot of the page or to the back of the book. Quite so.
His sensibility is even more appreciated in a collection of such .... weird .... tales. The Third Person is bizarre.
Broken Wings almost as much so. The Beast in the Jungle [1903] constantly sent my mind off reeling into things so
unrelated to the story that I often found myself re-reading a page simply because I'd wandered so far off from it that I forgot my
"place", as they say.
I think it is easier for me to appreciate Henry James for having been an expatriate myself. And he makes me very grateful I was, perhaps
even more so than the commentators on not-so-long-ago American history have done.
Meanwhile, back here wearing this mask, the anticipated strike has happened. This little metropolis no longer has any form of public
transportation. It is an almost two-hour walk from the Black Hole to the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
BUT .... can I possibly ignore those two adorable little kittens who wait for me in the late morning to bring their lunch?
1126
I briefly saw the "wonderful guy" on the evening of the First Day of the Bus Strike. He was staying at the Black Hole, greeted me as he
walked by with something which sounded like a message from an official employee (clever rascal) and when I saw it was the "wonderful
guy", I just gave a weak wave as he continued on.
After all the walking I did on the First Day of the Bus Strike, a weak wave was all I could manage.
The two-hour walk in the early morning hours is not really a problem. The cool pre-dawn and first dawn hours are the best time for
walking and, then, I ordinarily do nothing much during those hours anyway. (Even if I have to admit I prefer sitting on a bench in the
mall sipping coffee and reading.) I had planned to leave the Black Hole earlier than usual on the morning of the Second Day but they,
with not much sensitivity to the events of the day, had one of their infamous fire alarm drills at three in the morning. By the time I
got back to my mat, it took awhile to return to sleep and I continued in that state, once reached, until my usual waking time of about
five, dreaming twice of Rocky. Oh, well.
My morning walk on the Second Day was interrupted by a shower of rain, forcing me to take shelter for about ten minutes. That, of
course, is another factor in how difficult these enforced walks will be, the weather. I am very sure that if it were only Lady Grey, I'd
not make the effort every day, because she's big enough and clever enough to find food elsewhere. Naughty of her to have babies at a
time like this.
But then, what else do I have to do anyway?
The afternoon walk back toward the Black Hole is far more difficult than the morning one away from it. The very warm afternoon sunshine
is lovely, but not when one is plodding down the crowded sidewalks. I took that return walk in much smaller stages, sitting to rest far
more often, even went to the beach park because where else is there to go in mid-afternoon to discreetly drink a beer? They've removed
almost all the benches from the downtown area to discourage the wretched homeless people (another reason why I wouldn't know what to do
down there in the 5-7 a.m. time slot). Even when I left the beach park for my final expedition toward the Black Hole, I ended up at the
old GovSanc, the most reasonable place to quietly enjoy the sunset hour.
And continued with Henry James. I am puzzled by his supernatural tales ... ghost stories, if you like. The Third Person was
peculiar, The Jolly Corner downright absurd.
Well, I have absolutely no right to talk about people writing absurd things, so I'll yield to the number of students, in this busy
first week back on campus, waiting for computer access, and get out of here.
1127
Day Four of the infamous bus strike, no end in sight. At least on Day Three I got a ride in the afternoon. The city is running a van
service which I understood required reservations in advance, but that's only for service to destinations outside town. In town, they run
from Chinatown to UH to Waikiki to the mall and back to Chinatown, no reservations required. So if I sat around somewhere downtown in
the morning until the service begins, I could also get a free ride to campus (although I'd bet the earliest runs are well crowded). I
certainly did think about
it during the Fourth Long March, asking myself how long I could keep up the routine.
At least I'll get a day off on Monday since everything at UH will be closed for the holiday and the cats will have to make do with
dried food which I'll leave for them on Sunday. Just what I'm going to do with an offline day when the parks will all be jammed with
end-of-summer picnickers, I have no idea. Get extravagant and use a net cafe?
The Sleeptalker was sitting outside the Black Hole when I arrived on Wednesday. He was surprised I was making the walk to UH each day.
Earlier in the month I'd found a bus pass, gave it to him, but he told me he'd given it to Angelo. "He really needed it." Hmmm, for
what, an expansion of territory to steal from? I was more irked than was reasonable but didn't say anything. It's certainly not doing
Angelo much good now, anyway.
The Henry James marathon continues with the novel, The Sacred Fount, a not very interesting soap-opera in fancy language, and
Italian Hours, a collection of essays about traveling in that country. Whoever is unloading their James collection left more on
the Hamilton cart, including two massive volumes of a biography by Leon Edel, but I think I'll resist (if for no other reason than not
wanting my little bag any heavier than necessary during this time of pedestrianism).
At least one very welcome development this week: they finally installed an automatic closer on the bathroom door at the Black Hole.
An odd cause for happiness. Little things mean a lot?
1127a
Bad Boys sightings on Friday. Well, okay, Kory K isn't really a Bad Boy but certainly has the potential to be one if he weren't so
conservative. Very rare to have a "chance encounter" with him on campus, but it happened mid-day. And then, as has become my habit in
this Era of Pedestrianism, I was spending the sunset hour sitting at GovSanc when Tanioka appeared.
He really is the most susceptible of them all to the negative mental effects of the glass pipe and the phrase which sprang to mind was
"scrambled brains". He got fired from his job but his explanation for why it happened was too incoherent to translate. He has regained
his Federal disability pay, however, and wanted me to "loan" him twenty dollars. A reader did point out that the form should be "lend",
but never mind grammar, at least with Tanioka I know I'd get the money back. Unlike Angelo, Tanioka does understand the basic concept.
If Tanioka had been a little more conniving, he would have gotten it. In fact, we came perilously close to having an August Follies
because I wouldn't at all mind sharing a pipe or two with him. But his mental state was too close to alarming. I just couldn't do it,
either fill the pipe or provide the means for doing so.
No, I resisted, said "I'd better go", patted him on the shoulder and walked on to the Black Hole.
I finally finished the collection of latter-day James tales. I almost gave up with The Velvet Glove but returned to it the next
day and trudged on. Crapy Cornelia puzzled me by title alone since modern readers surely see it as "crappy", but the online 1913
edition of Webster's defines "crapy" as "resembling crape". Of them all, I most liked the final selection, The Bench of
Desolation. But these tales, combined with still crawling through The Sacred Fount makes me wonder whether the question is
not "is late James difficult to read?", but "is late James extraordinarily boring?" No question whatsoever for me that The Sacred
Fount is one of the most boring works by a major novelist I've ever encountered. He evidently said in a letter that the novel is a
"joke". The longest, most verbose, most unfunny joke in history, if so.
1128
Printed by S.I.P, Montreuil, France, in July 1959
The Traveller's Companion Series, No. 76 and No. 77.
Can you guess the titles?
Incredible, to find them on that cart at Hamilton Library, still only
twenty-five cents per volume.
The very same editions I bought when I was nineteen years old. (In that
long-ago time, for Francs: 1.500.)
You still haven't guessed?
No. 76 = The Naked Lunch by William Burroughs.
No. 77 = The Black Book by Lawrence Durrell.
Since I was so close to the end of that dismal The Sacred Fount, I
finished it, left it and the Italian essays by Henry James for some other
poor soul to
encounter and went directly to Durrell. As Hesse's Steppenwolf was
the most important book for me in my late twenties, so was The Black
Book the key work for my late teens.
Well, I am older now, much older, and I do see how it was an
immature, almost adolescent work, especially compared to Durrell's later
output, but even so, I think it's a splendid novel and I am very happy to
again encounter it, understand totally why I so loved it.
I gave up on Sunday of the holiday weekend and did not make the two-hour
trek to campus. The feline family will have to depend upon the
generosity of the Cat Lady who visits on Sundays and holidays (when there
is no charge for parking her car). My body just cannot cope with such
continuous, extravagant exercise, especially when I have to make the trek
both there and back again. Saturday's return trek proved to me that I'm
not up to it. I'll have to wait until that "City Van" service is
again available for at least one part of the journey.
Meanwhile, I am ruined, I am ruined, I am undone. A rather charming
little net-cafe
has opened near the mall, with a more-than-rather charming young fellow
working there, at least in the afternoon. Four dollars per hour. And
[gulp] it is open until four o'clock in the morning.
Oh dear, oh dear. You can easily imagine what will happen the next time
the Sleeptalker appears in the beach park. If you can't, I can.
1129
Oh, oh, oh, woe is me, never again .... ooops, scratch that last phrase even if I have to admit it has entered my mind several
times in
the past five or six hours. Tanioka kept nibbling away at my defenses, stopping by GovSanc almost every day. At first it was a repeat
of the request for twenty dollars, then he had some and wanted only ten, this despite the fact that he had told me was
definitely not stealing to fill the pipe. How then, I wonder, did he acquire an expensive box of Rogaine which he tried to sell me,
asking "aren't you worried about your hair?" "No," I said. And how did he acquire a package of zipdisks (he didn't even know what they
were) which I saw him sell for five dollars? Things must fly into his pockets.
But the reduced financial requests left me still declining. Then he brought in his WMD, the Sleeptalker.
Maybe it wasn't pre-arranged, but the combination of the two of them and their earnest brown eyes was too much to resist. So I loaned
Tanioka the five he needed to buy a paper, and threw in twenty for a second. Thus, the Labor Day Follies, held in the Garage which was
an absolute sweatbox. As has become his habit, once the pipe had been passed to completion, the Sleeptalker disappeared, wasn't seen
again throughout the night. Tanioka also went off but re-appeared several times, usually to ask for a cigarette or try to get just one
more puff from the depleted pipe.
I felt rather irked by the Sleeptalker. If he's not able to share the expense of a Follies, he could at least share a little more of his
company.
I began the holiday by walking to the mall, sat in the park reading The Naked Lunch until it was time to meet Helen R and
Mme de Crécy for a clothed lunch. Then I spent an hour in the net-cafe which was not as pleasant as previous visits because
of a
rowdy group of young people who evidently make it their afternoon hangout even though they don't use the computers. Back to
reading The Naked
Lunch while drinking a beer, still doing both when first Tanioka and then the Sleeptalker arrived at GovSanc.
Burroughs was such a loony, and it was quite appropriate to finish the book during the early morning hours feeling slightly spaced out
and already a bit wasted from that equally loony glass pipe.
1129a
Unreported items from the holiday weekend:
I went into the restaurant with Sean Connery. He said to the headwaiter, "the name is Bond, James Bond." We were immediately escorted
to a table where the married (?) couple from "Gilligan's Island" were sitting. They quietly discussed our mission which was to go to Los
Angeles and kill Sammy Davis, Jr. But ... the couple told us that Davis had changed plans, they'd just heard, and he was staying in Las
Vegas. So off we went to Vegas in some sort of motorcar, but just as we saw, in nighttime, the glittering city ahead of us, broad
flashes of light came shooting down from the heavens and much tinier flashes of light went shooting back up. Vegas was under missile
attack! And our "Star Wars anti-missile defense shield" didn't seem to be having much effect.
There is a small area at the Black Hole which is for "EARLY WAKE-UPS ONLY". They change the rules there frequently. For a time, one had
to take a small bit of paper, sticky tape attached, write one's name on the paper and the desired time for awakening, and put it on the
floor at the end of one's mat. The current method is that, if one sleeps there, one is awakened at five in the morning. Most of the
gorillas, I mean, staff members, just kick one's mat and shout "FIVE O'CLOCK", but a kinder one tapped my foot and told me more gently it
was that time. How embarrassing, I am usually out of that area by 4:45 at the latest.
Blame it on James Bond and watching the destruction of Las Vegas.
And who needs crystal methamphetamine anyway? I can just go to sleep.
I had a longer chat than usual, these days, with Pedro in the beach park on Sunday. He told me Paulo was part of that group using razor
blades to slash pockets, that it's a favored method in the Philippines. I'd really like NOT to believe that, but then considering I've
witnessed Paulo running away with a Japanese tourist's belongings, well .... not at all impossible.
This free van service the city is running has extended its hours, now begins in Chinatown before six in the morning to carry people from
there to the mall to Waikiki to the University. It's certainly a long way around, but equally certainly beats walking for two hours.
Alas, it does not function on weekends, and next Saturday is the First Saturday when the locker has to be cleared from 9 - 10 a.m. Oh
well, if James Bond doesn't enlist me in another adventure, I should be able to wake up early on that Saturday and get to UH by the
simple, but
difficult, act of placing one foot in front of the other.
As I told Helen R and Mme de Crécy, the most annoying thing is finding the company of nothing but my own mind for two hours quite a
boring exercise.
1130
Maybe just my imagination, but it seemed when I arrived in the secluded grove on Tuesday bearing cans of catfood, Lady Grey looked at me
with an expression which very clearly said, "where the hell have you been?!"
The Labor Day Follies began at an earlier time than usual, I'd guess around eight o'clock in the evening. When I later looked at my
watch, I was surprised by how early it was, and then a bit later when Tanioka asked the time, I said, "not as late as you'd think" and it
was just before midnight. Maybe that's one reason the worst part of the aftermath was between three and six the next morning. And maybe
because of that ample meal I'd had at midday, the aftermath wasn't as prolonged as it has sometimes been.
I saw the Sleeptalker the next day. I was crossing from the beach park to the mall, about to begin my sunset trek to GovSanc and then to
the Black Hole. He was crossing from the mall to the park. So we exchanged waves. Tanioka didn't come to GovSanc but a rather
handsome, young policeman did, asked me if I was waiting for someone. I explained it was just an effect of the bus strike, stopping to
rest awhile before continuing my walk from the mall to Chinatown. "Have a nice evening, sir," he said.
Maybe I'd better find another place somewhere downtown for my sunset beer, if they're going to get nervous about me sitting at GovSanc.
And then that would also eliminate Tanioka nagging me about my "bowl" (his term for the glass pipe).
As has so often happened, one thing about the Labor Day Follies that strongly registered is the sense of greed and the lack of manners
dopers used to pride themselves on in the "good old days", never mind songs like "don't bogart that joint, my friend." In those days,
the person who financed the party would be given first go. Not with these guys. Tanioka went first, passed the pipe to the Sleeptalker,
and then I got my turn. Damned rude, by Sixties standards, but then this is not the Sixties, is it ...
And they weren't all that great, either, never mind the nostalgic propaganda which seems to be more and more circulating. "Don't bogart
that joint, my friend."
Drugs = greed. Seems to me an indisputable statement.
When I do next talk with the Sleeptalker, I intend to tell him, "Look, I'd be much more sensible to just buy a paper and smoke it all by
myself. I'd get higher for less money, end up spending the night by myself, but what's different when I let yo