I have this recurrent thought that I’m supposed to register for a race. Go pick up my bib and t-shirt. This flickers in my half-sleep, an awareness I must get up shortly and go somewhere. When I do wake up finally (in real life; it’s after noon; I took half a Trazodone at 11:30pm last night) I have a pain in my right lower leg. That front muscle that runs along the outside of the tibia. Familiar pain but I haven’t had it in years.

Main dreams float in and out, beginning with a return to the San Diego Reader. I go back to work there, and visit there, and it looks much the same as in 1993, only I am afraid they’ll find me out, as there are still one or two characters hanging around from then. Once before I had a dream where I have to work on a major product, a special issue or insert that keeps me there for a couple of nights. A lot of pasteups. A lot of filler columns to write under different names. The editors come in and it’s Buckley and Tierney from the YDN Magazine. Also Bobby Shriver is in there, making fun of me because I’ve been there all night.

I have to prepare and host for a major event. It’s at a place like the National Press Club. Are we celebrating Ambassador Kennedy? Is he still alive? Again it’s an all-night, all-day slog. I get into arguments about the sorts of lies told about JPK. I have to gather up plastic bags of trash and newspaper clippings as the event wears on.

Moki is with me and some of his friends in a high-rise building someplace. More an office building than apartment. We are going to smoke some boo. Before we start he generates some printouts of line graphs, like EKG charts, showing the potency of the drug. This is very good stuff. I get very weak puffs, barely a hit, however. We are awaiting some woman who works at a tabloid newspaper downtown but she doesn’t show because she has to be at work all night. She can come in a couple of days, though. She’s a cross between Sherita and Sharlene. So we’re back in a similar place, a small conference room with sofa and upholstered chairs, a couple of days later. This time I’ve insisted that the graphs be drawn properly, with india ink and speedball nibs, so I produce those. The boo isn’t much stronger, but it gets me a little high. Not high enough not to be hungry. Down at the end of the corridor there opens a big food court, something like a cross between the food services at the New York Times and a food court in a shopping mall. Nothing special there, really, but we are hungry.

This has been bothering me since I woke yesterday morning. I’d had a very fine, gratifyingly deep, sleep. So deep that a discomfiting dream I had toward the end stayed with me as I awoke and I still thought it was something real. I had been assigned a big stack of race bibs, but they needed to be sold. I was expected to go door-to-door and sell these things. Any moment now my masters were going to ask me if I’d sold them all, and I believe I hadn’t sold any.

My real bib experience had occurred the previous week, at the half-marathon expo. At the start of bib pickup on Thursday, and at its conclusion on Saturday, I was one of many scanning and assigning bibs and t-shirts to the hordes. About 4000 bibs went out in four hours (that’s maybe 2500-3000 people, as there were some multiples) when we opened. For the close we probably did twice that and ran out of men’s t-shirts. It was surprisingly pleasant work, and far shorter than the gig on Sunday when I worked the festival in a 12-hour shift.

So, well rested, I let other things clutter my mind on my first cup of tea. Where, I found myself wondering, was The Secret Diaries of Harold Ickes? I consulted that some months ago to see how he got on with Joe Kennedy in London. This would have been in 1939, I think. Ickes had just married the niece of the ambassador to Ireland, Mr. Cudahy, and was being squired around to the Duke and Duchess of Kent’s. Harold asks Joe what he should call the Duke and Duchess. Joe says, “Well I call them George and Marina, but you can start with—” I forget how that goes. Anyway, a most friendly encounter, not what you’d expect of Ickes. Anyway, the book was not where I remembered it (with biographies) or where it should be (with the Roosevelt and Kennedy books on the westernmost bookcase). What I did find was Ickes’s Autobiography of a Curmudgeon, but there was no confusing the two books, as the latter is a white paperbound book, while the other is dark brown or maybe black, and clothbound. The mystery continued and I am still looking for it. In going over each shelf with a figurate fine-tooth comb, I also noticed that one of the Angus Wilson Penguins was missing. I had The Wrong Set on its proper shelf, but A Bit Off the Map was not beside it. Where was it? Now I had something else to search for. It turned up, with some other books by McCarthy and Waugh and Barnes, in the jumbled fiction shelf below the shelves for rivers and dams, and biographies. A lot of Dreiser and Woolf and Wharton on that shelf, Moki’s books. Something by William Dean Howells. So I dumped the misfiled books, mainly paperbacks, on the storage trunk I use as a coffee table, and continued to look for Harold. I looked for him again today. No luck.

One good bit of news in the past few days: I was approved for SCRIE. This happened almost immediately, a couple of days after I applied online. It means my rent is not only frozen, it is moved back to the previous lease, 2021-2023, thus is $1877 per month. I was encouraged to do this quickly by Rebecca, the young Jewish lawyer at the courthouse. Represents some pro bono outfit called Mobilization for Justice. A couple weeks before that, I was notified, belatedly, that I’d been approved for food stamps, or SNAP. That’s quite a novelty for me. I bristled at the notion when Moki would bring it up. I get $202 per month on my benefits card, and presumably I have a total of $808 as I have not yet used any of it, as I have not received my card. Do I get to spend it all, or is it just $202 per month, only for that month? That is how it works with this “flex card” that Aetna gave me. I get $165 per month in benefits, mainly drugstore things and “healthy foods” from CVS. And the $165 has to be spent each month, no rollover. As soon as this kicked in on May 1st, I spent 2/3rds of it ordering brain pills and vitamins and cough syrup, to be posted to me via UPS. One can also buy the stuff in person at a CVS, but then you have to show the benefits card and a bar code to the cashier. I’m also given another $150, total, for ordering things like aluminum canes and Zimmer frames. No need for that just yet. My Aetna plan changed recently, from a PPO that I liked, to a HMO that supposedly offered better coverage and this flex card. It changed because those Medicare telemarketers called me up and encouraged me to do so. So I had Medicaid commencing March 1, the Aetna Medicare PPO starting on April 1, and then that being superceded by the HMO on May 1. I’ve never used any of these welfare or Medicare benefits, and have no idea how they work. Last year I found a big white envelope with an application for what was essentially Medicaid, this sent to me in late 2021, probably from some online inquiry I’d made and then forgot about. So I could have taken care of much of this over three years ago. And then in my Healthcare file folder I found a UnitedHealthcare “community health” card that I never used. I thought it was some old prescription card, long since expired, but no, it was apparently a similar deal. Once when I went to a downtown office for unemployment in 2014 (at this point I was qualifying for only about $100 a week, not the $405 I’d had in my previous unemployment stints), the negress told me she was promoting a city- or state-funded health plan, and encouraged me to apply. And this was it. I never used it.

Tomorrow I will talk to the HRA people, if I can get through, and ask about the benefits card. I need to refile an emergency cash request because I am being sued for possible eviction, and that means a telephone call almost immediately. I shall also demand an in-person meeting, as when I made similar requests from HRA they turned me down, claiming I did not make the required interview (and I had).

The tall negro who delivered the Rent Demand back in early February showed up again on April 7, with the complaint. This is not so shattering to me as it would be if I hadn’t gone through it back in 2022-2023, in Moki days. A bit over a week later, the 15th, I went down to 111 Centre St and filed my Answer. I said that I actually had paid such-and-such, and the landlords were aware of the problem, that I am currently owed $25,000 or so by Social Security, which they were supposed to recompute, but haven’t yet. The following Monday I showed up for the preliminary T&L hearing on the 8th floor. I was given a court date of June 4th, and sent to talk to one of the volunteer lawyers. That was Rebecca. Another thing that came up with Rebecca, besides her urging me to apply for SCRIE, was the matter of the ERAP. This was seemingly approved for the tenant end a couple of years ago, but it now says that neither tenant nor landlord information had been verified. Now, when I first filed it in late 2022 the tenant verification choice said Yes. We were merely waiting for the landlord.

That was two Mondays ago (Sunday today). The following day, I got a text from Keith P. He said he was up at St Luke’s Hospital and they wouldn’t release him without an accompanying friend or relative. So I took the subway up to Columbia, walked over the Amsterdam and 114th St, figured out which of the Mt Sinai buildings was formerly St Luke’s, and called him down to reception. He was immensely fat, wearing sort of clown trousers held up by braces. He had a stroke back in 2021 while visiting Sylvia in Chicopee, he told me in a taxi downtown.Two weeks in hospital up there, now he was having some veinous or arterial procedure done at this hospital. He is again working for Captain Queeg, but only one day a week. Does not need the money, but the Captain needs him. We arrived at his apartment near Tompkins Square. First floor, near the entrance, most convenient. Hamilton Park was all stairs, lots of them. Place is a mess, with a big pothole of broken tile and grout right in front of the kitchen sink. He was looking around for his regular glasses, couldn’t find them, settled for his readers. He was trying to read a grocery receipt. I’d asked him what he paid for Kerrygold butter, having remarked that it is only $4.99 in the drugstore but a lot more elsewhere. The grocery receipt did not list butter, alas. We went out to a maze-like warren around the corner that was a sort of boutique gourmet Italian restaurant. I was astonished at the price of the simple entrees, $22 up to like $37. And the menu wasn’t printed, it was on a digital tablet, an iPad sort of thing with imperfect navigation. He had a really nice salad and I had green rigatoni with broccoli (I guess that was in the pasta) with a sauce that had bits of sausage and maybe pesto. It was okay, really quite impressive, but I didn’t need to eat pasta just then. I had a glass of wine, just that. Keith says he now drinks rum, and quite a lot of it. Here he drank water.

Next day, and for four days after that, to Brooklyn. Odd shifts, 4 or 5 hours at the Expo and then that enormous day of the half-marathon, helping to set up the festival, then banging the gong, or encouraging others to while they took videos or photos of each other. Or asked me to. Mainly I was giving directions to people. Telling them where the bag pickup was, and how the Family Reunion area was right ahead of them, right there!

A few days later, this past Wednesday, another 5 hours in Brooklyn, helping to take down all the NO PARKING posters they’d put up along the race route. Immensely pleasant stroll of about 5 miles, starting at Columbus Park and Cadman Plaza, then under the two bridge ramps, through Dumbo and past the Navy Yard (which goes on forever) and then finally the immensity of Williamsburg. The Domino factory development is very impressive. There’s even a sort of beachfront, I think, with a view of the Wmsbrg Bridge on the left.

Domino Square.

My coworker Debra and I had tacos at this Birra Taco place I told her about. It’s on Bedford, near the L train station and a couple blocks from McCarren Park (start of the race). I found myself spending over $17 for two steak-and-shrimp tacos and a Mexican Coke. Debra had almost the same. She was curious about the place when I mentioned it, then when we got there (used Google Maps or something; it was right where I remembered it, however) she recalled having been there once before while working an event in Williamsburg. That’s what she does, she works events at Javits Center and other places. Says there are specialized temp agencies that book you. And if they like you they keep you working. I am going to look into this.

After all those hours I am due for my biggest Gusto payment yet. Last check was under $300 net, for one day on Gov Is (Sunday 5k) and one day in PP (5k and 10M). Now I’ve got about 40 hours coming to me, which net should be between $800 and $900. Most of that goes to the rent. Having an off weekend just now. Next week it’s two days on Gov Is, back to that. I may get a day or two of warehouse hours this week: have applied for them in the past, but never got picked.

Mural in progress, Kent Ave., Williamsburg.

The week before seeing Keith and working the Expo, I’d gone to 111 Centre for the the Answer filing on Tuesday, 4/15; then on Wednesday 4/16 to Dottie’s at one, where I brought some carrot-ginger dressing and some fried potatoes. Dished this all up in the morning. Dottie had been working two weeks on some beef bourgignon (sp?). In a typical Dottie move, she didn’t eat much (my dressing on a little arugula she grew on her roof) and mainly watched me eat off an overloaded platter. I ended up bringing a generous helping of everything home. I was telling Dottie how much I enjoyed seeing the film, and then listening to the audiobook, of Can You Ever Forgive Me? That is a marvelous and hilarious memoir by Lee Israel, biographer and forger. Jane Curtin, who appears in the film as her agent, reads the audiobook. I also boasted to Dottie about how I used to have no health insurance at all, now have it up the ninyang. Medicare A & B, Aetna PPO, drug coverage, and yet even more dental coverage (haven’t seen dentist in months). Dottie tried to call me up later, concerned about how rundown and tired I said I was, and told me I should see a doctor and use up some of that fine new health insurance.

So that was 4/16. 4/17 I would have been back at 111 Centre for jury duty, but I’d postponed that. Downtown anyway, to 29 Broadway, Jeffries Morris, to drop off the Answer I’d filed at court on Tuesday. Good Friday 4/18 came and I made meatless rigatoni bolognese. It was good but just a little insipid. The complicated sauce was made with lentils. Not enough flavor. But I ate it all, over the next three or four days.

I’d told myself every day to go to confession because I’d been missing mass so frequently. No mass, no communion. No communion for years in fact. On a warm Sunday evening, Easter the 20th, I went to St. Joseph’s in the Village, where they supposedly had Sunday evening confessions before mass. But the lay brother there, guy with the beard, saw me sitting in a chair in the vestibule, waiting for the confessional light to go on, and told me there would be no confessions. But tomorrow at 10am there would be! That was no good for me at all, as next day, Monday the 21st, I was due at T&L court early afternoon.

Somewhere in here, April 8th I believe, Grimm was supposed to come by early afternoon. I had made guac the night before because he asked, and I’d stocked up on the makings of hamburgers with sauteed onions. But he overslept, somehow blamed it on Verizon which they’d just hooked up with. Send me messages. Has tried to reschedule since but I was very busy. Proposed last Saturday via FB message, but I said I’m going to bed early for that 12-hr shift in Brooklyn tomorrow. He cautiously messaged me again recently, asking me if I’d recovered from it, but I haven’t answered him back.

Paul and Anthony are coming here in a month and I have resolved not to be as bloated and aged as I was last time. (The most terrifically awful pictures of me I’ve ever seen.)

A negro came by to install a Clear Caption box on Tuesday (4/29). I cleared the foyer table, thinking that would be a nice place for it. But that wouldn’t work, for some reason. What was it? He needed a nearby phone jack, that’s what it was. So to the glass shelving by the living room windows. Sort of awkward over there.

I need to clear off the rubberwood table and position it better, with the drafting board on top. Move the glass shelving into the corner, sort of awkward, and put the table a couple of feet from the window. Natural light.

Mainly I’ve been lying on bed all the time. Looking at Facebook, reading newspapers. And watching the Sopranos again. I scarcely paid attention to it that last go-round a few weeks ago. Difficult to watch with all the commercial interruptions. I could pay extra and get rid of them…maybe do that just for one month…but I need to cut down on all these subscription expenses.

Drinking a little more than usual these days. Two beers two nights ago (a Kirin and a Becks, from the Japanese grocery nearby, Dainobu), then a full pint of Platinum vodka last night, mixed with pineapple juice. And now, Sunday afternoon, I want another nip. But I don’t want to go to the Chinawoman, and Shirley is closed. Really should go to the gym. And of course mass in the evening.

Hot and sticky these last few days and the A/C isn’t on yet. Early May.

POSTSCRIPT

Did I dream the whole thing? Is there really no book of Harold Ickes diaries in the house? I looked again. I even looked at the copy of the book (the 1936-39 years) at the Internet Archive, and while the meeting with Joe Kennedy in London is mentioned, the exchange about “George and Marina” isn’t there. So where did I read that? I thought perhaps it was in the Amanda Smith book of JPK diaries and letters. But it’s not there either. I look in the Susan Ronald book, and while Ickes is in there a little bit, the party for George and Marina isn’t.

I’m going to guess that the Ickes book will turn up in the living room, in some odd place, buried under trash or magazines. And it will be a condensed revision of the the Ickes diary series, and somewhere in there we will find George and Marina.

Rain broke an hour or two ago. I got caught up in making a FB post and it was too late to make it to St. P’s unless I got there at the end. Good, something else to confess.

I do believe I’m going out to the Chinawoman’s for a half pint.

The ushers, Lisha or somesuch, and her son? With groom and bride John and Deborah in between. Montauk Club, Sept. 2012.

The good news recently is that I got three pieces out for C-C, the last being this past evening for the annual Brasillach. Two weeks ago I got the Dutton thing in about Bowden, and in between we had Flannery O’Connor. Not bad, if I say so myself. Also I am now enrolled in Medicaid (approved in early March) which means I am given Medicare Part B. And I signed up for Medicare Part C (Medicare Advantage) a few days ago, and that is now “free” for me because of my lack of income and the Medicaid. It’s pending, but I don’t doubt I’ll get it. It even has dental coverage, up to a point. This was an Aetna PPO plan. First thing I did was look to see of Christopher Busillo, but as internal medicine, not PCP. So I signed up for a PCP (GP) up the street, one Kimberley Scotto, MD. It was going to be either her or a Matt Cross who’s similarly highly rated but up by Columbia. And I was also granted Part D, which is the pharma end. I think that kicks in beginning of May. So for the first time in my life—no, the first time in 12 years or so—I am as fully covered as one can be. I’m like Moki. I can go to doctors up the wazoo. When I had health coverage at work, and then COBRA, I never used it to speak of, apart from the periodontal with that awful Delta. I used a lot of coverage during the 10 years at Citi, but it was mostly OVs and I have no firm recollection of any big medical bills. My Botox wasn’t covered, but some of the lymphoma was (a lot of good that did). My $950 tube of Targretin was covered, except for $50.

Okay, so two batches of good news. What else? No word yet from Bellevue WTC or Bern. SSA has not fixed my account, upped my benefit, or arranged my windfall. They did however send me a notice, around the time they sent me a batch of envelopes concerning the Medicaid and Medicare Part B enrollment (a week or so ago) that because of the Medicaid and Part B, they were changing my monthly check day from the second Wednesday of the month to the 3rd of the month. So I’ll be getting the next deposit on April 3. Night of April 2 is three nights from now, and that’s mighty nice.

I told Moki a couple of years ago that I did not have Part B, and he said why not? Because he had it. He’d always had it. Told me I should have it for free too. He never bothered to connect the dots. At some point, possibly because of the VA connection (a frequent visitor down there sine 2009) he got it because he was on Medicaid. I assumed he had Part B because of some VA connection, something that wouldn’t work for me. But it appears I did make an effort to apply for something like that too, without realizing it, because there’s this big white envelope from late 2021, where I’m told to fill out this form for city-supported health coverage. Well that’s the Medicaid deal. Had I requested this online? Did my name go into a hopper when I got a jab or two at Columbia Doctors on W 51st?

Have drunk vodka almost every night for the past week. Half-pint tonight, pint last night, half the night before. Before that nothing, and day before that, just a Resin. Also had a Resin last evening (Saturday) and topped it off with a pint of Platinum.

I was pissed off that I was scratched from the Spring Fling 10k Saturday thing (upcoming). I’m still down for Sunday. I ride in the blue van from Warehouse to Ferry to Island. Briefly there was an open spot appearing on Deputy for Saturday, the shirt booth. I’ve never done shirts. Thought about it for a few minutes, then when I looked to see if it was still available, it was gone. People want those spots.

I made slow-cooker chicken teriyaki a few days ago, but cooked it too long. Going to toss what’s left. Ate some today. Otherwise today I ate Triscuits. And a Healthy Choice beef & broccoli I got at Target yesterday. On special, 50% off second, so I got two. I noticed that Target charges 4.99 for a half-gallon of milk. Big surprise there. After getting a few other purchases (big box Triscuits, a couple of those Starkist tuna packets in foil) I stopped at Whole Foods for the milk. Incredibly long line for self-checkout. Went to normal checkout, one semi-long line there. They had the milk of course, $2.49, but not the other thing I wanted, the $4.99 Simply Whatever grapefruit juice that’s $7.99 at Klein’s. That’s very good grapefruit juice. So I got a Pummelo grapefruit instead, which is 2-3 times the size of a normal grapefruit. Is it edible or just for juice? Haven’t tried either. The sink is filled with dishes as it usually is. Must do dishes tomorrow. Send rent checks in somehow to Jeffries Morris. March 31. Make payment on Moki card and the Citi Cash card. Go to gym. I’m thinking of bailing on TMPL since I never go there. Maybe it makes more sense to join the West Side Y. What does the Y cost? $100 a month for seniors, I see. No dice. I could change my mind later, but the $13 and forced trip to Hells Kitchen WHEN I ACTUALLY GO make it better to stay at TMPL.

Ten days ago (Friday the 21st) I hied myself over to Sunnyside, and on a sun-in-my-eyes brisk day wandered around and used Google Maps on the toyphone until I found The Dog and Duck, now retitled The Skillman. A bit of a disappointment. Empty and clean but the barman was a noggess. Not an Irish grubpub feel. Many beers and a $20 pint + sandwich lunch offer which I guess they think is a great deal.

Because I (finally) coughed out that piece on Flannery O’Connor for GJ’s “symposium” and got it in a week ago, I found myself thinking for the first time about that guy down in Georgia who called himself Velociman. Friendly enough fellow whose real name was Kim Crawford. He’s now gone to ground online. He was famous for his blog where in 2008 he denounced Obama for being the hating, hateful, loathsome devil Obama is. Somehow Obama made him think of this Francis Marion Tarwater boy in The Violent Bear It Away. Though he was gone from the ‘net I found one or two Velociman tweets.

GJ asked me to write a piece way back in November. I found the book at the library and kept renewing it without reading much of it. Radical Ambivalence, all about Race Issues in F O’C. Dreadful. I said everything I wanted to in maybe 2500 words, and don’t feel I cheated anyone. GJ was much more in earnest than I guessed. He did several pieces of his own, and O’Meara had at least a couple.

Some semi-sad news comes in from Ireland. John Farrell died a week ago. The 23rd of March. I found out two days later, initially through Brian Patrick McGuinness. He died in a Galway hospice. He’d been on chemo a few weeks. Nobody goes onto chemo and dies in a few weeks. He must have had something galloping. Lung and throat and prostate cancer take ages to creep up on one. Pancreatic perhaps?

Wedding at the Montauk Club, September 2012.

There was something misjudged and dodgy about John. His fondness for teenage boys. The horrible theatrical productions he’d do, playing Walt Whitman. Not the young Walt Whitman. A bearded, rather untidy and mangy Whitman who was a crashing bore. His teeth, all of which seem to have been pulled, replaced only in front with some shiny white permanent implants or dentures. That strange marriage to Deborah, which fell apart in a year after doing the wedding up in slap-up style at the Montauk Club. Death of marriage followed by his adoptive father’s death at the end of 2013 (I think it was), followed a few years later by John’s complete disappearance to Galway. And in general, his vagabond ways. I think he did have a decent job for a while at RTE back in the 90s, was it? But what exactly was he doing when I first met him? He’d been a friend of Michael’s. Drinking, drugging and talking about perverse sex.

Carey Harrison and John Farrell, with bottom half of me in the rear. Not sure whose house. Brooklyn, I believe. Reception after Jack Farrell funeral.

Once, I think, I visited the Farrells’ place in south Park Slope. Not far from Bartel-Pritchard. A walkup, maybe two floors up? Tiny place. Two large rooms was what I could see. Boxes and belongings mainly crowded into one of them, with some kind of plastic curtain shutting that off. How could three people live in this tiny place? Possibly it was smaller than the one John grew up in.

I’ve said hello to Cliona on FB but she won’t recognize the MB handle. A few of us, old John friends, are asking about John in the hospice. Why there, and how there, and have ye a valediction, boyo?

Appears to be this tall Irish girl, Lutine? is that a name? In Brooklyn perhaps with john 10-15 years ago:

(Written about March 11, not live until March 30.)

The boo is almost gone, tra-la. I can do some scrapings. It makes me sleepy now, y’know. Haven’t been doing the writing I should. Tonight yes. The Dutton book.

Reading The Lost Weekend. Both awful and stupendous. Too experimental, naive self-revelatory for me. Now the protag is finishing up his last whisky, post-Bim, dropping bits of Burns, reading Shakespeare and Fitzgerald. Thinking about how there’s a lot of life left in Scott. Many more novels. He’s still under 40! This is supposed to be 1936.

Susie Bright talks about being an Irish Catholic, quotes a line from The Departed where Matt Damon is impotent. Something like

“I’m fuckin’ Irish, so I’ll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life.”

Well that’s actually it. I couldn’t remember, so copypastaed. Michael and I saw that a dozen times, I didn’t get the humor or the point. Some obscure bog-muckery I think. Suggestion of grudge-bearing?

Susie also mentioned Hunter Thompson was Irish Catholic. Believable if true. How did I miss that? Look him up. No, I don’t think so.

I got a letter from Medicaid. I’ve been approved. What do I do now? Only reason I wanted Medicaid is that otherwise I’d have to pay a ridiculous amount for Medicare Part B, which I never use anyway. I need to call some of those phone numbers, or maybe Dottie’s friend.

A chiquita from MSK phoned on my landline today (March 11). Just discovering now that my birthdates don’t match. I told her that was the birthdate on my ID at that time, and that was fine. What I don’t understand is why we received, or the Bern firm received, my medical records last October, and now you’re going through this again now.

Somehow in the last few mostly sleepless days I realized I’d had a recurring nightmare for years. It’s about an elaborate project I was assigned to do by igkins, nog hired as web director after the Indian left. I think Peter Pollack hired him because he looks like Obama. A little. For whatever reason, igkins turned against me, maybe because I tended to get blamed when things went wrong because I was the only one there half the time. (I call igkins igkins because that is his Twitter handle.)

And a front-end web person is the most accessible interface for the editors. So they knew me, and if something went wrong, it was my fault.

Anyway, in this dream: I was given this project to do that would require me to build a grid-table capable of digesting huge amounts of data and images. And it had to be constructed in some off-brand platform or library, one of those Django or Struts or Springs things that were hot 15-20 years ago and now have a user base of maybe 43. I tried getting guidance, useful examples I could copy, out of those big paperback Manning books. But those manuals had no solutions to what I needed. So day after day I’d take my notes and design specs out of a big wrinkled manila envelope on my desk. There was other work to do so I could put this aside for a while. The manila envelope sat on my desk, half-folded, frowning at me, making me feel guilty. After several months I still hadn’t built the project and I wasn’t sure if it was still needed. Somehow I never got in trouble for it. The curtain closes. I think igkins leaves the job, moves on. 

The nightmare part was the daily anxiety, knowing I’d been asked to the do the impossible. A whiff of truth from real life there, for three different projects. There was the Flash rebuild of the Thanksgiving widget when I first arrived there. This was nearly impossible and should instead have been rebuilt in HTML and jQuery from the start. Something I didn’t realize until I was heavily into the next project, which I did mostly in HTML and jQuery.

The Flash widget that I built succeeded, but it was far more trouble than it was worth. Adding to the confusion and anxiety was the fact that legacy files we got from last year’s vendor (Hudson-Union) did not work, could not work. I think I had to do tedious, repeated, proofreading and debugging in the Flash IDE. And it turned out they gave us incomplete files. One of the AS3 class files was truncated. I looked around, found a long class, the standard version used (this is a utility, not specific to a project). And it worked. But I had to agonize over that for a week.

And then the next project. I had to build interactive pages of schedules and speakers for the Classic in Aspen. These would be built in HTML, following the previous year’s Flash AS3 version, which read a big XML file to populate grids of test and images. There were so many things nobody understood there. Least of all the egregious DDP, a former temp who got himself hired as a web developer around the time I arrived, then begged igkins to bump him up to project manager. He didn’t know, and no one else there would understand this, tbat the reason the previous year’s Classic project used XML, not JSON, is that Flash could not  consume JSON. JSON, a set of strings that are formatted in javascript syntax, was fairly new then and just beginning to be implemented in databases, eg MongoDB. It’s cleaner-looking and easier to proofread edit than XML.

If I were doing the Classic in Aspen thing again, I might try do it using JSON just because it looked simpler. At least try. But instead David assigned the project to  this fat colored girl he had interviewed and hired, at least as contractor.  Her family were aliens from Central America (David was gay and Jewish and he liked to patronize female moojis). He told her how to revise or rebuild my old Classic project. They didn’t consider JSON, went with XML because David wanted to do the project as an AJAX file, AJAX being a javascript code technique he thought he understood.

Now, when I had built the earlier version, I had created the schedule lists of cooking classes, wine tastings, etc., in actual HMTL, hard-coded it, you might say. Because that worked, it was foolproof, whereas using XML probably wouldn’t work, because each separate seminar had to have its own #ID. You might be able to lay the data out in a flat file, but you weren’t going to be able to manipulate it if you asked for a record by #ID, and they all had the same #ID.

Anyway, David and the noggess built the schedules as forms, like mailmerge templates, without any unique ID for each seminar because unique information would have to be in the XML data, not in the HTML tags. I didn’t know they had chosen to do that until after they built it, at least built part of it. And it was intrinsically buggy because every seminar had the same #ID.  I told David this was a problem. I told him you couldn’t duplicate an ID. He acted huffy and asked why. He was clueless about that. I said, because it’s an ID, not a class, not an attribute. Must be unique. He didn’t know you couldn’t repeat an #ID over and over in the same file, the same way you can with the multiple-use .class tag, for example.

They hadn’t noticed problems yet because they’d simplified the project, only built half of it, the simple half, where the XML gets spat out into a list. They totally ignored or eliminated two sections that handled the output and printing utilities. It may be that the noggess tried to do those parts and found she coudn’t get them to work.  So, end of the day, all these two really built was a sort of AJAX demo, where dumb data is laid out into something like a spreadsheet. There was no need whatsoever to use XML, no reason to use AJAX, in fact it was a bad idea.  It’s harder to type, edit and proofread than normal HTML is, and a static HTML page is not going to break when it loads. But it’s AJAX, thought David, wanting very much to say he’d used AJAX in the project, and of course if it has these extra layers of complications, it must be better.

But it’s not. Let me beat this dead horse again. A simple HMTL page is  easier to manage throughout because it’s a one-step edit process .You have formatted text coded the way you want; you have nice PLUS MINUS buttons you can click on, click off (they used most of my little graphics, that’d I carefully drawn in Illustrator the last time; the had no idea that these illustration bits were part of the project, thought I’d downloaded clipart or something).  Then the seminars you clicked on would be output to a printable personal schedule for you. And if you chose two or more at the same time, same day, my Conflict Catcher javascript caught it and told you, in my cute drawings of a mid-century television clock and computer printer.

The whole point of the project is to have an app that lets you select and save a schedule. But how useful is that if you can book multiple classes at the same time and you can’t save or print the same thing out?

Bad headache just now, from a pint of Platinum last night, a half of Pinnacle the night before that, and could it be a pint of Platinum the night before. I just felt weak and hungover from this stuff yesterday (Friday) and Thursday, but now the cumulative effect has given me a migraine-line sinusitis headache of the sort that usually clears up by 4 in the afternoon, but is still sitting there now at 5:42 pm of a Saturday.

I ended up throwing out that risotto. I threw it out just last night. It may still be in the garbage. I took a garbage bag out recently, so am not sure. I made chop suey, of a sort, with ground beef and stir-fry vegetables and 90-second microwave brown rice yesterday, and have gobbled it all, meaning I won’t need to eat again for several days.

I spent part of the afternoon detaching that Verizon “extender” I was supposed to send back a month ago, and deciding how to replace it. Basically it was only feeding, via ethernet, a couple of my antiquated Macs. A few weeks ago I moved the Airport Extreme router into the bedroom, running it off the coax/ethernet extension device that’s been there for over ten years, from when we first got FiOS in early 2014. No need for it here; I could move it back, and use the extension device the same way, as a coupler, but out in the living room. I thought perhaps of buying another extension device, but I found they start around $80.

Finally I remembered the old 2014 Verizon router in the closet. I thought it wouldn’t work as a router anymore, because it’s code wasn’t actively registered with Verizon, but it turns out I gave up too early last time I tested it. This time I hooked it up to an open coax, north wall of the living room, and found that it worked only with hardwire ethernet but with its old wifi address as well. So I detached the extender tower they gave me a year ago, put it and its AC adapter aside, plugged in the old router where the extender used to be, and—voilà, I now have three live wifi addresses, two more than I really need. (In extremis, I can attach my iPhone as a Personal Hotspot, a virtual router.) I am probably going to switch at least one of these off, along with the unused computers, to save on ConEd bills. I’ve assumed their power usage is de minimis, but maybe not.

A lot of nastiness with the GC crank crowd on Twitter during the last two or three days. That lowclass “Birdy” person, who does computer graphics attacking the virtually nonexistent phenomenon of “trans kids” came a cropper recently, with both her and her “fella” supposedly being fired from their jobs and forced to live in a van, or something. Details are missing, the story is murky. Anyway, Mr. @wcobbett thereupon posted a parody of one of Birdy’s stickers, in which he or someone else spells out the actual subtext of Birdy’s lampoon.

No further happy news from Social Security. I did go to the local 48th St office a week ago yesterday and talked to a respectable negress behind the plexiglas. I told her I had ‘dire need’ at the moment because of back rent and unpaid back benefits. She put my request in for a recomputation of what I am owed. I fear they will up my monthly benefit by $200-$300 but neglect to pay the $20,000-$30,000 outstanding for years 2017-2024.

I called the SSA 800 number a few days later but they said there is a 20-day wait on these things. 20 days or 20 working days? Will it be in two weeks or three weeks? This is all a matter of anxiety for me because although I paid nearly $3000 to the landlords 2-3 weeks ago, I now owe out about another $7000, or close to $9000 as of today, this being first of March. I am barely keeping the lights on with payments for accrued bills to ConEd…going to be like $200 or more per month for a long time to come. Which would not be a problem if I had the SS benefits owed; they could see me through the year, with or without employment. I don’t know what’s happening with the VCF/WTC stuff.

I’ve spoken to the Bern lawyers and Marrlrria (Maria the chiquita at Bellevue) but they’re waiting for more information from Sloan-Kettering. I don’t know what additional information they can get. I do know I qualify for the award, same way Anthony did, even though he was already HIV+ with KS at 9/11 but it kept getting worse afterwards. If the Bern outfit and Bellevue say now, I’m signing up with the other lawyers I’ve contacted.

I stopped watching Fox News a month or so ago because I couldn’t see paying $50 p.m. for Sling just to see Fox News, which I didn’t like that much anyway. Very milksop, you know, and has been ever since Tucker left. Instead I’ve been watching OAN, which costs just a few dollars and is really lively, spicy, with little of that anodyne filler that mars Fox News. No widemouthed negress running the show at midday. Matt Gaetz is a live wire and always fun, the strange Chanel Rion (anorexic Eurasian? can’t tell) is enjoyable, as is this Dan Ball, a California boy who’d be a star of Fox News if it weren’t for FN’s deplorable devotion to racial diversity. I mean, really, the number of Jews (Levin), half-Jews (Gutfeld, Watters), and negroes (the Falkner negress) is out of hand, and those are just the few who come to mind.

The newswires these days have mainly been filled with visits to the oval office. Big huzzahs for Emanuel Macron and Keith Starmer, last week and this. Very warm and fuzzy meetings in yellow armchairs. Then yesterday Zelenskyy came in and it was a hilarious meltdown. He arrives in his Action Man commando wear and after a half-hour of serious chat it all turns into a series of colossal missteps and provocations, with Z suggesting America won’t feel so safe when someone starts lobbing nuclear warheads (“you have nice ocean but you will feel that in the future”). He’s really there begging for more money and he goes on and threatens us with bad karma if we don’t give in to his demands. Vance is there like Sonny Corleone, chiming in, making a bad situation worse by being candid, accusing Z of taking people on propaganda tours and giving speeches on behalf of Kamala Harris last fall, and staging this Oval Office meeting with the international broadcast press on hand so Zelenskyy can perform his little actor turns. Nearly every American on social media, every one who is not bought and paid for or utterly mindless, came down on Trump’s side, even though T went off on tangents about Russiagate; Brits, and those speaking for “Europe,” particularly the postage-stamp countries, all pledge eternal support to Zelensky. Katie Hopkins in England is absolutely wonderful, as she usually is, and the serious papers in London are also, on balance, sympathetic to Trump. One exception: Daily Mirror.

So, after 8pm now and headache still there. OAN keeps showing the Oval Office disaster over and over. Trump really got triggered when Z got mildly belligerent.

Gusto payment yesterday but not an awful lot. $150 or less? I had to pay $123 to my Apple Card, $150 to Citi Cash, about $30 to the Moki Apple Card, and I think about $98 (thought they want 3x times that) to Chase Amazon Visa. Next SS in a week and a half, but all that has to go to rent (I think!). Another Gusto, for maybe $260, in 13 days. No nruns for the next month, then a deluge beginning with back-to-backs on first weekend in April, Governors Island.

Much enjoyed my last stint six days ago (Feb 23rd) in Central Park. It was my anniversary nruns race; I began last Feb. on a biting cold night after 3 in the morning, with temps around 20º, feeling 10º or worse, by sunrise. We then had both a 5k and the HM running concurrently. They simplified it this year with merely the HM, which was the larger draw anyway. About 1800 starters. I didn’t have to hang around in the cold much, and it wasn’t all that cold, not after 9am anyway. First couple hours it was in and out of a U-Haul van with the Croatian big blond lady (who also works for NYRR, good to know), and a tall young intelligent black kid, first time there. When he came around the corner at Engineers Gate at 3:35 in the morning, I told him that our job today was the best we could have: clocks and signs. There were 18 or 19 sets of these, with both mile marks and major km markers. The clocks are easy to assemble, one bolt with wingnut through the bottom and its seat on its tripod. The A-frame mile markers (etc.) were much trickier. You have a bolt and a wingnut, again, but also two rubber tubes, separators between front legs, sign, and back legs. Difficult to position. We started on East Drive in the 90s, slowly made our way around past the finish turnoff at 102nd St Transverse. Chad on a Citi electric bike was a big help, scouting out our next “chalk marks” (white spray-paint, actually) for the signs and clocks. He also helped disassemble clocks and signs, making it much easier for us when we were driving around after 12:30, striking the set. The HM loops did not cover the full Park 6 mi loop, they instead cut through the 72nd St Transverse, thus about 5 miles each. Start at 94th St near the El Dorado, then 5 miles around, then another 5 miles, after which you’ve got about 5k to take you to the finish. I finally got home around 2:30. This was about an 11-hr shift. I drank a Resin from the drugstore, I think, fell asleep, woke after 5 and did not go to mass.

The previous weekend, another shift on a Saturday, Similar hours, not so long, and in Prospect Park. My fingertips in gloves were almost instantly frostbitten. (I ordered new gloves via Amazon last week, and they’re really not much better. I think the trick is, really warm gloves are going to be like ski mittens and useless for this kind of work in the cold.) I saw Senka and John last Sunday doing most of their work without any gloves at all, which seemed horrible to me. Fortunately April races won’t be frostbite weather. The Prospect Park race was the last of the three winter 5ks with cute “Frozen” names. Erica ran the finish, and my job was mainly setting up the audio. Half the time we have an audio vendor with professional DJ. This time we had a DJ with the soundboard, as well as the bearded announcer guy, but the DJ was not setting up the speakers. I winged it, not really knowing what I was doing, was generally successful hooking up the 100″ audio cables, AC extensions, and even getting the Honda 2200 generators started. Funny to start these lawnmower engines with frozen hands.

I barely made it to the meet spot, 16th St/PPSW, at Prospect Park at meet time 4:30am that weekend (Feb 15). Planned to catch the F around 3:40am, but F was closed at 57th, so I had to hurry down to Rock Ctr, subway entrance near 49th, dashed down steps, and it was just pulling in as I got down to the platform. After that, I found that it wasn’t going to stop at Prospect Park 15th St (Bartel Pritchard Sq), so I had to pick a stop before or after. I did this once before when it skipped my stop and I had to get off at Church St and find my way up to the SW corner of the park. About a mile, 20-25 minutes. This time I got off on 7th Avenue, went south to 15, turned left, and was somehow astonished to find myself back at Bartel Pritchard Square. I had the strange idea I’d be a block north of 16th St. Instead I had that nearly-half-mile walk down to the meet spot…and I got there just before 4:30. Miracles all around.

I’m coming to the end of that EasyPay card Moki encouraged me to sign up for back in mid-2021. I look saggy and ancient in the picture. I have about 8 dollars left on it, I think, and it expires for good on March 25th. After that, my OMNI card, which has about $5 on it and is set to automatically renew when it drops below $10. Fascinating stuff. I used the EasyPay card to take the A train up to 207th St on Tuesday. I was visiting the Medicaid office up there. A new, clean facility, mainly populated by nogs and demis, but not too packed with them at 4 on a Tuesday afternoon. Was returning them a deferral notice where they wanted pay stubs and a pension award letter. I have no pension award letter, so brought my 1099 from Met Life, showing my $398 pension from last year. Living large. Stopped in one of the nasty drugstores on Broadway, bought some cheap Bayer aspirin and a ginger ale.

I meant to get up to Medicaid midday Tuesday but put it off and when noon came I got a call on the intercom from Carlos. Once again, Christian wanted to visit to check out the noise coming from my radiators, or not coming from my radiators. Lady down below keeps hearing a lot of noise. Christian had been there a few days earlier, Saturday I think, but couldn’t find anything. This time he came with Jamie, and they decided it was the bedroom radiator at fault. So I sat out in the living room for an hour or two while they took that apart and changed the motor, or something. Quiet as a mouse peeing on cotton now. Mamet line, from Heist. Gene Hackman and wife and dog discovered dead this week. No foul play suspected, but it could be suicide. Their bodies were decomposed and “mummified” after what looks like a few weeks.

A while back on eBay I bought some juicer attachments for the Cuisinart Little Pro Plus food processor. Very white, pristine, unused when they came on Tuesday. The big opaque bowl with the shooting slot on the side isn’t really meant to be used for the juicer strainer and coring knobs; that’s for big-load slicing of vegetables. The juicer is supposed to fit over the transparent bowl. That’s what it said in the LPP manual I downloaded and after experimentation I find this to be the case. I went through a bag of 8 little ‘organic’ grapefruit from WF and got not much more than a pint and a half of juice. Those big red juicy grapefruits are the ones best used for juicing, but that seems almost a waste; those grapefruits are for eating, not juicing. Perhaps we could do both.

Thursday, I think it was, I made “tobacco onion rings” with big onions and an inch of oil in the big skillet. Tasted great, but a lot of trouble for a tiny snack.

Oh, you know, I was signed up for the Coogans 5k tomorrow, no intention of going, but I could at least have walked over to the new NYRR offices this afternoon and picked up the bib and t-shirt. Ugh. Have to renew membership shortly. Not too bad, senior rates. For that and for CPTC. You know they’re not doing the cheapo dormant membership anymore. Now it’s $10 per month. Which sounds good. I renewed inadvertently with USATF around New Year’s. Rather proud of that. Haven’t peeled the plastic card from its mailer yet. I have my bc birthdate at USATF currently, and my pp birthdate at NYRR.

Bought Kindle version of Ed Dutton’s Jonathan Bowden book the other day; have barely got into it but it seems very very good. Greg happy to hear I’ll review it. My first appearance in maybe 8 months in C-C.

A bit after 9 on Saturday night now and it seems the headache is about 90% gone. I put tea in the mikeywave an hour ago when planning to go out for a drugstore snack. It must be dreadful, but full of honey.

Drinking bad white wine at the moment. Went through a bottle of the red Rickshaw plonk from Shirley’s last night. The white wine I got for risotto, but to save money I cut down on the mushroom aspect and used Carolina Rice instead of arborio. No shallots, so used red onion. Perfectly edible, but not terribly appetizing. In the Rubbermaid container in the fridge now.

Coming back from Morton Williams this afternoon, I heard the Westminster Chimes go off in my coat pocket. The ringtone. A nice young lady at the other end (Caucasian! articulate!) from the local Social Security office. She was detailed on my appeal of a couple weeks back, noting my missing earnings, 1998-2006. She located them and reassigned them. All but the 1998 ones from SSB/Citi. Actually that was only for the second half of the year, perhaps $30,000, with the other wages through temp agencies. So it’s not a great loss if she couldn’t find them. Anyway it’s totally delightful and unexpected, considering the losses and frauds and scams I’ve been through the past two months. Miss Wills is her name. She was assisted by one Miss Terri Knight.

Wills told me these new earnings for 1999-2006 should begin to appear on my record in a couple of days. This I just cannot believe. What I can believe (and which she didn’t say) is that perhaps in a month or two I’ll have another three or four hundred in my SS monthly benefit. Which would make quite a difference. Retrieving the back benefits with corrected earnings, for 2017 through 2024 (eight years) is as yet unclear. That would be $20,000, conservatively estimated. I may have to fight to get there. “Usually they go back only four years,” she said, regarding paying back benefits. I cannot understand how the newly adjusted earnings would not add considerably to the monthly draw, however. If there’s trouble getting anything owed, I shall probably have to apply for SSI (I think it’s called) to make up the difference.

The need for this is very much on my mind, as there are new duns from the landlord and utilities. A young negro dropped off a DEMAND LETTER from the landlord lawyers two nights ago, Monday. How I dreaded and expected that door buzzer. Fortunately only $9000 is being demanded now, $3000 of which I can take care of in the next few days. Not the $40,000+ I was expecting. And then there’s the termination notice from Con Ed, final date around the 20th, I think. This I can argue with Con Ed about, as I use little electricity. And if worse came to worst, I could pay $1000 or so from the Moki Apple Card. (Have to watch that.) And I could plead the welfare office (HRA) to intervene, or help me pay that electric bill.

That was how I spent one of my days last week. Refiling an HRA request for money for rent. And applying for food stamps (I’m told I just have to go down to the office for my EBT card), and also applying for Medicaid. With Medicaid I can get Medicare Part B. With Medicare Part B I can get additional healthcare coverage. Tuesday last week.

And talking to Verizon, which overcharged me $25 because of the extender I did not ask for or authorize. They sent me a box and label so I can send the extender back to someplace in Coatesville. Monday last week, I believe.

And, most grueling, yelling at Chase jeets and chingchows over the fraud on the Amazon Visa card. They’ve closed that card off, as of January 25. I did not make the $95 payment due on Jan 27. Maybe in a few days. I do not intend to pay them more than would be due without the Hoolio scam. Spoke to them on Monday, and then on Tuesday, while uploading photo’d documents for my HRA filing.

I still will file a police report about Hoolio. Next week. Say they’ve strung me along until the last few weeks, never returned goods or paid me.

(While at Mass this past Sunday, in the Lady Chapel, I saw there were text messages from Eric Montoya, one of the scam artists who tried to get a few hundred out of me so he could send me lots more. I was susceptible to lots of such scams in December.)

And angrily emailing the Bern firm about the MSK files. The Gianfranco guy had the files last October. Didn’t follow up because he read in the early pages of the files that I had been first diagnosed in the year 2000, well before 9/11. Thus neglected to note that I did not get officially diagnosed and treated at MSK until 2003, at which time the plaques had increased considerably. I was reminded to do this because a chiquita named Maria phoned me up from Bellevue. Not actually Bellevue nor yet the Bellevue annex on Lex, but from her home, working remotely. She was asking after my medical files. The top of my head was about to come off. Gianfranco got the files to me, via email, a day or two later, along with his bullshit explanation about how I’d first been diagnosed in 2000.

A measure of good luck occurred to me as I walked home from Morton Williams, with the rice, etc., and peeled off to go to the Chinawoman’s for the cheap (and not particularly tart) sauvignon blanc for the risotto. Here I’d been thinking since awakening, slightly depressed, that it was afternoon of Thursday. Thursday the 5th of February. But the 5th is only Wednesday. I still have Thurs and Fri ahead of me. Maybe I can even cut my hair and make it to the gym. I have the Coogan’s 5k run in a month, but Lord knows I’m not going to do that. I do have a Frozen Bonsai 5k to manage in Prospect Park (I think it is) next weekend for nruns, and then the gawdawful Central Park Half the following weekend. No money via Gusto for me for a long time.

A couple days ago I dropped off some virtually overdue books at the 53rd St Library. Yesterday, to the MM Library to take out the Brad Gooch bio of Flannery O’Connor. Was going to take out another bio of her, but instead took out a nearby bio for the Marquess of Queensberry. I’ve dipped into that at length, not the Flannery. Have to do something on O’C for C-C. Walked down through Rock Plz. It’s coming up on Saturday Night Live’s 50th year, and they have a big black block with a video screen out in the middle of the street, slightly north of 30 Rock.

4 February 2025

Slept almost all day, 7am-6pm. Phone started ringing (iphone: Westminster chimes) mid-afternoon. One a junk call, one Dottie. Dottie wanted to tell me about how she got shrimp at Wegman’s and cooked it differently. Glad I didn’t pick it up because then I’d have to tell her how I’d cooked the whole bag of frozen shrimp from Sunday, and made more cocktail sauce, and it was great.

Got up, out in XPETI boots, bought a MC pot pie and diet tonic water at drug store, 1/2 pt New Amsterdam v at Chinawoman’s. Ate, and then ate muesli later. Curious to see if I could raise a puff from the bowl. Unlocked box, found little bits, lit torch. No, not worth it. Slight headache now. Took aspirin. Arguing with people on Substack, Twitter. Making fun of C. Cohn’s funny brow-bossing and eyebrows.

To sleep again, early a.m. Thurs. I hope. Two days from now, early a.m. Sat, must go to PP. Working at Finish I think. Only a 5k, get there at 4:30. After this, nothing for 3-4 weeks (!), followed by the dreadful CP Half, which is where I came in early last year. I believe it is at that point, 5-6 weeks from now, that I will change gears. Either get some sort of raise/promotion or decide it’s all loathsome and I have some new job now that pays me and saves my bacon.

A little money in WF from Gusto on Fri.

Finishing up the 3rd vol, Audible, of Nigel Hamilton on FDR. Tedious. Don’t need Tehran or Yalta. I’ll find something better and new at NYPL. Today (tomorrow, Thurs), must drop off books at library. Nice walk down there in boots.

Hearings on Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, nothing since.

Another pic from Coliseum Books that I ran across yesterday:

14 January 2025:

I have a dear little pet fish that responds to commands. He darts around in his tank. Maybe he’s a salamander of some sort. Tank is more like a terrarium. I keep the tank in a sunny, glassed-in, porch-like room at the end of a kind of motel suite we are staying at.

Sometimes we go to the big room where they serve meals. Today we see a recent film of the room, where they had a big ball recently. Maybe it is the camera angle, but they all appear to be dwarves or midgets. I go there for the next dinner-dance but walk on my knees so I appear to be cut-off too. I go back to see my pet fish, but he seems to have escaped or been stolen.

With friends I go to the bookstore/news agency in the rear of that ballroom-dining hall. It is a very complete, filled out magazine shop. Altogether it reminds me of Coliseum Books with a magazine shop in the rear. (Actually Coliseum Books had an interesting nook with oddball periodicals, around its NE corner.)

On one of the magazine racks there is a cheap camera for sale in a poly bag. It’s some kind of specialty camera, as I see from an instruction manual. Uses very odd-sized film, but can also accept 35mm. The sample photos shown all seem to be like b/w espionage pictures. “Real Lee Harvey Oswald type photos,” a friend remarks. This shop has sold a lot of rare cameras and films in the past, but doesn’t seem to now.

About 12 January 2025:

With my sister, we are staying at our grandparents’ in Bronxville. They are living no longer, and we think we have perhaps inherited the apartment, except when we step outside it is a house. The concrete doorstep is hollow, and there is some sort of animal there. I poke at it and it hisses back. It sounds like an enormous rattlesnake. I warn my sister and others to stay away. Later the head of a goal protrudes, and we learn it is actually a mother goat and her little kid. They come out and the kid romps around a bit.

First Friday Mass last night, St P’s, rosary, then yielded to temptation after a day of recovery from boo, and got a cheap pint at Shirley’s. She did not recognize me at first because I was wearing that pink and white synthetic scarf from Century 21 in 2015 (Tennessee Morn).

But now time hangs heavy, it is not quite 8 pm and around 3 am or so I must be up and ready myself to walk up to 72nd and Fifth. Only a 5k, and my duties look pretty light: setting up clocks and mile signs, which of course are few. I cannot get my mind engaged in anything. I like that Churchill book, Warlord, and will be going back to it, maybe starting the Paul Kennedy downloaded via E from NYPL. Ideally I’ll catch a few hours of sleep.

Sad and lonely, missing Moki, missing him intensely maybe for the first time in many weeks. Months. I am worried about the future and staring it in the headlamps, mesmerized. Behind in rent I can’t ever catch up on. Need to straighten out SSA. No luck a year ago. All would be well if I had just one normal job. I can’t count on the VCF coming in soon, though I must bother them soon. Also bother Chase Amazon Visa to report that fraud. Next week.

It could well be my mood is from lack of exercise and activity in general. Got some walking in Tuesday, for Prosecco and shrimp and Bellevue, nothing since except going to the subway and to Dottie’s on Wednesday.

And of course the boo can’t have helped.

Partly out of forlorn hope, and also amusement, I followed what seemed to be a big-money-giveaway scam again on Twitter. A negro lottery winner is giving everyone who follows him $30k, just like that. Sending it in cash, FedEx. But, as I suspected, they want a few hundred up front. Just a few hundred, you see. And while I was doing this, I discovered an identical scam going on, supposedly from the same person, on a slightly different Twitter handle. So I followed them both to our destination, where I said I had no money to give them up front, and would they take an IOU, payable from the proceeds of all that cash? I was hoping hard enough so that I was disappointed when both proved to be what they seemed to be. How many scams have I entered now? There was Hoolio (Brillio), and the Mexican in Texas (lost about $5000 and then $35 on those two), and then the fellow calling himself Jason Miller, also giving money away for free but asking $1000 for shipping expense up front. Then the two Generous Daves last night. So that’s five.

I have microwaved a potato. Must eat it.