I have these brown accordion folders labeled SHEARSON LEHMAN HUTTON, which was somehow a predecessor firm to Salomon Smith Barney, before Lehman Brothers spun itself off again and went bankrupt. I can’t tell you what happened to the E. F. Hutton portion, but I’m pretty sure Shearson stayed with SSB/Citigroup because that was Sandy Weill.

Anyway, odds and ends and scraps of drawings and writings and correspondence fill these folders, some going back further than 1996 (which is where my life virtually begins, since my memorabilia prior to that has mostly vanished). There are letters from H. K. Thompson and Nancy Hunt Bowman and Ted O’Keefe. And from North Sydney, J. Michael Buckley. A letter from the Bournemouth bailiffs to Robert Baird from back in the 1980s when his nightclub went under. I was being mischievous when I squirreled that away.And then a sheaf of cartoons from the summer of 1996, when I was unemployed and had the notion of perfecting the “pocket cartoon” style you saw in Private Eye and elsewhere. I haven’t looked at them since then because they were embarrassing in memory. I’d already had a piece in The Spectator, so I was pitching the drawings to the Eye and to The New Statesman. I note the date of drop-off or fax on the back of the copies; that’s how I know.

I really like some of the various styles I’m mashing up together here. I note a bit of Pilbrow in the pension thing, which is very silly and very Brit. The best idea of the four here is the least successful in execution. You can’t tell who’s speaking “You look sick.” The fact that it appears here 90º counterclockwise doesn’t help it either. I’ll probably run some of the cartoons in GN, without comment. Just put them in the right rail as though an unknown cartoonist is supplying pocket cartoons.

I had forgotten that I had a number of letters from H. K. Thompson. One without an envelope kept turning up, evidently from about 1993, but then there were three or four from when we were in London and then Seattle. In an October 1996 letter he says he’ll write down my address (in his address book) in pencil from now on. I still can’t locate an envelope for the first one, but it was probably an odd-sized one since he says he’s enclosing information about Spiro. (Probably news stories from local papers.)

And then, finally, the Michael Bywater piece written just after Jeff Bernard died. Independent on Sunday, 14 Sept 1996, a few days after we landed in Seattle. I have the whole thing, but have scanned in only the title-page art. I exchanged notes with Bywater some years later, either because I’d written about this on a blog, or maybe—could it be that late in the game?—social media.

Finally got that review of A Conspiratorial Life done. I will do a review of the Matthew Dallek Birchers as well, for CC. Was thinking it would be good for Chronicles, but it seems it came out in 2022, not 2023 as i thought. Find a new book.

The loose molar is getting loose again, jutting out a little, some occasional pain around the gum. I made some erythro capsules and swallowed them today. Will need more erythro soon. Have dentist next week, finally. What to do about this?

Puzzled recently because I couldn’t find any diaries or pocket calendars for early 2010. Finally I found one this morning Lots of tight spidery writing, from Jan-Mar 2010. But the money shot, the time I was in that boutique hotel near Copley Square, has next to nothing there. Except me drinking vodka the night before. The boutique hotel, I find out, is the Charlesmark on Boylston St. What I remember mostly is bright red stools, bright red accents elsewhere. Did I decide NOT to go to the Al Gordon? Is that the day I dragged the Athlon through Cambridge, went all the way up to Chauncy St and badly sketched 29 Chauncy? I’m sitting in the lounge area, looking at Facebook, and Rob Dinsmoor is telling us that Amy Bishop who shot up her fellow profs in Huntsville was a friend of his from the Hamilton writers group. Most of the spidery writing was about how I was waiting to near from NBC Universal about the Flash job…which never started. And anxiety about races. Was going up to Ithaca, booked it, then canceled when I realized I didn’t have a special place in the Hartshorne Mile. It was a very snowy winter that, Jan and Feb 2010. Then, when I’m at Masters Champs at Reggie, I get an icepick in my lower back. Just when I’m thinking how lucky I’ve been not to have the sciatica… Met Kathy Webster later, when I’m feeling better because I’ve been slowly jogging around outside. We go to Jamaica Plain and have ice cream. K imagines I’m having this back and hip problem from running so much.

I have no mention of Rob here at all, but one vague joke about Amy Bishop. The Roz Chast of biology professors? What does that mean?

Picked up the rat poison from Amazon Go at Rock Ctr. It’s a little snack shop, staffed by obese nogs. There’s a tiny counter, like a paper admission booth, where you get your items. Otherwise it’s 30 Rock people coming in and out for pastries and sandwiches. One girl walked off with a six-pack of Klausthauler. You have to get a nigger to unlock the gate for that.

Bought and ate an entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s today. Nothing else except a few crackers. And coffee and tea. The B&J’s may be because I’m not swilling the vodka. I sort of miss swilling the vodka. I’d like to have Moki right next to me, swilling it with me. And alive and conscious and able to get out of bed. That would be any time before July 2023, I suppose. I fancy making a papier-maché head of Moki for the pillow. Was thinking of armature wire and clay, but that is heavy and beyond my ability.

Tomorrow I have color and cut from Gracie at noon, Timothy John’s. It is an expensive place, can’t go there often. $100 for cut last time. Still about $500 on the Citi Cash card. What do I have in the Citi ck acct? $1700 ck. $70 USAA ck. Pay for hair with Citi Cash. Put money on Citi Cash. Pay dentist next week with Citi Cash.

I see CPTC is raising its stakes, wants $30 per month dues. This is ridiculous. No, I can’t drop out. Too much sunk investment. Spend next 2-3 weeks getting into sufficient shape so you can at least slow-run a few miles without blowing a gasket, then show up to someone’s practice.

Still rather blocked, though I’m determined to get the review of the Miller book on R. Welch drafted before I knock off. It is just after midnight, and I have plenty of tea. Tetley tea, in the round sachets.

I slept like a log from about 5pm to 8. Before that, I’d been out on this rainy day to see a curated talk at the new Grey Museum (formerly Grey Art Gallery) south of Cooper Square. I had no idea where to find it, expecting it to be near the big block sculpture or Cooper Union. No, it’s way down past the old NYHRC (now LIFE TIME Fitness; not much activity within, it looks like), and past the Muji store to the south of that. I was lucky to see the new navy-and-white banner waving up on high. 18 Cooper Square, easily a quarter mile south of Astor Place.

I was much too early for the tour (1 pm) so I killed time in Muji. Did not need to buy anything, but I’ll pick up a couple of black t-shirts there soon.

It was drizzling. I didn’t know it was going to rain, didn’t bring my umbrella. The enormously stout assistant at reception had me marked down for the 12 tour, which is not what I registered for. Fortunately I had the receipt e-mail. She was very nice about it. Most of the turnout were old folks, the sort of people who like this sort of thing. The them was “Americans in Paris,” post-WWII. Mostly people you’ve never heard of. A few Negroes, a few Jews. Early abstract expressionism, geometric designs, complex armatures of black welded metal.

Pleasant layout in the new address, though the old one, on Washington Square, had the advantage of location, as well as seeming like one great big room that didn’t need to be partitioned off.

Thought I’d grab a bite to eat afterwards. Maybe the Japanese BBQ place I’d passed on my way. Going out into the rain, I saw Phebe’s way down on whatever street this Cooper Square branches off into. Bowery? Bowery68 is the wifi pw. Sat at bar, ordered a Blue Moon beer and a Blackjack burger, which is an $18 cheeseburger with jack cheese and bacon. Cooked medium, and absolutely delicious. A dark, somewhat bearded Irish fellow named Ciaran at the bar. Exchanged a few words in Erse with someone who came in. I told him and a young woman at the bar that when I first visited Phebe’s it was much smaller and John and Yoko were there. Years later I used to accompany a friend who owned a club on the other side of town (Glenn) and would check out CBGB and other clubs to see what was coming up.

At home all I wanted was to lie down and go to sleep, though I fooled a bit with email and the London Review of Books before passing out.

A week ago Rob D. died. He and I were interacting via the new Substack fiction sites we started, coincidentally around the same time. I guess his “Sebastian” story will never have an ending. Rob was a bit better with fiction than nonfiction, where he tells everything in a droning, sonorous manner and is very lazy about visuals and specifics. It’s like Norman Mailer criticizing Morley Callaghan’s memoir in the NYRB 60 years ago, telling how the memorist doesn’t bother to make his own material interesting and seductive, or even informative. (Comparison to someone who met Truman Capote, and upon being questioned, says, “Oh he’s very bright and he’s short.”)

This vacuousness comes up in his two self-published memoirs, one about the “Troupe,” the other about going to a rehab clinic about 12 years ago. In the first he’s describing the branding and collateral we used on our flyers and posters. Originally the mascot of the C-heads was an old line-drawing clip art of a fellow who was supposed to be Bob Dobbs, of the Church of the Subgenius. Doug K. pasted a serrated crown onto his head and renamed him News King. News King had his own life before the C-heads, in some zine Doug or a friend put out. And now Doug repurposed him for C-head programs.

But Rob’s description of it all is that there was a generic line-drawing of a stereotypical Dad figure that we used as symbol of the C-heads. Did he really not know the background here, or did he just not want to go into tiresome details?

Much more annoying and inattentive is how he describes the usual C-head branding, once we moved on from News King. This started as a tiny halftoned image of the smiling head of Fatty Arbuckle. Bob Keenan, a graphics whiz, blew this up many times so the halftone dots were big and clear. As Rob describes it, this was some line art of a fat man that Bob came across, and it rather resembled Bob, which is why, perhaps, it was chosen.

We had this branding worked into all of our posters, etc., for years. I recently saw a pic of Rob wearing one of these shirts. Funny that he didn’t make the Fatty Arbuckle connection.

Rob in C-head shirt

Or perhaps…perhaps…he knew it all once, but just plumb forgot. His “Troupe” book, a memoir of the C-heads, focuses mainly on stressful adventures that he went through as a writer and sometimes crew member.

My theory about Rob’s prose style was that he was trying to perfect a kind of flat, affectless prose, where colorful details were neglected on purpose, out of a kind of “whatever!” contempt for too many descriptives. Somewhat like Hemingway, but not a Hemingway parody. Something like O’Hara, but without pages of ear-catching dialogue. In fact, Rob’s really bad at dialogue altogether, like J. Boylan. Everybody ends up talking in the same cadence and idiom. I don’t think he got much helpful criticism from that writers group he went to in Hamilton, Massachusetts.

From the time he moved to Hamilton, he informed me that it was the hometown of General George S. Patton. This surprised me, because when I was at the Santa Anita racetrack and Huntington Library with Ted O’Keefe and Bill and Karen Hulsy, Ted pointed out that this is where Patton grew up. (San Gabriel, CA, actually.) It seems Patton married a wealthy heiress from the Boston area, and that’s how he came to claim Hamilton, MA as home. For me this is a very telling detail, and Rob was getting it all wrong. It wasn’t quite Patton’s hometown. Hamilton may be duly proud of the Patton connection, but George didn’t move there until he was out of West Point. It happens that I have a book on the Patton family.

Both the Rob memoirs I mention begin with thanks and acknowledgments to such friends from the circle, beginning with the name of Amy Bishop, and that is an eye-catcher. Amy was the biologist who shot up her Huntsville, AL fellow faculty members in early 2010. I was sitting in the breakfast lounge of a snazzy boutique hotel* in Boston that weekend, in town for some races at the Harvard indoor track, when I tuned into Facebook, and there was Rob, telling us all about how he’d known Amy for years. She was crazy, most certainly, but Rob never said so, or gave any indication he thought so.

Now Amy’s long in prison, and Rob is gone. I should drop Amy a note.

*Charlesmark, I see in an old diary. On Boylston St near Copley Square.

Back to deer-in-headlights mode. What I am going to do about the rent? About moving on? Now thinking about grabbing a martini and snack at the AC, but this does not seem healthful. Why haven’t you written anything?

The long-awaited inaugural event with nr finally arrived early Sunday morning. I had no trouble at all getting out there into Central Park and showing up. I set an alarm on an iphone and checked it again every hour. It was like the last few hours before the London Marathon, sans the BBC “UK Theme” playing on the radio as I got ready to get out of bed. Finally roused myself around 2:45 and made coffee, out the door a little before 3 am. Wore the orange NYCM souvenir shirt from 2006 or 2007, zippered black Asics pants, the orange Patagonia jacket (from Freeport ME, 2006, with Chris Yerkes), and a Buf scarf that I probably bought in Dartmouth, Devon in 2006. Carried the old black Turkey Trot shoulder sack from 2007 or whenever it was. I think they’ve got Central Park closed from 1am to 6am, so I had to take the long way around, to Columbus Circle, then up the pavement, mostly walking, a little jogging. I’m definitely stronger than a few weeks ago; that little bit at TMPL every couple of days is showing. I couldn’t even jog at all, not just a few weeks ago, but most of the last few years.

The intense cold did not bother me at all, at least as I made my way there. It was 25ºF, colder than anticipated, though the winds the came up and it felt more like 5º. Meeting place was entrance at West 96th St. I entered the Park at 90th, where we go in for the Mini, then jogged a few blocks. Noticed a group over by CPW, went and joined them. Slightly late, maybe 3:35. Didn’t log into the app till 3:45. We walked down to the start for the HM, trucks came by, we unloaded. I was given an orange vest to wear, no branding. Someone had “Hot Hands” hand-warmer packets that you rub to warm your hands when they’re feeling nearly frostbitten. I don’t think my hands have known this cold since I was a small child waiting for the very-late schoolbus among the snowdrifts.

Half the crowd wandered off to the south to get ready to set up the 5k. One was our leader, CJ. I told her I didn’t know which event I was supposed to be working. Turns out it was the HM, which started at 9, one hour after 5k So, back to the HM start and more hand warmers. Coworkers were middle-aged men and oriental females. Great confusion about setting up the corrals and “delineators,” as they call the orange plastic bollards that mark off the lanes, with blue plastic tape running between them. We needed to have wide left-hand lanes for corrals (maybe 15 ft) then “pedestrian” lane (perhaps 8ft) with an entrance into each corral, with a bicycle lane and emergency vehicle lane to the right, undemarcated. At 4-5am, in the dark, we were there, putting up the orange bollards (they are held down by black hexagonal weights) and continually adjusting them and the blue ribbons between them. The first corral was 6:59/min and under; last corral was 12 min and over.

A surprising number of people came in toward the end to do the 12 min pace. Joggers. By this point the 5k had begun, the sun was up, and we were ever-so-slightly more comfortable. Another woman and I stood at the back of the 12 min corral with our INFO HERE signs. That was fun, and very useful, because we got querents every ten seconds. Where is the 5k start? (This kept up until 20 minutes into the 5k; I told them not to worry, their time would be clocked when they passed over the mat.) Where are the bibs? (Most had them; late registrants could get them in the nr tent on the left.) Where do we get the shirts? Where is baggage check? That would be up by the 102nd Transverse, near the end of both races.

Enjoyed this part of the setup more than any previous event, maybe more than any race where I was actively participating, in which I was always feeling sick as a dog for two hours before.

We were discharged after letting the tents down and stacking the delineators, etc., around 11 am. We could get extra hours by checking with the people at the baggage check/refreshments area. So I wandered over there, changed my mind, retied my shoes and removed my orange vest. At CPW walked down from 100th to 96th, took the C train down to 59th. Finally at noon I logged out. If there are any questions about the extra time, I’ll say I’m still an hour short, and I logged in 15 minutes late.

I slept well for a few hours in the afternoon, but when I woke I found the bitter cold had played havoc with my nose. A sinus infection or irritation on the left side. I’ve taken a lot of off-brand nyquil and pseudo in the past two days. Better now.

Finally I sold some shoes on eBay: the yellow Kenns, which I thought were the greatest prize of all, but only for the minimum, 39.99, plus tax and shipping. Meh. Clearly the market isn’t what it was 15-20 years ago. I now have an assortment of other Kenns, Milers, Jasari+, Zoom W, mint Mayflys up there. The Mayflys are worth $100, but maybe only to collectors. Yesterday, Monday, I bundled up the Nike box in brown paper (inverted Whole Foods bag), taped it up, took it down to the Rock Ctr PO. Then walked from there to WF because I suddenly wanted to make some bolognese again. This time, linguini, with no crushed tomatoes. A little bit of tomato paste. An 8.99+ Yellow Tail cabernet from the place on 9th Ave. Drank it all last night and through the wee hours when I awoke. The linguini was okay, somehow not as rich and tasty as the the spaghetti I made two weeks ago. I think the difference is that I used a whole pound of linguini this time, and I only had a little thin and regular spaghetti with the last batch: much more sauce in proportion.

Woke up every few hours, watched parts of the first two “pilot” episodes of Columbo, late 60s-early 70s. Not very good. Stiff, artificial. Too many Jewish actors. Besides Falk you’ve got Gene Barry and Lee Grant, living in an artificially wealthy L.A. atmosphere where people get their dry-cleaning picked up by Rodeo Cleaners. Falk was neat and suited in the first one. Graduated to tatty trenchcoat in the second.

Yesterday brought me two cards I will seldom if ever use. My latest AARP, and my new USATF. I put them both away in the black Tusk bag (from Nordstrom’s UTC, circa 1996) where all the extra and old cards go. Only purpose I can see right now for the USATF is getting certified again as coach, as I did in 2012, and as I nearly did in 2016, when I was in better shape than any other time since 2012.

Hours (s) on chat line to Verizon yesterday, looking for a credit for the days my service was down at the beginning of the month. Grudgingly they offered $18, on the basis of my having a $220 monthly bill. Yikes. I got them to go up to $30. Still have to pay that $220 because the credit has not hit. Maybe pay off Amazon Chase card, then pay Verizon with that.

I have decided I owe myself a lunch martini at the AC. Using my Z card for the first time. Thither I shall go, in a white-collard grey PINK shirt, black trews, black boots, Agnes B. jacket with hole in the sleeve. I shall bring the Birchers book with me, and notebook, and make notes as the first sips hit me.

I got up a few moments ago and went to the kitchen for something urgent…then forgot what the hell it was. Since I was out there, I filled the dishwasher. It seems the dishwasher always needs filling or emptying, though in the time since Moki took to his bed permanently (June would that be?) I’ve run only about two washes a week. Electric bill, unpaid, now at 788. I should pay something on that.

DCM, a debt collector in…Phoenix?…sent a couple of notices about his 11k debt on an American Express card through USAA. I sent them back, saying, there is no estate to collect against.

I must look into probate and see if there is any point in filing Moki’s will. If he had finished the 2014-15 will, I’d have something solid, but the 1994 one is meaningless.

Animal Crossing Pocket Camp seems dead and gone; can’t update on the iPad Mini because I can’t get to the App Store. Nintendo doesn’t recognize my acct no. or my email address. This is a time waster I certainly could do without. One of those legacies of that disaster year, 2017. NYS tax bill, Enoch doxed, Mr Trump given hell, Moki exploding at me for no good reason at Johnny’s wake, yelling at me the next morning (both hungover from vodka), the Elizabeth Gray incident on Christmas…

I suspect I am a local heroine at the AC, and that’s one reason why they were so eager to give me a rare Z card. I have yet to receive a bill, but it’s going to be over $100 when it arrives.

No further word yet on the judgment. I must attempt the vacate in the next day or two. Things hanging over my head.

It was just four weeks ago I finally got the $2210 check from Jamie/AT.

I’m getting dressed and going to the Club.

No news today, no crises. I did not work. I really felt unmotivated, blocked. I watched the latest episode of the Truman Capote thing on Hulu. Jimmy Baldwin comes to give him solace, only the negro actor is too tall and un-ugly.

Mid-afternoon inspected my 500-series Mac Powerbooks. What a fascinating waste. All can power up, but there’s nothing there. So fascinated by them 25 years ago.

Ate a big bowl of the leftover split-pea soup in the afternoon. Instant oatmeal (McCann’s) in the morning. Lots of coffee after having been awake since…12:30 am? To Shirley’s for one 1/2 pt Smirnoffs. That little bit is enough.

Timmy posted a number of 1920s-30s pictures of the Daverns in Meadville and Buffalo, around the first of the year. Where and how did he get these?

I sent him a card and photo just after Christmas, no reply. I suppose that’s dead stock. Should shoot a message to Claire. One of these days I may be up in her area.

Messages via Teams from the nycruns Start people for the 5k and HM on early Sunday. I have to work from 3:30am to 1:30, I think.

What a time for my sciatica to start up again. But there it is. Need to run, need to do gym, next two days.

Ebay has charged me nearly $10 for items I’ve posted but I haven’t made a single sale. None of the Kennedys, the Milers, not even the Mayflys (though there’s still hope there yet).

Got the other Birchers book from the 53rd St lib yesterday. Mark Dallek. Much more incisive than the terrible Miller bio of Welch. Do a review of each, intersecting, over the next day or two.

Greg wanted a crowd-sourced answer to mysterious FPY references. Who said this? What’s it about? Very obscure and generic for the most part. I found something on Little Entente and maybe John Dewey and Nye Bevan.

I ordered a charging battery pack for the iPhone SE2 the other day and must say I am pleased. A charge on the phone and pack seems to last for nearly two days. This is what I need when out doing donkey work for nycruns over the next few months.

Have been reminding myself to phone A.T. and others but have not. I just cannot see my future straight.

Last night, early evening, Wotjek stopped me at the door and told me he videoed Moki’s gurney being pushed out through the lobby in November. It was cold out and water was dripping out of my eyes, so W said, “I show you later, I not want see you cry. Michael he not so old was he?” Well he was 83.

I still talk to Moki, call out to him. He is in the darkness, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. I will rescue him.

A truly terrifying nightmare. I’d incompleted a lot of courses in college so they were going to throw me out. I’d been summoned to a meeting of the Executive Committee in SSS or some building in that region. I think 6:30 on a Monday evening. Somehow I got mixed up and thought it was 2:30 in the afternoon. Anyway I slept late, till a quarter-to-two. Was sleeping in the basement of Bingham or Farnham, I don’t know why. A new semester had begun and I’d only glanced at the blue book, the course catalog. I’d made up my mind I was going to pretend to be a very serious, earnest student from here on out. Actually take courses and finish them.

So at 2pm I was rushing around trying to find another copy of the course catalog. In the basement of some building where they run student businesses I find what I think is the course catalog, but it’s only a Course Critique, laid out with a cover to look like the course catalog. I can’t find my courses at all, just long essays about things I’m not interested in. But where is the course catalog? I think they hand them out in some building near Dwight Hall.

But I’m in a rush, have to get to Hillhouse Avenue shortly, and I don’t think I can make it. I head up towards Dwight, or Linsly-Chit, but the buildings are cordoned off. I stand in the middle of Elm Street, between Durfee and Calhoun, and yell out asking if anyone’s got a copy of the course catalog. Only I say Course Critique, which I don’t need or want.

Here I woke from this truly terrifying nightmare, which is pretty much what both halves of my undergraduate career were like.

Feeling rather triumphant today. Spent several hours moving Moki’s iMac to the SW corner of his desk. It’s always been at the north-south axis so you can’t see the naughty stuff he’s looking at when you enter the living room. I threw away a lot of papers and scrubbed down half the desk. Needed two or three goes.

But then the printer wouldn’t work at all. I got something out of it when I tried a wired USB connection, but no wifi. This did not begin with the move. I noticed it a few days ago. In fact, I tried to print once at Moki’s after the routers were changed, so the new router might have been the problem. Tried my laptops. Couldn’t print from them either. Couldn’t scan.

Finally I found directions to go Home>Settings>Wireless LAN etc., and enter the wifi name and password directly into the printer. This worked. I’d felt hopeless, despairing, envisioned myself doing my printouts and scans at Kinko’s for the foreseeable future. But now, triumph. I’ve only set it up to work under the Margot wifi, not the new one, but that’s enough effort for today.

It was three o’clock, a bit later than I’d meant to go to the gym. Impossibly bitter cold, but you feel good after a mile or two walk in the bitter cold. Only a boutique workout. A little treadmill, tiny bit C2, the stationary. No more than a half hour in all. My main objective was showering and doing my hair, which I did do.

Message from Coliseum Dental on my phone. The periodontist, Dr. Cho, won’t be there tomorrow, so we had to postpone to mid-March. A reprieve! Let’s go celebrate.

Post-TMPL, went to St. Malachy’s and got ashes. They were doing ashes before and after the 5:30 mass. This was before. The foreign prelate or deacon, in a Covid mask, said a screwed-up version of “Remember thou that thou art dust…”

Stopped at ShakeShack on Seventh Avenue, mainly out of curiosity. Almost entirely staffed by nignogs. Most of their business is via delivery, apparently. I don’t think I’ll do it again, though the cheeseburger and fries for $12 were okay. I haven’t eaten anything like that in months.

Watched The Day of the Jackal last night and this morning. Slept very soundly through most of the night, waking only for a couple of hours around midnight. Also watching Raging Bull, on and off. A movie I wanted very much to see 40-odd years ago. Murphy sneered at the idea.

Wotjek the concierge the other night wanted to give me some wine in return for giving him Moki’s lighted helmet, so I suggested pinot noir or cabernet. Was hoping I’d have it for Mardi Gras or even paired with my burger this evening, but no. I’m not giving up anything for Lent, though I don’t foresee drinking much v. Had a nice big v martini at the AC yesterday. Only solid food, not too solid, was French onion soup.

Cleaning out Moki’s papers today I came across a manila envelope full of our correspondence with the disciplinary committee after the Christmas 2017 incident. Extraordinary what an utterly evil fabulist that Elizabeth Gray was. Her negro son, Nate. Me creeping up the “back stairs” to the second floor. Anyway, that manila envelope is a keeper, goes right into the fat NYAC file with the Vic Gainor story and other amusements.

Threw away Moki’s dusty old two-line phone (set up for 3642 and now-gonzo 6301). Right now the desk has my 0209 deskset and Moki’s ultra-large-type funny old folks’ phone with his legacy 3642, a number I’ve known since 1985. I now have extensions for both in the bedroom. This is something of a first for 3642.

Postscript, February 18. Yesterday it occurred to me that there was a spare cordless phone that might work with 0209. I’d thrown away the handset when tossing Moki’s two-line phone, but I hadn’t emptied the wastebasket yet. Went out to the trash bay, unloaded the basket, and there it was at the bottom. Polished up the handset, good as new. But did it work? I swapped it with my working handset on the windowsill. Nothing. Swapped the batteries. Now it worked. And the old dead batteries (rechargeable) on my formerly working handset showed “Charging” when I put the set back into its cradle.

I found the other cradle and AC adapter in the pantry closet, set it up on the foyer table. We now have another phone extension for 0209, a number I seldom use anymore. I’d trade it in for a mobile, but I have too many mobiles as it is, and meanwhile we have these neat cordless extensions.

I lost my Craft running gloves about a month ago and had no idea what became of them. I had just dropped one on the street while coming back from Morton Williams, but a good samaritan shouted after me. So I could be pretty sure I hadn’t lost them outside. But where were they?

They were under the bed, under the headboard. I found them last night. How remarkable. If I go out again this evening, for v or food, I’ll wear them. It is 36º F. (Tuesday night, and I haven’t had a drink since Saturday. Perhaps I’ll yield to temptation and go no booze. I have felt woozy from Trazodone for the past two days: only half a pill each time.)

The other lost things were the Tom Tierney paper doll books.They were under a stack of magazines and my typescripts and legal papers, on one of the black-leather storage units Moki brought in as a substitute for the long-gone glass coffeetable.

The Verizon man, a tall young negro, arrived toward 3 today after being scheduled for 12-to-2. I now have local cable TV (not much else!!!), internet, a router and an extender (closet and rubberwood table), and two landlines (Moki’s and mine; 6301 is now gone). I had intended to shift Moki’s 3642 over to a mobile phone, and maybe moved his SIM back to my black Nokia. That way I’d have only one landline. But now I’ve plugged the old 6301 AT&T phone into the 3642 RJ11 jack by the bed, the 0209 is again working, so I have access to both, in the bedroom and in the living room.

Other things lost and found and not particularly sought after: the Compaq AC brick to Moki’s 1998 laptop. He got tired of that after a couple years and got a big mother machine which he felt more comfortable with. Lent the laptop for a while to Cathy O’Brien. But then it was returned, and apparently plugged in again before being de-drived and discarded.

The Netgear stand for my WiFi router, which we got connected to Michael’s DSL line in 2002 or 2003. Michael ripped the connection out after a while, thinking that it was slowing down the internet, and Patrick Clark told him that it probably was.

At some of the lentil salad last night. Ate four of the infernal drugstore turkey-cheese sliders today. Not hungry.

Arguments on FB with Mr Menno about the Bergdorf Goodman negro transsexual.

Somewhere in the Afterlife, in Purgatory or Outer Hades or the Unspeakable Place, my Michael is crying out to me and thinking I can’t hear him. Because of course I can’t. But it’s worse than that. He thinks no one can hear him. And no one will. Not for a long time. So I’m praying to get a message through to him. That I think about him all the time, love him dearly and need his help. And I beg him to send some sort of sign back to me.

We could be together again very soon. I keep thinking the future is black, utterly dreadful. I’d be bound to put myself in circumstances where I’d get myself killed in an honorable fashion. But would we be together then? Or both shouting in the darkness? For the present I tell myself Moki is with me always. I talk to him, tell him we’ll be together one way or another.

With all those rosaries, and prayers to St. Jude, surely I must have saved Moki from the worst fate of all. My ambition now has to be to bring him back. Feel that he is by my side. Talk to him and have him answer me.

Such thoughts, with attendant tears, were going through my mind when I was at Mass this evening (STPA). I arrived before the Gospel, left at the start of Communion. I made First Friday Mass (STP) the other night as well.

I need a job. I need to solve this rent problem. I need to get out from under that judgment. All told, I now have between four and five thousand, including the cash in the duck and maybe £1300 at HSBC. I get job and all worries go away.

It’s 4:38 am. Will I get any sleep at all in the next few hours? No v today, after drinking far too much for four or five days. Severe hangover sinus headache till mid-afternoon. Planned to go to TMPL, but time drew on and I decided to be happy with just church. I was a little late because I was determined to throw out the leftover chili and shepherd’s pie from the past few weeks. Sushi from WholeFoods for dinner. Well you know, with the money I saved on vodka.

Took my Viviscal and collagen tablets. And EV. And then took a Fluoxetine. Dr. Simbercoff prescribed these for Moki a couple of years ago, he never took them.

Death of Hoff took up my attention for much of a day. Wednesday. The day the internet and phones went out in the late afternoon and I had to call in the Verizon man for Thursday and postpone the Friday de-installation till Tuesday the 6th. Thoughts about Hoff focused themselves in a letter to Zagria. Little Jules G-P had the notion that Hoff was totally obscure, and continued to work in the old practice through the 80s. I of course know this not to be the case. Told Zagria how I happened to know that Hoff had moved to Magnolia. This episode was left out in the obits that appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere.

An infestation of rats continues. They scurry and rustle when I head to the kitchen. The rat trap was useless; I’ve never seen a rat caught in one of those. I am getting some rat poison tomorrow. Strangely, found the Sentry Safe manual, and then its envelope, in the vicinity of the dishwasher. They stole it away and munched at its corners. Like guinea pigs. I haven’t noticed munchy-bites taken out of other papers.

Tomorrow I take down my desk. And put it where? Or just clean it off. So much more space in the conversation pit since I threw out bags and bags of magazines and newspapers and trash papers. I first went to work on the newspapers back when Moki was here. September? October? Was proud to put out the last of the vodka bottles, such as they were, on Sept. 20. Not a mess of little pints. Some 1.75s and lots of liters, in the hall floor, rolling on the living room floor, covering a storage tub in the hall, on the pantry butcher block. It must have taken a dozen trips out to the bins.