THE SEVENTH YEAR

Who needs tv soaps? In this little town, in this age of "blogging", we get it all. We have Cheyne and his ex-lover sniping at each other. Well, okay, Cheyne does most of the bitchy sniping. The ex is more the sentimentally nostalgic type. Then we have, yet again (for the umpteenth time) young Cheyne finding a new dreamboat. Dreamboat, alas, needs some time to discover whether he really wants Cheyne or not. (At that point I would have told "Hairy Arms", take all the time you need, honey, don't call us, we'll call you. When hell freezes over.) But no, Cheyne lingers on, fills his little Palm-gadget with pictures of Hairy Arms instead of getting a teddy bear. Now we have another very cute, even younger fellow who seems to have captured the Dreamboat. Unless Hairy Arms decides to tell this one, too, he needs more time to decide whether he really wants him?

Stay tuned to these channels. And where is Erica when we need her?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... (hmmm, can't remember where that phrase came from, but I think it's from a late-50's hit song) ... or, I mean, secluded grove. The ladies must have had a Female Empowerment Meeting. When I arrived with food on Wednesday, Thimble spotted me first and made a dash for the usual feeding place, Andrew close on her heels, Lady Grey not far behind. Andrew, as usual, started his wonderfully touching serenade of plaintive meows. Mama gave him a big slap on the head. I scolded her, got an expression like, "whose brat is this anyway?" I emptied the first can and Thimble took it over, gave poor Andrew another slap when he tried to share! So Andrew had to gently creep around and share Mama's lunch until Thimble decided she'd had enough and left the rest to him. What unsympathetic female felines, considering what poor Andrew has been through in recent days.

The zebra doves got zilch, nada, nothing.

Bush2 may be coming to campus tomorrow. I shall try to keep myself at a considerable distance.

1155

A reader, confessing to being one of those who think death is the end of our existence, wrote: But if I don't believe in it, I like the idea of reincarnation, the idea that a game can be played over several lifes, with, of course, improving results. Like the Panther/Sleeptalker dance, for example. (as to myself, I'm afraid I'd be reincarnated in a chocolate bar, to pay for my sins).

If we came back as inanimate objects, I said, I would probably be a large green (malt liquor) bottle, Angelo would definitely be a glass pipe, but I wasn't sure what the Sleeptalker would be.

Oh no, you would be a book. One of those we call in France the "usuels", that are in the main room of the libraries and are handled by most people. Wouldn't you like that ? Think of all these young students needing to read something in you. (of course, there would be some fat elderly women, too... That's for the sinful part of your present life)

I like that. Even better, the Sleeptalker: I know what the Sleeptalker evokes to me. Not the real person, whom I do not know, but the Sleeptalker as he appears in the Tales. He makes me think of a kaleidoscope. You know, these things where you look at small fragments of glass and other things through a special tube. The pain of having one's soul broken into pieces, and the beauty it can show, if looked at the right way, like through your eyes.

That's wonderful.

As often happens, that kaleidoscopic fellow was the star of Seventh Circle on Wednesday even though he wasn't playing. As I reported awhile ago, after his most recent suicidal tantrum someone stole his name, a character he has played for all the years we've been in there. I've been trying to get it back for him and in a very complex and amusing set of negotiations, finally managed to get it.

There is an auctioneer in the game and last weekend there was a flurry of people auctioning things, the selection getting more and more bizarre as people showed off some of their unusual and exotic items. Most of them were offered with a deliberately outrageous opening minimum bid, just boasting of owning the thing instead of really intending to sell it. A player offered a "fat greasy mullet" (which in Monty Python style, was to be worn on the head). He forgot to put a minimum on it and so I bought it for about two million. He immediately tried to buy it back from me but I teased and said I wanted to walk around for awhile with a fish on my head.

So when the player who stole the Sleeptalker's name appeared, I again tried to persuade him to give it to me so I could return it. When he asked what I'd give for it, I said I know you don't need gold, how about a fat greasy mullet? "No, that's my mullet!" the original owner protested. The Boss Lady, who can be quite amusing when she's in a good mood, got into the act. It seems the name-stealer recently tried to sell some of his characters on eBay [?!]. This violates the rules and all those characters were deleted from the game. So she offered to return one of those names to him if he would give me the Sleeptalker's character and if I gave her the mullet. After some general discussion by most people playing (including a couple of replies she forced people to make urging the exchange), the deal was done. And she returned the mullet to its original owner.

I ask you, is all this something a sane man of my age should be spending his time on? Well, why not ...

I hope I don't came back as a fat greasy mullet.

1156

Tanioka is back in prison.
The PL is again in hospital, in a coma after yet another suicide attempt.

Angelo will make it, I hope, to the 27-year-mark on Monday
[yes, he's one year behind the Sleeptalker]
and that most admirable young man and I gave Angelo, prematurely, quite a birthday party.

In the early days at the Hacienda, if anyone had told me what would happen
on the penultimate Thursday of October 2003,
I would have thought them totally insane.

Despite the tight circumstances of this budget cycle, I had earmarked forty dollars for Angelo's birthday. In one of those "chance" encounters Dame Fortune loves to arrange, Angelo saw me at the mall late afternoon on Thursday. He was thirsty and hungry, so of course, I took care of that, but as always refused to agree to a "loan" of money. Eventually he went on his way. But when I was walking from the bus stop to the Black Hole, along came Angelo and the Sleeptalker (Dame Fortune is such a clown).

So we had Angelo's birthday party a few days early. I supplied two "papers", the Sleeptalker one. And Angelo, of course, managed to get an extra ten out of me by returning from a shopping trip claiming he could only buy a thirty-dollar bag. Oh well, it wouldn't be Angelo if he didn't manage to pull some kind of scam. I accept that now, but I love the young man and know that's just how he is (and was grateful to get away from the adventure with so small a loss, not that he didn't try to make it greater).

He also had his strange sexual voyeur fantasy fulfilled, at last. I was astounded the Sleeptalker agreed. He even went first, but I think he was so nervous about having a witness that he couldn't fully perform. Nor could Angelo. But it was most amusing and, when Angelo went on the second shopping expedition, the Sleeptalker did indeed "perform". Did he ever. I think that was the best yet. No, I don't just think it, it was.

To the breadth and height my soul can reach ... As Taylor Caldwell writes in the splendid Testimony of Two Men: "Desire was the least part of love, though it was its foundation, its earth."

Alas, the Garage may be finished as a party place. The Sleeptalker fell into one of his compulsive writing trips, went further upstairs leaving me and Angelo alone. Then two gentlemen from the Sheriff's department arrived. "What are you doing here?" one asked. "Just talking," I said (which, fortunately, was all we were doing at the time). The Sleeptalker no doubt heard the encounter and escaped, because we didn't see him when we left. Angelo wanted more, so I left him to whatever plans he had to get it and went to sit in the small park where I often escaped when the Hacienda was too rowdy with one of the Rocky Social Horror Club parties. Quite a few people sleeping there, but no hassle from the police who have a sub-station across the street from the park. At about four in the morning it began to rain so I went to GovSanc2 and sat on a bench reading until the buses starting running.

I don't know whether the lads really enjoyed the party. I think they did, but no doubt about it, I certainly did. Happy birthday, Angelo. And thank you for helping to make me a very lucky man.

1157

tell me I'm crazy, maybe I know ...

No maybe about it, though. Is it this hideous steamy Kona weather or the solar storm driving us to excess? More likely, in my case, it's just that the more I get the Sleeptalker, the more I want him. Four times within a two-week period is unprecedented so I should be more than content. Should be.

As always with the Follies, the day after the early birthday party for Angelo was a total wash-out, nothing to do but stay slightly drunk all day and wait until it was late enough to collapse in the Black Hole and sleep it off. The weekend wasn't much better, this sweaty weather not helping. On Sunday, the Sleeptalker appeared in the game, complaining about how bad the Follies hangover had been and also complaining about his host, as usual. Poor man lets the Sleeptalker sit there for hours using his computer while the Sleeptalker is thinking nasty things about him. I wonder if the Patron eventually gets a reward. Probably.

I gave the Sleeptalker the password for his recovered character, played for about an hour and then left. He was in the game again very early on Monday morning but disappeared for awhile since, as I later discovered, he was walking to campus. We played for awhile, sitting at computers next to each other, and then I took him to lunch at the Garden. Back to the game for a couple of hours, much longer than I ordinarily play, and then to the beach park for beer and snacks. I was surprised Angelo didn't come looking for us since he could have used it being his actual birthday to wheedle. Maybe the PL is out of hospital and was treating him somewhere.

Then the Sleeptalker offered the ultimate prize for sharing a pipe. Too soon, too soon. Well, for the pipe, certainly not for the prize. But I agreed anyway. He really has changed about sexual encounters, is far more mellow and relaxed which makes it even more of a pleasure, especially since he so obviously enjoys it, and he seems not to be suffering such angst afterwards like he used to (or maybe it's just buried in the overall ice hangover).

There's just no question about it, that man's body is the most desireable I have ever known.

That he's also a sweetheart, overall, can't be discounted either.

We separated, I spent much of night in the little park reading, then went to GovSanc2 to continue the book and wait for the buses to start running. He arrived at about 4:30 in the morning, said "I'm sorry I didn't come back."

I was sorry, too, wouldn't have minded spending the night in his company, but then we'd been together all day and most of the evening. Can I find a way to tell myself not to be greedy?

1158

On the surface he showed an adolescent fretfulness, but he yearned now to settle in some permanent fashion, at the first possible moment, the few remaining years left to him. He had no further inclination for repairs, rebuilding, modifications in the blueprints, or recasting of plans. His mind and flesh were incapable now of enduring any uncertainties. Quivering like a piece of fruit inside a dish of jello, he waited impatiently for the moment when the gelatine would kindly harden.
Yukio Mishima: After the Banquet

The high point of the week's reading. Such an elegant novel. I wish I could read it in the original language, but I'm too old and too lazy to learn another language.

Too old and too lazy, the theme of this Week of Solitude. Except for the usual exchanges with shop clerks, I've spoken with no one for a week, since that last party with the Sleeptalker. I think he's gone back to the country, since he hasn't been in the game, and I'm happy for him that he has someplace to escape when life becomes too heavy.

The game has been amusing, even with his absence. There was a fine party there on Halloween, the Boss Lady setting up a special quest with critters so difficult to kill it often took three or four of the most powerful players in the game to defeat them. I only died once, only got one "treat", a "Halloween mask", which isn't as good a piece of armor as it should have been, given the difficulty of getting it. But amusing ... as were several hairy-legged young men wearing dresses on campus. They all went for "clown drag". I guess it would have been asking too much for one to do a stylish drag number, might call into question things young men on campus don't want to risk. Otherwise, Halloween was nothing special, although it was nice that the Black Hole was about half-full that night (as much explained, no doubt, by the first-of-the-month welfare payments as by the holiday).

Lorenzo Carvaterra's Sleepers is such a brutal book. I'd like to see the film version sometime, but doubt it could match the book. My childhood was far from perfect, but a book like this makes me realize just how lucky I have been in this weird life.

This weird life. Uh-huh. I pondered on Thursday and came to the conclusion that I am not happy with this life. I saw three answers: 1) commit suicide. 2) change it. 3) reconcile myself to being "unhappy". After all, no one said the object of life is to "be happy".

(1) would be absurd, after all this time. (2), I have no idea. So I'll stick with (3) for the moment and see what happens, like a piece of fruit in a dish of jello.

1159

... like a piece of fruit inside a dish of jello

My mother was really very good at baking. Her pies were especially fine. Chocolate, lemon meringue, coconut cream, and most ambrosius (if there is such a word) pecan. But in the hot summer months her habit of having a dessert with every evening meal was usually fulfilled with pudding-from-a-box-mix or Jell-O, more often than not with a can of "fruit salad" tossed in when the stuff was half-gelled. Not very exciting stuff, but better than that over-processed mushy fruit salad on its own. Memory circuits activated by a phrase in a novel. I wonder if my life-long disinterest in fruit is related to eating that so-called fruit salad? The only fresh fruit we had: bananas and apples, the bananas being sliced upon dry cereal and the apples I never much liked.

Proust's cookie.

The fifty-cent cart at Hamilton is once again serving up unusual treats. That splendid Mishima novel was followed by Siamese White by Maurice Collis, a history of European traders in India and Thailand in the late 1600's, with a concentration on the Englishman, Samuel White and his fellow scoundrels. Then Paul Theroux's bizarre novel, Chicago Loop.

And now Kipling's magnificent Kim, certainly one of the long-ago influences on my desire to visit India and still capable of making me homesick for the place.

Kipling is underrated in these times.

In less profound, but occasionally amusing, reading, the local bloggers soap opera continues. I almost feel sorry for Cheyne. If he weren't such a silly boy so much of the time, I would feel sorry for him. His most recent heart-throb, Shigeru97 and that one's possible new love interest, Tin Foil Hat, both write about their meetings, although so discreetly "possible new love interest" is justified. Perish the thought that a Sleeptalker patron writes one of these things and if it did happen I surely hope I never hear of it because like Cheyne, I would know I shouldn't read it but probably couldn't resist. (And the Sleeptalker, of course, would no doubt be sure to let me know of it.)

It's bad enough putting up with him in the game sometimes when, as on Thursday, he's in make-Albert-jealous mode. "I hate charging someone when I really don't want to have sex with them," he said publicly, later boasted that it was the first day in the week when he hadn't smoked ice. He had also been in the game on Wednesday, in a very sullen, mostly-silent mood. I made the mistake of giving him some things when it would have been better just to have ignored him, so I did that for a time on Thursday. After I returned from feeding the felines and drinking my lunchtime brew, he started in again with his taunting so we ended up having one of those verbal tennis matches he so enjoys. They leave me with a dirty taste in my mind.

It is possible to deeply love someone and not like them very much at all sometimes.

1160

Once, a man exposed himself, right in front of me, at eye level. (I'd made the mistake of sitting on a secluded bench, on the grounds of the university.) He wasn't a tramp either, he was quite well dressed. "I'm sorry," I said to him. "I'm just not interested." He looked so disappointed.
Margaret Atwood: The Blind Assassin

"Can I ask you for a favor?" No, I said, but it didn't stop him. "Can you spare two or three dollars so I can get something to eat?" "Definitely not!" (Whatever happened to the "loose change" line?) Two mornings later, "Can I ask you for a favor?" Again, saying no didn't stop him. "I've been looking an hour and a half for a cigarette." "This one came from an ashtray. Help yourself." "If I find one in an ashtray, can I get a light from you?" "Go away," I said. "Are you all right?" he asked. Then he shuffled over to the next bench at the bus stop and repeated his hour-and-a-half yarn, actually got a cigarette and a light. I wish people wouldn't give money, or cigarettes, to beggars like that. Shouldn't encourage them.

The population of trashpickers and beggars has again increased at the mall, even in the early morning hours. I see several regulars who get off a bus and immediately start making the rounds of the trash cans. It must really annoy the security people.

Grubby has evidently been banned entirely from McDonald's. For some time they've allowed him to buy coffee in the morning but not to stay inside drinking it. Too many complaints about his horrible stink. Now he sits outside every morning but doesn't go in. Maybe he's hoping someone will take pity on him and give him coffee. Won't be me.

One major advantage of the rainy day bench, where I've been sitting most days at sunset time, is that not many of the trashpickers come that way and none of the beggars. There's one man who seems to sit in the area all day but wanders off once I get there, replaced at about seven o'clock by a woman who has arrived every day at that time, sits on a nearby bench, doing nothing (how do they survive without at least a book to read?). I wonder if she stays there all night. One of the funnier trashpickers walks by at least once, funny because he tries so hard to pretend he isn't trashpicking ... and ends up being more obvious than he'd probably be without the pretense.

I was reading some of the Tales from this time last year and was reminded of that delightful movie, "Groundhog Day". Only it's the year repeating itself, not just a day. Same ups and downs with the Sleeptalker, sweet intimate times followed by snarling ones, Tanioka in jail, the PL attempting suicide. About the only difference is that I spent more time with Angelo last year than I do now. I haven't seen him since the pre-birthday party.

The Sleeptalker has been in the game every day, playing for hours. On Friday and Saturday he stayed utterly silent, didn't seem to be really playing very much, just staying in a clan hall. He foolishly changed his highest-level character into a "pkiller", effectively ruining yet again a good chance at making it to the top. Aside from some remarks about how cowardly it was to hide in the clan all the time, no one said much to him and I said nothing to him or about him. On Sunday he was in a sillier mood, did say a few things after entering with "I've discovered I'm gay so I've just stopped in to say goodbye before I kill myself." I continued to ignore him.

The next day, when he appeared, I said I thought he was going to kill himself. "I was just pulling your leg," he said.

I'm most curious to see how he'll behave after Third Wednesday.

1161

If I took the bus each day to the little shopping center not far from the University, I could save at least 32 cents a day on catfood. Frequently even more, since they often have special sales on pet food. I'm sure that's the kind of thing most pensioners think of.

So be it. I am obviously not a "typical" pensioner.

1161a

Sun Nov 16 17:28:27 2003

To: I care

Well its been a pretty long time since ive been here.
Mudding and all, but its time for me to star getting serious again.
I need to get with my real life.
And matbe visit my familys new home. :P
See my brotyher that iI havent seen in awahile.
I will try to see you guys later.
just give me l;ike a month or so.
To get myself started off with my Real Life. :P
I will miss you alot cuz Ill be aweay .
But will always think aboout here. I will be back so dont jump on a plane,
and look for me :P.

wrote the Sleeptalker on the public noticeboard in 7th Circle

1161b

The decorations are up, carols are playing, winter weather has arrived. Ho, ho, ho. 'Tis the season to ... well, I don't know about jolliness but it is time to put long pants and a long-sleeved shirt on the shopping list. Once x no longer = 1, of course. This was the usual x equals time with its boring emphasis on dwindling cash. It didn't get as bad this round as it sometimes does, mainly because the Bad Boys were absent and I stayed out of the beach park. Paulo did find me at the Rainy Day Bench one afternoon but got negative replies to requests for beer and cigarettes.

The Sleeptalker's notice is rather bizarre in saying it had been a pretty long time since he'd been there because he played almost every day for hours. Maybe his meaning is that he has been mudding for a pretty long time (thanks of course to having found that very patient patron with computer). But the real story behind the notice he revealed the day before when he said publicly something like "my friend has asked me to leave because he's gay and he's worried people will think I'm gay." The Chinatown Patron is kind of late in arriving at that concern and most of the people who knew about their arrangement already think the Sleeptalker is gay, anyway. I didn't say anything. It's certainly the first time I've ever heard that line as a brush-off. I can't really blame the man, though. It is a one-room apartment and it must have been very boring to have the Sleeptalker sitting on the computer for hours, not to mention coping with his many moods when at the pipe.

Speaking of games (and addiction), Peter of Naked Blog mentioned an elegant French site for Mah Jonng Solitaire, a game I was very fond of years ago. Nice to have it back. I think. I've been playing it so much that when I close my eyes to sleep I see the tiles.

1162

It was almost worthwhile being angry with Comus for the sake of experiencing the pleasure of being coaxed into friendliness again with the charm which he knew so well how to exert.
Hector Hugh Munro: The Complete Stories of Saki

Said Jonathan Cainer: Don't go mad but do go just a little crazy. Extraordinary opportunities really are within reach now.

Would a "little crazy" have included jumping on the Sleeptalker when I saw him at the Black Hole as I was leaving Tuesday morning? He looked so incredibly beautiful. (The photos really don't do that man justice.)

I just gave him the American Indian "how" gesture.

I've got the flu, feel sicker than I have since the pneumonia adventure. Body all aching and wracked with pain, etc.etc.
Yeukh.

I like you as you are, just a nice-looking boy to flatter and spoil and pretend to be fond of.
You've got a charming young body and you've no soul, and that's such a fascinating combination.
Hector Hugh Munro: The Complete Stories of Saki

1163

The worst is over. The chills and fever have subsided. I hated that uncontrollable shaking, followed by sweating. Almost as bad was the pain in the joints. I woke up several times during the night with pain in the knees.

I bought some "multi-symptom night-time" medicine because I'd had a difficult time sleeping (not just the joint pains but also being unable to breathe through my nose). Then I made the mistake of taking two of the enormous capsules before getting on the bus to the Black Hole. Fell asleep on the bus, most fortunately woke up just a couple of stops too far, so was able to walk back. The "decongestant" aspect of this multi-drug is so effective I could just lean over the bench the next morning at the mall and let drops fall from my nose. (Sorry about that, a bit gross.)

My early morning playmate, whom I haven't seen in quite awhile, was there. Oh well, I ignored the rather awful fog that drug gave me and enjoyed him, and I suspect he enjoyed me enjoying him. Maybe the Fountain of Youth is also a cure for influenza?

No, I doubt anyone has ever suggested that "sausage and cream" is a cure for a virus-inflicted ailment.

It's berry-dropping time in the secluded grove. There are a few young men on campus who are quite obviously homosexual. Even though I am not usually attracted to that sort of man, there is one who has such a fine body I can't help but admire him. As he walked through the grove and I was admiring, a berry hit me right on top of my head. Will the campus trees kindly refrain from making editorial comments?

I saw Rocky in the mall. He has gotten alarmingly thin, looked almost as bad as Michael Jackson's arrest photo. Well, no, not even close to that horrendous image, but still worrying.

1164

I accept the concept of karma. What goes around, comes around, no matter whether within just one life or within a series of lives.

So I look at my current, miserable condition, examine the past, know I couldn't possibly discover the reasons, but ponder the possibilities anyway. It was at this time of the year, not long after I had joined the Army, when I got influenza which morphed into pneumonia. It was at this time of the year when I once again got pneumonia and spent months in the hospital. Were it not for my "pneumonia shot" supposedly still being effective, I would already have sought medical advice.

Wonder what it is about my karma which brings this nonsense along at this time of the year?

This time of the year.

I diligently avoided most of the 40th anniversary stuff, but listening to Prairie Home Companion on Saturday, when Garison did an elegant, brief elegy for John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I couldn't stop myself from crying. A reader asked me to read some book about "decades" and tell her which of the events in the book had been meaningful to me. But I don't want to do it. The truly meaningful ones are the ones you really don't want to remember, the ones you wish you had never experienced.

I could tell you all the details about how hideously uncomfortable the past few days have been, but I'll spare you.

There was one bright moment in an otherwise lost weekend. I spent very little time on-line but did look in on the game on Sunday and the Sleeptalker was there, playing from the country. He said his nine-year-old brother was watching him play. How very odd. I don't remember him ever mentioning a second brother.

1165

A dietary chart of progress?

On Saturday I ate nothing at all. Even the thought of it was nauseating. I drank a cup of tea, a can of vegetable juice, one and a half beers, all of which came back up not long after it went down. I assumed it was a process of flushing the body. On Sunday, a cup of coffee and almost all of a cup of yoghurt in the morning, a baked potato in the late afternoon, one and a half beers (once again, I couldn't finish the sunset brew). On Monday, a cup of coffee, dried cereal and milk. A beer and a bowl of minestrone for lunch, a Subway BLT and a beer for dinner.

Yes, I guess that's progress. Of course, I'm as bad at convalescing as I am at being sick, maybe even worse, so happy days are certainly not yet here again. Brighter, though.

I was amused by an article in the student newspaper by a young woman suffering from a bad cold and her observations about the many "symptom relief" options. Quite agree with her, they make you feel "different" but not really better, maybe even worse. I gave up on that night-time stuff after three nights. It had me waking often during the night feeling almost painfully thirsty from severe dry-mouth and then stumbling groggily to the water fountain. Everyone probably thought I was staggering drunk. Somewhat better results from a cough syrup which combines a "suppressant" and an "expectorant". It did stop most of the night-time coughing attacks. The expectorant part of it is really unnecessary, though. Two cigarettes first thing in the morning work quite efficiently on that score. Now to endure a time of that ghastly first-hour-awake routine of hacking up the accumulation from the night. Oddly, and happily, it seems to be less from this attack of viral terrorists than it usually is from a routine bronchitis flare-up.

I saw the wretched RedEye in the supermarket on Tuesday. He isn't sure, but he thinks Angelo is back in jail. If so, it's the usual misdemeanor gig because he isn't listed on the judiciary page. Oddly, there's also no mention of Tanioka there, but if he had gotten arrested on a misdemeanor it would have cancelled his probation on the prior arrest and they may not make note of such things.

It was a relief to see that Cheyne found somewhere to live. We definitely don't need any more bodies at the Black Hole, especially at this time of the month. They were already making announcements by about nine on Tuesday night that if you didn't have a mat, you had to stay outside. Interesting contrast to the fellow who said on soc.culture.hawaii that the solution to the housing problem here is more "condominiums and townhouses". Yeh, sure. How about a bigger warehouse with more floor space for mats?

There was a wonderful dream about the Sleeptalker. We were cuddled together naked in bed, no sex involved, just being close together. (The chance of that dream coming true is about the same as odds on Lady Grey curling up in my lap and purring.) Nice dream, though.

Oh well, one thing I will be feeling thankful for on our national day of giving thanks is that he'll be spending it with his family.

1166

Money.

June 9th, 1973:
Never have I seen such a morning. The rain falling in torrents, thunder and lightning. But the storm is not above. We sit in the clouds.

Monsoon in the Himalayan foothills had much in common with the first day of December on the island of Oahu, although the lightning was missing. Did have thunder, though, most unusual here. In all the years I have been coming to the campus of UH-Manoa, I have never seen it so flooded. Not surprising, after three days of torrential downpours. The Lake District.

But money? Well, if I'd had as much in my pocket on June 9th, 1973 as I do now, I would have been a very happy man, would have kicked back and enjoyed the rain falling.

That stuff shouldn't make so much difference, but it does.

I had a very traditional Thanksgiving dinner, although in two parts. Someone left, I suspect for the old man who is camping almost every day at the Art Building on campus, a large plate-lunch box. He wasn't there, so of course I investigated. Mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, stuffing, yams, pumpkin pie. Everything but cranberry sauce and ... turkey!? There were two thickly-sliced slabs of ham which I gave to the furry ones as a bonus after their cat-type turkey and giblets. Wasn't sure if they'd eat it, but yes, was all gone the next morning. Next day I bought some roasted turkey and gravy. (The veggies were better.)

The weather is just ghastly. Three days of ghastly. Luckily, I fed the critters earlier than usual on Saturday, then had to dash for shelter when it started raining. On Sunday, there was just enough of a break in the downpour to feed them again before fleeing for shelter. Monday, I actually got to sit there for half an hour (plastic bag under my butt on the wet bench) and watch them squabble over the food. (Did I say I was not going to buy three cans a day?) Then I had to rush to shelter when a truly incredible downpour began. I haven't seen anything like that since 1973.

It's December.

(Deck the halls with boughs of holly .... and etc.)

1167

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003, Judy wrote:

I just got word that Gino Lancette passed away early this morning at Queen's Medical Center. He was 50. His son, the West Point graduate of whom he was so proud, is here to make arrangements, but services will be delayed until January, when the Waikiki beachboys he was so close to will give him full honors.

To: sch@lava.net
Subject: Gino

I first met Gino not long after the Aloha Tower Marketplace opened. I was working at an insurance broker in what was then the Amfac Center, would go over at lunchtime to either Gordon Biersch or the Pier Bar.

It was at the, alas defunct, Pier Bar where Gino came along one day and introduced himself. It was, of course, also early days of the Internet here in these islands, and much of our conversation centered around this new thing called Usenet.

Gino was totally schizoid about Usenet. He could write the most vile, horrible stuff about you on Usenet in the morning, then stroll along to a bar and buy you a drink as if he was your best friend in the world. He just didn't think the insanity of Usenet had anything to do with "real life" and he enjoyed the verbal battles immensely, couldn't understand why a "friend" would take that stuff seriously.

I never managed to quite adjust myself to that way of thinking.

I saw him almost daily during the recent bus strike, waiting for the "City Van" to UH-Manoa when Gino would come along on his bicycle, camera gear attached, on his way to Waikiki for a day of snapping photos.

He looked in pretty bad shape, but I didn't realize it was as bad as it evidently was. I don't blame him, though, for ignoring the doc's advice to stop drinking.

If you went only by the evidence of Usenet archives, you'd think Gino and I were implacable enemies.

Not true, not true at all.

I shall miss him.

The parallel hadn't occurred to me before between Gino's approach to Usenet and the Sleeptalker's fondness for occasional bitching sessions in the game, often followed the same day by a very friendly personal encounter. I just can't divorce the on-line me from the so-called real life me, or at least not as easily.

Meanwhile in this so-called real life:

Do not swat the hand that feeds you, either.

Lady Grey, evidently impatient with how long it took me to dislodge Whiskas "Seafood Supper" from its can, gave me a swat. Good thing she kept her claws in, because otherwise it would have been a three-day suspension of largesse.

The drugstore had the cans on sale, three for a dollar, so okay, they got three cans. Andrew, who absolutely refuses to share, gobbled his down as quickly as he could and then tried to butt in on Mama's. She glared, then reached out a paw to the back of his neck and held his head down to the wall. I didn't blame her. Eventually he tried to grab some from Thimble's can, but she wasn't putting up with it either, so he had to hang around and wait for leftovers. Greedy little bugger, Andrew.

Those dreadful winds from the west finally got replaced by tradewinds on Tuesday and the downpours stopped. Three days of torrential, almost-constant, rain is quite tedious, especially when you aren't reclining on a bed watching it outside a window. Don't misunderstand what I said about money in pocket. Hardly rich here, but then during that long ago monsoon I was fretting over having enough pennies to buy a matchbox. Surely was good training.

1168

What he could not explain was why the infatuation had endured for what was now years. It had become an incurable addiction. She had intoxicated him the first instant, and she still did.
Michael Kilian: Dance on a Sinking Ship

The Sleeptalker was outside the Black Hole on Thursday night. I was later than usual, even for a Thursday when I am deliberately late to avoid the Alcoholics gathering. So we clasped hands, he said "good to see you, man!" and I went on upstairs to find a space. "Nice pants!" he also said, giving me the Sleeptalker seal of approval for my winter wardrobe. Well, half of it, although he gave the approval to the upper portion when I complained the next day that it was too heavy and I planned to replace it. "Give it to me."

He arrived on campus Friday morning. He was charming and delightful, it was a wonderful day with him. We played the game for awhile, then I took him to lunch at Paradise Palms, after another time in the game shared a beer with him at Manoa Garden. I would, of course, have bought him his own beer but as usual he wasn't carrying his ID.

Back to the game. When I said I'd had enough, was wanting another beer, he told me to meet him at Sinclair Library (where he oddly prefers to play). After waiting a bit for the [sigh] rain to slow down at least, I met him there, we went to the mall. I told him in the supermarket he could have anything he wanted with foodstamps money. I had more than $12 roll-over on foodstamps this month (if you don't spend it, gets pushed over to the next month), so no problem. Silly boy stole some food instead of letting me buy it for him. "I saved you five dollars," he said.

When he is delightful, I just can't stop myself from lusting after him. It must get so boring for him, us old queens wanting to get into his pants. He said he'd be on campus the next day, but he wasn't. Too bad, I did want to apologize.

1169

"What date is it?" asked the Sleeptalker on Tuesday. "The ninth?"
I had to count forward from Foodstamps Day and said, yes, the ninth.
"I have to go to court tomorrow."
"What for?"
"Assault and battery."
"Assault and battery?!"

His re-enactment of the incident suggested that, at least from his viewpoint, it hardly merited bringing charges. I wait to see what the outcome was.

My dark mood of the weekend was lifted on Sunday evening when I saw the Sleeptalker doing one of his animated, flirting conversations with a large black man at the Black Hole. He flirts with everyone, but when I mentioned it to him on Monday he was quite irate. I told him he didn't understand how I meant it, nothing sexual, just a smiling desire to be liked.

Well, okay, I guess that's not a very acceptable way to put it either.

I was operating under a handicap since he arrived on campus Monday morning in a very bad temper. He'd scored some 'drugs' (ice, I guessed, which he later confirmed) for someone who then didn't offer to share it with the Sleeptalker, but bought him breakfast and gave him the bus fare to UH. Seems fair to me. He didn't think so. Any attempt to calm him down just turned his anger toward me instead so I sat and let him rant until he finally went off to Sinclair to play the game. Later he got mad in there, too, so we had another session sitting outside Hamilton while he ranted. Full Moon in Gemini. Seems to affect Gemini folk differently than the Aries Full Moon hits rams.

I bought him lunch, shared a beer with him in the Garden, then bought him more food and beer at the mall, patted his butt when he was standing outside the Black Hole when I arrived later.

Tuesday morning he again arrived on campus. Both days he was wearing a black tank-top (a sleeveless tee-shirt) which he rarely wears. So rarely, his shoulders are very white and you can see the tan-mark where a tee-shirt's sleeves are. But then you can also see the two tiny moles on his left shoulder and the birthmark under his right armpit. And much of his chest. Sigh.

When I told him how much I'd enjoyed our recent day together and had felt guilty about lust intruding, he grinned and said, "yes, you spoiled it all." Like I said, he must get bored with old men trying to get into his pants, but on the other hand, he'd feel neglected if we didn't.

On Tuesday evening, before we left for the Black Hole, he tried to get me to fill the pipe for him, offering anything I wanted in exchange.

1170

I do recommend Jeffery Deaver's The Blue Nowhere to anyone interested in computers, hacking, MUDs, etc. etc. Most entertaining. With some a-little-close-to-home takes on MUDders, especially.

I was reminded several times of the Sleeptalker. Gott sei dank he hasn't gone that far in failing to distinguish between MUD and so-called real life. Nor, with thanks to the same source (whether it exists or not), have I. Let us all count our blessings.

The Sleeptalker didn't appear on campus or at the Black Hole on Wednesday, nor did he appear on campus on Thursday. "I don't want to go to jail," he had said, but, I wondered, perhaps he did go there. He does need to understand the difference between this so-called "real" life and MUD, and maybe, if that's what happened, it would help him understand it?

But no, he did appear in the game on Friday morning. He was in the mood for one of those insult matches. I wasn't. So I quit, spent longer than usual in the secluded grove. When I finally returned to the game he wasn't there, although he eventually did appear again. No idea if he was on campus or not.

The Blue Nowhere is another phrase for "cyberspace". An alternate reality. Indeed, it is often so much more interesting than "real" life.

It was a Deaver double-feature because I also got his more recent, The Stone Monkey. Not as personally relevant and interesting as Nowhere, but a good yarn. Good enough to add him to my list of favorite living writers in the Reading Room.

I've swept that place out recently, got rid of most of the young local homosexual bloggers. I still check them out, but I can't recommend them. Either they are moaning because no one loves them or else they are being nauseatingly gushing about their latest "soul mate".

The internal jukebox is especially tiresome at this time of the year. It hears a few bars of a Christmas song and repeats it until it hears another one. I wish I knew where the "off" switch was for that wretched infestation, but I think "off" in this case probably means "death".

Oh well, deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa-la-la-la, and etc.

And x = 3.

1171

The Sleeptalker has the flu, poor man. Same as me, vomiting through the first day. Both the Black Hole and Hamilton Library sound like the respiratory disease ward of a hospital. Flu in Hawaii. I guess I was lucky to get through my turn early.

I was, as usual, brushing my teeth in the men's room at the mall on Monday morning when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Tanioka! "Hey!" I said. He asked for a cigarette. Sorry, I didn't have any. He asked for a "snipe". Errrr, we're in the mall, the Mother Lode of Snipes, go look for ashtrays. I didn't say that, just said no. A little later I was walking to the supermarket to get the furry ones some foodstamps food. Tanioka came out of it, tapping a pack of Kools on his wrist. He had enough money to pay premium price for premium cigarettes and he was begging from me??? And totally ignored me as he walked past.

When I mentioned it to the Sleeptalker, he went into a rant. "He's a punk," he said, "he's always been like that about cigarettes. He's a total punk, you shouldn't hang out with him."

Well, since I hadn't seen Tanioka in weeks and only spent about two minutes with him, didn't quite qualify as "hanging out with".

I saw him again early on Tuesday morning in the mall. Once again he walked right past me, ignoring me. He definitely looked like he was in post-pipe-hangover that morning. Oh well.

I've seen the Sleeptalker every day, felt very badly on Tuesday when I had to decide between giving him bus fare or buying my sunset beer. "I love you," I said, "but I don't love you that much." Just teasing. If he'd even tried, he would have had his bus fare. But then the eve of succumbing to the flu is not a time when charm is at your disposal.

I asked him what had happened at Court. He first said, "none of your business." Then amended it to, "buy me a sandwich and I'll tell you." Well, on campus, nowhere to use foodstamps but, sure, later, would have been happy to buy him a sandwich. He did show up there later, but wanted ice cream. I would have used foodstamps to get that for him, too, but he got impatient and went off to steal it, came back and sat with me while he ate it. Strawberry.

Well, when he told me he was going to Court, I asked who his lawyer was. It's an American right to have a lawyer with you before you see the judge. No lawyer. What??? So when he got to Court with no lawyer, the thing was postponed until he met with a "public defender" (which he is, I hope, doing at this moment I am writing) and then he goes back to Court on the 30th. I gave him the bus fare to the lawyer's office.

If I had a lot more money than I got on Magic Third Wednesday, I would hire the best lawyer in town to get the Sleeptalker off this absurd charge.

The furry ones coped much better with that nasty, expensive, foodstamps human food this cycle than I did. I spoiled myself with too many hot meals, was quite bored with cold, foodstamps stuff.

But at least I only had to roll my own cigarettes for two days.

1172

She had been walking along Fourteenth Street when, out of the corner of her eye, on the far fringe of defensive awareness, she sensed one of the ubiquitous urban nomads.
Ken Gross: A High Pressure System

1994. I was impressed. I certainly wouldn't have claimed to have coined the phrase, "urban nomad", but I hadn't seen it in print before.

From the same source: The men on the street who spoke of their hunger, begging for spare change to buy something to eat -- he didn't believe them either. Food was such an easy thing to find.

Indeed.

A look at the calendar for the next thirty-odd days is really quite depressing. This is the Final Day of Finals Week on campus. The next academic cycle begins on January 12th. Until then, the library will be closed on weekends (as well as on the next two Thursdays). Thank you, Jesus, thank you Gregory. And then ... Third Wednesday in January 2004 is as late as it can ever be.

Nowhere.

So, the "Blue Nowhere" is cyberspace, on-line life. One reader didn't believe me when I said it was more interesting than the "Grey Nowhere", waking off-line life. I told him his "life" must be more interesting than mine.

But I'm stuck when trying to find a color for the most interesting life of all, "The [indeterminate-color] Nowhere". I very rarely dream about color in a strong enough way to remember it when I wake, but I suspect my dreams are in color.

It's said that the older you get, the less sleep you require. I don't find that true in my case. Of course, it's partly the restrictions imposed by the Black Hole. I have to get there earlier than I might otherwise seek the comfort of sleep. And once there, I'd far rather escape into dreamland than deal with the reality of the place. But it's also because "the [indeterminate-color] nowhere" is by far the most interesting "life".

Last night I was in Nepal and Tibet, helping to set up an office for a "Minister of Art and Antiquities". Is there anything in "real life" which compares?

Not hardly.

As I immediately thought when first hearing about it, I suspect the Sleeptalker has not been entirely candid about the adventure which has landed him in Court. The Public Defender seems to think he has absolutely no possibility of getting off, will face either a fine (which he can't afford to pay), jail time, or community service. I advised him to go for community service. "You do the work, then at least you can come down in the evening and I'll buy you a beer," I said.

Well, at least until the middle of January 2004.

He told me he'd seen Angelo the night before, but had nothing good to say about him. Oh well, at least at this moment, all my favorite Bad Boys are out of jail.

We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas ....

1173

The Blue Nowhere.

A reader wrote:

BTW, the Upanishads seem to indicate that dream life *is* at the top of the "brain chain" - consider that Vishnu is portrayed as floating upon the sacred lake, asleep. A lotus grows out of his navel, and a new Brahma emerges from the lotus. Brahma opens his eyes, and a world comes into being - he closes his eyes, and another world goes out of existence. This happens for many thousands of years, then the lotus dies and shrinks into the belly of Vishnu, from whose navel emerges a new lotus...and a new Brahma.

Reminds me of the Psalmist's verse: "Send forth Your Spirit, and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the Earth."

Also, in a schema I am developing for human belief systems, one of the modalities (Humanistic) has as its objective that we develop our capabilities so that we can meet, implement, and extend our dreams. In a sense, this is an act of creation - abstract directly, but possibly concretized indirectly as a result of corollary action.

So I await your thoughts... :)

Nothing that profound.

Another reader wrote:

I ABSOLUTELY agree with you when you say the "Blue Nowhere" is far more interesting than the "Grey Nowhere."

We can be free to be whoever we are (or want to be) in the "Blue Nowhere." On line, no one can tell if we're rich or poor, homeless or otherwise, male or female, attractive or homely, tall or short, whatever. Of course, an individual's education - or lack of it - is discernable. Nevertheless, for the most part, the playing field in the "Blue Nowhere" is even and the opportunity to express oneself without regard to "appearances" is a gift that the "Grey Nowhere" could never offer.

I should just retire and let my readers write these things.

But ..... there is another "Nowhere". I've thought about it and decided to call it the "Lavender Nowhere". This is an echo from the distant past when I sent a rather precious short story to the Provincetown Review with "lavender" in the title. I got a scathingly sarcastic rejection letter. Oh well, at least it wasn't the standard printed form saying "thank you for your submission, but no thanks."

The Lavender Nowhere is fantasy life.

I said to another reader in an email that I'd really rather go to sleep for the next two weeks. The reply:

Play the Sleeping Beauty and have the Sleeptalker wake you ? ;-)

Cue up the Lavender Nowhere ...

1174

Sitting on a bench in the mall early on Christmas Eve morning, waiting for McD's to open. Reading a book. Someone walked near, paused. I was expecting a request for a cigarette. With reason, since it came a little later. Angelo. I first asked, "what are you doing up so early?" but then realized he probably hadn't been to sleep at all, no doubt spent the night with the pipe. But he looked fine, despite a too-short haircut.

It has been so long since I've spent time with him that I had difficulty in understanding much of what he said, partly because his hesitant manner of speaking was heavier than usual but also just because I'm out of practice. The PL is staying at some kind of crisis center, a place for homeless people with severe mental problems, and they won't let him contact her. He hadn't seen her for about two weeks, he said, and grumbled because the staff at that place is trying to persuade her that dope addicts are not the way to go when picking boyfriends. "They're right," I observed, but I hope not too unkindly.

He went down the list, asking who I'd seen. I told him about the Sleeptalker's upcoming court date and about Tanioka's bizarre begging for a cigarette and then appearing with a full premium-priced pack. "He's always been that way," Angelo said, echoing the Sleeptalker. But, no, I hadn't seen Rocky or Okinawa.

"You going to buy me breakfast?" he asked. "No, why should I?"

Okay, not a very nice attitude on Christmas Eve morning, but that man, much as I like him, has just kicked me too many times and there is always the instant feeling when he appears that I should hide my money.

Love sucks.

The Sleeptalker, meanwhile, appears to have reconciled with one of his patrons since he was in the game for hours on Tuesday morning, but was not playing on campus.

I won't write one of the too-prevalent "lonely old man at Christmas" essays which scatter the Web.

Bah, humbug.

1175

Those who so often erroneously try to tell us what weather we'll be having said the last weekend of 2003 was going to be stormy and very wet. Very. Flood warnings, etc. Evidently the storm system dropped most of its water over the ocean. Fine with me, and I'm sure the fish didn't mind. Now those "forecasters" are telling us we'll have heavy rain from Wednesday through at least Friday. Oh well, The Drudge Report featured an item on Monday saying "snow and hail in Hawaii". I assume the snow was at the volcano summits. We certainly didn't see any in Honolulu.

The headlined newspaper reports were enough to ensure the Black Hole being filled to capacity although, of course, in the days just before welfare money arrives, that place doesn't need any help in getting itself filled to the max.

Everything in the mall was closed on Christmas Day so I stayed on the bus in the morning as it rolled through the deserted place. In Waikiki, you'd hardly have known it was Christmas. Business as usual. So I had breakfast at Jack-in-the-Box, then strolled along the beach as the sun was rising, some hardy souls already splashing in the ocean. Well, they didn't have to be too hardy because the temperature suddenly got much warmer than it had been for two weeks, making me think I should switch back to tee-shirt and shorts. Changed my mind the day after Christmas when it got much cooler again.

I went to campus, fed the little furry ones. Lady Grey is missing again, hasn't been seen now for five days. I hope she's not off producing another batch. But perhaps if she is, she's decided to set up the nursery elsewhere. In mid-afternoon I returned to Waikiki, sat in the park at the base of Diamond Head having a second beer and continuing with another of John Sandford's Prey series. Hardly topical for the supposed spirit of the day, but then neither were the news reports I heard later on the radio.

Helen R invited me for a meal/and-or/movie but I declined, taking Peter's position that it is better just to spend that loaded day alone (and be grateful when it's over and done with for another year). But I did join her for a late lunch on Sunday. "Hungarian Oxtail Soup" at Cuisine Tony. Tasty, but not up to my fond memories of that broth in Germany years and years ago. Delightful though, as always, to see Helen even though I had to confess that I've really had a very difficult time with her latest epic of science-fiction, just can't keep track of who is who and what they are doing.

And so we can put away the pretty lights and the tired decorations (those in the mall are really looking very tired after so many years) and soon, I hope, the damned music loops. The mall finally stopped their hideous collection of so-called Christmas music on Sunday but McD's was still drenched in that damned red-nosed reindeer on Monday morning.

1176

To: [a local mail-list]
Subject: The slipper that went to sea

The gutter at the crossing from Sinclair Library to the bus stop was a raging river yesterday afternoon, too wide to jump. When I waded into it the current knocked off one of my slippers and it went sailing rapidly down to a storm drain where it vanished, presumably off to the ocean.

Felt like a total idiot hobbling through Ala Moana wearing only one slipper and was grateful Long's has them very near the entrance (and doesn't ban barefoot shoppers).

The highlight (or is that "lowlight") of the second day in the new year. The first day was gloomy and wet but the second was just plain awful. There were several heavy downpours in the morning but near mid-day it started to pour again and didn't stop for hours, not even slowing occasionally. I gave up around four o'clock, improvised a poncho from a garbage bag and headed for the bus stop. The sidewalks were ankle-deep in water but I had rolled up my pant legs and aside from becoming half barefoot managed to get to the mall only slightly soggy. Even the ordinarily sheltered "rainy day bench" wasn't, so I had to join refugees from the park who were sitting in Philo Walk, sharing a bench with the Duchess who wasn't happy about it, turned her back and went into her stooped sleeping position.

In the morning one of the large trees beside Hamilton Library evidently lost its grip in the drenched soil and fell into the street. Had there been stronger wind I'm sure there would have been more trees down, but that one was the only permanent damage on campus from the storm.

It was supposed to continue all weekend but mercifully went on its way more quickly than predicted. I hadn't been able to feed the kittens on Friday so gave them a double helping on Saturday. Lady Grey is still missing. Either something has happened to her or she's gone off to another location to produce a second litter. We were joined by a stranger on Saturday who looks very much like the kittens and has no notch-in-ear. I wonder if it's the father. He waited until they finished eating before going for the leftovers. When Andrew saw that, he returned to eat more as well. The stranger didn't return on Sunday.

I spent the final hours of 2003 and the first hours of 2004 sleeping a few inches from Mondo, wished him a happy new year when I arrived, the first time we've spoken since his return to the Black Hole. I told myself to stop wishing he'd get a haircut. Being less attractive makes him a better sleeping companion, after all.

1177

Elizabeth Hardwick is quoted as having said about Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook: "The Golden Notebook is Doris Lessing's most important work and has left its mark upon the ideas and feelings of a whole generation of women."

Amazing it didn't turn them into a bunch of lemmings, rushing off to find the nearest seaside cliff.

Rather stupidly, I still now and then feel slightly guilty for reading so much light fiction, so I always seize something a little more substantial which appears on the bargain shelves. No problem here, the Lessing book is very definitely heavyweight.

A few times I've thought while reading it, or should I say whilst, "much ado about nothing", but perhaps more apt is the way the Pink Floyd summed it up in one phrase: hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way.

It's NSO Week on campus. New Student Orientation. So we get guided groups of the young people who will be arriving next week to launch their "college education". I've spotted one handsome prince already. Just as well, since the original Freshman of the Year hasn't been seen at all. Either he's a Business Admin student, a vicinity of campus I don't visit, or he dropped out.

The Freshman/Sophomore/Junior/Senior of the Year (in years gone past) continues his brilliant career (although that's not a photo which explains his long-held title).

The rains have gone. The weather has been sunny and warm, beautiful, without a doubt the main reason I am grateful to live in these islands, especially in January.

The daily soap opera provided by Mother Nature in the Secluded Grove is often frustrating. Andrew and Thimble arrive, a chorus of plaintive meows begging for their lunch. They like to eat almost all of it, then take a break and return awhile later to finish it. But these wretched fat spotted-neck doves have discovered their leftovers as a prime source. They hang about like vultures, even venture rather dangerously close while waiting for the felines to depart. Eventually the furry ones do and then those stupid birds move in. The frantic way they go about eating the leftovers sprays it around, so if I continue to sit on my favorite bench I am apt to be rained with bits of cat food. Considering how much time the felines spend lusting after those birds down in the grove, I think they could at least defend their food.

Fool Moon in Hawaii, keep on shinin' ....

1178

I was relieved when someone told me in the game that the Sleeptalker had been in when I wasn't there. He disappeared for so long after his second court date that I feared he was in jail. But no, he's evidently back with his Chinatown Patron, came into the game on Wednesday. Mostly silent, very sullen when not, but on Thursday he was in a more lively mood. He said he was going away again, might be away for "a couple of months". Back to Waianae? Who knows.

I was likewise relieved to finish that Lessing book, almost gave up on it several times. Then, perusing the bargain shelves, I decided to re-read Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full and much enjoyed it. As I've said before, a lousy memory is a blessing when it comes to reading because I'd forgotten most of the details, had entirely forgotten one sub-plot. But then, memory or not, Wolfe is a man whose books are worth reading twice.

I've been in one of those "what a boring routine" moods when just shaving and brushing teeth each morning seems such a useless chore. Shall I become one of these old men who are so stinky and dirty that no one wants to get near them?

1179

'Tis the season to raise prices. Although nothing like the jump in transportation costs last year, the mailbox fee went up, beer jumped by eleven cents a bottle (even more at some stores) and now the discount store has raised the price of a pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile, the annual "Cost of Living Adjustment" to Social Security is 2.1 percent. So foodstamps dropped two dollars. Thanks a lot.

I continue to wallow in a state of just not wanting to do much of anything, but it was a pleasant enough weekend spent reading, drinking beer and listening to the radio.

I tuned in late to Saturday's broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, at first had no idea what I was hearing. Obviously French (although the tenor's accent might have raised questions about even that). I finally guessed Massenet and was pleased to discover after Act One that I'd guessed right. "Werther". I don't think I've heard it before. Interesting enough, but that tenor annoyed me more and more and I gave up after the second act.

Of course the high point of the weekend was arriving in the secluded grove to find Lady Grey peering down at me from the wall. She even greeted me with a soft meow instead of a hiss so I suppose she was happy to see me, too, or at least happy to see the cans of food in my hand. Now to see if she shows up in a couple of weeks with more children.

All the supposed excitement of Mars moving into Aries seems to be hiding from me. Will life get more lively when the Monkey arrives?

1180

"I'm never coming back there again," vowed the Sleeptalker.
"Oh well, it was good to know you," I said, echoing a 50s song.

Even though it's only mid-January, I suspect that might well qualify for an award: Understatement of the Year.

He appeared in the game very briefly on Tuesday and minutes after saying that, said "they are chasing me out of here" and left. A library, a store? In any case, I assume he is back in Waianae. But experience tells us that his "never" is not too serious because he'll soon get bored out there in the country and show up at UH-Manoa.

I suspect he had yet another explosive conflict with his Chinatown Patron. He amended his in-game story about the Patron wanting him to leave because he didn't want people to think the Sleeptalker was gay, later telling me the Patron had said, "take your damned glass pipe and get out of here." That makes a lot more sense to me.

Tuesday was a pleasant, but boring (aside from his appearance) day. It had been predicted that we'd have solid rain on Wednesday. It was very gray and there was one heavy downpour but the biggest problem was the wind, which was fierce. It was rather amusing to watch the little zebra doves struggling to stay on their feet as the wind pushed them along, even at the Rainy Day Bench at the mall.

I didn't go to Campus Center to hear Bush2's speech but as I said elsewhere, I have to wonder if there's a point where he can be declared "certifiably insane"?

1181

Synchronicity.

A lady of a certain age walked through the secluded grove and said, "Good to see you reading. I wish I had time for it."
"You have plenty of time."
"None," she said, rushing on to whatever she had to do that was more important than reading a book.

And Mitchell Dwyer, in his spendid "Chalkdust", wrote in his January 15th entry: Reading. As much as his many exploits interest me in a wide-variety of ways, what I most look forward to when I read his journal is an update on what he's reading.

Okay. Right now it's William Coughlin's The Court. I know Grisham is generally considered The Master of legal fantasy, but I think Coughlin is even better at it. My only problem is that I am coming very close to having read all of their books and, unlike Tom Wolfe, I'm not sure either of them deserve a second reading. But then, that goes for Patricia Cornwell and so many other contemporary writers.

I usually consume a book a day unless it's very large with small print when it might take two or three days. Not many of those found on the bargain shelves.

I don't remember when or how I learned to read, but I certainly knew how before I started school. And one of the nuisances of school was being assigned to read books I'd already long since read, sometimes more than once. (As a child I was more apt to repeat readings with a patience and interest I no longer have, with some exceptions.) Couldn't begin to count the number of times I've read and re-read Swiss Family Robinson. Or in later years, Steppenwolf.

Speaking of re-reading, as this Year of the Ram draws to a close I have been re-reading the Tales from it.

Yes, life was more interesting when the Bad Boys were more constant cast members.

1182

Well, after having praised Coughlin I have to admit that The Court is definitely not one of his best books. It just fizzles about three-quarters of the way through, like some of Danielle Steel's books. Maybe they just lose interest and rapidly finish it up to meet a nagging publisher's request (or to restore a positive balance on their credit cards)?

John Case's The Genesis Code is more engrossing with a praiseful quote from no less than Norman Mailer, but I'm only halfway through it so don't know if it will "fizzle" or not.

There has been, unusually, a drop in population at the Black Hole after the first half of SocSec retirees got their hand-out on Second Wednesday. Lucky people. But it has been sufficiently full that I've had to sleep in the smaller area for a couple of nights when the only bus that goes there in the evening has been very late in arriving at the mall. The arrival of that bus, where I find a spot on the floor for my mat, and the mystery of the campus locker .... the things in my life which need Valium to counteract the anxiety, such as it is. (I know, I know, I constantly tell myself it "doesn't matter".)

That requirement about emptying the locker on the first and third Saturdays of the month seems to be nonsense. For two months now, I've sat on one of the comfortable chairs at Campus Center with a view of the lockers and no one has arrived to do anything about collecting money, much less emptying out the lockers. That, of course, is fine with me. But the strange thing is, since this academic year began, those lockers have all been taken and yet no one is ever seen getting into one of them, not even on first and third Saturdays. I suspect the company that supplied the lockers is not making much, if any, money and hope they don't just abandon the project, take the lockers away. Yes, once again, I know, I know, I should just get a commercial locker and rid myself of this twice-monthly fret.

But do I really want to add to my monthly overhead? Okay, one more time, I know, I know, I could just throw all that stuff away and wouldn't be much worse off without it.

Saturday's "opera" from the Met was "The Merry Widow". No thanks. Of course, had it starred Fleming, I would have listened.

Thanks to a couple of kind folks who played Santa during the holidays and more especially the continued absence of Bad Boys in my life, this x equals time is more comfortable than usual, although still very tight. The felines will have to endure human food for three days, poor dears.

And me? Would I rather have had parties with Bad Boys during the past month and a penniless week before Third Wednesday? I don't suppose I need to answer that question.

1183

"Never" in the Sleeptalker's dictionary evidently means a couple of weeks, or less. After (finally) making a trip to the laundromat on Sunday morning and having lunch with the pussy cats in the secluded grove, I timed my arrival at the Rainy Day Bench so I'd be able to listen to Lasser's show. Didn't work out that way since the Sleeptalker and Tanioka were sitting there. When I teased the Sleeptalker about his "never coming back" vow, he said he had to see Tanioka. I translate that as "I wanted to smoke the pipe" which they had been doing during the night. Tanioka looked thoroughly wrecked but the Sleeptalker had managed to get some sleep so wasn't in his usual dour hangover mode.

He was all excited about an idea he has for a new area in the game and we spent some time talking about the details and the problems, a conversation he's eager to continue. No idea if it will go anywhere, especially since we're both too lazy to learn the technical details to produce a finished module, would have to rely on the Boss Lady to put in that stuff. Well, maybe I'll print the manual and see if I have the mental energy to learn at least some of the basics. Amusing exercise, anyway, talking about it.

The Sleeptalker had managed to bag a bottle of cologne and Tanioka had an expensive set of CDs so they eventually went off to sell the stuff, after the Sleeptalker had eaten most of the bread and cheese I'd bought for dinner.

I spent several hours on the holiday Monday with Helen R as we roamed from Manoa to the mall to the Black Hole and back to the mall via the Immigration building while she took photographs of the main places which were important in the early tales, part of a project I can't write about yet. Amusing, but made somewhat tedious by the holiday bus schedules which involved several lengthy waits. She kindly bought lunch when we finished, more than welcome since both cash and foodstamps were running on empty.

They were even more empty the next day when the Sleeptalker arrived on campus. He was just about to get on a bus to leave when he spotted me, also waiting for a bus across the street from where he was. He ran over and joined me on the trip to Chinatown. He was hungry but it was still a couple of hours before River of Life's free meal, so I bought him chips and a soda with foodstamps (plus a can of mackerel for the cats) taking the balance down to a little over two dollars, the lowest it has gotten in months.

I'd gone down there to get the cheapest cigarettes in town, told him it was unusual because in the week before Third Wednesday I'm usually limited to the roll-it-yourself variety. "That's because I wasn't around," he said. Yes, I confessed I had written about credit due to the absence of Bad Boys. No need, of course, in his presence to question which I'd prefer, a week of being broke because of his being around or having money because of him being missing.

Third Wednesday. I wonder if that brown envelope will be in the mailbox. Let us pray ...

1184

Let us pray ...

We didn't pray hard enough or long enough, or perhaps more importantly, early enough. One can hardly expect the gods to listen to us on the morning of Third Wednesday and miraculously make that envelope appear in the mailbox. My fault. I should have realized that if the Monday in the week of Third Wednesday is a Federal holiday, post office closed, mail is likely to be delayed.

And it was. I always carry a pouch of rolling tobacco with me in case I run out of cigarettes, so I was able to roll my own and smoke. And I had just enough money to buy a bottle of Japanese beer which was on sale. Luckily, I also found an abandoned plate lunch box with cabbage, rice and macaroni salad in it. Not a very nice day, though.

The "Earworm" played prophet on Thursday morning, was stuck on "we're in the money, we're in the money ...". Funny, when I had exactly five pennies in my pocket.

The Sleeptalker arrived on campus, we played the game for awhile and then I gave him the bus fare so we could go to the mall. "What's this for?" he asked. "I believe the bus fare is two dollars." He added it to some other bills he had in his pocket (I don't want to know how he got them.)

We went to the discount cigarette store where I bought my own supply and a pack of premium-priced ones for him. I, alas, said, "let's get some beer and go to the park."

Lady Moana came along, asked for "loose change" and told us His Lordship is in jail, probably for six months, although she didn't tell us why. I gave her, I think, about four dollars I had in my pocket.

The Sleeptalker fell asleep, with his arm stretched over the table. So I held his hand and stroked the soft hair on his arm. Sweet.

Then two young policemen arrived. Like I said, "alas". The usual situation in the park is that they make you pour out the beer, at the very worst give you something like a parking ticket. Not those two. They arrested us, put handcuffs on us. The skin on my arms apprears to be tissue-paper thin. I've mentioned the easy bruising before. Well, within minutes blood was pouring down my wrists. The policemen got quite disturbed by that, of course, called an ambulance. The medics put some bandages on me and we were driven on to jail.

"Are you HIV positive?" one of the cops asked. "I'm just concerned about your friend." (Like I was going to rub my blood on him?)

There's a new, very tacky police headquarters downtown and that's where they took us, to "holding cells". So cold in there, I was grateful for the thick wool blanket they gave us. We were separated, the Sleeptalker into a different cell. When I arrived there was a young man in there. We exchanged hello's, he asked if I'd ever been married. I said no, and settled onto my mat, pulled the blanket over my face. Next morning I heard he was in there for "domestic abuse".

Later they brought two more men in, one who snored so loudly it was impossible to sleep. I re-designed my "dream house", decided against a dining room and made it into a library instead.

In the morning, they gave us two tiny doughnuts for breakfast.

Then we were driven off to the courthouse, chained together with handcuffs, I think five people to the chain. Police persons kept asking me if I wanted to go to the hospital, seeing my bloody wrists. Well, since we had been given a little speech when let out of the cells telling us if we were ill or injured, we could go to the hospital and then they would deal with us afterwards "at our convenience", I certainly said no.

The Sleeptalker was brilliant before the judge. He's such an actor. Used perfect English, not a trace of his Waianae accent. When the judge asked if he was looking for work, he said "yes". I didn't laugh, but probably smiled. She fined him twenty-five dollars. He said he didn't have it. I was ready to jump up and say I'd pay it, but she just waved him off and let him go.

I have to go to court in mid-March. This isn't my first offense for drinking in the park and there's a little matter of having taken a dare and trying to steal a bottle of rum from a supermarket almost two years ago.

The Year of the Monkey is not off to an auspicious start.

1185

My dislike for telephones seems to be getting worse. A full-out phobia? Nevertheless I did manage (with some difficulty since the coins refused to fall into place the first two tries) to speak with someone at the Public Defender office. Appointment at one in the afternoon next Wednesday. Needless to say, I did seriously consider just ignoring the whole thing but then when/if I get busted again they'd probably throw the book at me.

On the afternoon after we were released, the Sleeptalker seemed to be coping with it all better than I was. But he had what I guess was a delayed reaction on Saturday. He was waiting for me at the Rainy Day Bench, ate most of the dinner I'd bought and shared my beer. After about an hour, for no reason that I could determine, he got up and walked off with the soda bottle half full of beer. He poured it out and kicked the bottle across the parking lot as he walked away. He is so prone to blaming other people for what happens to him, maybe that was the underlying reason for the brat attack.

Oh well, I bought another soda bottle (since I still had most of the beer in my bag) and enjoyed "Prairie Home Companion".

He was in the game on Sunday in his insult-match mood, said he didn't want friends who were "sexually confused". I said I wasn't in the least confused, knew exactly what I liked, suggested he look in the mirror. But I wasn't at all interested in prolonging the match so quit playing. He didn't appear on Monday, at least during the brief time I spent in the game.

Although the frazzled, slightly hysterical mood I was in on the day of release faded, it slowly shifted to depression on the weekend, aided, of course, by the Sleeptalker's tantrum. Heavy rain had been predicted but fortunately hit the other islands somehow bypassing us, so it was very pleasant weather and that helped keep the balance. Once I got past the nuisance of making that phone call everything had settled back to its usual state of somewhere between happiness and unhappiness without reaching either extreme.

Life is just a bowl of cherries ... or bananas, I guess, in honor of the Monkey.

1185a

I've neglected to mention two things. Mondo has short hair again. The Sleeptalker cut it.

In the holding cell before our appearance with the judge, Wobbly was there. Trespassing. He talks so much like Truman Capote.

The Sleeptalker arrived on campus Tuesday morning. The game was down, perhaps crashed by that cute new "worm" attacking networks everywhere.

He acted as if nothing had happened. Yes, I know by now, I take the "brat attacks" too seriously but even so, they do slightly mystify me, these Bad Boys. Part of their attraction, of course.

The Sleeptalker has gotten very interested in graffiti. He stops to examine every example we find (and there are oddly few here), and he has collected quite a number of pens, none of them equal to what he wants to do. He's also carrying two notebooks. In one he is writing "stories" (I haven't been invited to read any yet) and in the other he is doing drawings for what he'd like to do on a wall somewhere. He showed me some of them which were very good. Okay, even if I am obviously prejudiced in his favor, no matter what he does, they are indeed quite striking.

He said he's trying to get into a drug program which is associated with the Black Hole. In order to be accepted, he has to telephone them every day for a week to prove he's serious. (No way, no how, I'd make it into that group.) I said joining such a program certainly wouldn't do any harm but if he really wants to give up the pipe, why not just do it? He seems to think that being in the group is the way out of the Black Hole, into his own apartment, with his own computer, etc. Sigh. Go for it, my son.

Have I told you lately ....

1186

"You took a bath," said the Sleeptalker.
"What?!"
"You look sharp. You took a bath."

I guess if it's that obvious, I'd better make a point of having a shower at the Black Hole more often. It's not one of the most wonderful experiences one can have in life. More often than not, even if doing it in the early hours of the morning, one is stuck naked with an incredibly horrible example of mankind, equally naked. Some of them are not only visually grotesque, they make dreadful noises. Easy to understand why some men are alone and homeless.

Is it worth the price of looking "sharp"?

On Friday evening, waiting for the bus to the Black Hole, someone plopped down a bag on the bench, started removing his sweatshirt. Well, if a young man is going to start taking his clothes off so near to me, I am certainly going to look. When the sweatshirt got over his head, I saw it was Rocky, then wearing a tanktop. I told him he looked really good, specifically complimented his arms. (He does have an incredibly beautiful body, and has obviously been working on it.) He was pleased. He asked if we should smoke together but I declined, fool and coward that I am.

Hardly a Pulitzer, much less a Nobel, but I have added Greg Iles to my list of favorite living authors after his thoroughly enjoyable The Quiet Game. Totally Grisham territory, but Iles has a certain style which I find more intriguing ... that Southern decadence thing that makes so much American writing "intriguing".

I think Robert Crais will soon join him on the list. His L.A. noir style is just delightful. L.A. Requiem was a pleasure to read. On Saturday I finished it, thought I'd buy another book or two from the bargain shelves at the Japanese department store at the mall. Alas, they are renovating that section of the store and the bargain shelf is (I hope, only temporarily) gone. So I had to either take a long bus trip to buy cheap books or buy a premium priced one. Crais joined the select company of Anne Rice and Maeve Binchey when I paid eight dollars for his Hostage. Worth it. [Judging by the cover photos, Crais is also a class-a hunk, in addition to being a talented writer.]

Now to something quite strange. I had no idea the daughter of Harold Robbins is also a writer. Adréana Robbins. From her Paris Never Leaves You:

The homeless gathered around him while he opened the top of the box, setting it on a chair. Slices of pizza were passed around to eagerly awaiting hands. These odd characters were not a manifestation of a rebellious youth culture, like what had transpired in the sixties, but a random collection of a dozen people, ranging in age from their late teens to their late sixties, who didn't fit in anywhere else. Meanwhile, these vagrants shared their loneliness and their lunacy with each other. There was safety in numbers, in their mutual vulnerabilities, in their humility, and most of all, from surrendering their materialistic desires. They accepted their impoverished fate, taking what was offered to them, which must have given them a certain independence from society.

This, in the Luxembourg gardens. I like it, a certain independence.

Of course, I also like hearing the Sleeptalker tell me I am "looking sharp". He hadn't seen the photograph from Saturday's luncheon with Florida Mark, Helen R and the Dolphin.

A bit alarming that the Museum of Modern Art is going to "clean and restore" Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. I assume (and hope) they are going at it with extreme caution, else future generations will hate them forever.

Me, too, if for a shorter time.

1187

"There is no question of jail time," said the young man at the Public Defenders Office.

I am not at all sure whether I should have felt happy about that or not, but I did.

The Public Defenders Office is, oddly, not anywhere near the courthouse district of Honolulu, but further down the route of the Black Hole bus. (I so hate taking that bus more than I have to, I've made it clear to Helen R that I'd rather not see films at the Dole complex, just beyond the Black Hole.)

While I was sitting in the waiting area with a bunch of people who weren't much above the "dregs of society" I see every night at the Black Hole, I twice saw the very cute young lawyer who appeared with me and the Sleeptalker in Court after the night we spent in jail. He's not local Japanese, as I thought, but Vietnamese.

Can someone please send me a ticket to Saigon?

Well, I'll see him again because it appears he will be there with me at the appearance before the Judge in March. The other young man told me, aside from assuring me there would be no jail time, that if the Judge is in a "good mood" I'll be let off with "time served". Otherwise, I'll be given a choice between a fine or "community service". [= chain gang].

If that is the case, which would I choose? I said the fine.

[shrug]. He said "less than a hundred dollars", so no worse punishment than an Ice Follies, although not nearly as much fun.

Unless that P.D. wants to play ....

I'm so bad.

I'm also annoyed with the Sleeptalker. After that "you look sharp" exchange early on Sunday morning at the mall, he has just disappeared (again). He said about the Black Hole, "I'm not going back there", which I assume means the drug-rehab program is down the tubes. I had seen him rushing out of the place on the previous Friday, but didn't mention it.

I wish he'd tell me more honestly what is going on in his life, but then I can't really do anything about it, so why should he?

When I heard the news about Massachusetts, I thought, if I were twenty years younger, I'd ask him to go with me to Provincetown and get married.

1188

"What a horrible haircut!" I said, and wished later I had been more diplomatic.
"My sister cut it," the Sleeptalker explained, thus telling me he had been out in the country.

She did quite a job, hardly any hair left.

He came to look for me at the Rainy Day Bench. I gave him most of my dinner, chili and rice I'd just bought, and told him about my adventure at the Public Defenders Office. He asked if people had been talking about him in the game and I said, "yes, we were just talking about you yesterday." My title in the game said I was going to forget about Valentine's Day and the Boss Lady asked why. I said because [the Sleeptalker] wasn't going to be my Valentine. Then added, "unless I get a bane". (Bane = elvenbane, a very special sword.) "You'd bribe him?" asked another player. "Of course. It wouldn't be the first time."

He enjoyed hearing about the exchange, and I was surprised he didn't appear on campus the next day. But after he finished my dinner, he gave me the closed fist "handshake" (an easy one, by local standards, where you just make a fist and touch it to the other one) and said he had to go "earn" some money. Earn, in this case, via the Angelo method. I hope he doesn't end up in jail, but people who steal inevitably, eventually, get caught.

Oh well.

I got a letter from Felix. He's had pneumonia but is recovering. He was smarter than I was and got intervention early enough to be spared hospital time. He sent me a photograph of his current bad boys. (He works at some kind of anthroposophical centre where they get four young European "interns" each year.) None of them as dazzling as the one he fell for last year, but there is one who is quite fascinating. Felix's interest in Rudolf Steiner is paying off in his old age.

The Cat Lady made an unusual appearance in the secluded grove early on Thursday morning. She normally only visits in the evenings or on weekends when there is no parking fee. She told me the latest news from the "anti-cat faction" on campus, people who want to see all the cats vanish. Their latest claim is that "cats attract rats". [!] "Must be suicidal rats," I said, adding that I've never seen a rat on this campus. Lots of cats, birds, and the occasional mongoose, but never a rat.

Kory K tells me that Harold Kama and John Feary have jobs as truckers, delivering beer to retail establishments. It's a job I certainly want someone to do, but it seems a shame that two of the most talented young musicians in these islands have to do it.

1189

Does anyone know where I can buy a bomb? One big enough to blow up the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC. (Honest, I would try to use it when no one was there.)

What an extraordinarily vulgar production of Verdi's wonderful "Rigoletto" they gave us on Saturday afternoon. If they do that to "Traviata" next month, I will want to bomb the place, but maybe Fleming will save it all, despite inadequate support. (Is there a decent tenor alive these days?).

If so, certainly wasn't in that production. I was feeling a little, just a little, more kindly about the soprano until she shrilled "Caro nome" and then I put the radio back in my bag.

Once again, the weather guessers predicted several days of storms and heavy rains and it didn't happen. A few light showers now and then but, all in all, a pleasant weekend. It was so warm on Sunday I was tempted to return to shorts and tee shirt. This week they are again predicting stormy weather at the end of the week. It's fine with me if they are mistaken one more time.

Excitement at the Rainy Day Bench on Friday evening when a large local man went running by. A few minutes later he returned with another large local man, some poor bugger in handcuffs being escorted between them back into the Sears store. I was grateful I didn't know the culprit; it would be quite upsetting to see them hauling Angelo, Tanioka or the Sleeptalker along the sidewalk like that.

None of those culprits made an appearance, with or without handcuffs. Considering how enthusiastically interested in the game the Sleeptalker was during our last conversation, I assume he has gone back to the country. Otherwise, he would surely by now have appeared on campus.

The game was especially amusing on Saturday morning. Then I took a break to listen to the broadcast of "Rigoletto", inspiring the above rant. Ham-it-up tenors certainly seem to be in vogue at the Metropolitan Opera this season.

Prairie Home Companion provided much better listening later, a live broadcast from Hot Springs, Arkansas (with ample opportunities for pokes at Bill Clinton). But I deliberately skipped Lasser's show on Sunday. The last thing I need is an hour of songs about "embracing".

Embrace me, my sweet embraceable you ...

1190

"I guess I'm getting too old for you," said the Sleeptalker.
"I don't think you will ever get too old for me, you sweet man," I assured him.

He arrived at the Rainy Day Bench on Tuesday evening with one goal in mind, getting me to fill the glass pipe, to share it with him, and be rewarded with his ever-desirable body. I just couldn't do it. Life is in one of those times when the balance seems more than usually precarious and I knew that smoking that drug, staying up all night and suffering through the next day would do absolutely nothing to make things better, no matter how much I would have treasured the prize.

At first he was ranting about the problems "the courts" were giving him, but even though I tried several times during the conversation to get him to tell me what he'd been talking about, I still don't know. He'll undoubtedly eventually tell me.

He said he'd given up on the rehab project. Even though it offers a private room and a computer, it's "too much like being in jail." So he's staying out in the country, probably at his sister's place, traveling into town only to replenish his cash supply. I told him about seeing the man in handcuffs being led back into the department store, said if you end up running from the security guards, go in the other direction because I don't want to see you being led by here like that.

When he finally gave up, after an extended and touching effort to get me to change my mind about the pipe, said he was going "home", I told him it was always good to see him. And so it is.

I'm not at all sure I made the right decision in rejecting the opportunity he offered.

"It's so kind of you to feed those kitties," said a young lady walking through the secluded grove the next morning. "Every day," I said. How could I not feed those sweethearts?

1191

"Are you going to sleep next to me tonight?" the Sleeptalker asked flirtatiously, reminding me of that night half-a-decade ago at the hacienda when he asked, "are you ready to make love tonight?". I smiled and shook my head no. (I am convinced it is better for both of us to keep a distance at the Black Hole.)

The Sleeptalker has Weekly Resolutions instead of New Year Resolutions. "Never going back there again" applied to the Black Hole lasted little more than a week, since he was there on Thursday night. He also seems to have returned to his Chinatown Patron, playing the game on both Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.

A verbatim conversation there Wednesday (on a public channel):

'i made a big mistake at court too.'
'not that big, if you aren't in jail already'
'for some reason i couldnt talk to the judge'
'(probably why he's not in jail)'
'i tried to ask the judge what the meaning of double jepardy'
'your lawyer kicked you and said shut up?'
'i want a different lawyer and a different judge'
'you don't have any choice in these things, so live with it'
'i already did community service for those charges, on the same day, and now ive got it all over again, im sorry i wasnt aware of, never had to fight in court before. the fifth amendment'
'that's totally different, where you don't have to testify if it incriminates you'

I assume what has happened is that the Sleeptalker thinks he is being tried in court twice for the same offense, one for which he has already done the punishment of "community service". Even given the unreliability of our "justice" system applied to poor people, that seems highly unlikely to me. But if I can't get him to talk about the details, there's no way I can help him adjust his misperception.

1192

"That cat has beautiful eyes," said the Sleeptalker during his most recent visit to the secluded grove. Indeed she does. I'm grateful her children inherited Lady Grey's eyes, even though otherwise they far more resemble what I am sure is their father. He came to visit on the weekend and I noticed again how closely the kittens match his color and markings. But he's missing those Cleopatra eyes.

Lucky felines didn't have to endure nasty human food at all this cycle.

Every week has begun with the weather guessers telling us we could expect wet and stormy days at the end of it, but once again they were wrong. It did get much cooler (enough to send me to my locker to get the winter shirt I bought in November but haven't worn because it has been too mild for heavy flannel). It stayed pleasant, mostly sunny, and got sufficiently warmer that I finally abandoned that shirt, admitting that my "winter wardrobe" shopping this season has not been very successful.

The holiday weekend was rather dull. "Queen of Spades" is not one of my favorite operas. Ironically, the Met did a fine job of presenting it. Naughty of them to mess up one I like most and then do a decent job with a less favored one. At least they will be free of my carping next Saturday because I have no desire to participate in their Stravinsky triple-feature. (Not that I don't respect and admire him, I just don't want to listen to his music.)

Michael Lasser's show was unprecedented, the first time I have listened to his hour without ever having heard a single song he presented. Nor had I heard of the songwriter, John Wallowitch. Rather a Manhattan Noel Coward, with a very similar manner of singing his own material (and it was mostly recordings he'd done himself). Interesting, but I think there are other songwriters who perhaps more deserve an hour devoted to their work.

A fan of what is generally called "medical thrillers" has evidently sold a batch of them to the used bookshop because I've had quite a run of them. Rich people have clones made of themselves so they can harvest the poor things for organs once their own start to deteriorate; a mad scientist making clones from DNA found on religious relics (eventually coming up with You-Know-Who); a miracle drug that cures cancer, AIDS, Altzheimer's, etc., which big drug companies kill to keep secret; stuff I was grumbling about as being too far fetched on the very day I heard on the news that South Koreans have successfully cloned human foetuses. It's a brave new world ... well, a strange one, in any case.

The champ of the batch, though, was Bentley Little with his Dominion, and I'll join Stephen King in saying how much I enjoyed it, silly and improbable though it is. The "old gods", weakened through declining faith, take refuge in DNA and then with the right mating, get re-born. Dionysus, the first to return. Sexy god.

Speaking of sexy, The One hasn't been seen, in or out of the game, since that night at the Black Hole. I did see Angelo, though. Looks like he and the PL are reconciled since they were in the mall together one evening. They didn't see me. Angelo looked extremely stressed, which is not unusual when he's with the PL.

Meanwhile, the major debate raging right now is whether or not I buy a recording device for the Fleming Traviata, or do I just listen to it once and forget about "collecting". Collecting, after all, has been one of the silliest banes of my life.

1193

Digging through the bargain bookshelves, now and then a treasure is found. Such is Caleb Carr's splendid The Alienist. I have a fondness for "Victorian mysteries" (usually with little-old-lady Miss Marple types solving the dilemma), but I'm sure the writers of those would all agree that Carr sets a new standard with his fascinating novel set in the late 1800's in New York City.

I've neglected to mention a couple of unusual recent events. Kory K made one of his very rare visits to the secluded grove. He's so "wholesome" compared to most young men I talk with. (Take that as a compliment, Kory, not an insult.) And Mme de Crécy is being forced to vacate her long-time residence, so I made a brief visit there to reduce the stuff she has kindly been storing for me. There's hardly any reason to continue keeping an "office-suitable" wardrobe, so it all went into the trash. Not much was kept. The Willie K tee-shirt which Harold gave me (off his back) and a small wooden box with the India Notebooks and other little treasures. (I didn't open that at all, didn't want to have to decide if the contents were worth saving or not.)

$2.07 in December, $2.18 in January, now $3.12!! The supermarket at the mall has lost a beer-buying customer. (Those bottles can still be found for $2.07 in Chinatown and at my favorite cheap tobacco store.) On the other side of the economic scale, the baby strollers now only reward one quarter if they are returned, not two as they formerly did. Not surprisingly, there are many more of them seen abandoned. Unless they are very close to a return corral, I don't bother.

Another letter came from Felix, pushing the "recorder debate" over the edge when he wrote about enjoying some tapes he's made from past Met broadcasts (including a Mozart with Fleming). That one is available in a commercial recording, too, although I haven't yet found it. Well, I am sure I'd kick myself on Sunday, March 7th, if I hadn'