In San Francisco in the mid-1990s, I wrote a zine called "Pathetic Life: Diary of a Fat Slob." Recently I found my copies of it in a mildewed box in the basement, so one entry at a time I'm going to re-type the text off smelly paper and post it to the internet. Recycling is good for the earth, right?

The opinions stated here were my opinions long ago, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.

Birthdays are for children, and people happy to hear from Willard Scott, but birthdays mean less than squat to me. I'm 36 today. Hold the cake and candles, it's just another day.

Called my mother, something I rarely do. Just wanted to thank her for birthing me and raising me, and especially for not tossing my ass into the oven when I so often, so richly deserved to be baked.

My only other birthday tradition is to think back on another year's mistakes, squandered time, lost opportunities and former friends. Morbidly obese, I don't need an actuarial table to determine that my life is more than halfway to its end — half wasted and well into wasting the second half. But I'm having a good time here on earth, and if that's not the point of it all I don't know what is.

Enjoying it, babe. Therein lies the meaning of life. So now seems as good a time as any to put together a zine, and if it's boring rubbish for the reader, at least the writer was entertained. So the author proudly presents his pathetic life, for your amusement, or lack thereof.

By way of introduction, my name is Doug Holland, and I'm a fat balding old fart with chronic bad breath, precious few friends, barely the funds to hover a week from homelessness, a lot of disgusting habits, a wardrobe that's utterly unstylish, a routine that's very very routine, and a job that's menial and not worth mentioning. So now you know, I'm someone you're glad you never met, writing a diary you'll probably wish you weren't reading.

Yes, the pleasure is all mine.

If your standards are so low you're willing to endure this kind of crap, be assured I've got lots more crap just like it. I've got crap coming out the wazoo, and you have been warned.

It was a day like any other day. I work, eat, sleep, shower, and brush my teeth, except on weekends. And such is my life. What more could a man want?

Well, it would be nice to have sex as more than just a memory, perhaps a meaningful relationship with something softer than a tube of Vaseline.

And there is a woman in my life, though she's far away. Her name is Margaret, and she is unique. Oh, Maggie, your mood swings are twice as wide as Market Street, and yet I love ye. Or at least like ye a lot.

She says exactly what she's thinking, farts loudly, has PMS twenty-three days a month, has huge hooters and plenty of attitude. Same as me in a lot of ways. We're a match made in Hell.

I haven't seen her in three years, since I abandoned life as I knew it to move to San Francisco. Most of those left behind, I haven't taken the time to miss them, because the family never knew me all that well, and the friends were just acquaintances, and the acquaintances were really strangers. One day I simply slipped away, looking for a new life.

But Maggie is one of the few people I've regretted leaving behind. I invited her to tag along as I was packing, but she found my request rather vague, since I didn't know where I was going, how long it might take to get there, and when or whether I'd ever be coming back.

I was happy as heck to hear from Maggie a few months back, and by mail we've rekindled what was once a fairly frisky flame. She arrives June 13, for a brief visit I'm hoping turns into a long stay. I've repeated the invitation to share my world, and I'm hoping she'll look at the fabulous life I'm living here, and join it.

But if it turns out that our romance isn't meant to be, we'll at least have had a few nights of rowdy sex again.

Do I have to write something every damned day? Is that the way a diary works?

OK, well, have I mentioned that I'm mad about movies? Especially old movies, not because the old movies were necessarily better (I'm sure they made as many stinkers as today), but because if they're showing an old movie in a theater, that means it's got to be something special. That's why I prefer old movies at the Roxie, over the latest Baldwin Brothers schlock at the multiplex.

Tonight at the Roxie, they began a series of pre-Code movies, a concept that needs to be explained, so come with me now for a walk through cinema history. I'll walk fast, I promise.

Until about 1934, the studios made movies to sell tickets. This is what most people would call "freedom of speech," where you simply say what you want to say, make the movies you want to make. Movies sometimes referenced 'adult' things like sex and crime. Certainly nothing sexually explicit was shown, but a you might see a man and a woman not his wife stepping into a bedroom together. Or, bad guys might commit crimes, and get away with it. Or, a character might say something like, "I'm not really religious."

Such shocking and libertine elements in film annoyed many old biddies and Catholic priests, and there was great political pressure demanding that movies be more 'moral' (not unlike today's Janet Reno too-much-violence crusade) The Motion Picture Production Code (a/k/a Hays Code) was Hollywood's response. The first draft of it was actually written by a Catholic priest and one of his parishioners.

Adopted voluntarily by the studios (but under threat of regulation otherwise, also like today), the Code required that the bad guys must be punished by the end of the film, and female characters must show 'virtue' or pay the price in the plot, etc. Essentially it mandated what's now called "traditional family values," and studio pictures were made under these rules for the next several decades.

That's the end of our walk through history, and I'm exhausted. Let's sit down.

I was intrigued by a week of pre-Code talkies from the early '30s at the Roxie, but I shouldn't have gone tonight. Weary from a week of drudge work and not sleeping well the past few nights, even James Cagney had a hard time holding my attention in Lady Killer. Then drowsiness defeated me, and I came home instead of seeing the second feature, Fog Over Frisco. That's a disappointment, because Fog is supposed to be a classic.

I'll try again tomorrow, but it'll be different pre-Code movies. The Roxie rarely shows the same movies two nights in a row.

♦ ♦ ♦

A note to you, dear reader of this zine: Are you disappointed that I'm writing about movies instead of "Dear diary, here's my deepest, darkest secret"? Well, be disappointed all you like — I already have your three dollars, bwa ha ha!

Seriously, though, my deepest, darkest secret is that aren't many deep, dark secrets in my life. In this diary, you'll find no hang-gliding, no night clubs, and no trips to Paris or Vienna. Tonight I'm having some Vienna sausages, though.

SATURDAY — BARTed to the Mission, had Chinese food for lunch, and then it was back to the Roxie for a pre-Code triple feature.

I Am A Fugitive from a Chain Gang is a movie with a good reputation, and well-deserved. A man is victimized by the criminal justice system, and it's a dark, dramatic story. Downright bleak, but excellent. It's exactly the kind of movie that wouldn't be made today, or would be made all wrong, though the issues at its heart are if anything more vital now than they were then. It's a riveting movie, despite the always nauseating presence of Paul Muni — he's still the worst actor ever to succeed as a movie star (see The Life of Emile Zola, if you dare).

Then came Wild Boys of the Road, in which poverty forces good kids to turn bad. Panhandling is treated as a crime in this one, but otherwise it hardly seems dated. And again, it resonates in the 1990s.

Last and least in tonight's triple feature, Mayor of Hell is set in a home for juvenile delinquents, with James Cagney again, as the kind, caring warden by day, who's a killer come nightfall. It's telling two stories at once, and the dual story lines make it a strange experience. It's not bad, but not good, and not memorable.

Here's what really struck me as I walked back to BART from the theater. Here we have three films targeted at adult audiences, three films with something to say, taking a realistic look at serious societal problems, intended to make the audience aware there's a problem out there. Off hand, I can't think of even one current Hollywood movie that aims so high.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — I haven't bought a comic book since before I had whiskers, but on an after-work bus ride to nowhere and back, I saw a comic shop, so I got off the bus and went inside. I always liked Batman, and there he was, but he sure looks different. The art style has gotten uglier, in my opinion, and the price has gone way up, but I bought it. The main story was complicated and "to be continued," so I'll never know whether Batman survives. What do you think? I'm guessing he survives.

♦ ♦ ♦

My residential roach hotel apartment is reasonably ready for Maggie, but the bed is a problem. A twin bed is wide enough for one but not nearly wide enough for two, especially two as wide as we are. The management has kindly consented to rent me a second twin bed. I'll roll the second bed right up next to mine, making one bed out of two, for two consenting adults. Hope the extra bed comes with sheets.

♦ ♦ ♦

Movie time: I went to The Bridge on the River Kwai at the Castro Theater today, and it was less impressive than when I saw it at the Castro a few years ago. It's a good movie, very good, but twice is enough, and the next time it plays I'll skip it. The problem seems to be William Holden, stuck in a serious prisoner-of-war movie when he'd rather be playing some Americanized James Bond.

From the Castro, I bused downtown and caught The Hudsucker Proxy and Scorsese's delightful After Hours at the Strand. Two excellent movies, but I'm too tuckered to write about them. I do want to ask, though — what ever happened to Rosanna Arquette? She was great in After Hours, and she was a big movie star for a few years, and then she was gone.

MONDAY — A day at the office, and then a night at the movies — The Hatchet Man and The Public Enemy, more pre-Code dramas at the Roxie.

Hatchet is notable mostly for its overt racism, and for making a serial killer the hero, without even a hint that the police might be interested. Edward G Robinson and Loretta Young both play Asian-Americans — white actors in yellow-face. All in all, it was distasteful. Even trying to put myself in the mindset from when the movie was made, trying not to notice the racism ... the movie still sucked.

The Public Enemy, though, was dynamite. Another 'important issue' drama, which I guess was a genre back then but sure isn't today. It's about a bunch of violent outlaws making big money running a liquor cartel during Prohibition. It seemed more dated than you'd expect an old movie to be, so I began mentally translating the plot into the present, imagining that the violent outlaws were running a drug cartel instead, during our present Prohibition. And man, once I looked at it that way, Public Enemy was a remarkable movie.

It's unmistakably an indictment of Prohibition, showing Cagney's character as a small-time hood who probably wouldn't have done much damage, maybe might have gone straight, but with so much easy money from running booze (drugs), he became an extremely violent big-time crime lord instead.

And to think, it was made by a giant studio, Warner Bros, while liquor was illegal. Whether you think the War on Drugs is right or wrong (pssst — it's horribly, morally wrong), can you imagine a big Hollywood studio making a movie that seriously, pointedly calls for the legalization of marijuana and sacred shrooms?

♦ ♦ ♦

TUESDAY — Speaking of prohibition, cooking is expressly forbidden by the rules of this fine hotel, yet most mornings the halls seem to smell of sausage, and in the evening the scent of luscious lasagna or casserole is unavoidable. Clearly, someone has a hot plate.

Yeah, I have a hot plate, too, but I'm eating peanut butter sandwiches.

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — It's been approved by my boss: I've got next Tuesday off work (without pay, of course). Maggie arrives Monday night, and I certainly hope I'm in no condition to work on Tuesday.

Also official, my mom is coming for a visit early next month. She is a bit motherly, maybe more than most mothers, but I love her, and look forward to seeing her. Lunch together would be ideal, or we could even spend a day together. But she'll be here for 3½ days, so trepidation abounds.

My mom talks a lot about dead people, and people I don't know, and dead people I didn't know when they were alive. She thinks I'm a Christian and a virgin, when I haven't been either for twenty years. She remembers every lie I've ever told, and she's the only guilt trip I'm not immune to. Put it all together, it spells Mother. Her plane arrives on July 1...

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — Tonight was the last of the pre-Code festival at the Roxie. Two with James Cagney — Taxi (1932), and Blonde Crazy (1931). Both were fun, with no real messages. The crazy blonde was Joan Blondell, who's always one of my favorites of her era. In this one she slaps a dozen men's faces, before becoming Cagney's platonic partner in a clever con game.

I would've enjoyed the movies more if my hemorrhoids weren't zinging me so bad. I had to stand up for the last twenty minutes of the last show, leaning against the theater's back wall.

Had words with a homeless guy today. That's never fun, but this guy really needs to be slapped around a little — where's Jimmy Cagney and Joan Blondell when you need 'em?

I've always been nice to the homeless. I don't snarl 'get a job' because I know employment ain't easy to get, and when my job runs out I expect to be begging for nickels myself. So when I've got it I've always given it, and once upon a time a couple of months ago, when I was flush with funds and in a good mood, I gave this homeless guy a couple of quarters and a couple of sentences. But now whenever he sees me he is all over me, and when the answer is now he'll ask again and again.

"Hey, mister, got any spare change?" ... "Spare change?" ... "Can you help me with some spare change?"

This is what the Mayor means by 'aggressive panhandling'. And I hate the Mayor, by the way, like any good San Franciscan should, but when he's right, he's right.

I live near Union Square, where this man does his panhandling, so this same (presumably) homeless man was in my face today for maybe the fifth time this month, and I unloaded on him.

"Hey, I gave you some change a couple of times, but that doesn't mean I've adopted you as my son, and it doesn't mean I'm an easy mark every time you see my face. Do I look like J D Rockefeller? Well, I'm not. I'm a poor schmoe, and I'm tired of having you up and in my face every time I walk down Valencia Street. So give somebody else your endless whiney-eyed hard luck story, because I've heard it from you so many times I've got your whole shtick memorized. The answer is no. No today, no tomorrow, no the day after that and every day of your life. Capeesh?"

Was I too harsh?

All I know is, this jerk ain't getting nothing from me except a fist in the face if he doesn't back off.

And this sounds downright Republican, but I'm not giving to beggars any more. Effective immediately, if you want spare change from me, you've got to make me smile. I might have change for the robot-guy on Powell Street, or Mr Good Humor on O'Farrell, for the kazoo serenade on Mission, for the drum and violin duet in the BART station, or for any mendicant with a semi-clever line, but I've got no more change for someone asking for help 40 hours a week.

If I give you some money, I want to feel I'm actually touching a human soul, not just supporting another empty-eyed crackhead. See, the competition is getting pretty crowded, and everyone on the street wants what little money I have, so rattling tin cans and looking like a loser just won't cut it any more.

Addendum, 2021: I am embarrassed that I wrote the above, and horrified that I said what I said all those years ago, to someone who was wounded already. I disavow all of it. If I knew where that poor, hungry spare-changer was today, I'd apologize to him, and take him to breakfast at the diner.

Every word I wrote is wrong, but I'm posting it anyway, because what happened happened. Honesty was the whole point of my Pathetic Life project. I did this stupid shit, wrote about it, and I guess I even thought it was amusing, so I'm posting it. No fair hiding from myself.

I was me in some ways back then, but politically I was a jackass. Let me tell you why, and what healed me:

When I was young and stupid, I read some books by Ayn Rand, which left me warped. I called myself a libertarian, which is a five-syllable synonym for ass. For too many years I believed, really believed, that wealth is earned, and that most poor people wouldn't be poor if they just worked harder. That's where my head was in 1994 — snuggled up deep in my own ass.

In the words of John Cleese, "I got better," and most of the credit goes to my wife, Stephanie. We met a few years after these events, and to say she made me a better man is an exponential understatement; she made me a man, that's all. With her example, I learned about compassion, kindness, and just generally being a decent human being. Thank you, Steph, forever. And I miss you.

I didn't magically morph into Mahatma Gandhi, but I'm not the person I was on June 10, 1994. For one thing, I never give spare change to the destitute any more — instead I give spare cash, usually $1s, sometimes a $5 bill. And I wouldn't begrudge anyone who recognized me as a giver and asked me to give again, because it only makes sense — who's a more logical person to ask for help, than the man who helped you a week ago?

Today I'd say, "Here, stranger, have another couple bucks, and have a hug, and I hope it helps."

SATURDAY — There might be three or four movies in the world that are worth seven bucks — full price admission for an evening show. Me, I rarely go to $7 movies. You get the same movie at a lower price, and with a smaller crowd so there's less talking, if you go to a discount matinee.

A double feature, of course, is two movies for the price of one, so if you catch a discount matinee that's also a double feature, it works out to just a couple of dollars per movie. That's within my budget.

Your average sequel is, of course, worth even less, and Faraway, So Close, the sequel to Wings of Desire, is worth even less. It was double-billed with the original, and I love the original — a soft-spoken meditation on what it is to be human, with chuckles and insight and Peter Falk.

Well, everything Wings of Desire is, Faraway, So Close is not. The credits claim that this cold*hearted crap came from the same Wim Wenders who made the original movie, but if so, he must have been kidnapped and forced to make the sequel under duress. This is the worst sequel to a good movie since Beverly Hills Cop 2.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — It was a swashbuckling Sunday at the U.C. Theater — Errol Flynn (everybody's favorite traitor) in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Sure, I've seen it before. So have you. I'll see it again. I'll see it any time it's playing anywhere.

If you've only seen the Kevin Costner version, trust me. Costner is OK, but you need some Errol Flynn.

♦ ♦ ♦

Margaret arrives tomorrow evening, so I spruced up the joint a little today. Wiped the roach corpses off the wall, swept up all the dust bunnies, and laundered the blanket.

I hope her visit goes well. I've mellowed over the past few years, and i hope she has, too. She was always ... intense.

♦ ♦ ♦

MONDAY — Maggie arrives, but all is not bliss. All things considered, our first night back together could not have been much worse.

As we had planned, I picked her up at the airport, but when she first saw me her instant reaction was to shriek and turn her back on me. She said almost nothing for the first half hour, as if we were strangers. I kept saying things — nice things I think — asking her questions, pointing out sights from the window of the bus on our ride back to town, but she mostly just sat there silent. She told me later that she was speechless at the sight of how huge I've become.

I was not exactly slim when we were last together, and I'd told her to expect fifty pounds more of me. And she's not at her ideal chart weight, either, but — OK, I'll chalk it up to nerves. It was the first time we'd seen each other in several years, and she was understandably nervous, and so was I, so the silence and shyness was understandable.

Then we arrived at the cheap residential hotel that I call home, and we were finally talking like two people with a romantic past together, and maybe a future. We kissed, and that was nice. Kissing led to more kissing, which led to squeezing this and rubbing that, and eventually we were in the mood for something special. I rolled the two beds together, and the catastrophe was complete:

To her disappointment and mine, I am now physically incapable of good old fashioned face-to-face sex with a woman — I'm just too damned fat. My belly is so large that it prevents my manhood from reaching her womanhood. It's basic geometry: the magnitude of my girth means that our special happy places cannot be closer than about seven inches apart.

We attempted several different positions, but with each subsequent failure my erection waned, until finally it all seemed futile, and I was unable to continue trying. My dear Margaret seemed eventually satisfied with my two-finger method, and she was able to do wonders with her hand and a little margarine, but it wasn't what either of us had anticipated.

With continued effort and experimentation and patience, we could probably, eventually, find a way to make whoopie like we'd like to, but we don't have much time. It's only two weeks until she'll be on an airplane out of here — and she won't be spending most of that time with me. Her sister lives a few counties away, and for reasons too complicated to explain, her sister is raising Maggie's young daughter. So, understandably, much or most of Maggie's two weeks in California will be spent with her sister and daughter, not with me.

We might have two or three nights together, depending on how things go, and things certainly didn't go as well as I'd hoped tonight. Something was accomplished this evening, though: If I physically can't fuck a woman, I am now resolved to lose some weight.

See, I've been a big man and getting bigger since my mid-20s. Over the years my mother has nagged me, friends and co-workers have advised me, and doctors have harangued me — "You have a weight problem, Doug." From these well-meaning people I've heard of a dozen different schemes, exercise programs, support groups, and unappetizing diets, but my response has always been, "I don't have a weight problem. I'm fat, sure, but it's not a problem, so kindly shut up about it please."

As of this evening, guess what? I have a weight problem.

TUESDAY — Today was an unpaid day off, originally planned as recuperation after a night of wild sexual debauchery with Margaret. Last night was a little light on the debauchery, though.

This morning we took a relaxed stroll through the Castro district, and had a long lazy conversation over coffee. That's the Maggie I want near me — she's smart and funny — but there are other Maggies. Her moods still swing like a pendulum do.

At my apartment, there was a completed sex act, sort of. For about ten seconds, we were able to contort our bodies so that I was inside her. That was just enough time for me to finish, and also I wrenched my back. This is not the stuff X-rated movies are made of.

♦ ♦ ♦

WEDNESDAY — Back to work for me. I can't afford to take another day off, even with my erstwhile girlfriend visiting, so Maggie spent the day alone, while I fended off questions from the one co-worker I was stupid enough to share that an ex-girlfriend was coming to town. Usually I keep my personal life between me and this typewriter. The schmuck at work wanted to know whether my supply of condoms is holding out. A gentleman doesn't discuss such things, I answered. Especially if there's not much to discuss, I didn't say.

Home is near work, so I met Maggie for a cup of coffee late in the morning, and that was nice.

Our conversations are growing unpredictable, though, and I'd forgotten how quickly she goes from sweetness and sunshine to spite and sarcasm. If I say the wrong word or speak with the wrong inflection, my, how her hammer will fall. She tells me that I know exactly what I've said that set her off, but alas I haven't a clue or I wouldn't say it. I've told her this, but the connection doesn't ring through.

You might suspect that Maggie has issues, and you'd be right. I don't know the medical or mental term, because she's never gone into much detail about it, and she gets defensive if I approach the subject. I know she's been diagnosed, though, and she's been prescribed, and back home she's seeing a shrink on a regular basis. And I know that her head issues led Margaret to give custody of her daughter to her sister, which must have been terribly difficult — but also, was the right thing to do.

So the sudden mood swings are part of who she is, and I knew that before she arrived in California. She's been this way for as long as I've known her, but when we were talking on the phone occasionally, planning her visit to San Francisco, I was mostly remembering upbeat Maggie more than her twin, angry Maggie.

In the evening after work, we have burritos and chips and beer, but no sex, not even a try at sex. Admittedly, I am relieved.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — Today I accompanied Maggie to the Hayward BART station, where her sister and daughter were waiting to pick her up. She'll be spending at least the next few days with them, in Livermore. I've met Maggie's sister before — let's call her Yvonne — and I'm pretty sure she hates me, though the feeling isn't mutual. It's the first time I've met Maggie's daughter — Joanna — and that kid is just adorable. She's three years old, with Maggie's bright eyes and smile, and she was in high spirits and happy to meet me. She called me "Uncle Doug."

I'm not bright but also not terribly stupid, so I've pondered the math and the calendar. Maggie and I were together off and on in the late '80s and very early '90s, until I left Seattle. We always used protection, but a couple of times that was a sandwich bag instead of a condom. Accidents happen, and by the timeline, Joanna could be my daughter. I've asked Margaret, twice, and twice she's said emphatically that it wasn't me. "He was a brief fling," is all she's said about her daughter's father, "and he's out of the picture, and always will be."

FRIDAY — Over many years I've become accustomed to living alone. I'm good at it. I dearly love coming home after a day's work, stripping down to flabby nothingness, sprawling all over the bed, and picking my nose while reading the Examiner. I talk to myself, at great length. I fart a lot, and never say 'excuse me'. I kill roaches, as a hobby.

I didn't get to do any of that while Maggie was here, so a day without her has its advantages.

I miss her, though. I guess. It was nice having her around for a few days, except for the times when it wasn't so nice. She insults me a lot; maybe she thinks it's playful banter. She also hit me a few times, which was weird. She's always been precariously balanced, and I don't know anything really about her mental health issues, because it's not something she talks about. All I know is, I like her when she's Margaret, but sometimes she's not Margaret.

And she doesn't know much about what's going on in my head, either, partly because I don't talk much, especially about things that matter to me, but also because when I am in a rare mood for baring my soul, she changes the subject. Or she makes something serious into a joke. Or she hears insults when insults aren't intended.

I'm better on paper than in person, so the easiest way to show her my brain, I suppose, is to put her on the mailing list for my Pathetic Life. Maggie doesn't know there's a zine, doesn't know she'll be in it, and she doesn't know that she gave the zine its name. We were talking on the phone a month or so ago, planning her trip to San Francisco, and I was talking about this low-rent roach hotel, the homeless people who live on the sidewalk in front of the building, and some other nauseating facts of my existence, and she said, "God, you have a pathetic life."

For that, she deserves a complimentary subscription, don't you think? Thank you for the inspiration, dear, and I hope you like the zine when it comes in the mail.

♦ ♦ ♦

SATURDAY — The lady is back. We met at the Hayward station, where she was waiting with her sister, Yvonne, and daughter, Joanna. Yvonne thinks I'm scummy, and she's right, of course. I don't know what Joanna thinks, but she's still a really cute kid, so I'm still fairly certain I'm not her father.

Maggie doesn't seem very interested in seeing the sights of San Francisco, which is OK by me. I live here, so I see the damned sights every damned day. Instead we just walked around my neighborhood, then bused to a better neighborhood for more walking around. I guess that's seeing the sights, but not the post card sights.

We had fish and chips, and went to a double feature at the Empire Theater, where we cuddled in the back seats. The cuddling was nice, but Lord Awmighty, how quick her temper can be. When she's not angry she's insulting, and when she's neither angry nor insulting she's delightful and clever and funny. I wish she'd pick a personality and stick with it, but I know it's out of her control. There are moments when I feel utterly adrift in her swirling, unpredictable whirlpools of emotion. Our conversations can seem so natural, and then suddenly she flares without warning.

Here's an example: We're at a burrito place, and she doesn't want to come up to the counter and order with me. Dunno why. She's feeling shy, so she sits at a table and tells me to get her a chicken burrito and a side of chips. I say, no problem, the side of chips is included here.

She thought that line was a snide insult, but swear to god, no insult was intended. It was just something I said, cuz I'm a cheap bastard so free chips is a good thing. I don't even see how it could be an insult.

"Mags," I said, "I'm not insulting you. I am happy you're here, and I haven't insulted you in the slightest, not since your plane landed. Why would I insult you?" She gave me the silent treatment for the entire dinner.

♦ ♦ ♦

Some people are fart-positive, and some people are fart-negative. Both kinds of people understand that it's generally to be avoided in public, but for fart-positives it's understood that if you accidentally cut one at the dinner table it's not the sad shame of the western world. Fart-positives support an inalienable right to fart in one's own bedroom.

Fart-negatives believe farts are always embarrassing.

Make no mistake, I am fart-positive. I even enjoy typing the word 'fart'.

Tonight, for example, soon as we got back from the movies, I was still wearing pants and I lifted my leg and let loose a robust rippler. Now, nobody would mistake Maggie and me for a British upper-crust couple off Masterpiece Theater. We're white trash is all. Certainly she's farted in my presence several times since she got here on Monday, but Maggie was offended by my fart in the apartment, as though it was intentionally aimed at her nose. It wasn't. She was clear across the room.

Later in the night, as she lay naked on her back atop the blankets, she lifted her knees over her breasts and broke wind so moistly it splattered the sheets. We laughed and laughed, but when I woke in the middle of the night, an epiphany came: When Margaret farts it's funny, and when I fart it's gross. That hardly seems fair, does it?

SUNDAY — Margaret has been hitting me since she came to San Francisco, but it seemed like just playful fun. A slug on my shoulder here, a punch on my back later on.

Today she was hitting me harder, and it became genuine painful. She must have slapped and slugged me sixty times, from Chinatown to the Marina and back again, between kisses and ordinary conversations. The inevitable explosions of temper have always been part of her, and I could deal with that, I think, but her pounding on me is something new. I have no interest in either hitting back or becoming a battered man.

When I asked her not to hit me, she stopped for a while, but only for a while. When I asked if I'd said or done something since she'd been here, something to deserve her flurries of rage, she mentioned The Fart, and told me again that I know exactly what I'm saying that sets her off. Again I told her that I don't, and again I'm not sure that she heard me.

The day was frustrating, enough to make me second-guess the whole idea of Maggie and me. Back at the apartment in the early afternoon, she said she was bored, so I suggested a double feature at the Strand, Point Break and What's Love Got to Do with It.

Yeah, I knew she'd find the Strand disgusting. It is disgusting — it's a run-down movie palace that shows old movies at a cheap price, and caters to a skid row clientele. Many of the customers appear to be homeless, paying the discount admission not so much to watch the movies as to sleep in the seats. Can't blame 'em — it's more comfortable than a park bench, and it's legal, so a cop isn't likely to bust their heads.

I go to the Strand a lot, and at least part of the point of Maggie's visit is to show her how I live, right? That was my thinking, anyway, if it qualifies as thinking. Also, in my defense, having Maggie with me in San Francisco has been more expensive than I'd anticipated, and the Strand is easy on the budget and really all I could afford. It's $1 for a double feature. My treat? Then it's $2 for both of us. Another dollar for four Tootsie Pops and we're set for the evening.

Turns out the price goes up after 4:00 in the afternoon, so it was $2 apiece. I always go early, when it's cheaper, so that blindsided me. I'm a gentleman and a big spender, so I didn't complain, didn't ask Margaret to chip in, and still bought us Tootsie Pops. Am I a great guy, or what?

Well, maybe I'm not a great guy. I should've remembered what the Strand is like, before bringing a date. It's full of sleeping and snoring drunkards, and too many talking, coughing, and spitting patrons. For me, that's part of the charm of the place, but I think Maggie was uncomfortable. Can't blame her for that.

And then, toward the end of What's Love Got to Do with It, as Larry Fishburne was beating the hell out of Angela Bassett, voices in the audience were cheering it on. That's a new low, even for the lowly Strand. I should've taken Margaret out of that place at that moment, but leaving didn't occur to me, yet.

"He's beating her up, and these people are laughing at it," Maggie said, and again, I should've said 'Yeah, that's disgusting — let's go'. But I didn't. I didn't say anything, and she turned to me and said, "And you're laughing right along with them."

I certainly had not been laughing, or even smiling, and after all of her insults all week, I heard this as the biggest insult imaginable. The perpetually pleasant face and mood I'd tried to maintain during her visit disappeared, instantly. "Don't be a complete asshole," I said.

Maggie was speechless for a long time, before she finally said in a very stern voice, "Don't you ever call me that again."

I was, ah, not at my best. The theater was a hellhole and I never should've brought her, and I had several opportunities to gently lead us out of there, but I didn't, so I know I wasn't blameless. But …

How many times had she called me an asshole since I picked her up at the airport, a week ago tomorrow? How many dozen other insults had she given me in that time? And for what? For hosting her, for trying my best to treat her nice? She's accusing me of sympathizing with a wife-beater, while my shoulder aches from the beatings I took from her today? It's OK for her to call me vile names over and over, but unforgivable the first and only time I've said something mean to her? I was pissed. And maybe I still am.

All these thoughts were bumping into each other in my head, while words came tumbling out of my mouth. "You've been treating me like shit all day and I don't know why," was how I began, but the rest of what I said is a blur in my memory. I do remember her response: she started to cry.

I felt awful, but let her bawl for a minute. This, I think, is why evolution makes the womenfolk tend toward tears when they're distraught; it makes the menfolk feel awful. I put my hand on her shoulder, a gentle squeeze, and futilely tried to turn our attention back to the movie, but mostly I was wondering what she'd say when she again had something to say.

The theater was dark and loud so it took a few minutes before I noticed that she was still crying. And that made me feel awful all over again, but probably not as awful as she felt. If I'd known she was still crying, jeez, I never would've let her cry that long without a few soft words from me.

It was just a gloriously grand catastrophe of an evening.

I asked if she wanted to leave; she did, so we walked home, six blocks, mostly in silence. I said a sentence every block, trying to find some nice words without actually apologizing, because I didn't think I had much to apologize for. A couple of hours later, of course, I've figured out that I had plenty to apologize for.

And then, when we stepped back into the apartment, Margaret apologized. "I didn't come to California just to treat you so mean. I'm sorry, and I don't want us to fight." She said it so soft and sincerely, it was hard to remember I had even been angry. In a moment when one of us needed to be an adult, she was the adult, and I wasn't.

I apologized, too, of course, and we hugged and cuddled each other to sleep, sexlessly but sweetly.

♦ ♦ ♦

MONDAY — Today Margaret BARTed back to her sister's house, and she didn't seem angry. She was quite nice all morning, like the lady I remember, someone I'd like to get to know again. I'm just wondering why Sweet Maggie arrived a week late.

There are visible bruises on my neck and shoulders, from the punches she threw at me at the Marina yesterday, and I don't know where we stand, Sweet and Sour Maggie and me.

When I left Seattle three years ago, I invited her to come with me. On the phone a month ago, I invited her to visit me here in San Francisco. I've never quite asked her to marry me, but the subject has come up. When she got to San Francisco for this two week vacation, I invited her to stay as long as she liked, if she found me and the city to her liking. I guess my invitation still stands. I guess. But I'm not sure she's finding me to her liking. And the 'not sure' is mutual.

She thinks I have a pathetic life, and I can't dispute that. I'm alone, with hardly any friends. Maybe zero. My job, this residential hotel, all my neighbors — there's nothing in my life that wouldn't look pathetic to most people. But this is the life I've chosen, and it's a life I enjoy.

If Maggie's not interested in sharing my pathetic life, hey, that's perfectly understandable. Just say so and say adios. Or if she is interested, then stop slugging me.

I am heartbroken, but no, this has nothing to do with Maggie, my almost certainly soon-to-be ex-girlfriend.

The original Alien, John Carpenter's remake of The Thing, and an unknown entity called Legend of the Overfiend looked like a good triple-feature at the Strand, but from two blocks away I knew something was wrong. The marquee is blank, the doors are locked, and the windows have been covered with newspaper pages. There will be no movies at the Strand today. It's out of business.

The Strand must have been a spectacular movie palace when it was first built. Just one auditorium, of course, and I'd guess it had 750 seats, maybe more, including the steep, sprawling balcony up the marble stairs. The last time I sat in the balcony, a huge graffiti tag at the back announced, "Suck my ass, Bobbie."

When it was new and shiny, the theater probably had curtains, and all sorts of architectural flourishes that have long since been painted over or ripped out. I'll bet it had a glorious chandelier, but I never saw it — every time I went to the Strand, its interior was lit by a single 60-watt light bulb, hung naked on a long cord from the ceiling.

Located in the heart of the Tenderloin, San Francisco's most infamous and dangerous neighborhood and easy walking distance from my rez hotel, the Strand was infested with rats. The carpeting was faded and smelly. The screen had a long rip in the upper-right corner. Many of the seats had springs poking out.

Half the Strand's patrons were bums or drunks or mentally ill, and the arguments between them were often more interesting than anything on the screen. There were needles in the lobby, drug deals in the restrooms, and conversations shouted across aisles and rows. I saw a knife fight in the balcony once. Found a spent condom stuck to the bottom of my shoe. Saw cops come in with flashlights to make arrests in the auditorium, while the movie was running. Saw an old man drop his britches and take a shit in the front row. It was everything a moviehouse should never be, yet so extreme was its scuzziness, you couldn't help loving the Strand. Well, at least I loved it; I guess Maggie didn't.

The sound system was mono, but they kept it cranked loud, to help drown out the audiences that never shut up. If you brought earplugs to muffle the volume, maybe you heard the movie more than the crowd's talking and yelling, and you could almost fool yourself into thinking you were in a movie theater.

Do you need to use the restroom? Abandon hope, ye who enter here. The owners tried, so toilet paper was almost always available, and the floors were usually dry despite the moist clientele. Thankfully, the toilets that had been shattered were roped off, so you wouldn't accidentally slash an artery on the porcelain. But some problems were too expensive to fix — the men's room was poorly lit, with cracked mirrors, and ancient yellowed tiles, so even immediately after a thorough cleaning you could still smell yesteryear's stench, and the graffiti scrubbed away one day would be back the next.

The ticket price went up and down, but was always cheap, and bought admission to two or three movies — old movies, great movies!

The Strand had affordable concessions, too — free soda with free refills, if you bought a hot dog or nachos. Big buttered popcorn, at a small price.

And at no extra charge, surly service with a snarl — the Strand standard was a Bronx attitude without the accent, and if you weren't tough enough to take it, you were in the wrong place.

When the Strand switched to a repertory format (that's fancy talk for 'old movies') with a new double- or triple-feature every day, I was there two or three or four nights every week. They owned reels of cartoons and shorts leftover from the 1930s or '40s, so there was often a black-and-white bonus between the features — Three Stooges shorts, classic cartoons, forgotten oddities that deserved to be forgotten, and a few cartoons and shorts with shockingly blatant racism from your great-grandfather's era. I didn't hold the offensive stuff against the theater, though, because I don't think anyone who worked there was looking at the screen.

Entire movies would be shown through the wrong lens, so everyone on-screen was inhumanly wide, or impossibly skinny. I don't even know how they did this, but a few times they ran trailers for coming attractions upside-down. The projection could be so far out of frame that nobody would have shoulders, let alone heads, and if you went to the lobby to complain, you might get an apology, but it could be another twenty minutes before the problem was solved. See, there sometimes seemed to be only one employee in the building, and he couldn't leave the concession stand unattended to run up to the projection booth. After all, people come to the movies to buy popcorn, not to watch a movie.

So I'll remember The Rocky Horror Picture Show with the frame exactly in the middle of the screen. The singing lips were reversed, lower lip on top and upper lip underneath...

Red Rock West, two rows in front of some acid burnout who screamed advice to Nicolas Cage. I turned around and said, "Hey, buddy, it's a movie. He can't hear you." So he yelled louder, and I found another seat...

Romper Stomper, a great action movie set amidst a race riot, with a crowd that was culturally diverse and really into the plot...

Fantasia, made even more surreal by being out of focus from beginning to end...

Up in Smoke through blue clouds of pot that had me a little high before the opening credits...

Supercop: Police Story 3, a Hong Kong action movie, shown with the frame so low that the subtitles were eliminated. The drunks shouted audience-participation dialogue instead, and yeah, I participated...

Beethoven's Second, with ten minutes of a blank screen between reels. The audience hooted and hollered and stomped their feet louder and louder in the darkness, but when I finally went to the lobby to complain, the worker hadn't even known there was a problem. He'd heard all the ruckus from the auditorium, sure, but he'd just thought they had an enthusiastic crowd that day...

My favorite memory of the Strand was the night about twenty science-fiction nerds, all sitting together, came to see a triple feature of Blade Runner, Terminator 2, and the director's cut of The Abyss. Sadly, they came with no understanding of the Strand dynamic, so they were freaked out from the moment they walked in, and they all walked out together before Deckard even met Rachel.

And now, all those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain, as Roy Batty explained long after they'd left.

To be fair, there were also — occasionally — days when the projection was proper, the crowd was polite, and it was just another trip to the movies. But those were the exceptions. Usually, the Strand was a trip in itself.

It's shuttered and locked tonight, and I'll miss the place. Dim that lone light bulb one last time, sweep up the spilled popcorn and hypodermics, and draw the curtains that aren't there.

Strand calendar image by Isabella Acuña,
courtesy San Francisco Theatres.

Addendum, 2021: I clicked around on the internet, and learned that renovations on the Strand began in 2012, and it reopened as a playhouse in 2015.

WEDNESDAY — I woke up with a sore throat, and it's bad. When I swallow, my eyes water with pain and my adam's apple feels like it's a mechanical device that hasn't been oiled since the Bush administration. I'm increasing my daily dose of Vitamin C from 500 mg to 10,000, but I'll need to see a doctor.

In America, health care is tied to your job — a really stupid idea, but it's very profitable for the health conglomerates and that's the American way. My job sucks, and offers no sick leave, so I went to work, where I tried to keep to myself (I always try to keep to myself). I'm supposed to BART to Margaret's birthday party on Saturday, but I'm wondering whether I'll be up to it.

Weirdly and luckily, I have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow, and let me tell you that story.

After years without health coverage, and after six months at my craptastic job, I qualified for health coverage in February, provided that I pay half the HMO dues out of my empty pocket. I'm supposed to be a grown-up, damn it, so I did the responsible thing and signed up.

Kaiser Permanente is my 'health provider', and are they any good? Heck if I know. They let me pick my doctor — hundreds of MDs to choose from, all strangers, most with no openings for new patients, so — eeny, meeny, miny, moe. They gave me an appointment for a complete physical, in late March.

On the scheduled date, though, someone from Kaiser called and told me that, due to an unexpected emergency, my doctor had to cancel all his appointments for the day. I was rescheduled for late April.

On the morning of this second scheduled appointment, Kaiser called again, told me my doctor had called in sick, and rescheduled my appointment for late May.

A week before this third scheduled date, I got a post card telling me that my doctor would be at a convention on the day of my appointment, and announcing that instead I would be seen on June 14. Is that the way it works? They tell you when your appointment is? I promptly called, told them 6/14 doesn't work for me, and asked them nicely to quit playing the shell game or refund my five months of dues paid for nothing.

They gave me my fifth appointment, for June 23, so after all the above, my good luck is that tomorrow, what I actually need a doctor for the first time in years, I'll be seeing a doctor for the first time in years — if they don't cancel this appointment, too.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — I went to work again though I probably shouldn't, and then left a few hours early to see my doctor, and — my doctor is a little boy. He looks and sounds like Doogie Howser, MD, and that's only a slight exaggeration. He had two pimples on his face. He's the first doctor I've ever seen who's younger than me — which wouldn't be a problem, except he already has the 'know-it-all doctor' vibe, and I don't think he knows it all. Or much of anything.

Dr Howser says I'm healthy. Blood pressure normal, heartbeat normal, cholesterol normal, and the scale says I weigh 323 pounds. Doogie's professional opinion is, "You could stand to lose 150 pounds." Thanks, doc. Never knew I was fat. Quite a shock, there.

When I told him about my throat, which is the most painful it's been in my 36 years of life, he didn't look inside my mouth. He only asked if it felt better today than it felt yesterday.

I said yes, because it did feel better, but on my bus ride home it occurred to me that was the wrong answer to the wrong question. My throat feels a little better because today I'm constantly bathing it with Aspergum I hadn't bought until this morning — that's aspirin and lots of it, to deaden the pain. So of course it feels a little better, Dr Doogie, but that doesn't mean it is better.

"Call us if it gets worse," he said, nudging me toward the door and his next co-pay.

♦ ♦ ♦

As for Maggie, she's still in Livermore, but when we talk on the phone she's now pleasant, borderline bubbly. There are no more insults, bursts of anger, precipitous moments, and that's nice, but I'm not sure what to make of it. To be honest, it feels like a performance.

It's nice of Maggie to be nice, but she shouldn't have to work so hard at it, and I shouldn't have to spend time wondering what it means. It's all too damned complicated. I wanna be me, and want her to be her.

I've known her for years, and she is a nice lady, but she's, uh, volatile. Yeah, that's the right word. Margaret is a nice lady with nitroglycerin inside. I like the nice part, and I think I can handle the nitro now and then, because that's Maggie. It gets scary when she's nice for too long, though. It makes me want to put on safety gear.

Also, damn, my throat hurts. A lot.

♦ ♦ ♦

FRIDAY — Unable to keep my throat lubricated and Aspergummed overnight, it was unthinkably agonizing by the time I awoke from perhaps four hours of fitful sleep. As mentioned before, there's no sick leave where I work, so hi-ho hi-ho it's off to work I go. Soon as I mentioned my misery, my work neighbors rolled their chairs toward the other end of the office. "It sounds like strep! Keep away from me…"

So I called Kaiser Permanente, and told them I'd been diagnosed by co-workers. "Strep" was the magic word on the phone — it was going to be a 3- to 5-week wait for an appointment, but when I said "strep" they told me to rush in and see the doctor at once.

When I got there, Dr Doogie again didn't ask me to open my mouth and didn't take a throat culture, but he did write a prescription for an antibiotic. Thanks again, Boy Wonder.

Question: If they don't even examine my throat or take a culture, why did I have to come in to the doctor's office? They could've ordered the prescription over the phone. Answer: If I don't come in, then I don't have to pay a co-pay I can't afford. So "come see the doctor" wasn't about my throat, it was about the co-pay.

Anyway, doc says I'm contagious as hell, so I didn't go back to work, and I called and cancelled my date with Maggie for tomorrow. And now I am grumpy. See, I've never had strep throat, so to me it's like gout or the clap — a disease I've heard of but know nothing about and wouldn't recognize. You'd think a doctor might recognize the symptoms, though.

Being sick and sad, of course the best thing to do is go to a movie, so I caught the matinee of Speed at the Presidio Theater, courteously seated off to the side, a safe distance from everyone else. And then two tweedy college-age kids came in late and sat right behind me, talking too loud. Every time they talked I turned toward them and coughed without covering my mouth. Have a nice weekend, boys.

A good action movie needs to be preposterous, have a sense of humor. Speed is indeed preposterous, and Keanu Reeves is pretty, but he doesn't have enough wisecracks to make it funny. Heck, he missed two snappy retorts that came to me instantly, so maybe the scriptwriter wanted us to take it all seriously?

It was fairly exciting, though, and I wasn't feeling sleepy enough to nap, so I went to the Paramount for Roman Holiday, a classic romance I'd somehow never seen before. It's splendid, even with no sex, no cussin', no smart-aleck teenagers, and no happy ending.

SATURDAY — My strep throat still hurts a lot, and I'm still sucking cough drops and chewing toxic amounts of Aspergum. Doc couldn't give me something for the pain? The antibiotics are working, but barely and slowly.

Called Maggie again, instead of seeing her, because — hello? — I'm sick and contagious and all. She's still being nice, which is still off-putting, and I still feel weird for being off-put. We had a short conversation, because talking on the phone hurts my throat.

Then I saw a double-feature at the U.C. Theater in Berkeley: And Now For Something Completely Different and Monty Python and the Holy Grail — two movies I'd seen before, but they weren't as funny as I'd remembered. Maybe it's because the there were only seven people in the theater. Maybe it's because the theater is run down, smells funky, and is generally a depressing space. Or maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset for comedy.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — Another nice phone call with Maggie, who flies home tomorrow. She lived in Seattle when we knew each other, but now her home is in the wild prairie lands of eastern Washington, in a small apartment complex, which she says is several miles from the nearest small town.

"I'm a country girl," she told me on the phone. Subtext: She's declining my invitation to stay with me in San Francisco.

"I'll be here," I said in response. Subtext: My invitation stands, because god knows I'm not going anywhere, ever.

I mean, take a look at me. There's nobody who'd want to get close to this hunk of flab and flatulence. There's been no other woman in my life in the 3+ years since Margaret and I were sort-of dating, and there's no-one on the horizon, no back-up plan, nobody I'd even consider asking out, and certainly nobody who'd say yes.

So Maggie and I are finished, probably, but I don't think it'll take me long to recover. It might take me longer to recover from the strep. She's someone I like, maybe borderline love, but she gets on my nerves, and she's actually been violent lately. Maybe it's for the best if she's a memory.

♦ ♦ ♦

There'll be plenty of time to be sad later, but now I'm going to BART under the water for another double-feature at the U.C., Scaramouche and Ivanhoe.

♦ ♦ ♦

And I'm back five hours later, after two terrific action-adventures. I didn't infect anyone at the theater, because there were only three other people and I sat nowhere near them. I like being nowhere near people. It feels normal. It feels like the rest of my life.

♦ ♦ ♦

I forgot to take my evening antibiotic, and two hours later my throat is as painful as it's ever been, and it's been painful since Wednesday. Not sure how I can afford not to go to work tomorrow, but I'm not going to work tomorrow.

♦ ♦ ♦

MONDAY — Here's a new breakthrough in modern health care: I stayed home in bed and didn't go to the movies today, mostly because there was nothing particularly interesting playing at any of the remaining theaters that show old movies (RIP, Strand). And also because I'm just generally blue.

I napped, took my antibiotics, read a good book, and started a second one. My throat is feeling better. I know you were worried.

♦ ♦ ♦

Margaret is in the air right now, flying back to Washington. I didn't see her off at the airport, but we said goodbye on the phone. We both said we'd call again soon, but 'soon' is amorphous, like Maggie and me, and I think we're over. I can't repair her, while I'm broken myself.

A week ago this morning was the last time we saw each other, maybe ever. I didn't know that at the time, but now it feels like it was obvious.

With Maggie gone, probably forever, the next special guest star will be my mother, who's arriving on Friday.

Mom knows 12-year-old me better than anyone in the world, but she doesn't know the 'me' I am now, and that's mostly been my choice. I keep my distance, literally in this case, because, well, Mom is a little much.

My complaints are minor, though. Fate certainly could've dealt me a mother much worse, and she and Pop raised me well. We just don't have much in common beyond the shared memories.

She's devoutly Christian, but to me God is only a fairy tale, and not even a fun fairy tale like Little Red Riding Hood.

We disagree about everything that matters to me — what's funny and what's not, what matters and what doesn't, politics, non-religion, right and wrong, civil rights, welfare, war, drugs, premarital sex, or any kind of sex, and the list goes on and on.

And Mom is — what's a polite word? — inquisitive. She always wants to know more than I want to tell, and she's not an impartial observer of me: She has an opinion on everything I do, keeps nothing to herself, and she has a natural knack for using whatever inside knowledge she has about me to make me feel guilty or embarrassed.

You want examples? In every phone call planning her visit, my mom has found a way to bring up ex-girlfriends of mine, and my weight, and that I dropped out of high school, and something or other stupid that I did as an adolescent or in my 20s, and her Republican politics, and how much she misses me, and that I should call more often … And why did you leave Seattle? And are you dating anyone in San Francisco? And are you safe from all the AIDS going around?

That's why I don't call very often.

You want more examples? Well, check back in a week, after my mom has visited and left. I'm pretty sure she'll make me mental while she's here.

... My own backstory, for those who aren't me: In 1991, I left Seattle with nowhere to go, and surprised myself by settling in San Francisco. I thought I'd end up in Los Angeles, but L.A. turned out to be boring, and boring is what I wanted to get away from.

Since moving to SF, I've made almost no effort to keep in touch with Mom, or with anyone else in my family, or anyone from that life. Nothing personal against the people left behind. Some of them are terrific and none of them are monsters, but leaving them behind was the point. I wanted to start over from scratch.

Here I am, three years later, and it's an improvement. I'm not happy, but I'm happ_ier_ than I was.

… Doc Hoswer says I'm not contagious any more, and I felt well enough to go to work today. I sit next to a guy named Louie, one of those rare people who doesn't annoy the hell out of me. He's the closest thing I have to a friend in San Francisco, so today we talked about my mom's visit and how I'm almost dreading it.

Louie says I'm keeping too many secrets from my mom. "It reminds me," he said, "of when I came out to my mother. She wasn't even shocked. She just said, 'Well, of course you're gay, we all know that. Pass the lasagna'." I should come out to my mom, says Louie, not as gay since I'm not, but as who I am.

I haven't kept our differences a secret from Mom, but I always instinctively change the subject when she invades my mental or personal turf. I don't want to hurt her feelings, and I don't want her stomping on mine, but maybe I should stop sidestepping stuff. Let my freak flag fly, as the kids say these days. If Mom can handle it, great, and if she can't handle it that's her problem.

Well, that's what Louie suggests, anyway. Is he right? I think he's right. Maybe he's right. Maybe whatever nosy questions my mother asks, I should give her an absolutely honest answer — or at least a warning that I'll give an honest answer if she wants one. I don't think her response would be, 'Pass the lasagna,' but I ought to give her the chance.

I've given her chances in the past, of course. I've opened up with her now and then, and always regretted it. But maybe she's changed. Maybe I've changed. Maybe we've both changed. Maybe neither of us have changed, and maybe I was nuts to agree to this visit. I guess we'll find out on Friday.

… Tonight's dinner came in a bag from McDonald's. Lukewarm crap on a sesame-seed bun, with fries and a triple-thin, watery strawberry shake. It was the first meal I've eaten in a week without wincing in pain every time I swallowed. My uvula remains swollen, however.

Uvula is a cool word. It sounds sexy, doesn't it? Uvula wasn't in my vocabulary until some lady in Doc Howser's office said uvula to me on the phone. I looked it up afterwards. You should look it up, too, and then we can all say uvula to each other. Uvula, uvula, uvula.

Added up what I spent for Doc Howser's medical inexpertise, and the price tag was too much. Monthly payments to Kaiser Permanente since February, plus a co-pay both times he actually saw me, adds up to hundreds of dollars, not even counting the prescription. For that price I could've seen an adult MD, without insurance, who might have asked me to open my mouth, and diagnosed strep throat on the first visit, not the second.

Here's how your fate gets thrown to the wind: If Doc Howser would've looked inside my mouth, he might have diagnosed my strep on the first visit, two days earlier. I'd have started my regimen of antibiotics two days earlier, so I probably would have recovered two days earlier. I would've seen Margaret at least once more before she left, and maybe we would've had the open-heart conversation I'd hoped we'd have. Maybe we would've kissed, with skyrockets and fireworks in the background and a score by John Williams. Maybe Maggie & I would've lived happily ever after.

You really fucked things up, Howser.

WEDNESDAY — Relaxing in bed with a good book, I had to go baffwoom. Here's how that works, at a residential hotel: You can pee in the sink if you're a man, and I usually do and usually am, but for doody duty the toilets are down the hall, shared by everyone on your floor.

Both stalls were occupied, so I went up to the next floor, the book in one hand and a roll of TP in the other.

As I was grunting and groaning, music was in the air — fabulous piano boogie, jumping into my ears. There's never been musical accompaniment before, so when I'd finished and flushed I followed the sound of music toward an open window at the other end of the hall.

I couldn't see where the sound was coming from, so I stuck my head out the window, stretched my neck off my shoulders like Elastic Lad, and in a tiny window in the next building down the street, I saw the back of a piano, moving just barely with every downbeat. Couldn't see the pianist's face or fingers, so man or woman, black or white, I'll never know.

The soundtrack at a slum hotel is usually people screaming at each other, or the neighbor's too-loud TV, so this beebopping music was a treat. I didn't watch for long because it hurt my neck, but I stood at the window and listened for a while, tapping my toes, reading my book, and wondering how anyone gets a piano into a residential hotel room.

Among the drunks and winos and unemployed and me in this hotel, culture doesn't happen often, and I didn't want it to end. Was anyone else enjoying this, I wondered? An old, almost bald black man in a tee-shirt and boxer shorts stepped out of his room, carrying TP. He walked past me without eye contact, and into the john.

The music continued, and after a rousing version of the theme from Perry Mason, I applauded alone out the window. Then the old black guy walked past wordlessly in the other direction, and into his room.

I stayed at the window, reading and occasionally clapping, until the piano player stopped. Waited for more music, but the show was apparently over. I poked my head out the window again and shouted, "You play good piano, whoever you are."

Silence was the only response.

Then a guy with too many tattoos and an unlit cigar in his lips walked by without a word and without looking at me. No eye contact and minimal talking is the unwritten rule, here at the hotel.

♦ ♦ ♦

THURSDAY — After a boring day at work, I came home and started proofing and editing the month of June. I'll type a few more paragraphs, hit the 'print' button, and then the typewriter will type by itself, taking about two minutes per page. While it clacks, I'll make some sandwich spread sandwiches on white bread and watch In Living Color.

And that's a wrap. Pathetic Life #1 has come to its pathetic conclusion. Was it good for you?

I thought about mailing a copy to Margaret, but now that she and I seem to be finished, that would be mean, wouldn't it? I'm not mean to people that I like.

So there's no-one on the mailing list except a few zinesters, and of course, Factsheet 5, the zine that reviews zines. If they give Pathetic Life a good review, someone somewhere might send for a copy. Tomorrow morning I'll sneak into work early, and run off twenty copies.

Whether Pathetic Life is a hit or a flop, I've already decided that there will be second issue. Expect more monotony just like the first issue, because c'est la vie (such is life). Writing about it sort of deadens the dullness, and gives me something to do besides endless old movies and masturbation. Maybe the zine is another, less sticky way to masturbate.

If you want to see my #2, send $3 or the usual to the address below, and get your head examined.

Addendum, 2021: As filler for half a page at the back of the zine, I listed twenty upcoming movies off the calendars from the local repertory cinemas, from A Woman Under the Influence at the Red Victorian on 7/10/1994, to Drunken Master and Drunken Master II at the UC Theater on 9/8/1994. Yeah, I was into old movies (still am).

And under my list of movies, here's a paragraph I'd forgotten entirely:

I'll probably go to most of these movies, and you're invited too, so long as you don't eat all my popcorn, and don't talk after the lights go down. If you'd rather dine in splendor, meet me at the Sincere Cafe, on 16th Street near Valencia. Call for reservations, or just show up and look for the fat ugly white guy picking his nose.

The address was a drop box I'd rented to handle zine-related mail, and after the address, my telephone number. Wow. I hadn't remembered being that open, or that desperate. In 1994, I was not only photocopying my diary and mailing it to strangers, I was inviting people I didn't know to meet me for a meal or a movie — or call me, any time.

If you're wondering, that offer has expired.