This is a long entry, because it was originally four entries. It's all one story from one weekend, though, so let's get it over with. Grab a beer and make yourself more comfortable than I was the whole weekend.

After moving from Seattle to Frisco in 1991, I lost contact with my family because I'm an awful human being that way. Then Dad died, and I was so far out of touch that Mom had to ask the US Social Security Administration if they had my address. SSA forwarded her letter to me, which seems both very sweet and mildly creepy. By the time I got the letter, I'd missed Dad's funeral.

Since then I've been a better boy and remained in touch, calling home once in a while. Why, I even wrote a letter to my mom, once. And now, she's invited herself to visit, and I figured why not? It's just one weekend. Even Mom can't drive me crazy that quick … can she?

So my mom was here in San Francisco (or more accurately, the east bay suburbs) for the weekend just passed, and we didn't make each other nuts or anything. This will be a heartwarming story if I write it right, but also a long story, so grab a beer. Make a sandwich. I'll wait.

♦ ♦ ♦

In our family, there's my mom, two sisters, three brothers, and everyone's assorted spouses, exes, kids, and cats and dogs and therapists. As the zine goes along, assorted aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, in-laws and ex-laws might be introduced as necessary (if you're lucky, it won't be necessary). For now, let's only introduce the immediate family. I love them each and all, but I'm an ass and this is my diary so I'm not holding back.

My dad, RIP, was a well-paid industrial scientist, and a workaholic, so we never went hungry but he always worked late and we were never close. That's my fault as much as his, though; I rarely get close to anyone. Dad was big, balding, and Republican, and always wore a pocket protector. He was smart, maybe the smartest person I've known, so his unwavering Christianity was, to me, the enduring paradox of his life. He was a good pop and a good man, though.

Mom is of the old tradition where a man is always in charge, so she was happily subservient to Dad for the 40+ years they were married. She's an extreme pack-rat with a house full of junk, and she shops at thrift stores, though with Dad's very generous life insurance payout she could afford a daily spree at Nordstrom. She's more Christian than Dad was, and Dad was no slacker at his religion. She's a good mom and a good lady, but she gets on my nerves, and I sometimes suspect it's on purpose.

My oldest sister was never quite right in the head. She married too young, divorced twice, and then became disabled from a failed suicide attempt. She's still fully cognizant inside her head, but she has great difficulty speaking, and it's hard to understand what she says. She lives in a nursing home, and yeah, it's tragic.

My other sister is smart, funny, and kooky in a good way. She's widowed and has two children, a 20-something stoner son, and a smart, sassy teenaged daughter who I suspect is a lesbian. My sister is now "living in sin" (Mom never forgets to use that term) with a new boyfriend I've never met. She makes me laugh, and she might be the only person in the family who doesn't seem to judge me harshly.

My oldest brother is Clay. We were best buddies when we were young, but as young adults Clay's faith in God grew stronger while mine was withering away. Now we're not so close. Over the years he's matured into a family man with a Christian perspective on life and a wholesome sense of humor, and I'm none of the above.

Karen is his second wife, and she's very much his match. They met at church, and I'm guessing they talked a lot about Jesus on their first date, because they still do. They have two sons, both young enough to be cute like they're from a Disney movie. (Clay and Karen are the only ones who get names in my coverage here, because they'll be part of this weekend's story.)

My next brother is mysterious. He's very Christian like Mom and Clay, and he's a music teacher when he can be, but makes his living making bricks at a factory. He's very extroverted (my opposite in that regard) and he probably has more friends than the total number of people whose names I know. He spent some years in prison, but nobody in the family — including him — is willing to talk about why. I have my guess, but it's only a guess.

My youngest brother, two years older than me, was placed with juvenile authorities when he was young, after an ugly incident we all avoid mentioning. My family keeps its secrets, and I guess I'll keep the secret too, since I'll say no more about it here. As an adult, his life has been a cycle of arrest, imprisonment, parole, and then arrest, imprisonment, parole, etc. At the moment, Mom says he's awaiting trial for stealing a car.

So that's my family. Most of them are a little bonkers, and some are a lot bonkers, but being bonkers myself I don't hold it against them.

♦ ♦ ♦

Mom seems much the same as when I last saw her, three years ago — she's still a sweet old lady. Her hair has gotten grayer, and she's more endearing and less annoying than I'd remembered. Maybe she's mellowed, or maybe I have, or most likely she's just easier to take in a three-day dose on rare occasions, than when I lived two miles away, saw her once or twice every week, and there was always a message from her on my answering machine.

It was splendid seeing her over the weekend, but with an asterisk. Mom does most of the talking, to say the least, which is all she lets me say. She told me what everyone in the family is up to, and I care, honestly, even about my nephew who got arrested for drunk driving, even about my cousin's bad roller-skating accident, even about my aunt's hysterectomy that had no complications but still took twenty minutes for Mom to narrate to me.

I care somewhat less, though, when the stories are from outside the family, like my brother's fifth-grade teacher's divorce, and my uncle's brother-in-law's fishing trip, and Mom's neighbor's father's cancer, and her pastor's friend's cat that went missing for a week, and on and on and on. I was tremendously disinterested in those stories, but I listened like the good kid I never really was.

Mom asked some too-personal questions, about girlfriends and would-be wives in my past, and "Have any guests stayed overnight in your room?" I took my pal Louie's advice and answered Mom's questions honestly, or frightened her away by promising to answer honestly if she really wanted an answer. Luckily for both of us, she decided to un-ask most of her more difficult questions.

Several times Mom invited me to come back to Seattle with her, stay at her apartment for a few weeks or months or years or forever, so I could see all the relatives and friends and everyone else I'd left behind. I said maybe, which means no. I did not explain that the purpose of leaving was to leave, or that bringing me back would require handcuffs.

Mom lives in an apartment now, because after Dad died the huge house where I grew up was too big, too empty, and too full of memories. But she hasn't sold that big old house. Instead she's turned it into a homeless shelter, by giving use (but not ownership) of the house to a charity that helps destitute families. Strangers down on their luck now live in the house where I grew up — probably in my bedroom! Not only is this a damned heroic thing to do, it's also something I'm not sure my Dad would approve of — and I know that our neighbors would disapprove — so, way to go, Mom!

That's the big picture of Mom's weekend visit. Now, let's get into the details:

Friday —

On Friday my Mum landed at Oakland Airport, but I was waiting to meet her at the San Francisco Airport. Such a fun afternoon that was. I stood in the crowded lobby looking up at the readerboards, but I couldn't find her flight, because her flight was arriving thirty miles away. I don't drive, so I took transit (bus, BART, and another bus) to get from one airport to the other, while worrying about a 62-year-old woman, on her own in a strange city.

The World Cup is nothing compared to the kicks I gave myself that night, because the whole screw-up was my fault. She'd told me on the phone, "My flight lands at 1:15," but she didn't say which airport and I never thought to ask. It never occurred to me that someone flying to San Francisco would land at Oakland Airport. So I was an hour and a half late picking her up, but Mom was OK and not even angry. When I found her, she was talking about Jesus with some airport proselytizers.

(In my defense I'll say, I came to San Francisco in my van. I've never flown to or from San Francisco, and in three years living here, Maggie last month was my very first visitor, and Mom was my second. So I don't have any experience with the airports or with hosting anyone in San Fran.)

We BARTed to Mom's hotel in Walnut Creek, where I stayed with her for three days. Walnut Creek is a stucco suburb many miles east of San Francisco. And why would someone visiting San Francisco stay way out in the 'burbs? For that I have no answer. If it was up to me, I would've gotten her a short-stay room at my residential hotel in the city, or at a less roachy but more expensive hotel nearby. It wasn't my decision, though.

Anyway, because of me going to the wrong airport, we were running quite late, and Friday afternoon became Friday evening, as Mom and I rode BART to Walnut Creek. It was the first time I'd seen her since Dad died, so our conversation was all about Dad. I cried a little, and Mom cried a lot.

She's still in mourning. I was and still am greatly saddened by Dad's death, but it undoubtedly hit Mom much harder. Maybe harder than I can imagine — for longer than I've been alive, she spent every day of her life with him, raised six kids and built her whole existence around him. Of course it's terribly traumatic for her to go on without him. Many tears were wiped away, with many hugs and many memories about Dad, on the train, and in our six-block walk from the BART station to the hotel.

At the hotel, they had our reservation wrong. It was supposed to be one room with two beds, but they had us down for one room with one bed — jeez, I don't want to get that close to my mother. The desk clerk acted like it was our fault and our problem, and only when I got gruff did he switch us to a room with separate beds. Once we were finally checked in, we called out for pizza and talked about Dad until lights out. Mom cried a lot, I cried a little, and then we hugged and went to bed.

I couldn't sleep, so after Mom started snoring I turned on the TV with the volume real low, and got a minor surprise. Walnut Creek isn't just a boring forty-minute BART ride from San Francisco to nowhere. Maybe because of mountains or maybe they get a discount from the cable company, but all the TV stations were from Sacramento, not San Francisco. So I watched unfamiliar newscasters on Channel 3, instead of my favorites, Dennis Richmond and Elaine Corral on Channel 2.

Saturday —

Friday had been fairly normal but Saturday started getting strange. Mom and I had Breakfast Jacks for breakfast, and our family thanks God for every meal, so Mom said grace at the plastic table before we unwrapped our sandwiches. It was a long grace, and her eyes were closed so I wanted to get a head start unwrapping, but they use really crinkly paper so I had to wait.

The Breakfast Jack at Jack in the Crack is, without a doubt, the finest morning meal yet invented in Fast Food America. Ham, egg, cheese, bun. No condiments necessary (though I like to add catsup). I had five Breakfast Jacks.

While we ate, Mom brought out a large plastic bag filled with photos of all the nieces, nephews, and strangers in the world. Soon she had pictures spread across the table, and by the time every photo had been narrated to me, morning was over and we'd sat in that booth at Jack in the Box for a little less than four hours, but it felt much longer.

I was hungry for lunch, so I bought us Jack in the Box burgers and fries to go, and we returned to the hotel. After lunch Mom sang hymns at me for an hour and a half. She had packed a hymnal, for God's sake, literally. She wanted me to sing along, so for some of the songs I sang along. Mom really wants me to be a Christian, and singing "How Great Thou Art" put a smile on her face, so what the hell.

I tried to engage her in a philosophical discussion about the words to "Onward Christian Soldiers," but Mom would not be philosophically engaged. You'd think a Christian in the 20th Century might be embarrassed to sing a song that glorifies the Crusades, when Catholic warriors killed countless Muslims, Jews, non-Catholic Christians, and probably anyone else who seemed in any way unusual. Nope, no embarrassment. "It's one of my favorites hymns," Mom said, and sang it again.

At about 2:00 on Saturday afternoon, we (finally!) walked to the station and BARTed into the city, where we did typical tourist things in Chinatown, shopping and gawking and eating dinner. We also talked about Dad, so there was more crying.

After we'd eaten, Mom stopped at a phone booth and looked up the address of a local church of her denomination. I didn't even know what she was flipping through the pages for, until she said, "And this is where we'll go to church tomorrow."

Oh, you think I'm going to church? Let the guilt tripping begin, but seriously, church schmurch. I haven't been inside a church in many years. It's all so blessed irrelevant to me, but I suddenly saw the error of my ways:

It was Saturday night. Come Sunday morning, Mom would need to go to church, because Sunday is "the Lord's Day" and she never misses church. She would need my bus and BART expertise to get to whatever church she wanted to attend, so I'd have to accompany her on the train. And once we'd reached her destination then — we'd be going to church together.

Mom always goes to church on Sunday. Always. I was born in the early morning hours on a Sunday, and Mom likes to brag that she was at our church for services later that same morning. I've never known whether that's true or she's violating the ninth commandment for fun, but the point is: My mom never misses church, and she'd planned her trip to San Francisco so she'd be here on Sunday morning.

It was the perfect trap. Arrrrgh, why hadn't I seen this coming?

Still at the phone booth, Mom asked what I think about Jesus Christ. I told her I don't think about Christ much at all. His name is often on my lips, but not in a way Mom would like. I didn't say that, though. We disagreed about me going to church the next day, but without really arguing, and without reaching any consensus.

We didn't talk much on the BART ride back to Walnut Creek, because my mind was spinning. I didn't want to go to church when I was 15 years old, but I had to, because I was fifteen years old. Well, I am no longer 15 years old, so I don't go to church — that's one of the perks of being a grown-up.

And I emphatically did not want to go to church the next day. I'm not a Christian, so why would I go to church?

For my mom, that's why. I looked out the window as the train rolled along, signed over-dramatically, and decided I was going to church the next morning. God damn it. I told myself I wouldn't close my eyes and pretend to pray, wouldn't put any money in the collection plate, but I'd politely sit through a sermon without snickering. For you, Mom. Damn it.

Once decided, I began to dread it. The worship service would be the easy part, actually. The hard part would be Sunday School before church, or whatever they call Sunday School for adults — sitting in a small room with a bunch of strangers, Bibles open, everyone super-sociably sharing scriptures and trading Christian cliches, and everyone shaking my hand and asking, "What church do you usually attend?" and "How long has Jesus been living in your heart?" I don't even know how to spell "ay yi yi" but I was living it. Could I endure a couple of hours in a church without either laughing or losing my mind or punching someone?

Look, I respect freedom of religion. If you want to worship Christ on a cross, or worship a pile of pine cones, you absolutely should have that right. And if I don't want to worship anything, I should have that right, too. I have less important things to do on a Sunday morning than … what I knew I'd be doing the next morning. But I'd be there. I'd been snookered by my mother, and by Jesus.

♦ ♦ ♦

On our walk from BART back to the hotel, Mom and I talked about Dad. She cried a lot, and I cried a little, and at the hotel she gave me a very special gift: a videotape of my father's funeral.

Now, this may seem rude and if so, my apologies, but — I don't want to watch a video of my father's funeral. I didn't say that to my mom, but I did tell her that I don't own a VCR so I can't watch it (which was a lie). Mom thoughtfully promised to make an audiotape of the videotape, and said she'd mail me the cassette. I said thanks, but didn't say that I also don't want to listen to my father's funeral.

I've already said that I didn't know about it when my father died, because I hadn't told anyone in my family my address or telephone number. If I had known of Dad's death, I would've given everyone hugs and spent time with the family, but I wouldn't have attended the funeral. No disrespect for Dad; I just hate funerals. We all grieve in our own ways, and my way doesn't involve sitting through an organized memorial service.

When I was in high school, I went to a friend's funeral — a teenaged girl who'd given up Christianity, became a Buddhist, and died of breast cancer before she was old enough to vote. It was a Christian service, not Buddhist, because her family was Christian. The funeral was for them, not for her. The girl I knew, the funeral's guest of honor, wasn't there. She wasn't even invited. All the kind words spoken weren't about her. They decided to remember the girl they'd hoped she'd be, instead of the girl she was.

And then, years later, my brother-in-law died. He was an absolute atheist who'd had a major impact on my thinking about religion, but like that other funeral, his service was all-Christian, all the way through. The pastor started the service by announcing that although my brother-in-law had made mistakes in his religious life, he'd come to the pastor just days before his sudden death, to tell him he'd "recommitted to Christ." And that's bullshit, and that's the last funeral I've attended, or ever will, until my own (which, by the way, I don't want, but I know my family so what I want won't matter).

Most of what I think about funerals I've told my mom — not this weekend, because it seemed inappropriate, but I've told her in the past. Funerals suck and I don't want one so cremate me please, with no service, or just mince me up to feed the fishies.

And also, about that videotape: I've never heard of videotaping a funeral. Is that something people do nowadays? Would you pop a tape into your VCR to watch a loved one's funeral a second or third time or tenth time, like it's Star Wars? I loved my dad, and I have almost nothing bad to say about him, but videotaping his funeral seems morbidly bizarre to me.

♦ ♦ ♦

Mom also gave me another special gift: eight pairs of Dad's underwear, four pairs of his socks, two pairs of pants, two pairs of shoes, two shirts, his suspenders, and one of Dad's bow-ties. Without asking me whether I wanted this stuff, she'd packed an extra suitcase, to bring hand-me-downs from Dad, and she gave me the suitcase, too.

The bow-tie is a wonderful memento of my father. He wore suits to work five days a week and suits to church on Sundays, but he rarely wore neckties. He was a bow-tie guy. It's a little quirk he had, and I always liked his bow-ties. This one is blue with polka dots. I rarely wear ornaments around my neck, but I'd rather wear a bow than a noose, so I'm keeping the bow-tie. Thanks, Mom. And thanks, Dad.

Most of the rest of these clothes, though, I'll be giving to Goodwill. The pants don't fit, and I remember Dad wearing both these shirts so I'd never wear either, and the socks are fine but they're knee-highs and I prefer shorter socks. I am wearing my dad's underwear, though, as I type this two days later. It's odd to carry my gonads in the same shorts that carried Dad's, but I was a little low on underwear, and these are comfy and mostly unstained.

Sunday —

I barely slept, awoke at dawn, and read a book I'd brought, but mostly I worried about how awful the morning was going to be — going to church. I was hoping the congregants would be shy and aloof, like me, so I wouldn't have to shake everyone's hands and tell too many lies. Hoping the pastor wouldn't ask all the newcomers to introduce themselves. Hoping Mom wouldn't find a way to wangle an invitation to someone's house for dinner after the services. I was hoping, but not praying.

And yeah, I was going to lie. Inside a church, even if someone asks me point blank, I'm not saying I'm not a believer. I'm a rude bastard in many situations, but I'm not going to crap on anyone's religion while I'm in their church, so I'd decided to play the role. I would be the church-going man. I would simply, quietly, and politely endure. I'm tough, I can take it.

Mom kept sleeping, and I kept reading my book. 8:00. We'd been up pretty late the night before. 9:00. There was an alarm clock on the night stand, but she hadn't set it. 10:00. I was getting my hopes up. Finally, at a little before 11:00, Mom began to stir, and I put the book down and pretended to be asleep.

"This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." That's my mom's favorite Bible verse, and it was the first thing she said when she woke up. Then she saw the clock, and saw that, sadly, we'd slept too late. At the church she'd wanted to take me to, the service was already underway. Mom was disappointed, and I should've felt guilty for letting her sleep so late. But I didn't.

She said it was the first time she'd missed church since her appendectomy, circa 1985. "It must have been God's will," I said, but to me it was a win-win situation: I'd earned Mom-Points because I'd agreed to go to church, but I didn't actually have to go. Ha, ha! And then, Mom pulled out her hymnal and sang more church songs at me, and we watched a sermon on Sacramento TV.

After the TV sermon and a mini-sermon from Mom, we BARTed into the city, and talked about Dad on the way. We ate lunch at the Powell Street McDonald's, and talked about Dad. We walked around Union Square, and talked about Dad. I cried a little, Mom cried a lot, and I gave her several big hugs.

Clay's family was due to join us that evening, so we didn't have time to do much more in the city. Instead we bounced back to BART for another long ride to Walnut Creek, where Clay and Karen and their kids were waiting at the hotel when we arrived. Mom's visit had been planned to coincide with their vacation to California, and she'd be leaving with Clay's family on Monday morning.

Clay and Karen and the kids had checked into a room down the hall, and we all said hello and hugged and talked about old times, and about Dad, and then they wanted to have a Bible study in their hotel room.

Clay and Karen are good people, and I love 'em, so I want to say this kindly, respectfully. They're on a family vacation with their two young boys, and they brought their Bibles. They study their Bibles in the morning, and in the evening — even on their vacation. Other than each other and maybe their kids, God is the most important thing in their lives. This was our first time seeing each other in years, but God was what they most wanted to talk about — and I simply don't speak that language. When Mom went with Clay and Karen and their kids to have a Bible session in their room, I excused myself and read a newspaper on the bed until Ephesians was over.

Their boys are cute, polite, and well-behaved. I think the older kid liked me, but the younger one is too young to remember me from three years ago, and he was unsure about this fat stranger. During our few minutes of conversation, both of the kids twice changed the subject to Jesus/church/the Beatitudes/etc. I won't say that it made me sad, but it made me sigh.

The six of us had a late dinner at some chain restaurant nearby, where the service was all right, the food was all right, and the customers and staff were all white. The overwhelming whiteness made me uncomfortable. I'm white too, but not that white, and I live in a place where white is part of a mosaic. Walnut Creek is like an unpainted canvas.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel. Karen put the kids to bed, and then the grown-ups talked for a while, about books and baseball, and kids and careers, and oh yes, about Jesus. Mom talked about Dad, so we all cried a little, and Mom cried a lot. I gave her another big hug.

As we talked about old memories, future plans, and absent relatives, together in that hotel room and together in our hearts, it was a good feeling. We are still a family. More hugs all around, and then I read my book while everyone else shared a good night prayer.

Monday —

Clay's clan got up at 7:00 for devotions together, and Mom joined them. I didn't, but I heard the hymns through the wall. "Nearer My God, To Thee." "Come thou fount of every blessing." "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." All the greatest hits. Then they loaded their luggage into the car, and everyone said their goodbyes.

Waving, I watched Mom roll away in the station wagon, with Clay and Karen and the kids. Destination Disneyland, and the rest of their vacation. I'm supposed to see them all again on their way back to Seattle, next Sunday, and I'm looking forward to it. But Christ, I hope it doesn't include church.

♦ ♦ ♦

I spent about half the day writing my entries for July 1, 2, and 3, and spent the second half of the day sprawled across my bed, wearing only Dad's underwear, farting and napping and reading zines.

It's Independence Day, and it's nice to have my independence back. Nice to not be on BART for an hour. Nice to be in San Francisco, not in Walnut Creek. Nice to be in this tiny, roach-infested room at the rez hotel. I love my mom, love my family, but I also love being alone, doing whatever the hell I want to do, and not hearing anything about Jesus.

The highlight of my otherwise tedious day was when Judy, a co-worker, told me about her Fourth of July weekend. To be fair, I had asked, but it was just a nicety. The only answer I'd wanted was, "It was fine."

Instead she recited some earnest platitudes about America and patriotism and How Important It Is. "It's more than just flags and firecrackers," she informed me. "It's a day to ponder the real meaning of America."

Wise people say politics and religion shouldn't be discussed at work, but sometimes it's fun to go spelunking through the empty clichés, so I asked, "What's the real meaning of America, Judy?" I had to ask twice and add "seriously" before she answered.

"America is about freedom, democracy, standing up to tyranny." Clichés again, so I asked her to tell me more.

She looked at me like I'm nuts, which I am of course, and she asked, "Aren't you proud to be an American?"

I had to think about that, and she didn't like the silence. She scowled and shook her head and walked away before I'd answered. And I was glad to see her go. Nobody wants a big old hairy argument in the office, so I sat down and got on with my boring work, but Judy's question simmered in my head all day.

Am I proud to be an American?

I'm lucky to be an American, that's for sure. There are many far worse countries, but being an American was an accident of my birth. I can't take pride in a house I don't own and didn't build, especially when the roof leaks and the porch squeaks and the carpet is rotting.

Is America all about freedom, democracy, standing up to tyranny?

I … really don't think so.

If America is about freedom, why are so many Americans locked up for "crimes" that harmed nobody? When cocaine and prostitution and gay marriage and an unlicensed cocker spaniel are all as legal as cherry coke and holding hands, then America will be about freedom.

Maybe America is about democracy, and 49 people being ruled by 51 is indeed an improvement over 51 ruled by 49. That's democracy, and I respect it in principle, but in practice everything seems much more about money than votes. I'm not sure it's worth all the firecrackers.

And if America is about standing up to tyranny, we wouldn't have fought a war to return Kuwait to its rightful tyrant, and we wouldn't be repatriating refugees to certain death in Haiti, and we wouldn't have bombed the hell out of Vietnam and Cambodia, and etc, etc.

And "we" didn't do those gawdawful things — scoundrels in America's White House did, with help from scoundrels in Congress, and all the scoundrels running the military-industrial complex. That isn't "we," when they're doing ghastly, abhorrent things that (hopefully) you and (definitely) I would never do.

So I'm sorry, Judy. I don't give politics and patriotism much thought in my day-to-day life, but when I do, it doesn't make me proud. It usually makes me angry.

The people at work (and the work) were getting on my nerves, so I snuck out early, and I'll get away with it so long as my boss doesn't subscribe to the zine. Now I'm back in my 'apartment', which is actually just a room with a sink and a lot of roaches, shared bathroom down the hall, in a low-rent residential hotel.

It ain't much but it's home. I'm naked on the bed, watching a Korean soap opera on TV, reading a comic book, typing this drivel, and spending quality time with my favorite person: me.

I keep my distance from most people who aren't me. Most of them are assholes if you get to know them, so I rarely take the trouble. I'm a solitary dude, and an asshole myself, of course.

Things that annoy me include television and people who watch it, but I'm watching TV right now. I also hate neckties and people who wear them, "family values" and people who think they know what that means, anyone who thinks and acts exactly as they're told, people who splash on perfume or cologne by the gallon, gringos who say 'Meh-hee-co', and I especially hate people who whine about all the things that annoy them. Don't you just hate that?

So why am I sharing my diary with strangers? Why would a hermit type up his innermost thoughts, then photocopy and share it with anyone who sends three bucks or the usual?

Because treating my typewriter as a friend is the next best thing to having a friend. It's less expensive than a therapist. The typewriter doesn't ask any questions I'd rather not answer, doesn't get antsy when I'm at a loss for words, doesn't get offended if I stay away for a few days, or if I belch or scratch my 'nads.

Despite my misanthropy, I yearn for contact with others of my tribe, but my tribe appears to be extinct, or close to it. You never know, though. Maybe I write the way you think, and maybe you're thinking of writing me. Hey, why be shy? The worst I'd do is not answer your letter.

Solitude is my preferred way of life, but sometimes it does get awfully quiet. "He hasn't a friend in the world," goes the cliché. That's not quite true of me, but it's close.

Co-workers know me by name, and we talk about how insufferable the boss is, or about O J Simpson or the Giants or the weather. That's not friendship, though. That's just killing time at the office.

The strangers here in the rez hotel know my face, but not my name. We talk in the elevator, if they're capable of talking (a few of them aren't), about the price of bananas at Marquard's and whether there'll be a baseball strike. We're borderline neighborly, but that ain't friendship, either.

I've always made friends slowly, and rarely. Living in San Francisco for three years now, I've made a few shallow friendships — people to share a meal or a ball game with, but they're not people I can share myself with. And if you can't relax and really be yourself around them, are they really friends?

"He hasn't a friend in the world," seems so harsh, and I do have a friend back in Seattle. Bruno. He's the one person I've missed most since moving to California.

We've been friends since we were both lonely and introverted little kids. Now we're both lonely and introverted big fat men. We're fat because you can make up in calories what you lack in companionship.

We laugh at mostly the same things, but other than that I've never figured out what makes me and Bruno such good friends. We both love movies, but rarely the same movies. We both read a lot, but never the same things. We don't agree about much of anything, and when we're together we mostly argue — about politics, religion, day-to-day trivialities, and whatever else comes up. He likes anchovies, fer cripes sake.

There's nothing much we agree on, except our friendship. It's been three years since I've seen him, and at least two years since we last spoke on the phone. We didn't have a falling out or anything, but I moved a long ways away and I hate talking on the phone.

So while I was buying those bananas at Marquard's, I also bought a post card, and with very tiny handwriting I've squeezed these words onto the back of a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge:

Hello, old friend —
This card is a reminder of something you should never forget, that even when I'm a thousand miles away and utterly out of touch for years at a time, I shall always be your friend.
I trust you know me well enough to know that my silence augers no ill will. You're in my thoughts often, and I hope you're healthy, wealthy, and the happily married father of four by now.
As for me, I've settled for just healthy. I'm a little older, fatter, more flatulent and less dogmatic than the man you remember. Let's do lunch.

Addendum, 2021: Bruno passed away some years ago. We did do lunch, though, one last time, when I visited Seattle in the late 1990s. He was never healthy, wealthy, or married, but he was a good friend.

Also, the distance between Seattle and San Francisco is only 800 miles, not 1,000. Back then we didn't have Google to quickly look up such things.

Google has more to say: Marquard's, my favorite decrepit convenience store with a sprawling 100-year-old neon sign, locked up shop forever in 2004.

And see the 'hotel' sign, in the upper right corner of that picture? That's not the rez-hotel where I lived, but it's the rez-hotel next door, where the piano man lived.

At work today, it occurred to me just before noon that I hadn't said good morning — or anything else — to anyone. I'm the not-strong but very-silent type, and if I could go halfway through the day saying nary a word, I decided to see if I could make it mute through the entire day.

My phone never rang, and I when the 'team' line rang I let others answer it. I'm nobody important, so I didn't have any meetings scheduled. On breaks and at lunch, I never hang out with anyone; I sit at my desk and read a book. So yeah, I could do this.

The office has a high-tech messaging system that lets you type a sentence, pick a recipient, and when you hit 'send' your message pops up on that person's screen. Everyone hates it, because the arriving message nudges whatever's already on your screen down a few lines. But I didn't want to talk, so I sent a message to ask my 'lead' a work-related question.

When she came over and answered the question confusingly, I just nodded, pretending she'd made sense. She usually doesn't make much sense so I do a lot of pretending. With my question unanswered I took a guess and moved on; if my guess was wrong then the price of a certain brand of pantyhose at a certain department store might be 30¢ lower than management intended. I can live with that.

In the afternoon, a few people said hi to me in the hallway; I smiled and nodded. Someone came to my desk to ask a question; my answer was a shrug. And then, as I was logging off at the end of the day, putting on my windbreaker for the short walk to my rez hotel, Louie walked by and said "Good night" to me. Instinctively I replied, "Good night."

Damn it, I'd spoken — but it was a minute after 5:00, so I'm declaring the experiment a success: I worked an eight-hour shift without saying a word to anyone. Next challenge, let's see if I can do it again tomorrow. Or maybe all next week.

If you're a normal person, you wouldn't know about life in an SRO building, so I'll tell ya. SRO = single-room occupancy. Fifty years ago this was cheap but respectable housing for working-class people. Now it's a hobo hotel, run by someone named Patel. He makes an effort to keep the place livable, so the halls get vacuumed, the toilets get plungered when they're clogged, but the last major repairs were probably done before I was born. It's lowlife living.

Some of the people in my building are poor, like me, here for the cheap rent. Some are alcoholics or addicts, and they'd be homeless if this hotel closed. Some are mentally ill. That's not an insult, just a fact.

There's a mumbling man who lives on my floor — a white guy, maybe 50, always wearing filthy clothes, hurricane hair that's never combed. He's mentally ill or not-all-there. It's his natural state, I think, not alcohol or drug-induced. Not that I'm an expert, of course, but I think I can see the difference between booze and bonkers.

I only see this disheveled mumbling gentleman in the lobby or in the hallway, or when we both happen to be coming or going or in the men's room down the hall. He mumbles to himself, and only a fraction of his words ever make sense to me, and tell me I'm awful but I don't pay any attention to him. You can grow accustomed to anything, I guess. I notice him about as much as you'd notice the same wallpaper as yesterday and the year before. He's just there, that's all.

Today, though, he was sitting on the carpet outside the door to his room, and mumbling to himself. Always he mumbles, but never before have I seen him sitting on the floor.

"Are you locked out?" I said in my gentlest voice, like when you're speaking to a dog but not sure whether it's tame or vicious. He didn't look at me, just kept mumbling. I noticed a puddle under his pants.

I was unsure what to do. The front desk is staffed from 10AM-6PM, but it was already after 6, and anyway, I was on my way out. Calling 9-1-1 would bring the police, and police are the worst possible way to handle a head-case. Even the mellowest head-case, cops would arrest him, ruin his night and maybe beat him up — and I'm not sure he's the mellowest head-case. He looks fairly rugged.

Instead I slipped a note through the dropbox at the front desk, on my way out of the building. "The mumbly guy in room 306 might be locked out. He's sitting on the floor in front of his door."

Having done what I could do, I rode the subway to the Castro Station, and (super-swanky!) there were seats available on the train, so I didn't have to be a strap-hanger. A seat on the subway happens so rarely that I was looking around for my butler, Jeeves.

At Walgreens I bought some candy, and at the Castro I bought a ticket and some popcorn. Great popcorn. Not so great movie. Highbrow animation from the 1940s called Tale of the Fox, never distributed in America, and it got a rave review in The Chronicle so there I was at the movies. Maybe blame my mood or maybe I'm not highbrow enough, but it bored me to a stupor.

When I returned to the hotel, my neighbor was still sitting and mumbling on the threadbare carpet in the hallway, outside his door. "Are you locked out?" I asked him again. He mumbled, the same indecipherable non-words as before I'd asked. I tried twisting his doorknob, but it was locked, wouldn't turn.

I looked at the poor sap, felt sorry for him, thought about asking him again, "Are you locked out?" But, (a) I've already asked and my question's not getting through to him, and (b) what am I gonna do if he actually answers? I'm not inviting him into my room. Hell, no.

So I walked away. 306 isn't mumbling loud enough to keep anyone awake, and he's not hurting himself or anyone else. I entered my room, closed the door, and left him to sit in his urine overnight. It ain't pleasant but it's not my problem. That's life in the big city. I'm not my brother's keeper, and he's not my brother.

It still bothers me, though.

Is there something more I should do? Send a post card if you have any suggestions, but meanwhile … sweet dreams, mumbly guy outside of room 306. I hope you get a good night's sleep in the hallway.

SATURDAY — I spent the morning eating peanut butter with a spoon, thinking things over, and writing four pages of sappy words about Margaret. There was even a poem. I don't want to be that guy, writing his heart out about that dame, so I deleted it, all of it.

Let's try again, but with a 100-word limit:

Maggie visited. It went shitty. I'm still bummed about that. I am fat, poor, messy, uncouth, anti-social, and lonely, and Margaret is all those things too, yet we fizzled instead of sparked. And here I am, alone again.

There are worse things to be than alone, though. I've got my health, my porn magazines, and my peanut butter and a spoon, so I'll be fine. Shut that daydream down and drop it in the dumpster. I hope Margaret's story goes great, and maybe my story too, but we'll have no more stories together.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — Today was another day with Mom, and my brother Clay and his wife and kids. They're on the rebound from visiting Disneyland, stopping in San Francisco to see me again, and tomorrow they're driving back to Seattle.

They were supposed to meet me in the lobby of my rez hotel at 2:00, but BART can be confusing for visitors, so they didn't arrive until a little after 4:00. The rest of our afternoon and evening was pleasant enough — many words spoken and most of them heard. Mom cried about Dad, and so did I. I was wearing his shorts, in his honor.

We talked about Dad three or four times today, and twice my mom asked me, "Do you regret that you weren't there when he died?"

Her intent, of course, was to make me feel guilty about my absence as Dad's life ended. And I do regret it, sure, but regret isn't the same as guilt. I got no guilt about it. Mom looked disappointed, so I tried to explain.

I had to leave Seattle, and had to be out of touch for a time. These were requirements for my sanity. It sucks that Dad died during that time, and I regret that I wasn't there to see him off, but I was required to not be there. That's among my smallest Dad-related regrets.

Much more, I regret a big argument Dad & I had when I was a teenager, that neither of us ever apologized about, and both of us pretended hadn't happened. I regret that I owed him hundreds of dollars when he died, a loan unpaid until I settled with Mom today. I regret that I never told my father that I respected him, and of course, I regret that he never said he respected me. Goes without saying, there was always much, much more to respect about him than about me.

Maybe my greatest but weirdest regret about Dad is that I never bought him a meal, or even a doughnut. Whether it was a cup of coffee or a meal in a restaurant with any of his children, even long after we were grown, Dad always insisted on paying. That generosity was a relief when I was broke, but when I had some cash Dad's stubbornness meant that I never paid. Not once. We never even went halvesies. To make up for that, if ever I return to Seattle for a weekend or a week, I'll leave a doughnut or a cheeseburger on my father's grave.

All this I said to Mom & Clay & Karen & the boys, and I don't think any of them understood that it wasn't a bad joke, or a joke at all. I meant it.

Walking from my rez hotel to lunch, Clay and Karen paused to gaze longingly through the window of a Christian bookstore, and asked whether I'd shopped there. Nope, I've never shopped there. I'm not in the market for Christian books, and I hadn't even known there's a Christian bookstore in my neighborhood.

Clay had already decided we'd be lunching at Tony Roma's on Ellis Street, a chain pasta place I'd never been to. The sign on the door boasted reasonable prices, but those were 'lunch' prices, and it was 'dinner' when we got there so all prices were doubled. I suggested Tad's Steak House instead, a more affordable meal, but Clay said he was paying, and money was no object, so Tony Roma's it was. I ate it and said thanks when it was over, but it wasn't good.

We went to Chinatown — my third trip through the trinkets and tourists in a month. Chinatown is fabulous, if you stay out of the shops obviously targeting tourists, and of course, those were the shops where my family wanted to linger. And everyone but me was fascinated by the existence of Christian churches in an Asian neighborhood. Mom said, "I wonder if their Jesus is yellow?", and I just couldn't find a single word in my whole damned brain.

Clay & Karen's kids were well-behaved. I should say something more about them, but I don't know what to say about kids. They're people in progress. They didn't annoy me so they were fine.

We all BARTed to Walnut Creek, walked to their hotel (the same hotel where I'd stayed last weekend), where I declined the family Bible study (same as I'd declined last weekend). After they'd finished, we all hugged goodbye, and Clay insisted on saying a prayer before letting me leave. "Dear Lord, Please protect this prodigal son ..."

I rode the subway back to San Francisco alone with my thoughts, jotted on a paper placemat I'd swiped from Tony Roma's.

So, Mom visited, along with Clay and Karen and their kids. It did not go shitty. It also did not go great. They're good people, but the full-fledged "family" vibe eludes us. Maybe it eludes everyone, in every family? Does anyone feel fully accepted by kin, like your brother is your best friend, or does that only happen in fiction?

My family isn't fiction. We connect, but only intermittently. Big chunks of who they are, I don't understand at all, and I'm certain they feel the same un-understanding of me.

A couple of times today, Mom repeated her invitation for me to "come home to Seattle" and visit for a month or two. I told her I couldn't afford even a week off work, let alone months, and she said I could look for a job while I was visiting. She was serious.

One day I will visit Seattle for a weekend or even a week, but I won't be looking for work, or an apartment. San Francisco is my home. Mom doesn't understand that.

Look, I ran away from Seattle, from all the people who knew me and the few who loved me, and ended up in a San Francisco flophouse — where I'm happier than I've ever been. Some of that happiness, maybe most, is because I'm seeing myself through my own eyes, no longer defined as Mom's son, Clay's brother, April's ex. Here in San Francisco, I'm me.

Those last six words, wow: Here in San Francisco, I'm me. I'd never thought of it that way until just this moment, riding BART home from Walnut Creek, staring out the window and into myself. Maybe it's the so-so pasta and suspect sauce from Tony Roma's, but it felt profound to me.

It was good seeing you, Mom, and Clay and Karen, and the nephews. And it was also, with no meanness intended, good seeing you leave.

That sounds like a bastard thing to say, and if they ever saw these words they'd misunderstand. So they never will see these words. But all I mean is, I'm a better man here than there, and better with them there than here.

At work today, Louie shared an amusing anecdote, but you had to be there and you weren't, so I won't share it with you.

He told his story to several people at the same time, all of us listening and chuckling, and I listened and chuckled along, and afterward I said something brilliant like, "That was a funny story, man."

Louie's story reminded me of something interesting that had happened to me once upon a time, but I won't tell you that story either, and I didn't tell my story at the office. I thought about telling my story, but instead I went back to my desk, back to my work.

When I'm writing I never shut up, blathering far too long (you've probably noticed already), but in real life I never say diddly unless it's urgent or I'm angry.

At a meeting last week, I unexpectedly spoke for a couple of minutes, because it was something that needed to be said and nobody else had said it. It might have been the first time some of my co-workers had heard my voice in a month, maybe longer. A few people looked flabbergasted as I spoke.

See, I'm an extra, like the nameless people at the desks behind Mary on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, always there but never speaking. I like being an extra. There's lots less pressure.

"You have to put yourself out there," a therapist once told me, but I disagree. I love hearing myself not talk, and rarely "put myself out there."

When I was young, I had a crush on a woman and slyly waited for the right moment to say something. I rehearsed what I wanted to say, and made a flow chart listing my best reply if she said this and what I'd say if she said that. When exactly the right moment to make my move didn't come along, I waited, and waited longer, and rewrote my flow chart, and then she announced her engagement to someone else.

There have been many, many situations like that, and my life might be less pathetic if along the way I’d been brave enough to speak my mind more often.

If I had asked that woman out, she probably would've said no. If she'd said 'Sure!' and we hit it off over pizza or whatever, maybe we'd be married now with two children — and I'd be boxed in for the rest of my life, being Husband and Father every day forever, doing whatever Husbands and Fathers do, instead of being me, here, doing whatever I choose to do.

And maybe that path would've been wonderful for me, and maybe that's your path and it's working wonderful for you. Sincere congrats, if that's the case.

I'm happy on this path, though, the doing-whatever-I-choose-to-do path. I'm the guy who doesn't say much, who's usually alone and might never not be alone, but who's making the best of things and having a pretty good time.

When my mother visited, I tried to explain to her (and to myself) why I moved to San Francisco. She didn't, doesn't, and probably never will understand, and I barely understand it myself. You'll forgive me (or maybe you won't, in which case, fuck you), but I'm still thinking about it, so I'm going to think it through right now, at the typewriter.

Stream of consciousness, baby. From mind to fingers to the zine, and let's see if any of it makes sense:

In Seattle, I was low-level management at my job, so a few people on the organizational chart reported to me. But I don't want people reporting to me, and I'd fit better on a _dis_organizational chart. Here in San Francisco, I have an 'entry-level' job, which is a nice way to say that with a few days of training, any non-retard and non-stoner off the street could do what I do. The change adds up to less stress. Happier me.

In Seattle, there was an apartment full of 'apartment things' — a sofa, dinette set, a kitchen, a toilet, a bathtub, and a whole lot of things left behind. In San Francisco, there's just a room with a chair and a bed, but no kitchen, and the bathroom is down the hall. Also, for companionship, there are roaches and suspicions of mice. Fewer possessions. Much lower rent. Happier me.

In Seattle, there were people who knew me (or more accurately, knew certain sides of me). Any of those people might call me up, and ask me to babysit, or come for dinner, or want to borrow me and my truck to help them move. In San Francisco, my phone doesn't ring, and anyway, I don't have a phone, just an automated message-taking service where almost no-one ever leaves an automated message. Fewer calls. Fewer expectations. Happier me.

And let me tell you about San Francisco, which is not what you see on post cards and travel brochures about the Golden Gate Bridge. Just about anywhere in San Francisco, if you walk down an alleyway, you'll smell pee. Urine is the city's official scent, because they've closed all the public restrooms to keep out the drunks and homeless, so where can the drunks and homeless pee and poop? The sidewalk, of course. Watch your step.

We got problems here, no doubt, and the mayor's program of 'helping the homeless' is brutal: arrests and fines for sleeping in public, arrests and jail for feeding the poor, and the ongoing confiscation of shopping carts, and the seizure and destruction of whatever's in them, everything a homeless person can claim to own.

So what is there to love about San Francisco?

The city's most interesting parts aren't on any post cards. I like the Mission, and the Tenderloin, and all the other trashy neighborhoods that have no particular name, where visitors who wander off the travel agent's itinerary might find crackheads and homeless by the thousands, syringes and used condoms on the sidewalk, and people wandering the streets in a daze because they have nowhere else to exist.

But you know what? Those vagabonds and addicts are actually people, and most of them aren't scary. Most of them are looking for someone to talk to, not someone to stab. When I'm in the right mood, I sometimes chat with the wanderers, and every time so far, I've lived though the experience and enjoyed it. They're kinda like you and me. They just want a word, or maybe a meal.

And beyond the street life, there are wacky and interesting people everywhere — from flamboyant queers in the Castro, to hippies in the Haight, to all the well-tailored zombies in the financial district, and all the other labels we stick onto people, and lots and lots of people who resist the labels. I'm never going to fit in anywhere, but San Francisco is where I come closest. Almost nothing is strange enough to turn heads, in a town where strangeness is so commonplace. You're free to do what you want here, and that's beautiful (usually).

It makes perfect sense that Mom is worried about me — when I see myself in the mirror, I worry about me too. I'm fat, ugly, aggressively alone, don't wear deodorant, need a dentist, and this room is a mess just like me.

But, shrug. Maybe it looks pathetic, this life of mine, and maybe it is pathetic, but you know what makes it great? It's this life of mine — mine, and nobody else's.

Most days at the office are devoid of meaning, intelligence, and humanity for eight hours, except for as much time wasted as possible. Today I wasted some time talking with Hector, who sits next to me, and we had a fun conversation about suicide and God.

How we got on the subject I don't remember, but Hec believes suicide is the only sin God won't forgive, because once you're dead you can't ask forgiveness. If you commit suicide you're going to Hell, says Hector.

Well, I'm not suicidal, but that seems a little harsh, doesn't it?

There's a crucifix on Hector's neck, a Jesus candle on his desk, and he's a religious man. I'm not religious. There's nothing on my neck, and on my desk only piles of work and my Popeye lunchpail. I was curious about this religious way of thinking, so I asked Hector a follow-up question:

"What if I took an overdose of sleeping pills and regretted it, too late to be saved by calling 9-1-1, but not too late to cry out to Jesus and beg forgiveness? The Lord would refuse to hear my prayers as I die? Or would the Lord hear my prayers, but refuse to save me or forgive me, because that's 'company policy', so to speak?"

Hec pondered this, and said, "That's a special situation. I suppose God would forgive you if you could ask, but a more normal suicide would be putting a gun to your head and pulling the trigger. There'd be no time to ask God's forgiveness."

I chewed that over for a moment and spat it out. "Lemme get this straight. God will not forgive suicide by gun if I'm a good shot. What if I'm a bad shot? Like, I aim for my brain but shoot my jaw, so there's splattered bones in my face and it takes half an hour for me to slowly bleed to death. If I asked nicely while I was dying, would God forgive me?"

Hector seemed uncomfortable at being asked to explain the laws of God for some fat geek in the office, so he said, "I don't make the rules," and soon we were talking about something else, something safer. And then we weren't talking at all, which was even better.

Now it's only me, at home a few hours later, remembering that conversation and still confused about it. I was being an ass with Hector, of course, but my question was serious.

I was raised in a Christian church, in a denomination more liberal than Hector's, and with a God more forgiving. We never heard sermons saying suicide is an irrevocable ticket to eternal damnation in Hell, so that's a new one for me.

In my church, one of the first verses they made us memorize was First John 4:7 — "God is love." Of course, it's more complicated than those three little words, and in any denomination, any religion, the deity has all sorts of rules and regulations and commandments about what you can do, what you can't, and what can be forgiven and what never will.

But this rule against forgiveness for suicide is just cruelty for the sake of cruelty, isn't it? "God is love," but in the end maybe God won't forgive you? God, that's bullshit. That's more morally wrong than suicide. If there's anything God should forgive, it ought to be suicide — that's the one thing you could never forgive yourself for.

I'd love to send God a memo and explain the concept of mercy, but God doesn't have an in-box, only a collection plate. If a real 'Judgment Day' was coming, here's what I'd say as I was passing judgment on God:

Suiciders have at least given the matter some thought. Have you? Some suiciders have a valid reason for offing themselves — endless pain from a fatal disease, for example. You could cure that disease and end that pain, because you're God, but you don't. So someone's in agony 24/7, with no hope of recovery, and sadly decides suicide is painless — but even suicide is no escape, because God will condemn that person to eternal torture in Hell, every moment for as long as the universe exists?

"Catch-22; that's one hell of a catch." —Joseph Heller

In Sylvester Stallone's Demolition Man, when Sandra Bullock triple-kicked some bad guy, Stallone asked, "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Watching Jackie Chan movies," said Bullock. I giggled at that line, but hardly anyone else in the theater got the joke. Instead a lot of loud whispers asked, "Who?"

Jackie Chan's movies are filmed in Chinese, and distributed stateside with subtitles, and play only in art-house and Chinatown theaters, so most Americans don't know what they're missing.

Much more than the language, the real difference between all the American action flicks and a Jackie Chan movie is that the American studios hire stunt men and special effects teams to make it look like Stallone is winning a fist-fight, or dangling from the side of a mountain. When you see an action stunt in a Jackie Chan movie, it's the star himself doing it, and he's really dangling from the side of a mountain. He's done the math, calculated the distances, choreographed the chop socky, and then he does the stunt. If there's any doubt, Chan's bloody bloopers and blunders are usually shown under the closing credits.

The guy is putting his ass and his life on the line to make you go "Ooooh" while you're chewing popcorn, and he'll probably die on camera when some insane stunt goes wrong, but until then I'll buy a ticket whenever a Jackie Chan movie plays in San Francisco.

Plus, he's a better actor than all the American fake-comedy that's almost as perfect as his stunt work.

Tonight's Jackie Chan double feature at the U.C. in Berkeley was Dragon Lord and Police Story 2. The first was a comedy with kicks, the latter an adventure with laughs. I've not yet seen the original Police Story, so I might have missed some of the sequel's subtle character development points, but both movies were great, which is to say, just your average Jackie Chan movies.

Oh, and as an unexpected bonus, they had Hong Kong Film Monthly for sale in the lobby at the theater — a special issue of the zine, dedicated to the films of Jackie Chan. I don't subscribe, because most Hong Kong films aren't that great, but an issue devoted to Jackie Chan is well-worth $2.50.

♦ ♦ ♦

When I checked my automated service after the movie, Maggie had left a message, so I went outside to the phone booth and called her back. She'd received her copy of last month's Pathetic Life and wanted to yell at me about it.

(Yeah, I know — first I said I would mail it to her, then I decided against it, and both those statements were true when I wrote them, dear diary, but a week later I changed my mind, what the hell, and mailed her a copy of the zine.)

She yelled for a few minutes, told me I had no right to have written about her. Well, I think I own the rights to my own damned life, and I said so. "Not the days I'm in it," she said, "but there won't be many more of those."

Maggie said she'd only read the parts of the zine that were about her, which of course nullifies the whole reason for sending her the zine. I mailed it to her because I wanted to let Maggie into my head, entirely. I want(ed) her to know me better, and maybe let me know her better, and all that romantic rot.

I mean, if she mailed me her diary, I'd be interested in what she wrote about me, certainly, but I'd also want to know what she's thinking on a random Thursday when I'm nowhere near. I wouldn't just flip to the bits about me, skip everything else, and then close her diary and watch TV.

After the yelling, she mellowed into Nice Margaret again, and said she wanted to read the zine out loud to her therapist. That's cool, I guess. I told my therapist, so to speak, when I wrote it. (Too delicate an allusion? I'm saying that I get some therapeutic value from dropping my word-turds into this zine.)

She yelled at me some more, for forgetting that yesterday was the fifth anniversary of our first boink. I said sorry, but I don't keep track of birthdays and anniversaries, and that's true. It's horrible to confess, so I didn't, but I don't even know Maggie's birthday — it's in February, I think, so I sent her something in February, but the exact date I couldn't tell you. Same with my brother (October something) and my best friend Bruno (July, I think, or maybe August?).

To end the phone call, we did that juvenile thing where neither of us says goodbye, which is supposed to be funny and usually is. She was yelling at me instead of giggling as we did the fake goodbyes, though, so after the third fake goodbye I hung up the phone and went back into my apartment.

Addendum 2021: Some years after the above, Jackie Chan became a mainstream action star in America, and most of his biggest hits have been re-edited into shorter, dumber versions, dubbed into English, and now those are the only versions of early Jackie Chan movies you can find, at least in America. Rumble in the Bronx, for example, was a great Jackie Chan action movie when it was first made, but it's been butchered for America into something more akin to Nickelodeon.

He's also made numerous rather blandly American action movies, like Shanghai Noon and its sequels. Perfectly ordinary action movies, forgettable and nothing special.

Politically, Chan is now an outspoken supporter of the Chinese Communist Party. He's one of the Chinese government's official spokesfolks against drug-use, and despite being born in Hong Kong he's very much opposed to HK's efforts to be free from Chinese rule.

My admiration for Jackie Chan ended when he said, "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

So, Jackie Chan made great movies, if you can find the original cut and dub, but Jackie Chan the man can kiss my pimpled white ass.

"So what do you have planned for the weekend?" That's Louie, my almost-friend at work, making polite conversation late in the afternoon.

I told him I have no plans at all.

Then Louie listed his upcoming events for the weekend —

• Errands and shopping tonight;

• A family barbecue on Saturday, where his aunt will be drunk because, he said, she's always drunk, and he'll have to avoid his anti-gay uncle, and he won't be able to eat most of the food because he's vegetarian;

• Some friends of his boyfriend are coming over on Saturday night;

• Lunch on Sunday with his boyfriend's family, which, he says, usually means spending the whole afternoon there.

"Sounds like a busy weekend," I said. Unsaid: Sounds like a hellish weekend.

"Yeah, and I'm looking forward to Sunday night. After we get back, those last few hours with [boyfriend's name, forgotten] will be the weekend. And then it's back to work on Monday."

Jeez. Louie's weekend is over before it's begun. Lacking anything interesting to say, I told him my big plans after all. "I'm not doing anything this weekend, and I'm going to have a damned good time doing it."

"I wish I was doing that," he said. "I get roped into all these social commitments."

"I don't get many invitations," I said. Unsaid: Avoiding invitations was one of the reasons I moved here, to a city where I know nobody. "And if there is an invitation, I always say no, unless it's something I really want to do, with someone I really want to be with." Unsaid: And there's nobody I really want to be with.

Usually I don't describe my hermit ways so bluntly to a 'normal', and Louie looked surprised. "I can't do that," he said. "Whenever I spend a day by myself, I go nuts. I can't stand the solitude."

I nodded and the conversation wandered on, but Louie's words rang in my head for the rest of the day.

He can't stand the solitude? For me it's exactly the opposite. I love the solitude. I like me lots, find myself witty and debonair and simply delightful to be with. Certainly, I'd rather spend a day with myself than with people I'm avoiding, at a barbecue where I can't even eat the meat.

I've never understood that outlook, which almost everyone in the world seems to share — that's it's better to be with others than to be alone, no matter who the 'others' are.

Some people try to strike up conversations with strangers, which always freaks me out — I'm a stranger, and I don't talk to strangers.

Some people go to bars so they won't be alone, though it's a scientific fact that anyone you meet in a bar is a loser.

Some people go to parties, and yeah, I've been to a few, but never not regretted it.

Where I work they have an Employees' Association, a big club that's just for employees and their families. The E.A. sets up event days — a trip to Great America, group tickets to Giants games or Phantom of the Opera, or just a big picnic with all the other employees and their families. The E.A.'s existence gives me cold sweats, and I roll my eyes and shake my head when I see their announcements on the bulletin board.

Question: What could be a worse day off than spending it with people from work? Answer: Have people from work bring their families.

There's nothing wrong with being alone, especially if it's the right kind of alone. And don't get me wrong — I'd rather be surrounded by friends than be alone, but there aren't enough friends to surround me, and I'd much, much rather be alone than surrounded by jerks, dummies, extroverts, and people whose goal is to be ordinary.

I'm not 100% anti-social. Maybe … 95%. I'm picky, that's all. It's delightful to spend time with people I'm truly fond of, but there are only four.

SATURDAY — My mumbly neighbor was at the front desk, having a conversation with Mr Patel. It was the first time I've ever heard mumbly guy say anything to anyone except whatever he mumbles to himself, which I usually can't understand. Today he wasn't mumbling, and he was coherent as hell. "I don't want to go," he said plainly. "I don't want to go."

Mr Patel was polite but unyielding. "I cannot be here to let you into your room after hours."

"I don't want to go, please don't make me go."

"I cannot have you sleeping in the hallway, but I also cannot be here to let you into your room when you keep losing your key."

I only typed it twice, but they repeated variations on this dialogue over and over, and I watched and listened and said nothing, because what the hell could I say?

The mumbling man loses his room key, often, and Mr Patel said that he doesn't much mind letting him into his room when he's here. He even said he keeps extra spare keys for #306, and every time he goes to a hardware store he gets another copy of the key for #306, so he won't run out of spare keys the next time the mumbling man locks himself out. But Mr Patel doesn't live at the hotel, and he said very firmly, "I cannot, will not come back to the hotel to unlock your door after I have gone home for the night."

Therefore, mumbling man is being evicted. "I don't want to go," he said again. "Please don't make me go."

Man, this is painful. I'm of the Eddie Murphy "Kill My Landlord" school, but Mr Patel is actually an OK landlord, and I can see his perspective. At 5:00 he goes home to his wife and all the little Patels, and he eats dinner, gets comfortable, and then there's a phone call asking him to come back to the hotel and unlock this guy's room. And it's the same guy who needed his room unlocked the night before, and probably tomorrow. After you've gotten that phone call enough times, well, then that tenant has to go.

Enough of this sadness, I walked out the door to eat at McDonald's, but even two Big Macs and two Quarter Pounders and two large fries and two strawberry shakes didn't cheer me up. Mumbly man's last words as I left the lobby kept playing between my ears: "I don't want to go. Please don't make me go."

I've never heard him speak in sentences before, and honestly didn't think he could. I guess the mumbly man can communicate when he needs to, and what he's communicating is, he doesn't want to go.

It sucks, but I think he's going to have to go.

♦ ♦ ♦

After that blues-inducing start to the day, I ran a few errands on Muni, walked around the Mission, and did nothing much else. It was a pretty good Saturday. Lazy, like me, and alone. But here's an addendum to yesterday's rant about the joys of solitude:

Yeah, I prefer being alone to being with dingbats or dullards, but it would be nice to hang out with a human being who possesses a brain and a heart, and a triple-digit IQ, and a quadruple-digit vocabulary. Maybe that's asking too much, or — maybe that's you? If there's anyone on this planet I might be able to tolerate, and who'd be able to stand me without barfing, somebody who likes this zine seems a likely candidate. The zine is mostly me, and most of me.

Which sounds like a really embarrassing plea for friendship, because that's what it is. Drop me a post card, ya bastard, or dial my digits, and maybe we could be buddies.

♦ ♦ ♦

Singin' in the Rain and The Wizard of Oz was tonight's double feature. I've seen both movies several times at several cinemas, and of course many more times on the telly. They're always best on the big screen, though, and the Castro Theater — where I went tonight — might be the biggest screen in town.

If you don't know San Francisco, know this: The heart of the city's (and world's) gay community is Castro Street, and the heart of Castro Street is the Castro Theater. It's a huge movie palace with curtains and a balcony and an organ, and it's a great place to see a great movie. Or two, like tonight. Sitting with a big crowd in the world's gayest neighborhood, watching The Wizard of Oz, when the Scarecrow says, "Of course, some people do go both ways," it's friggin' hilarious.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — It's Sunday morning and I didn't go to church. Didn't even think about going to church. Fuck church. Instead I slept late, had breakfast at Tad's, then spent the rest of the morning reading zines in my tiny room.

For lunch I devoured a big bag of cookies in bed, with too many Twinkies for dessert, all with no interruptions and nobody nagging me about nutrition or the crumbs. Then, more zine-reading.

Come dusk, I took the train to Palo Alto for a science-fiction double feature. The last time I saw Forbidden Planet was at a sci-fi convention when I was 19, where they showed a scratchy old print on a tiny screen like you had in biology class, and the speaker malfunctioned and went silent a few times, and it was still a pretty good show.

Well, the print at the Stanford tonight was pristine; I've seen first-run movies with more scratches and blips. It's an even better movie than I'd remembered. Yes, the introductory narration is dated, as we're informed that mankind reached the moon in the late 22nd century, and the movie's all-white and almost all-male future is not up to Star Trek's standards or racial harmony and gender equality. But the movie is older and smarter than me, the special effects are still effective, the music is freaky, and its story of high-tech psychosis is still worth telling.

After such a great movie, almost no second feature could measure up, and indeed The Time Machine was only OK. It starts good, but then gets kinda hokey and dumb. Fortunately, there was a pretty lady sitting in an aisle seat two rows ahead of me, wearing shorts so short they used to call 'em 'hot pants'. Her legs kept me entertained when the movie didn't.

♦ ♦ ♦

After the movies, as I was waiting for the CalTrain home, a middle-aged man was holding a younger woman's hand, and they shared a nice long kiss. Then he said, "Thanks for a terrific weekend. I hope your husband doesn't find out." With that he walked away, leaving her alone on the station platform, with ten minutes before the train was supposed to arrive.

That pissed me off, and I hope it pissed her off, too. 1.) If I was getting weekend pork, I could at least come up with a few minutes of small talk at the depot. And 2.), a gentleman never abandons a lady after a date, let alone after a weekend. Not that I'm a gentleman, but I know the rules, and he should've at least waited until the train came.

A brilliant idea hit me like a happy punch in the nose while I was in the shower — a solution for the mumbly guy down the hall who always locks himself out of his room, and who's now getting evicted for it. Maybe I'm the love child of Dear Abby and Fat Albert Schweitzer.

I don't remember why I noticed it a year ago, and also don't know why it bubbled into my brain in the shower, but after I'd dried myself and put on pants I double-checked the hallway, and yes — no change from a year earlier. Sadly, tragically, I had to go to work, but work is only a block away, so I came back at lunch and talked it over with Mr Patel.

"On the third floor, where I live, there's a corner of the ancient smelly faded carpet between the radiator and the wall, where the carpet isn't nailed down any more." That's how I started, but Mr Patel didn't understand. He thought I was complaining, and said he'd send one of his sons to glue or nail the carpet to the floor.

"No, no, no," I said, "don't glue it down. It's a corner where nobody walks. Leave it loose, and put one of #306's keys under it, so he can get into his room any time he locks himself out."

Mr Patel looked at me, squinted, pointed at nothing in particular, looked at the ceiling, pointed again, and stuck out his lower lip. "That is an interesting idea. Thank you." He looked at me for a long time, then said, "But I cannot do this."

"Why not?"

"Anyone could see, when he lifts the carpet to get the key. Anyone could find that key, and get into that room. And, I believe he would lose that key, quickly. Also, loose carpet is dangerous and should be nailed down."

Jeez. It seemed like a good idea, but Mr Patel shot me down four different ways.

So I went back to my job, mulled it over some more, and had another 25-watt idea.

I argued about it inside my head. I don't do the wrong thing on purpose, except when I do, but I rarely do the right thing, either — usually I don't do anything. Happy endings are bullshit, and I'd rather not get involved, and ...

I lost that argument, though. Skipped out of work early, to walk back to the hotel and talk to Mr Patel again, before he went home for the night.

"Look," I said, "I don't know the guy in #306, but other than losing his key all the time, he's no trouble, right?"

"He is no trouble, but losing his key so often is big trouble for me."

"What if I kept his spare key?"

"You?"

"Yeah, me. I'd hang his key from a nail on my wall in my room. I'd unlock his door when he needs it. I wouldn't give him the key — cuz you're right, he'd lose it — but I'd open his door and let him in, and then I'd bring the key back, and hang it on my wall for next time."

Mr Patel looked at me, and again squinted, pointed, looked up and down and sideways, and stuck out his lower lip. "This is a better idea than the carpet." he said. "If he gives you his key, as you propose, then I would let him remain." As he spoke, he was tidying his desk, getting ready to leave. "Good afternoon," he said, and locked the door.

Stupidly, I guess I'd thought Mr Patel would just hand me a copy of the key to room 306, but of course he can't do that. I'm going to have to talk to the guy myself, and he's a Section 8 head case so that might be interesting. I've talked to him in the past, or tried to, but he never talks to me. He only talks to himself, mostly in mumbles.

Well, hell smells. That man is at least 80% absent in the head, but he's present enough to understand that he's being evicted, and he'll probably understand what I'll propose.

So I did it, damn it: I went to room 306 and knocked on the door. There was no answer. Am I going to knock again tomorrow? Yeah, probably. Get off my back.

♦ ♦ ♦

I hate a lot of things, and one of them is soap operas on TV, where everyone endlessly yearns for love and proclaims love and betrays love, and there's always drama thicker than Campbell's chunky soup.

Well, today I got a romantic letter from Margaret, my maybe or ex or future girlfriend from long ago and far away, who catastrophically visited last month.

Her letter today is flowery sweet, knock me off my feet, and she says she's saving her money to move to San Francisco, and move in with me. This should be great news, but like I said, I hate soap operas — and after all the dramatics during her visit, I'm not so certain about Me and Maggie.

In her letter, she mentions again that I need to lose weight, and I won't argue; I'm so fat we failed at face-to-face sex when she visited.

She says she wants to find a therapist in San Francisco, "so my episodes won't be so many."

She apologizes for all the insults and battery and assault, or sort of apologizes, for "what happened that afternoon."

And she wonders if instead of San Francisco, we could live in Hayward, where she'd be nearer to her sister and her daughter, and "the neighborhoods are quieter there."

It's a nice letter and Maggie's a nice lady, but I don't know. Wait, even typing that, I do know — I know I don't want to move to fucking Hayward.

All I know about Hayward is that it has a BART station, so theoretically I could get back to San Francisco within maybe an hour, but I don't want to get back to San Francisco — I live here, not in the suburbs. The thought of moving to Hayward freaks me out more than Margaret's melodrama, mental health, constant insults and arguing, or even her beating me up.

So I wrote back, but my letter wasn't as sweet and romantic as hers. I didn't say it's over between us, and I hope it's not over, but I did write that she'd have to get her head straightened out, make some progress with her therapy, and promise to stop punching me, before we could be together. And we'd have to be together in San Francisco. There a BART to Hayward every twenty minutes, and she can ride it whenever she wants.

My job is stupid and sucks so much out of me, my soul is missing at the end of the day.

'Jobs' is a kooky concept that most of us grow so accustomed to that we forget how kooky the concept is. My job, for example, is to do whatever I'm told to do by some woman I barely know, who barely knows what I do.

That's her job, too, I'm sure.

And her boss's job, repeated all the way to corporate headquarters. It's such a huge operation, nobody knows squat about anything in any detail, really, and all of us trade 1/3 of our waking hours for a paycheck.

The ultimate boss has maybe 200,000 people under him. He doesn't know anything about my job, of course. He doesn't know my job exists, and if he did know he'd be trying to outsource my work to Burma or Bangladesh or Mars.

He's a smart CEO, and that's what smart CEOs do. He's so good at his job that the company is in bankruptcy proceedings, but he looks good in a suit so he makes thirty times what me and my co-workers do.

And what do we do, me and my co-workers? We sit on chairs and push buttons, like George Jetson at Spacely Space Sprockets. It's repetitive and boring as fuck, but they're important buttons, those buttons we push. The company couldn't function unless someone was pushing those buttons, and if you push the wrong button, you get called into the boss's office and screamed at. Push the wrong button too often and you get fired.

We're all as replaceable as any bolt or sprocket. With a few hours of training, you could do what I do. Anyone could. All that's required is doing what you're told, and hitting the right buttons … over and over again … all day … five days a week ... until you come home, barely even you at the end of the day, and then you rest up to do it all again tomorrow.

That's my job. That's probably your job. That's 'jobs'. That's how I afford my room at the rez hotel, my movies and popcorn at the Castro and Roxie and Red Victorian, and my deep-fried disappointing dinner from Burger King.

♦ ♦ ♦

Here at the hotel, I knocked on #306's door, but there was no answer again. He sure has a busy social life for a guy who can't hardly talk.

Before work and again after work, I knocked on the mumbling man's door, but there was no answer either time. That's four times I'd knocked since Monday, never an answer, and I almost said to heck with it and to heck with him. I'll eat my dinner and let him have his eviction, cuz I have worries enough without adopting a stray.

Then I thought, well, maybe it's stupid to expect a normal person's response from someone who clearly has a mental malfunction. Maybe the mumbling man is in his room and hears me knocking, but he's just not answering.

I do the same thing. Knocks at my door are rare, but when it happens I look through the peephole before deciding whether to respond. If I don't recognize the knocker, bite me, I'll go back to what I was doing unless whoever's knocking flashes a badge or shouts, "There's a fire!" If the mumbling man is in his room but ignoring my knocks, then he's doing exactly what I'd do.

So instead of knocking again, I wrote a note, and slipped it under his door:

Hey — I am the fat guy in room 303. If you give me a copy of your key I won't use it or lose it, and I'll let you into your room when you're locked out. Knock and we can talk about it.

Then I made my dinner — four peanut butter & Spam sandwiches — and as I turned on the TV, there was a knock on the door. Five minutes hadn't passed since I slipped my note under his door, and nobody else has knocked since Maggie was here. I squinted through the peephole and there he was, the mumbling man from room #306.

What happened next was the most (only) interesting thing that happened all day, and this is my diary so I have to write about it. I want to write it right, though, and I've written it twice already.

In my first and second drafts of this, I described my neighbor's appearance, and what he said, and some things he did, and how I responded. Lots of it was weird because he's weird. I didn't laugh while we talked, but afterward I laughed about some of it, and then wrote about what had happened, and that was funny, too. It was a lot of laughs, and I didn't like it.

I often write about stupid things that people do or say. It's cathartic, and it's fun. Most people are stupid and at least a little nuts, and we're all sharing the same ridiculous reality, so I poke at them with my typewriter. They deserve it, and I don't hold back.

The mumbling man, though, is not sharing the same reality as you and me. He didn't choose to be mentally retarded, he's doing his best to survive on his own, and he doesn't deserve to be poked with a typewriter. My report, therefore, will be factual, not comical:

We spoke at my doorway. I did not invite him in.

Talking is very difficult for him, but we shook hands, and we have an agreement.

Tomorrow he's going to ask Mr Patel to give me a spare key to his room. I'll hammer a nail into my wall and hang the key. Whenever he's locked out, the mumbling man can knock on my door and I'll let him in.

He won't have to sleep in the hallway again, if he's locked himself out of his room and Mr Patel has gone home for the night. He won't be evicted.

We shook hands again, and he walked back to his room, and that was my conversation with the mumbling man.

I'm usually a rat bastard, so for the sake of my reputation, please don't tell anyone about this.

After he'd left, I turned the TV on again. There was nothing but trash on the main channels, but this is San Francisco so I clicked around and found a Korean sitcom to watch while eating my sandwiches.

Then I read zines, and wrote and re-wrote and re-re-wrote the story of my neighbor at my door.

Then I made and devoured two more sandwiches, because peanut butter and Spam are fundamental nutrients. For dessert, Twinkie-like things that come with red stripes and chemical/strawberry filling.

Then I hammered a nail into the wall by the light switch, except I couldn't find my hammer, so I beat the nail into the wall with my shoe.

In half an hour, it'll be time for my annual performance review at work. Yup, I'm writing this on company time, and in 29 minutes, I'll step into the boss's office for the annual sit-down. I've had performance reviews many times with many bosses at many jobs, and it's always weird and uncomfortable, but this will be my first performance review with my new boss.

I know what to expect, though. The boss will say, "You're punctual. You don't make a lot of expensive mistakes. You handle assignments OK. You have decent hygiene and don't stink up the place. Blah blah blah." Performance reviews always start with the positives.

And then come the negatives. Since the company doesn't want to give anyone much of a raise, the boss will invent a "needs improvement." I never know what they'll come up with, but it always means my raise will be 15¢ an hour instead of 25¢.

Last year it was, "We've noticed that when the phone rings, you'll often let others answer it." Well, yeah, that's because last year I was still new on the job and didn't much know the answers, and because when the phone rings it's always someone who's angry, and also because I frickin' hate talking on the phone. But, point taken. Now I answer the phone more often, so what will be this year's "needs improvement" from this year's boss, to keep this year's raise paltry?

It might be that I don't ask Jennifer many questions. She's my team lead, but she's not the best at answering questions clearly, so instead I usually ask Louie. They could ding me for that.

It might be my 'attitude'. We had a big multi-department meeting a few months ago, where some bigwig stood up and explained some stupid new policy. I sat way in the back and rolled my eyes and made faces until I thought or maybe imagined my boss was glaring at me.

It might be that I leave early sometimes. I'm supposed to work until 5:00, but the boss is usually nowhere to be seen, and Jennifer leaves at 3:30, so sometimes I sneak out before quitting time. I live really close, easy walking distance, so I can come back 45 minutes later to punch out, or a few times I've asked Louie to punch out for me (which is just returning the favor, since I've done that for him). I wouldn't leave early, though, unless I was sure I could get away with it, and I've been doing it once or twice a month and getting away with it just fine.

Those are my big three possibilities for "needs improvement." Can't think of anything else for the boss to rag at me over, but we'll see. We'll see in two minutes now.

♦ ♦ ♦

Well, here's my annual performance review, and the positives were exactly as expected: Doug is a productive worker who follows procedures. Good dog, have a biscuit.

So what's my shortcoming, to keep my biscuits small and few? You're too quiet. Try to participate more, speak up in meetings, and join the chatter of camaraderie on the work floor. Also, we've noticed that you don't come to the after-hours Yahtzee nights, and the company picnic.

Yeah, I've heard that one in performance reviews a few times before. The first time a boss told me that, I nodded and said I'd try, and maybe I tried. It's been a long time. I don't remember.

The second time, I just grunted and sighed.

Today, a few years older and wiser and knowing what I'm supposed to say, I again said I'd try. But I won't try.

I make a reasonable effort to do the job reasonably well. I already speak up when there's a work-related issue and saying something might help, but that's rare because I know management isn't listening.

I won't be participating more than I feel comfortable, won't speak up in meetings unless I have something to add, and I won't feign interest in the inane chatter that never ends. I hope the company bowling team wins but I won't be there, won't bowl, and won't cheer from the sidelines. If you need me, I'll be at my desk from 8:30 to 5:00, unless I sneak out early.

For the last few days, things have been happening — the mumbling man, and then the performance review. Well, don't get used to all that excitement, dear diary. Most days nothing much happens at all, and today was much more normal. Prepare to yawn.

I worked for eight hours, speaking two or three dull sentences to one or two dull people, and punching numbers off a thousand or so pieces of paper and into the database, which wasn't as exciting as it doesn't sound. The boss walked by — the lady who told me yesterday to be more outgoing and friendly and un-me — and I smiled at her and nodded and said "Fuck you" under my breath. The work line rang twice, and both times I let someone else answer.

♦ ♦ ♦

From work, I checked my messages, and Margaret had called from Washington. Her calls used to make me smile but now make me wary. Is she going to be nuts or weird or angry when I call back, or is she going to be Maggie? Would she even be Maggie if she wasn't nuts or weird or angry?

I stopped at the phone booth in front of my hotel and returned her call. It was a short conversation because I wanted to save some quarters for doing laundry. She wasn't unpleasant. I wasn't unpleasant. She's not much interested in living in San Francisco, and I'm still absolutely not living in Hayward. She says she might move to Hayward without me, and live with her sister and daughter. She says, instead of living together, maybe we could date like normal people.

We're not normal people, obviously, but maybe we could make it work. And that's where we left it, when the automated operator told me to deposit more quarters than I wanted to deposit.

♦ ♦ ♦

Sometimes I look at my nakedness and marvel, certainly not at the classical beauty of the human form, but that this body is even functional and not completely collapsed under so many grotesque mounds of fat. The last time I saw Dr Doogie Howser, they stood me on their heavy-duty scale and said I weighed 323 pounds. That's as much as two skinny but healthy men, wrapped into one man's flabby flesh.

After the sex disaster, when Maggie and I couldn't do what we wanted to do because my belly was in the way, I decided that I needed to lose some weight. But so far, deciding is all I've done. I haven't changed my extraordinarily awful eating habits. I'm still fat, still eating too much and then having seconds and thirds.

I don't eat for hunger or sustenance, but for entertainment and comfort. A full belly makes me happy, and a fuller belly makes me happier, and whenever I'm blue I'll devour another couple of peanut butter sandwiches. I'm often blue, and I eat lots of peanut butter sandwiches.

I've tried low-calorie diets, enough times to know that diets won't work for me. I lack the willpower. Some ancient Greek dude said, "Know thyself," and I know myself — I'm simply not going to eat tiny meals of undressed salad and a mayo-less watercress sandwich.

But, after thinking it over for a month and a half, I'm guess I'm ready to try eating more sensibly. For me that means, two McD double-cheeseburgers at lunch, instead of four. Bananas for snacks and dessert, instead of Snickers bars. And the experts say to eat slower, so you don't eat so much. The 'experts', of course, are all skinny bastards who've never been fat, but — I'll try.

Starting tomorrow.

I pledge not to bore you with constant updates on my success or, more likely, failure. There will be no menu plans here, no calorie counts, and I can't weigh myself — my scale only goes up to 300 pounds. This is not going to become a weight-loss zine, because nothing could be more boring than the diary of a fat slob trying to be less fat.

Woke up late, and had a few burritos for breakfast, which gave me gas all morning and into the afternoon. I live alone and enjoy farting, so I figured what the heck, and fired up a big plate of chili and cheese for lunch to keep it going.

♦ ♦ ♦

Out of mayonnaise, and because you can't have chili and cheese without a dollop of mayonnaise, I walked to the store. Trying to dodge all the brain-dead tourists, I didn't notice the little kid until she rammed me in the nuts. But did I keel over in pain? Nope, because I wear a protective cup every day, just in case. I wore a cup when I was an umpire, and it's still my habit. Better safe than sorry. Highly recommended.

And while we're sort of on the subject of sidewalks, there are rules of the road, and there are rules of the sidewalk, and please follow the rules. The first rule, same as driving (in America, anyway), is to walk on the right side of the sidewalk. Don't meander all over the width of the concrete. I always walk to the right when I'm alone, and on those rare occasions when I'm walking with a friend, I'll politely fall back and yield to walkers coming from the other direction. But such good manners are rare.

If this sounds like a rant, yes, it's a rant, and if it sounds petty, please remember that I live one block from Powell Street in downtown San Francisco — cable cars, Union Square, Market Street — so I'm sharing the sidewalk with thousands of tourists every day and night of the year. And some of them refuse to share.

When I walk to Walgreens I'm pirouetting past couples, families, and huge groups of gawkers who all think of San Francisco as a tourist attraction. And it is, of course, but it's also a genuine city where real people lead mundane lives and need to go to the store to buy some mayo so please get out of my way.

The sidewalks are always crowded, like a busy thoroughfare but with humans instead of cars, and with no turn signals or brake lights. Foot traffic moves efficiently, until some idiot and his wife and kids, walking side-by-side of course, suddenly stop to wonder "Which way is Macy's?" although the Macy's sign is enormous and straight ahead. Stopping, they make everyone behind them stop. Would you just hit the brakes in traffic and stop? Why don't they pull over to the side, like you'd do on the highway if you needed to consult a map?

Or, a gazillion people are headed east on the sidewalk, and another gazillion headed west, and some schmuck stops in the middle of the walkway to focus his camera and click a picture of the cable car.

Or, three friends walk abreast, leaving room for only one person to squeeze by going the other way. And they walk slowly, so people behind them wanting to walk faster can't pass them, because the trio is walking side-by-side instead of face-to-back-of-head.

Yes, yes, yes, this is a trivial frustration amounting to next-to-nothing, but it adds up when you're dealing with throngs of bumbling, slow-walking, picture-taking numskull tourists every day. So here's an announcement: This fat slob has had enough.

I'm done with the daily aerobics of dancing through and around the multitudes who don't bring their manners on vacation. I have stopped being kind and accommodating, stepping out of their way, waiting patiently while they talk and gawk and snap a photo. I am now the personification of "No more Mr Nice Guy."

When I'm walking alone, where I belong, on the far right side of the sidewalk, I will walk straight into and through anyone going the other direction, or anyone who stops to look at his map. I've become the lineblocker of O'Farrell Street. It's a community service: I'm teaching etiquette to visitors from Georgia and Timbuktu, by abandoning all etiquette myself.

Driving a car, you can't just ram into every asshole driver on the road. On the sidewalk, you can — especially if you're a big guy like me. Most of my walks are uneventful and without collision, but if you get in my way I will keep walking. I will not slow my pace nor step out of your way. I'm where I'm supposed to be, right side of the sidewalk, so you will step out of my way, or blam!, I will go right through like a bowling ball knocking over pins for a 7-10 split.

At the last possible moment before collision, most folks sense that I'm not going to yield, and step out of the way. It's very educational, for them. But several times I've bumped into and occasionally toppled people. It's turned the frustration into fun, but I'm still a softie at heart, so I do yield to old folks, little kids, and the disabled.

♦ ♦ ♦

I toppled some schmuck in a suit on my way to the BART station, then rode to Berkeley to see Repulsion at the Pacific Film Archive. It's a psycho-thriller by Roman Polanski, all about a frigid woman who starts killing anyone who knocks on her door. I can relate. The movie scared me good, and got me rooting for the killer, because all her victims were such louts.

Speaking of victims, a couple who sat near me at the theater soon decided to sit elsewhere. Man, I was explosive tonight!

SUNDAY — Spent most of the afternoon in Union Square, watching the pigeons and panhandlers and tourists. Made faces at children, talked to the homeless, and had ice cream for lunch at Double Rainbow. Watched a cop lecturing and threatening some green-haired teenagers. I don't like teenagers but I really don't like cops (almost typed 'asshole cops', but in my experience all cops are asshole cops as soon as you don't say 'sir'.)

I recommend talking to the homeless. Most people don't, except to lie that they don't have any money. I do that too, sure, but something I've learned from living in the cheapest, slummiest, rez hotels and the most piss-scented neighborhoods is, most homeless folks are human beings. If you talk to them like they're human, you get a human response. Most of the time, anyway. And they don't just talk about the weather, like other humans. Ya never know what a homeless guy will say, but it'll be interesting.

Being nearly friendless isn't a problem for me. Usually I like the solitude. When I need someone to talk to, though, talking to the bums is the next best thing to having a friend.

♦ ♦ ♦

I'm not a huge fan of the Lethal Weapon movies, but the original was OK. It was on television tonight, and I figured if I turned the volume down during the commercials it might be a pleasant diversion. Clicked it off pretty quick, though. Mel Gibson's lips moved and it sounded like his voice, but the words he said — gosh, darn, fudge, etc — were not the words he said when I saw the movie in a theater.

Of course, movies are "edited for television," and I'm a fool for forgetting, for thinking I could watch Lethal Weapon on TV. It's just a batty sign of our loony times, that the telly can show murder and war and famine and preachers promising hellfire and eternal damnation, but it can't show Mel Gibson unless he speaks like a 1950s schoolmarm.

♦ ♦ ♦

Coffee is great when its great but it’s easy to make it awful, and it's usually awful — acidy, bitter, lukewarm. It's especially bad when I make it, so I never do. When I need caffeine I take a generic NoDoz. One little white pill, and ten minutes later I’m awake, without coffee's unwanted side effect of making me pee every half hour. There's a bottle of those pills in my desk, so I said no when Penelope offered me coffee this morning.

Penelope is the new temp at work. She started several weeks ago, and she's nice, seems reasonably smart, doesn't take things too seriously, and she smiles in my direction and talks to me, which most people don't do. I don't know her well, but she's in my league (that's polite-speak for, she's fat like me) and I've daydreamed about asking her out (polite-speak for, I've thought about her while masturbating).

She offered me a cup of coffee as I was walking past the coffee pot, and I said no. My mind was elsewhere and I didn't even think about it. Didn't smile. Didn't say "No, thanks," just "No," and kept walking. I didn't understand and maybe still don't, but as I was walking home at the end of the work day, delayed reaction — was she offering more than coffee?

I mean, it's a self-serve coffee pot. Everyone pours their own coffee if they want coffee, so of course she was offering more than coffee. It was an opportunity to talk to a cute woman and see where it went, and where it went was nowhere, because I said no, because I'm a big, fat, stupid idiot.

Ah, well. She'll be in the office tomorrow, and I'll be in the office tomorrow, and she'll still be cute, and I'll still be an idiot.

♦ ♦ ♦

My mother is coming back. She called today, and left a message telling me she'll arrive on August 16th, at Oakland Airport. I hadn't specifically invited her, but she'd mentioned that she wanted another visit, and I hadn't said no. To Penelope I said no, but to my mom I said "We'll see," so we'll see each other in three weeks or so.

Last time Mom visited, she stayed at a hotel in Walnut Creek (white suburbia), and at some point during her visit I said something like, "Why are you staying way out in Walnut Creek? Heck, I could've gotten you a short-term room in my rez hotel for a lot less money, and a lot less time on BART." Didn't know it was an invitation when I said it, but now that's what Mom wants to do. She wants me to talk to Mr Patel, and reserve a room for her, in the residential hotel where I live.

I'm man enough to tell her no if I felt like saying no, but her last visit was pleasant and we got along OK and she's my mom and I want to see her, so I've accepted her cordial self-invitation. I'll be a gracious host, unless she wants to listen to that tape of Dad's funeral.

I love my ever-loving mother, but she knows how to push my buttons, and she pushes them all, and after she's pushed them all she starts over again with the first button. She's Christian and conservative and dishes out digs frequently, and she doesn't approve of my life and she's not shy about saying so. We don't have a lot in common except that I came out of her.

We'll have a marvelous time, I'm sure, and it's on the calendar: August 16-20.

At 2 ayem this morning I wanted to be asleep, but instead I was listening to a car alarm that had been blaring on and off for 45 minutes. Everyone in the neighborhood must have been awake and angry like me, except the boob who owns the car — guess he was oblivious, or out of town. Every time the alarm stopped, it started again several minutes later. Then it stopped again, and started again. And again.

Why buy a car alarm, if you're not going to be alarmed when it goes off?

I stewed and then said fuck it, I'm suffering and I want him to feel some pain too. I got mostly dressed, went down to the sidewalk, and followed the 85 decibel caterwauling to a bright red late-model Japanese sports car. I looked around for cops or witnesses, but saw only a bum walking toward me, so I quickly kicked three dents in the driver's door, boom boom boom, in rhythm with the never-ending alarm.

Back in my room, I thought that the car's owner might think his car had simply been vandalized. I wanted him to understand that justice had been rendered, so on three sticky notes I explained why I'd done it. 1— Hey fucker, 2— When the alarm goes off, 3— please shut it off. The 'please' was because manners matter. Then I returned to the scene of the crime, and superglued one note to each dent.

The alarm continued screaming, then stopping, then screaming some more, but with an hour of unwind time, plus earplugs, barbiturates, and my noisy electric fan at top speed, I was able to get back to sleep.

In the morning on my walk to work, I went a block out of my way to see my proud achievement, but it was disappointing by the light of day. Puny dents, really. I need to work on my kick. Should've gone for the windshield. The alarm had stopped sounding, though, and my notes were still attached, so here's hoping the message was received.

♦ ♦ ♦

At work, I said hi to Penelope. My plan was to apologize for yesterday, but you know what they say about the best-laid plans. I was sleepy and barely there, and 'Hi' was all I said. I smiled, though. That's something.

I was working with headphones on, because without music there'd be coworkers and reality and all that horsecrap. When my radio played Elvis Presley's "Return to Sender" from the ‘60s, I reached to turn it off or change the station, but — no, I deserved this. It was my punishment.

Flashback. I was about 20 years old, and a complete dweeb. I’d never had a genuine girlfriend, but I’d gone out with Cathy, four times. Hamburgers and movies, mostly. We hadn’t pronounced ourselves a couple, and we hadn’t done anything more than kissing and some slight petting, but I liked her, and the feeling was mutual — more than mutual, I guess.

Where we'd gone I can't remember, but we’d come back to her apartment, and the radio was playing in the background, and that song came on. It was already a golden oldie, and Cathy said, “Oh, I love this song!” She sang the first line, and we kicked off our shoes and danced in our socks on her living room floor. It was sweet and so was she. Five minutes later, we were sitting on the couch. Five minutes after that, we were over.

I was scared shitless when she sat me on the couch after Elvis, and started talking about love and marriage — loving me, and marrying me. I stuttered and stammered in response, ended the evening as quick as I could, and then I hot-potatoed her. I stopped calling, didn't return her calls, and dropped her without a word. It probably broke her heart, a severe penalty for liking me more than I wanted to be liked.

Cathy phoned the next day, and I let it ring until the answering machine clicked on. She left a message, beginning with giggles and saying, “I hope I didn’t scare you away,” before saying more of the stuff that had scared me away the night before.

I didn’t pick up the phone. After she’d finished I turned the answering machine off. For a week I didn’t answer the phone at all. What an asshole I was.

Like a stupid, stupid little boy, I was scared, so I hid. That's a fact, but not an excuse — there is no excuse. She wanted to be Mrs Me, but I didn’t even want to be me, and I sure as hell didn't want someone seriously with me.

When I’d thought it over and wanted to explain and apologize, it was too late. Cathy's phone didn’t answer, just like mine. I called again, but not often, and never got through. On my fifth or sixth attempt, a few months later, I heard, “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected.”

My conscience still shouted about it sometimes, so one afternoon a year later I opened the phone book. Cathy’s last name was very common and there were about twenty of 'her' listed. I called all those Cathys, but none of them was her, or if one of them was her, she (understandably) didn't want to talk to me. There was almost a full column of listings in the book with the initial 'C' and her last name, and one of those C’s might have been Cathy, but I gave up.

There aren't many things I've done that I'm out-and-out ashamed of, but vanishing on Cathy is near the top of the list. I wouldn’t do that again, and I'll never have the chance. Nobody's ever fallen for me like she did, and nobody ever will.

I hate that song, “Return to Sender.” The lyrics tell a sad and cruel story, set to chipper, upbeat music you could dance to, and we did. It was months later when it dawned on me, in a Twilight Zone moment, that what I’d done to Cathy — dumping her without a word of explanation — is almost exactly what the song is about. Only difference is, I didn’t do it by mail.

Every time I hear that Elvis song, I will always remember and regret what an ass I was, to someone who didn’t deserve it. There's nowhere else to say it, so I'll say it here, where of course she'll never see it: I am sorry, Cathy.

There's nothing going on in my life. I barely have a life. Zines and movies are the only interesting things that happened today, so zines and movies are all you get, dear diary.

Dishwasher #11 came in the mail, and I read it front to back. Great zine, always. Dishwasher Pete is the man who writes it and lives it, and it's all about the sacred art of washing dishes, from seventh grade, when Pete first heard the suds calling, through his recent stints washing dishes in Montana, Ohio, and Alaska. His goal is to wash dishes in all fifty states. If you haven't read Dishwasher, you want to. It's only a dollar per issue, way cool and way underpriced, from DISHWASHER PETE, ██████ ARCATA CA 95521.

Full Cup is Neil Schmidt's comic zine about caffeine addiction. He draws pretty pictures, tells twisted tales, and there's always funny stuff happening in the background. It's funny ha-ha and funny peculiar at the same time, and I immediately sent more cash for more issues. It's $2 for a sample, to NEIL SCHMIDT, ██████████████ MILWAUKEE WI 53202.

Then I ate a couple of sandwiches and BARTed to a Jackie Chan high-kicking Hong Kong double feature at the U.C.

Heart of the Dragon is atypical, at least among the seven or eight Chan films I've seen. It's a straight drama, with no kung fu until the final few minutes. I came for the action, but when no kicks were forthcoming I settled back to watch a Dominick and Eugene-style story, with director Samo Hung as Chan's retarded big brother. It was quite good, just not what I expected.

City Hunter, though, has all the wisecracking, high-flying, life-saving heroics you could want, in a ridiculous story where Chan is battling terrorists on a Love Boat. This one is top-level chop socky, right up there with Chan's Drunken Master or Super Cop, and it's laugh out-loud funny, too.

There was, however, one moment that made the crowd groan, when Chan's character uttered a throwaway joke about AIDS. I am not politically correct — you can tell dirty jokes, racial jokes, Helen Keller jokes, and if it's funny I'll laugh and repeat it at the office tomorrow. All I ask is, it's gotta be funny.

The problem is, there’s just nothing funny about AIDS. Hypothetically, I’ll laugh if someone cracks a hilarious AIDS joke, but I don’t think there are any. Or rape jokes, either.

♦ ♦ ♦

Whoops, I guess something beyond zines and movies happened today, after all.

So I came home from the movies, and wrote the above, and got myself a snack, and stripped naked and made myself comfortable in bed, and that's when there came a knock on the door. It was the mumbling man from down the hall, and he'd locked himself out of his room.

I've had a copy of his key nailed to my wall for a week, and tonight’s the first time he's needed it. I told him to wait while I put on pants, and then we walked to his door, and I turned the key to let him in. He didn't say thanks, or maybe he did. He mumbles a lot so it’s hard to tell.

Addendum, 2021: The addresses for those zines are from 27 years ago, so you can't send for a copy of Dishwasher or Full Cup. Last I heard, Pete is living in Europe, and I Googled around but can't find anything for where Neil might be or whether he's still alive. If you're intrigued by zines, though, pop over to r/Zines.

The company where I work has been in bankruptcy proceedings for months, and layoffs are not unusual. All of us come to work every Friday knowing it could be our last, and today was the last day for five people on my floor, including Louie and Hector.

I'll miss Louie. He was the only person in the building I’d let my defenses down around. I used to talk to him, not much but a little, which is more than I talk to anyone else. He's a good guy, nearly a friend, and I’m glad I had a chance to tell him that, but damn it all.

I know why they laid off Hector — he’s a colossal dumbass — but I don’t know why they fired Louie. He’d been there longer than me, and knew more, and worked harder, but now he's gone. My guess? They fired him because he'd been there longer — he’d had more raises, so he maybe made 45¢ an hour more than me. Or maybe they x'd him out because he's gay.

In the past, when heads rolled at our shitty office, the dead were told to empty their desks, and escorted out by security guards. That’s the American way. For today’s layoffs, though, the company did something different. Something surreal. I was wondering, do they supply crack in the executive suite?

The announcement was on paper, placed on everyone’s desks, listing who was fired and bizarrely thanking them, and inviting everyone to lunch. It said, at 11:15, everyone please gather on the sidewalk. We all stood awkwardly outside for a few minutes, and then the doomed and the survivors followed the executioners, and we all walked a few blocks together to an upper-class hotel, and rode the elevator up.

At the top of the hotel, with a view of San Francisco somewhat obscured by the windows and walls of taller buildings, we were fed a high-class buffet. I’d never even heard of a ‘high-class buffet’, but this was not a place with lukewarm leftovers and Coke in plastic cups, like every buffet I’ve eaten before. This place had shrimp and steak and lobster and assorted fancy things named in French. It had waiters behind the buffet, so you didn’t scoop your own vichyssoise; you pointed and a waiter scooped it for you.

It might have been the fanciest restaurant I’ve ever eaten at, and they gave us an hour and a half to eat, so I stuffed my gullet with all the gourmet food. I had seconds of everything that was good, and most of it was good. I hope Louie took home a ton of it in his pockets.

Other than the food, though, it was not fun. Workers and bosses and faces I hardly knew came by to say farewell forever to the people uninvited back, and it was uncomfortable for everyone, but mostly for Louie and Hector and the three other goners.

After we’d eaten our feast and said our goodbyes, everyone shook hands, and then we all walked back to the office. Now there were security guards, watching as the laid-off five packed their belongings into boxes thoughtfully provided by the company.

All this was cruelty dressed up to look kind, and it was also expensive — no prices were posted, but I asked one of the waiters, and he said the lunch buffet costs $29 per person. With everyone from my floor at work eating, 40 or so people, that’s $1,160 plus tip (if the corporation tipped, which I doubt). It's indicative of why the company is in Chapter 11, if you ask me.

I've been working in this office for a couple of years, and the tally is now 22 laid off, in four rounds of 'downsizing' — and that's only among my co-workers and workers from adjacent groups, people I knew by name or face. I couldn't begin to estimate how many have been let loose from the labyrinth of other offices on other floors of the same building, and in other branches of the same big, evil, and stupid corporation.

20 of those 22 were just grunts like Louie and Hector and me. Two were low-level managers, same rank as my boss. No executives have been terminated, to my knowledge, though every one of them makes at least ten times what Louie or Hector made. Upper management has decided it's not upper-management's fault that the company is literally bankrupt, so their jobs remain secure. Funny how that works, every single god-damned time.

In the office, Louie always sat on one side of me, and Hector on the other, so when I read their names on the layoff list, my first thought was that they were shutting down my whole section, and I’d be gone, too. But nope, I still work there. I've been told that my duties will now be ‘expanded’ — in addition to doing what I already do, I’ll also be doing what some of the laid-off people did. It's work I know nothing about, but it sounds even duller, more mindless, if that's possible.

Downsizing always means the same work gets done, slower and worse, by fewer employees. If I had any balls I'd quit, but I don't have any balls.

This entry is a mess, sorry, but it's hard to write tonight.

SATURDAY — Went to work today while the office was empty, just to steal some staples, index cards, glue, envelopes, scissors, tape, a portable fan, and four reams of paper. The company makes its money by owning me, paying the least they can, so I’ll take whatever isn’t nailed down, with no regrets.

This zine will be printed there, too, after hours in a few days, on one of the company copiers.

Riding the elevator down with a full backpack, I remembered another ride in that building’s elevators, where I’d stood beside two senior executives. They were MBA-types, like I wrote about yesterday, immune from being fired no matter how much they mismanage everything they touch. As the elevator descended, one of them complained to the other that on business trips, the company would no longer reimburse more than $25 per person, per meal.

“God,” I wanted to say but didn’t, “times are tough all over.”

♦ ♦ ♦

At the Pacific Film Archive tonight, Aliens was double-billed with The Brood. That’s an unusual match — I’ve seen Aliens several times, but it’s usually paired with Alien at cinemas that specialize in old movies.

Aliens starts at a slow simmer, then boils the rest of the way. It’s good but not as good as the original Alien, and I didn’t remember some of the special effects being quite so cheesy, or that the monsters only bleed acid when it won’t endanger Sigourney Weaver’s pretty face.

The Brood is an early David Cronenberg relic, and I’ve enjoyed some of his movies, like Videodrome and Scanners and the repulsive but irresistible Dead Ringers. There are some good moments in The Brood, but overall it’s ludicrous. Cronenberg’s script is laughable instead of frightening, and the scariest thing in the movie is Oliver Reed’s toupee.

♦ ♦ ♦

For dinner, a Big Mac and a big fries, but only one of each because I’m on a diet. After consuming this alleged nourishment, these reassuring words were found on the bottom of the waxed cardboard box that the waxed cardboard fries came in: “The design of this box is a registered trademark of the McDonald’s Corporation.”

Capitalism — quite a concept. On Tuesdays and alternate Saturdays I can see how it works, but most of the time it seems like a system set up for the rich and powerful, to keep them rich and powerful.

Do I have a better alternative? Not really. Hey, I just work here.

♦ ♦ ♦

SUNDAY — Did nothing much this morning. Didn’t shower, didn’t put on a pair of pants, didn’t even emerge from my tiny apartment except to use the john down the hall. I read some interesting zines, tossed some uninteresting ones, and banged out these dull paragraphs. Spent lots of time on the bed, contemplating world politics and the cracks in the ceiling.

For lunch, bread and butter.

This afternoon, I sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,” accompanying the bells of St Someone’s Church out my window. Killed a roach that had crawled up the lamp next to my typewriter, and left its corpse there as a warning to others. Listened to a baseball game on the radio, but only as background noise — I don’t know who won, and I’m not even sure what teams were playing. Thought about doing the laundry, but didn’t. Mowed my crew-cut with the clippers.

For dinner, bread and peanut butter, with a bag of dried fruit for dessert.

Then I edited away some subpar writing from this morning, scratched myself in a manly manner, and called it a day. Frankly, I’d call it a pretty good day.

♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve been turning my pathetic life into a pathetic zine for two months now, and what’s the moral of the story so far? Sorry, this is reality, so there’s no moral at all.