1/6-1/12.2003 -

1/6.2003

I woke up today at 7:35 AM. The first day of school is synonymous as the solstice for the season of exhaustion. The first day of finals is the equinox of sleep deprivation. I show up early to my first class, Introduction to Music Literature. There are signs taped to the windows and pillars of the Main theatre saying meat here for Music 10, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to go inside or if we are to be taken en masse elsewhere. I see other people enter and go up the stairs so like a good human I follow. The instructor talks to the class in the preceding minutes before 9 AM. He’s handing out candy while he looks for someone that is ignorant of the technical aspects of music. His assumption is that all 300 of us have taken at least piano lessons. This isn’t a course requirement otherwise my lower middle class ass wouldn’t be sitting in that room at that time. As class begins he plays Gerschwin’s "Summertime". People are filtering in – shuffling with tardy footsteps through the aisles to their seat. In the summer time living is easy… Class started 15 minutes ago. Choose a seat. Class started only 7 minutes ago but exaggeration is a key factor in controlling the masses. He plays the same song over and over again. He begins humming along. La da dee da da da – turn your cell phone off. He expects us to go to one or two concerts a week. So once again the UC Regents are holding out their fists and asking me to choose between food and education.

At 10 Am I wondered around campus. My next class was to be at 2 but I am waitlisted in English 100F, a class I would much rather have than Music 10. At the MU I see two friends – Lisa and Vickie. Lisa gives me a hug. I’ve never gotten a hug from Lisa before. It’s been a long time since I’ve hugged a woman besides my mother or sister. Lisa gives me a quick hug. I hate those, they seem so empty. I’m always left wanting more. There is nothing more powerful than actually touching another human being. It can be the most soothing and the most annoying sensation. I am lonely so my skin is extra tender. I used to want to fuck Lisa before I got to know her and realized she was crazy. Insanity seems to come with having a pair of X-chromosomes, but every individual is crazy to a different degree. She’s crazy in that she wants it all and could probably have it but defeats her self with pessimism. Easiest way to start an argument with her is to tell her she’s attractive. At least my low self-opinion agrees with my ugliness. She knows she’s crazy and doesn’t deny it. Besides I’m disgustingly stable so I like to surround myself with passionate illogical people. Vickie has an awesome friendly personality. If someone doesn’t like her they’d either have to be dead, dumb, or Hitler – in Adolf’s case he’s all of the above. Deep down I now Vickie is lonely, I can tell because I know how to hide my own loneliness. I’m introduced to an interesting blonde girl (I forget her name) that doesn’t like cell phones, computers, or cars. She’s the Unabomer only with friendly eyes and a perky smile. People with dimples don’t mail bombs.

I go to English 100F. After I sit down a girl named Jillian who was in 5F with me sits don next to me. I once overheard her tell a friend that she hates me. We make small talk. She’s an angry and bitter person. I wondered how she would fuck. Would the pessimism last through the foreplay? The instructor shows up an hour late at about One O’clock. I thought he was attempting a process of weeding out but he’s actually just flaky. After class he sees me outside of Voorhies and asks how old I am. I say 22. He figured as much because the average freshman wouldn’t write as mature as I do. He really wants me in the class. It’s nice to have something in common with another person.

I see Vickie and the blonde girl on the quad. We talk about our crazy families. Vickie saw a vest that my mother would love. I told her via one of my long-winded stories that my mother loves the American flag. As usual I let the conversation revolve around me but as I walked away to my 2 PM class I felt like a selfish bastard.

English 3 seems intense but boring. I hate having to read other peoples works and having to write essays about them. It’s like watching gold on TV. Why watch when you can play? In creative writing classes at least some of my shit gets read. And I like getting to know other writers. Its interesting to look at someone and know a fraction of what their imagination has created. We read a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story. Translations are always messy.

Outside waiting for Hickey 290 to be empty I sat down and waited for poetry to begin. I scribble down the beginning of a poem about my recent strip club experience I’ve been meaning to write about. I sit down in the room and watch as my fellow classmates enter the room. The first nine people to enter the room are male. Eight students and one instructor. This is unheard of. I’ve taken over half a dozen creative writing classes and women always outnumber the men. Poetry classes are like wartime villages where penises are scarce. Chuck the instructor mumbles "All guys" and the guy behind me continues the mumbling with "I’m dropping". The women – beautiful muses and walking salvations – do come. The class ends up being about evenly gender split. Pardon my prejudice but a lot of the guys don’t look like poets. A few look like they know more about Mike Tyson than Lord Byron. But most women that don’t look like they subscribe to Cosmo look like they could be amateur poets.

There were girls that particularly got my attention. Now it could be said it is because they were the prettiest girls in the room. With either height that compliments my stature and breasts that would fit perfectly against my torso, that bulges with a fat gut. Or with exotic dark features and eccentric fashion sense that makes me think of what she would look like without any fashion besides her skin. Two girls had a presence in the room. One girl had an amazing self-awareness yet resounding amounts of apathy for public prejudice, as she was comfortable folding herself about in her desk. The other girl sat across the room, she had wavy short hair and was thin. I love the complexion of her skin, a soft tan that probably took thousands of years for her ancestors to accumilate. I looked throughout the room continuously – any excuse to pause my gaze in their direction. I grew paranoid that they could sense me observing her fidgeting, every woman knows when they are lusted after, but beauty is a hard habit to break. Chuck went through the syllabus, as the class couldn’t fathom the journal concept. Of course I’ve been writing longer than 15 minutes today but Jack London used to write 10 pages before breakfast everyday during certain times in his life. We read a few short poems in the class. Some people think less is more I think less is laze. Of course who am I to define a poem. It’s done when the poet is finished with it. I read an Allen Ginsburg poem out load. I wrote a poem once about Allen Ginsburg inspiring my imagination to think about two of my professors fucking. I love Ginsburg. I want to be the modern day Ambassador of Fuck. After class I but my books. I run into Jennifer at the bookstore. After a few minutes of small talk she runs like a rabbit from a wolf.

I go early to English 161B. I love film but I’m mostly taking this class because Diana is. I show up at 6:05. She shows up at 7:05 with friends. She says "Hi." We occasionally wave throughout the 3-hour class. We watch old 50s instruction videos about family. The sincerity of the narration amuses our modern sarcastic minds. It’s no wonder the height of the nuclear family coincided with the dawn of the cold war.

After class I’m looking for Diana. I walk over to where she was sitting with Maurice throughout the class. We made funny faces at each other at one point. The only face I know how to make is ugly. I can do ugly in my sleep. I don’t see her and depression begins to sprout in my belly. But that weed is pulled by the sound of her voice saying my name. She’s coming up the stairs by where I was sitting. She introduces me to her friends. Sophie and Micah. I try to remember as many names as I can. Say the name back to the person as I’m introduced and then say it again as I say goodbye. I fail a lot – as I did with the blonde girl earlier in the day – but my name is so easy to remember I have to try harder than most people do. Diana and I talk about our classes and our winter break as we walk one way and then her friends direct us the other way. I tell her I have nowhere to be because there isn’t much homework the first day. She’s surprised that I don’t like not having homework. I say I like the direction. I have nowhere to be because the only place I want to be at the time is with her. Her ride shows up and I walk away with nowhere to be and no one to see – I’m like Emily Dickinson: Nobody.

I go to the computer lab and waste time.

I eventually end up at home – that being my mother’s house. I’m tired but a phone line was just installed in my room. I told my mother not to have it done because I ‘m only going to be living there for a few months but she had a friend who works for SBC do it for free. I dial up the Internet. I know I should go to sleep. It’s been a long day but it’s just too easy now. I wanted it to be harder to go online. I used to have to pick up my Imac and take it to the living room to go online. This convenience is going to make me lose sleep. Being lonely and horny I start to surf for porn. I think I’m a sex addict. If I had a girlfriend I would save money or at least spend it in more useful and investive ways. No strip clubs, no phone sex, no porn, no etc. The best thing about masturbation is the knowledge that I can at least accomplish one thing. I can set a goal and attain it. I hear screaming and then crying. I try to ignore it thinking my mother is just tired and the dog just stepped on my nephew. It continues so I get slightly undressed. I think it would look awkward if I hadn’t slightly disrobed after arriving home. I took off my shoes and pants and went to the dining room where my mother sleeps and occasionally my nephew does also. The lights are on and my nephew has snot and drool dripping down his face to his chest. I begin to wipe off his face. My mother is screaming. Stop crying. Its almost 1 AM and she has to be awake at 5 Am to be at work, an hour’s drive away, at 7 Am. Vomit is on the carpet. Buggers and spit are braided together in a rope dangling down from his lips. After he is wiped clean. I tear off my Toilet paper. I get two big bunches and thoroughly dab the carpet clean. I then realize that Nephew Jason has no blankets. My mother tells me he vomited on them and some stuffed animals. We never used to cry when we were sick, I am told. She says she’s going to call my sister. I sit Nephew Jason and my lap and wrap my arms around him firm to keep him warm. I rub his little chest, hoping the friction will cleanse him of sickness with heat. She calls my sister’s number and gets my brother-in-law, who lives in the trailer in the backyard, saying Jason is sick and I’m going to taking him back so get ready. I lift him up and he starts whimpering for his Bob the Builder tape. My mother picks it up and reaches with it in our direction. I tell him to hold on to it and I’ll hold on to him. I run out to the trailer holding on to a three-year boy and trying to keep my dick from dangling out of my boxers. We move quickly. He only has a diaper on so I’m his sole source of exterior warmth. I know on the door and hand the boy away. My brother in law wants to know what he ate to make him sick. I’m ignorant. I run back up to the house and wish my mother a good night. I turn my computer off and go to sleep.

1/7.2003

Today I worked for seven hours at an ice cream store. I suffer the boredom of wintertime. I’ve worked for Ben and Jerry’s for 3.5 years. It wasn’t raining today. With all of this modern technology, all the satellites circling the earth, all of this nuclear power, all of this talk of cloning; how come they can’t control the weather? It should only rain from 2 to 5 in the morning. I scoop and I get lonely. I make a milkshake and I get lonely. I use the register and I get desperate. The shop is enclosed in windows. I watch people pass by as I work alone. I look at beautiful woman. I watch children play. I wish I was at another place. When customers come in I examine something about them to start a conversation. But the first thing I always say is: "Hello, Let me know if you have any questions; I have all the answers." Although this is meant to ease the tension of someone not knowing how to order because they may have never been to a Ben & Jerry’s before or they don’t know what something is, more often then not it gets a wise ass response. Of course I always have a wise ass retort. What’s the meaning of life? "To waste time." When I scoop the ice cream into a cone I through it up in the air and catch it with the cone. This usually starts some sort of conversation on how great I am, or how bad. It’s either: Wow, that’s awesome. I’ve never seen that before. Or: How often do you miss? Although I prefer the former, the latter starts a better conversation. I usually ask the customer if they are a pessimist if they want to know about my mess-ups. Or I ask them if they always have such negative energy. They should think positive. Or I ask them if they ask everyone about their failures. I never do it with a tone that is too serious so they don’t get offended. But I have a hard time censoring myself. If I think of something then I’m going to put it in a conversation. If I actually do mess up I say something trite like "nobody’s perfect" or "even Barry Bonds strikes out." When I ring them up at the register I don’t count back the change I tell them what it is in cents. People are amused when I say their change is One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy Five cents as opposed to $17.75. What I hate is when they say I wish. They aren’t comprehending what I’m saying. Its like they think I’m kidding when I am telling them the truth. I want them to laugh but I’m telling the truth so believe it. Another thing I do while ringing up a customer is try to find something to have a conversation about – if there isn’t anything else to do and it the winter time that is a normal occurrence. Today a mother and daughter came into the shop. They had English accents and had rented Nine Months from Blockbuster. Having seen that video I stroke up a conversation about it. They were very surprised that I had seen it and knew a thing or two about Hugh grant besides his episode with Divine Brown. We talked about the various actors in the film and I told them about when I saw Hugh Grant on Conan O’Brien where he said when people run into him in New York they always say, Hey, aren’t you the guy with the hooker? I like a self-deprecating celebrity. All of my humor is self-loathing. I’m working on a stand up routine where I say I overheard a friend say the only thing wrong with Rob is that he hates himself. The only problem with that is if he didn’t hate himself there would be something wrong with Rob. I watched people pass by through the glass. I see a girl who I once talked to about the poetry book she had. I think I frightened her when I did it. I guess I have a very intense personality. Maybe I shouldn’t constantly try to invoke the spirit of Henry Rollins, but he is my idol so what am I to do? She had a book by a woman who slightly inspired one of my poems. I forget the name of the poet but I know horses is in the title of the book. I was once in a poetry class and the instructor had a chapbook of this poets. My friend Maijah was looking through it and thought out load She has really nice line breaks. I’m slightly obsessed with sex (that’s an understatement) so I was amused because it sounded like a pick up line. I went on to write a story entitle "Pick Up Lines for Horny Poets". I then adapted a portion of the story into a poem and expanded the story so now it is called "Pick Up Lines for Exploiting Artists, 101." This girl had wonderful red hair that looked like amber or brick. A few weeks after our encounter at the shop I saw her at the Alternative Film Club. I went and sat down next to her and I don’t think she remembered me because I look totally different when not dressed as an ice cream man. I asked her how the poetry is going. She said fine. The conversation was horribly forced. It was like translating Hustler magazine into Braille. I saw her pass by the shop. She didn’t look in. I’m just a lonely old fuck everybody body pities but nobody loves.

Outside of the shop I saw a woman play with her dog. She was around the complex for hours. Out on the grass throwing a Frisbee at her dog while he drooled with happiness. The woman was in a wheelchair. I wondered if she was a virgin. What would it be like to fuck a paraplegic? Would her nipples be extra sensitive? Would I have to use extra lubrication? What is it like for her to live her whole life without having an orgasm? I wonder if lets a guy have anal sex with her. Severed spinal cord means no discomfort.

After work I ate my second meal of the day. I’m on the V8 and Smart Start diet. I eat 2 ounces of cereal with 8 ounces of V8 twice a day. No milk. I get almost all my vitamins at 500 calories a day. I refuse to be fat. One day I will look in the mirror and be proud of myself. Maybe I’ll only hate my personality as opposed to hating both my body and my personality.

After English class I talk with Diana. She showed up late and has a plate of pizza. She begins to offer me a slice but then remembers that I’m a vegetarian. I’m surprised anyone remembers anything about me besides my name. I talk too much and lie too much. I don’t intend to lie I just say things that aren’t true to entertain people. I can’t even keep my life story straight. As we walk out of Wellman she kicks the doors open. That’s how we open doors in my country. I of course remember she’s from San Diego. But I remember everything about a woman that I want to know in everyone way. As I walk her to the bus station I talk about myself. One day I will end my love affair with the sound of my own voice.

1/8.2003

Cello is pronounced chell-0. My Music professor is so pretentious. I hate white people. Of course I include myself in that category but not necessarily every white person. I ran into Trish Kasicks today. I used to know her from the Conservative Baptist church I attended twice a week for ten years. Time has made its presence on her face. We talk about my crappy life. In all of my self-centerness I ask little of her. She directs me to where I need to go to reserve a room.

Beurocracy is the enemy of genius. I’m trying to start a club for writers on campus. Write Club. I reserved a room so we could have first meeting. Fill out this form. You need to go here and fill out another form. And so forth. Cancer and AIDS probably haven’t been cured because the scientists are too busy filling out forms.

At English 100F I try to make my presence known. We reintroduce ourselves. I talk about how my literature offends people. My classmates are eager to be disappointed.

At English 3 we break off into a group and talk about Flannery O’Conner’s "A Good Man is Hard to find." A very attractive and stylish girl named Marize is very friendly. She looks like she could be a model but she isn’t my type. She’s much nicer than I assumed. I hope to be in the same group with her again.

I’m getting frustrated by 5P. I don’t like being rushed. I’m too much of a perfectionist. I like to flesh something out in my mind before I write it down. Also some of the exercises or to constricting. I don’t want to fill in the blank on someone else’s sentence – I would rather just right my own damn sentence. I sit behind and to the left of Jennifer. Goddamn she’s beautiful. I like a girl who speaks up in class. Meek and timid aren’t synonyms for my kind of sexy. This other girl Aisha speaks up and I like that, but she’s on the other side of the room. I could sit by her but I don’t want to make things obvious and besides I show up early and it’s the woman that sit around me. I can’t gauge who I’m going to flirt with in this class unless I show up late, and I don’t like being late. I read a poem about napalm. I think my voice sounds different while it is reading poetry. It sounds smoother, calmer, and has a more attractive texture. It sounds more like a sinking rock rather than a tumbling one. At the break I talk to Jennifer. She sat on the stairs and I walked down to get a drink of water. On the way up I started a conversation with her. The only thing I got from her was that she is a genetics major. I could have done better.

I saw her sitting on the stairs

Staring at the air

Like the oxygen is reflecting her thoughts.

She’s thinking what I want to know.

She can take a lifetime to tell me it all

- I’m patient.

I looked over at where her thoughts were reflecting

And saw a concrete grating.

I told her about how I once watched

A couple of friends climb it.

My hands outstretched as if I were a splintered blade of grass

Ready to them catch them with arms that forgive gravity.

I would love to have her fall into me

So her limbs could sift through mine.

So she would grip the ridges of my body

And I can be as close to her as life is to death.

I have to leave class early to make it to the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco to see Henry Rollins at 8 PM. I leave class half an hour early and Hank doesn’t hit the stage until I’ve been there for an hour. I have such rotten luck. But I do get a recording of the show. I felt like a bastard fidgeting in the dark disturbing the people around me when my recorder was fucking up. I think shame makes the heart beat with a certain rhythm. I try to avoid that cadence.

1/9.2002

Nothing but work today. At 6PM when I’m off Lisa comes in to relieve me. She hates me. She doesn’t say a word to me unless absolutely necessary. She’s covering for someone else otherwise she wouldn’t be here. I swear she has asked the manager to keep us out of the same room. Maybe I’ll ask God to keep death out of the same room with me. My obsession with Jennifer continues. It isn’t healthy but I need a muse.

"Feast my Eyes on her"

She’s the girl

with my favorite meat

wrapped like ribbons around her bones.

I could spend a lifetime traveling her curves –

live off her skin

and never starve,

and never suffer the boredom of gluttony.

She’s the perfect meal to cure my

well balanced diet of loneliness.

Her body as round as the hills that lay in the horizon

of the Elysian fields

and as soft and tan

as the forgiving soil of earth.

I can chew away my fear of death

with her kisses.

My hands can feast

on her everyday,

and everyday,

and everyday until

there are no days left –

and they’ll still

Have hungry bellies in their palms.

She’s heaven by the handful.

I go to see Hedwig and the Angry Inch at 8:30. I look to see who I know. I see Diana, Dan’s ex-girlfriend with the purple hair who made me pan cakes one morning when I spent the night because I was too drunk to drive home, and I see James the clubs president who I eat lunch with occasionally. I see a couple people from English 5P. I see the regulars. I don’t see Diana from film class. I don’t see Lisa or Vickie. I don’t see the red haired girl I frightened. I don’t see Jennifer who I was hoping may show up. I do see Mark, Lisa’s ex-fuck buddy. I once gave Lisa dating advice at a time when she was interested in 3 men: Dan, Azver, and Marc. Marc was too clingy but good in bed, Dan was on the rebound because him and purple Diana just broke up, and Azver was waiting till marriage for sex. Azver clicked best with Lisa but she may be too horny to wait seeing as she isn’t a virgin. I told her to flip a coin: head’s Dan, tail’s Mark and Azver if it falls on the side like it did in Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Now Lisa is dating Azver so I guess coins can land that way. Lisa and Azver show up late. After the movie we play pool. Lisa, Azver, Chris, Chris, and me. I haven’t played pool since high school but I wasn’t the worst. It feels so good to not be on the bottom; but then again average is just a percentile division of mercy. I would rather be the best at everything I do. I know I’m the best at ugly.

1/10.2003

Six years ago today I had sex. I usually consider this the day I lost my virginity but I actually had sex with my stepsister several times when I was 10 or 11. My forthrightness all depends on the company I share. Today I go with Janet to see 25th Hour. Janet is desperately lonely. She’s my ex-girlfriend. I hang out with her occasionally because she has attempted suicide and she’s not going to school right now so she needs to stay busy. I can be a good person. The movie is awesome. We are planning on movie hopping to another show but after we get out she has to go to the bathroom and they are collecting tickets at the hallways so we can’t go back in. Stupid theatres don’t want my money. I only buy a concession on the way to my second movie. Their loss; Blockbuster’s gain. We watch Barbershop then I put on Deliverance and she falls asleep. I haven’t seen the movie since I was a kid. I guess people don’t have to wonder why I’m fucked in the head. I love movies that push the envelope. People tell me that there is a line that people don’t cross and I spend most of my time on the other side of that line. I tell Janet that I have to go to an orientation at 9AM on Saturday but really I’m going with friends to SF. I feel like her loneliness hurts less when it has more of an official purpose to it. But I just don’t like hanging out with her too much. She wants to date me again. I know it. When she touches me my nerves want to recoil but I have to fight to stand still.

1/11.2003

I wake up early and drive to Lisa’s. While driving I play Henry Rollin’s spoken word. I don’t have a tape or CD player installed in my car so I have to use a boom box. Normally that’s no problem but seeing as my window is busted out I have to drive while the boombox is on my shoulder so I can hear what its playing. Entertainment is worth more when you risk your life to get it. I knock on Lisa’s door at 8:50. No answer. I wait a few more minutes. No answer. I go down to my car and listen to more Rollins for 20 minutes or so and then go back to her door. This time she answers. I say nothing about the first two times and she says nothing to me. I wonder if she was asleep. We pick up Eliose and Dan and drive 90 miles through the fog towards the end of the earth that some people call San Francisco. We drive in commuter laps around the city trying to find parking. We see a five-dollar parking lot but Lisa says it looks closed. We see a ten-dollar lot but Lisa says it looks full. We see parking that may be free on the curb but Lisa doesn’t want to risk it. The parking for pessimists is $19 a day so that is what we pay. We walk to china down where we wait for 20 minutes to buy pastries. Dan and I are oblivious to the varieties. We walk from Chinatown east. As we stand next to a Starbucks we wonder if we walk a radius of five minutes how many Starbucks we would come a cross. We pass by the Embarcadero Center and see 17 stories high, a door to the street. There is a black door attached to a window. Kind of like a last resort. Skip to elevator out of the office this is the easiest way to take an eternal lunch break. We watched an old homeless man shit on the sidewalk and then we went to the park. When we saw our famous shitter eventually make his way to the same park we continued to Fisherman’s Warf. I nearly vomited as we went through the sidewalk kitchens. The smell of fish is more potent than racism at a Klan rally. My stomach began to tumble itself into a dizzy. But I just kept a calm cadence to my breathing as we continued to Ghirdeli’s square where it was chaos. I had a $7 sundae, topped complete with berries and suicide. After that we carried our fat back to car and went home.

At my mother’s house I put Jason to sleep. It’s funny when a three-year-old directs people around. Now I know how the French felt when Napoleon was in charge. I may not be three feet tall but do as I say. Not in those exact words but he tells me where to lie down when putting him to sleep. He wants to watch a movie and have me lay by his side. No that there – there. We watched a cartoon on Creation presented by my mother. I’m working on a short story entitled "A Eulogy for God," I’m not going to tell my mother about this.

1/12.2003

I designed the website for writeclub.net today. It takes hours. I actually did nothing today. Besides homework.

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