Because some of you are show-offs, I’ve started running again, I started this week.  Not in marathons, no, in my garage –  I will only run in place.  It’s because something terrible happened once when I was young. 

They have this thing you can do in high schools, it’s ridiculous, they call it Cross Country.  The kids who do Cross Country run after school for two hours and then go home and one year I did it.  Rich Hedges was our coach and once he made us run to another town.  A town!  And I thought, how completely absurd — to run to another town.  But they were doing it so I did it, it’s what happened once we got there that I didn’t get over.  We turned around.  We had to run back. 

So now I will only run in place and when I stop, I stop; all done.  No running back.   

I ran in place in the garage and listened to 80s songs because neither the station or volume on the radio can be changed.  I count the songs, it keeps me busy.   When I was done I got my bike out because I’m riding my bike to lunch.  Take that people who pedal to work.  Yeah, take that. 

If you don’t mind, I’m packing my toothbrush now.  I’ll see you on Third Street about noon.  

I had the oddest dream about K. — K., you must remind me to tell you.  I was divorcing you, you worked in television news and you were wearing Ugg boots, they were girl ones.  Also, my Grandmother was there, she kept insisting I wear gloves.  We were all to go outside (there were others there, too) but you and I were in the foyer having a fight about the divorce.  I’m almost certain that you were at fault.

I had another dream, but not last night.  This time there was a theater, the old one that’s here in town.  And someone bought it and made me the manager, and … well that dream was low on dialogue and plot, a little bit but not exactly like Crane Flies.  Suffice to say, I managed it well.  Crowds returned, I recaptured its glamour, I’m almost certain I saw you there, too, in a long sequined gown. 

This I saw written about a biography that’s out, but it makes a great first line, I might use it:  “Albert could marry Victoria, but he was not to run the household.  He was allowed to bring from Germany his valet, his librarian, and his greyhound.”

There is packing to do today and if a magic hamster could give me three wishes, the first would be that I would never again pack.  I would have a packer on staff, I’d be done with it.   I haven’t tried wishing on the hamsters, I might give that a shot before I start. 

I’m meeting D. for lunch, at L.’s favorite place, if you want to come I’ll let you buy.    

My NetFlix queue doesn’t showcase me well.  There’s only 13 movies in it, for one thing.  If you looked at my NetFlix queue right now you’d think me terribly uninteresting, you’d wonder why you bother with me at all, you’d stop reading on this very word (this one) and you’d never again give me gum.

Which is why I won’t let you look.  Okay, so look, then, big deal.  I’ve been on sabbatical with NetFlix, that’s part of it.  It had a lot to do with some movies they sent — they’d gone missing.  Last night, though, something incredible happened, the movies came back.  I found two out of three and I put them in the mail, and now I feel I’m meeting NetFlix again for the first time.  There are flutters. 

While you were busy not reading (remember, you stopped on that one word up there, I think “this”) I added four whole new movies.  Now I have 17 and I’m far more intriguing than I was just three minutes ago.  I added a Foreign Film with sex, an Orson Welles, a Documentary (of course) and a Classic.  I think you’ll be pleased.  It might just change everything, I might even start to rate.  M., why aren’t you my NetFlix Friend, did you know you can do that?  It would be much easier for me to be interesting if I could just steal your queue.  

I’ve got to rewrite the entire scene that starts on page 80, I’m saying it here so I don’t forget.  Because I’m not going to do it now, right now I’m playing with the end.  It’s a bit indulgent of me because the ending is really fantastic, you’ll like it.  There’s a surprise, some tears, a new shirt.  I may take the new shirt out. 

I’ve had a disturbing turn of events with the ants.  I may have told you they were gone, and they were.  For a time.  I was victorious, for a time, or Mark was but I paid the bill.  This morning, however, there have been three of them.  This seems innocuous, I know, but it’s not.  The startling thing is that they’re new ones.  They’re new ants, they’re the next size up.  There were two, for some reason, in the car, and then one just now as I typed.  I’m sure it’s something to do with global warming, global warming after all, has stopped the wind.

If you want to see one of the new big ants, meet me at two.  There will be a lecture and slideshow and a box of Lorna Doones.       

I’m now manic, but don’t worry.  I scheduled it, it’s fine.  I’m finishing things, I’m curing disease, I’m putting a pond in the backyard, I’m watering plants.  

There’s a website or maybe journal or some literary thing — I’ve not the time to confirm – but it’s called Narrative and they’re running a contest on six-word stories.  They’re not the first to do it, another place does this, too, and I’ve submitted a few but not written them down, so they’re gone.  My own six-word stories are lost art.   Who cares, though, what I wanted to say was that I’m on the Narrative email list and so they sent me some others.

Hemingway, for instance (it’s true of the cats, it’s when he lived in Havana) wrote this:  “For sale:  Baby shoes.  Never worn.” 

Margaret Atwood wrote this:  “Longed for him.  Got him.  Shit.” 

And Stephen Colbert wrote this:   “Well, I thought it was funny.”

I had a cat in my book, he’s been named BLANK since the beginning.  BLANK is a placeholder for details I don’t know.  It could be a name, or the car a person drives, or the television show a character likes, you get it.  So the cat was named BLANK, I’ve three weeks to fix the BLANKs, and today I named the cat Scooby.  What do you think of that?

I’m not here all week, I’m leaving Sunday.  Well, so I guess I’m not here all next week.  Try the pork. 

… and dangerous at the same time. 

I didn’t say it, Edward Gorey did, I’m sure I’ve used it, though, more than once. 

I don’t have time to watch movies all day; unlike you I have a real job.  So I play them in the background on my tiny laptop while I work.  And I listen or not, turn them up and down as needed.  That was how Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore just went.  I spent much of the movie on phone calls, another chunk of it played on mute; the last five minutes, though, I tuned in.  Kris Kristofferson comes to the diner and Mel gets mad and Vera throws some water and Flo gives good advice.  I cried as soon as Alice did, I’m a sucker; and then I wanted a monte cristo. 

I’m still troubled with dialogue and adventure, there’s really very little left to do.  Please do it for me.  I’m going to eat my gazpacho, I’m going to have Ellen make some, too.  Maybe that’s her adventure.  A whirl of the food processor. 

For inspiration I tried The New Yorker, it’s the fiction issue this week.  I hated every single one, I couldn’t get through it, but I’m moody today, I’m sure they’re all good.  On page 50 is a cartoon of two clowns, husband and wife.  They live in a nondescript house on a tree-lined street and the husband clown is marching grumpy off to work.  He’s got a cigarette shoved in his mouth.  The wife clown, in shabby bathrobe with coffee, is doing her best to buck him up.  “Make ‘em laugh,” she says, sour-faced.   One wonders if there are kids.

I think we should have martinis tonight, or at the very least tomorrow.  It’s the last day of Catholic school.  If you want one, you know where I live. 

I’ve had comments on my book from educated sources; they’re comments I should listen to.  One of them is that Ellen must get away.  I made a lame attempt, which I’ve cut.  (Because it was lame).  Now I need an adventure, a journey, but something small.  Not a big journey, no.  Not to Venezuela.  Half of the charm of Ellen is that she lives in her head way up on a hill and most of her life plays out on a wee canvas of just a few square blocks.  Her forays are far from grand.  When she takes a lover he’s in a vegetative state.  Ellen’s at her wildest at 3:00 on Fridays, when Safeway pours samples of wine.  

So the adventure must be in character, maybe a trip to the Nordstrom half-year sale at the mall.  Or maybe she’ll run a marathon, hurt her feet, put tape on and run some more. 

Regardless, it’s the biggest problem right now.  That and dialogue, I’m low on dialogue.  You could call me today and pretend to be Howard and I’ll play Ellen and we could talk up some dialogue.  If you do, I’ll give you tomatillo gazpacho for lunch.  If you don’t, however, I’ll pout. 

I found my earring, I thought you’d like to know.  The watch, though (my favorite one!) is still at large. 

I know people who have coffee rituals.  I used to have one, they’re bred sometimes in offices.  Remember Francis, M.?  I know you do.  The one thing she pressed upon me on my first day at 42nd Street was the making of coffee.  She made clear the importance.  I forget, now, how the coffee went, it’s the gravitas I took away. 

The ritual here on the dead-end in Mac is sometimes inconsistent.  I’ve tired of making coffee.  I rarely enjoy the making of it anymore, I enjoy receiving it in a cup.  I think I’ve passed the time in my life of rituals.  I think I’m ritual-free.

So this is nothing about coffee, and you can shoot me if you want, but I think Salinger was kind of a wimp.  (Slate brought it up, not me.)  I never understood all the intrigue, I won’t drive to New Hampshire to stare at his house.  Yes, he wrote a good book, then some stories, but if you stop for 45 years, doesn’t that make you something else?  Do you get to be revered because you wrote something once?  Will you, by the way, be my cult following for Crane Flies?  I think it speaks to generations.  I think mass murderers will keep copies of it in their coats.

Scruffy needs a place to stay next week, I should have asked for my birthday.   He has bad breath, he eats garbage and often his own waste (thus the breath).  He relieves himself on carpets and barks most of the day.  Send in a list of your qualifications and someone will call when the coffee’s done. 

(Oh.  Send it here.)  

Thursday I fought off a raccoon.  (I would have told you about it Friday, but Friday I was somewhere else.)  Thursday night Scruffy was outside and started crying and when I opened the door to let him in, there was a raccoon.  It looked like this (see below) only 23 times as big.  And, also, I was barefoot.  (I think that detail’s important.)

Other things have happened since the raccoon, I had a birthday — remember?   And some of you gave me gum and flowers and company and some of you gave me other things, all of it much too sweet.  I find the birthday part of birthdays to be very enjoyable, the days after, though, are somewhat slow.

My house is falling apart.  It should, it’s 100 years old for Pete’s sake.  Still, it’s a bit inconvenient for me.  Joseph Epstein recently said, ”Of late, a sense of decline and fall has taken over our apartment.”  (Joseph either was or wasn’t married to Barbara Epstein, and in on the beginning of The New York Review of Books with her, I always forget.  Don’t look at me like that, of Joseph Epsteins, there are actually two.)  

Here, too, we’re in some disrepair.  Small things are happening like mad, I can’t keep up with them.  A man stopped yesterday and righted some and now he’s well-thought of, but any moment now the whole thing may fall down.  There are plants that refuse to live, paint peeling off, weeds popping up; the spiders thrive.  Hooks on doors have detached, there are things requiring ladders, there’s a feeling, I’m afraid, approaching shabby and I don’t know where to start. 

A pond, I’ve asked Jose to fix my pond and make it pretty.  Then when you come over I’ll walk you directly to the pond and that’s where we’ll stay, right by it.  This will remove your temptation to look elsewhere and see the nails slipping out, the top deck I’m sure will collapse, the yard CJ will mow next week.

A pond is the answer, I know it.  I’ll add fish and the raccoons will stay out because now they fear me.

More, as I sometimes say, later. 

My strawberries are red, the strawberries from Anna.  They’re red, they’re red, I’ll make a pie!  I took a picture of the red ones, that was yesterday, and the picture’s on my phone and if I can find my phone I’ll email the pictures to my computer and show them to you.

I’ve had loud rock music on in the garage for three days, you’d think I was smoking out Noriega.  But I’m not.  It plays on the radio I use when I run on the treadmill, and it’s a weird comfort to me to have it on.  I can’t turn it off.   I realize, as eccentricities go, it hardly ranks with O’Connor but there are years left, give me time.  It’s been on for three days and it’s not music I generally like.  (I have Art Tatum, for instance, on in the house.)  And I can’t hear the garage music really, for the most part; just trickles now and then but the trickles bring comfort.  I don’t know why. 

Maybe it will smoke out the hamplet, let’s hope he has sensitive ears.  It’s day two now, or maybe three, and he’s had little water I’d bet and one gruesome day soon we’ll discover the body.

The hamsters have been educational. 

I’m in the guest house today and the garage music, from here, is loud and clear.  It’s a talk show, it’s called Mark and Brian.  Is it worth noting for my biographer?  I seldom turn lights off, too, but that seems dull.  It’s better, I think, to gather cats. 

There’s a hamplet loose, it’s a problem.  You might remember that Custard went through this — freeing herself each night, me hunting all the corners.  Well Custard is big, she’s somewhat easy to find, but the hamplets are not.  I’m doubtful this little hamplet will be found.  So now there are two.  

Scruffy thinks he can have character disorders because he’s cute.  He thinks his cuteness excuses everything, but they’re severe, his disorders, and some are all over my rug.  Jason comes next week, he cleans the rug.  He comes by quite a bit. 

I used to have a phone, a land line phone, that cut out at random points in conversations.  I had it for months, maybe a year.  It wasn’t the battery, it was some other quirk.  I would talk and then it would die, and everyone got used to it and for a year this is how I lived.  I lived a year without goodbyes; only endings, neat and abrupt.  It happened again last night (though this time it was the battery).  There was a conversation, a sentence was right in the middle, and then without warning, there was nothing.  The phone stopped, everything stopped.  The end. 

It’s not a bad way to go.  Goodbyes make me anxious.  The sudden ending, I think works.  Call me, we’ll try it out.

I bought basil plants Sunday, because I wanted to, though I now don’t know where they should go. 

I’m going to Disneyland soon, you can come if you want.  Or if you don’t want, you can come wash my car.  I’m good either way.