It was a Friday, November 24th, 2023, when I reached behind to the little Latin American woven basket in the headboard behind me (Marian Heller had given this to me after one of her trips, c. 2002) and found a number of rosaries that had belonged to Michael’s mother. Michael was still alive, breathing shallowly, though he had not spoken in a week. I took one of the rosaries and placed it in his hand, which grasped it, out of reflex probably. I also found a little bracelet of wooden beads with a copper token dangling from it: on one side a “1” and on the other the word “FEED.” This was some favor from a 10k I paced in September 2012, at this point the last 10k I ever ran for any reason. I put the bracelet on and continued to wear it for the next year. I put on my quilted Barbour coat and went down to St. Patrick’s (this might have been before, or during, the 5:30 Mass) and began or continued a novena to St. Jude. At this point I was no longer praying for Michael’s recovery. I prayed for his soul. And I cried. I cried much of the night. I suppose I drank a lot of vodka because I have no memory of doing anything else after walking back home from the Cathedral. Sometime after 5 a.m. I reached over to Michael and he was cold. He had stopped breathing. I got onto Facebook and sent a message to Young Brian, that his Uncle Moki had just died. I never heard back from Brian. I don’t know what I did for the rest of the day, I left no diary entries from the time. I suspect I may have gone out and bought a liter of vodka from the Chinawoman and drunk a good deal of that, and slept through much of the day. Next day, late morning, I decided to phone 911.

I’m still wearing the wooden bracelet. I have disturbed very little of the bedroom since Moki died. I have Moki Mouse in bed next to me so I am not alone. There is still a series of pill vials along the top of the headboard on Moki’s side, and some more pill bottles on the credenza. I’ve cleaned the bathroom, mostly, and figured out how it became so filthy and lacked a toiled seat for many months. I’ve tossed out the heap of clothes he left on top of his wicker hamper, and now use the wicker hamper for my own laundry. I still cry when I think about him, I am crying now. Fortune seems to be smiling bleakly at me at this moment; I apparently am beginning a steady job (about which, more later).

Yesterday, Saturday, my workday began at 8 a.m., talking to this Sally at Hoolio. My mission for the next few hours was to go over to the Apple Store and buy $5000 worth of equipment, including two MacBook Pros, with the M4 chip. Then send the MacBook, and an iPad Pro, to my “supervisor” in Newark, whom I imagine to be the worst sort of unlikely non. We didn’t think this through at all, as Sally wanted me to ‘overnight’ the package via UPS, but that was impossible. Meanwhile I could have taken the things to Newark, myself, in one hour. I expect that in 2 or 3 days I will insist on traveling out there myself to save another day or two’s turnaround.

To liquor stores today, not for booze to drink, myself, but for some Kraken Black Spiced Rum for Dottie. The Chinawoman’s had it for $34, but the Hells Kitchen Wine & Liquors on West 55th between 9th and 10th had it for 28 and change, $31 or so with tax. Dottie also wanted a lime, so I bought two at Whole Foods, along with milk (going through half-gallons very quickly, and they are the cheapest at WF) and a Blake’s chicken pot pie and a frozen burrito…both of which I ate within an hour or two of getting home.

Watched Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo last night and this morning/afternoon. I remembered a very long, drawn-out third act (after a jolly first hour to the film), with Van Johnson hiding out with the other pilots in China and finally losing his leg. A sad, bleak story with a ray of happiness. He gets back with his wife, though he’s ashamed of the way he looks. Tough Col. Doolittle (Spencer Tracy) bucks him up, tells him he’s putting him back to work.

Crushing headache today after a long and deep sleep without any Trazodone or distilled spirits. In fact I haven’t had any distilled spirits since the weekend. (It is now Friday.) A couple of beers last night at Randolph’s in DUMBO. Very hoppy beers, I think, and my headache today—peaking between 10am and 2pm—was some sort of allergic reaction. I took a can of IPA home with me and drank that around 3, fearing the worst, but maybe the ‘hair of the dog’ worked this time. It cleared up just in time for me to engage in an hour-long text chat with one ‘Sally’ at Hoolio (code name in this blog), which seems to be my prospective employer. More about that later.

I felt very pleased with myself last night and this morning for having shuffled off to the nruns party at Randolph’s. Feeling fatigued and bleary-eyed from a disturbed sleep cycle, I’d made up my mind by 3pm Thursday (yesterday) that I wasn’t going to go to the party. Then I noticed it was raining outside, and thought, wouldn’t it be terrible, if they had all the balloons and streamers and party fixins out, and only a dozen people showed up? So I would go and and add my heft. But I wouldn’t go too early. No, I’d get there after 7. As things happened, it was closer to 8. The F train did not stop at York Street. Went straight on to Jay St/Metrotech. Big station, I did not know what to do. Must be a long walk in the rain, up to York St, I thought. Found the F train going the other way, and its next stop was York. After that, and the block-long upwards-incline ramp (I was panting) to the street (Jay St still), I knew my way under the bridge overpass and to the beer hall, just a block away. Passed Stephen Bonnet, who recognized me at a distance even with my yellow slicker hood up. We slapped palms, high-five.

Quite a turnout. Geoff Vincent, Jen, John Liu, Steve, Jasmine, some people I know but don’t know the names of. I asked Doug Olney who that cycling guy was whom I’m always talking to. Turned out his name was Mark and he was there too, not three yards away. I didn’t realize he was bald. Outside he usually keeps his pate covered with a do-rag or Italian cyclist’s cap. Very pale, no doubt very blond when young. Long Polish name. Well, we had another good conversation, carrying forward the one we had on Saturday when we were waiting for the last 10k runner to reach my split mat. Jen was giving out tokens for the game machines and I played three games of pinball on the Jurassic Park machine. Hadn’t gone pinball since maybe Newport Avenue, playing with Colin Flaherty.

Strangely I seem to have been selected for a horrible nothing job that pays me maybe a third of what I’d usually be offered (for jobs that don’t pan out or that die with their departments in a week or two) but must be very undemanding. Copyediting but really mostly proofreading. Infra dig, but I could not take anything stressful just now. An international corp owned by subcontinentals. They must have wanted me very much. Or maybe they’re hiring a half-dozen people. Or the sluice gates have opened all over, employment-wise, and it’s a bull market for hiring now, thanks to the booming markets after the Trump and GOP wins two weeks ago. They gave me some bank account numbers to pay off my Chase Amazon card so I can buy needed equipment. New equipment. I think a laptop and/or tablet. Bluetooth headset. Magic mouse? Is that for real?

I am surprised, relieved, astonished, though only in the same way as with Mr Trump’s win. I don’t trust any hiring process anymore, and yet…the mind reels with calculations. My net “income” will more than double after this. There will be no fear about not paying the rent and utilities. Still ekeing out a bare existence, but expenses will not increase.

Around 2pm I got myself a $15+ pizza from Mangia and gobbled it down. Previously had a Starbucks coffee and coffee cake. Living large. Watching videos with Lawrence Brown and Evan Edinger.

Splashing out yesterday, early afternoon when I returned from Gov Is, I got some cash from the WF ATM and bought a whole pint of Pinnacle at the Chinawoman’s. I went through that fairly quickly. After downing half of it (cutting it with blue Gatorade from the race setup) I conked out and slept for six hours. Alas, I had put a Blake’s chicken pot pie in the oven at 400º for what was supposed to be 40 minutes. It was completely carbonized when I found it.

So later on I cooked up a couple of the chorizo sausages I got at Whole Foods yesterday. I sliced up the two avocados and found they had largely gone bad (a day or two late). I ate the fried sausage bits with arugula and a cut-up apple (the apple from the pre-Hallowe’en Gov Is races). Pretty good. I can do that again. A bit of salad awaits me still in the fridge.

My weekend work was characterized by constant reassignment. I found out in the last couple of days that I was going to do Timing. I had visions of setting up five sets of four timing mats, along with decoders and generators, all in the space of an hour or so. Turns out I only had to work on the split, the halfway point of the 10k on Saturday. Sol (pretty girl who is head scorer or something) sent a message on Teams that the generator should be started because the battery on the decoder was down to 60%. I didn’t see this because I had no signal over by Liggett Hall. Or thought I had no signal. And just before this happened I was dragooned by Marco and Michele into doing portapotty duty: that is, there was crowd of maybe 150 people waiting to use the carseys, and we were splitting them into two orderly lines, while Senka (large Russian? woman) and I directed each line to the vacant conveniences, the ones with a green wedge in the latch indicator. Occasionally people wouldn’t turn the latch and they were caught by surprise. Oops. But we got through them all in the last 15 minutes before the race. Then the little Korean butterball came over to set up the generator after the race started. I spent a half-hour with the bicycle guys, waiting to see when the last runner would pass the split. Well we never found the last runner, because we anticipated more when there weren’t any more. Afterwards I had to detach the mats, turn off the generator, collect the cables, pick up other generators and plywood, and fire extinguisher towers, etc. I was out of there by 12:15.

Bryan, Steve, Geoff? and Halloran

So that was Saturday. Something similar on Sunday, except no timing duties, and I was more directly under Holleran, who had assigned me to setting up the sound. Something I’ve never done. You unzip the speakers and put them on the tripod. Then attach the AC cord to the generator, and start the generator. The one generator I tried to start was bum, for some reason. Low oil, said Mr. H. Meantime I’d been alerted on the ferry that I’d have to do marshal duty. And thus I did, back at the Oval, where the warmth of the sun was a pleasure. I counted about 750 runners coming through, but was told there were about 1100 starters. Curious about that. The special treat for this weekend’s races was doughnuts, or as they call them, “donuts.” Fortunately they had plenty of glazed and apple cider ones when I got through marshaling. After that I took down the speakers and tripods, gathered them up with the generators, loaded the trucks.

Natalie and Geoff

Michele asked me yesterday if I’d be up for driving a truck to Prospect Park soon. I said yes. I think that’s the 7th, something about cocoa. Driving a panel truck at 2 or 3 in the morning should be a novelty. There’s another race the following weekend in Central Park. Bigger one, I think. I haven’t seen any communications yet about that. Fortunately these are both a few weeks off.

Print and TV news these days is mostly about Trump’s cabinet appointments. Negress calling Pete Hegseth a “White Supremacist,” lots of warm support for RFK Jr’s healthy-food initiatives. That Waltz or Weitz guy, congressman from Florida, is considered very iffy as Defense Secretary. Elon and Vivek heading department cleverly called DOGE, something to do with efficiency.

I am supposed to be Timing Coordinator on Gov Is tomorrow morning and I do not feel sufficiently trained. Have reviewed the handouts. I know how to put mats down, roughly where they go, and how to thread all those cables and (I think) connect with the decoder. But not much else. Scrolling through options on the decoders seems a mystery to me. Fortunately I’m not totally alone tomorrow. A mystery to me, not entirely crucial here, is how I work on the Split, when when the Split (for a 10k) isn’t even given a mat.

On the bright side, I’m more than just a pair of hands, and I’m already—prematurely, proleptically—scheduled to do the same next month. I don’t have to labor for hours, unloading and packing up, installing a hundred French barricades, raising and lowering tents. This work is probably harder in some ways, but I’m not wandering around.

Halloran is in charge of Finish/Start both days, Sat & Sun.

I noticed Jen sent around an email, looking for applicants for a Volunteer Manager for the Brooklyn Half next spring. Volunteering is kryptonite to me, so I wasn’t tempted. I wonder what happened with Tina, the enormous and slatternly volunteer manager I dealt with in the olden days, who wouldn’t let the volunteers have bagels (etc.) because bagels weren’t for unpaid volunteers, only for the people who were already getting paid to work.

Colored my hair on Wednesday, midday, with the light brown Excellence. It looks very nice, but my hair feels very thin. I left a big grey splotch above the right corner hairline, sort of the Tulsi Gabbard look, only hers is in her thick sidelocks. After coloring and drying my hair I went to Coliseum Dental at 3 and the tall girl with glasses, the one I keep thinking is Iranian, replaced two slightly missing ceramic fillings. Apparently I have a crown on top that collides with one. Only an hour or  less in the chair, not too much chastising for my teeth being in poor condition. “Oh this has to come out, that’s another one you’re going to lose.” Paid $82 on my citi debit card card, being $68 for today’s copay and $14 from some previous dangling debit.

Then off to Whole Foods, where I bought some kind of organic vegetable hash, thick beef patties, a $6 sourdough loaf (which I basically took home for free because the barcode didn’t scan), a big 2 lb jug of maple-flavored whole-milk yoghurt, some cheap $3 granola…two avocados which are now becoming ripe (may eat a little salad for breakfast before shoving off at 4:50am)…thought about a cheap frozen pizza but put it back in preference for the vegetable hash.

Bought a $5.43 Platinum pint at Shirley’s this evening. I promise myself not to drink more than 1/2, with smoothie, before conking out for a few hours shortly. Can’t go to the ferry terminal with a load on.

The euphoria over Trump’s win continues, not just stateside. Katie Hopkins has done a few videos about why she is thrilled and really, Brits should be thrilled.

I saw nothing in these that was cringe, except possible reference to the non-issue about “men in women’s sports.” But she fundamentally sees the cultural issues clearly. And she has a huge appreciation of the American Constitution, particularly the first two articles of the Bill of Rights.

Katie sometimes reminds me a bit of Lady Colin Campbell. She might not like that. I’m surprised at how young Katie is. Born in 1975?

Katie Hopkins discusses Donald Trump’s win, while traipsing through the countryside.

It’s a government of Uncle Don, RFK Jr., J.D. Vance, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, and maybe maybe Matt Gaetz (very iffy just now). There’s also a Mike Waltz, Nat Sec Advisor designate. Pete Hegseth, the chad who shows up on Fox and Friends, as Defense Secretary, which will be hilarious if it goes through. John Thune is now Senate Majority Leader. A bare GOP majority in the House now, but it won’t be useful unless they get another 4 or 5 more; some are resigning to take appointments. A very fetching blond Catholic girl from New Hampshire will be press secretary.

I shat myself yesterday for the third time in a week or so. Rinsed running pants out in the sink, hung them up. Then went to the gym, pretended to start a workout, washed up, started to dry my hair. But they’ve put plastic boxes over the mains plugs in the vanity hallway, so I couldn’t plug in my dryer brush. Dried a little with THEIR dryer. Irritated, I walked home. Stopped at the TacoBell in the old YWCA. A beefy burrito and a simple hardshell taco. Quite good. But I felt I was leaking and farting through the evening, even while going through the nruns training in Brooklyn.

At home I had to phone Dottie who had called me while I was on the recumbent at the gym. I was giving her information about how to brine and cook salmon, she was telling me her health insurance broker/advisor.

A little before 5 pm I set out for the Gowanus area of Brooklyn. There are two subway stations near the warehouse I was approaching. I now know that my usual one, Smith and 9th, is about twice as far as the other one, 4th and 9th. And 4th and 9th has the advantage of being on both the BMT (R) and IND (F) lines. I was glad I set out early, as there were delays on the downtown F. Big fat Hasid or whatever squeezed in next to me, then moved to a 4-ft bench when that opened up. We waited at 42nd or 34th street for an extra 15 minutes. But by the time I got to Smith and 9th, it was only around 5:30 and I didn’t have to be at the warehouse until 6. I gave myself a leisurely walk, arrived around 5:45.

This was for scorer/decoder training for nruns. Very pretty girl who calls herself Sol led the way. Erica was there too, and a couple of others I knew. We spent most of the hour-and-a-half or so going through Sol’s digital notes on setting up the decoder and cables and mats. After 45 minutes of lecture we pulled out some mats and cables, and decoder boxes, and set them up on the floor of the warehouse. Me, a fat girl in a Fordham jacket with a name like Lydia (not), an amusing old negro I’ve interacted with in the past named Aaron, and a few others I did not know. Cables get plugged together, then into the decoder box, then the decoder readout gets set and primed. Later the generator gets set up and plugged in (turn on, choke, turn off choke, etc.) and we set up the digital clock.

Nearly all of us left, around 7:40, for the 4th and 9th subway station. It took me only a half hour to get home. Some strange black guy, a burn victim with most of his ears gone, was showing off pictures of himself and begging for money. Reminded me of the blind or at least sunglassed negro in the silver space suit in Greenwich, by the Woolworth’s on the Post Road, back in 1959: “Did you thank God that you can see?” When Nan-nan and I went to Greenwich for some reason. She’d brought me a toy wristwatch on that occasion. I’d initially thought it was a Swingline TOT stapler. Similar plastic box.

November 7th is the anniversary of Moki shitting the bed, or me finding him shitting the bed after bringing him Starbucks coffee (which he much enjoyed) the previous day. I cleaned out the shower and laid down what I thought was a rolled-up bathmat he had, and tried to get him into the shower. But I couldn’t get him up. I got some sponges and a dishpan with soap, and we tried to clean his shitty butt, and all the diarrhea he’d left on the sheet. I cleaned it up as best I could. Only at this point did it dawn on me that Moki belonged in a hospital. I’m still glad I did not put him away. We had a couple of pleasant weeks together. In bed. Watching Godfather movies over and over. Maybe GoodFellas.

I had thought of writing a diary entry on Election Day, after I voted for Mr. Trump. Instead I wrote a long shaggy-dog piece about my prognostication about presidential elections. I made it convoluted enough that it could be taken as satire. Anyway, shortly after I posted it, around 5:30pm, I became confident that Trump was going to win, if only by a hair. And then by 10pm it appeared it would be more than a hair.

Not all votes are counted, a few states still out, but it is obvious Trump has something like 312 EV to Kamala’s 226. Kamala’s candidacy was a complete joke, and it’s only after Election Day most of us can really face up to that.

It’s a sweep for the Republicans, as I secretly suspected it would be. We have the White House and the Senate, by a long shot; and almost certainly are keeping the House.

Sympathetic eyes and voices in Britain and elsewhere are cheering on the results. It’s like Churchill in 1940-41: the decision has to be made in the USA. It is our duty to lead. I resent this totally, and can forgive it only to the extent that the Powers that Be and Were have so manipulated things that the French Empire and British Empire no longer exist, leaving the American Empire, which should not be playing with fireworks outside its own backyard, to pretend to lead the way.

The ‘Easter Egg’ surprises in the Trump win include, most prominently, the Bobby Kennedy Jr. initiative. He should be, from the outset, the most prominent member of the Administration. All news stories should revolve around him. It will be a great distraction from everything else. He wants to mastermind health concerns, get poisons out of water and food. There is no greater existential calling in the short or long term.

Very early this morning I was wondering about that Albert Finney portrayal of Churchill, something I saw 20 years ago. Turns out to be The Gathering Storm, a single TV movie. What I remembered mainly was Vic Oliver singing ‘Keep Young and Beautiful’ in a terrible revue sequence in which Sarah was a chorus girl. I’d imagined this was a whole series.

I went to get a nice Bowl at Chipotle across the street. My Citi Cash card was declined. Whatever for? Surely there is some credit. But my MGM+ card was also, apparently, declined. I’ve hit the ceiling. I am not completely skint but have hit the ceiling on some things. Bought a pint of Svedka at Shirley’s on the Amazon credit card. Tomorrow, $500 from Gusto, next week $1500 from SS. After that, some shit job from HopeDepot or crazy remote development looney.

Now that Brian is safely dead I suppose I can ask the once-and-future President for a job. I will definitely send a note in the next few days.

I really would like to have Moki with me now, to see Mr. Trump win again, unambiguously. And to watch Breaking Bad with Moki.

Why I did not get another 5 or 10 years of grace with my husband is a mystery. Trump’s win probably was connected with Peachy Keenan’s novena to Our Lady of Victory. That bought us another few years of struggle and hope. I did not make nearly enough struggle for Moki (other than wisely not taking him to the hospital) but I did let him down in the last few weeks.

On the subway, to and fro, I was reading a book, probably a PhD dissertation, about Flannery O’Connor and her treatment of negroism. She was very sound.

…is basically like back bacon. I had a few slices on three thin sandwiches today. I had never had any kind of SPAM before, but kept reading it was delicious. It was. Grilled in skillet.

Mostly lying on the bed all weekend. It is Sunday night. I did not go to mass. I did however go to All Saints and First Friday mass two days ago.

Dishes piled up in the sink to an extraordinary degree. If I don’t do dishes at least once in two days they get overwhelming.

About $5.00 left in the WF account. About $500 coming in on Friday. Rent check goes out tomorrow. Haven’t paid in a couple of months. If the VCF payment doesn’t look like coming through in the next few months, I don’t know what I’ll do.

Wednesday I went to Coliseum at 3 and had my teeth cleaned…because that is covered by insurance. That slender, tall, Persian female dentist is riding me again about getting numbers 2 and 3 pulled. Thinks 2 is cracked. Also wants wisdom tooth #1 out. There is no reason for this. Anyway I have an appointment with her, middle of next week (the 13th) to fill in a couple of cracked fillings on the lower left.

One of the reasons for the sink overflow is that I did some cooking around the 30th. Was seeing Dottie on the 31st. Brought her some of my rutabaga mash and a cup or so of brown rice (Nishiki) and a packet of Chinese mustard (from the cupboard bowl) because her Chinese food delivery left these out. I also attempted to make rutabaga jack-o-lanterns, with knives and then electric drill, but gave up. Bought a $17 bottle of Prosecco for Dottie (mainly) and some v for myself at Shirley’s. Dottie also requested that I haul up a brick that she used to prop open the roof door, but which somehow had migrated to the courtyard out back. I couldn’t find it, we didn’t need it. Cooked chicken on the hibachi. Also homegrown arugula salad and some kind of squash that looked like crab. Yellowjackets buzzing around. Dottie took out her tennis-racket zapper and killed a few.

Wanted fish & chips yesterday morning, so ordered from A Salt and Battery and went downtown on the F train. I’d misremembered the shop as being near Fiddlesticks. No, it’s up around 13th St on Greenwich Ave. Got my haddock and chips, right on time, ate it for lunch then dinner. Later went off to the NYPL Mid-Manhattan to get a book about Flannery O’Connor. Something Greg wants me to review. Very narrow book, like a short dissertation. O’Connor and ambivalence of race. Also got some Skyhorse book about JFK conspiracy. On my way down I saw The Travel Agency, cannabis store. Went into complain about my chocolate edibles being missing one piece. Sissy redheaded white boy at the counter (most in there are nignogs) told me the one mustache-shaped piece is actually correct, it is two portions. I have no way of knowing if that was true, but I suppose I can believe it, given the hell I went through last week, or the 21st. The teenage horrors all popping out, fresh as harvest day. Who would have thought that the sc shame would continue to be lively 50 years later? I appeal to you, ladies and gents. Anyway, I bought a $3.50 can of soda, or something, with a mere 3.5mg of THC, and that was sufficient. I mixed it with vodka yesterday, and got just enough buzz without going over the rails.

Am due for the timer training at the nruns warehouse on Tuesday evening (two nights ahead). Not sure I want to get tied in for being a regular timer, since that involves, among other things, hooking up the electric wires in the mats. But I now have a ThinkPad as well as my MacAir. The ThinkPad that came about 5 days ago is surprisingly heavy, though versatile. It has Windows 10, but supposedly can install Windows 11. You flip the screen around and it becomes a touchscreen tablet. Still very heavy, though, and not as user-friendly as the surviving MacAir.

But the ThinkPad was in remarkably good condition. One crack, NW corner, which I somewhat repaired with superglue.

I registered for an Outlook mail account. M…V…@outlook.com. Haven’t used it.

Do I bring the ThinkPad or the MacAir or nothing to the timer training on Tuesday? Send msg to Jen H and ask.

New York Marathon today. How pathetic it all seems.

Short-term, signed up for the Criterion Channel. Am watching some Coen films. Watched The Big Lebowski all the way through yesterday, and now The Hudsucker Proxy, which is of the same era and mien, to the point where I mixed the two up. None of the Coen films I’ve seen are big on plot, except for Fargo, which is near-perfect in so many ways. And maybe Blood Simple, though I haven’t seen it in nearly 40 years. They tend to be scattershot picaresque. This happens, and that happens, and that leads to this minor plot… The Big Lebowski seemed to be a latter-day comment on Chandler confusion. It’s got Julianne Moore doing a Kate Hepburn routine that is really a retread of the Jennifer Jason Leigh character in The Hudsucker Proxy. Which I have yet to finish…maybe 25 minutes to go.

Two shifts at Gov Is over the weekend. Not too wrecked after that. Ferry Terminal and then Amenities on Saturday (10k). Start/Finish under Holleran on Sunday (5k). No particular pain in the neck/left shoulder. It was starting on Saturday but this time I brought along that mysterious tube of Tiger Balm that’s been sitting in the red hanging cosmetic bag for years. And you know, it actually works.

James P., foreground, Steve L. with arm extended, in bg, testing out the tape-break for the 5k on Sunday.

Middlingly cool, sweater weather, on Saturday. Uncomfortably chill, in the 40s on Sunday. I wore the navy sweatshirt with a Buff and the day-glo uniform jacket, with my zip-up Asics fleece running pants.

Oh yes, I shat in my red Tempo running shorts, worn as underwear. And I didn’t have a spare pair with me. I found this out when I went into a portapotty along Liggett Hall to take a wee. Seemed to be the result of the big Dunkin coffee and doughnut I had at 5:30 in the morning.

Went to the liquor store at 56th and 9th yesterday after coming in from Gov Is. Then stopped at Dave’s Hot Chicken and got little fried chicken ‘bites’ and fries. Good stuff, but $12. A very rare indulgence, more out of curiosity than anything else. I’m glad I don’t have a fondness for junk food.

Was out of coffee. Went out to M-W in late morning, after getting coffee cake and coffee at Starbucks early. I got milk and yoghurt, and toilet paper and a can of tomato sauce and box of ziti. Had an idea I’d make mashed rutabagas but there were no rutabagas to be had, not even for ready money.

But forgot the coffee. Turned around in the lobby and went back out, this time to the drugstore.

With the Brooklyn HM the previous weekend and these two shifts and odds and ends, there will be something like 25 hours hitting Gusto a week from this Friday. The pittance I get suggests something like $500 after taxes etc. I will feel almost rich.

Next week I also will have timer/decoder training in Brooklyn, at the warehouse. Perhaps impulsively I bought a used $50 ThinkPad on eBay. My thinking was that a PC machine always comes in handy, and the timer work seems mostly done on a Windows network. The Lenovo ThinkPad has Windows 10, but I think can be upgraded to W11 if need be. I’m hoping it’s not too bruised and used. I see many of these for sale about that price: “fleet” laptops remaindered by corporations. Good new Windows laptops go for $200-$300 so there really isn’t much resale value in these, unlike with Macs.

Other than that, no responsibilities for nruns until Nov 16 & 17, once again a 10k and 5k. I believe there’s a half in Central Park in December, and then not much for a while. I suppose nruns will be figuring out logistics and operations revenue for the upcoming year. They took a gamble by hiring paid (lowly paid and casual, but paid) part-timers early this year to take the place of the volunteer program, which really wasn’t working out. I saw the tail end of that during the Brooklyn Half expo in April, when the enormous Tina showed up and I briefly chatted with her and Tom Joyce in the ZeroSpace waiting room upstairs. Lots of attrition with the volunteers. I only lasted a year or two myself; there was a distinct lack of support for these people who were working for nothing. And so they decided to hire part-timers. But the part-timers too have suffered from attrition and JH has taken more people on in the last few months. I have a foggy notion that if I keep my nose clean and my eyes alert I can be bumped up to something more steady and serious.

Last week I bought a replacement battery for the Garmin 235, which now runs down after a few hours. Enough for a daily run, not that I’m doing that, but not enough for a 10-12 shift with nruns, where I’m doing maybe 5-6 miles of walking.

Today I took the remnants of the Cincinnati chili I made a few days ago, mixed in a can of tomato sauce, and used it to make baked ziti with the bag of shredded cheddar/jack. And it is quite good.

Must write something for Greg. The Charles Stuart thing, I think.

Took a trial sub to New York today, thinking there would be a lot to read. There wasn’t. I did however do a crossword, for the first time in decades, and finished it, in a bit under an hour. Those things are mesmerizing.

Appt with Coliseum Dental on Wednesday. Cleaning. I didn’t want to go back to them, but I’m paying the dental insurance and have not been to NYU in many weeks, because haven’t connected with the periodontal department. So, clean first, and ignore their useless extraction-happy lectures.

Seeing Dottie on Thursday. She’s tried to have me over a few times but we didn’t connect.

Doing a Peachy Keenan novena to Our Lady of Victory, for the (unstated) victory of DJT in the vote next week.

Only by glancing at my gmail list the other day did I discover that my Bellevue WTC appointment was supposed to be on Monday the 21st, not Thursday the 24th. In all this time I hadn’t made it to the gym or lost any weight. So I packed up, with the dryer brush, and set off for TMPL. Around 54th and Broadway I realized I was too fatigued to do anything, and went home. Exactly a one-mile walk.

I slept much of the afternoon and evening, fitfully, waking in the wee hours in the midst of listening to Toland’s The Last 100 days, which is surprisingly good. Little gossipy asides about, eg, Patton sending men on a suicide mission to rescue his son-in-law.

At 7am I took impedimenta out of the bathtub, and showered and shampooed. Good thorough cleaning here, with conditioning from the L’Oreal dye box. Dried hair with towel, gun dryer, and brush dryer. Dressed and set out for the doctor’s at 8am or so, heading across 56th to Fifth, down a few blocks, over to Mad and Park, through GCT and down Lex. 145 E 32nd is on the east side of Lex. The office was nearly empty when I got there. A large fat negro at reception gave me a clipboard of paperwork, then made me fill it in again because I’d filled in spaces he hadn’t marked. Dr. Schiffman turned out to be a squat, kinky-haired woman of 55. Not a trained gerontologist but a pulmonary expert. I didn’t take clothes off or discuss my last period or pregnancy. Very cursory. I did have to give blood later, but that was no nuisance.

Then, up Lexington again to GCT, where I wandered about, looking for improvements. They have a red-and-white brasserie in the old waiting rooms on the 42nd St side. I bought jalapeño jack and gourmet crackers at the cheese shop in Grand Central Market.

Temptation overtook me when I got to 48th St and so I went to Sean’s. Spent over $40 on a huge burger and fries, and a double vodka on the rocks. Because the old guy who came in ordered a double vodka and that sounded like a good idea. I wrote a couple hundred words in the Muji diary (88). Will type them in at bottom.

When I got home and stripped down for a nap, I recalled that I’d stopped at The Travel Agency, a cannabis store, on Fifth, somewhere near the Scribner’s building. I’d bought a tiny bag of chocolate edibles. Opening it now, I found there was only one piece there, shaped like a dark-chocolate mustache. I was disappointed, and gobbled the whole thing down without reflecting that the 10 THC listed was what was contained in a much larger candy bar I bought out in Seattle in 2017.

So in a half-hour or so it hit me. Like a bad trip. Hallucinating with my eyes shut. All the horrible thoughts I’d had on acid or strong hash when I was 18. Cruel caricatures of me before my eyes, mocking me for the pathetic freak I am. Unstoned, little of any of this bothers me now, just as it did not when I was 18.

Cottonmouth. I kept staggering to my feet and filling a cup with water. After doing this two or three times, the dreadful, self-persecuting thoughts began to fade. Yet it must have been a 4-to-6-hour high in all, mostly unpleasant. A relief when early morning came, after some genuine, undisturbed sleep, and I knew the bad trip was now out of my system. I still staggered a bit when getting up. In the course of the next few hours I ate all the cheese and half the crackers I bought yesterday.

I remember going home after first couple months in college, for Thanksgiving, and smoking a little joint in the bedroom with the window open. At that point similar thoughts had flashed upon me, but they were happy and welcome. There was the sudden realization, not for the first time, that the sc was a-comin’, and inevitable.

My blood report from Bellevue shows that my LDL cholesterol is high, but my HDL cholesterol is in the good range. I thought Michael had some anti-cholesterol pills among his stashes, but I’m not seeing them around now. Perhaps I tossed them.

I’m thinking of going down to The Travel Agency and complaining. Bring the pack. I don’t really want more of this stuff. Maybe something indica.

Now I feel free, terribly free and reprieved. It’s Tuesday, and I don’t have to go see Schiffman in two days. Nothing on the books in fact until early Saturday morning, when I work Ferry and Amenities for Gov Is.

From Diary 88, yesterday:

21 OCT 2024

Sean’s Bar for the first time in maybe 6-7 years. Double shot of vodka because I haven’t had booze in a week and this looks like a half-pint in the big double-old-fashioned glass (more like triple-old-fashioned).

Fatigue from yesterday, when I went off to TMPL but turned home again halfway out. Slept pretty well, listening to J Toland’s Last 100 Days. Never listened before. Awful lot of tiring detail about crossing the Rhine. Lately it’s Operation Sunrise and the ineffably incompetent Reischsführer Himmler.

To my complete surprise, my WTC in-person appt at Bellevue was this morning, not the 24th. And I was all prepared to talk about my pregnancies, my chillun, but the subject never came up. I didn’t take my clothes off. Short, fat, rather jolly Dr. Leah Schiffman. They did take blood afterwards.

Lying on bed, one knee propped up against t’other, MacAir on thigh, 10:25 of a Sunday morning. Don’t feel sick (occasional cough) or terribly wrecked after yesterday in Prospect Park (Falling Leaves HM and 5k) but when I get up I stagger a little and think I could sleep a week. I slept most of Friday, then got up around 9 or 10 pm, dawdled a bit before catching the subway at 2am. The F train is on a wonky schedule, skipping stations, and so it skipped Prospect Park – 15th Street. Next stop, Church St. I got off. Had no idea where I was but figured I could walk to the park within 20 minutes, and if not, call an Uber. After waking a mile or so through rather pleasant neighborhoods—a big BP statin and convenience store, like something you’d see maybe on an Interstate out in the sticks—some overhead walkways which reminded me of when I’d go to Bishop Ford H.S. to get bib for the Iona 5k in PP—I found my way to the SW corner of PP, and after that it was just a matter of another 10 or 15 minutes. I was supposed to show for the Finish squad at 3, and actually showed around 3:07. So not too bad. We almost immediately walked up Center Drive and unloaded a truck or two. Boxes of medals. A couple of tents and tables. As with the last 5k/HM deal in PP in August, I was assigned duty of sweeping or raking up the leaves and mulch and other debris from the road. This was the finish for the 5k, followed 150m up the hill by the HM finish. Again I got snoggled into filling the medal racks, after putting up the French barriers for an hour or two (we used about a hundred at the Finish) and then the webbing or gauze or whatever they call it. The mesh. Black on one side with nruns logos and white on the other. You unfurl and lock-tie these 50-foot-long, 3-ft-wide decorations to the barriers, on top and bottom; and then of course have to take them down again at the end, and spend about an hour with a half-dozen other people loading the barriers back onto a couple of trucks. This was only the Finish; down at the double Start area there may have been nearly as many. uStood with Jasmine at the top of the hill, laying 20 HM medals on each hook of the rack. We had 1000 registrants each for the 5K and HM, and had medals for almost exactly those numbers. Very little surplus. An hour or so into the HM I was sent out onto West Drive for crowd control, which I suppose means making sure people are strolling into the finishers’ lane. PP has 3.3 miles in its loop, so end of 3 loops is 10 miles, and anyone who’s run 10 miles knows he’s got another loop to go. Nevertheless there were people in the outer lane (for loops 1,2,3) who were confused and asked if they should get into the Finishers lane. I can see the confusion here; you’ve done three, now you’ll do the final loop; but the Finishers lane only takes you about 1/8th of a mile, to the HM finish mat. Ahead of me, by an H sign pointing to the lane for runners in loops 1,2,3 stood Geoff Vincent, ready with his mocking remarks at these runners who all had GPS watches but didn’t know how far they had run. (My Garmin 235 is losing battery power, conked out after 6 hours and maybe 6-7 miles of mostly walking and standing around.) Geoff used to to live in Brooklyn and ran in PP a lot, he mentioned the Cherry Tree 10-miler. I stood out in West Drive until after noon, then we did the “load out,” putting the tables and tents and barriers back on the trucks. This took us nearly till 2pm. I was so fatigued I had to stop and rest on one of the benches on PP West, before making my way up finally to Bartel Pritchard Square. Fortunately not too long a wait for the F, which was quite crowded though I got a seat. The digital station indicator in the car kept giving the wrong information. The stop was Carroll St when really it was Bergen St; then all the following stations, all the way into Manhattan, were Bergen St. I drank 1 1/2 Celsiuses from the tent. Marco Trevino jokingly told me not to drink the second (he was getting rid of surplus during final load-out around 1:45) because I’d already had one that day. The first time I drank a Celsius it did indeed make me a bit ill. These two had little effect. Except I did have a full bladder by the time I got to the subway. Getting home, the toilet was my first stop. A 35-second pee.

Next weekend, a double-header, though neither nearly as strenuous. A 10k and 5k on Gov Is. That’s maybe 6 hrs each shift, for perhaps 24 hours this month. Almost something like a real paycheck. We’re supposed to wear costumes or something. I’ll wear on of Moki’s flat caps and a black eye-mask and maybe a ratty scarf, and say I’m a burglar.

Sitting here on Sunday morning, watching bits of Downton Abbey, first two episodes (quite good), making coffee, ordering a replacement battery for the Garmin 235. I don’t know if there are instructions anywhere. There doesn’t seem to be a replacement service either.

I was supposed to have gone to the gym every day for the past two weeks, or months; but that illness Oct 1-15 and beyond through that into a cocked hat. Still a bit of coughing, though not a steady hack. On Thursday I have to see Dr Schiffman at Bellevue. I will be cheery and dishonest, and wince when I see what I weigh. Perhaps today through Thursday I wil make it to TMPL. Whatever I do weigh, I suppose I can slough off ten pounds. How to get to the new Bellevue office? Around Lexington and 32nd. Walk to Park, down Park seems the best bet. I’m almost certain MSK has not supplied my records to the lawyers and thus to the WTC VCF medical people.

No booze in the last few days. No desire.

It appears Mr Trump has the inside track to regain the Presidency, but I am far from certain about that. Betting odds are something like 60-40 or better. Those are bets, not votes. He might get swindled again, despite the slight precautions they’ve put up.

Have not paid rent in nearly 2 months. Tomorrow.