No news today, no crises. I did not work. I really felt unmotivated, blocked. I watched the latest episode of the Truman Capote thing on Hulu. Jimmy Baldwin comes to give him solace, only the negro actor is too tall and un-ugly.

Mid-afternoon inspected my 500-series Mac Powerbooks. What a fascinating waste. All can power up, but there’s nothing there. So fascinated by them 25 years ago.

Ate a big bowl of the leftover split-pea soup in the afternoon. Instant oatmeal (McCann’s) in the morning. Lots of coffee after having been awake since…12:30 am? To Shirley’s for one 1/2 pt Smirnoffs. That little bit is enough.

Timmy posted a number of 1920s-30s pictures of the Daverns in Meadville and Buffalo, around the first of the year. Where and how did he get these?

I sent him a card and photo just after Christmas, no reply. I suppose that’s dead stock. Should shoot a message to Claire. One of these days I may be up in her area.

Messages via Teams from the nycruns Start people for the 5k and HM on early Sunday. I have to work from 3:30am to 1:30, I think.

What a time for my sciatica to start up again. But there it is. Need to run, need to do gym, next two days.

Ebay has charged me nearly $10 for items I’ve posted but I haven’t made a single sale. None of the Kennedys, the Milers, not even the Mayflys (though there’s still hope there yet).

Got the other Birchers book from the 53rd St lib yesterday. Mark Dallek. Much more incisive than the terrible Miller bio of Welch. Do a review of each, intersecting, over the next day or two.

Greg wanted a crowd-sourced answer to mysterious FPY references. Who said this? What’s it about? Very obscure and generic for the most part. I found something on Little Entente and maybe John Dewey and Nye Bevan.

I ordered a charging battery pack for the iPhone SE2 the other day and must say I am pleased. A charge on the phone and pack seems to last for nearly two days. This is what I need when out doing donkey work for nycruns over the next few months.

Have been reminding myself to phone A.T. and others but have not. I just cannot see my future straight.

Last night, early evening, Wotjek stopped me at the door and told me he videoed Moki’s gurney being pushed out through the lobby in November. It was cold out and water was dripping out of my eyes, so W said, “I show you later, I not want see you cry. Michael he not so old was he?” Well he was 83.

I still talk to Moki, call out to him. He is in the darkness, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. I will rescue him.

A truly terrifying nightmare. I’d incompleted a lot of courses in college so they were going to throw me out. I’d been summoned to a meeting of the Executive Committee in SSS or some building in that region. I think 6:30 on a Monday evening. Somehow I got mixed up and thought it was 2:30 in the afternoon. Anyway I slept late, till a quarter-to-two. Was sleeping in the basement of Bingham or Farnham, I don’t know why. A new semester had begun and I’d only glanced at the blue book, the course catalog. I’d made up my mind I was going to pretend to be a very serious, earnest student from here on out. Actually take courses and finish them.

So at 2pm I was rushing around trying to find another copy of the course catalog. In the basement of some building where they run student businesses I find what I think is the course catalog, but it’s only a Course Critique, laid out with a cover to look like the course catalog. I can’t find my courses at all, just long essays about things I’m not interested in. But where is the course catalog? I think they hand them out in some building near Dwight Hall.

But I’m in a rush, have to get to Hillhouse Avenue shortly, and I don’t think I can make it. I head up towards Dwight, or Linsly-Chit, but the buildings are cordoned off. I stand in the middle of Elm Street, between Durfee and Calhoun, and yell out asking if anyone’s got a copy of the course catalog. Only I say Course Critique, which I don’t need or want.

Here I woke from this truly terrifying nightmare, which is pretty much what both halves of my undergraduate career were like.

Feeling rather triumphant today. Spent several hours moving Moki’s iMac to the SW corner of his desk. It’s always been at the north-south axis so you can’t see the naughty stuff he’s looking at when you enter the living room. I threw away a lot of papers and scrubbed down half the desk. Needed two or three goes.

But then the printer wouldn’t work at all. I got something out of it when I tried a wired USB connection, but no wifi. This did not begin with the move. I noticed it a few days ago. In fact, I tried to print once at Moki’s after the routers were changed, so the new router might have been the problem. Tried my laptops. Couldn’t print from them either. Couldn’t scan.

Finally I found directions to go Home>Settings>Wireless LAN etc., and enter the wifi name and password directly into the printer. This worked. I’d felt hopeless, despairing, envisioned myself doing my printouts and scans at Kinko’s for the foreseeable future. But now, triumph. I’ve only set it up to work under the Margot wifi, not the new one, but that’s enough effort for today.

It was three o’clock, a bit later than I’d meant to go to the gym. Impossibly bitter cold, but you feel good after a mile or two walk in the bitter cold. Only a boutique workout. A little treadmill, tiny bit C2, the stationary. No more than a half hour in all. My main objective was showering and doing my hair, which I did do.

Message from Coliseum Dental on my phone. The periodontist, Dr. Cho, won’t be there tomorrow, so we had to postpone to mid-March. A reprieve! Let’s go celebrate.

Post-TMPL, went to St. Malachy’s and got ashes. They were doing ashes before and after the 5:30 mass. This was before. The foreign prelate or deacon, in a Covid mask, said a screwed-up version of “Remember thou that thou art dust…”

Stopped at ShakeShack on Seventh Avenue, mainly out of curiosity. Almost entirely staffed by nignogs. Most of their business is via delivery, apparently. I don’t think I’ll do it again, though the cheeseburger and fries for $12 were okay. I haven’t eaten anything like that in months.

Watched The Day of the Jackal last night and this morning. Slept very soundly through most of the night, waking only for a couple of hours around midnight. Also watching Raging Bull, on and off. A movie I wanted very much to see 40-odd years ago. Murphy sneered at the idea.

Wotjek the concierge the other night wanted to give me some wine in return for giving him Moki’s lighted helmet, so I suggested pinot noir or cabernet. Was hoping I’d have it for Mardi Gras or even paired with my burger this evening, but no. I’m not giving up anything for Lent, though I don’t foresee drinking much v. Had a nice big v martini at the AC yesterday. Only solid food, not too solid, was French onion soup.

Cleaning out Moki’s papers today I came across a manila envelope full of our correspondence with the disciplinary committee after the Christmas 2017 incident. Extraordinary what an utterly evil fabulist that Elizabeth Gray was. Her negro son, Nate. Me creeping up the “back stairs” to the second floor. Anyway, that manila envelope is a keeper, goes right into the fat NYAC file with the Vic Gainor story and other amusements.

Threw away Moki’s dusty old two-line phone (set up for 3642 and now-gonzo 6301). Right now the desk has my 0209 deskset and Moki’s ultra-large-type funny old folks’ phone with his legacy 3642, a number I’ve known since 1985. I now have extensions for both in the bedroom. This is something of a first for 3642.

Postscript, February 18. Yesterday it occurred to me that there was a spare cordless phone that might work with 0209. I’d thrown away the handset when tossing Moki’s two-line phone, but I hadn’t emptied the wastebasket yet. Went out to the trash bay, unloaded the basket, and there it was at the bottom. Polished up the handset, good as new. But did it work? I swapped it with my working handset on the windowsill. Nothing. Swapped the batteries. Now it worked. And the old dead batteries (rechargeable) on my formerly working handset showed “Charging” when I put the set back into its cradle.

I found the other cradle and AC adapter in the pantry closet, set it up on the foyer table. We now have another phone extension for 0209, a number I seldom use anymore. I’d trade it in for a mobile, but I have too many mobiles as it is, and meanwhile we have these neat cordless extensions.

I lost my Craft running gloves about a month ago and had no idea what became of them. I had just dropped one on the street while coming back from Morton Williams, but a good samaritan shouted after me. So I could be pretty sure I hadn’t lost them outside. But where were they?

They were under the bed, under the headboard. I found them last night. How remarkable. If I go out again this evening, for v or food, I’ll wear them. It is 36º F. (Tuesday night, and I haven’t had a drink since Saturday. Perhaps I’ll yield to temptation and go no booze. I have felt woozy from Trazodone for the past two days: only half a pill each time.)

The other lost things were the Tom Tierney paper doll books.They were under a stack of magazines and my typescripts and legal papers, on one of the black-leather storage units Moki brought in as a substitute for the long-gone glass coffeetable.

The Verizon man, a tall young negro, arrived toward 3 today after being scheduled for 12-to-2. I now have local cable TV (not much else!!!), internet, a router and an extender (closet and rubberwood table), and two landlines (Moki’s and mine; 6301 is now gone). I had intended to shift Moki’s 3642 over to a mobile phone, and maybe moved his SIM back to my black Nokia. That way I’d have only one landline. But now I’ve plugged the old 6301 AT&T phone into the 3642 RJ11 jack by the bed, the 0209 is again working, so I have access to both, in the bedroom and in the living room.

Other things lost and found and not particularly sought after: the Compaq AC brick to Moki’s 1998 laptop. He got tired of that after a couple years and got a big mother machine which he felt more comfortable with. Lent the laptop for a while to Cathy O’Brien. But then it was returned, and apparently plugged in again before being de-drived and discarded.

The Netgear stand for my WiFi router, which we got connected to Michael’s DSL line in 2002 or 2003. Michael ripped the connection out after a while, thinking that it was slowing down the internet, and Patrick Clark told him that it probably was.

At some of the lentil salad last night. Ate four of the infernal drugstore turkey-cheese sliders today. Not hungry.

Arguments on FB with Mr Menno about the Bergdorf Goodman negro transsexual.

Somewhere in the Afterlife, in Purgatory or Outer Hades or the Unspeakable Place, my Michael is crying out to me and thinking I can’t hear him. Because of course I can’t. But it’s worse than that. He thinks no one can hear him. And no one will. Not for a long time. So I’m praying to get a message through to him. That I think about him all the time, love him dearly and need his help. And I beg him to send some sort of sign back to me.

We could be together again very soon. I keep thinking the future is black, utterly dreadful. I’d be bound to put myself in circumstances where I’d get myself killed in an honorable fashion. But would we be together then? Or both shouting in the darkness? For the present I tell myself Moki is with me always. I talk to him, tell him we’ll be together one way or another.

With all those rosaries, and prayers to St. Jude, surely I must have saved Moki from the worst fate of all. My ambition now has to be to bring him back. Feel that he is by my side. Talk to him and have him answer me.

Such thoughts, with attendant tears, were going through my mind when I was at Mass this evening (STPA). I arrived before the Gospel, left at the start of Communion. I made First Friday Mass (STP) the other night as well.

I need a job. I need to solve this rent problem. I need to get out from under that judgment. All told, I now have between four and five thousand, including the cash in the duck and maybe £1300 at HSBC. I get job and all worries go away.

It’s 4:38 am. Will I get any sleep at all in the next few hours? No v today, after drinking far too much for four or five days. Severe hangover sinus headache till mid-afternoon. Planned to go to TMPL, but time drew on and I decided to be happy with just church. I was a little late because I was determined to throw out the leftover chili and shepherd’s pie from the past few weeks. Sushi from WholeFoods for dinner. Well you know, with the money I saved on vodka.

Took my Viviscal and collagen tablets. And EV. And then took a Fluoxetine. Dr. Simbercoff prescribed these for Moki a couple of years ago, he never took them.

Death of Hoff took up my attention for much of a day. Wednesday. The day the internet and phones went out in the late afternoon and I had to call in the Verizon man for Thursday and postpone the Friday de-installation till Tuesday the 6th. Thoughts about Hoff focused themselves in a letter to Zagria. Little Jules G-P had the notion that Hoff was totally obscure, and continued to work in the old practice through the 80s. I of course know this not to be the case. Told Zagria how I happened to know that Hoff had moved to Magnolia. This episode was left out in the obits that appeared in the New York Times and elsewhere.

An infestation of rats continues. They scurry and rustle when I head to the kitchen. The rat trap was useless; I’ve never seen a rat caught in one of those. I am getting some rat poison tomorrow. Strangely, found the Sentry Safe manual, and then its envelope, in the vicinity of the dishwasher. They stole it away and munched at its corners. Like guinea pigs. I haven’t noticed munchy-bites taken out of other papers.

Tomorrow I take down my desk. And put it where? Or just clean it off. So much more space in the conversation pit since I threw out bags and bags of magazines and newspapers and trash papers. I first went to work on the newspapers back when Moki was here. September? October? Was proud to put out the last of the vodka bottles, such as they were, on Sept. 20. Not a mess of little pints. Some 1.75s and lots of liters, in the hall floor, rolling on the living room floor, covering a storage tub in the hall, on the pantry butcher block. It must have taken a dozen trips out to the bins.

Trying to catch some extra shuteye for my vodka-fogged brain this morning around 11 am, I drifted into dream-sleep for a few minutes. I was working for an office very much like something Roger Abbott would run. He had some white powder on the desk in front of him, but I knew it wasn’t cocaine.

I had a good friend, female, in the office. Suddenly the name Oswald Mosley came up and she chided me for bringing up such names at the office.

I was listening to Daniel Todman’s Britain’s War, Vol. 1, and Mosley’s name came up once and snuck its way into my dream. I awoke, curious, and backpedaled a few minutes till it came up again. The context was that Mosley was in agreement with Harold Macmillan on some kind of corporativist national economic planning.

Verizon man came around 2. He was surprised at our old “A21” box in the closet. “How many lines do you have here?” Four landlines, formerly, as well as internet/FiOS connection, etc. He took the whole box out. Got the internet back up, and two of the landlines. But my -0209 is not up. Perhaps because that was an add-on, not one of Moki’s original three. Is it avalable on Moki’s desk phone? I wonder.

Yes, it has a dial tone on Moki’s two-line phone.  But that seems to be -6301. Can’t dial to -0209 from -4064.

Hilarious set-to on Twitter today. Someone calling him/herself @PianistWriter. But they’re suspended now for accusing everyone of being a transpedo.

Thinking of writing something about Saltburn, made notes at the AC the other day as the first half of the double v martini flashed through me; and want to watch the Truman Capote thing on Hulu.

Flipped through some 1999-2001 diaries this evening. Moki was really a pain in the neck. “You keep fighting me on this,” he said in Spring 2000 when I showed up at the apartment after forgetting my keys when going to Hoboken, after meeting him at J&R on Park Row. So to Hoboken, no keys, back on the PATH and subway. And he’s mad. He starts proposing that he sublet the place for a couple of years. Then tells me he’s going to leave the apartment to me. And I leave and wait on the bench by the elevator and he comes out with a glass of beer in his hand and tells me he loves me. We hug, quickly.

At times he has the clueless audacity to ask if I want to go back to Seattle to be with Laura. As though that could be an option. Meanwhile I distract myself with trips to London, Paris, Devon, Oxford through those years.

I see again that when Pat Thompson from NZ comes to visit, Moki is not only drinking, he’s completely incapacitated. Pat and I cycle around, Manhattan, Hoboken. This is just at the time that I move in with Marian Heller at 928 Hudson.

Accomplished nothing today, except a letter to Zagria about Hoff (who died last October); an email I lost before sending, because I copied from a draft, and then copied something else before pasting. So I rewrote the thing, shorter. Still didn’t send.

Then, early evening, weird stuff was happening. The internet was down. Was everything down? The phones (landlines) were out. I copied what I had written and pasted it into a TextEdit. I went into the living room to check the router. The track-lighting bulbs were blinking. Turn on, they dim out slowly. Turn off, they blink. The rheostat thing didn’t seem to make a difference. I turned off all the circuit breakers, turned them on again, one by one. No change. Dimly I remembered round controls, somewhere on the floor, that overrode the wall switch. It took me a while but I found them, far side of the leather sofa. One of them operates the track lighting. Don’t know what the other does. I turned it up and the problem went away. But how did it get turned down? Where did the flickering come from?

Meanwhile, internet, TV, phones were down. And from a Verizon box in the closet by the door, came a constant clicking. Like the ticking of a bomb. I called Verizon a couple of times, failed to make connections with their nasty robot chats. Finally got a person of incomprehensible speech (but who travels under the name of John Kennedy) who wanted to send over a technician next week. I demanded one now. He couldn’t get one now. So, tomorrow, between 1 and 5. I said okay.

Internet is still down. I’m writing through a iPhone hotspot. I went out and bought a pint from Shirley. Today I’ve eaten most of a banana, a full sleeve of Town House crackers and nothing else I can remember. The chili and shepherd’s pie leftovers sit in the fridge still, unconsumed and probably inedible. Last night I ate Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza. I received a pound of French Lentils via Amazon, which I will do something with. John McDonnell on Twitter pictured them in a Sunday night roastie dinner. I asked what were Lentils de Puy, though I think he wrote Put.

Tom Ashley called around 6:30. I told him everything was fucked up. He gave his condolences, perhaps we get together next week.

Mimi Collich sent an email out of the blue yesterday, surprised that Moki had two kids. I gave a snowjob on that. Yes, they’re in Brussels.

It’s a good thing I changed the Verizon cable guy’s date from Friday to next Tuesday, because I can’t really manage rearranging the apartment for Friday, not with the other Verizon guy coming by tomorrow.

Have done nothing on the Vacate or Name Change. I need to redo the first, take it down next week (MONDAY??).

As of the past hour, it is 10pm, the bomb-ticking in the closet hath ceased.

After this, no more v. I awoke, feeling wasted, and decided to feed the pig. I set up the humidifier the other day. I put maybe a quart of water into the top, and then tried to figure out how I’d replace it without spilling water all over the place. The night before I’d taken the bottom and inverted it with the top, then turned it over. This time I just dumped water all over the place, nearly splashed and ruined the M1 in the pink quilted case.

Back in the humidifier’s box there’s a screwtop to the water chamber. Ah, yes, that’s it. Tried it again.

It was around then that I first noticed the track lights dimming on and off.

Postscript, Feb 18. A day or so later I discovered that the twisted-pair wire, the RJ-11 leading to the main 0209 phone, had been chewed through. Our rodent problem. Big Norway rats lately. They chew on paper, they chew on cords apparently.

So possibly the chew-through was new, and short-circuited or brought down the old A21 box in the closet, started the ticking. It’s been so long since that technology was common, the techs didn’t realize the possibility that wires had been chewed or cut.

While cleaning out/sorting through Moki’s desk drawers a week or two ago I came across the red iPod Nano I bought him for Valentine’s Day back in 2010. Did he ever use it? Maybe he didn’t. I just brought it to my old MacAir 13″ and plugged it in, and there are definitely songs on it. A lot of his stuff and my stuff. Angela Bofill, Curtis Mayfield, Bee Gees, smooth jazz shit. But also Ben Bagley’s The Littlest Revue and a lot of Johnny Mercer. Well this is good to know, though I don’t recall transferring anything at all into the Nano; I barely touched it. I charged it up a couple weeks ago with a USB plugged into the strip on the windowsill. But when I looked at the Nano today, it appeared that the screen was smashed. No damage on the outside; just radiating cracks inside the crystal, and most of the screen obscured. This is sad. It fell off my desk and just that little fall destroyed it? Do I throw it out now, or keep as another needless memento?

Later that year, after I started in at Amex Pub, Michael gave me an iPod Touch for my birthday. It was the closest thing to an iPhone I’d have for two years. I used the hell out of it. Started my Audible career, listening to The Worst Hard Time on the bus down to Philadelphia to do the half marathon in September 2010. Moki had had it engraved, something like “To Tuppy Two.”

Then in early 2013 (I think) I was waiting for a 14 bus amongst the snowdrifts and slush at 10th Avenue and 16th (?) Street after a day at Chelsea Piers. Somehow the iPod slipped out of my grasp without my knowing it. It was gone for good. By now I was mainly using the iPhone 4s, so it was hardly a necessity. Still, losing Moki’s gift to me…sad.

Years later, like 2021, not long before we went down to Brian’s funeral in Palm Beach, I bought another IPod Touch, same model. I put it in the cheap orange case I’d used for the 2010 one, and occasionally used it for Audible. The screen was abraded, but otherwise it was much like the 2010 one. I had that 2010 one with me when we went to Dan’s funeral up in Winchester in June  or July 2011. Took pictures of us in South Station, where we were waiting for a train. For some reason those photos disappeared. I had fuzzy ones of a xc race in Franklin Park (still do), but the Tuppy Two photos I want, the only ones I want, are gone. I bought that other iPod in 2021 because I somehow thought I could transfer the old backup, and the photos would be on it. Yes, I spent a lot of time with this in 2021.

Some good news from the Winchester (A.T.) front. Phoned her, and then Jamie arrived. He very much wanted to talk to me. Apologized for not having called back a long time ago in December. Sick for two weeks around Christmas. He knows I need the $2210 and says he’ll Priority Mail it to me tomorrow. For me, this seems like a stroke of magnificent luck.

Another blessing appeared a few days ago, courtesy of the A.C. Two letters from NYAC, one addressed to Moki’s family (that would be me), the other addressed directly to me. I believe Joe Mangan had a hand in this. They are offering me a Widow’s “Z” membership, rather like a continuation of my spousal card membership, because of Moki’s many years (53?) with the Club. I don’t seem to have any initiation or dues, I merely have to pay for my food and drink when I get billed. I can’t use the gym or Travers Island and certain other facilities. I suppose later on I can convert this membership into a full membership, probably without initiation.

It will be interesting if they look through my past and find the Elizabeth Gray incident from Christmas 2017. Will they ask me about it, or just let it go, figuring it was on Moki’s watch and deciding it would be inappropriate to delve into it all now? Though I’d love to set the record straight with them. Just tonight I came across yet another scrap of correspondence from Moki to an official at the Club, telling him that we did nothing wrong, so far as he could see. Ms. Gray was an extraordinary nutcase and a bully. The lies she wove when she went downstairs with her brother to speak to the manager! We were drunk (we were not, though she undoubtedly was); we were noisy (we were not); of course I used the n-word (so like these Lefty bullies to get all coy like that, loving the word but refusing to say it); I left, then came back and sneaked up the back stairs (what the hell are the back stairs?). At the disciplinary hearing they even told Michael they had me on video (video and stills they never produced). He was a drunken wreck when he got home that evening, Feb. 20, 2018 or whenever it was. “Oh they had your ass, they had you dead to rights! They knew everything!” I should have gone to that meeting, but I didn’t trust myself not to get enraged. It was Michael whose status was on the line, not mine.

My spousal card: I continue to have use of it till the end of March! By which time I’ll presumably have my new widow’s membership Z card. This means I can go and have lunch on occasion in the next two months. Maybe meet Mark Brennan. Perhaps I’ll bring Moki Mouse.

I walked my NYAC papers to the membership office, 12th floor, on Friday. The swarthy girl at the desk had never seen these forms before.

Curiously, in the first few days after Moki’s death, I stuck some NYAC bills in the metal caddy on our front door. “PAY NYAC!” I had this idea that I would use Moki’s remaining money in his USAA account to pay his back bill (now about $1300). Then I would proceed to use my spousal card and no one would be the wiser. Fortunately Moki’s USAA account got locked before I could put this into operation, and it would have been a waste of money anyway. Now I don’t have to pay anything, and I get a complimentary membership, sort of. The NYAC saga has been one of the few truly happy-ending stories of the past two months.

It will be nice to go into the “Ladies Lounge” by the lobby to see John the bartender. He probably has heard about Moki. Those were happy times, back in 2021 and 2022. A few mishaps. I fell down on the pavement once around March 2022 and broke my glasses, tripping in my black boots after two drinks at the bar. (An event preceded by a slight workout at TMPL, then a walk up 9th Ave to stop at a hardware store for a fixture that would give my bathroom an outlet via one of the light sockets above the medicine cabinet; then a bottle of v at the wines & liquors shop with the antique neon sign; then a couple of drinks at home while I tried to screw in the fixture, letting my hand slip so the globe bulb fell down and crashed in the sink; oh, now I had another thing to buy, it seemed.) M could tell I had been drinking earlier. And a few weeks before this, Moki was drinking at the bar, tried to get me on the iPhone, didn’t, started to walk home by himself, but slipped and fell in front of Carnegie Hall, where a useless Good Samaritan helped him up and called for an ambulance. He ended up at the Mount Sinai facility over by 10th Avenue, from whence he texted me and where I joined him for a few hours. He was in good spirits. They didn’t let him out till five a.m. I have a vague memory of leaving and then coming back to escort him home.

Thursday the 25th (Tim’s birthday, I now remember) I filled out some papers for Marc Bern LLP, the WTC Victims’ Fund lawyers. Needing Paul Bourguet’s number, I check the Contacts on my iPhone and half-accidentally called him, ringing off almost immediately. Anthony was there and told me all about the big payoff he finally got, though it took him two years. A quarter of a million, minus 10%, the max contingency the lawyers can take. Nice piece of change, and I could use it. I told A that one of the last things Moki said was, Where is Anthony and his wonderful Starbucks coffee beans? Paul filled me in on why he gave up drinking. Was over a liter of v per day, and finally his doctor told him he had cirrhosis, and in the future he might think about getting on a wait list for a liver transplant. So that was two years ago and he hasn’t drunk a drop since.

I had to go up to the TD Bank on 57th and 8th to have a negro manager with a torn Achilles tendon and knee-walking apparatus notarize my Victims’ Fund papers. Then I xeroxed some stuff at Kinko’s and mailed in the packed to Marc Bern LLP down on 42nd St. Also copied the Civil Court judgment, as it will be necessary for my name-change petition. (Or maybe not, if I delay the latter until after I try to vacate the judgment. I had intended to file both of these by Friday, but now I realize the name-change isn’t important, while getting rid of the judgment is primary. Can I get away with calling it a default judgment? And if not, is there an alternative process of quashing the judgment because of the plaintiff’s deceit about changing the date, then changing it back at the last minute without notifying me, so that I was unready and unprepared…?)

Not sure why, but I reupped with USATF that same day. About $60. This time I put down my 1953 birthdate. Let’s see if this causes a fuss. It’ll get back to Devon or whoever manages the USATF end (Neil Fitzgerald still?). I can’t imagine running in any masters’ races for the next few months. I have not truly run at all in months, years. No more than a few minutes on a treadmill or elliptical. Was still trying to go out to the Park a year or two ago, never got far at all. Walk/jog up the bridle path hill just south of Tavern on the Green; about all I could do. My involvement with NYCRuns figures into these vague intentions. I will be forced to make myself look like a half-decent runner by the spring, if I’m working all those races.

One use I could make of USATF very shortly is…Level 1 Coach training again! I bonked out of that in 2016 after signing up twice. Still have the book; is it any good at all? But they’re doing the training on Zoom these days. Somehow that seems like cheating. If you don’t travel down to Villanova or out to Brooklyn, it isn’t much of a challenge, is it? Let’s see how much it is.

Remarkably, I was last a USATF member as recently as 2018. What was I thinking, renewing in 2017 and 2018?

Went to the gym this afternoon, Sunday. Did not feel ill, but was definitely fatigued. This is the latter stage of the walking pneumonia. A few days ago I went and had to give up because I’d worn out my legs a few days earlier with 20 min on the C2. This time I did a few minutes on the C2, then a few minutes on the elliptical, then the stationary, then back to the C2 for a few. In the evening I went to STPA for Mass and N and a rosary I partly said in the Adoration Room. On this freezing wet night the church was packed. I needed the pews in the A.R. because I had to sit down.

Productive day. I laid off the hard stuff for a day and a half so I could do an early a.m. Teams interview with Jen at n——-.

Had a good sleep, with me waking every two hours during Daniel Todman’s Britain’s War. Then tea, cold water on the face, and set-up.

Went well, though our visual conked out early on. But I got another chance to try video and my little video-conference light.

So I”m going to be on board to make a pittance at their races. They never treated us volunteers well, you know, ten years ago; why I dropped out. Some of this was obliquely admitted by Jen, when she said they didn’t give volunteers much responsibility. I never liked volunteering at NYRR or Randalls Island either. So I’ve got documents to submit, etc. Meantime I’ll find real employment.

Then, in the afternoon, I made out affidavits for name change and vacation of default judgment. Did much of this a month ago. Correcting errors in the original version of ‘vacate,’ and correcting them again, I see I might have a pretty good case here. They were dishonest pranksters, the WF and T&H people.