1227

Erratic weather, during the transition from April to May. For several days during the last week of April it was amazingly cool for this time of year, downright cold in the pre-dawn hour. I had already discarded my winter shirts (sick of wearing them) but had to go to the discount clothing store and buy a cheap long-sleeved shirt. That visit reminded me, yet again, that I really could give up laundromats for the rest of my life and just buy cheap new clothes, throw the dirty ones away.

But then, that had been a large part of the debate about undertaking the overhead of a storage locker. The clothes wouldn't matter in the least, could throw them all away. But there are a lot of "drawings" there, including ones done with the Sleeptalker, and the music collection, on both CD and cassette. Even some photographs from my earlier life.

My body seems to be protesting about too much sleep, which is not really a surprise. I wake up between 3:30 and four in the morning, can't go back to sleep and there's nothing to do but lie there and think until it's time for the first bus at 5:10 (during the week, on the weekends it doesn't come until 5:25). So I debate this and that, chastise myself for some of the things I'd written the day before online, worry about the locker, wonder if I should pay those damned fines or just go to jail for awhile.

Odd, that both the locker deadline and the fines deadline is May 14th.

The Met broadcast season is over, so now we have tapes from performances at various opera houses in Europe, beginning with Gassman's "Opera Seria" from the Theatre Champs-Elsysees [sic, from the PBS website], Paris. I have never heard it before, in fact, I've never heard of the composer before. I thought, as I told Felix on my usual Saturday afternoon postcard, that it was very "silly". But then, in the introductory remarks we were told that the thing was actually a satire, an opera within an opera, commenting on how silly opera at that time was. There was one very handsome aria for tenor, though.

Alison Krauss, on Prairie Home Companion that evening, touched me deeply.

That April-to-May transition has been much accented by India. As is usually the case at this time of the year, I have been re-reading the India Notebooks. Extraordinary, of all the things I have created in my long life, all the things I have owned, I've managed to keep those two little books for thirty-one years.

And I think those two little books are among the best things I've ever done.

As well, I was reading Paul Scott's A Division of the Spoils. Re-reading, since I read his entire Taj Quartet decades ago, soon after they were first published. He does a splendid job of describing the British during the last days of the Raj but the book totally fails to capture any sense of the real India. That was no doubt deliberate, since the British never understood it when they were there.

Then to top it off, Helen R. invited me to lunch at India House. Lamb vindaloo curry which was as good as I've ever had, anywhere in the world. But SO expensive! Reading in the Notebooks, I was amused to note that I had arranged to have all three daily meals at the Mussoorie YWCA ... and for about three dollars a week! That vindaloo curry would have fed me for a month in 1973 Mussoorie.

Someone important in my life has died. I've only had this experience three times in my long life, but it is eerie and unmistakeable. I even think I know who, but I shall pretend I don't, because I've always hoped I would meet him yet one more time.

Next life, then. I hope I can dance better with you than I did this time, I really do hope so.

1228

Did financial calculations which are dire to say the least, already owe 320 rupees here.

The India Notebooks, again. About forty-five dollars. My life, my long life.

We get by with a little help from our friends ...
So one cloud is lifted from above my head. I paid those wretched fines on Monday. They maintain the "make you feel like a lousy criminal" to the very last minute. You go to the third floor, hand over the papers you were given after the Judge was such an asshole. It's all on the computers, but they have to "do the paperwork" and write down stuff on multi-carbon forms. Then the man gave me one of the copies and told me I had to go to the fourth floor to hand over the money. (This, after having had to go through an airport-type security arrangement to even get into the building.)

Seeing such a multitude of files in that place, I did wonder if I hadn't paid the fine, they'd ever realize it and come looking for me, but maybe the computer rules ... eventually.

In any case, my career as a criminal is now spotless, they have no reason to look for me. I'll just have to find some other way to go to jail and hang out with cute young local boys.

1229

Dear Senator Clinton: I have nothing against you. In fact, I rather admire you. But I'd prefer it if you stay out of my dreams. I really don't care that you had "two children" before Bill and Chelsea, although I was amused by the way you put it.

If I am going to have a celebrity in my dreams, why can't it be Brad Pitt? He's on the cover of two magazines right now and I have to gird my loins so as not to fall on my side when I go into a 7-Eleven. What a gorgeous man. I'd sell my soul, if there were any market for it, just for one hour alone with the naked him. I had planned to see "Troy" on its opening day (a week from Friday) but I'll wait and see it with Helen R on the weekend after.

Judging from what I've seen of it so far, it's another one of those films where he looks ugly. He seems to really like that, and yet allows himself to look beautiful on magazine covers.

Strange boy. But no movie actor since James Dean has so fascinated me.

Speaking of J.D., I do get some odd emails. Someone asked me "which deaths of public figures most affected you?" An easy question to answer: James Dean, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, John Lennon.

Another correspondent asked "who were the most important women in your life?" That's a little more difficult. I know, most men would probably begin the list with their mother. But for me, it was my maternal grandmother who was the first important woman. Cleo Ruth Preston (as she called herself then, changing last names with each husband). After that ... well, Jonnie Mae Rogers, a Texas girl whose brassiere I threw into a tree outside her window. No, it wasn't the one she was wearing and refused to remove for me. Then Betty Mathis, who was replaced by Sally Ann Leight. Betty was the first woman who let me feel her tits and I realized, even then, it wasn't as exciting as it was supposed to be. Sally didn't. Never mind, then Frances Dickenson, certainly one of the most important people in my life. After that ... Anne Winchester, who first refused to marry me, and then later asked me to marry her so she could get American citizenship. The Black Lawyer adamantly opposed the notion.

What a strange life this has been, or as the Dead said so perfectly, what a long, strange trip it's been.

Happy birthday, Egbert.

1230

The Boys seem to see me as a mobile supply station. The most usual request is, of course, for a cigarette. But I've had requests for toothpaste, deodorant, Vaseline, and, especially from Angelo, for a "Q-tip". He uses them to clean his glass pipe, I use them to clean out the residue from using "cotton and wax" earplugs. And that was what Tanioka asked me for on the Friday evening bus to the Black Hole. Did I have any extra earplugs? Fortunately, I had two which had never been used, gave them to him.

He didn't get off the bus at the GovSanc2 stop so must be sleeping somewhere else. When I was sleeping outside, I wouldn't use the earplugs except at the Hacienda. There I knew I was relatively safe, since Rocky or the Big Local Dude would stomp on any troublemakers, so I could block my hearing and sleep. At the Black Hole, they are a blessing because they subdue the snores and other noises. Sometimes I think I should stick two in my nose. But every Third Wednesday, a box of six of those earplugs is on my "essential shopping list".

If the Sleeptalker was telling the truth when he said "sometimes I think I can hear you calling me", he must be feeling quite a tug these days. I'd really like to see him.

After a fierce and extended internal debate, I have decided not to get a locker. I'll send off the things which are in it that I think other people might enjoy having and throw the rest away.

I should probably throw away my radio, too. It's not a good time to listen to news reports, a time to feel embarrassed to be an "American".

the tales