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Earth Be Damned | Sep 03 2004

8:30 a.m.
I’m kissing a beautiful blond woman. One second my eyes are closed, the next her lips are on mine. Can’t believe it. It’s like butter on butter. Then the alarm rings.
9:10
Finally give up trying to finish the dream. Get up from bed.
9:15
Delete twenty spam messages.
9:20
Pad into the kitchen for water and thoughts.
9:25
Jump in car.
9:35
Start lesson with F, though despondent about my instrument.
9:40
Try desperately to get my chords to approximate. They are ornery and swollen.
9:55
Weep a little over the sadness of it all.
9:56
F says he feels my pain.
10:30
Head for the car again via Starbucks.
10:50
Park at the gym and sit in the car while listening to NPR and drinking coffee, unable to leave vehicle.
11:25
Enter gym.
11:30
Check my email. C writes she finally has a date with K but doesn’t know where to take him. I suggest the circus.
11:35
Waylaid by longwinded nutritionist who imparts no new information.
12:00 p.m.
Begin rowing.
12:30
Stop rowing.
12:50
Emerge from gym.
1:10
At home, eat salad while watching Shaker documentary by Ken Burns. Try to phonate.
1:25
Though somewhat better, still crappy-sounding.
1:30
Check email. No circus in San Francisco. Instead they’re going to a bar and C is bringing scrabble board. Bad plan.
1:35
Call B about harpsichord. While talking with B, wash dishes, gather laundry, straighten up room.
1:50
Call V about harpsichord. We decide on Thursday morning. V says Freud was right: civilization is inimical to happiness.
2:05
Change voicemail greeting because V said old one was too optimistic.
2:40
More abysmal phonation.
3:00
Pack up everything and head to dentist.
3:30
Wait for twenty minutes while reading about Eminem in 2002 copy of The New York Times magazine. He’s white, it turns out.
3:50
Hygienist begins cleaning.
4:20
Hygienist finishes cleaning.
4:45
Land at Ozzie’s.
4:55
Earl Grey tea served.
5:00
Start to memorize songs for Earth Be Damned.
5:40
Call R on cell. Talk for way too long about problems of the heart and R’s paranoid visions.
6:30
More memorizing.
7:00
Head home.
7:15
Two sausages and some salad.
7:45
Revamp website, lifting design from another.
9:35
Get on hands and knees to plug in a loose plug. While down there, with head under desk, look behind, upside-down, at apartment. Have never seen it this way. Remain in this position a long time, looking.
9:50
Realize changes to stolen design ruined it. Make additional changes, ruining it further.
10:40
Think of masturbating but don’t.
10:41
Ice cream.
10:55
Check email. C reports on date. They didn’t play much scrabble because bar was too loud. She put down fry for 18 points and that was it. I tell her fry was a decent word, although I’m really thinking it closed off the board. C says K confessed to eating seven mangoes that day, all in a row. C was impressed, for obvious reasons. I’m jealous. Why can’t I meet someone who’s eaten seven mangoes in a row?
11:25
Do bills while listening to Joseph Campbell in ecstatic philological rapture.
11:55
Lights out.