Got this new word that I'm hating. For a while I was fixated on "slaw." Now it's "folks." Folks. Can't shake it, man, it's FOLKS. I know what I hate about it, it's that it's so condescending, that's how I've always thought of it. I think it was the New Yorker recently, in an article about black intellectuals, where the author kept saying "black folks" and "white folks" in a way that just ground into my head. FOLKSFOLKSFOLKSFOLKSFOLKSFOLKS.
Feeling numb lately. Numb all over. Got all pissy tonight at dinner, cuz I asked for the Gyro with no onions, and the thing had onions all over it. Don't know what's worse, all those nasty onions or the way I acted toward the waiter, and over something so petty. Then again, I really hate onions.
Looks like nothing's going to change for me tonight. I can't really hear very well today. This is something that comes and goes. Can't discriminate very well among sounds in a crowded room. This makes party-going sheer misery for me, as it was last night. I simply can never hear what anyone else is saying; even though all the words and sounds are perfectly audible, I can't make sense of it all.
I regret that this trait reflects itself in my general personality, and in my writing.
Someone told me last night that a letter I wrote to the New York Press was printed a few weeks ago. Guess I missed it. For some reason, I've never been able to read any article in the NYPress from start to finish, and I've been picking that paper up for over 5 years now. I get a few sentences into another stupid Strausbaugh or Mugger column, then I jump ahead a few paragraphs, then the words and drawings start to skid around on the page in front of me and I jump to the classifieds. Even there, I can almost never finish reading even a 3-line ad. It's just something about the NYPress.
There's a space-heater whirring under my desk, blowing up my pants-leg.
My chest feels like it's caving in.
One of many things I hate about going to classical music concerts is that you can almost never just "go." You can't just decide to go the opera one minute, you have to plan the whole event days in advance, and even then you have to hope that IBM or some macho big company like it didn't buy off 40% of the seats for its employees, few of whom ever show up.
I met a guy once at a free recital at Lincoln Center who told me how he used to hang out in the lobby of Carnegie Hall until a few minutes before the concert started. He said that most people didn't know it, but there were almost always people from companies like IBM or Sony standing there with a block of tickets they were giving away. They were supposed to be giving these to people from their company, and they were supposed to ask you for i.d., but if you just walked up to the guy and said something like "Hi, you have any more single seats in the front?" he would just hand you a ticket without question.
Am fixing to purge myself of that "Satin Doll" story I was thinking about a little while ago. The one where "Satin Doll was a pinball machine, and a song I could never quite hear over Voice of America." 
Satin Doll was a pinball machine in Daytona Beach. It was the best. I don't think it was possible to score over 1,000,000 on it. It had no obnoxious flashing lights, no hidden levels, no sirens or breasts or volcanic bonuses. It was a low-key, plain pinball that gave you 5 balls for 25�.
No one else was ever playing it except for me, but I did stop every few games in case anyone else wanted to go at it. I didn't care if anyone else played it, because I knew no one could ever beat my high score, and I'm so sure of it that if I'd written the score down I could go down to Florida right now and see for myself.
Part of the reason I had such a high score was that I knew the secrets of the board. I knew where to shoot the ball so it would get jammed on something and add up points continuously for 10 minutes, by which time the thrill wore off and I just wanted to get back to the game, playing from the cozy perch of having just multiplied my score by 2000%.
I don't remember my high score, though, so I can't pick up the phone and call the Broadwalk in Daytona Beach and ask around until I get a hold of the elderly guy who handed out change near the Satin Doll machine and ask him to tell me the current high score on the machine nearest him.
It's going to be a long holiday season this year, with more days out of the office, and far fewer friends in town than expected.
Met a woman yesterday who I could be mad for. She was so smart and knowledgeable and seemed like she could make fabulous conversation. She could be reading this right now, come to think of it, so THESE VERY WORDS might make for ingratiating chatter somewhere in the future.
Just got the flyer for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts 100th Anniversary Recital Series. It looks like I am scheduled to play "American Piano Music of the Twentieth Century" at 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday. Guess I should practice all this stuff on the bill. I am so fortunate that no one here complains about my practicing. I play piano nightly for an audience of my neighbors, who sometimes gather out in the halls to listen to me.
I'm really sick of seeing James Gleick write about the internet. It's crap like his that reduces the discourse out here to a lower level than AM radio.
Except for one more phone call, I've completed all my Christmas shopping for this year. Some of it I even accomplished a few weeks ago.
There's someone shouting outside, but I can't tell what he's saying. He's not shouting any more, but I just heard a car alarm start to scream, then stop. Car alarms around here make me think of a scene from "This is Spinal Tap," where one of the guys in the band is showing someone all his guitars, and he tells a little story behind each one, and he gets to this one guitar where it's like "You can't touch this one. You can't breath on it. You can't even look at it, just go away." It's the human condition of Manhattan.
It's quiet in here, just the sounds of me typing, and my back is really tense.
