29 December, 1995 3:02:35 AM So, here comes the end of the year. I never especially look forward to New Years, but when it actually happens I start to realize what a long day this year has been. My horoscopes all predict that throughout 1996 I will have to pinch myself so I can be sure that the things happening to me are actually happening. When I was living at 166 West 75th Street, in the stinkingest pithole I've ever been in, I returned to my room one night having just been turned down for a job doing data entry at ASCAP. I know, I know, I'm probably better to have not gotten started in that track, but man I needed a job back then, and the ASCAP thing just really seemed like it would come through. Anyway, my horoscope that day said that I should rest of my laurels and take myself out for a big dinner, because today had been a turning point in my life. I guess it suits the character of horoscopes that I can now read into it in such a way that the getting rejected by ASCAP (for the 3rd time) was the best thing that coulda happened. At the time, though, I really hated the very paper on which the horoscope was printed. Fuck, i forgot to pick up my laundry today. fuckfuckfuckfuck. I always imagine chickens and roosters gobbling on the sylabble "fuck." fuck-fuck-fuck-fuckaaaaaaahhh!!! Sunkist cans sitting all over the place. All empty by now. Gotta sleep sooner or later. Maybe I'll do that now. 10:45:54 AM Ah well, got up at 8:30 for some reason. Nothing doing today, but getting up early sure makes me feel important. Listening to the radio. WOR. Coffee. Air conditioner blowing over my face. 33� outside and partly sunny. Can't remember any dreams from last night. I've noticed that when you tell someone that you have some free time, they look at you like you're a robber, as if to say "You have TIME???? How did you get extra time? No one is allowed to have any extra time." When I was in high school I used to talk to this guy named Jim. He was a really nice guy, and I wonder what he's doing right now. This one Sunday we were talking on the phone, and he asked me to come over to his place for beer and some intensive sitting around. I told him I couldn't, that I had to practice, had to write something, had to do thisthisandthis. He suddenly got all loud and strident, saying "Oh fuck you! You don't know what it's like to have nothing to do." I keep my Krazy Glue and Chap-Stik in the same drawer. I should really put the Krazy Glue in a separate drawer, or in my handy-dandy blue toolbox. 2:14:19 PM I wonder if the New Years Day hooker will be outside the apartment building again this year. I've seen her twice, in 1995 and 1994. Last year, I mean this year I went outside at about 2 in the afternoon and she was standing by the mailboxes looking very loiterous. She started talking to me all friendly like, she said I looked "real smart," and she grasped my right arm asked "Do you teach Economics at a university?" (I don't) (And I didn't) 11:58:33 PM I've never quite figured out what I'm supposed to say when someone asks me what I "do." I could tell them what I do for a living, but I don't feel that's what I "do," necessarily. I mean what does anybody DO? And it's a hassle feeling like I won't be taken seriously in anything except my rent-paying profession. I don't take myself seriously. doo-bee-doo-bee-doo. DO THIS.