Inspired wine-drinking and pot-smoking at with Darlene and Kimchee this evening, after supper with the Lutherans, where I sat next to Friday, who said Walter had hunted him down and eighty-sixed him. Then went across the park to Darlene's, where the ladies entertained me, as described, until Darlene, suddenly, gave out. What time I sloshed around to Peter and Patty's and sat on their porch with them in the long twilight, drinking coffee and regathering my wits.

Earlier in the day, Kristen and I had done Mozart for a change, the 'Haffner' and the 'Prague.' Went well.

I showed up at Marcus's right on 5:00 p.m. The sun was still incredibly high in the sky. I sunk dazzled and faint on his doorstep after I'd rung his bell and got no answer. I was still there centering myself ten minutes later when Marcus drove up with Barrie Byrd, for whom he had been gardening. He very warmly and civilly saw me up to his "treehouse," and within minutes produced a fabulous supper of spaghetti and burgundy that still hadn't gone bad. Then Annie showed up, and the bud and the coffee and the conversation went on for hours. In the interstices we listened to Vivaldi and endless Mahler. These, we know, are the good times. Bad times, by all accounts, are on the way. Mayans, Hindus and Native American shamans concur that cataclysm will come, probably in some sickening planet-threatening way, by, latest, 2012 a.d. Politically it's already here. Western Civilisation has not seen a moment like this since approximately the year 190: The Boy Emperor thinks that acting like the emperor is all there is to being the emperor. We're in trouble.

I could be in another kind of trouble, having lied to the blameless but too-scrupulous deskclerk Walter, saying that I had not seen Friday, when I had, and knew very well that he was going to try to hide out and sneak back into my room after Walter had come round to see if he were here. My conscience is not clean on this one, and I'd oh so much rather be alone.

Good session with Kristen yesterday afternoon. We did the Schubert Grand Duo Sonata in C major, and the Fantasia in F Minor/Major (so deliciously Schubertian); then broke for a smoke, and came back with Haydn's 2nd-to-the-last B Flat symphony (before, that is to say, #102). Marcus was in attendance, in and out, doing his gardening, and coming in now and again for a smoke. I daresay he was dazzled by our Schubert, for he said, "It sounds like you're playing different pieces at the same time."

Buona cena, grassa assai, di salsiccie di "cani caldi," se si puo' dire cosi', dai luterani. E poi da Marco una bella conversazione con caffe' e "gemma" del Nipote. Ci siamo ben divertiti. Adesso Friday mi lascia dormire e si e' andato nella notte; potro' farlo, e lo faro'; dormiro' siccome un bambino.

Thinking to sup with the Emanuel Lutherans (who do supper for the indigent on Tuesday evenings) by Coeur d'Alene Park in Browne's Addition this evening, where, perhaps, I shall run into Friday. He came to see me early this afternoon (I saw on the visitor's sign-in list) but I was out, visiting Darlene, who is just back from Olympia where she had been scouting for a place to live when she attends school (Evergreen--going for a Master's in art) this fall. I say "sup," not "dine," because the Lutherans serve only soup and salad, and very occasionally an odd meat/vegetable-loaf concoction. Light fare. And then probably I'll walk back through the park on Marcus's side and see if he's sitting on his balcony and feels like giving me a cup of coffee. Depends. Friday may want to visit, and if so, I'll have to forego Marcus. Drinking green tea (liquid hay), fortifying myself, wondering if I should carry my umbrella--whereof I got such excellent service yesterday. When I told Marianne that I had only green tea and Turkish coffee in my larder, she said, "You sound like somebody who is trying to be likeable."

Friday, tweaking, has done me the favour of not crashing here tonight. So much for convalescent repose. The weather's been lovely, cool, rainy, breezy, refreshing after the record-breaking heat of last week.

Wonderful little supper with Marcus and Annie last night, of oxtails bourguignon over rice, with even a glass of good cheap burgundy for Annie and me, halfway through the meal, once Marcus remembered that other people (unlike himself) like to drink it as well as cook with it. I gotta say, my old friend Marcus is one weird fellow, by normal Western European standards: He doesn't like to "drink" with his meals, not even milk or water. The whole business of having a bite of something, then a sip of something to "wash it down," is foreign to him. And he positively dislikes the taste of wine. I call this oddity of his "Haggis genes," because it seems an hereditary quirk, one that he and his late younger brother Syd (who died of lung cancer just a couple of months ago) shared in a degree usually seen only in identical twins. They also similarly detested tofu and hot chilis. One is reminded of Archbishop Benson's sons who were all similarly melancholic.

Life in the Palace

While we were enjoying a terrific thunderstorm this afternoon, the fire alarm went off! Such is life in this place. Calmly I sat and blogged on through it, serene in the knowledge that the smoke-detectors in this hotel are extraordinarily sensitive; so, though were it a kitchen fire out of control, the fine young firemen would be here dousing it before it had consumed the bride whose inadequate dowry had made it necessary for her to kill herself in customary Suttee fashion. Anyway, I think I'll walk over to Marcus's, carrying my beautiful, black and white "golf" umbrella, in case it should rain some more, praying that it does.

As Anatole, I have joined OpEd.com, and so considerably expanded the possible number of readers of these candid presents. I feel like I should offer those potential new readers some apology for that, and I do. I am still hoping I can maintain TVFTQV as the unvarnished, gritty depiction of my life--in maschera, as 'twere, but real. That sort of self-revelation is easier when you don't think that anybody else, really, will read what you write, and you almost hope they don't. Virgoness. Mauvaise Honte. But so be it: Hello World.

Kristen and I flunked out on the finale of Zauberfloete this evening. She said evilly, as she handed me a little baggie of roaches (butts, unsmoked portions of marijuana cigarettes), "This is for you. Friday mayn't have any." Marianne is to have me back in a week or so to plant Oriental Lilies, whate'er these be. And so 'tis time to take our trazodone, blood pressure medecine and Prilosec; eat our banana; drink our milk; and go to bed. Friday's among us, and welcome, because he's got a sinus infection and needs to rest up and take the medecine he's got for it. He could be frate Ruffino. And so, it being still hot, yet thunderstorms and weather change are on the way, and a hopeful good night's sleep. But there, the night wind's come up; I smell rain.

Night before last, in an instance of his sometimes perfect congeniality, Friday brought me a small paperback copy of 'Huckleberry Finn'--to go on top of the copy of 'Tom Sawyer,' on the upper right corner of the monitor (of these presents) across from the little figurine of Dopey (which is also a gift from him) on the left--and I've been (re-)reading it, at bedtime and before naps, floating down the grandest, noblest river in the world, possibly the galaxy.

Planted dahlia tubers for Marianne today, an hour's pleasant work at noon, preceded by an hour's lively chat, tea and pot-smoking among Marianne, her chief gardner Wolf, and myself; succeeded by another rather milder but still fun talk and coffee between just me and Marianne. Thence home, ten dollars richer (eight, rather, since I bought a gallon of milk on the way). I was explaining to Marianne the new protocol of blogging: "As a friend of mine, and someone I know, I can never tell you the name of my blog: It would be indecent. Now, you may divine what it is, and you might--but if you do, you must never tell me." Funny thing, Marcus works as Kristen's regular gardener and has a wonderful employee/employer relationship with her; whereas Marianne in that capacity drives him nuts. I have sworn a mighty oath, for my part, so long ago that I no longer recall why, that I will die before I will, ever, work for Kristen as a gardener or anything else--and I find Marianne a totally unexceptionable boss. Marcus' and Kristen's both being Aquarius, and Marianne's and my both being Virgo, is what I put it down to.

From the "Dieter's Cookbook" (not the German boy's, but that of one who diets):

red Cabbage and red Chilis Stew

(Tofu Rainbow)

Ingredients:

1. (red) 6 or 7 4-5" fresh red chili peppers, pared, seeded, and coarsely chopped (1-2" lozenge shapes)

2. (yellow) 2 yellow bell peppers, chopped into 1-2" squares

3. (blue-violet) half red cabbage, coarsely chopped.

4. (green) generous pound of asparagus spears, cut in 1 1/2" chunks

5. (white/grey/lavender) 1 pound extrafirm tofu, cut into chunks 3/8" thick by 1-1&1/2" square

6. Mushrooms ad libitum, a half a pound or so, coarsely chopped

7. 8 or 9 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped and crushed

8. generous half teaspoon cumin seeds

9. thumb-sized piece of gingerroot, minced

10. 2 quarts stock or water and 4 big bouillon cubes

The trick to this dish is in the compilation, starting with those ingredients that need the longest cooking, gradually adding those that need more. (1)In a 5-quart pot bring the stock (or water and bouillon cubes) to a boil; add tofu, chili peppers, ginger, garlic, cumin, mushrooms; simmer for 5-10 minutes. (2) Add cabbage, bring back to boil and simmer aproximately 10 minutes till just tender. (3) Add bell peppers and asparagus; cook aproximately 10 minutes until asparagus is tender-crispy. Serve over rice.

Great Fore-Queers: Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas in her own right. William Beckford. Oscar Wilde. Ronald Firbank. E.M. Forster. Florence Nightingale. Lytton Strachey. Aaron Copland. Leonardo. Isaac Newton. Christopher Marlowe. Ludwig the (Strong) Bavarian, and Frederick the Fair in his own right.

Of them all, possibly, Ronald Firbank has been most inspirational to me as a thinker and a writer, for what he did to his draft board, and most especially for the raw courage he displayed at his own local induction center--the damnfool Brits were doing World War I then. He appeared among them, sashayed into the induction center, wearing his customary foppish regalia--bell-bottomed trousers, long cigarette-holder, hat with sweeping brim--and demanded to be inducted. Which they were exceeding loath to do, so he sued them. Great shot. Who knows but what it saved lives?

Footnote. Two months later, sitting in the livingroom of my college roominghouse one afternoon watching television, a small group of friends and I watched President Johnson grant himself superrogatory war-powers on the transparent pretext of there having been an "incident" in the Gulf of Tonkin. "What a hoax!" we said to one another. Much later, in 1967 when the bombing and "collateral damage" had become a full-out war of terror and genocide against the people of Southeast Asia, I sent my draftboard a letter. Using my skills as a calligrapher, I drafted something that looked like a cross between Magna Carta and the Declaration of Independence, with black and red ink and "illuminated" capitals. I told them, at length, what I thought of their stinking war, and what a pleasure it had been to cheat my way out of their fucking military draft. A couple of weeks later, another summons to report for induction came in the mail; I tore it up and threw it away.

I have not been blogging in French for one, simple dumb-ass reason: I can't operate the French diacritics on my keyboard. Truly, in the brave new world of post-technology technology, I am a babe in the woods. And before that, back in the day when there was technology, I was already a sylvan neonate. I never learned to drive a car, for example, though I grew up in the rural West. There are several reasons for this. In the first place, you might not think it to look at me, but I am a man of (perhaps neurotically rigid) principle, and a keeper of oaths that I make to myself. My first principle in this life is never to engage in any activity during the routine performance of which I might kill myself, or, worse, somebody else. There's more to it, of course, but to this general principle I have been faithful, and one can observe its operation throughout my life, even in matters that at first don't seem to have much to do with it, e.g., way back in the day, my defiance of the draft. Of course, in fact, it had a lot to do with it.

The notice from my draft board arrived on the 6th of June, 1964: "You are ordered to appear at 6:00 AM, on June 20th, 1964...." Fucking ordered. I spent the next two weeks partying high (marijuana and peyote were definitely part of my life by then), worrying, asking my friends what they had done, what they thought I should do about being fucking ordered to show up for induction. My grades were bad, or non-existent, and my student deferment had evaporated. The obscene beast had fucking ordered me to appear before it: How could I persuade it not to devour me? Did I even want to acknowledge its obscene summons?

In the end (two weeks was a long time in those days), I showed up--after a fashion. I woke up around 8:00, already a couple of hours past the time ordained, made a leisurely toilet, and caught the bus to Spokane, arriving around 10:00. Craig Young, a friend of mine and former roommate, happened to be in town, staying with his grandmother a few blocks from the induction center; so I stopped in on the way and had coffee and a funny, brave chat with him. It was 11:30 when I walked into the induction center. Immediately, a tall man in uniform with a crewcut and a clipboard barked at me, "Why couldn't you have been here at six ay-em like everybody else?!" To which I barked right back, "Because it would seriously have inconvenienced me!" And so it went; being among the very last of those run through that induction center on that day, I followed the lines on the floor in my underwear, going from probe to palp to pee station, and wherever I stopped, the cute young medic in charge of that particular part of my body would greet me with, "Ah yes, the inconvenienced Mr. Noziere!" Simply put, I failed every test that was given me that I could fail, i.e., the seeing, hearing, intelligence tests. Giving all the wrong answers was surprisingly difficult, but rather enjoyable, and it was fun to watch the expressions on the faces of the young soldiers as they read over my carefully written test papers. I was shown out with some marks of contempt. It took a couple of more weeks for my IV-F ("unfit for any sort of military service") classification to arrive in the mail, but somehow they flew.

Early Mozart sonata, then 'The Clock" with Kristen this afternoon, putting both of us in better humour than we had been. She, at least, was confessedly cranky, having had confrontations with tradesmen, and began by taking things quite contrarily in the desultory gossip with which, as usual, we greeted one another. Warrantless accusations were nearly hurled before she got a grip. The music did very much cheer us up, however, and we were friends when we parted. But as below, so above: The Stephen Colbert pie in Bush's face of nine days ago is still echoing in blogosphere.

Word came this Sunday morning in my email from Friday in Pullman: "I made it." In my email today, Monday, was a desperate note that he was hitch-hiking back. (!) I had been sad, but I had also been relieved that he was to've been out of town for a couple of months. Damn it, that's what the gift of pot was for. It meant: Stay there.

Friday's the only one in the world I know ever to've read any of this blog. I showed him the FAQ Who is Friday? He said he was honored. He could read everything that I write here; but likely he won't. Maybe Phil in Germany [Howdy, Phil]. Otherwise, like a certain prince of Denmark, I am alone out here in Blogosphere, so far's I know. And solitude is, as we know, sometimes best society. I dump my inflammatory political opinions ("Disband the army!" "Abolish the FBI!") in the newspaper discussion blogs. Here is where I observe the infinitely instructive minutiae of life's passing, and where I try to make sense of it all.

I missed lunch at the Senior Center last Friday (no reference to the man here), and so missed a major public tantrum by Marcus. To hear him tell it, it was one ugly, obscene, outrageous confrontation, with lots of in- their-face finger-saluting. And I have to make nice with these people? He was even beastly to poor Holly who only wanted to fill him in (as she would have me, had I been there)on her upcoming trip to Herzog-Govina. Jeez.

The View from the Quai Voltaire

Beer and smoke with Darlene yesterday afternoon, being joined by Kimchee the mad Korean geisha-wannabe, who brought the smoke (which was dynamite), and seems irresistibly drawn to me (because I'm male and the same age she is): a boring, let-me-entertain-you nuisance, with no real conversation, but her pot is top-notch. Darlene and I managed to have a nice little talk around her: "Patty (Patterson--Mrs. Parsnip) and Peter (Piffle) are married. You can't have one without the other any more. If they haven't had coitus they are about to." [To which Marcus added something really unspeakable about "fore-play" when I told him of it later.] Then I asked Darlene if I might play her keyboard, and, leaving Kimchee in full monologue, went into the back room and let loose on one of the late Haydn sonatas in A-Flat; when I came out again Kimchee was gone.

Curious talk, walking Friday to the station. "I'm not crazy enough to get SSI disability compensation," he said to me, "but you are, maybe, and do." "I'm having fun," I said. "But you're really close to the line," he said, "and maybe you should be thinking more about being afraid of, and staying out of, jails and hospitals." "Well, maybe you should be thinking more about getting yourself a nice fixed income, even if it's only a scam like SSI."

Friday came by around 10:00 this morning to pack up (I forget that I have most of his worldly goods stashed in my closet) for his last, final departure by Greyhound at 11:00. I gave him the nice bit of 'Huckleberry' bud, for a going-away present, that Kristen gave me yesterday (Dorean elabete, dorean dote),--and was surprised at how much it consoled me to do so (Who even knew that I was sad?)--and walked with him to the bus station. What are friends for?

Done good again with Kristen yesterday, playing 'la Reine' especially well. My worst deficiency is a tendency sometimes to demonic possession (strange, deliberate-sounding cacophony); Kristen's is not finding and keeping the ictus. Nathless, we did particularly well the 2nd movement theme('la jeune et gentille Lisette')-and-variations, in fact the best we've ever done it. Its being maybe my favourite piece of music in the world might have had something to do with it. So I am not without my sediment of sentiment, and Kristen (believe me) understands that it's nothing to do with her personally. Still, it is good to have been playing the same 100-piece repertoire with the same other person for thirty-three years. 'Twas a perfect Cinco de Mayo.

Ran into Friday at the City Gate this afternoon, the first we've seen one another since Sunday night. He was scared, nervous, couldn't bring himself to tell me what he's been doing or what's happened to him, or why he needed the twenty dollars he couldn't quite muster the gumption to ask me for. So I left him, saying, "email me," not at all sure what I could have done for him, or why he had been, as he said, looking for me, but pretty sure that I didn't want to know why either. So I fear I must say good-bye to Friday. He said that "people with knives" were after him; that he was taking the 5:45 p.m. bus to Pullman. He didn't say, but it's pretty clear that coming back to Spokane, where he's burnt and ripped off so many people, is not an option.

Before ascending into Marcus's tree-top boys' world last night, however, I had spent a very convivial hour helping Darlene drink a bottle of good, cheap California Shiraz. Darlene's and my talk had maybe not been so deep--and then again maybe it had. We spoke of Friday; she was princely in her tact, and made no unwarranted assumptions. We also had a good run-down gossip about those we know and loathe, and added another chapter to the ongoing 'Saga of Peter and Mrs. Parsnip.' Peter's slavering grossness is the subject of much fascinated abhorrence to us. The wine was delicious, and Darlene artfully kept my glass full, almost without my noticing, such that when I left her I was not a little squiffy.

Long talk and smoke with Marcus tonight, in his pleasant tree-house Well, not that long, but deep. It is as if the scales have fallen from his eyes since I told him the secret of women: They don't understand us, because they attribute their own motives to us, because they disbelieve us when we tell them where we're at--whatever it is, that can't be what we mean That's the Big Mystery. And while we talked, and in the long moments when we didn't talk, we heard a late-Beethoven cello/piano sonata, new to me, of surpassing, spiritual beauty, on college F.M. radio. Funny how the Sacred Ganj finds Itself fit Music to fly on.

The View from the Quai Voltaire

I haven't seen Friday since, and I have a feeling (though I know feelings are usually wrong) that I won't see him again soon. He's really angry with me, taking it personally, and, I imagine, disgusted with me. And the feeling (this is what makes it bitter) is somewhat mutual. What it goes back to is that Friday was raised among mothers, sisters, stepmothers, and stepsisters, the only other male in his family being his aloof, preoccupied father. Whereas the only female in my family was my mother. My mother often said of me, particularly as I grew adolescent, that what I as a boy needed was a sister, both to civilize me and to teach me truths about the female half of things that only a sibling can impart. "The hell!" I always replied, "What truths?" When I was twelve I checked out Emily Post's 'Etiquette' from the library and virtually memorized it. When later that year my mother asked me in a confidential way if I didn't think my manners needed polishing, I answered indignantly, "Absolutely not. My manners are perfect."

Of course, I am aware of the strange dichotomy between the last two Sundays' entries, which I might characterize as the Franciscan Spiritual Vs. the Gleeful Misogynist, or St. Francis totally in opposition to Poor Clare. It is madness, no doubt, but it is my madness, as well as that of not a few other men--Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Confucius, Lord Chesterfield, Nietzsche, off the top of my head. Probably, alas, in character, I most resemble Confucius. God damn. It's a curse. One has the whole damned cultural universe on one's head, the sense of duty to reform through prescription, the deep belief that classical music benefits the soul, the caustic severity with women.