Friday, spider-bitten just above the knee, is with me for the duration. Walked him up to Deaconess Hospital yestereve, saw him shot full of antibiotics; back here, barely ambulatory, sneaking in, where he slept ill, chilled with pain and spider venom. So I expect to have him with me for the next day or two, at least till he can walk. Vorrei piu'tosto essere da solo, ma non me ne piango, dato che faccia bene a un mio amico offrendogli l'asilo della mia camera e l'uso del mio letto.

Counting now the minutes till midnight here at the Palace, the dope (crack, meth, and pot) has arrived by thoughtful purveyors ahead of our pensions and stipends (for most of us, nous qui habitons 'ce pays-ci') paid out, or, rather credited to our bank accounts, at midnight. I've just had a taste of suspiciously meth-tasting crack cocaine from a neighbour wanting my opinion of a buy he'd just made; I thought it indeed rather a dull methedrine than a cocaine buzz, confirming my neighbour's own opinion. And I said thanks, but no, thanks, I didn't much want to buy any, whatever its immediately addictive properties. Friday will probably kill me when he finds out I turned it down. One sees how relative values are.

And so, lifting my eyes from this all too particular singularity to the gross generality of everybody else, the morgues are full in Fresno, even overfull, of the corpses of Central Valley heat-victims, mostly the elderly. It isn't certainly the effect of global warming, but it could be. I learned odd stuff in perusing the morning e-mail box about why and how people die of heat-exhaustion; it ain't pretty. The sort of stuff the late Shah of Iran, as acting chief of Savak, must have been elbows-deep in.

Si j'ai l'air gai, c'est que mon ordinateur marche parfaitement bien. Sa "mort" de laquelle je me plaignais si pitoyablement n'e'tait en effet que celle du moniteur, et je l'ai remplace' avec un nouveau qui marche, comme je disais, parfaitement bien, mieux me'me que ne marchait jamais l'ancien.

Did all I said I'd do yesterday, and, in the process, picked up Friday, who is still sleeping the sleep of the Just on the floor, but will doubtless switch to the bed when I leave. Weather's perfect, as forecast. Think I'll go visit Patty (and perforce Peter); perhaps she'll give me a cup of coffee, the neighbours here being out.

8:00 a.m. blessedly cool. Plan is: in half an hour to walk down to the community center to sign in for the noon food-giveaway; likely to see Friday, perchance to get him stoned. Thence to Kristen's for a couple of hours' practise; thence back to the community center to pick up the food (hopefully, milk) and trek it hither. Been reading/googling our local wines; discovered something new in wine-poetry (the effusions one reads on the labels of wine-bottles): "These big, soft wines have a friendly personality." There is nothing I can add to that, but that I'd like to meet them.

This, they say, is absolutely the last of the hottest days; though the mercury climb to 99 F. this afternoon, 'twill plummet to 63 by 5:00 a.m. tomorrow. And the pattern will continue, cooler every day and night by a few degrees, for a week; then stabilize: 80's in the daytime/low 50's at night.

Kristen's feeling much better. We did the Mozart great G Minor, a late great Haydn symphony in C, and a couple of very fine Handel organ concertos yesterday; in the latter in Kristen's words attaining a "new level." Yesterday was so hot; only swimming in the river, sleeping under mosquito netting enables us really to live. For reasons known only to itself, my computer is restored to me today, so will continue blogging at home.

Looks like I'm going to be spending a couple of more nights in Kristen's yard, the daytime temperatures still hovering above the century mark today and tomorrow. It's schockingly hot. Nighttime temperatures have not failed to drop into the 60's, however, and are continuing to drop--into the upper 50's by next week. Anyway, Kristen is being very hospitable, and herself suggested that I might want to stay a few more days. Good, but she's still too sick to play music. We tried a bit of Zauberfloete day before yesterday, and it went okay, but she had a relapse the next day..So we'll see.

Saw Friday off on a camping trip today from the food giveaway at the commmunity center today. He should be back sometime next week. Myself, I've got my bedroll made up in my Swiss army backpack, and I'm ready to camp in Kristen's back yard for the next three nights. Swimming in the river this afternoon, expecting it to get up to 100 round degrees, according to the weather service.

So, Sunday morning, there sitting across from me, at the Colored Gentlemen's and their White Wive's and Mischling Children's non-scheduled Protestant Sunday breakfast-for-the-indigent table, was, beyond all hope, Friday, looking well. We took off walking after breakfast, through Brown's Addition, down the bluff, along Hangman Creek, to the back corner of the cemetery, which Friday had never seen before. He was duly impressed with the disused old cemetery, and touchingly anxious not to step on the "heads" of the graves, apologizing to the dead for walking on them. We spoke of many things, but most of death and the afterlife-if-there-is-one. Then, after a long walk back, we had sandwiches at the Brown's Addition Rosauer's Deli, and thence to the Palace, where a new and inexperienced concierge let Friday sign in and out simultaneously, and he stayed over, sleeping, eating, and watching television until Tuesday morning, what time we sneaked out successfully together and repaired to the Community Center to do our laundry. Then Friday went back to his sex-slave isolation in an un-air-conditioned Air-Stream, electricity-less trailer on the desolate far edge of Airway Heights where he has been all this while. I rather expect to see him in a few days, unless he dies out there: The weather forecast is for broiling hot the next week or so (105 degrees on Sunday!). Myself, I've made arrangements with Kristen to sleep in her back yard over the weekend. Kristen, by the way, is sick, of what she had thought to be a bladder infection, but which is something ominously worse; we'll learn what today....

Blogging from the Senior Center, il mio computer essendo, per l'istante, morto. Was hoping to play some music with Kristen today, but she's not answering her phone. Probably just as well: Sorrow at Friday's sad fate is rendering me unfit for normal human company. I think I'll give notice at the Palace today, twenty days before the next rent due day, so that I can get the $110 deposit back, so that I can buy a one-way ticket to Maui, planning eventually, Winter or Spring quarter, to attend the University of Hawaii, maybe shooting for a Master's in French. No more winters in Spokane, waiting for the fascist jackboots to start kicking things in, trying to make space in my single room for both me and my man Friday. Herb says the University of Hawaii sounds like a good bet for him too, so we might, without making it anything like an official partnership, both make a go for it.

No word of Friday for five days. Those who saw him last, on the 4th, say he was in bad shape, tweaking, grasping, twitching, begging. I think I fear he's dead. Tonight at City Gate is to be a "memorial service" for Melanie, followed by a meal. And this with the screams of Doug Dawson, doused with gasoline in his wheelchair, by a couple of worthless punks seeking further diversion after having just committed armed robbery upon a woman, and set fire to, a couple of weeks ago, still echoing in our heads. Meantime, Kristen and I've been savouring excellent Humboldt County hashish, as good in its way as our Cascadian wines and coffee, and playing Handel and Mozart, discussing the barbecue/garden-party she's having in conjunction with the young gentlemen next door on Phil's birthday, the 12th of August. Other people's horrific tragedy is not going to prevent our having a good time.

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I went to the community center for the free-food giveaway, spent most of the time talking with Herb, who as it happens, was apparently the last to see Friday alive: about Friday, and about his (Herb's) near-death experience from hypo-thermia--going up the tunnel to the light--and how he has never since feared death. Then I walked to the end of the grounds of the center, on the bluff overlooking the river, and shared my soup with some very nice and tame marmots; feeling, fearing, that I had just heard the last of Friday.

To Green Bluff to pick strawberries yesterday in the early morning with Marianne and Kristen, in Marianne's mini-van; Marianne wearing a prairie schooner sunbonnet, Kristen absurdly practical, hot farmer's overalls, me my ugly cool shorts and shirt. Sitting on the edge of the field under an awning with Marianne towards the end, with Kristen still toiling, among sparse others, in the far distance, I unburdened my soul. Marianne understood perfectly. We agreed, furthermore, that there's no need to tell Kristen: It would only hurt her feelings--and she still wouldn't understand it. Anyway, fine swimming in the river in the afternoon yesterday, another chat with Marianne, and so home to the broiling Palace, where by dint of frequent cold showers I fell asleep under the fan, awakening to my across-the-hall neighbour's violent argument with his internal voices just at 7:00, having slept enough, but still weary from the heat. The national weather service promises that today and tonight will be the last of the really extreme hot weather--but they sometimes just say that, I think, in order that we might not utterly despair

Good swim yesterday, alone, unespied, in one of those spectacular bends of the river where there is absolutely nothing of man's handiwork that is visible, only towering grassy banks with sentinel pine-trees. and ancient cottonwoods and willows by the water: as it must have looked 500 or 5,000 years ago. Being entirely alone, without another human soul to have to temporize with, in such a circumstance is the greatest luxury and the most delectable pleasure in the world. Imagine my horror therefore when, after I had somewhat rhapsodized my fluminatatory experience (omitting the part about having been at-one with the world-soul) to Kristen, she immediately extorted a promise from me that I should go get her and bring her with me when I go swimming this afternoon! I said I would, knowing I'd rather die than do that. Jesus fucking christ. The best I can do in this case is lie...No, not just lie, but lie and confess that I have lied, to Marianne, putting her in the position of having to forgive me as a sister-in-Christ, which will make me feel better and a little less like a total liar.