Apparently, I was just as lazy and unmotivated 20 years ago as I am today.

March 23, 1995

Here, in no particular order, is what I usually end up doing when I sit down to write:

1. Test the refrigerator door to make sure the hinges are still operating properly. I rarely take anything out to eat. I also open the door slowly to see at what point the little lightbulb turns on. Someday, that bulb isn’t going to turn on and it’s going to make it all worthwhile.

2. Go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror for a long time. Sometimes, I comb my hair in bizarre and funny styles. Sometimes, I experiment with different hair care products, like gels, rinses and conditioners. Sometimes, I cut my nose hairs. Sometimes, I stare at myself and ask, “What’s wrong?”

3. Turn on the TV and make the rounds. I go through the channels in a specific sequence: 2, 4, 7, 5, 11, 9, 13, 21, 25. I realize that’s out of order but the pattern is ingrained in me. I can manipulate the remote with my thumb without looking at it. I start to feel guilty after two “laps.” Thank God I don’t have cable.

4. Eat peanut butter by sticking my finger in the jar. I’m sure this practice will come to an end once I’m married. [Note: It hasn’t.] This reminds me that when we were kids we had a schnauzer named Nipper who would bark incessantly. To shut him up, mom would take a finger of peanut butter and stick it on the roof of his mouth. That bought us a few minutes of peace and quiet. Dogs love peanut butter, you know.

5. Masturbate. I consider this my most healthy distraction and the one that takes the least amount of time.

5a. Take a nap.

6. Mope. I have a theory that my extra-special, finely-tuned brand of moping is an important part of the creative process, so I’m not sure it’s fair to include it in a list of distractions. It’s like saying breathing is a distraction.

7. Stare at the phone. The best distractions are the ones not initiated by me. When the phone sings, I drop my laptop like it’s suddenly leaking the Ebola virus and rush to answer by the second ring out of fear that whomever is calling might change their mind. I rarely get back to what I was doing. I have reams and reams of half-finished sentences. Maybe I can mash them all together and make some haiku.

8. Read someone else’s work. WOW! can some people write! If I’m feeling a little too productive, I’ll walk over to the bookcase and pull out some Dickens or Hemingway and it’s back to distraction #3.

In this episode, the Emperor of Tender Hearts and Self-Pity rides in on his sad, gray horse. Hi ho.

April 27, 1995

A fun New York-y thing happened to me. I was on my way to work and because I’m working these crazy hours, it was midday and there weren’t many people on the subway platform. Near the center stairwell, waiting for the train, was a group of about 15 children with three or four teachers. They were around 6 years old, mixed races and genders. When I walked by, their conversations mashed together into a high-pitched buzz. Like tiny bees. I was annoyed because I wanted to read my paper so I started to walk off in a huff towards the end of the platform.

There was a sudden silence. They all turned to one of the teachers. She said something inaudible and they began singing Yellow Submarine in absolute perfect harmony. Their voices were sweet and angelic. It sounded like a choir but they were just children. No one voice was singing louder than the others. The acoustics in the subway were perfect. Their singing had a rich, full, echoy sound. Everyone standing around looked up from their reading material and stared. It was surreal. All those beautiful voices in that filthy setting.

They finished Yellow Submarine and began a song they were taught to sign. It was about how being here with their friends and singing makes them happy. There was a beautiful choreography of tiny hands, all moving in graceful unison. I started thinking of all those little children who were blown up in Oklahoma City last week. They’ll never see their friends or sing again. I started crying right in the middle of the subway platform. I had a suit and tie on and looked ridiculous. I was so embarrassed, but it made me happy that I live in New York, where crazy shit like this happens on a fairly regular basis.

May 1, 1995

The evening shift is killing me. I can’t sleep during the day. You can’t imagine how clean this apartment is. I’m a very clean person, you know? This morning, I ironed four shirts (medium starch) and scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom floors. You can’t use a sponge mop. Do you know who uses sponge mops? Lazy, wussy-pussy losers. You’ve got to get down on your hands and knees with a scrub brush and scrub that motherfucker until your knuckles and back hurt. I seriously think I’m losing my mind.

Ellis and Oswaldo are meeting a friend from college tonight for dinner. He became a teacher, taught all over the world but also had a secret life as “Miss Terry.” Get it? He’s HIV positive and can’t teach anymore. It’s only a matter of time.

Laura gave me a homework assignment. In one column, I’m supposed to list the things I like about the work I do and in another column I’m supposed to list the stuff I don’t like. I stared at a blank sheet of paper and couldn’t come up with any positives. I haven’t accomplished a damn thing. I’m going to spend rest of my life as an office drone. I want to seduce her, so I’d better make up some positive stuff. What is a good thing?

I remember sitting at that crappy presswood and tube steel table in that crappy apartment in Phoenix and writing a letter to Peggy about my Arizona adventures. The next morning, before dropping it in the mail, I reread it and was surprised at how good it was. A magic elf could’ve snuck in overnight and wrote it, but that didn’t happen. I wrote it. I thought it was my imagination but Peggy called the day she got it and said she passed it around the office and it made everyone laugh. She said, “You do know that you’re a writer, don’t you?” I got choked-up but she never knew, thank god. [Caveat: I’m not fishing for compliments or encouragement, all appearances to the contrary. I’m just regurgitating what’s in the binders.]

I accidentally/on purpose came across the studio shot of Karen. I couldn’t stand it anymore so I called the travel agency and they said she left four months ago. It made me wretch. I’ll never find her. To insure that never happens again, I took the photo outside and burned it. It was supposed to be cathartic but my memory didn’t go up in flames, like the metaphor promised it would. I still think about her.

There was an ad in the Village Voice personals by a girl who’s trapped in a corporate environment and looking for a writing partner. You have to call her voicemail and leave a message. I thought I’d fumfer if I spoke off the cuff so I typed-out a response:

[Redacted]

The voicemail message (which cost me $2.50 to listen to) said she’s looking for a “very smart, very sexy man who can write who’s not intimidated by a very smart, very sexy woman who can write.” I hung up. I couldn’t do it. She’d see right through me. I think what I’m looking for is a wilted violet.

I forgot to wear a belt to work the other day so I went to H&M at lunch to buy one. Have you ever been to H&M? My first and last visit. Their target audience is 15-year old girls tweaked out on meth. It’s like being in da club at 2:30 a.m. All mirrors and loud, thumping, headache-inducing “music.” I was standing in the checkout queue having a brain aneurysm, looked up and across 42nd St. was a Gap. A nice, quiet, gentle Gap.

The view from my office. The days are getting shorter. Autumn is here.

More fun from the store.

December 14, 1994

Laura called and that made me happy. She’s got a boyfriend now—a devilishly handsome med student—and I was pretty sure she’d dump me but that hasn’t happened. Yet. She was eating dinner while we spoke—a bowl of rice. She’s so broke that she can’t afford proper groceries. Right after I hung up, Cindy came over. She gave me a little bamboo box that was filled with condoms. She said she’s through with men. [Note: A decision that, 20 years later, has stuck.] I don’t know why she gave them to me. She knows I don’t have anyone. Plus, she knows I hate condoms.

I lost my assignment at Sudler. I came in at 8:30 and the doors in the elevator lobby were all locked. I got tired of waiting for someone to show up and let me in so I picked the lock on the mailroom door with my pocket comb. Someone saw me coming out of the mailroom and tattled. It was a stupid thing to do. Tattle, that is. I hated it, anyway. The relationship I had with that agency is ruined, so I’m sorry about that.

I found a new assignment right away. Unemployed on Friday. Back to work on Monday. I’m at Lehman Brothers on the 4:00-midnight shift. The hours are terrible but the offices are beautiful, the people are all freaks and the pay is good. My window looks out onto the crown of the Woolworth Building. In A Farewell to Arms, Lieutenant Henry tells Catherine he’s going to bring her to New York to see the Woolworth Building. My view beyond that is the Brooklyn Bridge and the East River. It gets dark about an hour after I start work. I sit at my desk and watch the city slowly light-up.

Pete, who sits next to me, is an undersexed single male who espouses astonishingly sophomoric views about women. On the other side of me is Karen, who I’m already in love with. That didn’t take long. It never does. When she gets up from her desk, Pete always comments on her breasts—one time referring to them as “watermelons”—and makes the most bizarre claims. He said she’s a big tease who stands in front of a full-length mirror at home and practices provocative poses just to torture us. I’m tortured, alright, but I doubt she’s that calculating. My supervisor is a huge Jamaican woman who likes to mama everyone and protect us from the asshole investment bankers. I love her.

January 4, 1995

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I missed a few weeks because I broke my back. I got up off the kitchen stool funny and twisted it. I went to work and the next morning I woke up paralyzed with pain. A stabbing pain like I’ve never experienced before. Unimaginable agony. I’ve lost weight because I couldn’t get out of bed to go to the kitchen for something to eat. I had to crawl on my hands and knees from room to room and wept for days. At one point, I pulled myself up on the bathroom sink and looked in the mirror. My eyes were puffy and red and my nose was running. My face was so sad and my expression so pathetic that it made me weep even harder.

I spent a lot of time on the floor self-medicating. One night, it got so bad I took several ibuprofen, drank almost an entire bottle of Champagne intended for New Year’s Eve and smoked some weed. I was completely numb. The pot made me paranoid (as usual). I was convinced that even the slightest movement would exacerbate the pain ten-fold, so I laid there on the floor like a stone for HOURS and didn’t so much as wiggle a pinky.

I finally crawled to the TV and turned on Howard Stern. He was interviewing Chuck Norris and bamboozled him. Norris was defending his TV show, Walker: Texas Ranger, against charges that it’s too violent and should be yanked off the air. While Norris argued that the accusations were wildly overblown, Stern would cut away and intersperse scenes from the show that were so horrifically violent that I started laughing and hurt my back again.

I enjoy my solitude. I’m irresponsible and immature. I’m barely employable. Nobody seems to want me, but none of that bothers me. I don’t have to make any compromises and I’m happy. But this has been a sobering episode. There was nobody around to help me. To be with me and make me some soup. I was on the floor for days and nobody knew. I was broken by the pain in my back but also by how utterly alone I was.

I’m still wearing a back brace and had to use a cane for two weeks, which was a weird experience. I’d walk down Houston and people would make room for me. I got to sit in the gimp seat on the M21 and when I dropped my newspaper, some show-off with a good back picked it up for me. I couldn’t masturbate for almost two weeks. Finally, I couldn’t stand it anymore so I did it while lying perfectly still. Try jacking-off without moving your body. It’s not that easy.

NYC wildlife parade. I was having my morning coffee in Bryant Park and these two guys strolled by.

This peregrine falcon alighted on a beam outside my office window on the 51^st Floor. Manhattan is good to falcons. Unlimited shelter and food supplies. She was teaching her eyasses how to dive bomb for pigeons. First her, then her young one would follow. We could hear her screech.