I walked today, and I ran some, too. I wanted to walk from here to Rockefeller Center but I didn't think I had the time. So I ran.

It's about a mile to the bridge, about a mile and a half to cross the bridge, and a mile and a half or two miles from the bridge to my 181 at Rockefeller Center.

It's all about the 181.

Ah, so I went looking for the bar on 7th Avenue, the bar I thought was named the Slaughtered Lamb. It was never called the Slaughtered Lamb (that's a recent-college-graduates bar on 4th Streret). I don't remember what it used to be called but now it's called The Irish Bar. Occasionally I have overwhelming desires to be at that place, but those desires vanish as quickly as they rise.

I used to go to that place when I worked in midtown. I don't know if that helps explain the fetishistic compulsions.

Whatever the explanation (I am sure it is a deep, profoundlypsychological explanation that explores the numbed muscles of my unconscious) I wanted to be there today to watch the Yankees/Rays game. No luck. They had soccer on every screen. Football, rather. Fütball.

The place looked different from how I remember. Cleaner. It smelled like a hotel lobby.

Jimmy's Corner On 44th Street is likely the only place of its kind in midtown. Genuine. Earthy. The Wakamba Lounge is another favorite. Of mine.

I went to Patelson Music Store and purchased blank music paper. 64 double-sided pages of blank orchestra score. This month I reached the end of some blank paper books I've been writing into since high school. Today's masterworks intermingle with adolescent yawps.

I recently found myself writing comments (comments like this) into a book that had stuff I'd written when I was 13 or 14.

Someday all my books will be filled. All the blank books I bought at the mall in grade school will retire, exhausted and weathered from the vigorous lifetime.

I remember stocking up on those blank books. I bought them with righteous, expectant goals of starting a story on page one and finishing on the last page. Perfect fit. Then, the sequel. Pick up the next book, fill it to perfection, move on.

Piles of books, empty, would be filled (to my perfection). Or my heavings. Turgid ramblings. Piles of turgidity.

Speaking of which, I am in a place that is loud. Too loud for me to think straight, crooked, or upways. Disjointed thoughts.

When noise mistracts me I remember, with some regret, making fun of a substitute bus driver in grade school. He begged us to be quiet, saying that he was having trouble seeing the road. I loudly asked, how hard can it be to see through all that noise? There was hearty laughter all around from the other kids in my class who thought me hie-larious. Eventually I would learn that noise really can obscure one's vision, via the volume-hammered inability to concentrate or focus.

I got recognized last night. RECK-A-NIZED. It is unfair to suddenly be with someone who thinks they know a lot about me while I (suddenly) know nothing about them. (Suddenly) we are best friends. I am starting to resent all the invisible people in my life.

I need a haircut.

These last few days seem to disappear. I get into a habit of writing about my fascinating existences, a habit more accurately dubbed a fetish for its unhealthy ineptitude. These days that writing is on paper, not on screens. I mostly write about the previous night's dreams and whatever asssociations that inspires. Some days my hand can not write fast enough, other days it just wheezes along, making shit up as it goes.

This week the afternoon arrives and then the sun sets and I am still scrabbling for something constructive to accomplish. Too much to do? Or not enough direction? I don't know.

I wish I could have had that bank account set up today. The more I think about it, though, the more I see that it was doomed from the get-go (or "git-go", as I like to hear that expression) simply for lack of rapport with the banker, not to mention his unabashed ignorance of these type of funds. I am too fragile in my approach to this stuff to take much conflict, and stubborn, corporate ignorance is a form of conflict I can't much handle.

At least it lets me appreciate how everyone I've dealt with in these matters has, up until now, been more or less competent. Except for me, of course. Actually the old-guy stock broker was way out of his league with this stuff, and uninformed about the complexities of the trust that my dad actually left -- versus the relatively simple trust he drew up in 2002.

Anyway... Who the fuck cares.

I did stock up on pork chops today, per earlier declaration to that effect. Pork chops and sardines. Man I hate sardines. It's like taking medicine -- it's nasty to me when the tails are still on the fishes. It's like I'm eating a still-living thing, and the fishes seem to flip and flap their tails as I take them down. Then they swim into my innards and form schools, clogging my body with sardinular activity.

These days I cut the tails off before placing the sardine portions on a tasty Triscuit©.

Even the word "sardine" has a dour, frowning aura about it.

I eat that stuff for the sake of my eyes. My macularly degenerative eyes. I almost said "for the sake of the children."

O I hate the burps. Sardine burps. A dismal, unhappy taste.

These days I spell "oh" O, when "oh" is used as an "OH!" expletive sort of thing. I think O, naked as it is, is more expressive of shock and surprise than Oh. It evokes the shape of the mouth as it exclaims the sound of O, and the bugging out of the eyes.

A friend in high school once said that in addition to being the 15th letter of the alphabet O is sometimes (rarely) defined as a woman's vagina. I took his word for it but to this day have not looked that up for myself.

O!

Back in the day I used to amuse myself by calling voicemail systems and dialing extension 5000000000.

I would listen to the automated voicemail voice says "extension 5 Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh ... " is not available. I imagined she (the voice) was being whipped and tortured as she yelled OH! in response.

To keep the abuse going all I had to do was dial extensions in the octillion range.

Imagining a German nazi dick-tator scenario I would throw a nine into the mix, imagining the woman being whipped and paddled interrupting her OHs with NEIN (German for NO).

NEIN! OH! OH! OH! OH! NEIN! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! OH! NEIN! OH!

That was extension 90000900000090, by the way. That extension did not answer.

Today makes me realize how good I feel when my mother feels well. For most of the past several years she has not been well, and she makes no attempt to disguise the facts. For that reason conversations with her have been major downers, and that's putting it mildly.

Yesterday was different. All the wit and humor were there, and we could have talked all day. To be honest it caught me off guard. Recent conversations trailed off into exhaustion for her. I expected more of the same from recent years, but yesterdaay we joked about how only her hand got tired from holding the phone so long.

What I thought would be the big event of the phone call, then, ended up being kind of a dud. A footnote. I carved out some money to pay off her enormous medical bills. I thought that would make her happy, and I think it did.

I felt weird talking like a moneyman, saying things like "I can make that bill disappear." I didn't say it with any flourish or energy. It was barely even audible.

I had t follow it with "If you want me to..." From previous conversations it made some sense to imagine she might refuse or be contrary about it.

I could have done this sooner. I did not fully realize that until last week. But that's no bother now, and it makes virtually no difference. None, in fact.

So today I had all this positive energy. Not because of that money matter but because of everything else. We talked about piano music for so long. I sometimes forget how much piano music means to her, and how much she was a part of my years learning the repertoire. Some of those things that sound cliché on Mother's Day cards end up being true for me. She is a foundation.

....

The last time I was at this pub I typed into this keyboard something that I eventually sent up to this place on the Internet. I stopped writing because of the hookers. They sorta cornered me but I got out, noting their bemused smirks. Chagrined. If I had taken a half second longer to squeeze past they would have said I must be gay. I could see that comment coming in the fat one's eyes, and I am certain it came after I left.

And to think I actually felt interesting that day. The sobering reality is that I am only interesting to hookers and drunks.

....

Watching the Yankees game at a quiet, sparsely populated puB. Correction: I am watching the Rays game. Tampa Bay has a damn good team this year, I've been saying so since spring training. And tonight they are proving their mettle by schooling the Yankees on pitching and smallball style of play. The Rays have swept both Boston and Seattle, and I think they can sweep the A-Rod-less/Posada-less/starting pitcher-less Yankees as well.

....

I was going to go to a lower east side poetry event tonight but the time got away from me. Before I knew it I was still sitting at my desk while the readings began.

Straight poetry readings are a mixed bag anyway. I like the variety show format, where anything goes. Poet followed by classical violinist followed by armpit musician followed by Abraham Lincoln imitator followed by master juggler. *Master* juggler. Jaster muggler.

Talking to my mother today and rediscovering why I feel like a child. She feels the same. It must be in the genes, this self-contained ping-pong match of children's thinks.

Atop all things I am most proud of the ways I make her laugh. I have always been proud of the giggle fits and chortles I draw from her. Some nights I laugh myself to sleep at things she laughed at 25 years ago. Man o man the garbage bag murder makes me laugh to sickness before I can even finish typing this sentence.

Her mind is strong, where the rest of her is not. Her laugh is hearty where the rest of her is not.

And, just like a girl, she ended the conversation by saying she wanted to talk again, to talk more.

I feel like I had an interesting day. It felt interesting before, during, and after. It is slipping away from my memories already, like the dreams I had last night.

I dreamed that I woke up in the middle of the night in the house I grew up in in Tampa. I stepped from my bedroom into the hall to turn off the light in the hallway.

As I reached for the light switch the light turned off. By itself.

Looking down the darkness of the stairwell I heard a voice say something like "You don't need to worry about turning off the light."

This was presented as a good thing. The tone of the voice suggested that modern technology knew when the light should be turned on or off.

Advanced!

I tried to turn the light on, though, and the automated system turned it right back off. Twice, thrice, I don't know how many times. I batted the light switch to the on position over and over, but the automated thing kept turning it off.

I stopped. Looking down the stairwell again I heard a gentle cackling. It diid not say the words but it communicated to me that it was in charge of the lights in the stairwell outside the bedroom in which I grew up.

I screamed, trying to silence the stupid thing that was doing this. I thought if I screamed and bounced around in the stairwell it would get scared and leave, turning the lights on as it left the house.

That is when I woke up. Screaming with that sublingual, pigeon-like gobbling of waking up from a nightmare (but not bouncing off the walls).

I did have an interesting day. I imagined talking to someone about it, but everyone I know is busy.

I will share the day's tremors with my stack of Mead filler paper.

Sitting in a bar by myself. No one here knows me, though the bartenders occasionally try to get my chit-chat going on. That is nice of them, though I feel inadequate. My voice is not loud enough to be heard over the AC/DC song on the jukebox, and even if it was loud enought o be heard conversations with me usually require that I complete 2 or more sentences.

Otherwise I give up.

As I just did.

Boo hoo.

Ah, the song just switched from AC/DC to The Band, The Weight. Good song.

Often lately I wake up from my dreams thinking "I need to change my life." It would not take much. Move to another street. Find another bar. Issue press releases announcing my days as interesting as today. Get a Dux bed (spelled D-U-X). Throw away my thousands of Time Inc. magazines. Throw away the Ascot-Chang shirt I bought and never wore. Throw away everything, then buy it back cheap.

I actually do know a few people here. Conversations from months ago, mostly forgotten. This is the place where the fat bald 60-something dentist holds court with another beautiful 20-something babe every single time I see him here.

To his credit, though, he seems to be sucking face with the same girl tonight as the last time I saw him here a month or so back. Maybe it is love.

I know that is what it is.

Today was out. Outside. Outland. Confluence of random energies singled into quarters of my minds.

Junkle droof. Blurrfish. Oushtart. Bläsh kull grommund dreskin qiffle. Muttle fluz, müttle fluz.

Muttle fluz.

Napper livruq drabbim porf.

Ikkliuc joz wull frangowl nopplé, shohegac picc puvaxid qob.

Qob! Qob!

Napper livruq qob!

Clouzog horp yik sqaag hust, koob bilsk fuzk gilleftroub crefqit fenstishrem pungoovbosh hukt spreem.

Hauvid wakkis ploq hish nummvört jicq, miggop vunt spoy crouxpun vizod brobbax.

Qob! Qob!

Napper livruq qob!

Uqown plish jub dreeplon basjevoon yabblez toosh pabb qob.

Ivijubboq fuh braasq lik gippizk jabbok richkub nazzib theppuc kliz nipcoz qob.

Sitting cross-legged on my kitchen floor. Window open, the cold, bored, complaining spring air blows over my feet and some other of me.

Sitting at the table to record today's fabulations.

Pen. Paper. Good times.

Going to talk to myself.

Going on around here. There is, literally, a police officer on every single street corner.

I didn't do anything.

Maybe it's Sean Bell related.

My friend M. was in town a few weeks back. We were walking up Broadway. As a black guy who'd been living in rural Pennsylvania for a few years he said "Man it's nice to walk down the street without worrying about dudes in pickups coming at me with baseball bats."

We laughed. A full but nervous laugh.

i am starting to think that the mysterious phone numbers showing up on people's phones across america are somehow connected to the myriad of web sites that solicit stories and comments on the numbers. i mean, when a strange number shows up on my phone i sometimes look it up on a search engine, and it can be interesting to land in these mental cages in which others have arrived, looking for answers to paranoid mysteries.

last week i received a call from my bank telling me to call them at 1-800-955-9060 to verify recent credit card activity. i decided against calling that number. it is not the number which appears on the back of my credit card, and a web search for that number led to various confusing pit stops at which others posted contradictory accounts of who owns that number and what happens if you call it.

i called the chase # on my card, and it turns out they put a hold on my card after they declined a perfectly legitimate charge. they said they did this because new york state (where i live) is apparently having an identity theft epidemic. well, that's what the woman i spoke with said.

to be honest it sounded like a sales call for chase's identity theft protection service, which toward the end of the call was pitched to me -- for only $7 a month.

the bank, it seems, is arbitrarily declining purchases. in this case they declined a purchase with a company i've done business with on a regular basis for well over 10 years. it is hard to spot anything suspicious about that transaction. this was a routine charge placed on my card by an internet service provider.

even though i am suspicious of the motives behind my banks recent communication, and even though i already have identity theft protection, i may consider the services my bank offers. it seems they would be able to fix problems more quickly than third parties.

Sitting at a table in Rockefeller Center, near the in-dismantlement skating rink. I guess the pope is going to stop by at St. Patrick's Cathedral across the street, or maybe the throngs of media gathered there chose the spot just because it's St. Patrick's. The irony is that the pope is passing me by and I'm on my way to a bar. A three-level Irish bar. I'm not sure why that's ironic, because I've never quite understood the meaning of that word, but its use is rarely questioned.

A strange thing has been going on with one of the tires on my car. A few months ago the cap disappeared from my rear passenger side tire. No big deal, though I was slightly puzzled by how it could have popped off without the rest of the tire being compromised.

Well, I noticed a couple of days ago that the cap on that tire is back. Someone appears to have "borrowed" it and returned it to my tire sometime in the last couple of weeks.

An odd prank, probably harmless -- unless GPS-enabled explosives were placed inside my tire, programmed to explode as I drive near the Indian point nuclear power plant.

Maybe in a week the borrower will mail me a pack of photographs showing the tire cap on a journey around the world. There's my tire cap at the Grand Canyon, there it is at the Eiffel Tower, and there it is at the Taj Mahal.

Maybe the pope did it.

....

I checked my 181 today looking for the books (mostly poetry) I ordered last week. Only two books are here. Complete Wallace Stevens poems and "Lithium for Medea," by Kate Braverman.