People are still paying for cups of coffee with credit cards. Christ! Why do we even have currency? Well, so my two hours of quiet time on a Sunday afternoon at the coffee shop is not starting as I'd like. A loud checkout girl who expects that everyone else in her path can match her donut sugar high is not helping my mood, nor are the piles of used dessert plates and coffee cups that surround me on both sides. At home I have a bathroom sink full of soap scum water and a tub half full of percolated orange sewer drain water, and no hope in sight of a shower for myself. Thinking ahead, I showered at the gym, but without a solid bar of soap. Instead, I tried to lather with a few drops of liquid from the soap dispenser hanging from the tile wall. Not very satisfying. The tall Indian man beside me had a very short dick but the most enormous girth at the tip. It was as if he had the far end of a pine baseball bat growing from his hairy lower pelvis. I imagine it might pose a problem for his sexual partners. I saw no one I knew while I showered, which was good. For some reason, I don't mind being naked in front of total strangers, but for acquaintances I feel in some odd way that I've lost an advantage. They've been able to fully assess me.

I heard from an old friend today, an unexpected email from Ian, an acquaintance I know from ICUII. He lives in London. I haven’t been on ICUII for months. And I haven’t ever really written about ICUII before. There's much to say, but not now. Anyway, it was nice to hear from him. He said he has read my blog before. That's the second person who has surprised me by saying that they've read my blog.

It's after 5 PM and still plenty of light outside.

********************************************************

Two days later . . .

My bathroom drain problem remains. This morning two rather rough fellows came to my door at 8:30 AM, hoses and tools in hand, ready to fix things. They didn't. They shouted, swore, tracked mud throughout the apartment, tore out some of the floor, caused nasty drain water to seep through the ceiling and onto piles of things on the first floor, took off the toilet, made calls to the home office, and declared that yes, indeed, it is quite a problem. They return tomorrow morning at 8 AM to finish tearing out floor enough to gain access to the problem pipe, replace it, and leave behind an uninhabitable bathroom. I'm certain it's more than my landlord bargained for. It's more than anyone bargained for. The two men will be working overtime this week. One will be unable to take his two-year-old daughter to see Sesame Street on Ice, and he was none too happy about it. The men seemed like nice enough fellows, but I don't have much confidence in their expertise. But what do I care—I'm not paying for it.

I took another shower at the gym yesterday, and as chance would dictate, I showered again alone with my Indian friend and his enormous bulbous stub of a dick, a mushroom, almost. He put his underwear on before he exited the shower... a modest fellow. It IS nice to arrive at home clean and fresh after a workout. I'm glad I just recently cut off all but a coarse stubble from my head. It's easier to clean, and there's less to get oily and smelly. Plus I've neutralized the entire hair clog accusation.

Today I took the second of the two exams to get my real estate license. I'm now licensed. I’m not sure to what end. The entire thing has been a bit humbling. I've sat through classes on how to compute percentages and the areas of rectangles. I've been instructed on crude legal concepts. (I've listened as instructors spout misinformation and mispronounce words. I meant to keep a little log of the words and later recall them with hilarity, but I've forgotten them already.) I've learned things too, but there is the lingering sense that the whole thing is beneath me, which is of course absurd. But it reminds me that I haven't been challenged in a long time. Hopefully I'll get some fun out of it.

I'm three volumes deep into Proust, and just yesterday has appeared for the first time, really, the suggestion of homosexual interest shown toward the narrator. I haven't read any literary criticism of Proust, but I wonder how much of the narrator is Proust himself. Is it autobiographical at all? The narrator is dazzling, apparently, exceedingly bright, well read, cerebral yet slavishly beholden to his desires, and engaging to the extreme. How could it not be Proust? But the narrator has a habit of becoming obsessed by a series of women. He has just one close friendship with a young and dashing duke, count or some such royal, Robert Saint-Loup. Robert adores him. Robert dresses impeccably and with panache, has a passion for books and the arts. In a perfect world they'd be lovers. But Proust has gone to great lengths to secure his protagonist’s heterosexual credentials. There's no chink is the armor. Too bad. Well, I believe in volume six there’s a lesbian affair to look forward to. Oh, boy.

The last few weeks I've been reveling in the nocturnes and impromptus of Chopin. No one has greater, more delicate sensitivity that Chopin. It's delicate, nuanced, beautiful music, weaved together perfectly. He has the most developed sense of what's beautiful. He of course preceded Proust, but his music is perfect music to accompany Proust's prose. Chopin died when he was 39.