It’s hot. That 90-degree kind of hot that tells you it’s summer and makes you wish for cold weather, like last week. I just spent money on a spring jacket, and I got to wear it about three times. Sigh. At least the apartment isn’t completely unbearable. I’ve got the windows open and I just bought a fan, so it’s functionally cool, but not entirely comfortable. I’ll survive.

Things have been strange and I haven’t been able to concentrate on much of anything lately. Still getting used to my new life, and I’ve been running into glitches. There are huge voids of time where I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with myself that bug the hell out of me. I know, I should be working on the bok, but sometimes I just need to relax, or talk, or socialize, and I’m still trying to find a social structure to relax in. It all sounds stupid and petty, but it’s also very depressing and it’s one of those situations that can consume your soul if left unchecked. And it’s very unchecked at this point.

I haven’t been doing much work on the book in the last few days, because of this sickness thing (I think it was bronchitis - mostly better now) and everything else. I did print out most of the draft and started carefully red-penning it for one last pass. I don’t want to drag this out forever, but it deserves one more chance before I start the publishing process.

I had a very strong Summer Rain deja vu the other night, Saturday night. I ate dinner at the Neptune and then came home around 10 or so with absolutely nothing to do, and an apartment that was too hot for me to just sit around for 3 or 4 hours. I got on moviephone and found out American Beauty was playing at the new 14-plex that’s about a mile and a half from my place, at 11

. So I got all recombobulated and hiked through the night. The walk reminded me so much of the book, of 1992 in Bloomington. The streets in Astoria are like the nice houses just outside the student ghetto in Bton, houses all clustered together with no yards and old cars in the driveways. That, and Joe Satriani in the walkman was a temporary time machine - both to 1998, when I was working on the book so much, and 1992, when it actually took place. Very weird, very cool.

I didn’t like American Beauty. It had its moments, but the time structure of the film distracted me. It was so long and drawn out, two and a half hours for something that essentially had as much plot as a 22-minute episode of Three’s Company. Oh well, it was a nice walk.

I’m too hot to be slaving in front of this monitor. I’m going to go sit in front of the fan with my clipboard and red pen and read some of Summer Rain.

I feel sick.

I mean the kind of sick where you think you should go to the emergency room, but then you remember the last time you spent an hour on the subway to go to Columbia’s emergency room and the attending nurse just stared at you for twenty minutes without even asking your name or if you’ve been shot or were in the middle of a heart attack or anything. I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin, like I can’t focus on anything for more than three seconds. I think my body is having some adverse reaction to Claritin. I also feel like I have pneumonia. I want to sleep for a month. I think I slept about an hour last night.

Summer Rain is finished, more or less. I hate it. I’ve read the book so many times, it makes me physically ill to even open the files now. And it sucks. I would give it a 5 out of 10, and I think it would take a year of heavy edits to get it to a 6. I just need to get the thing out of here, and finish it. I want to get back to work on Rumored to Exist, which I think has much more potential. And so does everyone else, I guess, because nobody ever reads drafts of Summer Rain. I don’t blame them - it’s 500 pages of mediocrity.

I mean, you should still buy a copy when it comes out. Just don’t read it. Like that copy of Pale Fire you’ve never opened.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about this thing.

I’ve been pretty off lately. For the first time since I was a kid, I’m getting allergies. I spent all weekend in bed, suffering and taking Benadryl. I went to the doc and got set up with Claritin, and I also got a HEPA air filter. Plus the bit of rain and temp change has calmed things down a bit. So I’m mostly feeling better, but I’m slightly off from all of the rollercoaster ride of Benadryl and Sudafed and everything else. Now that my brain is programmed to completely shut off at night with the Benadryl, I can’t sleep well without it. So, things are weird.

Since I finished the last Summer Rain draft, life has been much more unstructured. I really hate reading stuff for the 19th time, trying to fix “i before e” crap. I wish I could just hire someone to do this for me, but I’m too cheap, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. So I trod along, reading chapters with my red pen.

I’ve reached a point where editing Summer Rain is pretty much the only thing in my life outside of work. That’s okay, but I’ve realized that if I do anything else, it seems unnatural. Last night, I didn’t want to edit after about an hour of work, so I sat down and tried to watch some of The Matrix. It was cool and all - the DVD has so much extra shit - but I felt nervous, like I was trying to get away with something. I stopped, and tried to go to bed early, but I just paced the apartment like there was something wrong. I also feel weird because I’m not reading anything else these days. Reading Summer Rain is pretty much a full-time job, so I can’t sit back with Tolstoy or whatever when I’m not working. It would be counterproductive, and it would make my edits resemble whater I’m reading. So I will look forward to the point when I can stop reading this book and actually start something new.

Of course by then, I’ll be reading Rumored.

I’ve been suffering from allergies all weekend, or a cold, or both. Why aren’t there any non-drowzy antihistimines available over the counter? I heard that in Canada, you can buy Claritin and that stuff without a prescription. Oh well, I’m going to the doctor tomorrow - maybe I can get set up. I also found that antihistimine eyedrops help me out quite a bit.

Sunday night - eating sushi, chipping away at the book. I am surprised by how great a lot of Summer Rain really is, once I read it all straight through instead of reading the problem areas over and over for months at a time. I’m hoping another week or two of careful reading will turn out a good draft that I can send to the printer and get this whole process moving.

I should get back to work…

I should mention that I finished a draft of Summer Rain today. Now it’s time to shake out all of the bugs, and get this piece of shit to the printer.

I’m sick - probably shouldn’t be awake but my sleep schedule’s off due to a day of heavy cold medicine and too many naps. I ate dinner at like 5

and now I’m starving, so I woke up in the middle of the night to eat pizza. Make sense? Probably not.

Ten seconds after I convinced Michael that CVS was the greatest thing in the world, it stopped letting me check in files. This is a metaphor for my life.

04/28/00 13

I fucking hate being sick. Even though I got a good night’s sleep last night, I absolutely couldn’t get out of bed thismorning. So I called in, hacked (lungs, not code) for 45 minutes, and got back to bed. Had a weird dream that I was at the weird Maryland top-secret camp where they’re holding Elian and his dad. I was hanging out with my old friend Chris Hagen, who was desperately trying to convince me that I should have children as soon as possible. Chris has always been a strange guy, so this wasn’t entirely out of character.

I just got lunch from the Mini Star, a diner a few blocks away. Very cheap, pretty good, and extremely fast. And they let me order anything, no matter how small, with no minimum order. I think I could call and ask for a napkin, and a guy would be here three minutes later. It’s like having a Denny’s on call. Today’s a soup day - hot chicken noodle, perfect for this cold. I also got a $3 cup of fresh-squeezed orange juice that could regenerate the dead, it has so much vitamin C in it.

Otherwise, it’s very much a non-day. I kept drifting back to sleep, half wanting to stay unconscious for three days until this was over, half wanting to get up, take a shower, and get on the computer or clean or go to the corner store or something. I feel so guilty for sitting around all day, but… I’m sick.

It still hasn’t registered that I finished a draft of Summer Rain. It probably won’t; this is common for me. When I think about it, there are probably so many problems - continuity, gaps, grammar, and it’s going to be a huge task to fix all of them. I wish I could print the whole thing, mistakes and all. But it’s somewhat rewarding to find a major fuckup and thing “I’m glad that didn’t make it to print…”

Back to my soup…