May 05 - Visit from OC Deputy Marshal

Friday, May 5, 1972 - Page 126
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

12:30 PM
At about 10:30 Chunk called: Norton is sick (that's his bike we were going to take to Ensenada), so we aren't going, which is just fine since I've got a lotta stuff to get done here. I went back to sleep (I've been awful sleepy lately when trying to get up -- I could stay in bed all day if I let me. Pro'ly because I don't eat enough -- just one meal a day. I'm still fairly healthy though), and at 11:30 or so, the doorbell rang thrice, but I was asleep so couldn't answer it. I eventually got up to get the mail (another rejection from F&SF for M-Q, naturally), and on the door handle was the card above [actually, below]. I guess they haven't caught Mike yet.

2:00 PM
I called the # above, he wasn't there. A little while ago he returned the call, and I told him I had last heard he was in jail in Pomona 8 months ago. They're after him for a minor traffic violation. [Mike McEvers was a good friend and former schoolmate of Chuck's -- in 1971, he often stayed at our home and occasionally got into trouble with the law]

9:00 PM
I'm now on page 150 in Cat's Cradle, and 250 in Sirens of Titan... I've been sitting here for a minute trying to think of something else to write, but I can't think of anything, so instead I'll just write down my perplexity at my inability to come up with something to write, and enlarge on that theme until this page is finished, an endeavor which, ironically, is being accomplished by... never mind, I just thought of something: A PERSON WHO USES METAPHORS IS LIKE A PAINTER WITHOUT A BRUSH --- (that's original... think about it) -- 9:07:33 P.M. -- FINI

May 04 - TIME-JUMP: Letter to Dad from Europe**

Thursday, May 4, 1972 - 125
LOCATION: Newport Beach, California

8:30 PM
The letter taped hereon was included a while back because it contains an encapsulated version of the Europe trip. It is exactly (give or take a small margin of inexactitude) a tenth of a decade old. So much for that.

Vidi, Vici, Ivi Domum = I came, I saw, I went home

I am now on page 100 in Cat's Cradle, and 215 in Sirens of Titan. Mostly I'm working on getting the choicest gems from my comic paper collection and mercilessly disposing of the rest. I washed the dishes today. Jordan hardly tormented me at all today -- only about 5 minutes worth, but he got the viewmaster and several slides for it.

A Sawyer model G View-Master viewer

Chunk called today, and it appears as if he & me are going to Ensenada, Mex. tomorrow. To cross the border, one must be 18, and I, alas am going to be 17 for the next 75 days. Therefore, I called Timothy to obtain Peter's number, so I could contact him in order to borrow some form of photoless 18-year-old identification of some sort maybe. Peter wasn't home, Tim noted. I called James Richard Fish I, but he wasn't home either. He did, however, return the call but, no, he didn't have any such identification except his draft card which he couldn't, of course, let me borrow because, you see, it is morally, ethically, and legally uncouth. From him I obtained Randy Hill's number, but he couldn't help either.

Chunk called back, and filled me in about tomorrow's excursion, and said he got George's ID, so I am now a 22-year-old ex-marine (Grrrrrr!). I have 10$ now, because Dad came by today with $5 and I already had $5 -- so I now have ten. I figured that out in my head. How's that for a hi-school dropout?