Sunday
12:35 P.M. I wake up more exhausted than when I went to bed. There is barbed wire where my butthole should be. I get up and make scrambled eggs for breakfast, take a really long bath, go back to bed.
   
2:45 P.M. I am clearly possessed by the devil when it comes to food choices. Eggs have made stomach and bowels unbearable.
   
6:15 P.M. Limp over to studio where the new literary magazine Fruit XXX is being produced, to turn in copy and read other submissions. Sit on the floor (the only place I can find comfort), distracting myself with other people’s writing, some of which is incredible. One of the dykes finally takes pity on me and gives me a couple of hits of pot. New life comes into my body.
   
8:50 P.M. Dinner at Florent with an extrememly depressed friend and she’s not talking much, except about going on Prozac, but I don’t care because a) we’re sitting in the smoking section and b) there is a tableload of Germans next to us: Aryan, handsome and extremely amusing. Reminds me of my time in Berlin with Michael. One of the men, big and blonde, totally turns me on, and I am briefly horny and endlessly fascinated by the way he smokes and eats. The feeling fades, however, as all such impulses do nowadays.
   
Monday
10:15 A.M. Wake up and slip immediately into meditation. I do this twice a day just to remind myself that I can mbe conscious nad not in pain.
   
3:46 P.M. My acupuncturist has insisted that I try an herbal protocol for parasites, so I go too Esterof’s Pharmacy (known locally as Estrogen’). While the man behind the counter is explaining the whole thing o me, I ask how he came up with this combination. “We originally developed it for people with KS, and all of the people I’ve used this on have gone into some kind of remission.” I feel like God has struck me with a bod of lightning and walk out of there elated. Hope is a powerful thing.
   
Tuesday
10:50 Another little moment of shit. I had to take diflucan twice in a row because I noticed thrush on my tonsils. It’s like taking Drano. I barely made it to the bathroom, and my life comes out of me—endless, endless shit.
   
12:30 P.M. It’s a beautiful day, and my neighborhood is ful of young and muscular men, rollerblading and walking, showing off their legs even though it’s still a bit nippy. I always look at a man’s legs first, thinking of when I had great legs, instead of the scarred, globular things that I’m dragging around now.
   
3:30 P.M. I am planning my 35th birthday dinner with Kitten. I tell him the invitation should read, “Come celebrate 35 years of shit, pain, misery and torture.” Kitten suggests a toxic theme, with everyone wearing suits and Geiger counters as accessories.
   
11:00 P.M. Before Twin Peaks, I forced myself to pop my seventh load of pills today. Vitamins, drugs, herbs, supplements; I feel like I am constantly taking pills, and every day I forget something, no matter how hard I try. Sometimes, especially at night, I simply cannot stand another round of pills. I feel as if my entire system is on life support and it makes me impatient.
   
Wednesday
2:30 P.M. The psychic healer lady is doing her thing, touching points which connect to organs and muscles, balancing me out and telling me what she sees as we talk about my life. I am almost in a dream state when I hear her say, “When you have a noose around your neck, it’s better not to struggle. The more that you fight it, the tighter the noose gets.” I surrender.
   
Thursday
12: 15 P.M. I am sitting at the ophthalmology clinic at New York Hospital, where I had a
10:15 appointment. Everyone else has been waiting as long or longer. I am really angry as this is screwing my day and I don’t want to get a CMV test anyway because I can’t handle one more thing wrong with me. When a young nurse comes to placate a woman who is upset, I spring into action. “Making people wait like this is an obscenity,” I yell as the waiting room hushes around me. “There is no excuse for this,” I add, asking each person, “How long have you been waiting?” Now the whole room is on my side. “Wer’re doing the best that we can,” says the frightened nurse. “No, you’re not,” I shoot back. “You—are a mess!” The nurse retreats to her station as the doctors bustle around avoiding eye contact and a black woman yells at me: “You go girl!” Oh, by the way, I don’t have CMV.

Friday
3:30 P.M. I am force feeding myself lunch, just as I forced myself to work today. It’s not that I want to die. I just really want to be in bed for a week.

9:30 P.M. Pot party with Jim. He always gets me so fucked up. I barely can crawl home.

Saturday
Noon. My breakfast date phones. I suggest 1:30, not knowing how I will even make that, I’m so sluggish. It’s my birthday, and I don’t feel good. Well, I guess you can’t have everything.

8:00 P.M. I have to go to the restaurant for my dinner, and I want to stay home.

10:30 P.M. My cake is wheeled out, with one candle on it. I look around at this close gathering of friends, blow my candle out without wishing for anything too big, and feel content.