"What do you think?"

"When an octopus is alone in an aquarium it starts biting his tentacles off."
-REGULAR GUYS,
1996 Film

Twenty-five years ago today:

August 8, 1986
Friday

Today is my Dad's 51st Birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!

Debra Neal called me at my office today. She gave me about seven or eight Supercedures. Yuck! This entails a complicated order process of changing telephone accounts' billing name changes. I am having lunch on Monday with Patrick Brent, the Founder of Hamilton-Taft. He's also the entrepreneur of Laura Todd, Alpha V Travel and some other subsidiaries. He seems to be a nice guy. I hope it will be a worthwhile lunch.

Margaret and I ate at B and M Chinese once again. She's coming so much closer to her last day at the office (August 31st).  She's a bitch because she won't pay her Sunshine Money dues for our Section. I'm the responsible collector and she hasn't left yet. I don't think it's fair that she isn't paying when she takes full-advantage of our pot-luck and other section venues.

I learned that Dale Orlando is on disability because of a relapse in his bleeding ulcers. That's probably happening because of excess trauma in his personal life. I know it's not from his work life. He should definitely be at work.

Alas, we have come to a tentative agreement here at Pacific Bell. There won't be a strike after all. In a way, it is a good thing. I will keep my money rolling in. I do need it.

After work the traffic conditions were a pain. I went home and napped. Mark Landreth telephoned me at around 7:30PM.
"What do you think?"
"I don't know," I replied.
"Do you think we should just go to Fat Fanny's?"
"Yeah, let's just do that. I'll come over to your house within the hour."
When I arrived at Mark's house he wasn't home. Apparently, he went to his folks' house to eat. I was sure of it. I waited in his house while he showered, changed and got ready. Yikes! What if I walked in on him in the shower?   No, I didn't.  We left after he was freshened-up and ready.

We saw Tina Titus at FAT FANNY's. She is Mark's ex-girlfriend from high-school. She was nice---as was her girlfriend, Laura. Laura was under twenty-one years of age. Mark and I ended up talking to them until they both decided to leave.

Mark and I tried to have a good time…and we did (between ourselves). The gals just weren't our caliber tonight. We mutually decided this on this night. We left the club at around 1AM. Yawn.

Paloma wrote a PHOTO Postcard to me on this very day while she was working at Club Med. She also included three photographs of herself that I like very much. On the back of the postcard she wrote:

8/8/86
Hello Michael,
Thank you for all of your cards. That just makes me so happy every time I get one. That's really nice of you to keep writing to me when I almost never do…but believe me…I think about you very, very often. I miss you very much. It's just that I'm working way too much. July and August are just terrible months for a vacation club as you can imagine.

Here is a picture of the hostess team. My chief is the one with the hat. I am seated right next to her, of course! I'm sending you other pictures. One of them was taken during one of our shows.  My partner is my boyfriend, as you can see I'm not smiling on that one.

"Today, I felt like I was going back in time...to you."
-Dan Futterman
in URBANIA,
2000 motion-picture