Kay Lenz

            On Saturday morning it had been four days since I found and killed the one bedbug that I probably picked up from Vina Pharmacy when I went for my covid shot. There was happily still no sign of any more, but I was still worried about the possibility of eggs and would have to wait a few more days before fully planting optimism. 

            I finished posting my translation of "J'ai des locataires" (I Am A Landlord) by Serge Gainsbourg. I memorized the first verse and the chorus of his "Des laids des laids" (The Ugly The Ugly). In the chorus he uses a play on words between "des laids" (the ugly) "sans délai" (right away), so I made an English play on words: "The beauty of the ugly / can be seen with a glee." 

            I weighed 88.6 kilos before breakfast. 

            In the late morning I took a bike ride to Yonge and Bloor. On Yonge Street south of Bloor a bulldog type guy got out of his car and stormed after a young guy with glasses and long hair. Apparently the younger man had been cut off by the driver and had given his car a whack. The angry driver shouted, "You fucking asshole! That's private property!" The young guy thought the other guy was crazy for getting out of his car. A bystander said to me, "It's a crazy day on Yonge Street!" It's so nice that people are fighting again now that things have opened up. 

            On Yonge and on Queen there were big line-ups at all the stores. I can't think of anything that I would line up for but I guess people have felt shopping deprived over the last few months. There's stuff I need but I'd rather wait until things are fully open so I don't have to stand in line and risk getting covid from dressing rooms since I've only had one shot of the vaccine. 

            I stopped at my place to pee and my landlord was there taking out the garbage. I don't know why he doesn't hire somebody to put out the garbage on Thursdays but he comes about every two weeks and takes the trash to the dump in his van. He told me that he'd called Orkin about bedbug treatment but they haven't gotten back to him with a date. I reminded him that he hadn't given me receipts for March, April, May and June. 

            I went to No Frills where there were cherries but I only got three bags this time. I also bought two pints of strawberries, skyr, kettle chips and Irish Spring soap. 

            I weighed 87.9 kilos before lunch. I had saltines with two year old cheddar and a glass of lemonade. 

            In the afternoon I remembered to buy beer so I went to the liquor store. There were no six packs of Creemore and so I just took a whole tray of twelve. I still had a couple of dollars left on the card that Shankar gave me on my birthday and I paid the rest in cash.

            On my way into my building I saw Greg, who used to live in apartment 4. He was there to meet the guy in unit 1 who I saw for the first time today since he moved in almost a year ago. 

            A guy named Steve Hunt posted an entire episode of the Gisèle show on my Gisèle Mackenzie Facebook page. He says Gisèle was his wife's mother. 

https://www.facebook.com/steve.hart.9400/videos/10225682257461357/?notif_id=1623513387089565&notif_t=page_wall&ref=notif

            I weighed 88.7 kilos at 18:00. 

            I worked on my poem series "My Blood In A Bug." 

            I spent over an hour doing final searches for video footage of female ends of electrical cords being plugged in. I tried every kind of wording I could think of but nothing turned up. It would be much easier to find male ends plugged in. I'm sure that what I'm looking for exists in plenty but it would be impossible to find it in a specific search. I may have no choice but to make another video but I'll go through the videos of the cords I animated to see if there's something of an isolated female end that I can use. If not I do have some video ideas to try out. 

            I heated up one of the burgers that I made on Wednesday and cut in half the last slice from a loaf of Bavarian sandwich bread. But the slices fell apart so that they were no longer good for holding a burger. I used a fresh slice but didn'want to waste the other and so when I had the burger with a beer I also put cheese on the toasted broken slices. Because of the extra bread and cheese I skipped dessert. I had dinner while watching two episodes of The Andy Griffith Show. 

            In the first story Opie joins a rock and roll band and they actually start getting gigs. While playing at a party Clifford the leader tells Opie that he's got to stop talking like a kid and saying "golly" and "gee". Opie says, "I'm gonna split over there and have some of those cool potato chips." At the food table a girl named Joy is gushing over Opie and he just gives her one word responses like "cool" and "groovy." But Opie starts to stay out later than he ever has, begins to squander his money and fails subjects in school. Andy is trying to wait for Opie to fail so he can teach him a lesson but that doesn't seem to work. Finally Bee gets Clara, who is a musician herself and whose brother fell victim to the pitfalls of the music business, to intervene and have a talk with Opie. She goes to Andy's house where the boys are practicing and says she wants to have a talk with them. But later when Andy and Bee come home they find Clara jamming with the boys on piano. However Opie announces that Clara has offered to be their manager and treasurer and from now on they won't practice if it doesn't interfere with homework. 

            Joy was played by a 14 year old Kay Lenz, who started acting on TV shows at the age of 8. In her teens she was also on the rodeo circuit. From the late 60s to 1972 she left television but then returned to TV and films. She received a Golden Globe nomination as most promising newcomer for her starring role in Clint Eastwood's "Breezy." In 1976 she was nominated for an Emmy for "Rich Man Poor Man" and had a recurring role in "How The West Was Won." In 1977 she eloped with David Cassidy and they were together for six years. She played John Mellencamp's lover in Falling From Grace. In 1988 she won an Emmy for her role in an episode of "Midnight Caller" and was nominated for another in 1991 for "Reasonable Doubts." 

            In the second story Clara has a thing for a guest lecturer named Professor St John. When Andy invites the professor to dinner Bee invites Clara as well. But the professor is stricken by Bee as if he's in shock and only has eyes for her. Later Bee finds out that he is enamoured with her because she resembles his late wife to an uncanny degree in both appearance and behaviour. Bee is uncomfortable with living in the shadow of a man's wife and so Andy helps her break it off. She begins to behave in uncharacteristic ways by pretending to be a swinger. This succeeds in chasing him away.