I am prey to unreasonable fears when I am anticipating doing something pleasant. For example, when I was an adolescent and looking forward to going on a date with some girl I really liked (or lusted for, that would be more accurate), until the very moment I left to pick her up for our date, all week long I would be afraid that something would happen that would prevent me from meeting her on Saturday night--that some disaster or serious problem would derail the longed-for event. This is one reason why I am not readily at ease with women; since puberty, I have seen them not just as people, but as modes of escape from a life I felt was dreary. That's too much of a burden to put on anybody. Growing up in the claustrophobic atmosphere of my particular family, I longed for adventure and romance and beauty, and put too much weight on my relationships with girls to supply those things.

Sometimes I would imagine that my father would get into an accident on the way home from work--and I would have to cancel my weekend date and stay home and help out in the aftermath of the mishap. Naturally I felt very ashamed of what I saw as my awful self-centeredness, but I think now this was a neurotic, obsessive form of what I normally felt in adolescence--that family life kept me from having a pleasurable and interesting life. I know now that adolescents are prey to all sorts of confusing thoughts like this, but back in the 60s when I was a teenager, all I felt was that I was a terrible and selfish person if I could be more concerned with meeting some chick than with my father's well-being. Growing up in the family-centric Jewish environment, these feelings made me feel like a traitor not just to my own family but to the tribe in general. I think this is one reason I craved the anonymity and freedom that a life in New York seemed to offer.

So, more psychologically sophisticated now, I recognize those fears as the tangled thinking of a particularly screwed-up teenager. But I bring this up now because, ironically, as I look forward to going to a once-yearly memorabilia show soon, a show chockful of the items I like to collect--videos, books, magazines, pinups--I have been experiencing the same dread and fear, that I'm not going to be allowed to make it to the show and enjoy myself.

This has truly been a rough several months for me. I wonder if the anxiety over my sister Jenny's illness, my loss of income as a freelance worker and my subsequent financial inability to cut loose as I used to in the stripclubs (which made up fifty percent of my social life), and my foot-dragging on various minor health issues of my own, has whittled away my confidence and replaced it with feelings of middle-aged limitation and mortality.

Jenny has gotten good reports and her treatments have progressed remarkably well, but the anxiety such a crisis provoked is long-lasting and not easily dismissed. The universe made its point well: my sweet kid sister is vulnerable, and so are we all.

On the other hand, because Jenny is healing, I should also remember to thank the universe.

Anyway, all these worries are why I cling so fiercely to my pleasures of collecting and browsing, as they take me away for a few hours from my almost constant pessimistic frame of mind.

As I've said before, film noir is not fantasy world to me, but portrays the dark vision I have long held of life. It's not a matter of the chicken or the egg; my pessimism came first, and seeing film noir only confirmed it.

Now that I've gotten all this off my chest, let me go out and try to cheer up by taking a walk in the pleasant autumn sunshine.

Last night I went with my writer-artist friend ZP, who looks like a tall Kafka, to the opening reception for an art exhibit celebrating thirty years of Fantagraphics, the publisher of counterculturish graphic novels and comics. The opening was held at the Society of Illustrators on the Upper East Side.

Fantagraphics published Daniel Clowes' graphic novel Ghost World, on which was based one of my favorite movies of recent years, the story of two punkish young women, played by Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson, drifting through life. As we looked at the pamphlet for the exhibit, which prominently featured the Clowes rendering of the character who was memorably embodied by Thora, ZP said, "Whatever happened to Thora Birch?"

"I ask that question about every two months on my blog," I replied.

So why HAS Scarlett Johansson become so much more of a movie star than Thora? I just don't get it. Somebody illuminate me. Is it just because Scarlett wears ultra-fashionable clothes so well, and is a darling of mags like Vogue and Bazaar? Maybe Thora is discriminated against because her curvy, busty body is not the ideal of this Age of Anorexia. But I wouldn't have Thora any other way...

Thora Birch is a solid gold Bathwater Girl! And what is that, you ask? A gal who is so sexy that guys would line up to drink her bathwater. I know there are chaps who would queue to drink Scarlett's too, but I have a feeling the flavor would not be as refreshing.

Refreshing, of course, being a relative term...

To each his own bathwater, I suppose.

ZP has told me that he would duly savor a vial of Amanda Peet's.

I wonder if women have Bathwater Guys?

Somehow I get the feeling women would rather give their chosen sex idols a bath, or share a bath with them, rather than quaff a cup of their sloshings...

But I could be wrong. Illuminate me.

In Ghost World, the fine character actor Steve Buscemi plays a fortyish guy, an eccentric loner and vinyl record collector, who gets involved with Thora's feisty character, Enid.

Talk about a sex fantasy for a middle-aged male filmgoer named...Sir Cranky!

There's one scene where Thora wears a cat-girl mask that I've never forgotten.

Here kitty, kitty...

The way Steve gets tangled up in his desire for Enid reminded me of how I feel about some of the strippers I've known.

As the old song says, "A pretty girl is like a melody..."

...that you can't get out of your head!

You never know what you're going to see in Manhattan.

A little while ago I was walking near the West Side Highway, close to the Hudson River, after being dropped off by one of my co-workers who gave me a ride back to the city from my freelance job in New Jersey. There was a little lady with gray hair standing on the sidewalk across the street, next to what appeared to be a large bag. But why was she holding out a piece of celery to the bag, and why was the bag extending a little head and mouth to eat it? Because the "bag" was a turtle!

Verrrry slowly the turtle extended its stubby forefeet and moved ahead. I couldn't believe how quickly it ate that long piece of celery out of the lady's hand, though. The turtle looked about eighteen, twenty inches long. Its shell was a sandy color, as were its head and legs.

I was struck by how prehistoric the turtle looked--how, even though it was small, it seemed somehow massive in the way it lumbered ahead. I was also reminded of a giant turtle I saw in one of those cavemen movies once, I can't remember which--One Million Years B.C.? When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth? Those fifty-foot turtles always go after the chicks in fur bikinis. I can relate to those turtles.

No wonder turtles can live so long...looks like they hardly break a sweat. And celery must be good for their cholesterol.

The only thing that would have surprised me more was if the turtle had smoked a cigar and started telling jokes...

I didn't cross the street, so I didn't get any info, but that was okay. I just prefer to think of that lady living with a wisecracking, smoking turtle, just as somebody else would live with a sarcastic dog, and taking the turtle out for a daily constitutional whenever the turtle started getting antsy, or as antsy as turtles ever get.

That turtle sure was a nice change of pace from all the boa constrictors, parrots, and iguanas I've seen on the New York streets...

I still haven't seen any naked ladies there, though. And that's why I still need the stripclubs.

I’d planned to get up about 6 a.m. to commute to my freelance gig in New Jersey today, but after a convivial, tasty, and somewhat intoxicating Mexican dinner with friends last night, I awakened at 3:45 a.m. instead and couldn’t get back to sleep.

The food, sangria, and conversation were all quite pleasant, but perhaps I personally overdid the spicy salsa, chips, and several black olives (I love black olives), because my slumber was interrupted by an unsettling dream about the Japanese movie monster Godzilla rampaging through a darkened countryside. There was a train in the dream, and I think it symbolized my intestines.

After tossing and turning to no avail, I got up at 4:45, shaved and dressed, and turned on the radio only to hear that there was a big tie-up on the George Washington Bridge (which connects New York and New Jersey) that was possibly going to make my morning commute very slow. What to do? Simple: sit down with a cup of coffee and blog, and feel the total exhaustion of a day I haven’t even lived yet coming over me.

Since I’m so friggin’ tired, I’m going to exercise the freelancer’s option of putting off the commute until tomorrow. I can always do some work at home instead (if I can stay awake). Thanks be to Stinky, mighty and compassionate God of Freelancers, for this alternative!

Meanwhile, the battery in the moisture alarm in my apartment’s central air-conditioning unit seems to be expiring, and for the last two hours has been giving up a little chirping noise. So my first task today is to get one of the handymen in the building to open up the unit and replace the battery before that repetitive chirping sound makes ME stomp things like Godzilla!!!

I was looking at my last entry and I noticed that one of the ads above it was for "sugardaddie.com," an online dating service for wealthy older men and the young women who adore them. Since my current somewhat shaky financial status as a freelance worker would prevent me from looking for partners on such a site unless I lied through my teeth, maybe I can find other sites like "combodaddie.com," as in, I can afford to treat a luscious younger woman to any combo dinner on a Chinese take-out menu; or maybe there's sixpackdaddie.com, as in, I can splurge on a six-pack of a gal's favorite beer--domestic OR imported! Or maybe somewhere out in the cyber ozone there's a site called sugardaddieNOT.com, where a beautiful young woman will agree to date me--lapdance me--cuddle me, befuddle me, and drain me of my vital juices--simply because she likes me! But that site is probably located on another planet.

Just getting whimsical in my middle age...or maybe demented?