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January 1st, 1987
Another year; they're flying past, like pickets on a fence. Weight (after a holiday excesses) 165; calls for diet and a resumption of two mile walks. Bank balance (after holiday spending) $4500, but with tax payment due in just two weeks, plus a heavy outlay for Lauria power-steering repairs next week; money due, however, from Burks brothers' Florentine Films ($2025) and the annual check from random ($10,000) in early February. Looks like I'm "financial" at least for the next six months. Cold, but not really bad; highs about 40 [degrees] day in, day out. Very little rain; trees bare, yard in badly untended condition. New furnace seems to be working well, thank God. Big project for the year will be repairs on house and a complete repainting, inside and out. Happy New Year?
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January 2nd, 1985
Sent Bob Loomis proofs of front matter in new editions of Tournament, due out next month. Continued reading Richard's Clarissa, last two of the seven volumes; I am enjoying it very much. Florentine films check ($2025) arrived in the morning mail. Drove to bank; deposited it. Also to library; returned "Sierra Madre." Bank balance increased to about $7000 by this (?) deposit plus social security interest. Speed march: walked 2 1/2 miles in 37 1/2 minutes. A new record - and after nearly a month of not walking. Played Beethoven's violin concerto. Nancy Danny Copp's for dinner; Lila and Ross Elenor GXXXXX. Splendid meal, with a XXXXXXXX of Tunkie's Pommard. Gwyn turned bitch toward the end of the evening and we drove home from Germantown without speaking. Unhappy New Year.
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January 3rd, 1985
Abed till past 9:30; unheard of; but I did it - helped, no doubt, by yesterday's strenuous walk, plus the evening out. Continued Clarissa- within one long novel's reach of the end. Snow began falling around 2 o'clock; continued all afternoon. Began to stick after about an hour, but didn't pile up because the temperature stayed above freezing; that is, in the mid-thirties. Probably it will turn icy after nightfall. It did not. We drove out Walnut Grove to Lila's for dinner and had no trouble with the streets any more than in a normal rain. Home by midnight.
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January 4th, 1985
Slept till 8; cereal breakfast; read paper. Returned to Clarissa. Brinkley Report at noon. Then talked with Jake Saunders, who came at 1:30, about his future and his present prospects - mainly, at my urging, about Tunkie's books, which I fear Sandra may scatter by selling them second-hand; I told him I'd speak to her about them. Finished Vol. VI (the next to last) of Clarissa, around midafternoon, preceding walk: two-miles - played Vieux temps and XXXXXXXXX violin concertos. Cold but not bitterly so. Back; bathed; pajamas, robe, slippers. Dinner was tamales with chile, followed by TV but interrupted by a forty-minute phone-call from Elenor Gibble. Back to toom for sleep at 10. More ugliness from Gwyn.