The day, monday.  Our hero wakes up around 5:30 PM.  Immediately he wonders what the hell to do with his day.  He has no weed.  Which is fine, but weed makes time go quicker and easier is all.
          Thank god he has one more dunhill.  He bought the pack wednesday.  He was happy to see it lasted this long.
          “What the fuck am I going to do with my day,” he said to his cat.  The cat wasn’t talking to him though.  He smoked his cigarette in silence.
          “Oh!  It’s monday, and I can go and perform at Java Joes.”  He learned the trick of surviving the sober world: keep yourself busy.  You can try to do something entertaining, but nothing’s too entertaining sober, especially when you’re cleaning up.
He didn’t expect Java Joes to be particular entertaining.  But at least when other people are around, non-smokers, his mind rarely turns to weed.  And the whole evening, not once did he think of it.  Except for when she brought it up, but that’s a few pages yet, and even then he didn’t really think of it.
He showered and put on what little clean clothes he had left.  “Hmm, the blue and black and white shirt…”  Hit or miss.  But with enough guts he could pull it off…  He took a jacket with him.
And before he leaves, he takes a xanax, ‘cause he knows he’ll be crazy otherwise.  What with this being the first day of cleaning up.  He also thinks about it, and decides to put on a whole nicotine patch, instead of his normal half-patch.
He gets there late.  But that’s normal.  If he got there on time, he’d probably think his watch was broken.  He walks through the door and sees two of his first-year dorm mates.   Not expected, but a welcomed surprise.  He sits with them.  There’s a girl at the table he doesn’t recognize.
He gets to Java Joes around 7:45, the sign-up starts at 7:30, so the assigning of time slots is already underway.  He was late because he wrote a bit before going there.  He wrote specifically about how he was determined to find a girl.  How being deprived of his “steady fuck” (i.e. good old mary jane, the easiest lay he knew) would keep him focused on this task.
4/8/2002 6:08:45 PM
I need to deprive myself of unavailable women, that includes my steady fuck…  For at least a few days…  I hope to find a woman before friday, I’m serious, I’ve decided I’ve been “lonely too long.”  Rather, though, bored too long.  Lonely can be interesting some times.
Oh, shit today’s monday, I can go to java joes for an open mic.   I’ll try to be proactive with a female tonight.  When you ain’t got your steady fuck to go home to, it’s easier…
Of course, everything would be solved if I could just find a stoner chick…  Hmm, perhaps I’ll work on that song later.  It starts, “I need a stoner chick in a bad way / we’d smoke weed and make love like everyday.”   But first I must *cough* and shower.
          Oh yeah, and “coughing” took a while too, contributing to his being late.  But coughing was necessary.  Granted, the xanax would probably have taken care of his libido by itself.  But he’s one libidinous motherfucker.  And if he was going to be interacting with women, he thought, the last thing he needed was another contributor to his nervousness/shyness.
So, a jerked chicken, some xanax, a full 22mg patch, freshly showered, with the black and blue and white shirt—he was as good as he was going to get.           “Alright,” he says to himself, sitting across from this girl at his table, “what’s this girl’s relation to these guys?  Hmm, do I care?  Not particularly too much, but I gotta be proactive.”  Proactive, such a stupid word.  Cute enough, he figured.  Perhaps talking to her would change his perception.  She seemed dull, though.
          He asked the table if anybody wanted to get some beers.  Java Joes, as the name suggested, used to be just coffee, but they started serving alcohol recently.  Beer and wine.  No one wanted a beer just then, so, he thought, fuck it, and got a glass of cabernet as that’s what he really wanted.
          Sipping delicately, “exploring the wine with all of his palate,” as obnoxious as that sounds, it kept him entertained through the boring acts.  Then a girl came on stage, and it was obvious she was attractive.  His type too.  Artsy.  Flip hair.  Tall.  Fair.  Blonde, but not to the point where it took over her attitude.
          She sang well, had a charming on-stage presence, good songs with good lyrics.  He closed his eyes, to be sure he wasn’t giving her extra points for being so visually enticing.  She had a soft lilting singing style.  Her lyrics were intelligent.  Diction was simple, but precise, with full-bodied metaphors of ephemeral, but not abstract, meaning.  He opened his eyes and half-smiled at her from half-behind his wine glass.  Though the lights on stage were too strong to see anything, anyway.