DIARY 4036 8/5/73
"TO TELL THE TRUTH" PARTY
are lined up on the sofa, Azak on the floor, and me in the chair. The ice cream doesn't harden (not enough ice---eight pounds of ice is NOT ENOUGH), so I have to get out bowls and spoons for everyone, so that means that EVERYTHING'S dirty, and people even use up the tumblers for drinks of ice water when the evening continues warm. Avi and Arthur leave first at 10, then Azak and Dennis come alive at the mention of grass, and Dennis says that the LONGER you keep it the more potent it is (?) and they smoke three pipesful of "Bob M.'s" grass (which John later says is the NEW stuff) and leave fairly soon after. John's put on the "TV light" show, and the radio is on, the living room lights are dimmed and he puts on the bedroom lights and brings out bidis and more grass. I could be content to watch the EXTRAORDINARY patterns on the TV screen, but hear rustlings and slurpings behind me, and John's feeling up Gerald who's feeling up Doug who's feeling up Joe, so I throw myself into the middle of it, sucking Gerald for what might be the only moments that he's hard, watching Doug and Joe trying to come to some sort of "who does what to whom" agreement and failing, and I sort of segue out of the action until John takes Gerald into the bedroom, and then I try a threesome with Joe and Doug until Doug really tries to monopolize me, leaving Joe to rest on the sofa. Doug and I don't neck as well as we used to, and so we're quiet after a bit, and hear sounds of excitement coming from the bedroom, and go in to see John getting out the vibrator for Gerald, but that doesn't work either, as doesn't the Electreat, which Doug manages to outlast John---who says his arms were being paralyzed while Doug merely says "Yeah, I felt some little tingles at the base of the cock," and then out comes the Baby Magic and poppers, quite an arsenal of equipment! Joe finally comes in, too, and we all roll about on the bed until I fasten onto Doug, determined that he come, and he does, with great groans and little semen, and then I do myself to greater groans and total exhaustion, then people drift off to clean themselves off, stand around talking until about 12:15, when FINALLY they decide it's time to leave, and we leave everything in a mess and crawl into bed.
DIARY 4041 8/12/73
TALK #1 ABOUT SEX
I start by saying that I'm not happy about the current level of sex, saying that the relationship has changed, and he confesses that he's been thinking about it for a long time, feels that he's failing as a lover, feels that I've been doing the most at keeping us together, and feels enormous guilt about his not having sex, though there's nothing he can do about it. He finally comes up with the confession that he's bored with the activities we have together in bed: "You never come in any way but lying flat on your back." I remind him that I might have come a FEW times standing up in a shower, or other places, and I'm quite sure I've managed to pull it off when kneeling over him, though it's not my favorite position. I figure he's talking about anal intercourse, so I ask him, "Did you ever want me to fuck you?" thinking of Rolf's question, and he rather evades the answer, saying that he knows now I'm never excited for that sort of activity. "Did you ever want to fuck me again?" I ask, and again he says he knows I'm not turned on by that. I ask if there's anything wrong in the DETAILS of my being: pimples, overweight, bad breath, underarms, too busy, etc, but he says it's nothing like that at all, he just doesn't look forward to our having sex because he's not going to find anything DIFFERENT in it. I say that I feel relieved that it's nothing that I'm DOING that makes him turn off, and that coming in various directions has been something that I've TRIED to do in the past, but it's never been too successful because, probably, I'd never TRIED it fully enough. But the conversation is very depressing, because although we're SHARING information about each other, it's not making us feel any PHYSICALLY closer: it reminds me of movies when the main couple would sit around endlessly TALKING about their problems, while I'd think from my seat "Just get to bed and start ENJOYING each other, and you won't be in such an intellectualizing funk." I'm torn between getting all the information OUT, and the feeling that the relationship is being dissected and destroyed by our attention to the DETAILS while we're not even TOUCHING. Talk about kissing, and he says he doesn't MIND it, but he surely doesn't look FORWARD to it, either, and that subject's not followed.
DIARY 4044 8/12/73
TALK #2 ABOUT SEX
One of the low points of the relationship. John says that I just don't join into his fantasies: that though the PHYSICAL attractions of sex might be nice, he considers the MENTAL activities to be much more varied, gets his real KICKS that way, but hardly thinks about the SEX, but wants some kind of fantasy about the people he's with, what will happen after, where it's happening now, bondage, torture, etc. I find it discouraging that his MIND seems to be so totally dissociated from his BODY while having sex. We talk about my one-pointedness about sex, and I take the courage to confess of MY fantasies, again (having failed a few times, but willing to try yet AGAIN), and tell him about getting VERY excited, offering my ass to "someone" who operated in a different time frame, a sex god who travels on the vibrations of happy sex from orgasm to orgasm, maybe even, non-bodily, FUCKING me. John immediately begins calling this "visitation" a GHOST, which turns both of us off, and he SAYS that he wouldn't have ANY desire to follow me through my fantasies in order to get to my plateau level so that he might find what it would be like to fuck me. I feel totally crushed, finally having bared MY highest point of imagination when he says I HAVE none in bed, and I feel like HIM when he said he bared his deepest feelings about what a work of dance or theater was about, and I'd make fun of them. He couldn't enter into MY fantasies and I can't enter into HIS fantasias. I'm turned off, then very SADDENED when he says that he'd WANTED to have sex tonight, but the talk TOTALLY turned him off. We're both so obviously depressed that we decide that we'll talk about what's GOOD about the relationship on Friday, and I agree that we have to get SOME kind of high out of this, because if it kept on going on like it WAS going on, we'd probably never have sex together again. But he DID confess to the feeling that I was someone who offered him a chance for a relationship that might be the LAST chance he ever had---so, unsaid, he'd better make the best of the LAST offer, no matter now badly it turned out to be. Not very flattering either to me OR to the relationship. Ended at one of the very low points, ever.
DIARY 4048 8/12/73
TALK #3 ABOUT SEX
This was to be devoted to what we LIKED about each other, and I made a list: Trivial things: 1) his cooking, 2) blue eyes, 3) love of sex activity, 4) friends (LaRues, Harmses, Bowells, Edwardses), 5) love of plants, 6) taste in design, 7) intelligence, 8) tenacity to get THROUGH things, 9) interest in novelty, 10) willingness to shop and cook and cash checks and cart Mom around, 11) ease about not having to talk ALL the time, and 12) willingness to try ANYTHING IF he thinks it'll be fun. DEEP things: 1) the DEPTH of his basic SEXUAL ORIENTATION, 2) THE BASIC ANALYTICALNESS of his thinking, 3) the opportunity to see someone who ACTUALLY THINKS so much DIFFERENTLY from me, 4) the "cultural, good, worthwhile" direction of most of his activities. He starts with the physical, saying he likes my long, rather than short, torso, my round, rather than thin, face, and my straight, rather than curly, hair. He likes the differing TEMPOS I bring to things: sex, conversation, travel. He likes the CATHOLICITY of my tastes, citing the TV show and Radio City Music Hall as things he never would have seen on his own, but saw because of my influence. Rather surprisingly, for me, he likes what he calls my "vivacity" of talking with people, saying that if he feels he has nothing much to say, my "vivacity" will keep people occupied so they won't notice he isn't saying much. He likes various interests of mine, both for the differentness and for giving him an opportunity to share in them, and as an afterthought says that he likes my kissing, adding, "It's universally commented on," and I want to ask by WHOM, but I don't want to, since many of his likes seem so UNLIKE me that I thought he might be making them out of thin air. He talked about our differing abilities with words, that I could say things differently, and sometimes more clearly, than he could, and he also said something about the advice or insights I'd given him about others, though he'd be so reluctant to admit it before. He even said he liked experimenting with cooking with me; by my simple PRESENCE I make it more opportune for him to cook, and my sharing in expenses meant he could have FAR more parties here than he did before---and he liked my dishwashing, but only when I prodded him into it. Ended VERY positively, particularly when he said the PHYSICAL sensations he enjoyed under my hands were his MOST intense he'd EVER experienced; he repeated, mysteriously, that he WASN'T off sex.
DIARY 4050 8/12/73
TALK #4
I can't even say it was about sex, because the last echoes of it are still revolving in my head. We seemed not to really INTEND to talk, but then he said that he didn't think sex was really the CENTRAL part of it, that I had gotten one inch below the surface and was willing to stop. So I asked him where it went from there, and he brought up ALL the old wounds: my writing, which he couldn't feel his way clear to support me in, which he was STILL unsure about, which we never talked about. I said I was reluctant to TALK about it because I KNEW that he thought it was a waste of time. He said that we'd changed in the relationship, and I said that essentially I was the same: I wanted to be a published novelist 3 years ago, and I STILL want to be that: I thought my greatest talent to share with the world lay in my writing. He said, rather to my surprise, that he thought my greatest talent lay in my powers of conversation (pity I can't capture the cadences of the conversation in my writing. The conversation went around and around, actually STARTING when I said "Would it matter much if I didn't go up to New Hampshire next weekend?" and it turned out it WOULD matter, and I was rather touched when it became quite clear that it DID matter. I said that we might have been backing SO far off to give each other room that we were stepping out of the picture COMPLETELY, and I said that I wanted SOME kind of indication from him that his need for PRIVACY was satisfied for the time and that he DID want to be with someone. He said that he WAS looking forward to the chance of being with me for the drive in the car, and that if I wouldn't go, HE probably wouldn't go, and I said THAT was putting the pressure on ME, since I would have to consider HIS needs as well as MY OWN in making my decision. He kept insisting that we'd CHANGED and it seemed that he was meaning that I wouldn't talk about painful subjects anymore: the idea that "he was always right and I was always wrong," that "I want to be a publishable writer" (and that brought up the schizophrenic topic, and I said it was JUST a matter of WANTING something that I couldn't EASILY HAVE, and he didn't hear the echoes in Gertrude Stein at ALL: I knew I had to keep writing for myself; publishing the first books HERSELF, then keeping on and SOMETHING happening and ending in the ideal "Whatever you want to publish, we'll publish for you." When he said I made a good speaker, I said that I LOOKED through the ads for speakers, but that was even LESS a career than WRITING was, and then he amended to say that my BEST speaking wasn't with a group, as in Mattachine, but only with two or three people. I said it was like telling a person he walked well: it was nice, but what did it do, and he got a bit annoyed, saying that he was just making an observation. He said we'd reached a juncture, and I felt tears coming down my cheeks and knew that I was unhappy with the "juncture.' "I feel that we're on operating tables, being explored by a doctor who doesn't know what's wrong with us, and is just---fussing around." He felt the same way, he said, but he thought it was necessary, since we weren't TALKING about many things anymore. I retorted that I WAS learning, since I KNEW that some topics would lead to emotional reactions, so I'd AVOID them: I DIDN'T talk about writing (though he KNEW he should be more supportive, as I was supportive of him when he was working for DTW, which I thought didn't have a chance in the world, but I knew it was a good EXPERIENCE for him); I didn't talk about my fantasies during masturbation, or my talk with Rolf, because it turned him off---no, he insisted, what turned him off was that I thought HIS fantasies were wrong and MINE were right, and that I thought HE thought MY fantasies were wrong. I came back with "What's all this talk about right and wrong? YOU may have an opinion, and I may have an opinion, and they may be DIFFERENT, but that doesn't mean that one is right and one is wrong." And then the phone rang and it was LaRue, and we coalesced the evening with the Dufours at Stonehenge with a mushroom walk and dinner at LaRue's on Wednesday, with only Grotta Azzura on Tuesday. He said we'd talk after dinner. I wish I had the feeling we were GETTING somewhere, something to ENLIGHTEN my DEPRESSION at the thought he's deciding whether to STAY WITH me or not.
DIARY 4053 8/13/73
TALK #5: MY WRITING
It starts by saying what we don't like about the other, after dinner this evening, and it's quite short because a call from Robert Walker cuts it short. But John STARTS his list of things he doesn't like about me by using that word "schizophrenic" again. He said if I'd gotten a favorable response---wanting to see more of my work---from someone, it would have been in the mail the NEXT DAY, whereas I've waited already for THREE WEEKS and haven't done anything about it. He said that he couldn't bear to hear the O'Sheas talk about "my book," since he didn't even consider "Acid House" as FINISHED. He said that I just wasn't interested in DOING anything about it. I insisted that the important thing was that I WAS WRITING, and it was the PUBLISHING end of the business of writing a book that I didn't really feel like doing anything about, mainly because I was AFRAID. If anyone had said "I'll take everything you have, I think it's wonderful," I would have loved it. But I just want someone to TELL me what they think they can sell. John insisted that the "Tom-Wolfe-protecting" agent was a thing of the past: I wouldn't find anything like him again, what made me think I would? Well, I said, both Ellie Kurtz and Sydney Porcelain seemed to think that SOME of the things I wrote were very good, but confessed that they couldn't even EVALUATE some of the sex stuff, or some of the philosophy. But I had to ruefully admit that I DIDN'T press them as hard as I could. And surely I haven't even TRIED the two letters who said they wanted to see more of my stuff. I pleaded "no xeroxing," but he insisted I had access to one at work, or could pay for it as I paid for the others. But he still didn't KNOW whether he should support me in any way, and if so, how, and I was ready to say that I wanted ANY kind of encouragement from him, at LEAST to start talking about it, as he says he wants to, but the phone rang. I'm starting to accept HIS rhythm in the talks: I'd want to finish with conclusions immediately, he pulls like an unsure dentist with an impacted wisdom tooth operation. But I'm feeling slightly better with him, except for sex, and probably WILL go to New Hampshire with him this weekend.
DIARY 4060 8/23/73
TALK #6
He asks me to read my list of "don't likes" to him, and I start with his occasional total closedness to new experience. Oh, FIRST I went back to the talk about writing, to see if we'd settled everything, and I got his message so strongly that I even wrote it down: "If I want to be a published writer, I must ACT toward that end." He would under no circumstances nag me into doing anything that I didn't want to, but if I was DOING something, he'd be interested in my progress, and might even READ some of the things. We get talking about what I'd WANT him to read, and I chose the BOTH/AND segment from Norway, and he goes to say that that's just what HE'S been finding out, from the only constant reading source that seems to interest him: the magazine for the Center from Los Angeles. I talk about the time in Louvain when he would NOT go down the street, and he makes a couple of things surprisingly clear to me: he's always felt that he's physically less strong than others (and talks about his mother's influence over his mind, or even his rowing prowess "I know my shoulders are stronger than yours," don't daunt his basic idea: he's ALWAYS looked ahead to find ways to conserve energy, even to shifting around while driving the car on a long jaunt), and he made the SECOND statement that I was so struck with that I had to write down: "I am genuinely CONTENT with far FEWER impressions than you are." He said that I REALLY had to allow him to be a different person, and that I couldn't feel DISAPPOINTED when he didn't see as much as I did, since that implied that I was right and HE was wrong not to look at it. Then I read what I thought was a TRIVIAL topic, his unwillingness to gab sometimes about trivia, and he turned and attacked ME for feeling that I needed HIS approval to feel my OWN worth. I DIDN'T tell him that I was quite CONVINCED that my ways were best (of course, that's what we were TALKING about), but he DID admit that I'd started him thinking about how circumstance COULD change his eating, sleeping, moving habits, which I thought was a good thing, but any OTHER influences I wanted to have on him, he reflected back to MY being uncertain about and demanding that HE share them so that I would have validity. I tired of this talk, and very soon after we stopped for lunch, mentally fagged.
DIARY 4062 8/25/73
TALK #7
John said he felt like sex last night, but we were both tired, though he almost PROMISED to have sex up here this weekend SOMETIME. So this morning he crawled down on my bed and we started cuddling, and he came up and I came up, but as we kept on playing, and I didn't go down on him, we just started moving slower and slower, slower and slower, until we both went down and then just lay there in each others arms, TOTALLY separated. I tried and tired to get SOME idea of what he was thinking, or even to completely identify what I was thinking, but it just seemed absolutely, totally useless: the space separating us was just TOO great. I felt tears coming to my eyes, and fought to keep them back, but as I thought of the SADNESS of two people, each seemingly TRYING to please the other, and getting absolutely nowhere, the FRUSTRATION of my not being able to think WHERE he is or WHAT he's thinking about, or WHAT he thinks about me, struck me as so painful that I found it easy to permit the tears to well out of my eyes, and I took deeper and deeper breaths that became gasps, that grew to sobs, and I shook out, in my own Adirondack earthquake, a long descending scarf of sobs against his chest, utterly evacuating the air from my lungs, and then gulped in another chestful to debate whether to HOWL with pain, and held it until my head began to throb, and let it out in percussive puffs that had already diminished from sobs. He was stony. "The DISTANCE that I feel separating us is AWFUL," I said, and he said nothing, until somewhat later he said that he felt that THEN, finally, I understood how deeply HE felt the problem to be, and I went beyond words to establish the fact that I cared, if he thought I didn't, and his benign acceptance of my tear-offering didn't lead me to think he DIDN'T care how the relationship turned out (such was a positive element that I had to grasp for), and we separated and got dressed because he heard a car drive up that contained the Harmses, and I felt puffy-faced and moody as I brushed my teeth and dressed, feeling that my sorrow was cotton under my cheeks and a burr in my throat, but I went downstairs and laughed with everyone at the breakfast table as if nothing had happened.
DIARY 4063 8/25/73
TALK #8
There was nothing to do before the concert, since we'd decided we didn't want to eat, and I sat and read some of the Times before he started talking about this morning. Since he didn't reach out for me in any way, merely lay on his back on his bed talking to me, I sat miserably alone on my bed, trying to communicate with him. I said that I felt a conflict: the relationship was richer because we both brought INDIVIDUALITIES to it, yet he wanted me to CHANGE some things, and I had to evaluate whether I wanted to change, or wanted to preserve my individuality. He stated flatly that if I didn't change there wouldn't be much change for the relationship to renew itself. So I asked him what he wanted changed, and one of the first things he said was one of the things he said was NOT a factor when I asked about details and he said there WERE none: back to my breath. I said that I BRUSHED more often now than I'd ever done before (though he insisted it should be after EVERY meal), and I said I would extend my tactics from work: I'd keep a spray or lozenge by the bed (I surely didn't want to get UP and brush my TEETH before he woke) and take that. He said that would be fine. Before that, he said that I had to be HUMBLE, and I almost exploded in indignation, but merely asked him "Are you SURE you heard what you just said?" and he repeated it quietly: "I had to be humble." I sat numb, but decided that I DID want the relationship to go on, that he DID often choose totally the WRONG words for my hearing, far more extreme than he really meant, so I DID decide to swallow my pride (with the fleeting thought that he wouldn't CARE for me with swallowed pride, and would retract his request), and asked what ELSE there was that offended him: complexion, pot, underarm odor, smelly feet, dirty shirts, haircut style? Each one he negated. Then he DID begin to have second thoughts, "I don't want to be some kind of---Svengali." I assured him that I wouldn't think on my OWN to take a Cert on waking before kissing him, so it WAS up to him to tell me PRECISELY what to do. So physically it ended at fresher breath in the morning, to permit easier necking, and mentally it meant my FULLY accepting him EXACTLY as he is, not feeling disappointed when he's not more like me, not wishing to change him. I did NOT feel it was the speech of a HUMBLE person to point out the PARADOX in what he wanted for HIMSELF and what he wanted for ME.
DIARY 4064 8/25/73
CENTER HARBOR ORCHESTRA PARTY
We drove Lucy down with her cello in the back seat, leaving Ben to pack up his car with the stuff he wanted us to take back with us, and entered the already crowded lobby of the hotel-house. The tables were decked with pita bread and some tomato-cracked-wheat concoction in which the wheat remained as hard little nuggets like crunchy coconut. Cheddar cheese mounds and lots of oniony and garlicky cheese spreads sat next to wide assortments of crackers, so I started in eating immediately, not taking the wine until I tasted the beer, Falstaff, of GREAT sweetness and refreshingness, and then in came a whole LEG of beef, roast rare in the center and done on the outside, and I chipped off about 3/4 pound of it to nibble through the evening. The attendance was mixed: sniffing dogs, squalling babies, sleepy blond girls, enormous cello players in shorts and huge legs and chests, other hippy-type hangers-on who seemed, as I was, more interested in the food than the people, and then the townspeople, some casual, some quite formal, with a good number of long granny dresses, some bare feet, some suits, but not too many. I chatted with the girl who had been talking with Lucy about her cello, then was cornered by a retired woman on the board who was building her own house with her husband in Laconia and wanted to know who I was eating her food. John was chatting with Lucy and some other people, and Ben came in late to help us move all the stuff into our car. The feeling was one of easy relationships among all the people, and some of the cute guys even looked for a few moments at me before turning back to their clean-faced, straight-haired gals for the evening. Laughter, but not too boisterous, young cut-ups without being obstreperous, sedateness without being party-pooping, and the mushroom-hostess said that SHE felt a bit different, but she was sure there wasn't anything bad about it, which seemed to make Lucy feel better. GREAT warm beef, BEAUTIFUL non-bitter beer, and I got QUITE pleasantly high, without any usual beer aftertaste, feeling that my stomach was pleasantly full, my head departed from our emotional problems, and our back seat rattled with tambourines over each bump and jolt of the road.
DIARY 4081 8/30/73
INCREDIBLE HEAT
It started on Saturday, and was to last through Sunday, then on Sunday through Monday, and so forth through the week, until tonight (Thursday), the extended range forecast said it would be very hot and hazy through TUESDAY at least. Must be setting SOME kind of record, with 98° for three straight days, VERY high humidity, and headlines about 180,000 Queensers without power, service off in our place last night, and since it was restored, a VERY annoying "breathing" of the light power on and off, making the lights dim, the fan slow, and probably doing horrible things to my typewriter and making the color TV upstairs come on in black and white, though thankfully it hasn't affected mine yet. Then the air conditioning's off at WORK, too, and it's hot there, and TODAY, for the FIRST TIME IN AGES, I rode on the IRT subway, and it seemed like there must be HEAT on in the car, the seats were HOT to the touch, and I felt I had to try another car, and sure enough it was not QUITE so hot, but a definite HEATING effect that was MOST unpleasant. Sitting eating this evening, buttering the corn with sleazy yellow pudding, there was so much sweat dripping from my wrists and ankles that I definitely felt UNCOMFORTABLE. And then my glasses have worn a hole behind my right ear, aggravated by the sweat, and the shiny, transparent, corn kernel-like bee-bee balls of poison ivy or ringworm or athletes foot or insect bites on my foot don't help, either. And I begin getting more like John, taking two and three showers a day, getting it colder and colder, so that I actually SHIVER, and then take a long time to dry off, and still the heat goes on, the sun beats down, people stay away from ACC in droves, and I walked to 47th and 2nd today in a DRIP of sweat, particularly under my thick blue jeans, and I'll have to start wearing something lighter or I'll sweat to death. NEVER enough salt on my corn and liver tonight, and I take two salt pills per day, but they still don't seem like enough: I'm always thirsty, but bloated with the liquids I drink. And the whole three-day weekend coming up when I have to work a lot on the index and the HEAT, the HEAT, will keep on pounding about, making my chair seat slip under my ass.
DIARY 4088 9/3/73
STONED ROCKAWAY BLACKOUT
Along the road to Coney Island, and I jokingly remark that we can stop THERE on the way back, and the long bumpy drive along Bay Shore Drive in Rockaway after passing that infamous nude beach: Riis Park. Turn right rather at random, and there's the roller coaster just down the street. Go around to find a parking space, and John wants to smoke with an old couple sitting on their stoop RIGHT THERE and people passing, including a DOLL with a broad back in cutoff shorts, and I say if HE wants to smoke, I'll leave the car. So we drive around to a more remote street and smoke, I paranoidly thinking that everyone in the apartment building two blocks away is staring at us. Quite a bit of grass and reel out of the car, thinking that the police sirens are for us. Into the bright mouth of the Playland entrance, and there are kids screaming on rides, laughing parents, loudmouths accosting cops to "Arrest this guy, he's afraid to go on the roller coaster," and the beeps and blats of various rides and amusement games. It's small and compact, paved and fairly clean, and we stop to watch what the Trabant is doing, but the guys are at the top waiting for the ride to change, and John says "I wonder what happens when the power goes off HERE." Then it dawns on us that the power on the rides IS off, and we remember someone saying "They're stuck up there," and sure enough, they ARE sitting, calling down to friends, complaining about the length of their ride, and the roller coaster is sitting with its load of people, a shirtless doll hanging on the fence looking out. Finally there comes an announcement over the PA about a temporary breakdown, urging everyone to have patience. Then some of the upper lights on the roller coaster framework go out, and some of the lights flicker below, and we sit and watch everyone milling around, though the booths are still operating, and then, as my head turns, with an almost audible whoosh, all the lights of the park go off, producing a rushing gasp from the attendees, and some frightened whimpers from dozens of kids. The people in cages atop rides seem to get more impatient, and there's a wailing scream that I THINK comes for the Rock-o-Plane, but John says no. We watch people going by, particularly some of the tank-topped muscled guys from the neighborhood, invariably with their chicks, though there are a few seedy characters with too-neat eyebrows who lean against partitions appearing to be cruising. John gets an insight that the spacemen on the booths are museum pieces after I suggest that THIS is folk art, meaning the construction of the gimmick that's called Gravity House, undoubtedly one of those "slanted-rooms-walk-up-the-stairs-down" affairs. Then we tire of the darkness and go out to the road, which is brightly lit, and I try for "Howard Johnson" ice cream, but it's a hoax sign only, and finally settle for a chocolate soft ice cream for 35¢ that tastes great to my stoned senses. Then the lights come back on, we go back inside where John is captivated by the graceful arcs of the Paratrooper, and he goes on, and impulsively I join a black, who starts blasé and then whoops into "This is getting BAD," shouting to his friend ahead to watch his feet so he doesn't kick out the light that he swings past. Down and think that John's going to get a free circuit, but he's off and we go to the roller coaster (that ride 60¢, roller coaster 75¢---inflation), getting the front seat by pure chance, and it has main hill, first side, middle, second side, two STEEP middles that almost make me lose count, first side, two curved middles through the center slantwise, second side, two MORE middles, first side AGAIN, and then two quick twisting ones just before the final stop, making 15 in all, causing us BOTH to say they sacrifice speed and smoothness for distance, but it's the LONGEST ride we've been on. Price a TINY box of popcorn for 40¢ and across the street get a twice-as-large bag for 30¢ and munch down to the beach, waves lapping UNDER the stairs, which have been removed in one case, and there are people down there STILL, and back to the car, again passing LOVELY guys with gals, though none as muscled and sexy and incompetent as the undershirted guy with tight jeans over his thick bowed legs who threw nine straight balls at the milk bottle stack without hitting a THING except the backdrop. Back to the car, still vaguely buzzing, aware that for the past hour we've become OBLIVIOUS to the jets from Kennedy that ROAR over every five minutes, making us, tourists, look UP at the start, and know we've gotten ACCUSTOMED to them, like tenants, at the end.
DIARY 4178 10/21/73
JOHN COMPLAINS ABOUT ME AGAIN
He's not complaining about anything I DO, it's what I DON'T do: contribute to the relationship, in his words. But he hastens to add that he doesn't want me to set up any RULES (such as shopping for groceries, or cooking one night a week) and doesn't want to count POINTS contributed by each to the relationship---but, probably summarizing it unfairly---he just want me to CHANGE to be what HE wants me to be, rather than accepting me as I AM. I haven't asked him yet whether I'm doing any LESS now than I did before (when I had more time---I said I KNEW that my constant working, for money for MY purposes, has discouraged even ME---but when he says that the ONLY thing I'm committed to is my DIARY, it's hardly anything NEW in the relationship, but there must be a reason that it's suddenly becoming IMPORTANT to him) but I can't imagine that I've CHANGED in any way in that area---I've NEVER been particularly thoughtful of anyone, put myself out for anyone UNLESS they demanded some sort of attention. Mentioned to him that I felt that I was depriving him of the BEST thing I give to people at the baths, physical affection, but he STILL didn't seem to want any of it. He admits to being confused about his feelings in it, saying that he had MEANT to bring it up sometime better for talking than at dinner last night---but I said that I contributed in keeping the CONVERSATIONS going, anyway! But he's starting to attack ME, where I LIVE, what I AM, and he's talking about someone being right and someone being wrong, but this is what I AM. I TELL him that I even need rules about brushing my teeth or I wouldn't do it at all, but he doesn't seem to SEE that I need to DO things differently from him. Mentioned three items: taking the dishes from the table to the kitchen after eating, buying the Times the last few weekends, and washing a few glasses and dishes of his own---saying that these are things that he didn't USED to do, but now he's DOING them, and when he says "Maybe I'm taking everything AWAY from you," but THEN says, "But it's no inconvenience to do them, I don't feel that I'm doing anything special," I see two points of view that I have difficulty reconciling into one PERSON.
DIARY 4180 10/22/73
JOHN TALKS AT NARROWS
After talking about what's wrong, I finally, painfully, say that I don't think the relationship is WORTH the pain I feel in talks like this, the one on Thursday, and the one at Corner House and afterward. He says that he feels I've been PRESSURING him to perform sexually, and has thought of asking for a moratorium on sex for three months just so I wouldn't PRESSURE him. I insist that I haven't CHANGED in things of thoughtfulness or selfishness, but that if he's SEEING them more strongly now, maybe the change would be in HIM. He admits that he seems to have been wanting to get out of the relationship the TOTAL satisfaction that his WORK (he who lives to work!) had formerly given him, and that his self esteem is rather low. I say that mine is too, knowing that I have to work long hours to get a cushion for post-ACC and unemployment, knowing of the upcoming Russia trip WITH my mother and WITHOUT him; and we seem to AGREE that my handling of OTHER people is in proportion to the amount of PRESSURE THEY PUT ON ME---which leads NOW to the thought that he IS squeaking to get more attention---in fact he SAID as much, but I'm getting ahead. He said, in conclusion, that he wanted me to think of "a dozen ways" to show my thoughtfulness toward him, and I inwardly agreed that I DO do this too little, so it WOULD be a good project to try to externalize my thinking about him. And when I bring up the sex moratorium again, he angrily says that he only brought it up, that he wasn't anywhere NEAR bringing it into play. I countered, rather bitchily, by saying that a more MEANINGFUL play would be to separate apartments on a trial basis. He said that he'd just find replacements for my company and that would be the end. I shot back that I might rather HAVE a quick end NOW than having it drag on and torturing ME into the bargain. Then we both seemed to think we were talking in extremes, both said so, and walked silently looking at the steamers and waves on the moss-covered rocks in the greenly-clear waters of the harbor. Then, later, when I was doing dishes, I thought of two clarifications, the first, unargued, was that I didn't consider my diary ENTIRELY self-centered, since it encompassed ALL of my writing. He asked "Writing about what?" and I said "adding ideas to things I've already done, stories, philosophical jottings, sex ideas." THEN, from the dishes, I said "Your idea of a sex moratorium isn't far from what's BEING done---" no, the CORE, for me, was "Don't feel sorry for ME for not giving me the sex that I want with you, I'd told you BEFORE, on coming back from the baths, that I felt sorry for YOU that you weren't getting the BETTER part of me by DENYING my affection and sex," and THEN got into "for the past month we've only been having sex when YOU started it," and THAT got him VERY angry, saying that that was a totally DIFFERENT thing, and how could I have done that without telling him, what put it into my mind, etc. etc. I shouted back that he had TOLD me, at Corner House, that he found my sex unimaginative, that he FOUND me more unattractive to have sex with, that he FOUND my breath unattractive, and what should I DO, react not at ALL to these things? He fumed and said that he was too tired to think about it (at 7:30 heading in the car toward the "Open Eye.") I said that I didn't think I was saying anything NEW, that I was just recapitulating things we already KNEW, but he seemed to say that "but we HAD enjoyable sex just a WEEK ago," was quite normal, but I said that earlier in the relationship we'd been unusual if we hadn't had sex in three DAYS. And he AGAIN repeated what he'd said before, that he thought that was too OFTEN, and that all I wanted was sex, sex, sex. I said this afternoon that maybe I feared a relationship with me in it that relied ONLY on my thoughts and ideas (philosophical ones that he usually didn't care for, artistic ones that frustrated him because they were my OPINIONS), and not my physical abilities and entertainments. AGAIN I stressed the fact that I found his not having sex in the company of PEOPLE, but in the company of FANTASIES as being very uncomfortable. As usual at many of these points, he didn't say anything, but DID say that we had to sit down and talk about "MY" moratorium on sex---which, sadly, he didn't even seem to be AWARE of. But it STILL seemed good to get all these things OUT. The COMPLEXITY of it!
DIARY 4191 11/3/73
HALLOWEEN PARTY AT SPENCER CHURCH
A mouse-faced vampire with a flowing black cape with which he enveloped his friends to lower his plastic-fang inserts to their neck; a kohl-eyed vampirette who introduced himself to me, one of the hosts, and moved blackly through the crowd; a clown with the U.S. stamp face and see-through jumpsuit of fluffy blue tulle; a Puerto Rican bride, complete with bouquet and veil and yards of white taffeta; Spiderman with an unpleasantly black face with an artistic silver web lining it but with a MARVELOUS hairy body, and his friends the pair of Indians, hugely chested despite their age with thongs around massive biceps; a striped-pants fellow who turned out to be Bob Nachemin, who lives on E. 76th Street and wanted me to call him; a silver-foiled tomato-sauce-can-antennaed spaceman; a cute oriental with a cooking mitt for a codpiece suspended from a neat silver chain; Eri in eye glitter and a silk throw that he threw up, revealing an eye-glitter-covered codpiece, as did the elegant Regent with the orange paneled black silk cape, which threw off to reveal a pleasantly formed body with a bikini; a leather jacket-type with only a jock strap, and a slightly-past-prime booted fellow in ONLY a jock strap; the false-eyelash fellow with a djalabe split down a bit past his pubic hairs; two male model-types who came in in blue jeans, seemingly uninvited, and left very soon after: Jim Garrison, the gray-haired Tsi-Dun fellow, in torn pirate's pants; Joe Farinas in everyday clothes, having just been to help a friend, not having eaten; John A. in his ropes and his friend in a hard hat with an orange pigtail hanging down; a newspaper boy; various cowboys with bare asses and leather chaps; a Geraldine-type with her hair in a snood with 30-year-old colored lipstick; a tiny fellow in a hollow bit of chest armor; a few Petroniuses from Satyricon; a cute little guy in a wine-dark cape over his Roman cuirass; a drink server in a studded open-slit, short-trousered jump suit---all these attended, along with dozens of others who seemed to know each other even under the makeup and tinsel, and the dancing was lively in huge shoes, people chatted, and just today John met one of the hosts (Fred Vogel?) and got on the invitation list for NEXT year. I started with a few quick vodka and tonics, and stood around watching everyone making their grand entrances, but so far only managing to attract old unpleasant people to my side. Then I started necking with Bob N., and after regaining our feet after almost falling through the curtain that separated off the playroom, he went his way. I went to the john twice, took a couple more drinks, laughed at Eri dancing around, talked with Joe, got asked who invited me and had to be told that it was Shane Spencer, who happened not to show up because he was tired, by a host who said "You can stay, you're welcome, I just want to know how you GOT here." The potato chips and pretzels tasted good, and I had a puff of a joint, but we were sorry we didn't bring grass. I'd brought my sunglasses for a mask, but most of the people wore their own faces, so I didn't wear them. But after a bit I went back into the orgy room to see what was going on, and when nothing interested me, I sat down in the chair, feeling slightly woozy. I recovered enough to do someone who was wrestling with someone else about the mouth, and this perfectly good cock was going to waste, so I took it into my mouth and it came. But then I got sicker and sicker, and began to fear that if I even MOVED from the chair I'd throw up, and I felt my mouth fill with saliva more than a couple of times, but I breathed deeply and just accumulated all the taste in my mouth, and then when I felt better, only then swallowed. I thought John had left, I loosened belts indiscriminately, and then he was over me, saying it was time to leave, and then he had to gather up all the belts, brought me my bag, and I managed to get to my feet, smiling wanly at the guys on ladders taking down the decorations, and out into the bracingly cool air with the wind chilling my silver pants, and I walked with my head down, concentrating on getting home, not saying anything, not looking to see if anyone was looking at me, turning corners when John did, triumphant each time I stepped up to or down from a curb, and feeling relieved when I recognized where we were, knowing that I WOULD make it without vomiting, climbing the stairs, shuddering, FALLING into bed to sleep.
DIARY 4203 11/3/73
JOHN'S FRUSTRATION
Talking at the table about Twyla Tharp, and he's saying that he KNOWS what she intended and I'm saying that SHE might not even REALLY know what she intended, and his voice gets sharper and sharper and harsher and louder until I can feel my stomach knot over the hamburger and say "I'd like to continue the discussion, but your voice is irritating me so that it hurts," and after another few exchanges, he grimaces his face and clutches his head back and forth and says "I can't communicate with ANYONE, it's so FRUSTRATING: I try to talk to someone and they change the subject, or they don't believe me, or they don't know what I'm talking about. I'm so ALONE, I'm so ISOLATED, I can't TALK to anyone." The intensity of his reaction shocks me, and I fear to see him start throwing furniture or bursting into tears or having a heart attack. I try to talk him down, but he insists that I keep changing the subject. "The whole summer's been a WASTE, I wish it'd never HAPPENED." This was particularly puzzling, since I knew his "Change of Mind," was, he thought, the best thing he ever did. But then he wanted to watch TV and I had to shower, so we dropped it for the evening. At lunch today I brought it up again, and AGAIN, in short notice, he was getting sharper in voice, and AGAIN he crushed his fingertips against his head and said "I'm so ALONE!" I said that I didn't know WHAT to do: either hold him tightly in my arms to prevent him from doing anything extreme, or running away to AVOID the extremity of his reaction. I said he'd have to HELP me by TELLING me when I change the subject, or when I repeat. He moaned that he could never get INTO anything, he had always to start back at zero, he had to repeat, and no one understood him. I said that our talk-times were HARDLY limited, and did it really frustrate him so much that he had to share his knowledge with me before I understood what he was driving toward? I said we had to talk about BASICS, like TIME---and he shouted that of COURSE time was there, but that's too basic to THINK about---and I shouted back that his ARTICLES have been ABOUT things that everyone ELSE considered basic: he was treating MY observations in the very way he hated Marcia to treat HIS observations, and then he said he was tired and wanted to nap, so I held him, said he would have to let me know how I could help him, and he went to bed and I typed THIS all.
DIARY 4205 11/6/73
CONTINUATION OF JOHN'S TALK
[and of course it hits me that this will ALL be broken apart when the pages are separated. DAMN!] but I don't want to come," or whatever YOU want to say, and then when I KNOW it, it'll be OK. He agrees, and the immediate result is that we have sex on Monday morning, though I'm feeling a bit out of it, he seems to enjoy it quite a bit. He thinks my idea that I don't like new ideas because they threaten my "omniscience" is a very good one, and I suspect he's probably right to think that, though it was only something that I threw out more as a sop than anything else. I told him that I didn't know whether to run or grab him when he got so frantic as he'd done before, and I begin to think about the levels of reaction and cover-up that we both probably employ, me more than he. I think of MY getting very angry, but I would almost always have the concept in my mind of SOUNDING angry, but being sure to keep it all under control so as not to say anything that I'd regret later; conscious of the effectiveness of building up to a climax, rather than, as John, exploding all at once and then not having anywhere to GO from there. He said that I had the same trouble with being egocentric and changing the subject with Bill and Joe, but where he's thinking Joe and Bill and he are more "adjusted" than I am is difficult to see. But I'm happy the situation seems to be defused, and then I'm sorry later to see him lying on the sofa at 9:20 and he says he's decided NOT to go to the play, and he's getting through "Lord of the Rings" very fast, and has nothing better to do, not even get sex where he may. I feel a bit guilty about going out leaving him at home, but (1) that may be what he WANTS me to feel and (2) he's done it often enough when I had to stay home and WORK, surely a lot more unpleasant than reading a book, watching TV, and eating popcorn, as he spent his evening, while I'd be going over some index or other. So the talk was a good one, and we kissed with special feeling afterwards, and he seemed quite close to me during the time the Satloffs and George and John were here for dinner, even sympathizing with me for the amount of dishes I had to do, so it was nice. I went to Bob's (see next page!)
DIARY 4220 11/17/73
JOSEPH CAMPBELL TO DINNER
He's youthful and active, and Jean Erdman goes directly to the Balinese hanging and exclaims about it, and Joseph tells with pride the story of her stopping in a hallway to remark about a Noh mask, and the host smiles and says "Usually I have a copy, but I'm glad you noticed the REAL THING!" Get a feeling of love and warmth as they regard each other telling tales they've obviously told a number of times, and I get the same feeling when John talks about his opinions and experiences, and it's a warm evening, helped along with my frozen daiquiris that turn out perfectly the first time and the thing pops out again the second time, which is frustrating, so it's not NEARLY as good. We have the Szekely goulash that seems to be far more sauerkraut than meat, but the trifle for dessert is obscenely good, though Jean doesn't eat all of it, and doesn't drink all her wine, either, since she has to be off at 8:40 for some kind of choreographers' director's meeting at Sardi's where she's to be named president of something this evening. Joseph stays on and tells us about Badami and Pattadakal in India, about Angkor in Cambodia, about his times with Vivekenanda in India, about his travels in the countryside with his rich friends with their car, about how Africa NOW is the state India was in 40 years ago (which tears me AGAIN about Africa/India, since I'd begun to think that India might have even MORE than Africa, but he implies that Africa now is far more EXCITING then India, tamed, could be), and he talks about the "Hero with a Thousand Faces" and says he'd like to SEND me a copy, and we talk about the Masks of God and the other books he's written, including the picture book of mysticism that is coming out in 1974 that has been seven years in production, and John says he's gotten the idea of independent wealth behind all these activities, and he's currently working with someone out of Tibet about his memoirs, and he has an infinite series of observations, most interesting about Amita Buddha and this RADIANCE, and I'm eager to talk about the ORIGINS of halos and the EYES of Jagganath, as part of the TRIP ethos, or as part of the INVADERS FROM OUTER SPACE idea. Can't WAIT to have further discussions with this RICH (experientially and mentally) person.
DIARY 4239 11/27/73
WHERE AM I NOW?
Haven't done one of these in a long time, and a LOT is happening right NOW, mainly in the line of things VANISHING: Man's Country closed, my job ends tomorrow, Mattachine seems to be officially dying since Dick Smith is moving to Colorado and Henry Messer is refusing to do ANYTHING, and tomorrow is my last FULL day at home before my week in Russia. The week in Russia seems to me to be the most important thing: for that reason I smoke grass before going to bed every evening this week; for that reason I try to finish up the list of things to do beforehand; for that reason I feel under tension and find my mind trying NOT to think; for that reason I feel that I can't do what I want to do, but only what I MUST do to get everything finished before the trip. And then I wanted to sit down and type on my diary, but I didn't want to do mere days, so I started this, but now I find that I'm almost finished with the ideas I wanted to talk about!! Pinochle game tomorrow cancelled so I can see the Heights Cinema without cutting work, list of bars and places in Russia listed from Mattachine tonight so that I don't have to worry about it tomorrow, part of my junk home from work today so I won't have so much to lug back tomorrow, and then the wait for the next call for something to do---past the two indexes for upstairs, that is, one of which I'll have to get to AFTER I type up the diary for the Russian week, I hope. But all this fuss for only a WEEK, only 8 days, though there's about 24 hours in the air, enough to give ANYONE pause, with a seven-hour time difference and all kinds of questions about the cold and the politics and the freedom and the gay life thrown into the stew. And the things I'm MISSING: dinner at Henry's on Thursday with Dr. Howard Brown, Tsi-Dun on Saturday---AND I find that I missed chapter two of "War and Peace" on TV at 8 this evening! But there's only two more nights to fall asleep before the trip, only five more meals to eat, and I STILL wonder what will happen if something DOES happen to the plane and all my agitation about flying PROVES TO HAVE BEEN A PORTENT. At least, thank God, I haven't felt any STRONG drives to stay off the flight---as of now!
DIARY 4250 11/29/73
WHERE AM I NOW?
John, still feeling ill, makes things difficult at 11:45, saying that he wants to take a nap after lunch, so that means I can't go freely back and forth, so I have to finish this page now, the day page JUST before I leave, and take all the stuff for packing over to the other side. I'm beginning to feel nervous about leaving, sub-trembling, actually. Eating is "different" because my insides are "different." Conscious, at 7AM, that it's twelve hours TO the flight and then 12 hours IN the flight, and NOW it's only 4 hours until I leave HERE, and I have only to clean up the bathroom in my apartment, dust and vacuum, and pack, and that's IT, one of the best planned escapes (but for only eight days, remember!) in recent history. Then the mail came, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces," from Joseph Campbell, along with a letter to John praising his article VERY highly, which makes EVERYONE happy, and now John has something to read while I'm away. And I this instant point out the two volumes of "The Masks of God" that I bought for "us." So now there's just lunch, and I keep having to restrain myself from saying "Well, John, I know that YOU aren't interested in my writings, but in CASE I don't come back from the trip, I think that the notebooks should go to Rita, and she might decide to throw them out without reading them, read them and throw them out, or read them and decide to try to do something about publishing some of them---since my death would probably ENHANCE the value of the writings, sadly for my LIVING!" I'd continue to John with: "Everything I have is yours, and I'm sorry that my body was taken from you AND from me." But he wouldn't like that, having gotten impatient when I remarked about flying when we picked up Joy at the airport. I can see that someone ELSE'S oppressions are not the most enjoyable things for someone who has OTHER oppressions to concern them at the present time: lack of job, physical illness, lack of any driving interest at the present time. But it's now time for lunch, time for final preparations, and I suspect things will end up nicely evened out in time: what I have to do will fill the time I have to fill, just as this has NOW filled this ENTIRE page!
DIARY 4256 12/4/73
TALK WITH ARNIE AND JOHN ABOUT MOM
Want originally just to tell him I'm here, and will be seeing him at the orgy tomorrow, but I start talking about the trip and the things I said to Mom, and he hits on something VERY good: I TOLD her that John and I were lovers because I WANTED to tell her: I COULD have told her that I wasn't feeling well and leave it at that, but I WANTED to tell her that, and I'm quite sure I DID. She even said that she KNEW Rita knew a couple years ago. He suggested she stay in a hotel, but I said she HAD to see the apartment, since Rita'd stayed here once and they were in competition. He suggested that it might be better if John wasn't there, and that he could sleep at Arnie's that night, but that my mother COULDN'T! He didn't appear to evaluate my relationship with my mother one way or the other, which was decent of him. Then John got home and said he was disturbed about my going on the trip in the first place. Look, I told him, FIRST I accepted the fact that it was going to be short, THEN I had to accept the fact that you were not going, THEN I had to accept the fact of working extra hours (which we both agreed DID work out OK), and THEN---which I thought was the CRUCIAL mistake---I agreed that my mother could go with me (OK, don't TELL me, I KNOW that I've stopped capitalizing mother). But at least I had the sense to RECOGNIZE that the trip was going to be awful. He said that I'd known it before and didn't act on it. I said that she WAS getting worse (or that I was getting more sensitive to it---surely BOTH our concerns about the flight made us more irritated at each other), and I even went back to my diary pages of her last trip to SEE how bad it was---and it was BAD, but not as CONCENTRATEDLY bad as it was on the plane! He said that NO ONE would treat me as she treated me, and he said it was a symptom of my refusal to look at reality in a NUMBER of things. I wanted to talk about the other things, but he wouldn't. So we talked around and around about my mother, saying that I'm SURE she and the Catholic Church had engrained in me the idea that the mother should be respected, but I thought HE was being rather shortsighted if he didn't admit that he wouldn't BE here if it weren't for his mother (and his father, but we neither of us could talk about our dead fathers because they WERE out of the picture). But he avoided that and said that I HAD to come up with a new relationship with her, and I said that I was particularly fearful because it was only because of the insights I got from LSD that I went OUT of my distant path with my parents and got to KNOW them again, which was GOOD in the case of my father, and BAD in the case of my mother. I said I KNEW she was feeling dreadful, she WOULD live to a very old age, having NO ONE except me and my sister to look back on, and that I HAD TO HAVE SOME WAY TO DEAL WITH HER PAIN! He had no sympathy with that, only saying that for my OWN good I had to get out of her clutches. I said that I REALIZED it now, and that I KNEW it had to change because it WAS so impossible. We talked about other parts of my changing, and he agreed that if I TRULY believed that I WOULD have to separate me and my mother, he would think there would be some hope. But LATER it came out that he was PLANNING on being alone for the week, and he was DISAPPOINTED to see me back (much as he was in Geneva). He'd talked with Bon on Monday (when he went to the library, probably because I was here) and said that he didn't like the RESPONSIBILITY of feeding me, and seeing when I went to bed, and when I woke up, and when I did the dishes, and wanted to watch TV, etc. I felt TOTALLY unwanted, but I HADN'T, that night, told him about the feelings that I got from "Jeremy" and that was only the next day, when we had ANOTHER agonizing series of talks about theater and my closedness and his frustrations whenever he talked to me, which he tried but couldn't QUITE link up to my mother's training. But he said that she WOULD be here that night, he WOULD listen to her stories about Russia, she'd be entertaining and he'd be charming, and she'd go off on Saturday and everything would be OK, except that my relationship with her would have to change drastically or he'd consider that I needed professional help---which he insisted upon a number of times, making me INCREASINGLY irritated at him, until finally he resorted to being nervous about my unemployment, and I told him to STOP!
DIARY 4266 12/6/73
LIVE AND LET LIVE TALK WITH JOHN
I told him about the movie at the Whitney and he said AGAIN that he was infuriated by my descriptions that tell him nothing but which only give my opinions. I say that I'm EQUALLY disturbed by his setting himself as a Universal Receptor, for which everything has to be ASSUMED that the composer has done EXACTLY what he wanted to do (and that what he wanted to do WAS worth consideration), as an antidote to my complete IGNORING of the artist's intentions. I said that the ARTIST would be hard pressed to give his intentions, and John could just be WRONG. He said that he'd changed quite a bit in his understanding and liking since we started our relationship, and that he HAS moved far from his original personality, and mine has stayed traditional. I said there was nothing WRONG with being traditional, and if I thought I could learn from HIM by asking questions, why couldn't he learn from ME by asking questions, but he kept saying that he was bored by what I had to say. But then, for what reason I don't remember, he came up with the phrase "Live and let live," and I pounced upon it and said that was EXACTLY what he didn't do with ME. He got annoyed with what I said, insisted on shutting it off, whereas when I listened to HIM, it didn't matter whether I agreed or not, it was worth LISTENING to. I said that I was ANNOYED that he'd consider my opinion EXACTLY like anyone's else's, and NOT consider that because we had a RELATIONSHIP that his consideration of my opinion should be more THOROUGH, and that indeed "living and letting live" was exactly what he WASN'T doing when I gave him my opinion. He was silent for a long period of time, and then said I'd given him food for thought. The eating was punctuated with LONG silences, and I couldn't resist one more jibe: when we were talking about something HE was saying, there was talk and conversation and exchange of ideas; when we were talking about something I was interested in, there was immediately an argument from HIM. I said this simply wasn't FAIR. He chewed that over for a bit, and said that it was a new way of looking at things, and I insisted again that EACH PERSON CAN ONLY look at something for themselves, NO ONE ELSE.
DIARY 4293 12/17/73
WHERE IS JOHN?
Originally wanted to write a "Where Am I?" but what I REALLY want to know is where is John! Our meals together are models of decorum and lack of argument, but as I said last night, I'd almost rather have an argument that this conversation, which if recorded, would sound TERRIBLY flat. He just has NO idea where he's going, what the future holds, how he'll be earning ANY money in the next MONTH. He looks through the ads and finds nothing, writes to people about his speaking engagements and gets a few encouraging letters from people who say it sounds great but they have ABSOLUTELY no money. He talks to friends trying to wheedle a job, looks sadly at his interest in working three hours a day at the library for free with not a chance of getting paid for it, thinks of the dance book he'd like to write and feels himself thwarted and frustrated at every turn. He's doing NOTHING in the house, so he feels he must get out, going for walks, going to performances, reading books he doesn't particularly care to read. He mopes around the apartment trying to be kind to me, but he's just so depressed he hardly has any possibility of not showing it. I try not to get angry with him, try to devote time to him, but I just DON'T care to see the things he finds so interesting in performance, and when he follows something that I want to do, like the cheese festival, he leaves quickly, is hardly interested in the TV that I watch, watches junk himself, has no interest at ALL in sex with me, and almost pleads with casual acquaintances from the Elgin or the Eagle to invite him over to go to bed with him. I'm sure he feels that the best thinking months of his life are being wasted, the Dictionary keeps being delayed and he KEEPS finding things to be changed in it, runs into town to do it, talks to professional acquaintances about his plight, but KNOWS that he isn't going ANYWHERE, and if I feel depressed right now just WRITING about it, I shudder to think how he must feel having to LIVE THROUGH it. All MY complaints fade and my happinesses at having work and new work rise, and I must TRY to be more supporting, more tolerant of his understandable short-temperedness, more loving though---at the MOMENT---he has hardly enough self-esteem to even consider himself worthy of loving ANYONE in return.
DIARY 4328 1/21/74
THE RELATIONSHIP WITH JOHN AGAIN
The relationship can (1) go on as is, but this I can't TAKE because of the incessant CONCERN about the relationship. (2) stop, but I don't WANT it to stop: A relationship is more important than the pain---one must rather learn to ENJOY the EFFORT! (3) change---well, OK, but how? (a) I must realize that I CANNOT CHANGE JOHN! (Though I can ONLY hope he gets a JOB!) (b) so I must change---that's the only movable object (for ME, anyway).
SOLUTION: I MUST CHANGE. Think more not about ME in the relationship, I must change to think more about JOHN, NOT about what John means to ME. (a) by keeping quiet or (b) by being perfectly honest. Am I SO afraid of being TRULY honest with him? I DO need him. Do I love him? WHAT DIFFERENCE does it make about what I THINK or FEEL toward him; it's what I DO that counts! I must TALK to him. ASK HIM FOR HELP!
Later that evening, I tried writing the following: (A) I love John and (B) he doesn't love me. I love him because I deeply sympathize with his being out of work and unhappy, want with all my heart that he gets what he wants, think first of him---but DO I? And there I stopped, but it MAY be that I want him to get a job ONLY so he won't be thinking about our relationship so much, won't be making things so rough for ME. I KNOW that I'm very self-centered. I know what I want to do, and I want to do it, without any regard for what HE might want to do. He DOES many things for me: furnishes a nice atmosphere to live in with his taste; furnishes nice food with his cooking skills, furnishes friends for me to see and a car for me to use and go along with, someone to talk to, be with. But the BEING WITH is getting less and less, and I feel more and more---but that's nothing to do with HIM. Though I'm convinced that I have to talk with him MORE about how I feel about the new absence of sex or even AFFECTION between the two of us, and it is STILL surely a fact that HE can talk to ME about what he's interested in but I can't talk to HIM about what I'M interested in because he finds it boring. If anyone BUT John were talking about what he talks about, I'd be bored, but BECAUSE it's him, I feel it's different. But again, that IS him, and I won't be able to change that a BIT. But the RELATIONSHIP changes!
DIARY 4369 1/23/74
COME/EAT/STONED SYNDROME
Stay at a higher plateau longer than ever before, allowing myself the luxury of a full-handed jerkoff, and the come is very thick and creamy, since the last time I came, as I recall, was on Friday morning when I just felt I wanted to get rid of my erection in the most satisfying way. Then I got into the kitchen and started DEVOURING food: two slices of toast loaded with butter and jelly, then three cookies with milk, and then ANOTHER slice of toast, and I had to wrench myself back to bed before I could get started on the cereal. I keep commenting on the FOOD, but the main wonder is the STATE I'm in: like no OTHER: purely DRIVEN, purely SENSUAL, and totally OUT of my ordinary mind. I sort of hum to myself, hoping for something to happen, but I'm so zeroed in on the fact that if anything happens, I'LL be the only one to make it happen, and so I do MYSELF, and write things to MYSELF, and eat MYSELF and clean up things MYSELF. But it's the OTHER-PERSONEDNESS that I keep wanting to come back to, but essentially, what is there to say more about it? I feel like another person, inhabited by an eater, a sex-oriented sensualist who doesn't care anything about ANYTHING beyond the present moment---or either side of the present moment, as I tried explaining in Diary 4339-4341. I could eat until my stomach BURST, and I wouldn't really care. The stoned state is no longer a delicious dizziness, a vague "Where am I?" a delicious "Something's about to happen," it's "I'm someone else, and I can do anything I want to, since I won't even be the same person when I wake up." Maybe it's a kind of addiction, particularly since I really can't listen to rock music without wishing I could smoke, and some experiences seem SO much better when stoned it seems a pity to have to do them UNstoned, like the New York Experience, or unexpected sex. And anything intellectual, like working, or reading, I just CAN'T do in that state, and I can only hope that my writing will be even LEGIBLE the next morning, and that I have the sense to stop THAT when it starts getting repetitious and boring. But I wish I could SHARE it with someone besides YOU, dear typewriter, and isn't THAT a whole horrible (but obvious) can-o-worms?
DIARY 4408 2/4/74
MORNING RITUALS
Find myself going through EXACTLY the same motions every morning, as if setting up a FRAMEWORK for ordering my day, which, if extended, would cover my entire LIFE (and indeed I don't wonder that it's ALREADY happened!). Wake (or sometimes not) when John leaves bed at 8, then wake again and get up at 8:25. First make the bed, then put the shades up, then pad on cold feet into the kitchen with the atomizer to fill with water and set on for the day. Then on with the shorts and through the exercises, and into the bathroom to wash my hands and face, while breathing hard to catch my breath for the newest level of difficulty, and then brush my teeth and sometimes even wash my glasses and clean the comb, as this morning. Then over to put my clothes on, sometimes this involves putting soiled clothes into the hamper and putting the pipe (and once even the popper) back where they belong, HOPING that I HAVE remembered to put away the pornography that I used in my masturbation fantasies last night. Then I usually look at the thermometer to see why the windows are wet with moisture, gather up the glasses and silver that John has dirtied in my apartment, and take everything, along with remnants from the previous night that I've loaded on top of the TV set, over to the next apartment, where I usually try to find John ready for a good-morning kiss, and then put the glasses up on the sink to be washed and everything else into drawers or onto desks for further processing. Then put the dishes away from the previous night (or do them, if the night was a late one and the dishes were many, or if we were going somewhere quite early enough to negate the chance of my finishing before we left for the evening), and into the study to hopefully do my page of the diary from the previous day (or the four pages of this morning because of the seemingly fruitful last 12 hours). Then I either work, or catch up on things from the list, or fuss around with something else until lunch, when another small set of rituals takes place, and then I'm free until dinner, with the setting of the table, eating, doing of the dishes, and then getting to bed is usually done with a MINIMUM of washing and putting away, letting it for the morning of the next day, when I can start at the top of the ritual again.
DIARY 8210 2/19/74
DREAM OF 2/19/74
John and I have moved into a HOUSE! There are huge sheets of glass facing south from a living room and even larger sheets of glass facing north from a dining room, so these two rooms appear to be spacious and modernistic. But strangely, after we get back from the night walk described later, the kitchen we enter is old and odd-angled, with an exceedingly odd refrigerator: a tiny round bucket-like affair into which articles are placed through a round hatch like the top of a waste disposal canister. But I can feel the objects that I just put inside---milk and butter---and already it's feeling cold, so I figure it's a satisfactory refrigerator. Between times, we're walking in a woods when it suddenly gets dark, and we're led back by a light from the back door of a house, but when we actually enter that house we find that we've gone into the wrong house by mistake (could this be Mrs. Johnson coming into our apartment for about the FOURTH time by mistake while we were eating lunch yesterday?---and could the small refrigerator stem from some small mechanical service system I was describing yesterday for NASA?), so we leave it, with great loud slamming of doors, to go next door where we live, knowing that the person who lives in THIS house will understand, and it might be John's mother, or it might be the house next door to the haunted house that I used to investigate on Brown Street in Akron when I was a kid. But in the daylight the house was spacious and windowed, and at night, when we got back, we were just in the windowless kitchen (I don't even remember John there, in fact) fussing around with this small silvered refrigerator still sitting on the floor in the corner, with what could have been the stovepipe from an old-fashioned stove sticking up from it and going into a wall. (Of course, I've just been writing an article about the compact HEATING properties of the laser, too!). But this more than satisfies my requirement for a dream for 1974, and I remember thinking before I went to SLEEP last night that this would be the perfect time for another dream: going to bed without smoking, earlier than John, so I'd wake earlier, non-drugged, and be able to doze off while waiting for HIM to get out of bed at 8AM.