Mish_Mosh
DIARY 5456
June 19, 1966
WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT
There is only one way to write, and that is by STARTING to write. How simple that sounds, and how difficult to bring to pass. I sit at work and meditate about all the things I'd like to write; I lay in bed and ideas flock through my head, begging to be put down on paper. I price tape recorder typists, visualizing reams of tapes going from my door and returning in crisp, completed type. But I don't begin! There are so many things to write: fantastic sexual orgies to the tune of the end of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. I read Tolkein and visualize writing fantasies that take the reader into another, fantastic world, where everything is bombazine and glittering gold and limpid liquid silver. The homosexual world appeals, and I try to keep writing to Bill to at least retain the framework of my "conquests." The world of psychiatry, now so frighteningly close, is intriguing from the relationships which could develop between psychiatrist and analyzed. Madge opens another realm of fantasy, in which I'm married and still homosexual. I yearn to be completely factual about social life in New York, completely other-worldly in realms of science fiction, absolutely poetic in picturing the beauties of the world, life, heaven, hell. Spin off to extremes! Picture the unpicturable! The fantasy worlds of amusement parks and fireworks and spectacles. What do the rich do: Mary Martin in her Brazilian hide-away, the Rockefellers in Venezuela? Visualize a world of luxury completely ABOVE any common idea of luxury, of sexuality so fantastic that only few can enter it, of socializing so refined that scant scores participate in it. But START---get the outline going, and then it can be ADDED to: far easier to ADD than to START FROM SCRATCH!!
DIARY 5522
FINISH SOMETHING
ANOTHER IN A LONG SERIES OF PROCLAMATIONS FOR THE CONDUCT OF MY LIFE:
There are things I must do, like work every day, and take my laundry out, and eat food, and clean my apartment. That takes about one-third of the number of hours in a day. I must sleep, which takes another third of the number of hours in a day. That leaves one-third of the number of hours in a day to determine what to do with. I normally spend them at movies: I should stop this, since I've seen most of the good ones, and they are sinking into an awful mediocrity as I see more and more of them. I normally spend them reading books, which I should stop, since my avowed interest in reading was to judge the styles of others, or to get entertainment, or to get new ideas. I've already studied enough style, I have stopped being entertained by them, and I've got enough ideas to last me quite a while in writing. I normally spend them with people, though this has been taking less and less of my time, as I find that people are less and less important to me. I am too self-centered to care much for other people. Most of the time I wish I were away from them, because the things they talk about are inane, the places they want to go are uninteresting, the things they want to do strike me as childish. I normally spend them typing new ideas: this is absurd. I could spend the rest of my life typing new ideas, and never get around to POLISHING the ones I've already got. This is where my time should go now. THIS IS HOW I SHOULD SPEND ONE-THIRD OF THE NUMBER OF HOURS IN A DAY. HOW CAN I CONTINUE STARTING WHEN I'VE NEVER ONCE FINISHED ANYTHING?
DIARY 5536
RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
1. Why not a computer program for music? Give it rules of harmony, discord, polyphony, consonance, melody, resonance, repetition, overtones, triads, leitmotifs, fugues. Enable it to control volume, tempo, syncopation, tone (have a quartet of "voices"). Have areas of encouragement or discouragement, such as---too atonal, too common, great, more counterpoint, too repetitious, too unmelodic, not inventive enough, not original enough, too trite. The field of "Machine Aesthetics."
2. Wouldn't it be fun to make a movie about ice? Ice is SUCH fun. A man is drinking an iced drink, is killed, and he lies there, an ice cube in his mouth, drooling as it melts. A beetle melting out of an ice cube, shaking himself, and walking away. Wouldn't an ice cube and a burning match be interesting to watch? You would watch ice melting down a sink, or melting down to fall through an opening, or melting around a hot object. Candles melting are nice, too, especially if they drip over something nice, such as a smooth hand, or a nice phallic symbol.
3. Why don't they do something interesting with slow motion and backward motion? Such as fast motion for a run and then slow motion for the leap---or vice versa. And why not people doing things backward, and then run film backward, like farmer and geese? Why not amusement rides backing up, roller coasters, etc?
4. Two ideas: Do I look at people who "know people" (Kevin McCarthy at YMHA) because they DO, or because they're beautiful?
5. Who can account for the wholesale sacrifice of living things---of trees---to honor the anniversary of the birth of Christ the King of Nature?
6. COULD Earth by Hell? As "condemned to Hell," do "Souls" DIE at earth's end and catapult through space to the next cycle of the universe and get born AGAIN, and only when a good life is led, does the soul merit heaven? Maybe this only a HOPE of the human that Hell can't extend to ABSOLUTE infinity, but only to the "infinite ends of THIS universe. From Heraclites (page 50 of Story of Philosophy).
7. Wonders of "Anti-world": if it's "anti," then if you do good, means failure. Except that doing good is opposite, too. How opposite can things be?
DIARY 8369
3/14/74
LARGE NUMBERS TABLES
Great tables in the Appendix: LENGTH: MEAN LENGTH IS 1000 FEET! from smallest: wavelength of cosmic rays 10-20 feet; largest: radius of universe 1026 feet.
MASS: MEAN MASS IS 150 million TONS (3 x 1011 pounds)! from smallest: electron 2.006 x 10-30; largest: mass of universe: 4 x 1052 pounds.
TIME: MEAN TIME IS ABOUT A HEARTBEAT, about 15 seconds! from smallest: mean life of pion pi-zero: 10-16 seconds; largest: age of universe 3x1017 sec.
DENSITY: Mean density is WAY low: about 10-11 pounds per cubic foot! from smallest: density of universe 10-28 pounds per cubic foot; largest: companion star to Sirius: 9x106#/ft3.
VELOCITY is interesting: 3.35x104mph, where escape velocity of rocket from earth = 2.5x104. smallest: (He gives turtle), I give 0; largest: velocity of light 6.696x108 mph.
CHRONOLOGY: he just gives the formation of atoms at 5x109 years ago (5 billion years), but I wonder if WE might not be between THERE and MAXIMUM ENTROPY!!! Anyone guessed?
TEMPERATURE is anomalous, too: lowest is absolute zero at -4.597x102ΕF, highest is temperature at center of atomic bomb explosion at 2x108ΕF; middle---it IS GOOD FOR OMEGA MAN---THE SURFACE OF THE SUN IS 104ΕF!!!!!!!!!
THIS GOES INTO WORKBOOK---FASCINATING!
DIARY 8374
3/20/74
EXTRASENSORY POWERS
Nick's "it will be a lesson for you" really turned into that: I'd told myself it would do NO good to get a ticket just at the nick of 7, having worked all day and having no dinner until after midnight. So I said that I had to find a ticket IN TIME TO HAVE DINNER! In to find that I'm second on the refund line (though I could have a $20 ticket, he said), and then get a "chance" for the "best seat in the house" (and I believe it!) for $25 in a center box! But I simply say I can't afford it. Look at the list and see that I REALLY want a $7.75 balcony seat (or lower). Outside to see if anyone's selling there, since it's dead inside, and THERE is a florid faced man hawking PAIRS of balcony SEATS! Get another guy to get a single from the pair, ask him if he wants to join me for dinner, but I get out myself to the Japanese place, closed on Mondays, and see the Fleur de Lys down the street, so I get in an end table, chatting with the hostess about the Americard phones and instant verification (stealer beware!), and having Raie au Buerre Noire, which I think will be like sole, but it has a strange plasticky fan bone between everything, and its almost pulpy meat NEEDS the black butter and capers to liven up the funny fishy taste. The assorted hors d'oeuvres are GREAT, with a bit of their GOOD homemade paté. Out just before 7, getting to the seat just in time, then down at the intermission to ask someone "at random" what the upper rear of the stage looked like (the narrow windows went all the way to the top), and the woman says "There was an empty seat right here," and I sit THERE for the next two long acts. Upstairs for Troy, downstairs for Carthage. GREAT. The NEXT day I get out to NASA without a pen, and getting out of the subway have THREE ideas (DIARY 8392) to write down and DETERMINE to find a pen on the street, and in three blocks I DO find a working blue pen on the street! Even I am impressed! Then to solidify the feeling of my power tomorrow, Steve offers me grass, the lesson I'll miss, and a job from the class, which makes me feel EXCEEDINGLY good, and then the drunk BLACK tries to seduce me on the SUBWAY, saying he'd like to suck on my cock, I could have his if I wanted, HE knew how to make me happy, did I have a place? I'd NEVER had this happen before. Did he want to roll me? Was he serious? Was it my "power"?
DIARY 8890
9/5/74
MASTURBATION AND BOOK TITLES
This was a note I'd written long ago and put aside, but now that I'm putting ideas down on paper, I'll transcribe this and the following ones now:
MASTURBATION: The Last Frontier (of sexual expression and description)
Masturbation and Mysticism (solitary orgasm as the way to Nirvana)
Other titles:
The Book of Acid (Nonfiction "Acid House")
The Book of Orgies
The Book of Baths
The Book of Encounters
The Book of Joseph ("John")
The Book of Cartoons (3-D into 4-D trips, moving planes that zoom from "ordinary representations of reality" to show the "people-worms" and the growth of dimensions through animation.
DIARY 8893
9/5/74
ULTRALIGHT HELIUM STORY
Story of physicist who investigates the "ultralight" helium that's ONLY TWO protons in the nucleus. Could this strange---nonexistent---substance produce forces, use forces, require forces, liberate forces, which would disclose the avenue to the infitrons?
DIARY 8894
9/5/74
DIRTY OLD MAN AND POOR BOY DIALOGUE
Dirty Old Man: Remember that I'm you in the future, too, even though you might not remember; I'll remember.
Poor Boy: Never, never, never.
[20 years pause]
Dirty Old Man: Now let's discuss it.
Poor Boy: I guess things are different now.
DOM: How?
DIARY 8895
9/5/74
BOB ROSINEK'S STORY IDEA
His idea for a movie scenario: an artist leaves his profits in a trust fund, then actually, certifiably, dies, but orders that he be frozen, and then comes back to life in the future and enjoys his wealth. But what would the problems be? I had the thought to write to Ellie Kurtz about this. She should be through with her black encyclopedia index by now?
DIARY 8919
9/13/74
NOTES ON RECORDING
Jotted on Sunday, I guess, but gotten lost in the shuffle until now:
Recording:
Track 1: unaltered music
Track 2: record played on Dual, slowing, speeding, remerging music for echoes, previsions, delays in pulse and theme.
DIARY 9182
12/28/74
THE PLAY "NEW YORK CITY"
Influenced by the hypnotic quality of the songs in "Little Night Music," I hum many of the songs through yesterday and even read through the words before I file the record away, having played it during the last session with Rolf. Then I think that some songs could be written in a wonderful way about New York City, and I suddenly think that there's a PLAY there, about someone (like me) who lives in New York City and loves it, except that it begins to pile up on them and they want to leave. A sort of a revue-type thing with lots of snappy numbers: just friends talking about leaving New York City, but frankly evaluating all the good things about it. "I gotta get out" would list the dirt, muggings, robberies, crowdedness, unemployment, rip-off artists, and then segues into the next song, about the "Catastrophes" that could hit New York, based on "Towering Inferno," "Earthquake," "Seven Days to Noon" (the bomb), "When Worlds Collide" (floods), but that could trail off into a list of all the artworks, architectural wonders, private collections of books, opera houses, that leads to the song "Diversity" listing all that's available to see and do and experience in the city, not the least of which are its neighborhoods, bringing up the "People" number where the ghettos of Jews, Chinese, Italians, PRs, Greeks, Poles, Germans, Turks, Japanese, and all the various visitors could be celebrated in all those languages, accents, physical appearances, out of which "Gay Life" could unfold as the paean to homosexuality, bisexuality, bestiality, sadomasochism, transvestism, and eroticism available in the city. "Privacy" makes it easier, since your neighbors don't know you, but that leads to "Loneliness," one of the curses of the city, which could be the love song of the evening, showing the loneliness in crowds of people fallen out of love. "But Where Do I Go?" would have to be the climax of the FIRST ACT of the evening, describing the possibilities of all other attractive cities in the world, yet they are all countered by the advantages of living in "New York City," which would have to be a special praise-number which would INDEED climax the evening with a song of praise, exultation, tempered with the idea that "But it better treat us right, or we'll just leave it to stew in its own WASTES!"
DIARY 9204
1/24/75
NEW YORK CITY PLAY
Song: The Bar Scene
Tune: Harold in Italy
BZ:
I
stride by
and each guy
over fifty-five
tries
to catch my EYE!
You
glide through
and the crew
dressed in navy blue
vies
to dance with YOU!
If
there are dolls
in the halls
YOU,
without fault
give them halt
and you all have the night to yourselves.
When
there's a hunch-
back in the bunch
he
looks at me
in his glee
to add me to the trophies on his shelves.
DIARY 9257
1/26/75
EJACULATION FORTUNE-TELLING
Then there's the person who tells fortunes by reading the quantity, color, taste, smell, texture, consistency, and by far most important, the DRAPE and the SHAPE of the ejaculate. Is the person shy or flamboyant, introvert or extrovert, scatter shot or concentrated, coherent or random, quick shot or deliberate. Test the TASTE by kissing to identify mixed samples. But of course they must be fresh (and surely MANY of the clues can be gotten by watching the PROCESS of jerking off---the expression on his face, the movement of his body, his pleasure in his cock, the delay or hurrying of the orgasm, the degree of play, or the S and M components). May even predict the subject of the fantasy and the future of the shooter. His dinner menu or his LAST orgasm, how and when. The way it FALLS APART might indicate the HEALTH of the person. Surely the ejaculate would tell the age and the marital status of the person. Also the RANGE of previous experimentation, maybe even the age of the FIRST experience and the total number of ejaculations. Veins and sensitive spots, the shape of the head and the flexibility of the skin and even the HAIR would tell things, too.
DIARY 94042
12/31/77
EXPANSION
Read "Earliest Memories" (see DIARY 12646) after I lay in bed this morning FLOODED with memories from the past. Then my reading sort of mushed them all together, and I have to sit and think what I came up with. Remembered that (expanding 94005c) I'd tired to use the coal bin as some sort of playroom, with all kinds of fantasies about making it into an actual private room, but nothing ever came of it, since the basement was usually so damp and dark, and there were no lights in it. But among my jobs was the yearly cleaning of the shelves down there, and for many years I can remember my meticulously piling up things down there, until school duties grew too heavy to keep up with them. Funny what I DON'T remember: never remember my mother carrying me, nor my father playing with me. I was never seduced, and I never even got lost, so that I had to overcome my panic and find my way home. I never ran away from home, though I planned to a number of times to "show them" what it would be like without me around to help, and without me around to bully and command. Somewhat later there were flashlights under the bedclothes so that I could read; Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" being positively terrifying in the dark of night. There were marvelous lightning storms, so that I could count seconds to see how far away the strike was, but one came so close that I could smell the ozone, hear the clap come directly behind the flash, and even fancied that I heard CRACKLING in the air as the energy dissipated. Also forgot (expanding 4006a) that I'd wanted a few times to make a funhouse out of the garage, and drew the ugliest faces I could think of in melting crayon on the wooden walls, so that these would frighten those who came around the tortuous corners of the maze that I thought I might construct out of sheets, without thinking how I would LIGHT all the twists and turns.
DIARY 95001
6/23/77
POINT OF VIEW
(DIARY 95000 is GRANDMA'S BAND original sheet typed on DIARY 12013.)
Figure that the number of children of Grandma could be dropped to THREE, and the daughter Lorene and the muscle builder son Gary could belong to the same parents. Then think that the silent lover could vanish since it would be better for the hero-narrator to speak to the AUDIENCE, rather like a guided tour of "Our Wake." But then having a narrator seems like a copout: anything that needs to be EXPLAINED to the audience would be better given in DIALOGUE among the characters. Hey, how about doubling Rita's husband with the muscle builder?? New list of minimal characters appears to be the following:
YMC 1. Hero: me, grandson, observer, "carrier of the spotlight," instigator of revelations.
OFL 2. Mother: Mom, "oldest daughter," boring, complaining, seeking love, bitchy.
YFC 3. Sister: Rita, "deserting" Mom, possibly ruined forever, married to
YML 4. Muscle builder: Dennis/Gary, love-interest of hero, silent ignorant copper.
OFC 5. Aunt: Helen, biting, fighting Mother, manipulating, married to
GMC 6. Dodderer: Jimmy, nervous, garrulous, Southern, financially involved, about to die.
OML 7. Uncle: Henry, businessman, sensible, father-image to Sister, married to
OFC 8. Busybody: Marion, socialite, do-gooder, "set things right with Mom," stupid, cancerous.
YFL 9. Beautiful woman: Lorene, Uncle's daughter, out-of-towner, fresh life-image.
Down from 14 to 9, not bad, and Mr. Didi can be talked about, the object of the former ideas meant for the lover can be the Sister; Aunt can lead the rosary instead of the priest, further infuriating Mother; Uncle can give the stabs of practicality that the undertaker would have furnished; Mom's friend can be only talked about, as can the old woman mother-in-law. Four men and five women seems about right: three couples and mother-son-daughter. The fantasy would be that ANY stock company would have JUST the right people, and EACH character would be in great demand as a tour-de-force: O=old/Y=young: M=male/F=female; L=lead/ C=character produces: listing to left of names, with only the old-female-characters needing two, and they're probably in most abundance anyway. Already thinking of the STOCK companies after the great hit that it makes on Broadway! Counting royalties before play's written!
FICTION 2
6/30/79
MY WRITINGS AS GOSPELS OF THE NEW WORLD
Based on FICTION 1, that story would lead to OTHERS of my writings, and I so WANT what Alice said "Your writings will be very useful as a UNIT in the future"---in the guruture. There they'd find the goods of living in New York at the height of its decadence, the ills of hopelessly tangled relationships and interlocking directorates and the hopelessly NONDIRECT ways of having to act in business through lawyers, corporate plannings, and income tax, bank interest, investment return, financial finagling of every kind. Mine might be the only reports left from distant places in the world where travel is now impossible, might excerpt readings and cultural happenings that have totally vanished. If the libraries are destroyed, personal caches of treasures would become invaluable: Bournonville could be resurrected from my programs if they and my memory were the only sources of information about his techniques. Possibly sets of encyclopedias would survive to retain the DETAIL that I couldn't possibly hope to remember about historical people and economic histories and philosophical movements, but my writings could serve as an INDEX to what PEOPLE did to encounter the world and what they found when they did so: frustration, happiness, anger, fear, avoidance, rushing to meet, and lots of boredom and indecision. But I'm sure I'd still be seeking for a new method of organization of the material, new ways to cross-reference the information, new similes to use in teaching, new notes on new ideas that would still occur to me. But to be the literature and the gospel and the technical manual of civilization as it HAD been would be intriguing. And then there'd be the equally valuable task of recording what happened with the NEW civilization, and who better to do that than the one who had effectively done it for the vanished civilization: a thinker astride two worlds would retain the best of the first and try to ensure that the second incorporated as few of the worst of the first as possible. Somehow it now seems like the ultimate service, but I'm sure there's a lot of self-serving, tons of self-importance, lots of suppressed envy and jealousy coming out, and how could the Archives of Brooklyn Heights survive the destruction of New York City?
FICTION 3
5/20/81
FANTASIES FROM ACTUALISM SESSION
1) An enormous giant, sprawling naked and erect, pulling a tiny figure of a human by the legs down onto his cock as a gigantic sheath for an even more gigantic cock, with the orgasm pouring out the almost pulled-off head of the human sheath as inspired words of the gods.
2) A cartoon of a man jerking off RIGHT into the mouth, so that an electrical circuit of pure sexual energy is set up CONTINUOUSLY from his cock to the come arcing to his mouth, through his body back to the cock, setting up an echoing circuit in his BRAIN that gives him insight into the sexual secrets of the universe.
3) Another similar cartoon of a man jerking off into his EYE, with the pinpoint vision I described earlier, so that he can SEE the semen, see his own DNA patterns, see "down into them" to himself, looking at himself, and coming to ultimate realization through this most self-centered vision.
NOTEBOOK 459
2/20/82
MORE-MORE, DO-DO
I read Scientific American about quarks and galaxy-clumping. I jerk off and eat and clean the apartment. I write letters and pages for the notebook and type indexes. Dreams, DNA, cocaine, neuronal receptors, Actualism, mysticism, reality, hallucination. Am I overloading? Reading Burroughs, seeing "On Golden Pond," talking with Dennis, showing slides to Mara and her friends, eating at Baltyk, making my bed. Wanting to hold everything in my brain at ONCE, not sequentially---the ultimate AND or Both-And/Either-Or. Is that Enlightenment, to hold ALL AT ONCE or is it to empty of EVERYTHING FOREVER. Obviously partly a flight from Death: as long as I can DO and THINK and SEE, I haven't died as I fear I might, which will STOP doing and thinking and seeing. At least in this body, but the Life-After-Lifers say that "something" continues, something recognizably "me," something that can still watch what's going on on earth, as my "continuing" trajectory continued outside the plane crash in that long-ago dream. More and more (in time) I want to DO more and more (in space). Intermingled with touches of gladness for what I've DONE are the yearnings for what I WANT TO DO. But ANY wanting requires continuation in time and space. To wait for the solution of the still-mysteries of the very large and the very small. To SEE and EXPERIENCE with THIS mind and body the ultimate evolution (and dissolution?) of the human and soul-race. And from Race to Riace, what OTHER marvels wait to be discovered from the past, now that the Two Bronzes have been assimilated; what new larger bones from larger dinosaurs, what relics from other worlds, what communications from other galaxies? Life is a never-ending detective story through which I want to continue to find the solutions to all the puzzles, the answers to all the questions we don't even have words to ask yet. Read more, learn more, assimilate more, extract more essence, store it all up for instant usefulness, recall, savoring; battling against the freezing and stabilizing and rigidifying of age and petrifaction. More friends, more sex, more challenges, more thrills, bigger and better roller coasters, more untraveled land lighted by my spore of sight and hearing. Avoiding the pain which would EVER lead to the DESIRE for death, retaining the ENERGY for LIFE!
NOTEBOOK 460
2/26/82
BARIUM ENEMA OF 2/25
The sigmoidoscopy wasn't bad: had to take a laxative in the evening and a Fleet Enema in the morning---feel terribly stupid with my ass waving in the air as I fill my sigmoid with water and then rush to the john to eliminate it. Lying on the table (after waiting for an hour!) the doctor can't put on the electrical suction, so a nurse has to come in (TWO nurses!) and plug it in while I'm lying pantless with a paper towel over my crotch. He then tells me to kneel in "enema position" and he sticks in a finger, then a small instrument that makes me start a bit, and then he suctions for a bit and says I have tiny hemorrhoids, but nothing more serious to worry about: don't eat spicy foods. He says the liquid diet is VERY strict for the barium enema and that I CAN eat yogurt. I'm not looking forward to it at ALL.
But the four days of liquid diets pass; I don't take the Milk of Magnesia till the SECOND day, but I shit just about the same from all the tomato juice. Then take the castor oil and REALLY shit the rest of it out, actually spraying liquid brown over the back of the toilet seat and having the wash the seat cover! Then take two Fleet enemas and figure that yellow clear liquid is good enough. They take me in just a few minutes after 1 pm, change me into a paper coat with the slit in the back, take two or three X-rays with nothing in, then she puts up a bag with about a QUART of white liquid and tells me to turn on my left side. "Breathe through your mouth," she says, and probes, probes, probes, probes with the nozzle, getting a tiny bit deeper each time, and when it all slips in it DOES hurt a bit, but she just says to keep on breathing. Then she opens the petcock and I feel like I'm shitting in reverse, and it's rather uncomfortable. She takes a test picture and he says to fill me up a bit more, and then 5-6 pictures frontways, half-side, and full-side on each side, then leaves. I get a GREAT cramp, like having to fart but not being able to, and I grunt in pain. Bladder feeling like IT wants release. She takes me to the john, dumps in the bag, down about a pint, and tells me to take the nozzle out and dump it into the wastebasket. I pull it out slowly and am surprised to see a BULB on the end, which I guess they inflated after it was INSIDE. I shit a lot of pure white stuff which takes a long time to wipe off, and then she puts me BACK on the table and says she's going to give me air. "Air?" I gulp. This actually hurts more, bubbles coursing through my intestines, and I really almost feel that I have to shit out the nozzle while she's rolling me from side to side to take 5-6 more pictures with her ritual: "Now hold your breath; hold IT." Whir of machine. "Breathe normally." She holds the bulb while I extract THAT, and then shit a bit more and feel VERY uncomfortable, but figure I'll go home. The man says some people have NO discomfort at all, but if I'm sore, it'll go away in a couple of hours. I walk home leaning forward somewhat, like experiencing menstrual cramps. QUITE uncomfortable, like having a pregnancy, and I burp JUST a bit. Don't feel hungry, but he says "You're absolutely empty inside, so you'll be eating." Make soup, which doesn't help my stomach, and then fish goes down fairly well, but when I shit it's just liquid again and my asshole is really beginning to feel SORE. Pain-wrinkle lines engraved between my eyebrows, and I wonder what I'll do if the pain doesn't abate; what if they stuck it in somewhere wrong and that cramp was a trauma? Work with discomfort, fart a few times, burp a few more times, and feel hungry pretty soon, but after two hours, gradually, I wouldn't even know what I'd been doing, though my shit was still merely water. Hoped all those laxatives wouldn't leave me constipated at the end. Was tempted to phone Dennis and ask for commiseration at the beginning, but then I figured I'd better let the original trauma die down before talking to him, and then he wasn't there to take it in. When I got him in the evening, about 11, he had "a friend" there, so he couldn't talk long, and then when I phoned at 1, and then again at 5:30 on Friday afternoon, he wasn't in at ALL. So much for communication! It's not something I'd like to do again, though I didn't really STARVE during the liquid diet, but I sure got tired of chicken broth and consommé, though the HIGH point of the diet was the yogurt filled with honey. Nor did I feel SO starved, as on the second day, that I beat up raw eggs and added Kahlua to make a liquid potion to nourish and knock me out all at the same time.
NOTEBOOK 462
2/26/82
MARGE AND ME ON INDEXING BUSINESS
She phones to tell me she got a Raven index; I say I'll try blackmailing the others (no more indexes!) to get letter in, and then we start talking about what we say on the phone to these companies. We accomplish both tasks together: MAIN POINTS ON PHONE CONTACT:
1) I do indexes: a) good quality, b) on time, c) price range 40-504/line; $1 and up/page, depending on indexing density; 500 lines for 500 pages yields LOW density: high line-rate and low page-rate. 1000 lines for 100 pages yields HIGH density: low line-rate and high pager-rate. If pressed, say $8-10 per hour, or EVEN by finished index page or MS page.
2) I'm one of a number of indexers in an indexer's cooperative, which means: a) MORE indexers for large jobs, b) availability of various specializations, c) personal availability at any time, d) likelihood of RUSH-job accomplishment.
3) Letter will follow with specific titles of my work and work of others. OR, as Barbara adds, an appointment to meet them, and then TAKE the letter. So I talk to the people on the phone and tell them what me and Marge decided:
1) Tentative cover letter by Friday, 3/5 (without the threat, only encouraging).
2) Marge buys LMP (for $35!) from Bowker and we share costs. She coordinates people calling NEW companies. FOR these companies, the CONTACTOR does the first and subsequent indexes, unless there's some REASON to use others in group. Though Barbara says it's better to have someone ELSE call and say "how was index?"
3) If anybody WANTS to phone a company, phone them and let Marge know. If not, Marge will assign from LMP, alphabetically, starting with medical lists. Call about 3/week, or get the whole LIST and do it ASAP.
4) Talk to head of production (manager/supervisor) and report back to Marge.
5) I talked to everyone but Dennis by this afternoon and everyone seemed OK.
NOTEBOOK 463
2/27/82
LIKING THE UNROUTINE: DISLIKING THE SAME THING ALL THE TIME
Now that I've managed to vacuum the apartment, catch up with doctors and dentists, almost finished with correspondence, having the indexes under control, though still with a stack of notes on things to do, I recall how depressed I get when everything IS under control: when I DO a session daily, go to the gym every other day, make the bed and wash dishes and eat and type pages just when I SHOULD perform these tasks, how I yearn outward for something DIFFERENT: to get involved in stamps, reading, entertainment absorption, planning a trip, writing a book, meeting new people---as if the urge to GET "caught up" turns into an urge to get "MESSED up" when I exist as "caught up" for a week or two! It seems to symbolize lots of cycles of excitement and boredom that I find myself caught up in; it even seems to connect with relationships: as long as they're in the "can't get enough of you" stage they can't fall over into the "got too much of you" stage that leads to "can't get enough" of someone ELSE. Even with ACTUALISM: after I do two or three weeks of sessions EVERY day, I seem to have some excuse, or inertia, or reason, to AVOID them for a week or two, and then feel I have to catch up with THEM. As with friends, as with correspondence, even with something like washing windows. But am I putting the wrong words on things: I can't wash windows until they NEED to be washed, maybe I "can't" do Actualism until I "need" to do Actualism, can't "get organized" until I'm so disorganized that I NEED organization; conversely, get SO organized that I NEED SOME DISORGANIZATION. Without judgmentalism, could it be that DISORGANIZATION is as much a need as ORGANIZATION? Disorganization with a better name might be FREEDOM, or SPONTANEITY, as against the negative color of RESTRICTION substituted for organization!! How great: rather than CHANGING what I want to be, just put good WORDS (and opinions and FEELINGS) on what I AM, and it seems to switch around---which is the ENTIRE point of est and Actualism: see what is ACTUALLY true, and live with entire happiness in PRECISELY THAT. This idea was NOT complete in my head when I started this page, and it seems to be SO revolutionary in IMPACT (though the idea ITSELF is trite) that I'll have to think about it awhile (which I hope DOESN'T mean: forget about it)!
NOTEBOOK 464
3/5/82
CAN'T SLEEP!
I've finished the Chemical Dynamics subject index by 10:45, then put stuff away and counted to make sure all pages were there from incoming indexes (finding two ADDED pages for McGraw-Hill Batteries and two chapters missing from Raven's Endocrinology), and then try to figure how much money I'll be getting in and come up with $5700 before my trip on March 23! Talk about magnetic-dynamic! I think of a $6000 month, with $200 days, thinking I COULD get to $300 days, making $9000 a month, or $108,000 a year! Think of the possibility of actually DOING that! Don't really worry that I CAN do it, but fret about the possibility of getting sick, or overburdening my body so that something breaks down, or (horrors!) of the companies finding OUT what I'm doing and taking everything AWAY from me! And WILL the Garland Cell Biology (Garland cell?) come in; and WILL I be able to take the vacation drive; and WILL I have enough to PAY the tax that even the DELAY necessitates paying, AND fill up the Keogh and IRA accounts, AND pay for the dentist---and when IS he coming in with my appointment? So I get to bed at 1:45, vaguely hungry after dinner's ended at 8:30, and just can't sleep. Turn from side to side; debate jerking off except there's no real impulse to do so. Take Valium? Remember before that I'd take a toke or two of grass to relax to sleep; will I get into the same frenzy when I'm doing THIS edition of Pediatrics? I sure hope not: I should make it a BIT smaller, a BIT more under control with OKs for no-cross-checking needed, and a BIT faster. Money, time, entertainment, investments, personal sexual relationships, the problem of physical beauty, which I think of the men's seminar as being a good place to discuss. At least THINGS have been taken care of: correspondence caught up with (I can always XEROX a sheet of index work I have to do and send it as an apology if I DON'T go on the trip NOW, and when I MIGHT go later), apartment is in reasonable shape---when WILL I get rid of the books on the floor? But I STILL need a haircut, and stamps, and to give Dennis a body session, and dentistry to do, and an appointment with Dr. Daoud to set up, and indexing business to develop, and FINALLY get to sleep about 2:30, then wake at 8:30 feeling vaguely un-rested. Hm.
NOTEBOOK 465
3/6/82
PIGGING OUT!
After the gay men's seminar (ACTUALISM 218) I'm so frustrated that I stop off in a cigar store and buy Sher Bidis, longs for $1.35, and read alone, saying "Hi" to Arthur at the station since he was on the same train, and make two hamburgers on two muffins with two slices of bacon each AFTER eating a whole packet of crackers with butter, then some wine, then smoke a bidi-part and get into the Falcon catalog and smoke again (maybe 6 puffs at first and 8-10 puffs during), but it doesn't have the same effect: it's not as much a "high" as before, which leads to the "practice makes more effective" result that seems to be the case with grass, poppers, cocaine, and now bidis, though there IS the possibility that since I now DO take more than a once-a-year puff on a cigarette (smoking the Danneman Pierrots of JJ, for instance), the "heady" effect is now diminished from only a single bidi-puff. At least I have no trouble with getting to sleep after filling myself with food and emptying myself of semen, as opposed to NOTEBOOK 464. But, frankly, the orgasm ISN'T as intense as the one the other night, when I just SPURTED out a lovely jet that landed just below my chin. So it doesn't seem as if BIDIS were the smartest things to get, though I might take them along to dinner and try puffing on them THERE, instead of spending the three dollars for a SMALL Danneman's Pierrot that I priced in the same cigar store. Must admit to feeling vaguely disloyal to Bruce and his group by getting into myself like that, but I honestly feel he DOESN'T understand what it is to be gay, as Dennis suggested on the phone just now. AND since I don't think I DO relate that much from the pelvis, even in the now-defunct J/O group, let me TRY to see what the baths are like (coincidentally getting a $5 coupon with the Advocate ads that Dennis gave me yesterday, good for Wednesday at the Club), AND see what it's like (after I get some cash about me) seeing what it's like to send for a model, AND take pictures the way I like to photograph, and see if I can't get some lovely guy (I can feel myself getting excited NOW) to tease himself to the brink and then HOLD it there "to get a good shot of him" and let HIM beg to be allowed to come! HOW MY CROTCH LIKES THAT IDEA!!
NOTEBOOK 466
4/7/82
DEPRESSING THOUGHTS AGAIN
Watching "The Senses" at Arnie's was depressing: monkeys denied touch become violent and brain damaged. There seems to be no hope of getting deprived blacks OUT of violence and into TOUCHING their children to prevent ANOTHER WORSE generation of evil doers, like the stupid couple laughing over their comic strips loudly on the subway, or the two boys studying a BOOK on subway graffiti as a TEXT on what to do NEXT! Then the Tax Law mailing from Fred Richmond CONFIRMS that Reagan wants to take (more taxes) from the poor to benefit the rich (AT&T with $40 billion at the top). Then my trying to think of OPENING UP FOR A NEW RELATIONSHIP (see ACTUALISM 225) tunes me into a New York that is SO AGAINST basic affection (can't LOOK at anyone for fear of being beaten up; can't take CHANCES with a smile for fear of being repulsed or attacked---in contrast to the warmth and gentility of southern waitresses) that Chrystal says "Well, maybe you SHOULD move!" No heat on this snowy afternoon, no phone number for NEW YORK from the changing offices at ACC, birds still pecking around my window so the woman upstairs MUST be doing something---other than leaving her frozen wash on the line to disgust me. Battery goes dead in the smoke alarm, and I'm suddenly IN the battery-land I wanted to avoid: camera flash and light meter, smoke alarm, flashlights, new camera with 4 flashlights, and light bulbs in two slide projectors and a movie camera. Super 8 film that doesn't fit my sprockets; a landlady that won't paint me because she has to pay $370 every 10 days for fuel oil; mail that's increasingly suspect so I have to phone the post office (line mostly busy) before checking there IS no package waiting for me without a pink slip so I DO have to call Mary Rogers for more chapters to Brain Dysfunction. Then MOTION INTELLIGENCE (see Actualism 223) seems to keep MY WHEELS SPINNING ON ICE, GETTING ME NOWHERE, where I want to DO (typing trip notes, these notes, mail, indexes, stamps, income tax, resume for group, dance companies, Arnold's TV, slide fixing) and don't seem to have enough TIME, let alone trying to think if I want to drive to FLORIDA April 28-May 17, a nice three-week slot opened by Chrystal's vacation plans. (This should have been part of an expanded THINGS I HATE master list!!)
NOTEBOOK 467
4/9/82
THINGS PILING UP AGAIN
"Down so deep I don't see the top" would be a way of describing the feeling. Working on the forms to get more indexing business, and the income tax pile is still waiting for me. True, these are one-shot things (for this year at least), but the vacuuming hasn't been done for seven weeks now and needs it, I haven't gotten around to the plant tending yet, and I'm still wanting to get stamp stock-books to display my stamps more nicely. Then my drawer is piling up with notes to do all sorts of LITTLE things, and the "letters to be answered" file is growing again, waiting in part for me to xerox the "Atlanta trip" sheet that I actually completed within the week of returning---and I keep telling myself that I really CAN'T plan for a trip to Florida---or anywhere, until I get more MONEY! Waiting for the final pages of "Brain Dysfunction" yet I HAVE to start on the "Pediatrics" soon just to START. Then there are other indexes that I'll have to handle before even GETTING to the complete list at the TOP of this page, and then FOLLOWING that comes such goodies as wanting to get a SMALL music-making machine just for experimentation to see if I'm the next Vangelis, and I want to correspond fruitfully with Don about computers, maybe getting a small games-computer just to get THAT out of my system, and then save up the $4-5000 for buying a GOOD one, and only THEN can I start (after having paid off the $4000 in the margin account and the $4000 I owe Mom and the $1000 (by then) that I'll owe the DENTIST!) saving for another GRAND trip like to Africa or Australia or Antarctica. On other "completely different" levels I'm finishing up the rotting bacon and salad material in the fridge since before the Atlanta trip, trying to keep up with Actualism sessions and bodywork, keeping up with the new "stretch" series of exercises at the gym, and am looking forward to "Mr. Right" and "Mr. Intermediate" and going to some of the gay places for a change and seeing "Mephisto" and some dance companies and some TKTS plays and renewing friendships with Paul Bosten and his ilk and using the car and entertaining Luca for his stay here and planning something for the summer with Paul or Jean-Jacques and lots of OTHER things.
NOTEBOOK 468
4/20/82
ROLF TALKS OF INVESTMENTS ON 4/8
Though it was LONG ago, he still stood and said SO many things I want to capture SOME of them: the fact that most brokers want to BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH; not interested in making money in a FALLING market, not interested in bonds or puts or calls or hedges against bad times, just BUY LOW AND SELL HIGH. As opposition, he wants to start his OWN company, which would use people like the two TOP salespersons who quit Bache because Bache forbade them selling LOSERS from account to account so that they could CLAIM LOSSES TO OFFSET their other gains, without REALLY losing! Bache didn't TELL its employees what was going on; Rolf said that HIS company would be run like an Indian village: chief on top responsible for NEWS and COMMUNICATION to everyone, what was going up and what going down, and he had to palaver with his underlings MUCH of the time so they could tell the SQUAWS what to do, saying that EVERY office had to have a few women who did ALL the work, who would be the WORST people to lose to opposition, but who worked for almost NO money at all. He talked about Hallihan (or whoever) who predicted the market's tops and bottoms for the past six years, who sold newsletters that Bache now refused to buy for everyone, but others ALWAYS insisted they knew better than he did, and would NEVER sell a stock while it was still going up, preferring to be wiped out rather than selling below the ABSOLUTE top. He talked about which stocks were going down and would never recover, which blue chips would never see their heydays again, and how Bache has sabotaged him by refusing to deal with stocks under $1, which is where he'd make most of his money by researching some little company and then buying it before it really took off. He told me many other things it seems, but at this distance in time I can't remember them, except that they SOUNDED very logical even though he didn't seem to be able to follow his OWN advice and get out BEFORE when he lost a third of a million and a quarter of a million by getting himself in too deeply. He talked about interest rates and money costs and communication flows and international economics, and most of it just seeped through my memory like grease through a goose. More next time.
NOTEBOOK 469
4/20/82
PAUL BOSTEN TALKS ABOUT RON'S FRIEND ON 4/16
He's about to go into the Playhouse on something, but things are hectic at his place because a friend of Ron's (black bodybuilder ex-lover) is in Lenox Hill hospital with Kaposi's sarcoma, which is one of the new gay-intensive diseases. He kept going to doctors in Montreal and only when he was sent down here for more X-rays did they find the cancer on his kidney, which was BEHIND his liver casting a shadow that they thought was one of two kinds of AMOEBA colonies that Montreal couldn't even find. He might die any day now, OR he might last a long while under intensive medication, and Ron won't have to become a priest to devote himself to mankind, he can just move in with his ex-lover and take care of him for the rest of his life. Paul said there were articles about these diseases in the Advocate, and he was surprised to hear there weren't any from the Times on any Sunday. The guy's parents were staying there now for a week, and other friends had been through giving condolences. He said he was concerned for himself, since he seemed to blame it on "promiscuity" and he was doing "all the things" that Ron's friend had done. Pope had a good idea when he thought it might be connected with the butyl nitrite everyone uses in the new illegal poppers, and I agreed that since they hadn't been as thoroughly tested as amyl had been, and since some people really SWAM in it, that that COULD be one of the causes for it. Pope complained about his venereal warts again, saying THAT was the only bad thing he got and they kept coming BACK though he hadn't met anyone new in AGES. I began to feel good that I HADN'T been as active as before; could Actualism have saved me from some sort of TERRIBLE infection by demanding I stay away from these places? Can't imagine what you could get from JERKING OFF, but kissing some of these guys who have just been rimming someone or "hog wallowing" as the ads went COULD be pretty awful. But then Arthur said his doctor was saying that the post-herpes syndrome was changing in severity and duration for no good reason, so it might be EXTRANEOUS that the people who are getting it now are mostly gay---I'd indexed it before, and find Kaposi's varicelliform eruption as widespread herpes simplex, which might be what ARTHUR has!! But can't find Kaposi's sarcoma except in MESH.
NOTEBOOK 470
4/20/82
AVI TALKS ABOUT BEING ATTACKED ON 4/19
Since I've TWO pages on people talking, might as well finish with a third! Go to Avi's yesterday to talk about a possible trip, and he asks "Did I tell you I was assaulted in school?" Not even by a pupil, but a FELLOW TEACHER, which means the TEACHER is supported by the union and HE has to be supported by the SCHOOL, since he was acting as an ADMINISTRATOR when he reported that teacher's refusal to fill cut-cards for students not in class, which meant he couldn't censure a girl who had 7 study periods, lunch (free, so she took it), and this guy's class. He, angered, grabbed Avi by the throat and necktie, pushing him backward to hit his head, so he had two small epileptic fits afterwards, rolling his eyes and wetting himself! He got a lawyer-friend to sue the guy, saying that he WOULDN'T sue if he just signed an apology saying that he DID hit him, which he wouldn't do, begging to be considered for his wife and three children. Avi's also suing the school, since he requested the principal (who's the only one who can call the police into the school, otherwise students would be doing it all the time) to phone the police and she DIDN'T, getting others to try to talk Avi into dropping the whole thing, wondering if the teacher's slurring of Avi's manhood ("Is he wearing pants?") had anything to do with it, saying that he had lots of gay friends---to which Avi reported "I have lots of friends, but I don't know or care if they're gay or not." But he DID drop that from the suit, to "make things simpler." They're going for "arbitration" some day this week to Joralemon Street, so I asked him to come over HERE afterwards, but he figured he'd have to take it to court, wanting the teacher TRANSFERRED to another school and some sort of PAYMENT for his medical bills. One "witness" later said he saw nothing, but the principal had to stick to her story since there were OTHER witnesses there. But what a MESS of claims and counter-claims and time consuming legal hassling and even CONVERSATION fodder, though he's now taking Dilantin and losing his memory and Valium and losing sleep, like his father did---"I'm calm, but don't TOUCH me or I'll SCREAM!" So the suit and his HEALTH determine trips to Africa or Antarctica or Australia, too!
NOTEBOOK 471
5/8/82
WINE TASTING OF 5/8/82
Van Vleck sets up a Mirassou tasting in Aesop's Fables, free with cheese and crackers.
1) DRY CHABLIS has a touch of retsina; the colder it is the less flavor comes through.
2) HARVEST CHARDONNAY 1979 tastes musty on the back of the tongue, not nice.
3) BURGUNDY is very LIGHT, only a BIT gritty: that "bit of skin and stems, dry in quality" he calls TANNIN, which REDUCES after the bottle's been open an hour, or wine's been aged IN the bottle over a couple of years.
4) CHARDONNAY "primary" (non-reserve) is relatively tasteless; I've had too much?
5) ZINFANDEL is tart, almost SOUR; he says it needs aging.
6) HARVEST ZINFANDEL I called "more alcoholic" than 5 and was amazed to find that 5 is 13% alcohol and 6 is 13.7! He says I have a GOOD sense of taste and should have more CONFIDENCE. I remark that I'm just finding the "technical terms" for my own use.
7) CABERNET SAUVIGNON "primary" is as smooth as the Harvest Zinfandel, and he says it's "less acid or tart" "that tingle with orange juice" and he says that THIS Cabernet IS less acid!
8) HARVEST CABERNET SAUVIGNON, which I expect to be the BEST, and sadly it's relatively TASTELESS, and HE says (after TASTING some) that "it needs two years in the bottle to develop its complexity." SO I FEEL PRETTY GOOD ABOUT THE WHOLE EXPERIENCE, though I can't say that I'll be buying any of the Mirassou wine---I think I'd had it before, but I can't find it on any of the old wine lists, but I don't think it impressed me then, either. But the guy was pleasant enough to talk with, and if it gives Van Vleck new business, maybe they'll have it again with some companies that ARE worthwhile.
NOTEBOOK 472
6/8/82
CRYPTO-LIST FROM 6/1 THINKING IN BED
Think of LOTS OF THINGS: a thinly disguised list of things to DO:
1) Phone Arno, John Casarino, John Connolly, and Joe Easter for FRIENDSHIPS.
2) Call Susan McMahon for lunch.
3) Call Susan Lieber for Times Square lunch.
4) Stamps (US and UN) into albums.
5) Sort porno and clear space in cabinet for more.
6) Look through computer shops.
7) Look for cable TV "black box" that Arnie described.
8) Work on indexing book.
9) Write Bob & Joe and Midge and Greg and Helen & Jimmy and Rita about trip.
10) Wash dishes, scrub floor, vacuum before leaving.
11) Take care of plants.
12) Do lightwork.
13) Throw more stuff out of closets and drawers.
14) Meet new gay play-friends.
15) Check Arnie's National Geographics for East Coast.
16) Make slide-pix for Ed and Lorene.
17) Plan to live in Europe for six months in a few years.
18) Work on four current indexes.
19) Type pages of all this stuff that I've written this morning.
20) Ask for HIP mineral analysis.
21) Talk to the computer guy at Raven.
22) See St. Marks double (did).
23) Try John's teas (asked, he said they didn't TASTE).
24) Color-code slides and get slides from Mexico and Guatemala photos and snaps.
25) Ask Briton and Don O'Shea and Martha about a) maintenance, b) file duplications and loss and errors (how can you be SURE you have it; ever have to REKEY whole FILE?)
26) Check old "crypto-do-list" of what's DONE and NOT done (and it's mostly DONE!---this is really like a "periodic catharsis/upchuck).
27) Call Michael for L&A Tuesday before or after coord (or better, have Arthur coord!)
28) Talk to group individually about their computerization (only Barbara says "Yes.")
29) Talk to Actualism group individually about their perceptions (Marilyn particularly).
NOTEBOOK 473
7/13/82
TALK WITH HELEN ABOUT FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
I wanted to write this page a week ago, when we had the conversation, so lot's gone since then.
1. THEIR relationship: summarized by HER counting the number of NIGHTS (53) anyone has stayed in their apartment, while Jimmy wants to count the number of MEALS they prepared, saying it must be over 100, while Helen says no, THAT number is 67, which I say can't be since she said that Greg stayed 10 days himself. She insists that 8 people only stayed 1 night; Jimmy insists that the 8 people stayed 8 nights, which Helen snorts at; I try to introduce the term "people-nights" and NEITHER of them can accept it.
2. THEY TOOK CARE OF:
Grandma, for numbers of months, where Mom was exhausted in 1 DAY!
Me and Jim Roark for a whole school year.
Baxter's two kids after he died, for maybe six months.
David, Anne's kid, and she stopped talking to Helen when she gave him BACK after a semester.
3. THEY INSIST that I have to take care of Paul, since I'm HIS uncle; THEY aren't going to have anything to do with him. Also, MOM has her OWN children, and though she DIDN'T want to take care of her (Grandma), she DID. I said "This is probably the worst way I can put it, but maybe you did her a DISSERVICE by taking care of her: she thinks she can get her own way ANY TIME, without even THANKING. Your report of her saying "This is my sister, she doesn't do a thing for me," in a hospital elevator to a stranger, was CLEARLY recognized as HER way of saying "Thank you." She needs TRAINING in taking care of HERSELF.
4. She wasn't the favorite in the family: Grandma liked Mom and Henry MUCH better than Helen and Edward; I said it was changed in MY family where Mom and RITA (the youngest) got along better than me (the oldest), as Mom was. I said SHE was raised differently, in a different family, and SHE had a different feeling about people: she has yet to UNDERSTAND what I tried to say when I said "I WAS RAISED by that crazy woman," meaning that I didn't, couldn't, didn't WANT to have the same feelings about her as SHE had about her OWN mother. She brought up that she really wanted to go to France, but Grandpa said no, and her friend got back on the LAST boat from Europe in 1939.
5. I told her the classic story of her saying I was crazy for telling the man on the plane to Russia to stop smoking, and she LITERALLY said Mom was crazy.
6. She talked of how they HAD NO MONEY when Jim and I were with them, and how they had to campaign when they had almost no money to eat with. I reported that "it was coming back to them" because they always lived AS IF they had unlimited funds, and now they in FACT have lots of money: they gave and they GOT.
7. THEY really sounded insane when they described their various campaign "contributions": speaking for Carter through Ohio, they helped him carry Ohio and thus, practically single handed, made him president. Jimmy walked to the door of Stevenson's room in Chicago and got admitted by a person he'd met briefly a few days ago, and politically thought he was someone and treated him as such, leading Jimmy to think he played some key role in THAT campaign.
8. He showed me "the book of honor" and "international book of intellectuals" and "businessmen in the northeast" and though they were PATENTLY vanity press objects---I doubt the LIBRARY would carry them, let alone ANYONE other than those described in the book---and I wisely refrained from saying ANYTHING against them.
9. He talked to the expense of us in California without even a MENTION of how we worked in the gardens for them, fixed things with him, and spent hours campaigning with them, but I felt it unwise to say ANYTHING about it.
10. Talking about my gayness, they said it was nothing to TELL anyone about, and I likened it to the Russia-China trip: you couldn't tell I took it by LOOKING at me, but I was DELIGHTED with it and wanted to SHARE IT with others. They didn't acknowledge that idea. They obviously didn't care for Mom's "Do you fuck him or does he fuck you?" though they took in the information, and she said "If Jim Roark writes to you, are you going to tell HIM?" and I assured her there was no reason to, and she was snippily relieved: he has no NEED to know and it would just EMBARRASS her. Jimmy added with a twinkle that he's not going to tell ANYONE HOW (not WHETHER) THEY have sex in bed. I talked about my history of it, going back to five years old, and Helen retorted with something she'd been storing up: "No, it was the LSD that scrambled your brains and MADE you that way," so I told her as briefly as I could about the LSD: the climax of father-through-son and re-meeting with Mom and Dad (though not about Dad's possible gayness, and she brought up "Uncle Enoch and Uncle Loddie were never married, and they lived together, and no one talked about THEM; older women school teachers would live together and no one would talk about THEM"; my talk of "gay LIBERATION" made no impression on them, nor did my description of talking to church and school groups from Mattachine), but she STILL said it "scrambled my brains," and I even gave her ammunition for that by saying it DID show me that "our religion wasn't the center of the world, there were OTHER ways of worshipping, and now the INSTITUTION had moved away from the PERSON WHO FOUNDED IT," which made no indent on them. Yet THEY were so valid in their point that the Library of Congress RETAINS "Negro" literature rather than BLACK literature because most of it comes from Africa where Negroes are still Negroes, and the Blacks in America think THEY are the center and only cause of the universe, so they want everything to be THEIR way, and they can't draw the parallel with their religion: of course not, they have the ONLY RIGHT ONE.
11. Toward the end they joked about packing Jimmy up and sending him with ME to live for a year, and I joked back that he should come right along. It seems clear in here they're investing in someone to take care of THEM when they get to their final days (she insisted she wouldn't give JIMMY'S mother a bath and clip her toenails; she'd do that for HER mother, but not for anyone ELSE'S mother---but then THEY have no children of their own, which was implicit in much of what we talked about, but I wouldn't have dreamed of bringing it up---she said she'd PROMISED herself that she'd say NONE of this, and responded not a work to my saying that I felt CLOSER to her for knowing this---she just kept repeating: "I wouldn't say this to ANYONE, I wouldn't tell ANYONE about this," and I refrained from asking, "Then how can anyone KNOW about it?" She kept talking about people not sending her thank you notes after they'd stayed with her, so I of course made a mental note to send HER one, sadly only on the day I got ANOTHER letter of articles from her.
12. She talked about how Anne wouldn't talk to her at ALL; how Henry would always joke "We were just about to come to see you," when they never did and probably never would. She talked about all the dozens of nieces and nephews they have among them, never once volunteering that I might be somewhat special.
13. We mentioned Mom and her arguments: not talking to this one or that one, but of course Helen would never take the blame for anything, just enumerating in detail how they drove Mom to Cleveland Clinic the day BEFORE because it was going to be stormy the next day, how Helen had to rush to a chair because of her painful arthritis and how Mom wouldn't understand her rushing around like that. She kept track of EVERYTHING, showing me lists in the back of a telephone personal directory EACH SMALL GIFT sent to each person: Lists of gifts and items to Paul, with a little check saying if they were acknowledged, and she even ASKED me if Rita told me she sent Paul some layette items, and I had to confess I didn't remember, so in her current letter to me she said she had to ASK Rita if Rita had received them. So she kept track of EVERYTHING, harboring everyone's "slight" of her, and I couldn't help but wonder how I stood in "indebtedness" for having had 2 dinners, 23 breakfasts, and two packed lunches in return for only ONE dinner for each of them at the Lighthouse. I kept THANKING her, but she would hardly acknowledge it, saying in her letter she was happy to show "the beauties" of Virginia Beach to me. I have to resist replying that I was happy to show her "the beauties" of my gayness.
14. She talked about Jimmy's double hernia operation, HER hernia operation, and how they (Jimmy, mainly) talked Mom out of getting a "hole drilled in the skull, that just leaves people vegetables" and I REALLY had to resist saying they were WRONG in that: they just filled Mom with unjustifiable FEAR, though in fact it DID work out that she WAS cured WITHOUT the operation, so I couldn't really even talk against their stupidity THERE.
15. They talked about "their day" of walking a mile on the beach, having sold their tricycles, Jimmy goes "to work" in town while she watches two hours of soaps from 2-4, how they eat lightly in the morning "unless they have guests" (how Jimmy once ate TOO much and THAT caused one of the hernia attacks), how they eat dinner at 4:30 or 5 because they want to watch the news and stock reports from 6-7, so why should they have a conflict over what they want to do. Jimmy repeatedly terms himself an investment analyst, saying it takes constant work to look after their investments, which I'm sure it does---but then he has to quote himself as a Kentucky Colonel, and even an Honorary Kentucky Admiral (not to mention having the "Arnett Apartments" in Salinas, from that duplex he owned) for the vanity books.
16. How many times did they chortle over their good luck in getting the fish from the boats free: "I wanted to pay for them," Jimmy said endlessly, and then would grin as they gave them to them, and how Helen was "so clever" to say they came off the very boat that Carter used when HE was here before. That was clearly a high point in our shared life; they had little else to talk about.
17. She DID tell me that Hugh Lynn Casey had died the day before I returned, so there is SOME contact with the outside world. They've never been to ARE.
18. Jimmy can get MEAN, saying that Helen wasn't at the car at the exit gate (I could hardly say I agreed that he didn't SAY that), saying "I should have just left you home, you shouldn't have come along." She said nothing to hurt back.
19. They talked about their endless drives back and forth, how David helped them in their four-trip move, how they had to come four times to make sure the rug (free, they repeated) was the right color ("It could have been RED," Helen said with a grimace), how they go back and forth with their financial duties; how Jimmy checked ONE addition and found $1000 error, so "Now he can check anything he wants to, that's just fine with me," laughs Helen caustically.
20. They talked details of taxation I had no concern about, harangued Mom for not paying something Medicare wouldn't pay, endlessly surmised the present worth of their apartment (they'd bought two here; had been thinking of buying an entire MOTEL down the avenue somewhere), and the value of their car.
21. In their endless discussion of detail, Jimmy would talk about how he didn't like short sleeved shirts because then his arms stuck to the chairs, so he'd wear long sleeved shirts. Helen made it clear she was dressing up (in a dress, I guess, rather than a housecoat) for ME, as a TREAT.
22. Helen would show me gifts from this and that person, wanting something from me?
23. The disposition of Grandma's goods came in for LARGE discussion: how Marion would sneak away with hair-disposal ivory toilet articles and anything else of real VALUE: how she said she wanted that three-corner hutch and then SOLD it. How Grandpa had given them the crystal lamp for their wedding, then wanted it back, then MARION wanted it and Helen insisted it was THEIRS. How Henry and Edward didn't care what they get, leaving it to Marion and Anne; and how disappointed she was that I wouldn't take things she offered me, thinking I should have SOMETHING. I barely resisted saying I wouldn't mind the crystal lamp after THEY died, but couldn't think how to say it then. Again the story of how Jimmy found her on the floor, how Henry rigged up an alarm so Grandma could call them even when they were eating or in bed.
24. She told me (had I heard?) about Dixie, how she had an operation for something that didn't work, and (no, shots) how she was paralyzed, dragging her hind feet around the apartment, and finally they had to put her to sleep. They even showed me photographs of Dixie, I think the ONLY ones they showed, other than the "Gallery" on the wall of their homes, schools, and meetings with Rosalyn Carter and Helen's retirement page in the Akron U. newspaper.
25. They never wanted to travel overseas (except her to France), assured me they'd never have a reason to visit me in Brooklyn Heights, even though they'd heard it was nice, and just traveled back and forth to Akron, where they kept the rents the same for all those years, even though they were losing money, and then they quarreled about whether they'd raised Grandma's rent by $5 or $10, and at which time they'd done it. Painful, semi-silent conflicts.
26. True to her wish not to be kissed, she held out her arthritic hand to shake goodbye, and I could barely bring myself to put my hand on her shoulder in gratitude.
NOTEBOOK 382
10/28/80
ASSIMILATION!
Now everything seems to revolve around assimilation. In the past, I'd had flashes that I eliminate and burn up for 99% of the session, and many times don't even DIRECT thoughts toward assimilating essence. Suddenly I made the connection between that and the feeling I have that I READ books and feel that I might be AFFECTED by them, but put them on the shelf and go to the next ones without really ASSIMILATING what I've learned---put it into practice---before going to the next, which I similarly consume without INCORPORATING. Then there's some incredible connection with the fact that I now have to MAINTAIN the body: have to exercise and meditate and brush teeth thoroughly and stimulate them and type and use special shampoos and shower and try to improve my vision DAILY, ALWAYS---which is discouraging, as even SheLAH admitted on October 1 reading. The connection, it seems, that I constantly wanted NEW things, NEW movies, NEW people, NEW experiences and sights and thoughts, without really DEALING WITH the results of those experiences: I HAD them but I wasn't affected BY them. My calendars HAD been a record of the NEW things that I did, and then FINISHED with (rather as I go to NEW restaurants without really ENJOYING those I've FOUND to be good, much as I might have thought about travel as only going to NEW places but finding that I'd really ENJOY traveling through the COUNTRYSIDES of European countries like France, Italy, and Germany and Austria), and now I think of them as being records of the DAILY CONTINUOUS activities, listed above. Maybe it's the CONTINUOUS that's the clue (and a FLASH of insight: I'd concentrated before on the DISCONTINUOUS operation of READING, rather than the CONTINUOUS operation of APPLYING WHAT I LEARNED; now I just finished recording the DISCONTINUOUS facets of Incarnating Ego as DISPARATE INCARNATIONS, when the POINT of looking at them is to fit them all into the CONTINUOUS BEING that is I, the Incarnating Ego, the Being of Light, that USES all these lives as A lesson, rather than DISCONTINUOUS lessons---rather like looking at LIFE as opposed to looking at task-task-task-task---USE CONTINUOUSLY what I've learned, rather than "setting it aside to learn something else." Which is the same as assimilation, but in MY words and with MY insights it seems more ME and VALUABLE.
