Any comments or questions about this site, please contact Bob Zolnerzak at

bobzolnerzak @verizon.net

 

 

 

SUBJECTIVE 87 pages

Section 2 of 3

DIARY 12036 CACOPHONY Also 6/25/77

Even with the woman upstairs blissfully out for the weekend, my Saturday morning lightwork was subjected to an awesome array of cacophony from the outside world which would NOT go away! The couple downstairs were playing their stereo very loudly, so that I could feel the floor rumble with the beats of their bass, and (and NOW the woman upstairs IS in, thumping about!) every so often from the window I could hear the screams of the soprano parts. But the main sound was from down the gardens where someone from the flophouse-red-brick building was playing some screaming record at full volume, though they didn't add their faggoty "AaaaiEEE" as they have so often done. Then it was poorly enough planned so that it lasted through noon, at which point the bells at the church began to go off. Just when I thought I'd go out of my mind, there was the sound of auto-horns from the street and a jet flew over. As if that agitated the dog, it started barking. Phones rang unanswered from somewhere in the gardens, and even the birds seemed particularly annoying this morning. I wanted to CONTROL the whole thing (see DIARY 12037) and had the dreadful feeling that nothing was really being DONE so that the whole thing was unproductive (see DIARY 12038), but there was nothing to do: I didn't want to add to my guilt about not doing it for TWO days during the week, so I had to finish it then, hoping that I wouldn't get an ulcer from my efforts not to explode at the sounds. Thankfully, the Spaulding guy on the ground floor wasn't running the hot-water faucet in his sink that squeaks every time he uses it, which Mrs. Johnson hasn't fixed yet because I haven't told her, and I'd shut the door so that I couldn't hear the blat of the self-busy phone. I began again to think about getting an air conditioner just as a NOISE-SCREEN so that I could get used to my own sounds rather than chewing myself up about the sounds of the other things: really, my problem is the WRONG ONE: I don't have ENOUGH noise in my life, so I get used to the silence, so I curse the noise: actually, I should have MORE sound, so that when it SINKS to the level I have NOW, I'm THANKFUL. Sure. Like 57th WAS good for noise: it was there constantly, but THAT was one of the reasons I moved (along with their attendant vibrations). Now THAT she's home upstairs, I hate her all over again.

DIARY 12037 CONTROL Also 6/25/77

Want to control the cacophony (see DIARY 12036) outside during my lightwork, but it reminds me of the insight I got when I passed the miniature shop on 28th Street and got my usual urge to work with miniatures: EVEN WHEN I WAS A KID, I was interested in control: built train tracks so that I could control my own roller coasters; loved log cities so that I could control their shapes, construction, and destruction. Loved to burn papers so that I could simulate the controlled burning of cities; loved to control spiders in bottles, control cotillions of hollyhock girls, loved miniature villages with trees and telephone poles and hydrants and schools and town halls. And I still WANT that control: want to TELL the people downstairs they're being too loud, Mrs. Johnson to fix Spaulding's faucet, the neighbor to quiet the dog and the stereo --- and am very annoyed because I CAN'T control the noise around me in theaters and ballets and orchestras. Probably because I want to control MY LIFE, but I can't exercise the MOST FUNDAMENTAL CONTROL, which is telling it when to start and stop. I had to depend on my MOTHER to start it (though I took that away from her by coming 6 weeks early), and have to depend on something OUTSIDE myself to stop it, death, which is THE thing I'm most afraid of, BECAUSE I CAN'T CONTROL IT. With lightwork, hopefully I can work this through: it SEEMED like I could have taken the jet to Akron on Tuesday with equanimity, but I'll find out in going to London. Obviously the DAY-PAGES are an item in control: if I RECORD life, I can control the FUTURE use of the past. So IT DOES all come together: though now that I REALIZE it, what am I going to DO with it? TRY to relinquish control, try to let others' actions just wash over me (it DOES seem that the woman upstairs is out more, but it MAY be that I'm less bothered by her)? But that's connected with something ELSE, in that when I feel that I've done something GOOD with my time, I don't worry about the CONTROL of it, so it AGAIN comes down to writing, which seems to be the undercurrent here: catching up and getting something OUT! If EVERYTHING aims to that end, possibly THIS time something will be done, though this has been said before.

DIARY 12038 UNPRODUCTIVITY Also 6/25/77

This was anticipated on my sheet on control (see DIARY 12037) and cacophony (see DIARY 12036), but paradoxically now that I'm WRITING about it, I'm actually feeling better because I'm DOING something about it. But I wasn't feeling very good this morning when I was DOING something about lightwork (sitting in the chair) while my brain-mind was worried about how well the instructions were getting through (though I assured myself that they were getting through FINE), and at least was happy that it was lightWORK, and that I didn't usually fuss about doing NOTHING (as with TM) while I was doing it, though questions have been arising. Yet the questions arising seem to be GOOD for lightwork, since they're the signs that I'm WORKING. They have the marvelous ability to change liabilities into assets: uncomfortable? Good, that means you're processing what's coming up. Troubled? Good, the sooner you get THAT out of the way, the better. Uncomfortable? Sign of good work. Worry? Relax, you're doing fine. Doing fine? Probably something's wrong, but you'll find out when you get uncomfortable again. So the session WAS done, and all the worry by my brain-mind didn't add a thing to it (though it probably didn't take anything away --- can't even indulge in the luxury of guilt). So why worry about it WHILE it's being done? I'm GETTING there: worked with stamps today as much as I wanted to, and felt good, rather than bad, about it. Have been reading Philosophy and THAT'S been feeling good. But I've been turning down chances for the gay parade (just read my three years there, in June of 1970, 1972, and 1974, and it wasn't the best sort of thing even THEN) and gay dances so that I HAVE more time to catch up with these pages and get on with the neat idea of typing ONE PUBLISHABLE PAGE PER DAY. Though that SEEMS small, it'll be more than I do now, and doing THAT, I can use Hegel's dialectic to come to the next problem that'll cause me unhappiness so that I can get to the NEXT step. So the whole thing WASN'T unproductive ("everything's perfect" per est and Actualism), and now Pope's found "The Church of the Living Flame" at 85 Hicks Street, which he'll pay the $2 to get an intro to, and we may have fun here in Heights!

DIARY 12060-61 AROUND AND AROUND AGAIN 6/28/77

The same things over and over again. The same circles of thoughts and circles of fingers through the typing. I want to write. But there's a movie that I want to see. So I see the movie. It doesn't give me IT. So I'm sorry that the
movie doesn't give me IT. Or the movie gives me IT. And I'm eaten with envy that the movie, through its writers and directors, has given IT to the world and I had nothing to do with it. Whichever. Then I leave the theater and see a fellow so beautiful I walk the wrong way to get a closer look at his tanned biceps, his full crotch, his clear eyes clearly looking somewhere else. This morning, again, I masturbate, clawing away at the flesh with a frenzy that must be given a name like rage or anger. Clawing away, clawing away, straining for that ultimate, that second of transcendence that leaves me again unsatisfied. "Heaven and Hell." Just leave it like that for a minute. "Heaven and Hell" by Huxley was written about his effects with mescaline. I'd taken just the tiniest bit of mescaline before the movies, so possibly that's having a piece of what I'm thinking now, though the thoughts aren't new: I'm writing about them precisely BECAUSE they are old. "Heaven and Hell" by Swedenborg says that we must live for others: if we live only selfishly, for ourselves, we end up in a hell created by ourselves for ourselves. Actualism talks about doing things for others; Seth talks about doing things for others; the Bible and est and TM and everything says that you should do things for others. I've made a living out of doing things for myself, yet is part of my urge for a muscled male the urge to have someone who's obviously strong enough to support me, protect me, enfold me and keep me from myself? I am the judging machine: all say this, all begin to say that it's not doing me any good: I am beginning to say that it's not doing me any good. But I do it. I look at the body and I judge it to be attractive or not. The face is appealing or not: if it's appealing, and will have none of me, I'm crushed and frustrated BECAUSE I've judged it to be appealing. So stop judging. Just as well ask me to stop living. Maybe that's a line to follow: FOR ME, judging IS living. I judge that life is good so I opt to continue living. I judge that what I'm doing is good or bad so that I can continue with it or not. Every philosophy that says I should stop judging also says that I create my own universe. But the only universe that I can create is the one that exists. I can't make people more attractive, or less attractive, though I seek to do so by judging them to be more or less beautiful. But it doesn't get anywhere. I WANT bodies, I want to feel them, bite them, caress them, love them, touch them, and KEEP them. I WANT beautiful faces, I want to stare at them, touch them, kiss them, love them, and KEEP them. Yes, I KNOW that it must be sad to be the most beautiful person in a group: I know if from the few experiences I had of it at the baths. Again and again around the same round. I know I said this before. But I felt OBLIGATED to do SOMETHING with SOMEONE merely because I was there and THEY were there, so the idea was to find the LEAST unattractive (judging all the time, of course) and get something going with them. So the others would be disappointed, and of course the "chosen one" would be disappointed, too, since one hardly ever makes a going thing out of "making the best out of a bad lot," except that maybe that's what living's all about. But that's the wrong SLANT! I KNOW that our expectations create our satisfactions, and if I keep on creating the expectation of wanting more and more bodies and getting less and less of them, what can that expectation do but be fulfilled to my dismay? So obviously I should try switching it around: but this time from ANOTHER angle: NOT that I won't want anyone, because I WILL, but that I won't be JUDGING, so that I won't be SEPARATING and LISTING and SEGREGATING and ORDERING, and thereby controlling, the people so that I can come to stages of "live and let love." If I'd learn to love EVERYONE, I'd never be disappointed. Which leads to the OTHER thing that I'd said: when I HAVE someone of a certain degree (judged, of course) of beauty, and THEY love me, I think that obviously, since I can get THEIR level of love, I might be able to get the NEXT HIGHER level of beauty to love me, and work my way up the ladder to ---? To age and decrepitude. Yes, I KNOW you're not supposed to think these things, but these are the things that I'm THINKING. At least I don't have the cross of HAVING BEEN beautiful, so that I haven't gotten USED to have everyone that I want, so there's no substantial change in QUALITY, only in QUANTITY of even that middling quality. Concentrate on the inner; there's more pleasure in talking to someone in bed in the dark who's nice to TALK with, but STILL I want the body: who says you can't have it ALL: body and wit and beauty and brains and total loving? But the bodies, all of them, decay, and at LEAST I have to think about getting and keeping money so that I'll be able to BUY the bodies when I'm too old to get them by asking for them. But I've NEVER gotten them by asking for them, and most of the time I've been fairly happy about it. But HAVE I? At THIS point I obviously can't say, since I'm obviously unhappy, and there'd be nothing to stop me from saying that all the times in the past that I said I was happy were simply a lie; just as when I'm happy there's nothing to prevent me from thinking I'd always been happy. But what DIFFERENCE does it make? It's the same body I have now regardless of whether I'd been happy or unhappy? No, that's not true: terminal unhappiness would have put me in the grave years ago, relative unhappiness would show MORE in my face and body than it does now. Things need a slightly greater proportion of maintenance, but that doesn't mean that I can't be back in a position of feeling at my peak once more. And I want to write, and get the things that have to be done out of the way, and now it seems that I've exhausted whatever it was that I wanted to say in these three sheets, because I'm now thinking about doing something else, and in keeping with my new resolve to end things when they should be, rather than keeping them down to the bottom of the page (say he, sneakily knowing that he'll continue typing down to the bottom of the page ANYWAY, since it's only two lines away, at this point!).

DIARY 12075 BEAUTY PROBLEMS AGAIN 6/29/77

This was part of the topic of DIARY 12060-2061A, Around and Around Again, but it hasn't been finished. I see the T-shirted guy walking through the cruising section just east of the park walk between 81st and 77th Streets, seeing pot-bellied men looking at him and his tight jeans, and I KNOW that if I were in that section I would have as little chance as the old men. He wouldn't even look at me, as young lovelies don't look at me now. I know how that works: I can see far ahead when I'm pretty, judging who will be looking at me, figuring who's not worth looking back to, and I would stare off into space, letting the OTHER person think I haven't even SEEN them, but I have. So they don't even LOOK at me, but they have. But it's not THEIR BODIES that produce the difficulties, the PROBLEM IS NOT WITH THEIR BEAUTY, the PROBLEM IS IN MY MIND THAT JUDGES them to be beautiful. Yet, frustratingly, by JUDGING them to be beautiful, I am helping to CREATE their beauty, yet also to CREATE MY FRUSTRATION. I need to direct this beauty-appreciation INWARD: I KNOW that most of the beauties are self-centered, narcissistic, unintelligent (yet there are probably some who aren't, who would REALLY break my heart). I know that beauty will physically fade, while an INNER beauty will only GROW through the years. But you can't jerk off to an inner beauty (the urge to jerk off will fade); you can't sink your teeth into an inner beauty (the teeth will fall out); you can't feast your eyes on inner beauty (until the inner eyes are developed). I have to let GO of the outer eyes, let GO of the illusions, CONCENTRATE on the inner, seek to RAISE THE VIBRATORY LEVEL (GOD, who would have thought I'd be writing in such a vein before?) so that I'm not pushed down by these ills but buoyed up by these budding appreciations of inner pleasures. But when will I SEE these inner beauties? Angels are like perfect men in "Heaven and Hell," and I'd surely be content to feast my inner eyes on THEM, but when will I SEE them? Reminds me of the OLD idea that, if the Devil tempted me with a perfect (to my taste) male body forever, I'd be HIS forever. Why doesn't GOD come forward with the alternative temptation. When will my eyes be opened to the human beauty within? Am I trying too hard, wanting too much? Of all the things I'd like to LET BE, this is the hardest to LET GO OF!

DIARY 12079 QUARTER-TAB OF MESCALINE Also 6/29/77

Take it just before 1, leaving for the theater, and I'm more slightly nervous (and thinking what it'll do with Actualism) than reacting to the substance (which, anyway, is rather old and may be COMPLETELY impotent). Then have the old feelings: I'm controlling it so far, but BECAUSE I'm controlling it, there's nothing new; BUT if it went farther and I couldn't control it, what would I dos THEN, and that would make me nervous. Don't feel like reading on the subway, so I'm aware of the awful, depressed, depressing people riding on the crowded shorter trains in the middle of the day (though I always get seats). Off and trip at the top step of the subway exit, then go for a pizza slice, again with down people, and then to the Quad for the movies, brightening when the black lit a cigarette next to me, then put it out when he saw the sign flashed on the screen about not smoking. Quiet audience, which is fabulous, and "Wizards" may have been more appreciated because it had gotten such bad reviews. Lots of static drawings, but they were charming enough to let them stand. But "Phantom of the Paradise" brought up the typical round of Faust thoughts (see DIARY 12080) and urges to HAVE WRITTEN something as effective as the songs that were written for the movie, and to have the money, as Brian de Palma obviously does, to make his fantasies come true with the faggy Beef, the beautiful girl who sells her soul to the devil but somehow doesn't die, and the bloody end with Paul William's bloody face intercut with the Phantom's reopened heart would as they both die, groupie crawling along beside to grok his record-pressed face, ending by stripping off his shirt and dancing seductively with the group. Note with amusement that Sissy Spacek is listed as Set Handler or Decorator. But I ENVY the movie, because I want to have done something like this, that appeals to so many people, hits home so hard, and yet does it in a way that's ENTERTAINING and FLASHY and painless. The acting is good, though Paul Williams isn't really a turn-on, though he makes a convincing enough devil, and HE produced it, so it's really something that HE'S been doing along the Faust-created-universe way of reality-creating.

DIARY 12080 FAUST THOUGHTS Also 6/29/77

"Phantom of the Paradise" is a takeoff on Faust, and in my stoned state I rather get the idea of myself having ALREADY sold my soul (of published writing) for the mess of entertainments that I continually attend. Think of HOW MUCH I want to have published and HOW LITTLE I actually put in the effort to GET published, and think the contract might already be inviolate. BUT, DAMMIT, I WANT THEM BOTH!! Want BOTH the entertainment to continue to be absorbed (yet why do I SAY or WORRY about that; no matter WHAT I did, I'm SURE I would still leave time for movies and TV and plays and opera and ballet and restaurants and vacations) AND the books to be written to be published. And I AM getting closer to doing the things on my list. But the possibilities of self-delusion are so enormous: can one really KNOW that one has sold his soul to the devil even if he THINKS he has? And worse, have you NOT sold your soul to the devil by any test you can offer, and yet in some level of reality ACTUALLY HAVE SOLD YOUR SOUL? Maybe just living on this EARTH is selling to the devil: in fact it IS: if in ANY life I felt that I didn't want anything more, I wouldn't be on the earth, the devil wouldn't be able to touch any part of my mind or imagination, and the problem wouldn't exist. JUST LIVING produced the problem; just continuing to want more input, more entertainment, more flesh, heightens the problem and elongates the temptation-period. My devil is books and TV and movies and plays and lists. Anything that keeps me INSIDE myself instead of going OUTSIDE to the world of (watch this!) INNER reality can be thought of as being the devil. Now I've at least "merged" "doing for others" with "writing." Let's hope that the schism THERE won't be realized until AFTER I've done the writing I want to do. I can KID myself (same problem as with devil) that writing is for OTHERS, but it's actually for myself: to give me money to buy more pleasures, more bodies, more youthfulness; to give me power to control more things. As mentioned in talking with Bruce, the questions of importance seem to be constantly narrowing down (see DIARY 12081), and the knife-edge of existence becomes sharper and much more clearly demarcating.

DIARY 12093 WHY THE BROODING? 7/4/77

Wake in the morning with my mind filled with things to do. Then by the time I'm up and READY to do things, I don't feel like doing anything more than sitting and brooding. Why? (1) Is it because there are so MANY things to do, and so many recriminations for STILL having so many things to do, that I exhaust myself merely sorting through (and thus figuratively expending the energy EACH TIME to actually DO them) them? (2) Could it be because I have some cereal for breakfast and the sugar hits my system with that hypoglycemic shock that I'd scoffed at, but lowers my blood sugar so that I don't have the energy? (3) Am I really getting so old that I just don't have any energy left? (4) Is something wrong with my sleeping so that I don't get enough rest? (5) Is Actualism sapping my energy somehow? (6) Is my increasing feeling of "not being active-inventive-energy-charged enough" for Dennis BASED on the above or CONTRIBUTORY to the above? Yet possibly a BETTER question might be: why do I PERMIT the brooding: I can always feel it coming on: the temptation to sit in a chair or the corner of the sofa (or, in extreme cases, to throw myself onto my bed) and just THINK THINGS THROUGH. But I KNOW, for a FACT, that I never think things through: either I get catalyzed into action sooner or later or I submerge all thinking in the least immediately-productive activity I can think of: either jerking off or reading (and there may be a similarity there: totally self-absorbed interests that benefit no one but myself, that offer instant gratification (orgasm, number of pages or books read) but that aim toward no higher end. But I HAVE THE ABILITY to stop them instantly: merely get up and do something on my LIST. Even now, sitting typing, I think that I will get to one of the things that's been on my list FOREVER (and forget the fact that Dennis will call and want to do something --- I want to do something, TOO, on a day when it's cool enough to be pleasant working inside, too, rather than going out and reinforcing the sunburn on my arms from watching the ships yesterday); transcribe the Leonard Orr cassette so that I can send it back to him at LAST getting that item off my list of things to do.

DIARY 12113 DECIDE AGAINST TRYING MORE TO GET INTO IBM 7/6/77

Keep looking at the resumes that I'd debated calling Madge about to see if I should write to Gladys on the west coast to see if she can clear my files. As Arnold said, "Better now than later." But the ONE comment which IS true is something that no one cold EVER change: "Thought more about his own interests than he thought about the interests of the company." And since I don't really think of myself as going back there FOREVER (although the security would be good, I'm sure that, after 10 years' savings of, say $100,000, I'd AGAIN be tempted to quit, and then I would have MISSED that time and have ONLY the security that basically I have NOW. Also, if I do NOT get lots of money from IBM, I'd be MORE likely to write and try to make more money THAT way, and it's sure that a SUCCESSFUL writer can make more than someone working at IBM. And gain, there's the marvelous freedom of movement, study, reading, doing, entertainment, and writing by NOT having a 9-5 job. And increasing my indexing rate to $20/hour in some jobs puts me above the earnings from IBM on an hourly basis ANYWAY. And Workman's Circle may save me $80/year on Blue Cross from a group plan, which is one of the hardest liabilities of not working for a company. But Madge wanted me IN PARTICULAR, far harder than Gladys cold have, and Madge I'm SURE has more influence with her bosses than Gladys, the ditz, could have with hers. AND I'm sure that Madge was all for me, which is something that I could NEVER be sure of with Gladys. I'll probably MENTION it in my Xmas card to her, and if something falls out of that, it'll be REALLY getting in the back door. But I'm sure part of it is that I don't want to be REFUSED again: it was HARD to get so excited about the possibility of being accepted by such a great company, and then finding that my former record prevented them from saying yes. And not ALL of it could EVER be expunged: at most, all I'd find is what was the most TELLING argument against me, which is not something that I need. So I re-file the resume and throw away the note to phone Madge again --- will see her socially a few more times, and then see what the company may be like: HER life I certainly don't envy, anyway!

DIARY 12192 TOTALLY WASTED DAY 8/3/77

Forget that I did the dishes, washed socks, picked up cleaning, came twice, and looked through books. I felt GUILTY about looking through books, GUILTY about coming, and GUILTY about not writing letters, catching up with the diary, moving books around, or doing lightwork until late. It's even MORE frustrating since I'm supposed to be "making progress" with lightwork, feeling that same feeling of "I should be doing something ELSE" when I don't really have the INCLINATION or the NECESSITY of doing something else. I don't HAVE to do anything besides read for a couple of weeks, but it would be NICE to send letters out to the two friends of Paul in England, Bill, Mom, Rita, the Griswolds, and President Carter. But I don't HAVE to: I worked all weekend, I DESERVE a day off, in theory, but my brain won't let me ENJOY it. It applies to lightwork, too: I sit and fuss and my brain WON'T be still, so I delay starting, feeling that I'm cheating the work, feeling that I'm wasting time. But not CHANGING it. IF I CONTINUE TO DO IT, why can't I at least SHUT OFF THE BRAIN and enjoy doing what I'm DOING?? The Puritan in me, the Catholic in me, driving me to DO, DO, DO, and not waste time, self-indulge, do things that can be BETTER put off when there are things that should be done SOON. But if I DON'T do it, why do I continue to CONDEMN myself? Either CHANGE, by doing what I think I should be doing, or ENJOY what I'm doing when I'm doing it. That's the crux of it: ENJOYING what I'm doing. I don't mind work; in the final phases of indexing I even rather enjoy it. So why can't I enjoy just reading WHEN I'm reading, rather than feeling that I should be doing something else? I even thought of making myself the promise that if anything takes LESS than 10 minutes to do (such as calling the window-washer, or writing to the people in England), I shouldn't even WAIT at ALL to do it: just do it immediately, since I spend somewhat OVER 10 minutes during the course of the next day just WORRYING about it. Waiting for the breakthrough from est or Actualization or Actualism when I don't WORRY when it won't do any good; just relax and ENJOY THE GAME, regardless of whether I'm rounding GO as fast as I can or not.

DIARY 12208 IRRITABILITY 8/12/77

I told Dennis that he identified my fault perfectly: I assumed people didn't know anything about anything, and therefore judged that I had to show them how to do it. Then I carped on the Metroliner's concentration of businessmen, 15 strong in a whole train of 6 cars, wasting the taxpayers money, but in the evening when we paid $10.50 for the regular train, I was unaccountably frustrated at the Spanish-speaking family, shouting across the silence of the car, the older telling the younger to keep his feet off the seat, and the younger looking around for fuss to raise, something to dirty or break. The doors were constantly being opened and closed by people wandering from car to car: why couldn't they all sit quietly like me, except, of course, for the time I had to go through two cars to get to the john to wash my cruddy face. "Righteous indignation" came up in class, and that's what I felt about the clientele of this train that wouldn't be quiet for my relaxation. Annoyed with the delays, impatient with Dennis's stories, I figured something must be going on and hardly had the patience to find out when and how it was gong to be resolved. The increasing list of things to do just at a time when I thought I was getting things DONE isn't a very helpful item, either. But I keep telling myself that there will ALWAYS be something to do: I'm not going to plays or ballet or movies anymore, but the 8.5 hours of TV watching yesterday was just absurd, so absurd that I continued watching TV this morning, just to watch. Not wanting to excuse myself, not likely to blame it only on the hot, muggy weather that I haven't gotten an air conditioner to ameliorate yet, I feel frustrated, angry, and intolerant. Snapped at the bank clerk this afternoon for having to fill out another check-deposit form when I got EGR's check in the mail today, and was prepared to be annoyed with the mail-clerk asking for identification in picking up my package. Not feeling like doing anything, castigating myself when I don't do anything, adding to my list then annoyed that I do, I wait for some sort of breakthrough, capped by losing a filling last night, necessitating a fussy wait for the dentist on Monday, though at least that gives me a chance to brush a number of times and get my gums back in order.

DIARY 12225 SPARE TIME! 8/20/77

Finish with the Phoenix and think of what else I could do: look into the Studio bookshop, go early uptown, look into other bookstores for my list --- but there's nothing pressing and I find myself in the rare position of having SPARE TIME. Noticed when I got off the subway the usual cruising around Sheridan Square, so when I returned there, I didn't even bother to see if the Gay Men's Health Clinic was open to get a blood test, I looked across and saw empty seats on the benches in front of the square and went over and sat down. Fellows on my right were indulging the latest gossip about the newly-dead Elvis Presley: he was fat, on drugs, gay, crazy, had been great; about his successor: he'd change his name, he sounded like me, and he proceeded to sing some of his songs in a quavery nonentity of a voice. The guy was also into Superman: insisting that all three incarnations (the latest, Chris Reeves, even changed his name to be identified with George Reeves) looked exactly like Elvis. Drunks nearer Christopher went around falling over each other and holding their crotches as if they were about to flash. A black transvestite in a flat halter tottered on high-heels unneeded by his 6-3 height. The "reader" next to me cast me a scornful glance and cruised kids passing: pimply, big-crotched, abstracted, or cruising. Guys with gals went by with big cocks, muscle-builders stretched in all directions, and some fellows over 40 made it clear cruising and good looks needn't stop early. So I sat, under cloud-shard and bright sun, bemused by the huge Man's Country ad with its subsidiary "Come! to Man's Country" below, and passed time in watching people, listening to their talk, holding onto my new-bought books, and shifting in my seat so my crotch would show to best advantage. But no one cruised me; I cruised no one with seriousness, and the time passed with storm clouds gathering so that I felt I had to leave to escape the coming rain. So I had spare time and it reflects itself here as only a list of things that I saw and heard and did, capturing not at all the triumph and DIFFERENTNESS of the sheer FEELING of having 40 minutes to waste doing nothing, nothing on the list being done, yet time passed pleasantly and NOW.

DIARY 12226 THE UNEXPECTED Also 8/20/77

The boundaries continue to narrow: est and Actualism insist that the Being creates everything, so in a sense there CAN be no surprises, nothing unexpected. Yet meditations and x-outs seem designed to produce the unconscious, the hidden, the repressed, bring pains and agonies to the surface. But if there are pains and agonies there, I created them. To bring them to the surface would be to create them again. If I can do it once, I can do it again and again. I'd gotten to these depths before, I'm sure, in LSD and the Nude marathon and grass. I thought I'd reamed them out THEN. Now what do I do? Go in and find nothing, and then accuse myself of covering them up? Go in and find something, and suspect that I'm creating them afresh based ONLY on the need to find SOMETHING? A double-lose situation: I find pain, and I CREATE pain. IF it could be finally gotten rid of, fine, but I thought these OTHER practices were supposed to get rid of them. If I don't find anything, I suspect I'm not doing the process correctly. One good thing about Actualism is their implication that they SEE inside. But Bruce interprets Michael's statements negatively; Rebekah implies I have no one to confide in and that I feel inferior. But I have Dennis and Pope to confide in and feel, more erroneously than the opposite, that I'm SUperior. Yet my brain so insists on controlling the situation that it investigates all the tunnels even BEFORE I reach any cheese, and tries to EVAPORATE the unexpected. Where's the jolt of "Tales of Power" when something happens that COMPLETELY blows him away? I've hit a FEW "coincidences" in Actualism, but aside from the jolt of deja vu, or "he read my mind," there no UPLIFT of enormous power --- or is that because I'm not INVESTING efforts that can be used as a lever to uplift? But I am not supposed to be the power factor: that's the property of my BEING, which I have gotten only the SLIGHTEST indications of, no more than on grass or LSD before. And, like a honeymoon, the more I see Rebekah and Bruce make perfectly human mistakes, the more I mistrust them. Maybe THAT'S one of the goodies about the couple coming in December --- maybe I'll invest THEM with the power to see ME through to power.

DIARY 12238 TIME AGAIN 8/23/77

Poor Dennis is feeling trapped: Chalkware article to finish; Cookbook article to do; last index to finish; Atlantic City weekend coming up, no movies or no sex, so he thinks, and then the week at Dana's --- though with me, surely. I feel the same thing: doing OTHER things are so pleasant that I stalled getting to the index, letting it go for the last three days of this week, and then the possible trip to Atlantic City cutting off much of Friday (not really, only 4 afternoon hours, but it SEEMS like a lot), so that I debated canceling the movie tonight, even though we BOTH want to see it. Tried to tell Dennis that he needed a vacation, but he's stuck on Tree to the extent that he looked at the 10 hours as "5 hours Wednesday and 5 hours Thursday" for the time needed on it. I tried to think of ways to make it easier for him, like dinner out tonight, but that'll have to come when HE comes across a bit more positively. I thought LAST week was so marvelous (partly thanks to the x-out?) with time: things just KEPT getting done, and even THIS week has been pretty nice --- and OF COURSE I'll finish the Cerebral index by Friday's leaving, but I won't be able to cater to Dennis quite so much, or even help him with some typing, for example. But still time seems to be an item for me, even extending to this morning when Rebekah called and we made plans for my altered lessons because of my various vacations. (And I just now take LOTS of time TRYING to find the date of Brighton's auto-tour, but can't). Time always comes up during lightwork, which is sad, because I've committed the hour, so there's NO use worrying about it, yet I still do. Then I think about it a lot when I'm reading books that I don't have to read, or typing pages like this that I don't actually HAVE to type, so there's no way of getting around the thought that I'm hung up on time and nothing that I do seems to make much difference in it, and the only thing I can do is type out an occasional page about it and hope that it exorcises the idea somehow, and that it's NOT engraining it deeper into the experiential existential core of my being, as has been engraved the idea of getting down to the bottom of the page no matter what drivel I type in order to fill it out to that point.

DIARY 12262 NOISE 9/2/77

Out of bed at 8:15 to marvel that the slide of wrecked Pierrepont Hotel materials hasn't started yet, and that the DOG isn't barking next door. BUT there's something REPLACING it: Johdet seems to be living with a man, and their clear voices rise directly from their kitchen window and open French doors two floors below, across the airshaft, and directly into my open kitchen window and almost directly to my ears in bed. I marvel that Mrs. Johnson hasn't gotten pissed at them, but possibly living ABOVE them she doesn't hear as much of their noise as I do across the way. Always something. Then when I'm finishing lightwork I hear TV sounds that do NOT sound like the faggot down at the garage-house, but that goes off quickly, and I DO suppose that MY TV and record-playing carries to many of the nearby ears. But the people next door have quieted considerably, the dog's stopping is quite nice, and Mrs. Watson doesn't seem to move around NEARLY so heavily as before, but I'm sure that's more subjective than objective. Also, the squeaking faucet seems to have been fixed with a lot of banging earlier this week, and the people down there seem to have moved out: they were loading a truck with furniture on Wednesday when I went out, so we'll have someone new down there. Once or twice the cat careened across the floor noisily, but it's been better, too. Couple days ago a workman was upstairs scraping the floor (as he was banging away on her French doors last week when I was finishing the Cerebral index), but in general she's seemed to be much more quiet, and I can always look forward to the coming cool weather to force everyone's doors and windows to be closed and keep down the noise. There are murmurs from below every so often in the morning, but not so often that I can get paranoid about it, and I'm not home enough evenings or weekends to really let their noises get through to me, and leaving the fan on more often than not provides an adequate cover for whatever noises from neighbors there MAY be. So it seems that finally, through the est upset series and because of part of Actualism, the noise factor has ceased to be such an enormous problem, EXCEPT that I read that Hicks will be used for the BQE traffic when THAT'S being repaired during the SPRING, getting two lanes of northbound traffic from it. UGH!

DIARY 12263 GETTING ORGANIZED Also 9/2/77

Tantalizingly close, the idea of being "caught up" is reflected in the immediacy of my handling certain things. Felt better when I put up "Places to Go," "QPBC," "Restaurants," "Actualism," "Current Travel," and "To be Filed" folders on the bottom shelf of the bookcase to sort out THOSE items, and then the space ABOVE that started getting filled, so this morning I made out 3 MORE folders for THAT area: "Handle Immediately," "Letters to Answer," and "Wait for Proper Time." That makes me feel enormously better: take care of the "Handle Immediately" by sending off things and making up a "Workmen's Circle" section in the desk-drawer file and checking that I HAD listings for Blackwood's "In the Realm of Terror." Rather sorry to see that I have about six letters to answer immediately, but THREE of them are about England, one to Arnie, one to Bill, one to Public Theater for setting to music, BUT the idea of having these SO organized makes me feel quite good. Tending to slow down on the Vascular index now that I saw I said I'd get it only by the 8-9, but it IS close enough to there to be starting on. Even the typing of the previous page about NOISE (see DIARY 12262) and this page implies that I'm having a nice feeling of getting caught up. The one-pointedness of the Monadic Power Ray feels good too: when I think of all I want to DO to get my stuff out (work on "John" and "Throwback" and videotape ideas and "New Faust"), it feels better to get more CENTERED in that direction. When I come to dealing with MYSELF, it feels better to not THINK so much about how many different things I have to do, just do WHAT's NEXT and leave the rest to be done when they're next, that my creativity can be more one-pointed, and that my nerves and emotions can be more held up in the MOMENT rather than racing into various parts of the future when I have to do various things. Even the DO list seems to be ALMOST up to date, though there are little things like checking the air conditioner plug and calling Actualism that I put on ANOTHER "SLOP list" so that I can get them ALL down without adding to my REGULAR list. A form of madness, but it FEELS good, particularly when I remember AGAIN that I have to phone Bob Leap with the Vascular ESTIMATE, and maybe see about another job, too, and add that I have to give my vacation schedule to Margaret Willard. There are STILL so many things to do that I haven't LISTED yet!!!

DIARY 12280 MAINTENANCE PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS 9/10/77

PROBLEMS SOLUTIONS

1. Brushing teeth Evolution to no teeth
2. Buying, cleaning, storing, changing clothes Society with no clothes
3. Buying, cooking, eating, cleaning up after food Evolution to no assimilation
4. Bathing, shitting, pissing, drinking, exercising Evolution to no body
5. Souvenirs, lists, programs, diary Stop keeping them
6. Thinking, worrying, writing Stop doing them
7. Do lists, schedules, calendars Stop doing anything
8. Sleeping, waking, standing, sitting, existing Die

I had an inkling it might get to this point, but I didn't think it would happen so quickly. Of course there's ANOTHER solution: ENJOY DOING IT that shifts the solution from the idea of "stop whatever it is that needs maintaining" to the idea of "Enjoy the maintenance so there won't be a problem." I didn't put down TV and movies and ballet as "maintenance problems," since I don't think of them as problems. If I enjoyed a wider variety of home-cooked food, I wouldn't find cooking and eating such a chore. And THAT statement leads me to the obvious EXAGGERATION in the whole thing: I really don't find EATING a chore, it's just that I'd rather do it WITH someone and would rather spend the time doing something MORE pleasurable. So many of the other tasks MAKE the pleasures ATTAINABLE: making lists and thinking leads me to new activities, writing clears the slate so that I can think other things, and exercising maintains the body so that I can continue to have sex and enjoy life, without a stomach getting in the way. But it's hard to keep these ENDS in mind when I'm standing in front of the sink idly maneuvering my electric toothbrush around my mouth. Though I enjoy being able to find dance reviews and Actualism classes in neat volumes, when I take the time to SORT out the pages, it DOES tend to seem a waste, and then I think of ADDING to the waste by coming up with an INDEX, which would cover thousands of cards, which would serve to unify pages, for instance, like these about MAINTENANCE, about which I've written a DOZEN times, I'm sure.

DIARY 12281 LISTENING TO MUSIC IN THE NIGHT Also 9/10/77

Smoke bidi and come by 11:45, so I'm not ready for sleeping, so I go out and listen to a selection of music: "Harold in Italy" which I pull off since it seems so lugubrious; the start and climax of Mahler's 8th, which sounds so phony in the singing that I get disgusted with it, the climax of Mahler's 2nd, which is so spectacularly and spaciously engineered that it's rather what I want, with electric chills running the total length of the sides of my body at one point; highlights from "Das Rheingold," in which I think it's Donner's voice is truly beautiful; and "Les Preludes," which returns as the source of so many echt-musical memories from deepest childhood when it was used for "The Lone Ranger." Then come the fantasies: of painting with thick impastoed oils back and forth so that it builds up a literal HILLOCK of paint, and then CUTTING it in some precise way so that each tiny cross-section could be framed, becoming an intricate POINTILLIST study in the TRAVERSES of the various planes that the colors made --- and this leads me into various contemplations of the viewpoints and angles of awareness and sidelights possible on REALITY. The seeing of the three Silversword plants as cross-sections of a TUBE of living Silverswords that made their way down the hillside as plants, roots, seeds, seedlings, and plants again. This morning I thought of "what is it that's REAL about a rainbow" (and thinking about what it IS that we see when we see color, I check NOW to see that I still have the September Scientific American from 1968 that DEALS with color, filed in the "Laser" section of the scrapbook, and read some articles for the past 45 minutes), and changed it to a MIRAGE, since there seems to be an easier thought about the MIRAGE not existing if people don't exist to see it than a RAINBOW not existing without eyes. But "mirage" is the wrong word to seek existence of: a "mirage' IS something seen by an eye, but the system of reflecting images in heat waves IS still there WITHOUT an eye, so THAT system, without which there would BE no mirage, exists even if there isn't a person and thus no mirage. I again try to think of videotape images for these musics, but I'm not feeling very inventive beyond blotches of color and vaguely militaristic pennants and trumpets for "Les Preludes."

DIARY 12287 FEELING NEBBISHY 9/12/77

Slouch through much of the day, reading "Gravitation" until I feel about to fall asleep, then go to nap, not sleeping, feeling cold to start with and then warm while laying there, but when I take my temperature it's not even up to 98.6, only 98.2, so I figure it's low metabolism and lack of energy rather than any viral sickness. When I stretch my legs out I feel remnants of the extreme push I put on them last night when I jerked off so drastically that I thought I'd never relax sufficiently afterwards. Then I don't seem to be able to TYPE accurately anymore, coordination doesn't seem to be there, and I don't have a feeling of ACCOMPLISHING anything. Still lots of things to do, which dutifully parade through my mind, but I just can't get up the energy to do anything. There IS the thought that if I DO get to the typewriter, as I finally do, now, that the momentum will carry me through my building up some sort of adrenaline. At a point I merely wonder if I may not be having an ANXIETY ATTACK, since my stomach feels vaguely fluttery and my mind strangely clouded with portentions of something bad about to happen, but this is merely depression, I tell myself, and the best way out of it is to get up and do something, preferably not terribly demanding, so I figure to at least start typing on the 1977 page-contents between 7 and 8, when I can at least stop and watch TV. Wonder if it might not be a combination of fairly "off" food, such as the smelly pork chops and too-defrosted spinach last night, along with the oddly gummy cake, maybe from too-old baking soda or too much oil in the recipe, and the re-cooked and re-cooked roast beef that I just had for lunch. But it's not a stomach thing, it's more a head thing: no get-up-and-go, no enthusiasm for anything, and it might be connected with the distance that seems to be developing between Dennis and me, though he seems close enough, affectionate enough, and smiles broadly at me often enough. Maybe because I didn't do lightwork on Sunday until 1:30, and then only after three glasses of wine might have left me with a hangover that made me feel lousy all morning, and again lack of exercise that makes me feel heavy, coupled with a too-tight waist on my pants which makes me feel throttled --- and why can't it simply be a little of ALL these things, and not just one all-curing malady that, if SINGLY corrected, would make me feel better than I've felt in the last few weeks?

DIARY 12300 SPACED-OUT MOOD 9/16/77

Despite how much I may say that "my life is working," there are still lots of moments that aren't the most beautiful. A lot of those moments concentrated themselves this morning and afternoon and hopefully can be distilled (and eliminated thereby) onto these pages. PART of the mood is the thought that details from the past (how I finally burped a couple times on Wednesday during an Actualism class, ironically when no one else was doing it; how Dennis and I talked about spontaneity at the Bagel Nosh last night; what the cartoons at the Fantastic Animation Festival were like; how I SHOULD work on indexes and writings and diary and STOP thinking about collecting books and the lists of things I have to do (and RIGHT NOW, as a point of interest, I go shave the nose-hairs that have been growing and niggling at me; and I sprayed the bathroom cabinet with roach spray to do away with the crawlies on the bottom shelf). THEN, rather to my surprise, I get tired typing and immediately continue with stuffing the empty file-card boxes with travel stuff so that I can clean up the bookshelves, putting on "The Orchestral Tommy" to give an up background sound. That feels GOOD until Bruce calls, about 2:25, and then we talk about Actualism and how he sees Marilyn as getting much lighter compared with what she was before and my complaining about how she always wears the same black dress, and how I'll know she's changed by (this is a new typewriter ribbon, and thank god it works) seeing her dressed entirely in white sometimes. The NEXT typing is done after a spate of work around the apartment, which makes me feel very good and changes the tenor of the whole place (by disposing of the bicycle at last, and finding a place to store the air conditioner, not to mention the possession of a clothes closet in the bedroom for the first time since I moved into the place). Things have clipped along, and now I feel the pressures of VERY few things (at 6 pm Sunday, 9/18): want to eat, do lightwork, catch up on the diary, watch TV, and start on the Hypothalamus index, and that's just as it should be, and I have now officially graduated to a dark ribbon for everything now that Richard's brought me three from IBM.

DIARY 12365 SO MANY THINGS TO DO 10/15/77

Another page of this type, full of details that I'm too lazy to write down on a list, so they crowd my mind as they crowd the page, items so easy to accomplish it's almost like a delayed orgasm: I get the feeling I must be putting off completion because the completion then feels so much better. But I want to trim the plants, fix the rattle in the refrigerator, write to Mom and Rita about my trip to Paris, phone Paul Bosten and other friends with whom I've dropped out of touch, clear off my desk, finish with my stamps, change the toilet seat, scour the sink, wash dishes, re-mount the elk's horns, read books, do the "Echocardiography" and the Raven index, send out "John," and THAT is tempting because I'm debating just STARTING on that: retyping pages so that I'll have something to xerox when I take back the index, and send it out to Meredith while there seems to be a demand for gay books, much like the way I just launched into stamps when I got back from Paris, to the detriment of catching up with the diary, which I still haven't done, which contributes to the clutter on the desk. Then I want to write pages about my sex-line to Dennis when he's jerking off on my chest, insights into Actualism, my frustration in writing about sex (see DIARY 12364) and with so many things to do (this page). I still haven't sent off the letters about JOYI, nor transcribed the tape from Bill, nor heard the slide-show tape of Curly that John made, nor heard the intro tape that I bought for $16 from Actualism. I haven't recorded our conversations about my pushiness, haven't put away the Paris souvenirs, haven't filed the travel stuff from the drawer, and haven't thrown out nearly enough stuff from the closets. Want to sift through my clothes to see what I have to wear, including the pants I bought through Arnie from Macy's last Christmas that I haven't worn much, though I recall black flannel that I haven't worn yet. Have to get my coat cleaned again to try to get rid of that sweat smell, have to put away the air conditioner and caulk up the doorway again, changing the clothing racks to have more room, and by then it'll be time to catch up with the year-end diary stuff, without even CONSIDERING whether I'll be spending three weeks in San Diego or not!

DIARY 12368 WASTED DAY 10/18/77

How many moralistic, puritanical, action-oriented judgments are involved in that adjective "wasted"? Michael Sullivan and I just now laugh about that: as if from an OBJECTIVE sense anything is EVER really "wasted." At least it can stand as an example of a day that one chooses not to have in order to retain a concept of a "used" day. Part of the frustration of being nailed to a routine is to wonder what it would be LIKE to have a day totally different from the routine. MY "routine" could be called "usefulness," so that all spare time is filled with reading, writing, thinking constructively, planning, listing, filing, organizing, and "making valuable." So a day in which the time is spent in NONE of those, since moralistically blindly watching WHATEVER is on television can hardly be called "valuable," IS a diversion from the routine. Funny, writing this page YESTERDAY would have produced a more self-recriminating page: today it just seems to be part of the past, part of learning, part of processing, part of life. So the day could ADD the value of showing that such things DO pass, and that they'll pass, probably, whether or NOT I feel terribly guilty, agitated, frustrated, listless, low-energied, or desperate to get out of it without being willing to actually TAKE the effort to GET out of it. Maybe I was tired, maybe getting over or coming down with disease, maybe actually processing something Actualism-wise. BUT, however, it really doesn't seem to MATTER: WHICHEVER it was, or whether it was something I have no idea of, MAKES NO DIFFERENCE IN THE PASSED DAY. It makes no difference now, either, unless I want to "learn" something from it other than the "fact" that it IS passed, and this is a different one, and I don't have to feel today as I did yesterday, don't have to see WHY I feel differently, and didn't have to do anything yesterday OR today to CHANGE from yesterday to today. Merely living through it is the only duty required, and in fact there's no way to AVOID doing just that. The thing that MIGHT be avoided is making it so SIGNIFICANT, getting rather back to the all-encompassing "so what" of est, but in a "more positively constructive" sense than the shoulder-shrug the est philosophy seems more easily to conjure up than, for instance, Actualism does.

DIARY 12388 WHAT IS IT THAT I WANT? 10/24/77

Feeling depressed again. Possibly because of too much sex last night, too little sleep, too little exercise, too little accomplished. I feel just lousy today. Managed to get another item off the list of things to do, but it turns out to be the ONLY thing that I did of "value" today. But I DID DO what it was I wanted to do; and I DIDN'T have to work. I had cereal for breakfast and only popcorn for a second meal at 5 pm while watching TV, and that might be another reason for feeling pretty depressed. Watched "Tycoon" (and wasn't too pleased with it) and sat through another Celebrity Connection because I didn't want to turn off TV. Then (but this is turning into a DIARY page!) did lightwork that made me VERY depressed. It's the old truism: if I have PROBLEMS to worry about, I don't INVENT problems and depressions. But when I DON'T have problems, THAT'S when things seem to lack flavor. Actually do exercising to help with that part of it, but since it doesn't produce instant results, I'm disappointed. What WITH lightwork, having everything my own way, and supposedly being more and more enlightened every day, it makes days like this even MORE depressing, and actually envying the claims of Scientology that there IS no backsliding. How incredible it would be to get better every day in every way, and NEVER slide back. Where would you BE? As Dennis said when I reported my malaise, "You'd better not do anything about it, because then you'd be rid of it, and THEN where would you be?" Tonight would be the PERFECT night to get stoned and go to the baths, but I'd wanted to go to the baths, but Arnie reneged on his offer, and I can't very well go for twofers with one person. Having to do the dance programs Saturday alone may have been a downer, too. But I HAVE the opportunity to be with Dennis, and I don't FEEL like doing it --- but to get back to the original question, WHAT DO I feel like doing? Maybe reading, except that I'd want to do something more productive in a little while. Something productive, then, like an index --- but it really doesn't have to be in soon, so I don't have the PRESSURE to do it. Solve one problem, and as est says, there's another one invented by YOURSELF to fill the gap!

DIARY 12392 THOUGHTS ABOUT MONEY/YOUTH/SECURITY 10/25/77

"Manon" on TV (see DIARY 12390) sings so much about "Las Jeunesse" during which time should be spent in enjoyment, and something later about how money isn't important when you're young and beautiful, set me again thinking in the melancholy ruts of security. I'd quit IBM partly because I had so much money, wanted to take more vacations, have more time for writing and seeing friends and being entertained. I wasn't confident enough that the company or, indeed, even the NATION would be around for me to enjoy the fruits of my savings. But that was in my lucrative 20s. Now that I'm in my 40s, I'm thinking differently about it, while (I consider) there's still time to do something about it: particularly when I hear Bob Rosinek buying a second and third house at the beach and a house in New York, Paul Bosten buying a house in Brooklyn, Sergio and Kenneth buying a house, and Mark Eliot looking for a house. THEY are looking toward their future. I have my stamps, books, coins, and records to think of selling later, but that wouldn't produce THAT much money. I keep thinking I should have some PROPERTY which will increase or decrease with the economy, yet still BE there, except in the event of increasingly remote atomic attack. Now that the US HAS stayed around for 20 more years, it seems MORE likely to stay around for ANOTHER 20 years. And then, lacking people to GO with, I'm not traveling as much as I'd thought I would, partly because I'm finding so much to do with life as it IS, partly because no one ELSE says "Come on, let's GO!" Still think about writing: the time to establish a career is EARLY, so that they get used to publishing WHATEVER you write, demanding more for high payment.; Starting when I'm 60 will hardly give me an income when I'm 90. So I keep thinking about "John," about "Whaddya Know?" about other things that I've sent out and haven't gotten back. But thinking and wishing won't make it so. The two items that will be LEFT on my list are writing and showing my writings to others. So security comes down to writing and publishing again. I don't want to be secure, I want to be LAVISHLY wealthy so I can AFFORD to buy apartment, tricks, meals, trips, THROUGHOUT my age.

DIARY 12414 URGE TO WRITE AGAIN 10/31/77

Now that the uncalm of the calmness energy is passed, some of the wisdom of the wisdom may be coming through. I thought clearly of the three weeks I wanted to spend in San Diego: what would I GET: three weeks in a town I've seen already, staying with a family who doesn't know Dennis's gay, spending money for the flight that I could better spend to some NEW place, and not having a typewriter to USE my time valuably. Where I could GET through the list of things to do before then, and either REWRITE "Acid House" as a play, EDIT "John" to be sent to Scott Meredith, or WRITE "Throwback." I could steer clear of indexes to let myself get involved in it, freed of the needs of Actualism, Dennis, and my do-list. Of course I would have the pains of being in the HOUSE all the time, being thought left behind by a family-visiting Dennis, possibly getting depressed along Christmas-time by not having anyone to BE with. But I kept thinking about the MONEY: I don't want ENOUGH money to live on, I want LOTS of money. It seems I just went INTO this recently (about a week ago, see DIARY 12392), but with that page I didn't have a SOLUTION, and now it seems I have a TIME in which to do the writing that I said I wanted to get into then, so maybe things can be WORKING now. But I keep adding things to the do list, so I may STILL have a large list by the middle of December, since I figure I might as well PROVE that I'll be into it BEFORE he leaves, so that if it FAILS I can STILL go with him. So I should figure to start about December 1, get a couple of hundred pages written or edited before he leaves, or go with him. With the items added to my list, I should come down to about 10 by the end of November. Then, too, there's the feeling that I've been spending too much time with Dennis, that being apart might make being together more special, that I might have time for myself, my films, maybe even meeting new people, about which I'm getting more and more conscious: HE'S having all sorts of new encounters, I haven't been with anyone new, except in dreams, for AGES. But I'm not DECIDING, I'm just saying that now it looks as if I WON'T be going to San Diego, and we'll see how the decision stands or falls later.

DIARY 12447 WHERE AM I NOW? 11/9/77

Hadn't done one of these in ages, and it seemed a good thing to summarize DIARY 12443-2446. I'm feeling GOOD about getting things off the do list that had been on there for months, clearing the (Dianetics again?) deck for the LAST items to be done, so that I can get to WRITING again. There's not the thought that I should STOP Actualism, since now it's "what I do now" rather than TM or est or group therapy (which Dennis suggested and I said I didn't care for), but that I want it to be MORE productive, since everyone seems to be getting more out of it than I am. I'm now willing to concentrate more on bodywork, thanks to the overwhelmingly positive (from the point of view of interest AND from physical results that I can STILL feel in my body) experience with Joan Ann, which should facilitate the whole thing. Whoops! Did the whole thing just VANISH?? I don't have a PROBLEM, I have a SOLUTION: take more bodywork along with Actualism to improve my chances of getting real goodies! AND the possibility of doing some Dianetic sessions with Dennis, to see if I can hit any engrams from THAT angle. Actualism, sadly, doesn't seem to appeal to the MIND that much, only the EMOTIONS. If I can "use" Dennis and Dianetics for the mind, Actualism for the emotions, and sex and bodywork for the senses, SOMETHING will probably give. Sex with BobR doesn't have to get better because it probably WON'T ever be back to the grass-stained beginnings: even when I tried one of his cigarettes yesterday it didn't work, so there goes THAT. And with the use of POBox 1301, or whatever, there may be chances of meeting new sex partners, too, as well as getting to the Club Baths sometime --- though I'm reluctant to add it to the do list, let's just hope it'll fall out in the wash. So it was great that I GOT to this page!!

DIARY 12465 COLD AS BEING A CHANCE TO REST AND BE ALONE 11/14/77

The cold makes a nice excuse not to have sex when I don't care to (see DIARY 12462), and I also use it with some relief to be alone the next evening, and it begins to dawn on me that colds ARE useful. I remember when I got them at work: never when things were VERY busy, but always AFTER things were over and I could SPARE time at work. Rather than being bored there, I did seem to be able to catch a cold and spend the time more interestingly in bed, or reading, or even writing than spending the time at work. This doesn't work, however, when one takes a cold to work, but that seldom happens. Then when I got a large number of colds at IBM, I began thinking that I might want another job, that something was wrong, and I acted on it. But one seldom seems to get colds or diseases of ANY kind when one is traveling, except the intestinally connected ones that hardly slows one down anyway. So it might seem that colds are ALWAYS trotted forth when there's nothing BETTER to do: it gives one a chance to be VERY lazy, to indulge oneself in lots of bed-rest, to read, to stay away from friends and complain about being bored. This DOES seems what it means to "have one's resistance down." Usually one is so eager for life and activity that one doesn't WANT a cold. But then when the activity palls and one wants a vacation from a regular sort of life, the resistance is lowered and here comes a cold to MAKE things quite different. Self-pity might have something to do with it: when my do-lists are depleting I might find myself faced with EXTINCTION, and to give MYSELF something to do, my body opens its doors to cold germs(?), flu viruses (?), overdoses of unknown internal secretions(?), adverse cosmic vibrations(?), depressed brain waves(?), or transalpinian glorches(?) and comes down with a cold. Beautiful women use headaches (but they probably take aspirin for them, too) as excuses, but I have colds, since I never get headaches, except when Actualism is pressing too firmly down on my preconceptions. Now if one could find the same sort of excuse in cancer (in mother when all the children have left the nest?) or tuberculosis (to balance an unfavorable sibling relationship?) or arteriosclerosis (as a way of saying have pity on me, I'm getting old and deserve special attention?), it might be a fabulous things for humanity and a DISASTER for physicians and surgeons and hospitals!

DIARY 12469 LOVE EVERYBODY BECAUSE I'M AGING Also 11/14/77

Either the performers are getting younger (at least in television productions) or I'm getting older, because it seems that in the beginning there was no one outside the ballet corps that I'd care to have anything to do with, and now gradually there are leading singers who seem VERY attractive, not least of whom was the marvelous Beverly Sills as "Manon," but when it culminated with Placido Domingo in his slim-waisted outline of a white body on his large black suit in "Rigoletto," I thought maybe this was a GENERALIZATION: all the gurus and sages and seers who recommend that we "love everybody" are already SO OLD that everyone looks young and virile (or at least their FOLLOWERS all look young and virile) that they would think, with the best orgiasts, that if the lights went out it wouldn't matter WHO they were messing with. Obviously "Love everybody" doesn't mean "have sex with everybody," but looking on people with favor for their physical attractiveness obviously improves as the person ages --- and concurrently has fewer and fewer people go to bed with him. Stage shows seems more idealized because they're not as bad as the geriatric viewer, TV shows show everyone young and white-teethed and curly-haired. Dance halls give way to discos where even the VOLUME of the sound is enough to show you it's not good for you. Rock gives way to Punk Rock that is physically assaultive and alienating. Yet still the faces look attractive, still the bodies are fatless and well-proportioned, every punk seemingly having worked digging ditches to get his biceps and pectorals. Greater determination and precise feeding would surely help these physical specimens, as would vitamin supplements and mineral intake. And, in the past, the succeeding generations seemed to get TALLER, too, so that there was a shrinking of view AND of outlook as the person got older. Wider travel would narrow his environs by comparison, too: in a few more years I won't even WANT to climb Kilimanjaro or see Antarctica. And, sedentary, dribbling, I'll say that everyone is beautiful, that all who want to come and sit and worship at my feet may do so, and I won't have to wonder who's as old as I am sitting next door in competition.

DIARY 12471 ONE DAY'S DO-LIST Also 11/14/77

Wake up and do lightwork with SO MANY pages to write and things on my mind that I finally have to make out a LIST of things that I want to do TODAY: DIARY PAGES TO BE TYPED TODAY: 1) Metal-eyed beauty based on Eric Shea from Poseidon Adventure and John V. Shea from Romeo (see (DIARY 12470); 2) two alphaphone experiences (see DIARY 12463); 3) love everyone with aging since sexuality pangenizes (see DIARY 12469); 4) dream of yesterday: ice around cowl of cape, another of travel (see DIARY 12467); 5) cold as rest and aloneness (see DIARY 12465); 6) Rigoletto on TV (see DIARY 12468); 7) Janos Starker (see DIARY 12464); 8) this day's do list (this page, DIARY 12471); 9) these pages as engrams (see DIARY 12472); 10) my judging machine (see DIARY 12473); 11) last week's strains (see DIARY 12474); 12) lightwork usage in life (see DIARY 12475).
DO LIST ITEMS, since I have to do THREE today to keep up to date!
1) Entertainment list catch-up to parallel program put-away for a full item.
2) Brooklyn library, at 6 pm because I'm due at Bruce's at 7 pm for bodywork.
3) Write P.O. Box letters DESPITE the fact that checks haven't come and I can't
MAIL 'em.
4) Phone on Virology pages, and find that they won't be in until NEXT week.
5) Check bolt size in bathroom, which really doesn't belong on this list.
OTHERS: Call Actualism about x-out, oil-and-vibrator before Lois, white in Reunion in Consciousness to C2 or C1, Thoughts are bones my immortal tosses brain-mind to do lessons, and what's Actualism's relations to Dianetics? Lightwork, finished at 10:05; exercise; alphaphones; phone Dennis by 2:55; phone Pope by 11:20 (and pick up his porno, and item on my list WITH his going over my astrology chart, so that's HALF on its way); start "Whaddya Know?" as something to ease another days' work; xerox resumes by 2:50, to send out a couple, which I haven't done yet; but rubber snakes, which I tried to do, but nowhere in the Heights seemed to have them; phone Arnie by 12:05, and return the plastic container, which I didn't even have on the list, but which I did; and phone Bruce, which I did and I'm to be at his place at 7 pm, since his first day of work saw him at three customers' and he fixes his first loud printer in four minutes flat, and feels VERY good about it.

DIARY 12472 DIARY PAGES AS ENGRAMS Also 11/14/77

I think of these extra pages, suddenly, as the ENGRAMS that I'm working on, but then note: are these going into memory (my DIARY) because they're now RELEASED, or do I release them and then by typing them up put them BACK as engrams? Well, the latter isn't proper under the rules, since I'm not (hopefully) unconscious when I'm working with them. But I don't have to be working THROUGH them, either, I can just be dramatizing them in order to mull over their content again (re-see picture of Proust sitting in his year-old bathwater, bringing it to his lips, laving it over his head and chest, making it more fulsome as the years go by). At least it feels good to be able to make out the LIST of pages that I want to write, since then they don't PREY ON MY MIND until I write them. Still find myself adding comments to the session with Joan Ann, for instance (see DIARY 12440), just as they come up, so that I don't have to KEEP thinking of them. It may take OFF some of the pressures to write, since by noting down the PLOT and the DRAMA, I've defused that pressure --- though I know when I get back INTO it, the energy to reorganize, correct, and add more builds up enough to get me through, if I have the time, which I seem to be leading up to. Some of the pages are repetitious, too: such as having too much to do (though they take a different form, and become "One Day's do-list" as one DIARY 12471), or feeling extraordinarily good, or terribly poorly. Things with various people seem to change --- most decidedly with John, somewhat less about BobR or Arnie or Azak or Dennis of Joan, and I'd hope that even the way I EXPRESS my happiness or unhappiness would change with what point of view I'm looking from. So they don't REALLY seem like engrams, or else they'd be gone already, but I'd not be willing to see WHAT they'd be, unless it hits me with a flourish and I find myself becoming another L. Ron Hubbard or Russell P. Schofield and finding myself leading a movement (which I obviously would like to do, as see bottom of DIARY 12469). It'll be much easier to have pretty people around when I'm rich and famous than when I'm just ordinary me; DESPITE Bruce's talk of God punishing the rabbi who wished for fame and notoriety --- by GIVING it to him.

DIARY 12473-74 MY JUDGING MACHINE / LAST WEEK'S STRAINS Also 11/14/77

Interesting juxtaposition of these TWO items on the page-list, and it occurs to me they're the SAME problem: I HAD last week's strains BECAUSE of my judging machine. I'd been JUDGING that I hadn't been making progress in Actualism, so I had the STRAIN of trying to figure out how to make more progress. I JUDGED Joan Ann as someone of force on Monday (rather than just accepting her and letting her go), so I talked with her, probably got her to speak inappropriately about Actualism (since she said bad things about them, I GUESS it was inappropriate from Actualism's point of view), and then had such an activating body-session that I felt it for the next four days (how I WISH I could JUDGE that it was because I was getting more sensitive to how things were ACTUALLY working, rather than JUDGING that she pressed harder than the others did, therefore I felt it more). I JUDGED BobR as being disappointed (he didn't SAY so) with my sex on Tuesday, and came up with all the things that stemmed from that. I JUDGED at the start of Wednesday's lesson that I'd have to drop out of the group, and then JUDGED that the tears from the left-half of the field put me back into the group, and then making the JUDGMENT that I'd have a lot to work with, that effects alternated, and that it was good at this time, all of which got trounced by the teachers as IMAGES. I JUDGED most of the things Bill said while listening to his tape on Thursday, which was part of what he CONDEMNED me for, but I went right ahead and did it, and then JUDGED HIS "Help Me, help me; betcha CAN'T!" fit my present situation so closely that I've now figured that someone deep inside IS calling out "Help me" and I'd remembered so sadly from before. But these things ARE getting to good levels, since I DO recall a bit of unconsciousness which probably had pain: just before they peeled me off the floor in the second LSD trip: THAT'S probably a time that I need help with! Been thinking, along with Dianetics, which I've been reading ALL THROUGH the week, that maybe I should look into the great pain of when my dog was killed crossing Oakdale or Crosby Street. Then I'm JUDGING that my progress on the do-list is to my advantage, so that I can get to the writing that I will JUDGE is what I want to do the rest of my life to make money enough to enjoy what I JUDGE I will WANT to enjoy the rest of my life. With Bruce I judged him to be confused, but thought myself above it; now he knows that I can be confused too, and I don't like his laughing at me, kindly though it may be. Haven't got the call from Actualism yet, but I want to see what their reaction to my wondering how thoroughly to light my food will be, yet I don't even have that on my list, since I've judged that it would be too awful to ask. My judging machine CAUSED last weeks' strain (is there a reason I made weeks plural?), (as said on DIARY 12473), because if the judging machine hadn't BEEN there, there wouldn't have been the STRAIN. I would have taken the body session and effortlessly decided that I should be taking more body sessions. The class in Actualism on Wednesday would have been a Wednesday class in Actualism, and not a turning point, the lowest point, or a high point of my career in it. BobR would have been BobR and Dennis would have been Dennis and I would NOT have been the old I had I acted that way, and Bill would have probably NOTICED something different if I'd been willing to GIVE him something different on the tape on Friday or in the letter on Saturday. But then maybe there would be far fewer of these pages, which my first impulse was to say would be bad, but looking at all I've done today (12 pages SO far, and I'm not near the end yet) INSTEAD of things off the do list (the REAL do list, not the day's do list on DIARY 12471) --- or even making UP the daily do list --- I could have done a lot MORE if these pages hadn't been so many. But, as usual, I look at them as some sort of exorcism that CLEARS THE BOARDS (so who says what they do in the line of engrams?) for my mind so that I can get onto something NEW. Bill implied that my CONSTANT going to something new may have denied me the depths of Gurdjieff, but I think it's gotten me into Actualism, and at THIS point I seem to be willing to throw MORE of my chances in life toward Actualism (see DIARY 12475), so that if I'm caught in a con, I might as WELL get caught for a BIG one, since the REWARDS could be compensatorily great, too.

DIARY 12516 RAPID FLU VIRUS? 11/25/77

Put on the electric blanket at about 7 before crawling in, but I can feel myself shivering under my bathrobe and I'm feeling VERY tired and VERY sick, but I don't remember where I left the thermometer and don't want to take the time at 1 am to measure my temperature again. Crawl into bed to find the sheets still cold, and I shudder there for a bit until things warm up, and it seems to take a VERY long time for the blankets to warm up to the point where I feel comfortable enough to stretch out, and then to turn over to get the OTHER side warm, each motion being greeted by a shiver of cold, and I'm worried about pneumonia I'm so cold and so feverish --- all thoughts of food poisoning now gone. Then I turn the heat down to about 4, and it quickly gets warm to that level, and I can feel myself beginning to sweat, but I don't fall asleep and lay thinking for a number of hours. One of the fantasies that comes to mind is having to wrap up very warmly if Dennis has to call the ambulance from the hospital, and I'd tried putting some energy on it, but all I could think of was the orange, and that didn't seem to do much good. I'd said earlier that I'd MAKE this a brief flu because I wasn't intending to pass up the dinner at The River the next evening. Sweat through the night, but whenever I put out an arm or a leg, it felt so cold outside and I got such a shiver that I decided that I didn't really have to go to the toilet that evening, thinking that I could ask Dennis for my bathrobe so that I could warm it under the blankets before I got out of bed. However, when I woke at last the next morning, I actually had to turn the blanket off to stop sweating, and I felt that I had no temperature at ALL, though I felt a bit fatigued by not having slept so well. Took to bed while Dennis was messing around with indexing, then got up and dressed because I didn't feel THAT bad the next day, but lay down when we got back from the River only to find HIM going to bed early. I seemed to remain warm under the blanket on Thursday so I shut if OFF, and still woke with wet sheets in the morning, rested, but still feeling slightly tired. Toward evening of Friday, my water-cycle speeded up until I was urinating almost every half-hour, which still indicated that I had SOME kind of cold!

DIARY 12517 TERSE OBSERVATIONS Also 11/25/77

1) My lists PREVENT my writing: they give me INFINITE things to do (as in the list of that very same name) BEFORE I get down to writing. And I find that the only way to WRITE is to actually get STARTED on it before the list is down to nothing, or else the very IDEA of the list getting down to nothing stultifies me, pushes me to the wall, makes me come down with colds and the flu (see DIARY 12516), pushes me into reading books that don't really need to be read or doing other things that are only time-wasting activities, so that I won't get into writing when the list is OVER, because the list will NEVER be over. So I should just get it DOWN enough to let me get to writing so that I won't get into that final stage of REMOVING the last items from the do list.

2) WORRYING ABOUT DOING ANYTHING NEVER HELPS; ONLY DOING SOMETHING HELPS.

DIARY 12536 NEW SENSE OF HERE / NOW 12/1/77

With worries exorcisible by consuming fires, with most of the pressing items from the do-list accomplished, I did lightwork with an increasing sense of the FREEDOM that might come along with existing ONLY in the strict one-pointed concentration on the present. It does no good to enumerate the things to do on the list without being in a position to ACT on them. I have a memory, but I should free it for more useful tasks than ticking off the remaining items. I also have the ability to plan ahead, but that shouldn't become a constant iteration of all the things I want to do. If I need to sit down and PLAN something, I can do that, but I shouldn't be doing it when I've sat in the chair for lightwork. I have a brain, but I have different ways of using it; when it's not being actively used, it should be RESTING, so that it can be sharper when it's called upon. The old est yama-yama becomes an unpleasant din when I should be absorbed into the Incarnating Ego for maximum benefits from lightwork. There ARE the books that I want to get, but unless I'm in a bookshop, or planning a shopping trip, or sending out mail orders, there's NO good to be gained from counting over the numbers of authors and titles needed for completeness. If I can cut out WORRY, it reduces the future to something to be looked forward to. If I cut out incessant thought about what I've done, I'd have more time to WORK (but that's not a good word --- just as "wasting time," I find today, is a very poor choice of words for reading Alexandra David-Neel, even THOUGH it's not something that I'd planned to do, that's on my list, or will produce any valid steps toward taking anything off my list --- what I'm doing, I tell myself forcefully, if READING!), or more time to DO WHAT I WANT TO, which sometimes includes work, and hopefully is including writing for publication with greater frequency now than before. But then these pages can be anodynes against work, too, since I'd planned to write ANOTHER about today: reading, jerking off, eating pork, mailing letters to see if they get to the POBox without JOYI AND with JOYI/V on the envelopes, and watching television. I AM living more in the present, and it feels GOOD.

DIARY 12551 BOOZE COMPLEMENTING SEX 12/8/77

Sadly, this page should NOT be done after a lapse of 5 days. We were SO delightfully high from the coffee-booze and not REALLY gut-busting full from the food, even WITH the second plate of boar, but everything just seemed muzzy enough to be VERY affectionate. Talking about Penis-size from Bill's tape at the start helped out, but when the grass and poppers took over, there wasn't any time to measure him hard. We rolled over each other and rubbed each other (me without my usual regard for his pitted back) and necked most marvelously, and the booze was enough to completely remove any inhibition without being too strong to induce feelings of dizziness or nausea. It seemed on a par with the BEST grass trip, without the possibility of going down that seemed so much a part of grass. Also, we seemed to get into non-stereotyped positions for a change: enjoying 69, he down at my cock, we both enjoying playing with the other's cock where usually we ourselves bring the cock off. I wanted to record a segment about it to Bill the next day, and that would have been far better. At least I can be happy that Actualism isn't against BOOZE, as it is against grass, though if they say that the scattering of grass of antiproductive, I'd suppose the scattering of BOOZE is antiproductive, too, and --- now that I've just talked for 75 minutes to Bruce Lieber, it's ineluctable that I say that maybe I SHOULD cut down on getting stoned on booze, which brings up the whole thing that I'm reluctant to discuss since Dennis might read it here: that I'm increasingly uncomfortable with his jokes, "What if"s, and other youthisms, which I SHOULD NOT be, since it keeps me in that highly desirable point of view of wanting EVERYTHING which seems in danger of slipping now that I feel somewhat more aged than 10 years ago. Also, his INCESSANT concentration on cock is rather wearying, though I'm glad that his FREQUENCY is so high because it tends to keep MY frequency high, and with THAT, the frequency should stay higher LONGER, which I'll like, I'm sure. But, sadly, my determination to light my food and drink longer seems not to have taken root, which means another delay of results from Actualism, but I'm STILL up with the group, it seems.

DIARY 12560 SIMPLE / COMPLEX DECISIONS Also 12/8/77

Two decisions on Tuesday seemed so DICHOTOMOUSLY SIMPLE yet VERY COMPLEX. I hadn't wanted to see "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" until I found it was on 42nd Street for $2 with "Possession of Joel Delaney," which sounded like good junk fun. So I got Dennis to go with me, and the place was a ZOO and it seemed that the SOUND was no good. We moved from the 6th row center to the 6th row side, and it seemed to get better, and then the PR with the beard sat behind us and peeled his orange, unwrapped the foil from his sandwich, opened his soda, and THEN started shelling his peanuts (though he put the shells back into the bag). Changing the marquee opened and clanked the doors a dozen times, and people echoed from the lobby and balcony and around us. It was annoying for "Joel" a junk show, but did we stay or leave for "Goodbar"? Leaving meant we "wasted" the evening and would have to find another place to see it. Staying might mean we don't appreciate it. So we stay and it SEEMED to quiet a bit, and I'm STILL sure it wasn't as good it would have seemed if we'd had peace in which to view it. Decision One. Decision Two: I wanted to see "A Run for Your Money" which was called British and hilarious, but it turned out to be merely heart-warming with Alec Guinness as a plant columnist turned mining-contest chaperone, with Donald Houston being seduced by a heart-of-gold conwoman who threw his money back to him. Not the best, but rather interesting. But Dennis didn't want to see it and went to bed saying nothing, and I ended up feeling VERY guilty for the poor baby, particularly when I saw he'd put on my blanket control and seemed to be making an EFFORT not to roll up all the blankets. Sweet, sweet, and I felt like a crud not giving into his yen for sex. But we've been having a LOT lately (even though he's going away for three weeks next week), and I wanted to see the movie. I asked him the next morning and he said he was slightly irked, but he WAS tired and WAS glad to get a lot of sleep. How much MORE irked would he have been to have SAID something wasn't answered. Decisions aren't HIS good point LESS than mine. But I chose to be SELFISH both times, felt vaguely guilty about it. Cosmic Mother's workings in me?

DIARY 12627 FIRST GRASS IN MONTHS 12/26/77

Smoked very puffily before I remembered that it has to be held down, so I hold it down, and work over my cock with divided feelings: if it turns out that nothing happens, I'll be disappointed; but if something DOES happen that feels fabulous, I'll be even MORE disappointed that I haven't been smoking! So it doesn't get into anything of any good feeling until right at the end, when I finally put on "Stan" to get myself into the best place for feeling excited, but my cock really doesn't get THAT hard, and I keep putting on rubber bands and taking swigs of popper-fluid, and it's just not working, so I simply lay back and force myself to jerk off just to get it OUT, and it's OVER so quickly that I find myself FORGETTING what it felt like right away, AND the old syndrome of wanting to listen to MUSIC while EATING comes back, so I put on the trip tape and listen to the whole first side, almost nodding off with sleepiness, while having two scrambled eggs (actually, I did this when I came IN, starved, from Paul's at 1!) and the syrupy fudge, enjoying the taste of it, but getting stuffed without getting SATISFIED, which is the thing that grass DOES do, though when I'm INTO it so strongly that I don't REALIZE it. So I guess, from the point of view of NOW (and adding the fact that I didn't feel like doing ANYTHING this morning), maybe I can feel that it's a good thing that I STOPPED smoking, since it's certain, from experience, that the best jerk-off sessions that I've had are those that take place without BOTH grass and poppers, though with the movies, and if I can ever get a head of steam built up without coming for a few days, I'm sure I can get into it without the movies, too. But I kept puffing away, lighting match after match, and nothing seemed to be happening except a more crowded feeling in my head, and though maybe the grass wasn't any good, it made me feels better that I TRIED and it didn't work, than NOT trying and thinking all the time that I'm missing something. Also, I hadn't smoked for so long that the effect should have been HEIGHTENED, but it wasn't, so I should stop holding out the idea that I'm missing something, and "BLAMING" Actualism for taking away the hot fudge sundae, when I really am far better off WITHOUT it. Now we'll see if they KNOW I've done such a thing!

DIARY 12645 NINE-YEAR CYCLES IN MY LIFE 12/31/77

Since my personal universal year is a 6 (3/30/36 = 15 = 6), 1984 will be my NEXT "year 1" (1+9+8+4=22=4; 4+6=10=1), which will start a cycle for EVERYONE, according to Pope and astrologers and astronomers, who say Orwell chose well. 1975 is the "1 year" before that, and THAT was the year that I started est!
1966 is the "1 year" before that, and THAT was the year I took LSD and started on the different life that I still feel the effects of right now.
1957 is the "1 year" before that, and THAT was the year I graduated from college and moved to New York City in June, and it turns out that JUNE is THE month in ALL those years: June, 1975, I started est; June, 1966, I heard about Hollywood Hospital from Dr. Hammer; June, 1957, I graduated and moved.
1948 is the "1 year" before that, and since I have no records from that, June would have been the year I left the seventh grade, and that just COULD have been the time that we went to the retreat in Cleveland that put my paws on Paul Maudru's cock for the first fevered time, though it may have been much farther back in my childhood, possibly back to the FIRST "1 year"
1939, when I was 3, which might have been the time I first KNEW I had a cock, though I have no way of proving it. Just now re-read "Earliest Memories" and reminded myself that Mom and Dad went off in their black Ford to the New York World's Fair in what MAY have been the summer, and June, of 1969, leaving me alone with Grandma on Oakdale in the big house with an upstairs with my own bedroom with a MIRROR on the closet door that I first became aware of myself as being a sexual object in, though it was only to dress up like a woman, or to DANCE, forgot how I liked to DANCE NAKED in front of the mirror, feeling VERY wicked, and probably having an erection although I wouldn't have known what it meant then, and the few horrifying times when Grandma would come into the room and discover me, probably my greatest embarrassment in early life! Talked to Pope about it, and he agreed that an author he was reading DID say there were connections and agreements between Astrology and Numerology, and then he read me the INCREDIBLE Aries prediction from Arnie's "Hustler": I'd play Scrabble games, see ballet in February with "the new male dancer" and give a terrific Valentine's day party!

DIARY 12678 MY REACTION TO DENNIS'S RIPPED-OFF APARTMENT 1/12/78

I see drapes down and dirt on the floor, and ask what HAPPENED, and he said his apartment had been ripped off again, and I look at the stereo and it's gone, and he said they took that, the electric typewriter, and two Samsonite bags his folks had given him (which in the closet got covered with crud, on the floor now), AND the little bag bought for Paris, and I moaned that he hadn't bought the Federal Insurance. The wires on the alarm system were cut: $35 to be installed a year ago, then it went on the blink, he got it fixed, then it went on the blink again, and he didn't bother to get it fixed. He felt vulnerable on the top floor, but I pointed out that it'd take him about 4 months to move and he'd have to protect himself until then ANYWAY, that every apartment had points of entry, and that I felt better because I had INSURANCE to pay BETTER whatever it was that I'd gotten ripped off. Then he'd brought home a trick, who jerked off for him, while he went downstairs to talk to the cops that Hannah called when HER apartment was ripped off too. So I moaned, but he seemed over it, and then when I went to bed (along with the noise from the faucet in the bathroom, the cold from the wall without cork, the cold from his taking all the blankets, and the heat and moisture from the radiator roaring on, and then later with roaches walking over my legs) I just couldn't sleep: poor vulnerable open Dennis getting ripped off by some bastard that I'd love to clobber half-in, half-out of the tiny bathroom window, or to set fire to, or to beat to death, or to confront with all the people he'd robbed who'd tear him to pieces. Good people get killed in innocence, the guilty ones get rich and fat and comfortable, even though their victims and their friends of victims were DAMNING their souls as I was doing now, but without getting any relief from it. Even Joan Ann wondered what I had as a set of contingencies (was that the word?) that PRODUCED such a strong reaction in me: that Dennis should learn his lesson not to be vulnerable, that I should learn that I shouldn't (or can't) protect what I'd want to protect even if it was very dear to me --- and I NOW think of my LIFE, which I'd love to protect, but SOMEONE (Death) will one day take it from me no matter HOW much I guard against it, and maybe I can get a special process on THIS.

DIARY 12686 SICK FROM HANGOVER FROM SUSAN'S PARTY 1/17/78

Dennis falls asleep on my arm, and it's five minutes before I can move it and ten before I can get the courage to put the poppers away and get out of bed to write: "Midnight ---There was a night that touched.
There were people who swung within your orbit
Who touched the core of your soul and opened your ducts of tears to weep.
Ask not why!
Simply feel and be thankful that the soul is touched.
So close to sickness is the core of being --- as in Castaneda "The tonal would
die before it would admit the nagual."
But if one seeks to go beyond, one risks --- all. (not to mention the edge of
beyond).
Touch the core, and risk the nausea of knowing. To attack the boundaries of the
known,
One must risk illness
self-disgust
vomit
the expulsion of the inner.
To touch the limits The body grows sick and seeks to distract by illness.
Breathe --- and hope to fight through to health!"
When I finished that I lowered my head to my hand and thought I might be sick there, but by 1:15 I was well enough to creep into the bathroom and sit on the john until soft shit came curling out with minimal intestinal discomfort, and though I hoped that the nausea would pass, it continued and got worse. I debated staying in the bathroom, but then crawled back into bed and felt the whole room sickeningly swell and rise around me as I turned my head from one side of the mattress to the other, surprised that nausea and vertigo could hit so strongly without any visual cues to indicate a change of position. Breathed deeply, trying to gain control, and found myself whispering: "God, help me, help me, help me; I'm so sick, I feel so awful ... Immortal/Rebekah/Winston/ tell me what to do, what to do, what can I do. I feel so awful, I feel so sick, I feel so dreadful." And the mental anguish from that night and the next day extended to the following day (see DIARY 12687), and I phoned Norma and talked about alcoholism and stayed in bed almost the entire day, cursing myself for having gotten into the position again, cursing my weakness as a body, cursing drink that it does that, cursing.

DIARY 12687 MENTAL ANGUISH Also 1/17/78

Again my trapped-rat brain dashes about in circles: I'm not hungry yet I want to eat yet I should fast to take off weight; I want to travel but I want to cancel the trip yet I'll love it when I take it; I have to finish the indexes but I want to indulge in other things yet I need the money; I want to be in the travel business but talking with poor Michael about my mother's plans for an Oriental introduction leaves me holding so much that I have time to think about all this stuff and leave me in a state of depression; I loved Susan's party and guest list (and just now call Lauren Bahr to follow THOSE contracts up: seeing if she's want free-lancers in the form of Linda and Tom through Susan) and the drinks but ended up SO depressed the following day I've not yet recovered from it. And it goes on and on: I want to send out the letters to the JOYI people, who sadly aren't too many, yet I have to finish the indexing first. Took time trying to see if the trip could be postponed, which WOULD be nice, but then Azak put his foot down at the hospital and now has his own way, except that now I have to have my own way with Actualism and get my lessons rescheduled. And now it's cold in the apartment and I've not been typing for a long time, and it feels that my fingers are stiff, and I just sort of want to STOP, but now there's the feeling that STOPPING is the same thing as DYING, and when I ACCEPT the seduction to stop, I'll slow down so much that I WILL be ready for death. So I should think of these pressures as challenges, goads that prod my day into heavy activity, sound sleep, crowded times, and interesting remembrances. But I just think that I'm tired, that I don't want to get up, that I should spend more time with Actualism and don't, that I'm failing at that and other things, and still Dennis wants more sex and more cock, and usually I'm just not READY for him (until he really gets into it, and then I do too). Then the talk with Norma last night about alcoholism, the still slightly-felt feeling of dizziness and nausea from yesterday, and my starting to read "Live Gold" and "Relativity" just to do something, and I want to finish other books and write a letter to Mom, and I'm not even keeping up on the things to do list, and maybe THAT'S why I have so many things whirling in my HEAD and not working on getting DONE!!

DIARY 12712 IT IS BETTER NOW 1/31/78

Lying in bed this morning, I feel GOOD and think of a NUMBER of ways in which bettered:
1) I'm DOING things, not WORRYING about doing things. Haven't sat and moped for MINUTES.
2) Pleased with the MECHANISM of "merging brain-mind" when I feel like flying-worrying.
3) Take out earplugs to realize my EARS haven't been running for MONTHS! Forgot it!
4) There's no more sliding-junk noise from the construction place on Pierrepont.
5) There's no barking dog next door anymore, in the cold, though cats have taken over.
6) I'm beginning to LIKE some of the music that filters down from upstairs!
7) Other things have taken over, however, filling in the spaces (though I really DO try to fill them with essence, rather than junk), like being worried about being overweight (hit 170# on one awful day after a lot of feasting, and this for a person who said he'd never get to 160#! Now about 165, which is halfway there), and about being over-busy for the trip, though THAT is one of the things that IS better: since I'm so busy I don't have time to become BORED with the trip before I take it, as some of the readings had inclined me to be: I'd read and think "that doesn't sound interesting," but now I talk to Art this morning about the islands HE likes, and get a feeling of ELATION that I'm going there, and my point of view ABOUT the islands now seems to be QUITE different (see DIARY 12713). Also, there are mental things:
8) thinking about Castaneda's "golden lines that supported Genero in his leaps about the trees and cliffs and waterfalls," it occurs to me that these just might be LINES OF LIGHT: and the saying "Seeing is believing" can be expanded into "seeing is grasping, and holding, and connecting with LITERALLY:" so that if you SEE something (and this agrees with Einstein's debunking of "action at a distance" in "Relativity," too!) there MUST be something PHYSICAL connecting you with them, there's nothing that can be done WITHOUT a connection, so that when you UNFOCUS you connect with MORE things, too, so that you set up a WEB of connections, possibly more tenuous, but a STRONGER web than only ONE CONCENTRATED line-of-sight between you and what you're spending all your powers of concentration and connection (and are those words CONNECTED, TOO?) on. And even typing this page while cooking hamburg and working on indexes is nice, too.

DIARY 12727 WHAT AM I FIGHTING? 2/6/78

Note written in notebook with notation 8:40 pm, 2/4, waiting for subway, when I figured I wouldn't have time to type diary pages before leaving: "Why am I FIGHTING? More important, WHAT am I fighting?" These questions occur AFTER I decide that there's just no TIME to go through the stuff I'd collected since 1965 on the Caribbean. No, that it's too outdated and there will be new stuff at the airports (which Arnie says we shouldn't depend on, since the better stuff is always TAKEN quickly) and hotels to pick up. Then I'm hassling going to dinner with Dennis and Rick tonight and not working --- but that TOO seems to ease into the questions "Why am I FIGHTING; what am I FIGHTING?" I seem always to be PUSHING: pushing to finish an index, pushing Dennis in Paris, probably planning to push Azak through the Caribbean, too (and when the black who exclaimed "Shit" when we just missed our train -- and I felt so superior to him for not hassling it --- lit up a cigarette I STILL said, "Aw, C'MON," and got up to get away from the smoke --- still pushing?). But there must be SOMETHING to be said for just "going with it," and not "pushing it." The "what" I'm fighting seems to be DEATH! I'm pushing to get it all in, see it all, win the battle before it's over. But it'll ONLY be over when I die and DEATH wins, and the push will stop sooner or later. But it sounds so est and Gurdjieff and Krishnamurti and Actualism to ACCEPT the end of this body, death as far as I'm concerned, and stop pushing NOW --- not die, not vegetate, still DO, still ACT, but not with the PUSH, just with the moment-to-moment enjoyment that can probably ONLY come when the PUSH stops. END OF NOTE. THEN I complete enjoy the free few hours given me on Monday when I find the flight is cancelled, sort of enjoying the feeling of "Whee, this is fun" that I rather looked forward to as I was typing the last index pages with one part of my mind and thinking about the flight, the coming snowstorm, whether I'd finish the index, how much time I'd have to spend with Dennis, whether I'll be worried about the flight or not. And, interestingly, now that the flight's not SCHEDULED I feel no apprehension for the flight, though it will be in the next few days, certainly! Maybe it WAS the pressure of the index that was paramount?

DIARY 12733 "PLEASE LOVE ME" Also 2/6/78

Mental swing while typing: (thought up about Friday, just typed late): First I thought of myself as a "little boy inside" saying "Please love me." Then I progress to MYSELF saying to the teachers and the group in Actualism: "Please love me" in the following sense: "Please love me enough to give me your kicks and experiences, Rebekah and Winston and Carol Ann and Russell." And then I hear myself asking of LIFE: "Please love me enough not to KILL me (on planes or EVER), and then through another change and I become life, saying to the universe at large: "Please love me, don't kill me." And there's a built-in SUCCESS to that line, I think now, since as long as there's ANY OBJECT, PERSON, ENTITY, or BEING who can come up with the plea, the universe IS ACTUALLY at that point permitting that person to be: not squashed in the gravities of a sun, or incinerated in a star, or bereft of life-substance in the voids between the stars and suns, or consciousless before or after existing or having existed. "Please love me," by the middle word, creates love itself, by indicating that there's an attitude, an action, a position to be taken toward the Supplicant. The "please," however, brings in an idea of supplication that's wistful, suspicious (why would you say "please" unless you suspect that that which would love may need to be placated, beseeched, begged?). The "me" implies a sense of separateness from the rest of the universe: God couldn't legitimately say "please love me" because he would have had to create everything that could ever love him, so it's only self-gratification he'd be serving, not any extra-bodied love. Even the order of the words implies an ordering mind, a civilization that requires writing and hearing and communication, and a semantics that implies something stopping short of telepathy, omniscience (if you know whether the other loved or didn't, you wouldn't NEED to ask or wouldn't PROFIT by asking), and unity. It implies something OUTSIDE the loved which is the lover, and just as the dichotomy between the thinker and the thought must be eradicated, I suppose so also must the schism between the lover and the loved. Though there doesn't seem to be any non-silly way of saying "I love me." How about "I am WHO am"?

 

 

                                    Return to Subjective MenuContinue Subjective 87 pages