SUBJECTIVE 87 pages

DIARY 12734 THOUGHTS ABOUT FLIGHT-DELAY Also 2/6/78

I thought I heard the storm first scheduled for Saturday night and Sunday, but then it was Sunday night and Monday. I listened to the WE 6-1212 at 5:15 to hear winds East Northeast (and couldn't figure if winds CAME from ENE or WENT to ENE) at 11, storm tonight lasting into tomorrow. Then at 6:15 the winds died to 9, and I figured I'd try to SLOW the advent of the storm until after noon tomorrow. But then at 9:15 the winds built to 15, though the storm now began "late tonight" and lasted into tomorrow, so there seemed to be no way away from the storm. Looked out after sex at 12:40 to see nothing, but Arnie said that it started fine as confetti before that. Worked through forming the hierarchy and fell asleep quickly, but woke with a jolt at 3, pancreas burning. Worked with that, then fell asleep again until 5:15, and tried to placate my rising worries with lightwork until it didn't seem to be working, so I figured I'd get up and work, instead of lying there and thinking about things. Just so many things to DO: not finished with vacuuming, not packed, dishes to wash, indexes to finish, stuff not read, and where was the EASE I so desired: to eat a casual meal, read what I wanted, go where I liked, in life? Didn't even have the chance to enjoy being finished with the two indexes, I thought to myself. Then phoned at 8:30 to find that all the flights were still scheduled, to my surprise, and figured I should leave here about 9:30 to get to East Side Terminal (who go to airport when we can find if planes are leaving from there?) at 10:15 to get to the airport by 11 for the 12:05 flight. Phoned at 9:30 to see if I should call the Brooklyn Heights limousine service since I needed time to pack, and Eastern said flight was cancelled. Immediately all pangs lifted, I saw free time ahead of me to pack, finish fixing up the place, catching up on the diary, finish paperwork on the indexes. Grand feeling, though I DID want to get to Trinidad (much easier to find a hotel Tuesday night than Monday night?) to SEE the Carnival, but getting to the AIRPORT, way out of town, at 8 didn't seem to give much TIME! But now, at 4:45 pm on Monday, there's STILL no indication of when I'll be leaving (and, needless to say, I'm STILL not ready!)

DIARY 12857 AGAIN THE MISDIRECTION 3/29/78

1) "If only I was finished with the index I could catch up with things."
2)"If only I didn't have movies or plays to go to, I could catch up with things."
3) "Now I HAVE the time, and I don't feel like catching up on things."
How often has that cycle been played out?
1) "Before I write I have to do this and this and this and this."
2) "Now that I've done all that, I don't feel like writing, let's look at stamps, catch up on movies, rearrange my books, go to the baths, reorganize my filing cabinets, reshuffle the pages I've written, or read a book."
That cycle's in operation when the first exhausts itself with repetition. Today, when I HAVE the time to catch up on the diary, I feel vaguely like watching movies and jerking off (and the feeling rises to a peak of intensity and it's only by telling myself that I'm SILLY, that Dennis is coming over this evening, that I'll just feel let-down when I finish, that it won't help me get over the frustration of NOT having the diary finished that I restrain myself), reading a book, talking on the telephone, doing something else. I go to the window and look out to verify for the fifth time that indeed all the snowdrifts have melted from the yards below. I think about the tape I want to make to Bill, the body-session this evening, the lightwork that I haven't practiced for a couple of days, the exercising that I should do, the groceries that I wanted to buy that would lead to yogurt made and cheesecake completed and the sauce for the tongue finished. And it seems that I COULD catch up with all that, but then I've ordered more stamps and that'll be taking more time. I watched the ballet last night to Mahler's Fourth and wanted VERY much to write some more, and my stack of performances to be attended is getting so thick that I'll have to IGNORE most of them if I want to do ANYTHING here, and again there are two indexes (three, if I count the ones coming at close times from Harper and Row) on the shelf waiting for final pages, and there's no time to write to Mom and Rita. Dennis wants to plan a trip to Europe sometime, Azak wants to go away for Christmas, and there are bills to be paid and JOYI and JOYIV letters to do. And I sit writing an unnecessary page that doesn't help get ANY of that done!

DIARY 12864 WELL, WHAT IS IT THAT I WANT? 3/31/78

When updating the list of people I'd been with in the past few years, I saw the tabulation of times that Dennis and I stayed here or at his place, but was surprised when I went through: when he stayed here a LOT, it was either because Greg was staying at his place or he was doing an index here, and BOTH times I didn't care for the frequency of his staying here, got disgusted with doing all the cooking all the time, and was quite relieved when he left. And when I found that those stays made the average HERE more than there, I got even more annoyed: so I have to stay at his place MORE than I'm doing now! But I would have WANTED him here more, and yet when I find he IS here more, I don't like it. Maybe it's because it's only in lumped times, maybe the sum is somewhat larger than I'd like (though at 90 at his place and 134 at my place for a total of 224 is a SURPRISINGLY low 62% of the year's nights, or just a little over 4 out of 7 nights a week). As a peripheral item, it took much longer to bring that up to date than I would have thought: started it last night, figuring to continue and catch up with the diary, but I wasn't even finished after an hour, and it probably took me another hour to bring it up to date this morning. And maybe another reason for feeling glum about it is that I can't say to him "I've been at your place more than you've been at my place, so I'm ahead." In addition, knowing that he cooks interesting things (though numbers of them might be not the best dishes in the world, like his Tarsus Pie with the Sauce for Saul, merely mealy millet) and he has to put up with my ordinary pork chops and beef roasts and hamburg dishes, he has to sacrifice more than me in staying here, not to mention that staying at his place can be a CONVENIENCE for me at times (Actualism, Olympia, etc) but staying in Brooklyn Heights could hardly ever be considered a convenience for HIM. Finally, like so many other things, it was interesting in the inception of the idea, terribly boring halfway through its execution, and not as I'd wished in the final outcome, and since I've just read Ouspensky's description of many "I's," it seems I may have located 6-7 of them in myself.

DIARY 12868 THE JOY OF DOING 4/3/78

Ages ago the following note summed up what I'd gotten in Actualism practice: EXPERIENCE THE JOY OF DOING rather than the PANGS OF MEMORY OF WHAT'S BEEN DONE or the WORRIES OF ANTICIPATION OF WHAT WILL BE DONE. And that seems to be true even here: if I DO do something silly, like go to a movie or watch a midnight movie on TV or work the puzzles or go to a play that's not the greatest, I shouldn't CONDEMN myself for doing so: do it, enjoy it, then forget it. But then the WORST thing would be to think of what I SHOULD be doing INSTEAD of being there: writing letters, working on an index, working on writing, catching up with a do-list. The anticipation of Ron was totally fruitless: it happened the way it happened, and NONE of it was what I'd anticipated. None of the worry about getting things done even helps to PLAN to get things done. Now that I'm reading Ouspensky and feeling vaguely guilty about not doing anything about that system AND not doing anything about Actualism, I should simply do Actualism and forget about it. At last, at least, I'm cooking the yoghurt, only the second time since the first time in FEBRUARY 1976! And getting letters out at last, but only after worrying about them; and going to the dentist, but only after losing a filling, and THAT will be an opportunity to see how I can restrain from anticipating something bad into the future. And I'm still not ready to call her for a reservation, either. But it doesn't do any good to talk HERE about the do-list, either, since that's PRECISELY the type of anticipation of doing something that would be better spent in DOING something: where was it (I guess in The Snow Leopard) that I just read that most people work in GETTING READY for living, where they should be LIVING. I think of my ENTERTAINMENT as something to get out of the way for WRITING, and then I never write, so I never think I'm LIVING except when I'm working on indexing, when the time goes featurelessly by and I merely earn money. Something's wrong with that, too (see DIARY 12867), and I'm determined that it's something in Actualism that I just have to work through, to come through on the other side with something more than I came into the conflict with.

DIARY 12876 COMPASSION FOR BRAIN-MIND 4/5/78

Doing lightwork today, again the tears start down my cheeks, but this time it seems that it's out of COMPASSION for poor brain-mind: it's being told to withdraw identity, which it takes as ITSELF, out of all these images, which it takes as only its memories of the past and anticipations of the future, and BURN THEM UP, which will burn up the only currency with which brain-mind has to operate. It KNOWS it'll still be needed for phone numbers and traffic directions and how to drive an automobile, but it so DELIGHTS in dredging up the past (the good and the bad and the awful and the worst) and thinking toward the future (the good and the evil and the dreaded and the fearful), and now it's being pushed into a corner and being told "THAT is not your area; you've failed in this function and so it's being taken away from you; your services are no longer needed; you'll be transferred to maintenance staff and no further expansion will be possible for you." So it's TERRIFIED, and tries to avoid doing anything that will lessen its powers, and I get a STRONG image (withdraw identity, consume it, assimilate the essence) of this poor face on a body with its back pressed against the wall, turning frantically from side to side to see its enemies closing in on it, trying desperately to get away, but knowing that possibly THIS time, after so many close calls, the final blow may be given and IT WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN. And it's TERRIFIED that this might happen. So the tears are in compassion for this poor, hunted, stupid creature who doesn't know that there's a possibility of a METAMORPHOSIS and a NEW kind of control over life ahead, and it only clings to the past and whimpers about being thrown into the cold waters of the future without even TESTING with the toe of logic to see if the future will ACTUALLY be better than the past. So I can only wait until the compassion turns to action and then the tears can be shed for the death of the clinging-brain-mind, for the death of the worry and the hassle and the fruitless meanderings, and the birth of new clarity, new quietness, new THOUGHTS which can be creative and objective (hm, sounds like the energy of the month!) and productive and REAL.

DIARY 12913 MAXIMUM IRRITABILITY 4/17/78

If the Higher Will Power Ray is intended to activate all past, present, and (wouldn't it be wonderful?) future images of irritability, it's succeeded with me. Sitting down to lightwork it seems that EVERYTHING comes up: no time for writing, recording to Bill, stamps, plant handling, cleaning apartment, organizing diary, indexing, losing pudge, masturbating, catching up with JOYI exercising, taking care of eyes and teeth and feet and face, Xeroxing, seeing friends, traveling, reading, organizing ideas, or enjoying life. But then, paradoxically, I swing to the END of these activities, when I DO temporarily get caught up with the things I've given myself to do: THEN, I know, I feel that there's nothing of INTEREST, that life has lost its SAVOR, that I have to waste time, or find some new friends, or get involved in some new mind-expansion work, or read something, to pass over the time when I HAVE time, so that again I'll be behind and have to struggle to catch up again. And I STILL don't write! And all these images swirl through my mind so strongly that I can hardly withdraw identity, scarcely consume images, barely assimilate essence, and think of the people I want to talk to on the telephone, the money I want to earn so that I don't have to work, the writing I have to publish so that I can assimilate as much as I give out, and even have time for the lightwork, which had been sloughed off in the past but HAS to be done now, since everything is so IMMEDIATE. But there's no time for lightwork-bodywork, no time to go to the library, no time for shopping, and getting rid of old travel stuff, and buying new bookcases, and cooking, and eating, and dieting, and watching TV and dance and plays, and writing letters, and jerking off. And reading the Times and doing the puzzles and aching to go to the baths and bars and orgy rooms and discos. Reading the mail, cleaning the shelves, listening to tapes and records, coming up with new ideas for "Throwback," it all piles up, and I keep trying to process, consuming, writing, burning, and still they arise, deeper and deeper levels (or, worse, just the same thing over and over and over), and I fall into a position of maximum irritability and write this page to try to exorcise it.

DIARY 12946 WHY AM I ALWAYS PUSHING? 4/27/78

After Dennis and I talked about our Venice trip (see DIARY 12945) I got VERY depressed, not helped by physical fatigue (could I be coming down with something?): I had to get an international drivers' license tomorrow, had to take Dennis's Pastis to Eli with $600 cash, that I had to draw from the bank along with cash for the both of us to spend, finish the index, get the JOYI stuff out again, check on the McGraw-Hill check, send Mom's birthday gift, send a tape to Bill, and I'd like to get to Northern Italy to relax and I'd probably RUSH around seeing every place halfway, wanting to return, not having enough time, staying up late and getting up early, not stopping to listen to the birds or watch the trees and sunlight and feel the breeze. But then I told him I was different in the country (in the morning, that is), and then there was the heaviness of Azak's coming along, too. When would I just get a chance to listen to records that I hadn't heard, books I've been wanting to read (or even study, like "Gravitation" and "Atomic Physics" and lots of the art books), or just walk out and look at the greening of the trees in spring, cruise some, go to bars and baths, and just RELAX into life. But the answer came quickly enough (see DIARY 12947): when I'm OLD! But I WONDERED about the pushing: DOES it cover up the directionlessness of life? I never find myself asking "Why am I here and where am I going?" because I'm always HERE too short a time to get everything out of it and busy making plans for GOING to the next place to get too little out of THAT. I thought of canceling the trip: BUT I'd already worked on it, bought guidebooks and sorted through stuff to get clippings and read about it and made maps of it, got the free time to do it --- and some of it may be some fringes of worrying about the 7 1/2 hour flight to Venice, which is a LONG time, particularly after the inevitable delays --- and got someone --- nay, two someones --- to go with, so why NOT. But I kept feeling I have to say NO to movies and TV shows and dance performances, so why not say no to TRIPS: does this ACTUALLY do what I WANT to do: getting letters to Meredith and Stuart about JOYI, showing writing to people, finishing "John" and "Throwback?" But I dimly feel that even if I HAD the time (OLD story) I JUST WOULDN'T DO IT ANYWAY!!

DIARY 12947 OLD AGE WILL STOP MY PUSHING Also 4/27/78

Very conscious of old people recently: shaky-chinned men standing in overcoats against house walls watching people pass; fragile-legged women pleading after impatient young black maids caring for them, frightened to walk any faster with their bandaged shins; mousy women in sweaters walking up one painful step at a time in Arnie's building when I come down this morning; hangers-on around the subway with nothing to do to fill their time. THIS will stop my pushing: when friends have died off, my phone doesn't ring, I'm too old to work, too tired to read for more than a few hours a day, too arthritic to type for more than a few pages without agony, THEN I'll return to the full circle of my very young days, sitting in the fields in Akron, Ohio, knowing that I should treasure this time in which I haven't the foggiest notion of what to do with my time, knowing that in a few years I'll be grown up and working and living with people and taking advantage of an entertainment world that was denied me in Akron, and NOW I'm beginning to get the sense of a harried person looking ahead to the rocking chair, to times when I'll fall asleep from boredom listening to music because I've heard so much, when nothing I read entertains me because it's all moved past me, as much of the Soho Weekly News seems to have at THIS early point, and I have all the time to do the things I wanted to have the time to do right now! But it really didn't HELP me that much when I was a kid (oh, it helps me now when I'm an adult to think ruefully back at those wasted and wasteful hours), and it won't help me that much when I'm old (except that I will have the memories, Proust-like, to sift through in my dirty bath water of a past), so I'll just have to come up with the compromised now: maybe not see Nikolais, missed "Harlan County" this time around, will miss "Don Quixote" with Baryshnikov and Kirkland, missed "Saint of Bleecker Street" and "Life and Times of Colonel Blimp" this time around, but WILL see Venice to surfeit and maybe some other places, while the REAL places I want to see: North Pole, Antarctica, Himalayas, New Guinea --- slip farther and farther into a quasi-dream of a younger past when it seemed that I could, truly, do anything I wanted.

DIARY 12949 DON'T DO WHAT I SAY, DO WHAT I WANT 4/28/78

Complain to Dennis that we don't seem to put much time into the interface of our relationship: we sit around and talk and compare ideas a lot, and we have sex a lot, but I sort of miss the middle section where we're affectionate and hugging and necking and kissing. He takes it very much to heart and the next time we're into sex he seems ready to do nothing but neck and kiss --- but unfortunately at that point I want to have SEX, and I lay there feeling wildly frustrated; here he's doing EXACTLY what I said I wanted, and it isn't what I want NOW! At the end of it I even say something ruefully, "What I really wanted was a comment or a response, but I didn't expect abject COMPLIANCE." Of course, past of the kick of a relationship would be where the people ANTICIPATE where the other lacks, and fill it in before it's asked, but not even in Bergman films, as an example of places where people seem to know so much about love they can get to new areas, do they go that far. It's not that I want to be in CONTROL, I just want to be in CONTROL! But when I'm in control, like all the sad hypnotists in the Arabians Nights' fantasies, when they get the leading lady under their intent gaze, they want them to respond because the LADY wants to respond to them, not because the MAN wants her to respond to HIM. But here's another example of concentrating on the tiny, tiny, niggling "bad" part in a relationship that's overwhelmingly good: when something's solved, concentrate on the tinier problem that's produced when he does what I wanted him to do. When he gives in to that, solve the problem of having no problems by creating another problem to hassle myself and him about. Like finished things on the list: when I have nothing I want to do, I'm desperate for something to do; when I have too many things to do, I'll be eager to do all the things that I THINK I'm saving time to do: reading the books, writing what I want to write, answering letters and tapes. I need the carrot, the stick, and maybe HERE is why I smile as I feel hate-rage (see DIARY 12924) in Actualism. Maybe there IS a bit of masochism there, as I detect a bit of sadism in some of the EXTREMELY grasping, biting questions on the JOYI sheets. There doesn't seem to be any END to the layers to the fuckin' cosmic onion.

DIARY 12954 LOOKING AT FLYING Also 4/28/78

There's no difference when I find I'm really going and when it looked like no one was going: I feel that I have a lot of things to do before I leave, the hotel on the Lido di Jesolo is going to be difficult, we don't know just where we're going, I want to write to Edgardo and Franco and Edward but I don't know what hotel we're staying in --- but not too much thought to the flight except the BOREDOM of being on the plane so long: as much as 8 hours. Then Wednesday night I get that old feeling, "There's just too much to do, there's so much I'd RATHER do, why don't I just stay home," and I wonder how much of THAT might be due to a more severely repressed fear of flying. But I admitted then that I was tired, and I felt better about it in the morning. Then Thursday I felt SO weary on the platform at Times Square waiting for the train that almost never came, and I find myself being impatient with Dennis in a way that I felt before we went to Paris: I'd just rather be left alone, and then I wouldn't have to put up any kind of false front. But then I WAS tired, and I didn't feel that badly about it Friday morning when I persuaded him to have sex. But then I find myself DELAYING putting time in on the index, as if I were leaving something ELSE to be worried about OTHER than the flight, putting the index off as much as possible, so that maybe even MONDAY would be filled with the anxiety of getting the INDEX done, pushing aside the anxiety about the flight. But I tell myself that it was only TWO months ago that I was on the three-week 22-flight jaunt to the Caribbean (but the flights were shorter, I berate myself, and this is over that BORING ocean and a BORING overnight flight in which I won't be able to sleep, but then I add "bottled booze" to my list of things to take: if I can drink enough I'll fall asleep out of pure exhaustion, which would be JUST lovely)! And then I think of the things I want to do this weekend, and even being super-considerate of Dennis, who seems overly hassled, makes it better for me to misdirect my thoughts. But the main time will come when AFTER the flight I don't feel that it was bad DURING the flight, and I just DISLIKE that total time cramped up in the air!

DIARY 12993 FLATNESS IN LIVING 5/17/78

Doing lightwork this afternoon I feel NO impulse to do anything else, and feel thankful that I didn't have wine with brunch: wine in the evening usually makes subsequent work impossible --- drinking wine with lunch would probably have killed the whole day. I'm taking vitamins but not exercising, and am probably eating too much, so at least there's some small physical basis for lethargy. But how much WORSE it would be if I "had everything": if I WERE a published writer, not having to do indexes to make money for enjoyment, published enough, in fact, that I wouldn't even have to WRITE anymore --- then the lethargy would be WORSE, since I wouldn't HAVE to do anything, wouldn't have any compulsions to pull me up from the depression, wouldn't have any NEED to do anything but become some sort of absorbing slug. I'd enjoyed looking through the Pam Am timetables for the $999 trip, but I couldn't do this all day. Part of it was reading somewhat boring reading, but I'll be getting to better stuff later. But if I were rich, and beautiful, and well-dressed every minute of the day, and my apartment were maintained by a staff, and my meals were fixed by a cook and my personal looks attended by a staff, I'd feel even WORSE to be in what I choose to call a somewhat "flat" condition. There's nothing REALLY pressing: no index DEADLINES, but there are a lot of things I would LIKE to do, but that doesn't seem to be enough. Maybe it's just incidental depression because I signed up for the writing course and I'm cushioning my nerves for more rejection on THAT point. But the fantasies about writing are certainly still there (see DIARY 12994). So I come to the typewriter and type a page about it and "process" it in THAT way, getting it out of my system, stop my brain from rotating on that subject, and free it for the next thing on the list, and by then I'm doing something, accomplishing something, and the feeling of flatness leaves. Can't even blame it on growing old: it's not feeling TIRED, it's just feeling that whatever SHOULD be pleasant just isn't that PLEASANT anymore, that some edge of fear or anxiety has been removed which makes even ACCOMPLISHMENT seem somewhat jaded and old hat and lacking in savor.

DIARY 12994 FANTASIES OF BEING PUBLISHED Also 5/17/78

Thinking about the science-fiction writers' workshop leads to the fantasy of GETTING people to like the short stories that I've written, and then go on to publish some of the fantasy, then finishing the thing on "Throwback" and becoming known as a writer of Philosophical Quests, and then getting some publication as a reviewer, then getting "Acid House" published, then turning the tables completely and publishing "John," which is all gay, and then having interest in my reviews and notes as a historian of a period in New York, and then that leading to writing about travel, and then just general comments about almost anything, including politics and finance ideas based on talks with Rolf. Then I could publish general essays, and even my lists, and then the rest of the scraps: like scrapbook cullings and other things, and then being valued as a person producing uniqueness by being so wide-read, or publishing from trains of thought, or just doing a recording tape-published diary. And then branching out into the Babbitt-Brighten-type video tapes MYSELF, and then into movies, and then into paintings and sculpture and architecture, from which point I can become a clothes designer, and then a society designer, and then a guru for a following generation. I could progress to being a total celebrity, a role model, and a Messiah, moving on up from there (in usual order) to being not only another failed Messiah but an accomplished Savior, becoming the historical pivot and a humanity transformer AS Babbitt Brighton had been designed to be, and then I could progress to whatever the NEXT step would be in the sequence, since next steps always seem to come along when the first few are accomplished, and future thoughts about a subject seem always to expand on the original subject. But then I might STILL have problems of flatness in living (see DIARY 12993) which would be even MORE ironic from the point of view of a person having EVERYTHING, which reminds me of the answer I gave Dennis when HE asked me what I'd want with one wish: "To live forever in an unchanging body of my choice which contains my mind and memory and individuality." That's all --- but that might be the dream of Incarnating Ego and I actually HAVE it!

DIARY 13019 MY NEW AGNOSTICISM 5/26/78

Sitting reading "New Model of the Universe" I feel flooded with a sense of my new feeling of agnosticism. How can OUSPENSKY be so sure when it seems so TENTATIVE and THEORETICAL and POSSIBLE-TO-BE-WRONG by me? Remains me that I was lying in bed this morning musing, and thinking that when distances get very small, they might "inversely" get very large. After all, if I measure from 1/4 inch to 1/800 inch to 1/15898 inch to 1/9999999999 inch, MERELY INVERTING the measure will produce 9999999999 inches, which is very LARGE, so as you get SMALLER, you get closer to the LARGER, and when you get the VERY SMALLEST POSSIBLE you're right next to the VERY LARGEST possible. But then I saw how SILLY that was: this is based on a HUMAN-DERIVER UNIT which has absolutely no SIGNIFICANCE at ANY level of reality! There MAY BE some basic unit of length: the diameter of an electron, the measure of the width of a photon, even though these seem instantly bound up with the Uncertainty Principle and with Units of TIME: ASSUMING for a moment the constancy of the speed of light, the unit of DISTANCE would seem to be related to a certain travel of a photon in a UNIT OF TIME, whatever THAT might be, whether the lifetime of an electron or a photon or whatever. Get sidetracked into looking at Wheeler's "Spacetime Physics" to see what HE says about basic particles, and "according to the best present thought they're nongeometrical singularities in the geometry of spacetime," and then I flow from that book to the Avalon (pseudonym for Woodruffe, and I spend LOTS of time today going through those books) and look through it, and again it seems that I have the DATA but not the KNOWLEDGE from all this. Then read about Ouspensky's thought that ants and bees and termites are dead-ends for a self-evolutionary creature from Nature's Laboratory (which is anthropomorphizing if I ever heard it), and says that Nature has labored to produce MAN, and in one sentence says we KNOW this to be right, then in the next paragraph says that we don't know what truths may prove to be false in the future and what UNKNOWN truths now may turn out to be true. And I'm again caught up in "Actualism might NOT be true, but it's INTERESTING and I should FOLLOW IT AS IF it were true to give it the chance the teacher's deserve."

DIARY 13045 FEELING OF GUILT! 6/8/78

Laboring under this ALL weekend: doing stamps, listening to music and marking off the new tape-recorded markings, reading, watching TV; and NOT writing letters, keeping up with the diary, exercising, doing lightwork in the morning, getting things off the do-list, writing, doing indexes. The thought even floated through my mind that it would be better to get a JOB, at least when I'd be finished I'd be FINISHED, but then I KNEW I'd be even in MORE of a pressure to write and keep things up to date. Trundle past all the same arguments: there will ALWAYS be things on my list to do, ALWAYS things I want to do that I don't have time to do; ALWAYS things newly interested in that they will take over for awhile and put me behind in other things. And I do NOT want to re-evaluate and ask DO I want to maintain the diary, correspondence, lists, scrapbooks, files, because I DO --- I want only to DO them in a more natural, effortless WAY, not HASSLING myself about what I'm NOT doing. I DID get the Hematology index done ON time (no, not early, but she was totally delighted to get it ON time), and WILL get the others done in time, and AM earning enough money. And WILL get to the things long-standing on the list like taping to Bill and checking astrology with Pope and sending "John." Even made a SMALL do-list because other "needs" to do were falling through the cracks. Being away from the PRESSURE of the time with Dennis was very nice, and we kept talking about it to make sure it was OK, and I think it WAS (see DIARY 13050). But it's part of the Physician that I have to ACCEPT pleasure and feeling-good and comfort and soothing qualities. I don't feel that I CAN. If it's GOOD, forget about it; if it's a pain, wallow in it --- my God, I sound like BRUCE LIEBER! I somehow manage to KEEP on top of it all, but it's constantly a STRUGGLE: either I should GET OFF ON IT more or FORGET ABOUT IT. And this is what I'm processing at this time. Tell Dennis that I enjoy HAVING DONE many of these things, but DOING them is sometimes not as pleasant-feeling as they MIGHT be if I were only a bit EASIER on myself and LETTING myself enjoy ENJOYING myself, rather than holding myself, the best part of myself, back for "constructive" work and EFFORTING.

DIARY 13052 SEX AND BEAUTY THOUGHTS AGAIN Also 6/8/78

So many cuties on the subway and on the street (and it's nice to have summer again with showing bodies), that I begin to WANT Actualism to lead to some sort of apotheosis wherein I get what I want: surroundings of my own creation; hordes of beautiful men prancing priapically around my maypole. The beautiful open man, married, on the subway sort of looked back at me with a "what are you looking at?" look not of belligerence but of simple curiosity, and I wonder if he knows how strikingly handsome he is. Could he have had metallic eyes? Cruising on subway platforms is frustrating because nothing ever comes of it: nothing ever DID come of it, but if I now think that nothing WILL come of it, it'll be even MORE frustrating. Lack of enthusiasm for my podgy body at the St. Marks didn't help either. And then I DON'T exercise and reduce. But the beauty IS so lost on the youth: they stand in their school clothes, knowing they don't count for anything in the world yet, pimpled, under the thumbs of their parents, KNOWING they're supposed to be at their sexual heights and almost all of them frustrated, macho, going for the object and not for the affection. The older beauties have a self-knowledge of the SURFACE attraction of beauty as a way of getting to the INNER, deeper beauties of personality and intelligence and humor, and they seem to be willing to get through someone else's NON-beauty to the inner beauty beneath. Much more intelligent. But these lean T-shirted bodies, empty faces but oh-so-beautifully-skinned in some of the Spanish types, without a thought to exchange, but how I'd like to run over their bodies with tools and tools and tongues. And then again, New York isn't the place to meet them (see DIARY 13056), I'm too busy to do anything with them anyway, I wouldn't trust bringing them to my place and most of them don't have anyplace to take anyone. The local bars are looking dreadful --- and those that HAVE sex and ARE beautiful get MORE sex and MORE beauty around them --- like the two adorables in short-shorts and hairy tanned legs, fabulous faces, and they think that WOMEN can give them a good time and exploit their fabulous bodies to the fullest. But the women are just as fucked-up as THEY are!

DIARY 13054 FEELING GOOD VERSUS FEELING GOOD Also 6/8/78

I tell the group (see DIARY 13053) and Dennis (see DIARY 13050) about how I can easily admit, when people ask how I'm feeling, that I'm feeling GOOD, rather than feeling that my life is BAD, but I seem to be cheating myself out of the SENSATIONS, the PHYSICAL FEELING that should come along with the idea that my life IS good, that I DO feel GOOD. I work with stamps and feel good about it, but I can sense the tension in my body, the furrows in my brow, my impatience to be finished, my guilt (see DIARY 13045) about not working and just "playing with my stamps." The IDEA of going on a trip is extremely pleasant, and it's pleasant that Larry volunteered to go on vacation (last vacation together was East Canada in August, 1967, which I seem to have taken NO notes on), but there are few times when I feel that "tickle" inside that I describe, finally, to Dennis as what it DOES feel like to FEEL good: nights in Central Park when I used to SING, or snowy nights when all was beautiful; early dawns coming back to Columbia when the sun was coming up and the campus WAS beautiful; finishing projects or getting good news or finishing with the dentist for the year when I just felt (and many times DID) like leaping around and uttering little explosive "EEEK's" from my constricted throat, since I really didn't want to SHOUT that I FELT SO GOOD! That magical feeling when someone clicks and it's pleasant in bed, that time in the theater, or more often at the ballet, when tears rise to the eyes because there's no room left inside: I'm all filled up. But that filled-full feeling (fulfilled feeling) comes less and less: when I enjoy myself it's PLANNED enjoyment, something I have to get through it so I can REALLY enjoy myself. I finish one index and start a next. I don't sell stories, and how long can I continue to find books from my want list? And as they get rarer and rarer, I want them more and more: if I'm feeling so GOOD, I want to FEEL that good, and wonder what's keeping me from it, and hoping that the shedding of the armor to the consuming fires will do some good in Actualism, if not in actuality, at least in the suggestion of it. And it's NOT, as I sometimes thought, ONLY when I "hold back" and then "do it" that I feel good; most often and best it just COMES, a GIFT, over me.

DIARY 13058 DRUNK NOTES WHILE LISTENING TO MUSIC Also 6/8/78

"I don't do nothin' for no one, so no one don't do nothin' for me." This was the morose conclusion I reached when no one telephoned me for a surprise, no one invited me to dinner, no one offered to fall in love with me, or publish me, or enlighten me (in addition to the current ones who're doing that), but then it occurred to me that I'm not doing that toward anyone at this time, and what you sow, you reap, and all that discouraging balderdash. "THINK, write, erase, listen --- pretty soon there'll just be "listen." This is somewhat enigmatic, since I hardly ever erase anything, though I may have been referring to erasing on TAPE, though the idea that I may take notes from books and throw away the books comes to mind, EXCEPT that I've since learned that books are DIFFERENT when read by the same person at different times, so it'll be interesting to KEEP most of the important books and go over them again. Wonder how "The Perennial Philosophy" would sit at this point, for example? But I'm sure it's just another doleful reminder to myself that I'm getting older and even less pretty than before, so things MAY be said to be starting downhill, something I've been AVOIDING thinking for YEARS. "I squeeze essence from anything --- whether the result is larger or smaller than the input is of no import to me." That might be applied incestuously to these NOTES, for that matter, but I think I meant that I can INCORPORATE anything with anything else, and though some SOURCE thought might be so small as to be unidentifiable, still it might have so large a part of the finished product that it might be blown out of all proportion, while something that might have SEEMED more important at the time is relegated to some very secondary position. And it seems that I'm really TRYING very hard to finish up all these odds and ends, and getting to the bottom of the page is still hanging around long enough to tempt me into seeing what a train of thought might bring up RATHER than just going to the last diary page, for today, that has to be typed out: of the list of things I set myself to do today, and since nothing's appeared on the page YET, I guess that'll be it and I can get away from the DIARY and go on to NEW fields to conquer today.

DIARY 13066 PROMENADE-SITTING 6/13/78

The formerly bright sun has now set, but the buildings are preternaturally sharp (my prescription, I guess) against the orange-violet twilight-sky, and a jet leaves a trail high in the air which is still sunlit. Lots of walkers and bicyclers and joggers on the promenade, but not too many look very interesting: the old men seem to have gotten older, most even too dejected looking to be really cruising. Kids sweep past on bikes with shorts slit up to their crotches, laughing and showing off by drinking from bottles in paper bags and lounging with their feet up on the railings, blocking traffic for those who might pass. Some of the married couples are truly ugly, but then some of the aged gay lovers are, too: paunchy and slouching and sallow and sullen. Parents wheel kids in prams who ogle up and wave at anybody, but at least there isn't the conspicuous mess of papers and litter as there is on the subway. Old women sit, wishing the sun would come back, dogs sniff around, and the crescent moon starts behind the trees and then comes down the sky, along with a suddenly bright Venus, but it takes until 9:15 until there's another star visible in the sky, which then proceeds to set alongside a skyscraper. Some few lights come on across the way, a tug noses a flat set of barges upstream, and as the evening grows darker, drab orange ferries blaze with curving rows of lights like amusement-park rides as they sail toward Liberty, very clear and bright-torched. The sky does seem to be preternaturally clear (met John going for a Times, and he said it was one of the 3-4 brilliant days that New York gets a year), and I could follow plane-lights as they landed and took off from Newark airport. Helicopters buzzed over, traffic sounds filtered up from below, people ogled the elegant houses behind me, gasping about the windows and balconies and Japanese gate behind me, girls asininely saying that they'd do anything to live in a house like that. A black stood and cruised, an old man sat two benches away and a cute guy with a mustache sat the other way, studiously not looking at me, and I just figured at length "what a waste of time" and got up to buy a Times and get back into my normal routine for Saturday night.

DIARY 13140 LURE OF ALASKA 7/3/78

Thought I'd gotten it out of my mind (and DIARY 13145) before, but NOW the thought of seeing what it would be LIKE to travel alone (and I check with my listings to find that the last times I traveled alone were the 9 days before rejoining John in Geneva in June, 1973, over 5 years ago; and the 99 days from February-May, 1963, for the United States trip, over 15 years ago!), so it turns out that I haven't DONE it for awhile! Then the figures start to move in my brain: 1/2 of 12,000 miles is 6,000 miles, and I'll have three weeks at the end of July, so that's 2,000 miles per week, or say 300 miles a day, which isn't bad assuming I fly back from Alaska (once I've traveled overland to GET there, I've BEEN everywhere I want to go, so why NOT fly back?), and at a GOOD 60 mph that's 5 hours travel/day, not bad at all, and at a more leisurely 40 mph it's a maximum of 8 hours/day, and seeing that it'll be light from at LEAST 7 am to at LEAST 8 pm, that gives 5 (or 8) hours per day of sightseeing and eating, and lots of time to find places to stay, and read, and take notes. So maybe I WILL do it! That runs through my mind as part of the Thought-Whirl (see DIARY 13139) while I'm in center 7, the emotional heart center, but when I move up to 6, the higher will, I think that I really don't NEED this, that I'd better spend the time WRITING as I've finally cleared the decks to do. But then I retort that I'm not getting any YOUNGER, that if I end up "hooked" by Actualism I won't have the TIME later on to do such trips (unless on the inner), and so why NOT go now, and I think about hitchhiking, which is impossible with two people, and waiting for plane cancellations to get cheaper flights back, or maybe even UP to various places in Canada and Alaska that it'd be quicker to fly to. I surely have the money now, indexing COULD be finished by the 20th, except for the ridiculous ACC one that I could just return, and it would get two large things out of the way that I want to do that I suppose I would ALWAYS have trouble finding someone to go with. But maybe I can use this as a lever to GET things sent out and written so that I can REWARD myself with that trip, despite how much Dennis may laugh at me for going in the end.

DIARY 13145 ALASKA DEBATE STILL GOING ON 7/5/78

Tell Dennis about going to Alaska and he becomes very sarcastic, saying "You have to do what you've set up your priorities to do," and I say "Watch it, you're getting more like me all the time." So my inner debate goes on: maybe it's only a ploy to get away from the writing that my "clearing the boards" has brought so ineluctably close; maybe it's a way of getting away from Dennis and my thoughts that he's disappointed in our decreasing frequency of sex; maybe I want to go only because I put it on a list long ago and have a list in my head that I've been to all but one of the United States and all but one Province of Canada. Then I think that I have the CHANCE to go, so I should take it; but the thought returns: but I have the chance to WRITE, so I should take THAT! Then I tell Dennis "And I'll have the chance to read, too," but obviously it would be more comfortable to read HERE, and read the larger books, and EB III, that I couldn't take with me on a trip. And then I think, "Well, why trek across known ground on a bus, why not just FLY to Manitoba, walk around, then FLY to Alaska, walk around, and the fly back in a WEEK: I surely have the money. But does the fear of flying assert itself or does some actual fact come up when I think THAT sounds rather SILLY: taking that time (a week) and spending that money (maybe $550) to just step foot in Manitoba and Alaska, but in FACT I'm thinking of spending THREE weeks and spending just about as much to do the same thing in a more "excusable" way. Maybe the thought of traveling alone is only a rationalism: if I wanted to be even MORE alone I could sit in my apartment and put on my phone machine and BE alone far more comfortably than I would be in a hot bus or train or in the cold woods of northern Alaska. Then I think "If I write I can go," but wouldn't it be better to say "I'll only go on the PROFITS of selling what I've written," and take the trip, which I surely can, NEXT year sometime when I HAVE written, or at least decided that I'm NOT going to write? But I want to go! But I want to write, too, at least I keep telling myself that, and THAT'S been something I've wanted to do far longer than I've wanted to travel --- and if I travel, heaven knows, I just think of OTHER places I want to go: why not write and get a new set of things that I'd really rather write, rather than sitting with "Acid House" and "John" and "Throwback" and "JOYI" for even LONGER periods of time than those that have already elapsed!

DIARY 13151 FEELING ALL SQUISHY INSIDE 7/8/78

If the feeling were stronger I would call it some kind of paranoia. I didn't want to DO anything with the vague fear that something bad would happen, but the feeling was strong enough so that I felt that even if I DIDN'T do anything, something might happen anyway. I felt the pressures of the dental AND the eye-doctor appointments tomorrow, and the dentist would probably be getting into drilling again, one of the worst sessions, and it seemed like it was going to go on forever. And after the eye exam I had to make an appointment with Dr. Daoud. Everything was zeroing in on me, and I didn't feel as if I really wanted to handle it. There was too much to do and I just wanted to go hide. There were tears falling inside, and it took all the restraint I had not to show them on the outside, though it seemed that it would feel good just to be able to GRUNT with the cry of a put-upon child, just to release some of the pressures. I was afraid of getting hurt, afraid of BEING hurt, afraid of making a mistake, afraid of accidents, afraid that the NEXT thing that was piled onto me that I wouldn't be able to handle, and worse, I would have to CONFESS that I wouldn't be able to handle it. I just wanted to go to bed (which was said in Actualism), and of course that would just make it worse. I wanted to sob on someone's shoulder, but this wasn't the time or the place for it. So many things to do, so many people sort of relying on my work, and I wasn't sure that I was going to get any of it done, and what kind of excuses could I make. Also feeling sorry for me about the Alaska problem; I'd more or less decided not to go, and was feeling sorry for myself for that decision, without any REWARDING sense of feeling GOOD about scheduling time for WRITING AND GETTING PUBLISHED. Maybe part of the foreboding was sending out something AGAIN that would be returned with a refusal. AGAIN no one wanting to publish my stuff, and I didn't know how many of these cycles of rejection (each time with what looked like BETTER, more adult, more current, more lucrative stuff) I could go through without wanting to just chuck the whole thing, and THEN where would I be? So I felt that way, and it turned out that everyone in the GROUP felt that way! See DIARY 13150! So??

DIARY 13157 SATIETY Also 7/8/78

EB III came and I've looked through its pages until my fingers are dry with the page-turning and my eyes are tired from glancing at the photos and captions and topics and cross-references. I hadn't eaten and then filled up on butterscotch drops and licorice chips until my stomach felt bloated yet still hungry. I hadn't exercised in a couple of weeks, so I felt paunchy and heavy and listless. I masturbated, out of boredom, and so I didn't want to do that again. I felt uncomfortably warm and sticky, and only the thought of SAYING that I didn't put on the air conditioner JUST drove me to the air conditioner to put it on quite low. So I didn't feel like reading, didn't feel like eating, so I just lay on the bed and tried to think about getting into remedial lightwork, but then I kept thinking about the times I DID feel totally lost, as I've felt in the dreams where I have a test, so I want to write a page on "When I felt totally lost" (see DIARY 13158), and then that drags me out of bed to write THIS page, with the thoughts that I have about the terrible depth to which I've sunk now. Don't feel like going to the baths, told Don Maloof that we're going to the Puerto Rican fiesta tomorrow night, and told him that I wanted to spend this weekend alone since NEXT weekend will find me finishing the index with Dennis, who seems content to spend the weekend away from me. (And even the TYPEWRITING is getting worse and worse!) Don't feel like getting to the JOYI letter, but the thought of just sitting down with the retyping of "John" seems to have some sort of appeal, and I think of the indexes that I have to do currently, so THAT will take time away at some time, and then I begin to feel hemmed in with too much to do, and yet I'm doing NOTHING. Then the pressure of the number of pages behind I am, wanting to get that through by 10 tonight when I want to watch TV again, drives me to type now at 7:40, and things are in such bad shape that I have to move to the clock to put it back on the table to see what TIME it is! But at least my brief "harmonizing" brought me back to some sort of sense, some sort of DOING that will prevent me from analogically beating my head against the wall for doing NOTHING.

DIARY 13158 WHEN I FELT TOTALLY LOST Also 7/8/78

Looking through some of the mathematical articles, trying to follow them for some paragraphs, in EB III today brings back the memory of the times that I did NOT know what was going on in Electromagnetism, or in Mathematics for Physics, or in Quantum Mechanics, and I would read the book in total ununderstanding, trying to make up for lack of knowledge with sheer memory, which might have been OK in college, but not in graduate school, so that when I went to class I felt as if I DID know nothing about what was going on. AND then there was the Differential Equations class at Akron U., when Dr. Selby actually gave me a pre-taste of Columbia by assuming that we could LEARN something that he didn't TELL us directly, that we could GENERALIZE, learn a method that we could APPLY in general --- even though everyone in the class knew they couldn't, and the final test was saved ONLY because he gave a set of equations that everyone could work out on their own, and I could copy from Bob Seaver, that I even PASSED the course with a C, the worst course I took and the worst grade I got, in the whole of my college career. So there WERE times when I felt totally lost, though the only time BEFORE that was when I went TOO far ahead of the class in Determinants back with the math teacher in California, where I was ahead of the class anyway. Then I was reminded of the problem that I was posed by Frank Garrity and --- can't remember her name but I can SEE her face --- about some generalized parameter-handling that had to be workable in four dimensions of freedom, and I hadn't the VAGUEST IDEA what to do, so I just tried to code blind, not coming up with a flowchart at all, and nothing worked and I finally had to be taken off the job in something like disgrace. Rather like my feelings with the COBOL translation where poor Sue Liefer had to just work and work without any guidance from me at all to try to get the Conversion Routines to work when they obviously demanded more of a knowledge of COBOL than either of us had. So there WERE academic times when I didn't know anything, only to fall back on the classes that I COULD understand: Nuclear Physics, Russian, as some sort of blessed relief from thinking of myself as STUPID.

DIARY 13166 KNOWLEDGE ISN'T ENOUGH 7/12/78

Incredible breaks in reading "The Tibetan Book of the Dead" (see DIARY 13167), but afterwards I sit in a stupor and have to goad myself to DO something. Knowledge isn't enough. I paged through EB III with enormous delight (see DIARY 13168), read the sections stemming from metaphysics with understanding and pleasure (see DIARY 13169), and contemplate writing about connecting everything --- and sit in the chair and stare at the wall. Is THIS the entrance to Nirvana, where the nothingness that pervades my mind increasingly produces precisely that result in work: nothing? Maybe, but it's hardly the Creativity and Organization and Wisdom proclaimed by Actualism. Of course there has to be a balance: for the past week I've been sedentary, only walking as exercise, and not much of that --- I know I should exercise and I don't. And then, laden with the guilt of just TYPING those words, I went and watered the plants and exercised at 12 (which means 12 pushups, 12 situps, 12x5=60 steps running in place followed by 12 jumping jacks, done twice, and 12/10=1 pullup, making my tendons crackle with 3 1/2 weeks abstention), so at least THAT's taken care of. Then the KNOWLEDGE that the list of things is being reduced on the Do-list makes the things LEFT even MORE of a hassle: JOYI, bodywork, indexes, writing almost constantly tumble through my brain while I'm doing something else: like reading EB or staring at the wall. But, as Bruce so succinctly put it when we once talked about "getting everything together," "SO WHAT?" I've gotten everything together, and so WHAT? I'm not younger or more beautiful or happier or more fulfilled because of it, I just get closer and closer to some sort of a wall: I know all this but what do I DO with it; I have the boards cleared for writing and when do I DO it? I should be happy with everything as it is, but why am I NOT?? And one side says it's probably just activation from Actualism tonight, which DOES turn out to be activating, and this sits in the typewriter while I phone George Pierson and schedule a body session at HIS place, so there's only the diary, JOYI, indexes, writing, and BOOK-LIST UPDATING (that I've added to the list, proving that there'll ALWAYS be something) to think about now, at page-end.

DIARY 13210 PULLING AWAY FROM MYSELF IN TIME 7/20/78

Frantically looking through datebook material to find a record of having seen "Pleasure Garden" recently, I find that stuff from January and February of THIS year seems very distant in time, and I have an idea it might be due to increasingly active involvement in Actualism, so much so that I feel so much more COMMITTED to doing something useful that I feel that I'm not a child anymore, though I hope that doesn't prevent me from being "child-like" when it comes to enjoying things and being open to new experiences. It seems to be a problem of how to keep SERIOUSNESS from becoming HEAVINESS. I feel that I have to go from "closed poles" to "poles ajar" at least a bit. I also got a sense of the CONTINUITY of the centers as freeing energies that can be used for others above them. The feeling of estrangement from even the so-recent past was a tiny bit disquieting: I HAVE had the feeling all the way through of being the same person: though I've grown away from Akron, Ohio, I seem to be the same person who grew up there. Though I've been away from IBM a long time, I can still remember as myself the thoughts and delights and hours of work that my commitment to that job required. And the financial lift it gave me, and the odd feeling of guilt that I felt to have so much money when friends needed some so badly. And all of those people still felt like me: reading my diaries from 10 and even 20 years ago, though fragmented back then, I could still identify myself in them. But THIS feeling was rather like a DIFFERENT set of eyes and a DIFFERENT mind looking back on what happened then --- and looking back to the reports that I wrote IN Acid House were disquieting too: where did the urge for children go so quickly? Well, I never HAVE like being around children! Even seeing films a second time after long times ("Rouge et Noir" after 20 years to the day) show that I've changed a lot, and reading books a second time, noting what I did and didn't underline, showing more of an intellectual change than a physical change. But THIS "pulling away in time" not only implies an ACCELERATION of progress, moving FASTER, but a DIFFERENCE that I'll be interested in seeing further manifestations of.

DIARY 13226 EFFERVESCENCE! 7/28/78

Incredible amounts of STUFF going on! Wake at 9 and feel like lying more, then get up at 9:15 and start doing lightwork, and the whole thing falls into many places: using the "golden computer" analogy of humans and lightwork (see DIARY 13227-3229) as the basis for the article for "Psychology Today," getting the apartment cleaned up from the mess from the plumber and plasterer yesterday, wanting to get more into lightwork-bodywork, wanting to eat, having to wash my face. So I wash my face and before I can dry it, Rodie Siegler calls to say that the appendices will be sent over by messenger this afternoon so that Dennis CAN finish the Anthropology index over the weekend, and before I can FINISH drying my face the phone rings again and it's Manuela from Harper (for whom Dennis did the Darley and Spriesterbach for Bob Ginsburg for 40¢ a line) with an index on Government between August 8-18, and then Rodie makes me talk with Michel Corbet about the Latham paying (or late-paying) policies and offers me a book on "Life Span" with 600 pages that will begin the middle of August. Phone Dennis and he's willing to do both of them, then phone the companies and get lots of names for Alice, Susan's secretary, for breaking into the medical indexing field, and phone them all in to Susan. Then phone Pope to ask if anyone's come up with the "golden computer" idea, and he says it's as evocative as the other Hindu things about mirroring mirrors and glowing flowers, but says he recognizes the usual thing that wrapping many thin wires together produces a much stronger cable. I phone Amy Fleetman to set up a body session with her, and then phone Joan Ann to say I'd done my first session, and typed JJ; finally, and she's willing to be a guinea pig for me if I come to her place, and says there are getting to be lots of people in the Brooklyn area, and Susan's roommate is Dorothy Kent! All these things whirling around, and still thinking about writing stories and finishing the JOYI material, and cleaning up the apartment, but I end up by putting on hamburg to eat, so that I can digest in time to meet Dennis at 6, and putting the pipe to the brain WORKS: there's only so much I can do and I'm DOING it, and it'll all get done, and there's nothing to fret about!

DIARY 13305 GETTING TIRED OF JOYI 8/16/78

Transcribing the short answers, particularly since I don't quite know what I'm going to do with them yet, isn't the most fun of the project, and I'm waiting for the slew of responses that I hope will deluge me, but I want to get SOME of them out of the way so that I don't have EVERYTHING to do right at the end, but I'm glad it's been decided that it's over, though I'm also glad that the 20 responses have been increased about 50% in the past week with the second mailing. Lots of "follow-up" letters to be written, however, explaining again how the mailing works, but at least the BULK of the 300 have been dealt with and I'm only dealing with the hard-core 30-50 that will make up the bulk of the book. Some of it finally gets through to me and I jerk off in the afternoon in the chair before the mirror, using poppers, and the juice from earlier working builds up so that I shoot over my shoulder and onto the edge of the bed about 4 feet from my cock. Now that there are so many LONG answers, some of the sections will be enormous, so I'll set up some kind of supplementary request-form for the biggies like "the ad" and some of the other thought-fugues. Amusing to get a response from someone who wants to help, and then there are the number who seem more interested in more MAILINGS and those that seem to be just interested in SEX, so there'll be a 63-person mailing to the people in NYC for a possible group-formation, so there will be SOME continuing activity which is more what I have in MIND, as opposed to simply retyping people's fantasies and jerk-off dreams. Maybe THIS is the time to do it, so I'll set up DIARY 13306 for the draft of NEW YORK J/O GROUP FORMATION, and then DIARY 13307 for the draft of EXPLANATORY LETTER FOR JOYI MAILING, and I'll sure have a whole load of things to take to Raven to Xerox NEXT time, as well as the letter to Meredith and the pages that I'll want to send to HIM, having then to write SOME interpreting material to see if it would be better JUST the responses or more from a WRITER to link things together and comment. But through it all it feels GREAT to be working on the 9th item on the do-list, ready to get it down to 8, the lowest since records kept, and then down to 7, a NEW record to be adhered to most of the rest of the time.

DIARY 13317 THINGS DO SEEM TO BE CHANGING! 8/17/78

Could the "calmness needles" of acupuncture have had such quick effects? Are the bodywork sessions from Actualism getting me much more into my body? Are the new energies "just what I need" for processing and progressing? Did the "satisfaction of the do-list," down at a low of 9, help in a way? Whatever the reason (and now that I'm stopping acupuncture for awhile, maybe I can tell what effect that may have had), things seem to be going better: I haven't been seeing TV (thanks to a newspaper strike that took the schedule from me from Sunday-Friday, except for Channel 13), not been going to movies (and since there's nothing good, haven't been missing them, either, and can do without seeing such good-oldies as "Haxan" and "Witchcraft Through the Ages"), not going to dances or ballets or operas (lots on TV, though, which is even more fabulous). But I've not been WORRIED about what to do next: I work on JOYI, work on indexes, write letters, do bodywork, go to sessions, and it all gets done SO smoothly that it's a proof things have changed. Dennis is sadder about work, but I think, we're going pretty well, and he really liked the way I got into my cock the other morning, and since he's been tired a lot recently, I have TIME to build up the requisite pressures. The avoiding of the trips were good for THIS time (and it felt good to get the stories to Joan Ann, but I have to phone her to see if they need changes), but I DO now seem to want the Caribbean again on Eastern, and Mexico with Larry, though they might be disasters. Even Mom's been in good shape: liked my call before she went to Japan. Helen's letters are interesting to hassle out, and I hope she answers constructively. Will finish JOYI until the last transcription, work on the two indexes to get THEM out of the way, and be down to a record low of 7 on the do-list, up to $5 on the NHS chart, and then will be set for the Est Graduate Review, and then probably tell them NOT to call me again. So nice to talk to Susan Lieber about Actualizations and know that I've DONE it, so I don't have to worry about it. Maybe a quick colonic for the experience, and writing will come about in its OWN time, and I feel CONFIDENT about my letter to Meredith about the JOYI writings (see DIARY 13318).

DIARY 13331 EMPTY 8/23/78

I think the word, and the "mpt" sound in the middle catches a mucus nasality in my sinuses, giving off a crinkly-wet sound that reminds me of an image that I've had a few times with that word: a very thin, not-fully-inflated, aluminum-foil balloon "mpt"ing as it bounces around in a cubical container. This is my feeling: a not-fully-inflated entity bouncing against the walls of my life. I lay on the bed, vaguely warm but too inert to turn the air conditioner on. I've gotten phone calls so I know that McGraw Hill, ACC, and Raven are all sending me indexes, so I don't have monetary security to concern myself about. I've masturbated, so that pressure is gone, And it occurs to me that I've ACTUALLY DONE most of the things left on the Do-List: exercised, gone over astrology with Pope, done part of the "Atherosclerosis" index and don't have to worry about the far-distant deadline; and much of the writing items: written for publication, showed writings to Dennis and Arnie and Joan Ann; sent out sci-fi stories; and I don't have "John" READY to be sent out (though I suppose I COULD get myself started on that?), and I can't send out the letter to Meredith until I get all the responses and final results typed and pages re-pasted and Xeroxed for the people. So I contemplate going to Southampton tomorrow with relaxation, knowing I can pack in time and that clothes are clean for it; I can look forward to the body session with Dorothy tonight knowing that I'm relaxed for it and can finish whatever I have to finish by then, and I find my thoughts being effectively drained by the tube into the magnetic --- so I lay there feeling empty! I hear Ms. Watson moving about aimlessly upstairs and wonder what SHE has to do, has to live for, has to look forward to --- and then think that SHE could very well think ME in that position, which leads me to think of ME IN that position: I HAVE traveled, I HAVE read, I HAVE indulged in sex, I HAVE written, I HAVE engaged in mind-expansion, I HAVE gone to restaurants and operas and plays and movies and TV shows and museums and galleries and parks. So I HAVE DONE, and WILL CONTINUE TO DO, and wonder why I don't feel HAPPIER: this could be a TRANSCENDENT STATE OF BLISS, and I choose to describe it as EMPTY. Maybe I'll benefit from the "transformation" of est the weekend after next!

DIARY 13372 NO DRIVE 9/12/78

During the lightwork session of 9/5 it occurs to me that I have no DRIVE when I get to "end of list." I fritter away my time on stamps, or reading, or various vacations, or sex, or music, or catching up on filing or list-making, until the list BUILDS again with lots of things to get rid of, and then I have the LIST to contend with again. But when I get down to 7 or 8 items, most of them writing, I sort of panic and don't do ANYTHING useful. Then, before the session, it's clear that I LIKE wallowing in past memories, future anticipations, hassles about decisions, "feeling down," etc! There's just no two ways about it: I don't have the drive to get OUT of low frequency sometime: the life jacket's right there and I feel myself drowning and I don't have the energy to reach out and put it on. And then I don't USE the lightwork tools: was it about a year ago that I'd resolved to use more of the lighting of the food? And haven't done it since? Since I don't use the tools, my mind flows on to the fact that I already HAVE traveled, read books, written books that haven't been published, gotten tools both from Actualism and est, both from doing things and reading books --- there have been times that I've actually gotten enlightened, and surely I've had sex, listened to music, organized my life, made meals. I HAVE done it, so why do it MORE? But I've also LIVED, EATEN, SLEPT, and I still want to do all THAT more!! Maybe I lose my drive when I feel "the end is near" (as on the list) because it's too like the "end of my life" being near? I don't WANT to finish lists like I don't want to finish life, and here's PROOF that est was right when it said (see DIARY 13362) that the mind doesn't want to complete anything --- many times I've found it doesn't want to complete EVERYTHING so that it still has something to look forward to. Going to all the museums in a city on a trip leads me to leave the city; New York is so great because there's ALWAYS new restaurants and exhibits and shows to see, and people to meet. So I don't want to complete EVERYTHING, so maybe I'd better PAD the list of things to do with things that I'll NEVER do --- maybe THAT'S why the "Infinite Things to Do List" seemed so satisfying when I came up with it??!

DIARY 13389 DIARY TYPING Also 9/12/78

This is the first diary page TYPED AS A DIARY PAGE (not counting the four Actualism article pages) (see DIARY 13354-3357) that I've typed in 12 days, which is the longest since the Caribbean trip, when I HAD to be away from it, and by far otherwise the longest this year, aside from the 10 days for the Venice trip. And I always seemed to leave THIS to last, since maybe I'd gotten frantic about leaving WRITING until last, so I had to have something else to replace THAT with, so I took diary typing as "the last thing to do before I could do the last thing to do": send things out to be published. Then decided that I HAD to type a special page ABOUT it before I actually got down TO it, typing the page for TODAY (see DIARY 133??), since it seemed to epitomize the days passed WITHOUT work, WITHOUT anything of importance going on, yet finding myself at 6:15 pm, now, having come, having caught up with the mail, having done a few things for myself, but not having WORKED or WRITTEN, which are the "worthwhile" things that I "should" do, and my not even typing the DIARY is ludicrous, since I can't even feel guilty about not doing what I SHOULD do, just feel lousy about not having kept up with the DIARY. And as usual with that, the urge to just STOP it comes across, but then it's not the DIARY that should be changed, it's all the OTHER things, so AGAIN I keep insisting that I can hardly begrudge myself 2-3 pages per day of STUFF so that I can find out what I WAS doing when I didn't have anything in particular to do. Amazing how the time passed WITHOUT indexing to be done, only a moderate amount of body-work, only a small amount of traveling to fun places, but lots of reading, little of TV, VERY little of doing anything of an entertainment nature, and lots of "just passing time" that would feel better if I COULD just take the 10 minutes or so that I need to keep track of things. And just as I need to make lists of things to do before I DO them (and that's part of it, too, the list is SO low now that I'm LOATHE to add anything to it, so I have a SUPPLEMENTAL list!), so now I had to get through this "throat-clearing" page before I could get to TODAY's page before I could get to the DIARY!!

DIARY 13439 QUANTITY OF DATA AND IMAGES 9/25/78

The Atlantic Antic illustrates the point: just LOOKING at the number of people, the detail of the rubbish offered for sale, the quantities of people and prices and choices, the titles of books and lists of dates of magazines, and again I'm overwhelmed by the QUANTITY of data and images. I think of the specifications I want to write for the indexing program, the thousands of file cards that I throw into the garbage, the pages after thousands of pages of reading material I have read and want to read, the number of people with conflicting experiences, the religions with programs like "The Footstep of Buddha," and even the detail that goes into my dreams (see DIARY 13438), the quantity just seems overwhelming. I don't want a videotape machine to further complicate things; I don't want any more activities to take more time; I don't want to generate any more lists, or even meet any more people (but I know that isn't true!). I want to leave the Atlantic Antic and I want things to be simpler in Actualism. I'm tired of seeing movies that don't please me; even the quantity of television is beginning to depress me, and if I have to take two pages to elaborate dreams from one night I'll never finish with the diary. And the quantity of pages and words in the diary staggers me: 13439 pages, 400,000 lines, 5 MILLION words!! Anthologized TV shows are taking more time on TV, repertory movie theaters have almost taken over the neighborhood theaters; we're becoming a society of recycling (will we have King Tut fashions now?) ideas rather than creating new ones --- though if new ones are created they're overwhelmed by the pressures and quantities from the past. I've done so much and want to do so much and will leave so much undone. I've worked so hard and made so much money that went to pay for things now used and discarded. People pass through my life as my life passes from birth to death, and still the cycles proceed, the vortex continues, the dizzying pace increases as the years multiply and the data divides in staggering proliferation. Birth control doesn't guarantee idea control, and these images should all be consigned to the flames of purifying oblivion. There's just so MUCH of EVERYTHING!

DIARY 13453-6 SO MUCH GOING ON! 9/29/78

There's so much going on and I so desperately want to pin it down in words. Wake up this morning and the flood of things I'd like to do hits me: go to Hemlock Hall, go to Englishtown, go to the Danbury Fair, go to Sicily, go to the Caribbean, go to Alaska, go to Mexico. That's travel, but on the other hand I have things to keep me at home: Actualism, bodywork, indexing program, writing (second/second article, Actualism article, "John," science-fiction short story, diary pages, dreams of life after death in flying yesterday and shoe-stirred shit and Dennis talking in a foreign language to Japanese at lunch today, JOYI), JOYI finishing, indexing work, reading, entertainment-doing (operas for the new season, ballet and modern dance, gallery and museum showings (and EACH of these cold go into lists: Tut, Haiti at Brooklyn, nudes at 57th Street, Dendur at Met, Papua-New Guinea mudmen at Museum of Natural History, Avedon, Modern, ICP --- I could research THAT ONE list, which is a subset of entertainment-doing, which is a subset of what I want to DO, which is a subset of SO MUCH GOING ON!), movies, TV, theater (and at this point John rings the bell, we talk about indexing specs, I say I can't go to Hemlock Hall, he says Mrs. Johnson will collect his mail and water his plants, he takes 4 After Darks to look at them, then has to return to rehearse his Arabian Nights reading for tomorrow night at Hemlock Hall), restaurants, parks, zoos, botanical gardens, amusement parks, friends), sex, apartment-keeping (including watering plants, cooking food, washing dishes, buying groceries and wine, maintaining utensils, cleaning, putting the air conditioner away, and the current mess (which includes fruit pits from Susan's body session yesterday, the blanket Bill Wolf gave Dennis yesterday, paper bags from the magazines I read all last night (and THOSE gave me lots of pretty men to look at, erotic magazines and books to consider, loads of products and movies and plays and dances and photo essays and clothing and foods that are sold on their cock appeal --- and how do the men involved in THIS facet of living think of their lives --- do they even have the time to ask these questions that I'm trying to find answers to?), specifications for the indexing job, TV guide, route to Susan's brunch on Sunday, stuff for Dennis to take down to his apartment, tape measure for measuring the length of cord to go into the dumbwaiter shaft for a communications pulley, lazy susan from Dennis to make some block-housing display on, magazines and newspapers that I pulled out to see what I'd read that talked about the 30-foot erection in northern England (and THAT contributed to the mess: I DID read it, but checked through Reader's Digest Unsolved Mysteries and Soho Weekly News and Phoenix and Omni and Scientific American and New York and Advocate and it MAY have been in the Frommer guide to England that I check when I was looking at their list of countries for which they have guides when I was fantasizing working as a writer for them brought on by having Faye asking me to send a proposal to Paul Pasmantier for indexing the Hawaii book which may lead to indexing their whole series but Paul said "not this year"), and junk to be vacuumed up when I do that), not to mention the fragments associated with keeping DENNIS's apartment, like the note from the telephone man and assorted piles of things), body-keeping (like showering and shampooing and clipping nails and getting body sessions and exercising and doing lightwork, which I hardly ever do, and keeping up with the Laszlo regimen and buying clothes and trimming the beard), buying a reel adapter for my super-8 film, showing writings to anyone, checking astrology with Pope, and sending JOYI to Meredith. THEN as I glance through the Soho Weekly News, there's so MUCH there about new dances and movies and plays and poetry and books and assorted entertainment, not to mention news reports like on Love Canal and Carter and Carey and Sadat and Lebanon and the Japanese airport, not to mention TV guides and movie timings (and I want to see "Aguirre, Wrath of God" today sometime!), and I tore an ad, from the Voice, on the Ruins, 158 Perry Street, which sounds like fun, and AGAIN the wealth of detail hits me. THEN I jerk off, since I woke up horny and Dennis had to get up at 7:30 and didn't have time for sex and I'm going to Don's tonight and tomorrow morning so we won't have sex until Saturday night at the latest, and as the popper-rush hits me I come and think of the times I've come and the people I've come with and fun I've had in coming, and THAT yields loads of details, and then I look over at the mirror and think of other mirrors, then look at the porno and think of all those guys involved in sex and how much THEY think about these questions, and my bed is strewn with lids and pieces of the air conditioner which I'm putting away, and I see my typewriter over there and my movie projector down there and think of my slide projector and vibrator under the bed and the video recorder I just decided I really didn't NEED, but the quantity of STUFF that I have in my life came down on me, and I think I want MORE! And the QUESTIONS that all these are leading up to, that I wonder if these guys who pose for jerk-off movies think about, or the pretty bodies and boys that smile from the pages of After Dark are concerned with (as Somerset Maugham was concerned about), are: WHAT IS THIS ALL ABOUT? WHY DO ALL THESE THINGS SEEM TO TAKE UP MORE TIME THAN LIVING DOES? WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN ALL THESE THINGS? And I think about Actualism and feel that I have THAT to push me in a spiritual-metaphysical area, think about writing and feel that I have THAT to push me in a mental-accomplishment area, think about Dennis and sex and people and feel that I have THOSE to push me in an emotional-relational area, and think about indexing and JOYI book and computer programs for money-supply so that I can FINANCE these areas, and think of the traveling I WON'T do to be ABLE to spend more time on these areas, and I feel that I've somehow built to a crescendo and there was nothing INSIDE to SUPPORT that build-up and release of energy. It all comes down to equations of motion of basic particles in empty space, which is supposed to be all illusory, revolutions of a Mad Mind, and think of Susan's Bill laughingly demanding a 20% increase on his $25,000 salary and a better car from his Datamatics job, Rolf turning down his $23,000 job offer, me wondering how I'll pay the taxes on my $16,000 this year, hoping Dennis can get things together for a trip to Dakar (and Terry calls with another index from Raven and I call Eli to ask about Sicily and Dakar and he's busy, and it's now nearly 11 so Rolf is late from his "be there in an hour or so" at 9:30), and talking to Mom who wants to visit me here if I don't go there, and wondering about whether I'll subscribe to the new picture magazines of Life and Look when they're revived next year. Then check the schedule for "Aguirre" and find it's only possible Friday at 6 if I cancel watching "The Hulk" and having dinner with Dennis tonight, or Saturday at 7:40 if I can chance getting into the last show, but then I think I'd want to see "Friend" first, so Saturday IS a good idea. Maybe Arthur will come with me if Dennis won't. And Arthur is something else: into tarot and astrology and psychic healing, saying I'm so great in bodywork, as Susan does, who suggests she could see me doing it ALL DAY, and I do NOT want to take next week to scout out locations for Actualism with her. BUT IT'S ALL A GAME, it's all the mad whirling of electrons, signifying nothing, and I'll die and that'll be the end of this whirl EVEN IF something goes "streaking through the star-studded tunnel" that I saw after the plane crash in that crazy dream of 9/28, WHATEVER diary page I type it onto (see DIARY 13461) and starts ANOTHER INDEPENDENT (except for IE, which seems to have little touch with my life AT THIS POINT, though readings with Amy might get into it, Actualism might get into it, Bruce Lieber and Dorothy Kent seem to get stuff from it now) while of existence. What a COUNTERPOINT to some do-nothing life in India THIS life seems to be: in a previous life (see how easy I can say that?) I must have REALLY WANTED TO DO THINGS, because now I'm burdened with wanting to do DOZENS of things, getting dozens of things DONE, much more than many people, yet still wanting to do MORE, wanting to live MORE, and this is why there's life and living, because I keep wanting to do more (it's a "proven" fact that the world won't be completely enlightened until I am completely enlightened, since the world and I are totally bound up in each other, and it IS me that keeps the world going, since if I stop the world for MYSELF, then the world IS STOPPED for me, which is the only sensory-input-machine that I know about, and it WOULD be enlightened (as it always has been) if I would become enlightened enough to see that IT is NOW enlightened, as it IS!

DIARY 13535 TASKS, TREATS, AND THREATS 10/19/78

Finished the two indexes that I had to do over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday and into Monday, and then Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday I tended to treat myself by doing what I wanted to do: reading magazines, going to a movie with Dennis, thinking about washing the windows, sorting out the stuff that I'd piled up while I was working on the indexes, but the ONE thing that I didn't get to when the TASKS were out of the way was WRITING. Not to the Actualism article, or to the new-dimensions article, or to the sending of JOYI to Meredith, nor "John." Nothing. And my mind goes to the escapes of masturbation, movie-watching, TV-watching (see DIARY 13534), stamp-soaking, file-updating, and window-washing. So I waste time until the tasks threaten to overwhelm me, and then I do more indexes and the cycle starts again. I fit in the entertainment all right (the TV show on the chess championship, all the periodicals in the mail, meals, all the lightwork and bodywork), but the OUGHT of the WRITING just gets lost by the wayside, and since that's the ONLY thing that needs to be done (and I think of a new kind of filing system that will put all the kinds of writing that I could do IN FRONT OF ME), I tend to WASTE more time, and think of OTHER ways of entertaining myself, or of phoning Avi for Monopoly or Pope for Scrabble or Dennis for sex or dinners or HIS entertainments. And then I finish what I'm doing and sit aimlessly, feeling like doing NOTHING, or feeling like taking a nap, and it's only because I'm getting so CLOSE to having nothing to do EXCEPT WRITING that puts me into ennui and boredom and sends me out for something else to do. But I have to learn to get INTO it: like sitting down with these last two pages has gotten me INTO typing and catching up on the diary before leaving for Don's this evening, rather than watching movies and jerking off, as I'd been tempted to do though I know it would only leave me with a GREATER sense of guilt, and maybe that means I AM learning something, that I CAN direct things (and the thought that I really should catch up on LETTERS again hits me, and I just HAVE to keep the do-list up to date by ADDING two things so I can clear my mind again and get rid of the THREAT and GUILT and make it an ACCOUNTING process again!

DIARY 13578 VERY FLOWING THREE DAYS 10/29/78

The flow seems to have started the evening of October 25: the body session from Dorothy, walking to the center for class, coming home to Dennis's quiche, up for more quiche on Thursday, doing laundry and banking and shopping before going to Springer to take in index, Xerox, get same index back, which I took with me to Dennis's, where we had lunch at Raja-Rani, then to Allegra's to take back Mood-Altering and give her the author's index, then we went to Apollo for the cards, which I brought home in time to get out to Arthur's, where he didn't mind my not having showered, then Susan was late so we had the time. Home to dinner of my mushroom stuff, Rolf over for the index, talking about incorporation, bed, then Friday-the-even-more-full: getting breakfast, Susan over at 9:40 after saying she'd come at 9, getting her out, talking to Stimmel, going to Amy's reading, making phone calls, writing up her reading part-way before Rolf is over, Susan and Amy canceling out, giving Rolf more time, which he HAS (and had forgotten to tell me), and then doing Arthur, which left me feeling rather drained (see DIARY 13577). Then Saturday saw sex with Dennis, interleaving JOYI pages, Susan over before class, talking with Allegra, Paul, and Michael, then class, home to Dennis doing index, have lunch and make seasoned butter for chicken Kiev, pack up JOYI letters, watch TV, find I have more JOYI indexing to do, dinner, and then today's typing after breakfast, TV, to Allegra's, Amy's getting index, to Paul's, tomorrow's book auction, Arthur over, the doll-friend of Michael's over. No need of a do-list, things getting done. However, no INDEXING getting done, no WRITING getting done, and that limp feeling of "I've done ENOUGH for awhile" I had last night. And my reluctance to think of making dinner for us when I've done hamburg Thursday, hen Friday, and chicken Kiev Saturday, not to mention French toast this morning. Lots of energy, but it FLOWED, worked out, let me get to a number of people to talk in a personal and professional way. No time to think of the past and little time to look into the far future, it worked through the hours and few days in an organized, natural, busy, accomplishmentful way. Different.

DIARY 13584 STONED-ON-WINE WALK HOME THROUGH BROOKLYN 10/30/78

I race up the block, fresh air invigorating, and pass someone who might be gay and cruising, but the tight jeans pass quickly and I continue homeward. Don't know the PRECISE streets I have to traverse, only the DIRECTION, and I pass quiet homesteads, buildings that quiver to music from behind drawn shades, a few racing cars, and solitary changing stoplights. The Rex has a Someone-else Lee karate film with something about "Studs" or some other one-syllable macho film, and then I pass a pizza parlor with people clustered around the counter but push to find the door locked. They smile at me and move to let me in, but they're having some sort of neighborhood meeting and I gesture to the oven to show I merely wanted pizza and they moved away from the door and I walked on. I could hear my heels clicking authoritatively on the sidewalk, taking enormous long steps in the midnight silence, and was proud of my muscles and coordination and stride, and happy to be free to talk about at midnight enjoying the atmosphere as little Italy merged with the Arabian neighborhood and crossed busy Atlantic Avenue for the tree-lined street-enclave of Brooklyn Heights. Beautiful apartments were still lit for me to study the ceilings of from the sidewalk, some more passersby seemed as pleased as I to be out, and I slowed my drunken walk now that I was on familiar turf, beginning to be hungry for solid food, and walked Henry to the corner at 12:25 to find they close at 1, order a Jumbo Baconburger with drink-slurred accents, and watched the short-skirted waitress talk about her headache and try to flirt with the gay guys that she probably didn't understand. Wolfed down the bacon-cheese hamburg, ketchuped my fries lightly and gracefully, eating them with my fingers, and cut the tomato and lettuce with a fork and shoved it into my mouth. A few other guys came in and I tried cruising the younger of them, but nothing happened. Paid with a 41¢ in 10 coins' tip, feeling quite full, and swung out deciding that I would NOT view movies and masturbate as I'd fantasized while walking, horny, toward home, but let myself in Dennis's gate and saw him just walking around prior to bed, so we chatted and he came and then slept peacefully entwined.

DIARY 13594 TERRIFYING SENSATIONS 11/3/78

Talking to Pat Mandino, suddenly there's a tremendous rush of emotion, not formulated into thoughts, but quickly becoming manifest as an enormous physical discomfort, so that I think I may have to put down the phone and ruse to the bathroom to vomit. I sit amazed, watching the actual visual field change in clarity until it becomes more like a picture than reality. I sense a physical rush, akin to violent drunkenness, but coupled with a thundering soundless roar that sweeps up and over me like a passing train. I sit frozen, hardly hearing what she's saying, and find that she's asked me a question and I don't know what to say. That passes, handled somehow, and I know that my stomach's queasy, that the sour cream may have been to blame for the upsurge of nausea, that the conversation with Pat where she seems to want to have something to do with me sexually has built to an intensity that I want to do away with, that the sparkling wine I drank last night produced an extraordinary drunk, that breakfast this morning may have nauseated me --- I don't know how to deal with it. We continue talking and she seems to have proven to herself that I AM gay, that I probably WON'T have anything to do with her sexually, that her feelings have to be diverted elsewhere, and we begin talking and investigating the relationship between her and Nate, and she says that he was impotent the first few times with her, then it was good for awhile, and then he seemed to be losing interest, that she always had to be the aggressor, and that a few times it seems they had to resort to mutual masturbation so that they wouldn't be frustrated. But she says she doesn't want to DO that anymore, but she doesn't seem to want to do anything to take her OUT of it, not do anything for HERSELF. I talk for about 2 hours with her, ending up feeling physically drained so that I have to lay down: could it be because it reminded me so strongly of relationships with women in the past, something like a two-day bug that's been going around, or something from the surgery with Alice on Tuesday --- whatever, it affected me for the next couple of days, and I still don't quite know what to make of it all, except that I'd not like to have it happen again soon.

DIARY 13606 WHAT IS GOING ON? 11/5/78

COULD be a number of things: Alice's surgery on Tuesday, Pat's call on Friday, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, gut-tightening exercises for Richard's class, a small virus, or Actualism-connected activation around the intro class or Cosmic Mother practice. WHATEVER it is, I don't like it! Don't feel like getting into anything: tempted today to watch TV or read a new book --- ANYTHING but catch up on fixing up the apartment, planning for the painting on Friday, catching up on the diary, starting a new index. Don't feel hungry, but when I start eating I have no trouble polishing off three half-muffins after the regular hamburg, so that I still feel bloated at 5. But that might be the contractions for Richard, since I'm trying to do AT LEAST 5 today to make up for the ones I TOTALLY missed yesterday! At least I managed to clear the sink of pots and got the socks in to be washed (Which at 5:26 I go to FINISH, and end up doing the dishes and putting other things away and return to the typewriter at 6:45). And then I'm so far behind on the diary that AGAIN the temptation comes to just let it SLIDE, that I won't be needing it any more, that I'm not doing the writing for publication that the whole thing was intended to turn out ANYWAY, but then the counter-thought comes that BECAUSE I'm feeling so different about everything that this is JUST the time that I should record, or at least record what CHANGES I'm going through, but if I'm going to do THAT, the best way is the format I've already set up (since LESS than one page per day doesn't seem to work for me when I tried it last time), so all I have to do is KEEP MORE UP TO DATE, and consider it then more of a PLEASURE to do than a chore to keep up with. THAT's part of the whole thing: I sit wanting to READ, thinking that I haven't given myself time to ENJOY myself, whereas on the contrary it's been about a WEEK since I did ANY work on indexing, and I meant to get to it today, and if I DO it'll only be on the SCANTIEST basis, and even though I've caught up on a lot of things, I STILL have the drawer to go through and the writing-file to establish, TV to watch, dinner to eat, and things pile up AGAIN, so that I hope I can start fresh TOMORROW and keep more up-to-the-minute than NOW!

DIARY 13631 THOUGHTS AFTER BEING PAINTED 11/16/78

Everyone remarks about the number of books and why don't I throw some of them away: but I see the Updike and Vonnegut and Clarke and Heinlein and Hesse and Huxley and how can I throw THOSE away? Or the Jung and Horney and Krishnamurti? Maybe I COULD sift through and throw out a dozen, but it's not worth it! Then think that maybe I cold move the travel stuff out of the study onto the big bookcase, now that it's not part of my "study," since the body table seems to have permanently taken over what I could now think of as the DINING room! Then Pat on Monday and Susan on Tuesday remark on the openness of the dining room, so I shouldn't put the large bookcase back across the doorway, which AGAIN isn't needed there. But where to put it? Remember that I put all the books in the "study" when I wanted the living room FREE from books, but now with the added bookcase, there's books there ANYWAY, and it seems less OPPRESSIVE to be NOT surrounded with stuff to do as I'm working, so the bedroom seems BETTER for the desk (and damn the typing!). Think again of stacking up the units THREE high to get more floor space, and think of putting the cross-wise bookcase into the study by the door, but that's too cumbersome, and then think of the "dead" corner where I can move the TV, and then a bookcase could go against the WALL and then the cross-wise one FACING it, so that ONE aisle stands for TWO cases, and then the tapes could move out of the cramped position and into the bookcase which would then be next to the TAPE recorder. Travel stuff, which isn't used until I use it, could then be in the "inaccessible area" right next to the record cabinet and the room in the living room would be pushed together, which is OK since the TV takes up all that room anyway, and now that one chair's moved into the bedroom it seems to BELONG there, except when company comes over to use it. It seems that freeing one wall in the body room would clear it up sight-wise, though I have to figure what to do with the telephone answering machine, but maybe I can move the whole thing into the bedroom where it now seems more to belong anyway! Best idea yet! And I still have all that off-white enamel to paint the sides of bookcases that will now be seen!

DIARY 13649 DISGUST WITH PEOPLE AGAIN 11/19/78

"Hustling" reawakens my disgust with the rich property owners who will bad-mouth prostitution and then own the hotels they use, insisting that the police crackdown on the prostitutes but retaining their own money-and-power insured immunity from the law and publicity. Interesting to notice that Gail Sheehy was Technical Consultant (and I'm assuming she's not a prostitute) and that the magazine was City Magazine, though it had the standard "All characters are fiction," which is probably ANOTHER requirement that should disgust me. The feelings also flowed when Eileen Ryan succeeded in getting her "General Welfare Committee" (HA!) to block for the seventh year the passage of the Gay Rights Bill, despite the heart-warming reports by people Pope told me about like Colleen Dewhurst (who accused her grown sons of being "disgustingly straight") and others, including Mayor Koch, who's certainly putting himself on the line publicity-wise, so it's sad he'd not back it up POWER-wise. Then there are the smokers on the crowded subways, which on Saturday seem to run VERY infrequently and get VERY crowded, and then the doors will slam open and shut to hurry in the people on the first and last cars, where ironically the doors will only open on one side, and there's no knowledge or consideration that the SYSTEM is causing this problem, but it's taken out on the PEOPLE. Why couldn't the conductors and trainmen go on strike unless THEY get the equipment they need for good service? And then there's the occasional smears of dog shit on the sidewalks from rude people who won't scoop despite the law, the graffiti on the subway, even on the newer ones, particularly over windows or the maps people need. Contrarily, I don't care for the Spanish-speaking insistence on translations on ads and on the TV news programs. Then there are the marvelous new signs in the subway proclaiming "No radio playing" and then in a number of stations they have the continuously interfering "Don't go between cars, don't enter cars while the doors are closing," which I constantly feel makes FOOLS of them because people will ALWAYS enter while the doors are closing, so it makes the system's "good" advice seem silly, and deafens people to any REAL announcements that may be needed, while blaring out information constantly that people KNOW is wrong. But how can you refuse to patronize stations that don't have silence?

DIARY 13651 THINGS MOVING "NATURALLY" IN LIFE 11/20/78

Think a lot about est's "so that things get handled in the process of life itself" and feel SO good on 11/11 when I cut down the DO list to 5, three of them permanent and two depending on Pope and Hanneman's index. Then I work on indexes and put apartment together and talk with fledgling indexers and work with Actualism and get out mail and checks, and there's no need to add anything TO the list (though today I add "Work on current index" to make 4 permanent items on the do list, since there's always something to do there, and it's a good feeling that that's whatever's NEXT), except that today I add 5 items of things that I have to wait for the CURRENT index-crush to finish, but there's nothing really HANGING OVER me, and it feels good. Then I overload at Actualism and get a cold on Wednesday, but that's something to be processed too. Watch TV as much as I want, don't have urges for dance performances with the compulsion of before, Dennis and I seem to be doing OK seeing as we have colds, and I guess I WILL get my index to Raven by Tuesday (though how much of the Xeroxing I want to do is another question) (maybe just get two more sets of SPARES??) and Jim's index to McGraw-Hill by Wednesday and shopping finished for the party, and then I have time for myself before the next crush of indexes. But then just LIVING takes so much time. This morning I scrape more paint: from floors, from my new telephone stand at the bed, from the kitchen light fixture, from the bathroom walls, and I have to shower and wash my hair and eat and clean my teeth and Waterpik my gums and take pills and antibiotics and glycothymoline. More dishes to do now even though I did them yesterday, had put the earth from the trough away and stored the trough in the closet, and I only just now reminded myself of stashing away the Erno Laszlo stuff and restoring the tetracycline, and I scratched at paint smudges on the rugs, went through the indexes to see who needed what when, got a call from Jim that he's be late, called Amy who'll be over at 4 pm, and just now answered the buzzer because Jim's here at 12:10. Get him to tearing the cards, he's worked until 6:30 this morning, and here goes another day into the mill, cough better this morning, thank goodness.

DIARY 13683 I FEELS THINGS ARE CHANGING AGAIN 12/4/78

At last I seem to be giving myself PERMISSION to miss deadlines, enjoy myself WHILE I'm working, without feeling TERRIBLY guilty about it. Could pass up "Callas" on Saturday in order to talk with Adam about the Caribbean trip and indexing (see DIARY 13682), could let myself watch the TV programs as they came on again on Sunday (see DIARY 13684), and managed to do things like the dishes and having sex with Dennis and taking time off to go to Hubert's Sunday night as Dennis so much wanted to do. But there is the unmistakably ironic situation that Dennis and Rolf got their indexes in on the very day they were due, but MY index is going to be late without even a very good excuse except for OTHER indexes, which won't impress Sophia too much; then, however, I hope to have the OTHER ACC index by the FOLLOWING Monday (a bit too much to hope for it for Friday, but THAT would be nice, too), and then there are two others hanging over me, none pending for Allegra, who telephoned about her payment, which she hadn't gotten yet, one pending for Rolf when he wants to take it after relaxing for a couple of days, one for Dennis that he has now, on eating, that he has to finish by his departure on the 14th, and none for anyone else except Amy to finish hers. But I don't even do anything on the index on MONDAY, which is really a blow, because I want to Xerox the books and solve the new problem at Raven and catch up on the diary and even finish the crossword puzzle: I'm being good enough to myself to give me PERMISSION to be late, to NOT be a "miracle worker" anymore, to get the "rush" index in in the USUAL three weeks, rather then in a ball-busting 2 that they begin to take for granted. How ironic if I would lose one of the FIRST customers in order to please NEW indexers with NEW companies. But there's no sense of WORRY, since I feel little guilt, and there's no sense of INSECURITY, since I seem to be AWARE of what I'm doing (though I'm glad Sophia didn't call today!), and she'll STILL like it, as they usually do, and more will come from them since I'm STILL the best, and I'll have more fun doing it, and have all the time of Dennis's vacation to move my apartment and books around and fix up pages and get down to 4 again on the do list, and maybe even get down to WRITING again, which is the DREAM!

DIARY 13701 PLAYING WITH MY NEW TYPEWRITER 12/7/78

Not entered.

DIARY 13745 DEBATE GIVING UP TEACHING INDEXING 12/25/78

There's not enough TIME; I don't have time to do my OWN indexing, and I can't keep up my reputation because the indexes AREN'T as good as mine, and they don't keep to DEADLINES as precisely as I do. And then I get so short-tempered with the beginners. Bawling them out for something they could hardly be expected to have down pat on their first, or second, or even sixth index. Dennis, particularly, comes in for a bad time on this, and does our relationship need another sore point? Rolf seemed so good until his editing time turns out to be 17 hours for 900 cards. Amy seems good but then I keep finding little things that she doesn't handle well. And I'm not WRITING, not DOING THAT WHICH ALONE COULD GIVE ME PILES OF MONEY TO DO THE TRAVELING I WANT TO DO. But, thinking TODAY (12/25), do I really WANT TO travel more, or read more books, since I hardly remember what I've read --- though I surely remember where I've traveled --- or what movies I've seen --- I seem to be DOING in order to make LISTS (see DIARY 13746). Then when I think of Adam blithely talking about training 50 indexers in each 3-month period, or starting anew with Susan or Sylvan or Andre, I just don't feel like taking the time to DO it. But that leads to the thought on Saturday that I have to write MANY more pages on how to index: the RULES and the TECHNIQUES that I spend so much time talking about. It won't take the place of checking the marking, cards, or final copies, but it'll cut down on my BREATH explaining the same things over and over again. It would be NICE to have an indexing business, but then would I be tied down to it, taking up with administration when what I like to do is index, not be able to take as many as the few vacations I take as it is? Invest lots of money and then have to stick around to profit from it? Can I trust Rolf with finances without his either considering matters to death, or rooking me as someone not worthy of his consultation brilliance? Keep thinking of the Actualism article to write, "Throwback," other things, not to mention the things that I wanted to do these two weeks to treat myself that I've not been able to get to YET, and why do I want MORE things to do: just to teach?

DIARY 13746 I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT I DO READ Also 12/25/78

Think of the Huxley books I've read, today, and it occurs to me that I haven't for FOGGIEST memory of what "Grey Eminence" was about, though I remember not liking it very much, or even LOTS of what he said in "Heaven and Hell," though I seemed to remember liking it. Sure, books like "Giles' Goat-Boy" are remembered as being VERY involved, and one of the characters had red hair, but what ELSE was there I JUST DON'T REMEMBER. So what's the GOOD of reading MORE books? Though it's sort of the same as "What's the good of meeting more people, since only 1 out of 100 will end up being important in my life," which is certainly silly. But, at least when I thought of writing a page about this (see DIARY 13745) I realized that I DO remember PLACES that I've been to, so TRAVEL is hardly the same thing --- and interesting how that IS, though I can't honestly say I can recollect WITHOUT pictures many of the details of the temples and palaces in Kyoto, for example. But even then, travel produces THOSE evenings, like "lost in Borneo" which stick in the memory, just as reading books produces the "Perennial Philosophy" which sticks through life and deserves re-reading over twice! Could this be part of the mechanism of old age, when NOTHING becomes worthwhile doing anymore? So that finally it becomes LESS of an effort to die than to continue living? Retirees who die after 65 probably find they're worthless without a job to attend to; widows last three days before joining the husband who made life worth living; badly mutilated people suicide when they decide they're not going to get as much fun without limbs or senses or capabilities they'd enjoyed before. Not that I'm thinking of giving up books, exactly (though the pressures to fill up the recently created gaps in authors like Updike and Huxley and Coover have eased), but the DIRECTION seems to be AWAY from trying more and more, toward being more satisfied with what I HAVE --- AGAIN old age: when I'm satisfied with the life I HAVE, I don't NEED ANY MORE LIFE, so I can quit this life and DIE. Simple when looked at in that way. So MY VERY DESIRE FOR MORE TIME AND MORE ACTIVITY shows my aliveness and avoidance of death or degeneration leading to death. As Dennis would say, "Maybe I can take that as a compliment," and ENJOY needing time!

DIARY 13795 DEPRESSING THOUGHTS AFTER DREAM 1/2/79

At 8:30 I take the notes that I wake DEPRESSED from the dream, fingers aching, eyes caked, mustache tickling, bladder full, teeth coated, breath foul-smelling, cats making noise above, pigeons cooing outside, back aching, planes and garages and traffic moving outside, pimples sore beside nose, sheets dirty, air too cool for comfort, no heat, gray day, eyes sore from light turned on to help write notes, toes sore from nails and feet sore from calluses, and it's pretty BAD! Also vague frustration of the wonder of SHOULD I continue list-making --- I don't seem to USE them much anymore --- and there's groceries to get, indexes to do, Andre to train, lightwork and singing practice producing guilt about not being done, bodywork needed, tooth hurts and needs to be looked at, chance of cold coming on, Dennis wanting too much sex, woman upstairs is rocking bed and getting more cats to make more noise, nose stuffed, scalp itchy, need more pigeon-stoppers on fire escape, it's raining, and I feel that I want to write these notes and transcribe them and then file away all the diary pages, and to add to it I don't remember many of the books read or the movies seen. It's ALL SO AWFUL!! Things rather improve later in the day (that finished those notes!), when I can do exactly as I want without being bothered by the need to do anything else, and feel a sense of accomplishment, though my shoulders are beginning to hurt from the typing now at 6:30. Don't feel like phoning anyone, nothing to watch on TV, since it's raining I don't want to shop for groceries or the fourth volume of Scotts or the bathroom carpeting, and Arnie calls and I push him off because I'm eating, Amy calls saying she saw me "waving at her Saturday night in her dream" but I have no news to tell her, and Dennis doesn't phone to say what his plans are and I feel guilty about not being more lively for him. If THIS is what happens when I get more aware of what's wrong with my body, I don't want it! Could it be activation before class tomorrow, the first time in two weeks --- three weeks? Could be! But I'm glad the worst of it is over, and it's nice to feel the downs (I guess) so that they form a good contrast to the UPS that are around lots of times.

DIARY 13907 FLATTENING VERSUS FEELING 1/7/79

I'd written this note on 1/5, but didn't have time for it: flattening/ calming/ defusing/ processing/ tranquilizing versus feeling GOOD/ acting/ exuberating/ moving/ bellowing/ effervescing/ ebulliating!! I was lying, worrying about the day, and then did some lightwork which left me rather flat: problems put out of the way by the thought of doing, but it left no spark, no zap, and I began wondering what the benefit of having all the STRESS removed might be, but then, thinking about it, I began to get the idea of NOT having to worry about lists, or self-concepts, or images, or invested interests, but being able to attack anything with ENTHUSIASM, with a sense of DISCOVERY, with a sense of RISK and CHALLENGE and DARE --- DARING TO BE GREAT! (Do I now sound like a proselyte of Coscot?) I don't want merely NOT to feel BAD, I want to feel GOOD, to leap out of bed to greet the day, to ACT with enthusiasm, to MOVE rather than thinking about moving, to BELLOW out my singing practice rather than just moving my lips, afraid of making a mistake. And gradually a THRILL of action, of risking, came over me, of THROWING myself into something, like singing, like practicing, and DAMN the woman upstairs and the couple downstairs and the neighbors. If they don't like it, they can damn well move out! (How sad that the feeling wanes and I don't practice at all that day, or the following day, and Sunday I sort of whisper the syllables). Without these VEILS to moving and acting, without the burden of the PAST hanging around, things can be LOOKED at: LOOK at the Treasures of Dresden (see DIARY 13909) and exhibits with JOY, not bothering to see who made them, or what their historical period is, or their significance, just LOOK at them and enjoy the GLITTER and SPECTACLE of it. Like the last passages of "Treasures of Britain," where the eyes just TEARED with the juxtaposition of jewelry and pageantry and simple-faced people and transcendent royalty. Just GO with it, ENJOY it, MOVE with it, DON'T keep being hampered by the brain, and the body, and it would seem that WORLDS would open up! And not the transient glimpses afforded by grass or booze, but BRILLIANT days and SHINING nights and LOADS of fun and GUSTO and PLEASURE piling up and up! And again it's there as I THINK it, but I feel it fading as I turn to something ELSE!

DIARY 13997-13998 ROTATIONS OF REPETITIONS OF RECURRENCES 1/22/79

Was it the fever of the cold?
Did the cycle curve in upon itself?
No! NOT again!
Back to the entrails in pain
Claw through the birth canal, rip out of the womb
As one would claw through the dirt over a grave.
Then stand, triumphant for a moment,
And realize you have won --- nothing.
What so you WANT?
Where can you GO?
And the despair curls in upon itself until I once again become the little child,
saying
"Please, please love me?"
Or to find the staunch father who could
Be to you as the father of the prodigal son
In Balanchine's choreography
Who stands, rock-steady, as the son clasps him about the neck,
Then,
Startlingly,
Pulls up his legs in a fetal hug about his father,
Who then
With majestic acceptance
Envelopes him to his chest with his cloak.

Swimming upward, through depths of images,
To the sunlit surface far above,
More frantic as the lungs burn for air,
Panicking, "I must not die."
And still the surface is unreachably far.
When the gap-jawed scream receives only stinging salt
And the stomach-filling waters of agony.
But the sequence dissolves
And you clasp
A skeleton!

And you know again the awful truth:
"The only way to die is to REALLY die."
There is no symbolic death to remove the fear.
There is no light to which to strive.
Yet once again the bubble bursts
And you grab at anything, chaff, dross
Which turns to gold which you fling away again.

Maddened
You face your enemy and claw the face and the skull cracks like Mexican candy.
It's too easy.
It's too hard.
It's so impossible
And all the ways lead back top the say way "There is no way"
Which is the other side of "Every way is the way."

Still the squirmy turning, the search
The sweat, the stench, the sleep, the dream
Yet you wake from dreams and live to search again
Cycles, wheels, stars wandering for eons.
Restless no-rest.
God! How many years not to have moved from this self-same spot!

DIARY 14024 WHY DO I INSIST ON DRINKING SO MUCH? 1/29/79

The situation just keeps repeating and repeating: a pleasant dinner, good conversation, like at Hubert's last night (see DIARY 14023), but I don't have a top-limit of half a bottle of wine (which is a bit too much in some cases at Dennis's), but share THREE bottles of wine and then have a beer at the end that I can't finish. Feel the "terminal" feeling at the dinner table when I'm debating the last sips of beer, and at least don't feel compelled to finish that. Remind John of his having to steer me home after the Halloween party at the church one year, and am glad I'm not that far gone this evening. But in the morning I wake and turn my head and experience the dizzying nausea and throat-clutch of sickness that disgusts and rather frightens me IN that I never seem to LEARN not to drink so much. On rare occasions at Dennis's I can finish my third glass of wine and know that this is enough, I don't need to go any farther. Maybe previously I thought my limit was 4-5-6 glasses, which were hard to count, but maybe now that it's boiling down to 3 as a comfortable limit that's easy to count: the first for taste, the second for thirst, the third for conclusional sipping through the rest of whatever is coming! But I MORE often wake with a headache and the vague wonder whether I'll have to stay in bed all day (I would feel better there right now!) or whether I'll be able to bull through a day of work to catch up with indexing ... MORE do that THAN have the distinct thought DURING the drinking that I'm drinking too much. Last night only the VAGUEST of recognitions that "this is three bottles of wine for four people, and John's not really drinking his entire share, nor is Dennis, so I'm having ABOUT one bottle myself" but with no attendant thought of "I should stop drinking right now!" Maybe I hope that elevating this shameful habit to the status of a typed page will emboss it on my memory well enough to be a reminder in the future. Think of my liver, and of my brain, with small solace: cutting alcohol. Stopping intake will only benefit them, even though I probably don't drink enough to DAMAGE them, and think again of Dad and his predilections, remembering that I didn't drink so much BEFORE, and again reminding myself that we should more often get LARGER bottles that don't have to be consumed in one meal, since too often I'm nauseous after a simple half-bottle.

DIARY 14040 CREATION OF THINGS/AGREEMENT AGAIN 2/2/79

1) Looked for rosemary leaves on the shelf. None. Looked through every line again, none. Rearranged some of the misplaced ones, finally thinking, "Maybe if I'm nice enough and do something for THEM, they'll do something for me and come up with a can of rosemary leaves." About two seconds later at the back, MAYBE behind another can that I moved when I didn't notice, was the tiny stack of rosemary leaves. I'm freaked, then think that there was nothing AGAINST that being ACTUALLY CREATED: no one would have been able to SWEAR there was none there before, so no one's AGREEMENT would be against HAVING one there, and I'm perfectly willing to admit that I just didn't SEE sit before (though I'd be UNWILLING to handle it if it vanished from MY shelf just because I created it THEN!!!), so all the AGREEMENT point to the POSSIBILITY that I created it OR that it was there from the start, and that seems to be the BEST field from which to CREATE something!
2) Like I "created" Dennis phoning yesterday afternoon and saying "I won't be up for dinner," since I had no TIME for it, not even enough time for Bruce and TV for an hour, but I DID get done what I wanted to do, and so it would be nice to think of it EITHER way: I CREATED it or Dennis INTUITED it!
3) All the "support" I get from Alice (that I told Bruce about in the session (see DIARY 14039), saying I couldn't talk about it to anyone) could be invented by me or GIVEN by her, DESPITE the fact whether the actual DATA she gives me is right or wrong: the DATUM THAT COUNTS is the fact that she's willing to listen to me, accept what I say, support me in saying it, and the NOT IMPORTANT POINT is in supporting me in THAT WHICH I say. And if I could only learn how to do that: support people even when they're wrong, or not doing what I want them to do, or doing what I think may be WRONG for them to do, THAT would be an advance, an enlightenment for ME out of the heaviness of "do it my way and you'll be right," of "you can't do it that way because it's your way," of "you don't come up to my standards so I reject anything you do." If I could CREATE that, it WOULD be nice --- now if I could only get rid of the slight nausea from the last 5 days!!

DIARY 14087 SO MANY LISTS TO KEEP UP WITH! 2/18/79

I want to catch UP with the diary (which is a day-list of sorts, too) so I can get to the OTHER things I have to do so that I can finish with the indexes in time to get to stamps for awhile and then maybe get to writing, which makes the WHOLE thing seem INCREDIBLY distant, but then there are the insurmountable CURRENT lists to keep up to date: have to keep track of the indexing coming in, how many hours spent with each person training them, with the date-job book, with the datebook, coincidence list, list of bon mots, 2 lists for Actualism bodywork --- the notebook and my cards --- the poppers list, the bills due and returned list, the letters from JOYI list, the movies and plays-seen list, the book bought, the TV programs seen, the things to do, the people to telephone, the pitch pipe to buy for Richard, the list of corrections to be made to the indexing write-up, and then having to come up with a new cataloging system for all the PAPERWORK I have on the indexing book-to-be. Then there are the list of stories to be worked on, the dreams to be kept up to date, and then the singing never seems to get practiced, there are always dishes to be washed, meals to be cooked, groceries to be gotten, people to telephone, indexes to check up on, laundry and vacuuming to do, TV programs to be watched, stacks of things in the date-list to be adjusted, mail to read, exercising which is hardly ever done, plants to water, humidifiers to keep filled, glasses to wash, showers to take, want to get back to the Laszlo technique, shampooing and hand lotions and mustache-trimming and trouser sewing and pill-taking and dessert-fixing and JOYI-mail checking and regular-mail reading and indexing and diary-page numbering and windows to be washed and ASI to be joined and Rolf to be contacted for programming, Andre for his index, travel having to be put into abeyance, all the letters screaming to be written, files to be emptied from my desk, from the card boxes, cards to be returned from Don's, Dennis to be kept entertained, friends to telephone, new indexes to get, new indexers to train, classes and Actualism and bodywork and surgeries to do, proposals for the indexing book and JOHN and JOYI and THROWBACK to be sent out, not to mention ACID HOUSE, and then even have a list of pages to type, which this page has come from; don't know why, there's nothing to PUT on it!

DIARY 14097 WHAT ARE THESE COLDS ABOUT? 2/21/79

I ask Amy and Richard and Dennis to feel sorry for me, but they're not inclined to. Last one I had in the middle of JANUARY coincided with a time of few indexes, when I could catch up on my own things: then diary and records, now diary-pages and writing, so it might be a reaction to "permitting myself to do what I want." Then, too, I'm working with Wisdom, and putting in the Rod of Power and spinning the Power Ray while doing the lifebelts, willing to get lots of things churned up, and this may be the result of churning things up. Wisdom always WAS a powerful activator for me, and maybe having had the surgery in the intestinal system for ASSIMILATION, I now have to ELIMINATE a lot in order to make room for assimilation (though I never think of a cold so much as elimination as getting rid of what the COLD ALREADY PRODUCED in the line of phlegm and mucus). Could it be connected with the changing from indexing to administration, since I had so many colds when I was thinking of changing my job from IBM before? Told Amy this was one of the things I wanted to look at in my next reading, and she didn't make it until the first of March --- but then that IS just next week, and AGAIN I have three indexes to finish in the space of two weeks! Part of it might be to prove to me that I don't know everything there is to know: that I can get colds even when I can't tell WHY I get colds, just to prove that the body has reasons that I can't hope to understand. If some Great Nature is trying to teach me a lesson, however, I wish it were clearer just WHAT the lesson would be, since I might be willing to learn it more fully more quickly. Looking at plants during session this morning I was impressed by how flexible and environment-controlled they are --- much more so THAN WE ARE, maybe because we think we have to stay and can't change, while plants, supposedly "below" us, don't have any such concepts so they just change as circumstances demand. Maybe it's trying to get through to me not to THINK so much, which I've sort of "gotten" already. The impossibility of planning with certitude? The fallibility of the Creation? Showing me not to worry and to continue functioning even though I'm not at tops? Whatever, I've GOT it.

DIARY 14137 TROUBLES DOING ANYTHING 3/2/79

Terribly frustrating today: want to DO things and I sit with chin in hand and sort of MOPE. Want to TYPE to catch up on the diary at least, and I sit and want to read, eat popcorn, maybe turn on TV, think to soak stamps onto paper BAGS, wish the Olympia showed movies during the day, want to plan a vacation or talk to someone on the phone, want to open and read interesting mail all day. But I DON'T feel like working, and that's what I've cleared the boards AGAIN to do, and AGAIN don't DO!! That old "up against the wall" with the last few items on the do-list, and I can't DO what I've been clearing the board to DO. Oh, when I get INTO it it's OK enough, like when I got into working on the indexing proposal at last, back 9 days AGO on 2/21! Maybe I can bring some lists up to date? File something more? Cook or produce something ELSE rather than what I SHOULD do! And I haven't even gotten to the WRITING, just to the THINGS TO GET OUT OF THE WAY before writing. The play (see DIARY 14130) can go hang! So I sit and moon, and feel sorry for myself, and get annoyed with Bruce when he's here and Dennis when he's here, yet when I'm alone I don't DO anything! Took SO long to get to the diary that when I FINISH I have to shower before going out, then eat something, then I won't have TIME to get into anything. Have to feel the PRESSURE or else I want to REST! THAT's pretty clear: NEED THE PRESSURE TO WORK UNDER! No one but ME is putting the pressure on the books to be published, so I just don't get to them with the energy I direct to doing an index with someone ELSE putting on pressure. Do I tell DENNIS to give me a deadline? That would further exacerbate our irritations. BALKIN is putting on some sort of pressure (in that if I don't get TO him on time, his publishing company will GO into business --- without me), but that's not DEFINITE enough --- I don't HAVE to do it. I HAVE to get some way that I know I HAVE to do these things, And I KNOW that getting INTO them is as good a way as any, just as I finished the diary pretty much up to date by just getting INTO it. Well, just consider that it's something up, appropriately, for Objective Creative to process, and TRY to get RID of that syndrome that's SO familiar it STINKS!

DIARY 14139 THOUGHTS ON TAKING UP J/O BUDDIES Also 3/2/79

FOR AGAINST

Maybe meet new guys Rett Poret type problems possible
Get cash through PO box Have to keep checking box, not so much fun
More things to write about Really sort of tired of the whole thing
More time for sexy endeavors Less time for other things
"Give these guys a leader" Better to MEET than WRITE about it
Lists easy to Xerox Requires constant address updates
May join J/O group Things pile up if I go on vacation
J/O group ALREADY takes too much time
Only 25 in NYC But they'll CHANGE and MOVE and lose INTEREST and
give wrong INFO!
Far better to get cash through PUBLISHING BOOKS
Better to meet guys on MY OWN, PERSONALLY!
Have BETTER things to write about!
These guys are usually order, more in closets,
not the kind I WANT!
Why tie myself to Xeroxing AGAIN?
DON'T DO IT!

DIARY 14154 PRIORITIES TO BE ESTABLISHED AGAIN 3/7/79

Just DON'T seem to have enough time, but I HAVE to schedule more time for the indexing proposal and farm out more of the indexes and get more people to teach indexing. Spend LOTS of time on the phone, it seems, and then I have to STOP thinking about EVERYTHING I have to do and concentrate on what I'm doing NOW! Find myself stopping and thinking, and now that I can steer clear of dance again, for a while, maybe I can catch up with a few movies and then settle down with more WORK, but I still feel that I don't leave time for MYSELF, though I got into stamps, talk to friends for myself, and come to the conclusion that AT LEAST I can stop singing lessons, since I'm not practicing for them anyway (see DIARY 14156), but when I was talking to Susan who was saying that you'd have more time to PLAY in these communities, I thought that part of my PLAYING would be singing, and why can't I do this HERE? But the index-book proposal is the one that's suffering the most: it's only got a limited time for acceptability by that new publishing company Richard knows of, though I now begin to think that I could be more devoted to that if I did it BETWEEN doing other things that I felt I had to catch up with. But I don't do DISHES or VACUUMING that often and it STILL demands to be done, and I find myself sleeping more and more, probably because I'm torn apart by these CONFLICTS about what I want to DO next! And I manage to squeeze in a few mini-lightwork sessions, manage to keep the diary somewhat up to date, and get out the laundry and get back the groceries and keep some sort of jerking off going, and thank goodness I don't have to worry about JOYI so much anymore. But now I have an index FINISHED that I can work on, and Andre and Barbara will be needing IMMEDIATE checking if they're finishing in the next two weeks. So I have to give LOWEST PRIORITY to worrying about WHAT I'm going to do WHEN, and just DO, even if it means looking at TV 2 hours every night this week to keep up with Cavett and Hepburn and Henry VIII's wives. That's what I want to do, and I DO it. And this page is even a very LOW priority item that I've now finished with, and maybe some of the steam will keep up in doing OTHER things that have to be done.

DIARY 14156 THINKING OF STOPPING SINGING LESSONS Also 3/7/79

I have to accept the bald fact: I don't practice. I keep thinking I will: when he said I should restrict myself to 15 minutes per day, I thought I could surely do it, but I didn't do it. Part of it was annoyance at the woman being upstairs a lot, but I should practice to OVERCOME that silliness. Part is so much to do, and in looking at that, I think that this is the least USEFUL, though I know Amy and Dennis and Richard would be disappointed if I stopped. Dennis thought of it as my denying myself something that I ENJOYED: well, I enjoy the interaction with Richard, but I DON'T enjoy the embarrassment I felt when Avi asked me to sing out, and I don't enjoy torturing myself when I don't practice. But then Richard AND Susan seemed to be saying that sheer calisthenics didn't seem to be best for me, that just singing-posture might be better for me. Then Richard brought up the idea that I was starting to SUCCEED in it, and was I quitting because of THAT? That had to be looked at: I stopped writing, stopped IBM, may be stopping indexing, just when I SUCCEED in it. I succeed in relationships and then proceed to find things wrong with them. I finish reading books and then read others without using the "success" of the first at all. I'm oddly reluctant to write, send things out, send out proposals for the indexing books, POSSIBLY because I fear success changing the way I look at things. But with Dennis putting it that I'm denying myself PLEASURE and Richard putting it that I'm denying myself SUCCESS, I decide to CONTINUE, but then I NOW have the burden of AGAIN not having practiced, and here it is Friday, and I'm starting to get a cough. Yesterday was fine in my just doing things as they came along, and I hope today can be the same, but since it's now IN FACT low on my priority list, it might not get done at all, and then RICHARD will have to live up to my NOT being satisfactory (since he insisted I was doing satisfactorily), but that might mean I'm paying my $15 per lesson immediately --- though I find it difficult to put his enthusiasm ONLY on that basis. So I looked at it, will continue to go along with it, but had to record my thinking on it at this point to clarify MANY confusing aspects of current life.

DIARY 14158 FANTASIES ABOUT HAVING A CAR Also 3/7/79

Figure to SPEND $70-80 to keep it in a garage per month, to save AT LEAST 3 hours of my parking time, and all the places to GO sweep into my mind: the Stroll Garden and Art's place, Stonehenge, places along the Connecticut coast, upstate New York, Great Barrington for Aladdin's, down to the Jersey coast for the Amusement Parks, to Great Adventure again, to the Great Swamp of New Jersey, to various places on Long Island, and then even farther afield: to Helen and Jimmy's in Virginia, Don's in Georgia, and maybe by that time Rita and Denny in Florida! Attracted to driving back across the country in June with Norma, but now Dennis and I could go across whenever we wanted, stopping off anywhere, and maybe into Canada, to visit Bill before he moves out of Maine, up to Boston, to see Cape Cod at last, and maybe even a fantasy of driving across the ALCAN HIGHWAY to Alaska, picking up the rest of the states and provinces of Canada, and maybe down to Mexico and to the Yucatan. All this seems rather much for a car that seemed on its last legs when SUSAN got it a number of years ago, but it's the kind of things that if it DOES totally break down, of course we can just leave it and take a PLANE back, maybe after getting the provisional $100 that Rolf said it was worth in scrap. But there's the registration to see about, and trying to find an out-of-town address for cheaper insurance to see about. AND NOW I'VE GOT IT!! Have ART'S address for registration for cheaper insurance, ROLF looking into a lot for it at $40/month, willing to go halves with me so that he can use it when he wants to, knowing that I will want to use it often at the start on weekends, knowing that he'll have to take care of most of the repairs, but he's saying that we can keep a notebook in the glove compartment, which still works!, recording our purchases of gas and repairs, and he drove it and says it's just fine, that the tires look good, but that it needs a good general check-up with brakes, steering, oil, transmission, plugs looked at, but HE'S willing to look at it, and then wash it and wax it and let it go for the rest of its life, and Art says that we should join AAA for only $25/year being worth it, and I DRIVE MY FIRST CAR HOME THROUGH BROOKLYN!!!

DIARY 14164 SMALL SUCCESSES IN JUST DOING IT 3/9/79

Since worrying wasn't going to do me any good, I determined to try just DOING what I was doing, even if it was wasting time, and REMOVING concern or worry from my mind during that time. For lots of yesterday it worked: going out to look for a lot, finding one, taking care of Rolf and the car, looking at Barbara's and Andre's indexes, seeing BOTH "The Deer Hunter" and the double at the St. Marks AND getting home to see the TV I wanted to, ignoring the 11 pm phone call I got from Dennis until 11:30, when we chatted a bit, and he doesn't seem to be terribly put off by it either. I remember distinctly standing waiting to cross Park Avenue and considered getting impatient with the just-changed traffic light that delayed me. But then I looked at the people around me, the cars passing, the skyscrapers up and down the street, the sunlight off the Helmsley Building and the still-unfinished skyscraper-penthouse on Galleria uptown. It was NICE to be outside, NICE to have no place scheduled for lunch so that I could try Healthworks and take note of Richoux of London for next time. Though I had a lot to do OTHER than what I was doing, I COULDN'T do it now because I was doing something else, and I didn't even THINK to them, except fleetingly to put them out of my mind again, since it would do no good, and it DID do good to put them out of my mind. Consequently I enjoyed all the movies and TV (actually 2-5, 6-9:35, 10:05-1:45 --- at 10 hours MOST of the waking time of the day!!) without recriminations, enjoyed even the delays in as constructive a way as possible (looking out the window from Barrett's office, looking at passersby and the tennis court outside the Equitable building as I walked, chatting with new neighbors at Healthworks, looking at subway people enroute), and felt very GOOD with it, WHILE GETTING A LOT DONE. And not getting OTHER stuff done, but at least putting me into a good frame of mind for DOING these other things, rather than being left feeling vaguely exhausted because of my being torn by commitments and "oughts" and "shoulds" and "gottas." Hope I can increase this space for myself, and it's lasted most of this morning and early afternoon, but I DO have to get the apartment cleaned by tomorrow!

DIARY 14193 DIARY NECESSARY TO PAY FOR PLEASURE 3/19/79

Questioning for the dozenth time whether I should keep up with the diary, and it occurred to me long ago, though I never got around to doing a page on it, that I might be writing everything DOWN so that I can (1) REMEMBER the pleasures I had so I can't feel sorry for myself when I get older and say "I never had ANY fun," (2) I can SHARE the experiences that I think are so remarkable with people who either (a) wouldn't be able to afford them, like trips and Actualism and dinners, (b) wouldn't understand them, like gay life and entertainments and people, (c) wouldn't be happy enough to have them, like driving and childlessness and leisure time and irresponsibility, and (3) in some way PAY for the pleasure I'm having as a way of paying it BACK, keeping a balance (If I pretend I have to work to have fun, maybe the powers that be will continue to let me have fun?), and (4) certainly a way of ABSORBING, PUTTING down in more ways than one: (a) WRITING down, (b) etching in my memory, (c) clearing the slate so that I'm fresh for new ones. BEFORE, in pages like this, I'd emphasize the POSITIVE parts of it, but since I'd had the thought of quitting singing and got told by Dennis that I AVOID PLEASURE a lot and got told by Richard that I MIGHT BE AVOIDING immanent success, I had to think about lots of things in different ways. A kind of Karmic blackmail: if thousands of people (if these ever get published) can enjoy the things that I enjoy, I'm not taking too much of the world's enjoyments and hugging them to myself. Maybe it's a way of sharing things that I don't feel easy sharing with Dennis (who had originally been one with whom I thought I could share everything, but he doesn't even like to look at pornographic movies with me!) and had no close relative with which to share it, and had no friends that I respected enough to take the time to explain things so thoroughly to. Only Pope and Amy understand the mystical and inner, only Dennis the sexual, only Rolf the dilettante-intellectual of stocks and Heidegger and investments, only Susan some of the seamier sides of self-dislike and images, only Actualism with some of the momentary despairs and temporary depressions, and Bruce for some of the laughings at.

DIARY 14209-10 DECISION TO SWITCH FROM DIARY TO NOTEBOOK 3/27/79

First and foremost: I'M NOT WRITING TO BE PUBLISHED. Most often "I want to write" is channeled into (and defused by) "I've got to catch up on the diary." What had started, when I quit IBM, as "I must write something every day," changed into "I must write a day-page" and then expanded into "and if I want to write anything else, it must be a page, too." The expansion of CATEGORIES has become highly artificial (subjective, people, places, things, film, live), the task of filing the sheets more and more horrendous, the volume of unpublished material unmanageable. If I get all that I HAVE written published, THEN I can worry about generating more to be published. But for NOW, an average of 3-4 pages a day should be more PUBLISHABLE than merely fileable. Then I found that I was just BLATHERING to fill the page of Actualism bodywork, and I shuddered when I "formalized" the car by starting a series of "car-trip pages." WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO ME to keep these DETAILS?? I intend to KEEP the indexing sheets for rate-computations, and update the other-people-helped lists, and note a FEW details about some of the more interesting dreams. But what have I DONE with them as of now? I look at the journal to refer back to a review page that could JUST as easily have been summed up as "Saw this and this and this and liked most of it" rather than an entire page of pointless details. I'm NOT a reviewer, so why should I insist on reviewing these things? So I decided to make a notebook which contains what HAD been the journal, autobiography, gay material, and non-fiction dance, class, book, play, movie, and interlardings sections. Since I DO at times write essays which are interesting in their own right, I can KEEP a section of essays. Lists will ALWAYS be with me, so lists will remain. Actualism had gotten increasingly repetitious and arbitrarily divided as I wrote a "lesson-sheet" and an "experience sheet," and since I'm deducting it AS research for a book, it should be KEPT as a book. Fiction, Travel, and Throwback will remain, and it divided nicely in the separating tabs of a notebook: FRONT five are non-fiction categories of NOTEBOOK, ACTUALISM, ESSAYS, LISTS, TRAVEL; BACK five are fiction entries of FICTION, THROWBACK, and what I hope to be other projects in ACTUAL writing, so it might just as well include the INDEX book, too, I guess. When I tried it May 19-June 21, 1977, it didn't work, but now that I have a BETTER method of STILL writing yet concentrating on AUTHORSHIP, it might work out better. Decided to go ONLY by the "typing date" on the upper right in the notebook, and just run EVERYTHING in, since exactly which DAY something happened isn't THAT important, and it might get me MORE free of TIME-consciousness. I want to be FREE of having to remember when I came, what I had for dinner, when Dennis was here, when I talked to who on the phone, and what I thought about such-and-such ONLY as a way of padding out a page. There will still be "subtitles" on essay, list, travel, and fiction pages, but the notebook, Actualism, and Throwback pages will be just PAGES. I'll still have the datebooks to keep up for appointments and entertainment-absorption lists, and I probably WILL try (or leave trying) to keep date-entries in the notebook pages (see NOTEBOOK - 1). But it seems it'll leave me LOTS more time, STOP the arbitrary going to ends of pages, and free my time for more CREATIVE things. So, starting NOW.....

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