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Events, Places, and Things

 

DIARY 9601
5/15/75

AUDIENCE-OF-ONE EVENING

Phone for reservations for Bill Dunas, probably getting him, as it sounded, out of bed, and he meticulously copied down my name after telling me to wait while he got something to write with. The performance starts at 7:30. I was writing checks and letters and talking to Arnie about my resume for tour escorting, and it was 6:30 before I realized it. So I washed and combed my hair and decided to smoke some before I left: I recall Bill before as being very spaced out, and I thought maybe if I was spaced out, too, it would feel better. So I finished out the end of the pipe from last night, smoked a new one which was a bit too full, because I didn't leave until 7:05, a bit late. Out and over to the BMT subway, which took a long time to come, and when I finally boarded (after almost being threatened for change by a black who wanted to go to Staten island) it was 7:15. The ride across was slow, but there were some GORGEOUS numbers on the subway, a blue-eyed wild-haired fellow with a face so PINK that he looked nude sitting there with his clothes on and his shirt open three buttons. There are more stops than I think, and my estimate of 7:25 of getting to Prince Street is off by a minute or so. Out of the subway and walk south, stoned, fantasizing that John's there, and they're about to start with a small group of gay guys who've already SEEN that they're all gay. They don't know whether to start, but have been checking off the reservations as they come in, so they ask "Has Zolnerzak come yet?" and John says, "No, but let's play a joke on him." And then they hatch this elaborate plot that everyone's fantasy on coming to things like this is to find that the show is designed around HIM --- but somehow I got it twisted around to the point that I'd come in and they'd all undress, Bill on the stage and the others, as if hypnotized and not in on the gag, in the audience as if it were the perfectly natural things to do, to see if I'd undress, and then we'd have an orgy. I seem to remember John's saying that Bill was gay. He'd been plump at the last one I saw, but I thought he might have gotten thinner and that the orgy would be a BALL. Down to Broome by this time and across to 435, not quite on the corner as I thought it was, and am rather put off to see something about "Theater of Women," and don't recognize the poster of a scratch drawing of some male/female with the word "Thrust" above it as being part of the thing, and go inside the door. There's a tiny anteroom with a blue-painted metal door ahead, and it says that the "Ambrose Authority," or some other "AA" acronym, was up at the top of the stairs, watch your head. So I pulled open the door and saw the same dizzying flight of stairs stretching STRAIGHT up for four flights, with a light at the end, and white signs posted every so often "Watch your head, Watch the steps." So watching both ends of what I could collect of my anatomy, I walked up one step after another, one landing after another (knowing full well that they could hear me coming, and the thought went through my head, since it was by now about 7:32, that the performance may have started and I might be disturbing it). To the top, and there's a locked metal door, so I go around the corner and down the stair-hall, and there's a woman looking rather like Wendy Summit, with the same thin-lipped black-haired tight look about her, in a satiny green blouse, standing before a card table. I walk up, asking quietly, "Has it started yet?" and she says "No" with a slight laugh. I walk up and she asks "Do you have reservations?" and I look down at the lined pad on the clipboard, numbered from one to something down the side, and there, singly, alone, stark in black, stands the letters "ZOLNERZAK." "That's me" I laugh, and she checks my name off, and I figure that everyone else has come without reservations. Up another flight of stairs, painted white with scuffs on the treads (oh, forgot the Eldritch feeling of the old-fashioned grocery store point-of-purchase advertising tin plates of sodas and crackers and cookies), and the feeling is one of brightness and country-ness, and I think I'm ascending literally into the theater, as the ceiling is white and the wall ahead of me is white, too. There's a man and a woman standing just ahead, but as they see me they go into a room to the left ahead of me. I reach the head of the stairs and look to my left and see the entire empty expanse of the topmost floor painted white with a bare gray floor. Along one long wall hang paintings of glories, which is what they're entitled, the far wall is a wall of windows looking over the street, the other wall is quite blank except where the two tiny enclosed areas break the length of it, and the near narrow wall has only the door through which the two vanished, and another door, which opens to let pass a tall beautiful guy with long hair and a lovely open face and very tight blue jeans. I say "Hi" to him as he says "Hi" to me, and when he goes down the stairs, I see that there's a harmonica around his neck, and I say, with some disappointment, "Oh, I aud-thought mu ner bart of the aunience." "What?" He said, quite justifiably. I was so stoned. "I said I thought you were one of the audience," I said, and he smiled and said "No," with a tone that was hardly accusing at all. I walked to the end of the room and looked out the window at the cast-iron building across the street, saying "I don't often see these from this angle" to the sandy-haired fellow with glasses sitting by the lighting boards. "No, it's quite a view," he said, since I'd passed looking out all the side windows, too, between the paintings, at the windows across the way with plants in them. "The performance will start in about five minutes," he said, as if to reassure me that I was in the right place, and I nodded and passed back along the wood plank bench under the paintings, noticing for the first time that the white interiors of the glories had small darker circles most lightly painted inside, and that the black interiors of the other glories had small lighter circles painted most gently inside. Sat, and the doll came out of the room and sat with a banjo and his harmonica, and then the other door opened and, flicking a glance at me, the girl, looking rather like Joyce Ostrin, came out, seeming a bit disgusted, and sat in the chair, and the guy who was Bill Dunas, dressed in baggy white trousers wider at the hip than at the ankle and a shirt-jacket of what looked to be a very dark plaid came out and stood behind her. Then the lights dimmed, but not very much, since it was still light outside, and the guitar started slowly, the girl started narrating something about walking down the street, and Bill started shuffling along the gray boards, pushing his hands in front of him as if he were shooing chickens before him. She narrated a story about long-ago, and Bill continued in small running, sometimes dance-like leaps, waving his arms around, his hands limp, or going into windmills from various angles, in which his arms seemed always perfectly aligned with each other, and he never seemed to take a step out of character, though the character was quite broad, including, as it did, what looked like a lot of classical attitudes and posturings of the body, but not the feet, to the extent of executing a port de bras before making what could have been a balletic turn but was just a brushed, almost tap-danced, set of steps around in a circle. Her story continued with the narrator (whom I took to be Bill) embracing a guy named Joe, which I thought was most enlightened action back then, and there was a story in which his grandmother died, a bank was robbed, his friend Joe was thought to have done it, but our hero saw the clue of a dog tearing at the coat of the robber, and when Father Gibbs, or someone, sat there with the same tear in his coat, the hero shouted "Father Gibbs robbed the bank," but they started after the narrator, shouting "Witch," which I thought was strange, until they picked up stones and started throwing them at HER. Oh. Sorry. Through this, the lights changed in intensity, and at one point the lights above the windows, which were heavily red and orange, came on so brightly that it literally felt oppressive with the pressure of the light and the heat from the bulbs, and when the banjo was exchanged for a snare drum, tatting out its tats, there was a definite aura of tension and fear, so that when they were going to get Joe, you FELT that something was going to happen. Even at the end, when they threw stones at the witch, "breaking her bones so she couldn't move," and finally put the rope around the neck, to her final words "I died," the lights dimmed in a blue tone which left one feeling icy and cold and distant, rather than involved. I was totally conscious of being an audience-of-one, particularly since one of the early lines made a smile break out across my face "The family invited him for the weekend," and the image of THEY, as a family, entertaining me, as a guest, was too strong to be resisted. I changed my positions a few times, couldn't help but catch the eye of Bill when he had to strike an attitude looking at the wall directly behind me, and I glanced at her a few times, and she stared reproachfully back at me. Forgot to mention that the gal from the card table was sitting next to me, watching, too. The light man seemed to be smiling about something, and later the music man switched to a wire-on-nail violin, or what looked and sounded like one, making eerie sounds and rasping noises, adapting a position that made his thin, well-shaped legs quite striking against the white background and forming the base of his exaggeratedly upright posture. I debated what I'd do when it was over, thinking to say "Thank you, I feel honored," but figured that would sound AWFULLY silly, so when the lights finally faded at "her" death, I started applauding rather loudly, but was aware that the girl next to me wasn't applauding, so I felt rather self-conscious and stopped, saying "Thank you," to everyone with a big smile. They smiled, bowed to each other, and the woman in green asked me how I liked it. "Great, I can't get over the effect of the LIGHTS." When they expressed interest, I told them what I meant, and the lighting guy came over and said "I didn't design the lights, I just worked them," and the girl told Bill, with a tone of sarcasm, "He really liked the lights!" and Bill smiled. I felt even worse, and left, going down the stairs making faces at myself at the extraordinary bizarrerie of the evening. Walked the wrong way back to the subway, doubled back on my tracks to see the flat white light illuminating the three tall windows from the fifth floor as I passed it again, and got back to the subway to sit in the midst of some extraordinary lookers again: the Spanish-Italian type with the padded chest in the blue body shirt and the FABULOUS biceps when he put his hand up to his ratty hair, the cute guy down the way. Stopped for ice cream and went down to the Promenade, sitting, and some guy started SINGING "Gay is Love," "Sing it loud, don't be ashamed," "We shall overcome," and ON and on until everyone left, and I thought to myself "God, what is this world COMING to." Then the three toughs from St. Saviour came along, saying "Hey, I chased a gay lib off the Promenade last week," and broke a bottle for the fun, but his two friends made him throw it away. I sat there, open-mouthed as I'd been when the two woman cops walked by earlier, causing another passerby to do a double-take, and wondered "What ELSE could happen to me tonight?" And then the trumpet started playing from the second floor down, third building, and I decided to go home!!

DIARY 9612
5/21/75

12 WEST FOR THE SECOND TIME

Walk to the river and look over the smellless, oilless, dirtless (3 ells, then 2, then 1) water, and see people filing into the doorway where the sign keeps falling off, and everyone's very cheery as they check us in on hanger number 2, and we pay our $10, they check off my name in a book, and we're in to see they have balloons all over the floor and the music is actually rather soft. There's fruit and pretzels and fruit punch available for free, quite tasty, and I'm sorry I didn't bring any joints. Everyone's playing at kicking the balloons around, so I sit down on the bleachers and bat one back and forth, rock back and forth, wishing I had some grass, and Bob wanders around. I go upstairs a couple of times, but there's no action in the side room aside from ONE couple, and they don't even have a bar upstairs anymore, just a self-serve goody stand. It gradually fills up, so that at 12:30 it looks occupied, and some of the shirts are coming off and the lights are darker, the balloons are gone, the music is much louder, and the variations in the lighting comes faster. It IS fun to watch them for awhile, but seeing all the joints being lit up and passed around makes me very jealous, and it doesn't even stop when I see Big Bob dancing around for all he's worth, and I bum a toke from him, but it doesn't hit me very hard. More liquid, stand beside a wall and see a great-built fellow in a black undershirt throwing his arms into the air and wriggling around with gusto, some devastating kids there with females, and a beautiful fellow in a soft cotton white suit that's open to a black-haired chest, and others are tight-crotched and sexy, but NO one looks at me with interest except some old faggots who stand near me and don't even talk to me. I get to feeling pretty disgusted, and finally decide that I'm wasting time about 2, look around for Bob, and say "I'm leaving." He decides to leave too, then says that going places with me is like "going to a cemetery." "And now you'll run home and write up all that you observed while leaning against the wall." I get pissed because I TOOK him there because he WANTED TO GO, and then he walked up Hudson, thinking it went to 8th, and I didn't even CARE. Will go back ONLY with a guest and ONLY stoned --- the only way it'd be worth it, and Bob was particularly pissed because he asked me to dance, I said no, and he didn't have the guts to ask ANYONE ELSE!

DIARY 9616
5/21/75

"FAGGOT" EXPERIENCE ON SUBWAY

Get on and walk through to the very back, since I'm getting off at 12th Street, and notice a big black with stuff on the seat across the way, but I'm reading and don't cruise him or anyone. Just after we leave Chambers Street, he lights up a cigarette. Since he doesn't look like the type to be talked to, I simply pick up and move to the front of the car, but before I can walk two steps I heard "Faggot!" hissed from his mouth. I don't turn around, probably redden, and walk as nonchalantly as I can to the front of the car and sit to read, not looking at anyone. Just before stopping at 14th Street he comes UP and leans against the door, still smoking. I tell myself NOT to look at him: I can surely stand the smoke until I get off the train. Then we stop, I stand to leave, still without looking at him, and as I pass him, he gets off and PUSHES me in the middle of the back, shouting something about "Stepping on my white pants." I turn to look at him, and he's been saying "Faggot" with every stray breath, and then he grabs me by the arm and says "Man, you better apologize to me!" I wish I could kill him, but I'm certain that there's NOTHING I could do if he took it into his whacked-out head to kill me, so, hoping he won't notice the sarcasm, I say "Pardon me for LIVING" and walk away. I don't look back to see if he's running after me with a gun or a kick or a knife or a fist, and others on the platform are looking at ME in curiosity. Shake all the way to Bob's, and the drink DOES feel good. Art reminded me of it when HE said that he was singing "Penny Candy" on the Oceanic, saying that the girl wants to be an elephant, and "What do I want to grow up to be?" and the drunk with two women at the front table, who had been talking through his set, shouted out "A faggot!" He couldn't wreck the audience and his song, so he finished, then looked down and said "I know that some people have problems, and they're usually the ones who have some kind of problems themselves," and he walked over to the table, peered out through the lights at him, and nodded "Yep!" at which point the audience burst into applause. I said that he at least felt protected, where I had to THINK about what I was doing. He reminded me that I DID ask the guy behind at the movie to stop kicking the chair, so he said I wasn't THAT cowed. Yeah, but I sure have been THINKING about it a lot!

DIARY 9638
5/30/75

EST REPORT FROM POPE

He said the Cosmopolitan article was the truest and fairest: HE thought it was a rip-off at the start, did it just for the experience, and ended up thinking it was a peak experience in his life, totally worth the $250 that he spent on it, if only from a theatrical point of view. "They were screaming, crying, vomiting, fainting---someone tried to throttle the trainers. THEY were consummate actors, with their damn smiling. They lied, they played tricks, they gave rules that they violated themselves. People pissed in their pants. But I know why they did it all, and it WORKED. I know, I read it all before: they got a lot of it from Watts' "The Book" and a lot from Krishnamurti, but there's something about SITTING there for 16 hours during the weekend and having it POUNDED into you. I found out that I was a bit more solidly based than I thought: where the woman who wrote the article was terrified about facing the audience, I was actually EXHILARATED by looking at all those faces looking at me. Not that I wasn't bored, GOD it was boring; they came up with a really CLEVER definition of the mind, and they repeated it A HUNDRED TIMES and we chanted it again and again, and I figured I'd have no trouble remembering it. Well, I forgot it. But they don't let you take notes (I wanted to ask him what would happen if I INSISTED on taking notes), and I can see the point. If they let you go out for a smoke and a chat every hour, it would become very intellectualized and do no good. This way they actually ASSAULTED you, calling you an asshole with no experience --- well, I KNOW I've had experiences like that before, but I just took it --- and just screamed and SCREAMED at you until you felt like screaming right back. And the THINGS that people confessed to, it was really quite an experience. It would depend on the group, but I guess with 250 people, you'd always get a little bit of everyone. What a mix of people: rich, poor, famous, old, young, everyone. Really an incredible experience. I'm not doing any work this week, just thinking about it and talking about it --- I LOVE to talk about it. Maybe I'll go with you on Tuesday." And I listened and said I'd like to talk with him about it more at length over the weekend, and he said "Fine, I'll be in and out, just call."

DIARY 9653
6/12/75

HAILSTORM IN NYC

Notice that it's getting dark from the windows of McGraw-Hill, but when I get down into the street it grows darker by the moment, and by the time I get up to 53rd the people are looking back at the sky and pointing, and there's a long green-black smudge in the sky that's so low and so ominous that it looks like it must be a motion-picture special-effect before a tornado that whisks the city off the map. In front of the Museum of Modern Art I look around, passing people so entranced by the spectacle that they smile at me smiling at them smiling at the sky. The spumes of vapor from the air conditioners atop the 50-story building seem to be brushing against the bottoms of these clouds, because there are enormously dramatic swirls in the air, causing more or less transparency in the black clouds so that the ghastly gray-green of the background can come through more clearly. Then as I cross Fifth Avenue to get a better look at the building whose top was used in "Man in the Glass Booth," the rain starts coming down, and I step into (Eastern?) Airlines marquee to watch the rain come harder. A hippie couple are selling prints outside, and they're covering their wares with a plastic tarpaulin as the rain starts, and their daughter screams in delight and fear as a flash of lightning goes off down the block. Then the rain starts pelting down, I decide it's better to be inside, and go in just as the sky opens and lets down dime-sized pellets of hail, rattling off car tops, umbrellas, eyeglasses, and sidewalks with an impressive clatter. The mother whoops with joy and picks up a piece to look at closely, and a handsome gigolo-type comes in, smiling and dripping, and says something about how I have the better idea. A child is screaming, knocking over stands filled with brochures, and tumbling down stairs while her mother shouts and cajoles in English and French. I try to ignore them, read, and watch with amusement as prospective passengers come in, note the crowds sitting in the outer-lobby seats, and take a number, only to have the girls behind the counters shout "No waiting, come right in," and they look around in puzzlement, replace their numbers, and ask to fly to Chattanooga, Finally the hail changes back to rain, which destroys the icy pebbles, the rain lets up, and I go on my way before it starts raining AGAIN as I make the last three-block dash up Park Avenue to Asia House.

DIARY 9662
6/14/75

POPE HILL AND EST

Bill grills him about it, and he says that he wouldn't have gotten nearly as much out of these three-hour subsequent sessions if he hadn't gone through the original weekend. He wouldn't coax anyone to go, but admitted that he'd feel VERY happy if I said I WERE going. It kept getting down to the fact that it was something that had to be EXPERIENCED and couldn't really be described, getting to the Ouspensky indescribability in a weekend, not in a number of years. Is THAT now going to be the sign of goodness: it was great, but I just CAN'T describe it?? Bill got into astrology, saying that he didn't know the hour in which he was born, but someone sort of adjusted things, as Pope said was possible, and came up with 10:21. Pope answered a lot of his questions, and Bill finally said he was sorry he didn't bring his chart with him. I was suffering from a cold that everyone seemed to agree was psychosomatic, and Bill remarked that I had one the LAST time he was here, and someone said something about resentment, and Bill asked me if I resented his being here. No, but I later told him that I couldn't stand eating with him, and he said he understood because he couldn't take the way his MOTHER would become totally, animally involved with her food when he was a kid, and he tends to eat "lustily" now, and realized that it might put off some people. He insisted that the humming was only because he likes the sensation and the sound, and that he did it when he got bad thoughts that he wanted to do away with, and it wasn't REALLY consciously, that he knew, a way of remembering himself. Pope said that he would keep going to as many of these things as he could, that he found more patience in them now than he did before, and now he could take notes, but that now he was more put off by some of the people who had obviously been going to the meetings for years, constantly used the jargon, and had a ready aphorism for anything anyone didn't like about them that drove him up a wall. I could see that I might hate it, but I'd be willing to spend $3, or whatever, for one of the evenings to get a taste of what EST is dishing out, even though I'm quite sure I won't be going to one of the weekends --- even Joyce was put off by a woman who used the wrong "smile tactics" on her --- just too much!

DIARY 9665
6/14/75

BILL HYDE AND RAM DASS

Yes, Bill DID send me a letter after last time, saying that he'd gotten a letter from Ram Dass, now in the city, and that he wanted to see him. But I didn't know he'd seen him Sunday! He gave the first of what looked like a series of "Darshans," which means sitting to get the aura of a great man, and THAT put me off Ram Dass, too. Bill said he came in looking quite old, quite tall, but Americanized in blue jeans and a blue turtleneck, sitting around directing everyone distantly to sit up straighter in a bare white room in his apartments on Riverside and 100th Street. Then he got to the people and got a bit warmer, Bill speaking while all the others mumble, and the Ram Dass accusing him of being hung up on words. Bill said he got no special thrill from being there, hardly his fantasy of clasping Ram Dass in his arms and getting a special message, and even Ram Dass laughed and said "This isn't what you expected, me ordering you to sit straight, was it?" He handed out pictures of his guru, and everyone oozed but Bill, who made NO move to take it, at which point Ram Dass said "I want to see you after." Bill said with some satisfaction: "HE wanted to see ME, I didn't particularly want to see HIM." But then he said that they were in DIRECT eye contact as they stood in the hall with people swirling about them, and he put his hands on his chest and back and said something about breathing, and then said they'd be "connected" during the next two years, "and that he'd find out what to do with his energies." He didn't seem to agree with Gurdjieff, contradicting some of his ideas, but there was no charge for anything, not even the tea and cookies. Bill also wanted to talk to Angenie, his female secretary, and he did so, and said he wouldn't mind being part of a small group that could be around him always. He accepted an invitation from some kid, and then admitted to Bill, while the cute kid was there, "Of course, I won't see him, what does he have to give me; I have my own work to do," and related how his teacher, SHE would call JUST as he was thankfully going to sleep after what he thought was a successful day, and she would say "Well, do you want to WORK or not?" and he'd have to get out of his comfortable bed and start to work. He was still searching, still working, still had too much junk around him, and he didn't really make it through to Bill, even when they hugged. And he was Bramachara, which means he wasn't having sex. Big deal.

DIARY 9714
6/27/75

CONEY ISLAND 1975

The first smell is pretty bad, and there's sawdust floating in the fruity, greasy muck at the corner of Surf when I cross Stillwell to get to Nathan's. He sends me over to Kosher Chicken for dinner, which isn't bad but VERY expensive at $1.75 for just two SMALL pieces of chicken and some fries and a glass of water from the sink. Eat until 7:30, and Bobby and Eddie come in and we chat for a bit, and then out at 7:40 to look for Michael, but he's not there, so the three of us ride on the Tornado while Bobby holds our stuff ($1.50), and the BOBSLED has been torn down now, and he says that the CYCLONE (re-ride $1) is closed, though it's scheduled to reopen on the July 4th weekend. Eddie wants to play the water monkeys, so we play THREE games and EACH of us wins a glass ($2.25!), and then we're back to pick up Michael and go for the Jumbo Jet, which he consents to go on ($3). Then down for the Thunderbolt, all on again ($3), we're in the front and they're in the back. Rattly as ever. I get some Italian ice (35¢), others buy things, and we're across to the Cyclone then back to the Flume ($3) for a GREAT sopping-wet ride that has us ALL convulsed in laughter and passersby asking "Did the ride do THAT?" Eddie dries off as we play the air-supported hockey-pong game (about $1.50), then back to eat more, I getting the HUGE beer and Michael taking $1 for shrimps ($2.50). Eddie and Michael both get corn ($1), we try the new inner-tube dodgems ($3), the strobe-lit squishy ones that has a GOOD group inside ($4 for two rides, it's so good), and then Bobby pays $4 for the motorcars, and Michael slams into tires when I cut him off and bangs his arm. He has "mosquito bites" that later turn into impetigo. Funhouse is awful for $1, Eddie and Bobby ride on two awful ones $3, and we say goodbye by riding AGAIN on the Jumbo Jet ($3) just after I feel pretty awful from the four of us riding in the Hell Hole ($3) newly surprised by the EXTREME weight on the CHEST and the back of the head that I even rest my hands behind to alleviate. That came to $40 right there, about $25 for me and Eddie from my pocket and about $7.50 each for the other two, Bobby more than Michael. Oh, the Wonder Wheel ($2.40) was there, too, and Bobby filled up with sodas, everyone wanting a sip of Eddie's banana cream softee, so I probably spent closer to $30 than $25! Incredible!

DIARY 9749
7/2/75

EST CHATS WITH POPE

He's pleased that I liked it, several times says "I felt just that way," says that interesting things still happen at the seminars, but he's just taken his fourth, the leader apologized for last week's ineffectuality, and he's also teaching the "Sex" seminar and seems to have NO feelings, in fact everyone sort of feels protective of him for fear he'll fall apart. He's got 14 hand-written notes of someone who copied down notes in CLASS, with orders and charts from the board complete, but he doesn't want to tell me any more about next weekend's stuff before I encounter it. I keep trying to tell him that it wasn't THAT bad that he told me stuff, and it actually turns out that MOST of the information I got was from the Cosmopolitan article anyway. He constantly has trouble with his friend Gary, as est-hole, but has found (ODD!) his personal relationships improving greatly, and even said that he figured his dealings with his paranoid dying father would be more bearable when he visits Georgia. He verifies that his training, in May, didn't have 4-hour piss breaks, and that nothing was said about NOT telling anyone about the processes. He also remarked that there would be a DIFFERENT trainer for the second weekend, which was a surprise, and that the attendance at the seminars was varied, only about HALF the attending group would be from my particular class, and I check the calendar and there's a "Be Here Now" starting on July 17 and continuing on THURSDAYS. He constantly keeps a very cerebral hold on things, and I honestly think he didn't get THAT very much out of the training, and he admits that he thought about it for a bit but continued to use "try" and "understand" and "beliefs" in their usual way, but knew that they had different LEVELS of meaning, and that he didn't think it was necessary to be as impersonal and automated as most of the graduates, who put HIM off, too. I complained about the brutalism of Sunday evening and their lack of COMPASSION, and he IMPLIED that everything was going to be cared for, since he didn't seem concerned about my FINAL understanding of what was going on. Then he had to get back to work, so we put clothes on, he went back to see if the prescription came to care for his knee, and I went back home to feel myself superior to him: after telling him that he shouldn't be SHOCKED by anything that I say in the notes; and they're highly unorganized.

DIARY 9809
7/11/75

TALK WITH POPE AFTER EST

He's on the phone with the writer of the notes, who does NOT want to give them to me, but Pope says, "He wanted you to promise that you wouldn't use them again, so you promise," VERY neatly letting me off the hook, because I don't think I would have promised any such thing. He said that he thought MY notes were much more complete and that I wouldn't get anything from them, but I skim through and see a lot of things that I forgot, so I think it WILL be good, though I'm glad that I typed out my OWN notes first (and will also type out the notes from the post-training seminar) before I transcribe those with a copy to Pope. He again says how much he disliked the Personality Profile part of it, saying that he really zapped them with his psychic powers, and I tell him that he'll see something about that in MY notes, too. Then he gets into what he was when he was 15 years old in 1939, making him 12 years older than me, who am 12 years older than my sister, and shows me a clipping from a Georgia newspaper where he was doing remarkable things with the ESP cards, saying he could get them 100% right. I ask if there are any good references on the field, and he shows me a signed copy of "Parapsychology --- Frontier Science of the Mind" by Rhine, published by Thomas, and I'll probably be able to get a copy of it from Weiser's. He said that it was a KICK for him at the start: kids would come up to him on the bus and ask "What number am I thinking of?" and he'd tell them and they'd draw back in amazement. The clipping author said "What color is my mother's room being painted?" and Pope said that as soon as the Ouija board came to "P" he knew it was pink, but he "used" it to steer to an "I" and came up with "Pink." He said he DID used to worry when something niggled at him "Don't fly on the plane," and thought it was paranoia, but what if it WAS true. He predicted someone's mother dying, though "every eight years some planet (Jupiter) is in someone's house (home?), so it can't ALWAYS be right, but I got that feeling. I could probably get it back, but it's gone except for insights when making out charts." I asked if he could TEACH, but he said it was more like "doing it with" but he didn't volunteer to teach me. He wanted to keep my notes again, will annotate them, and gave me the other outline when I left a little after 5, he warning me to watch out for lightning in the rain.

DIARY 9837
7/16/75

POPE'S DISGUST WITH EST

Meet John on the street before getting to Pope's, and he said HE was bored because they only repeated what Pope had already TOLD him. Pope said that John was so DEFENSIVE when he kept insisting he saw no REASON to go, saying that it was too bad that someone as intelligent as Pope had gotten roped into something so BORING and BENEATH him. But he said he WAS having a lot of trouble with est. First, they said that the person at the "special" meeting would be with them all the time, but that they were out of the ROOM most of the time. Second, he HATES Michael Rosenberg, the leader of his "Be Here Now" seminar, whom everyone feels sorry for, catalyzed by someone who stood up and said "Michael, I HATE you, I hate your lisp, I hate your voice, and what you're trying to do," and everyone felt instantly sorry for him, and some guest speaker even felt she had to DEFEND him, which was awful. And Pope CERTAINLY doesn't want to take the SEX course with him, as he was surprised when ARNOLD said that he was giving out sex information, and Pope KNEW that he'd only been fucking two or three girls two or three times a year, the same ones since college --- and that Arnie had been to a psychiatrist, too, and I wondered if it had anything to do with me, but it was a couple of years ago, probably around the time when he worked for Macy's saying that he wondered why he couldn't ever find a job. So Pope said that everyone in the class was thinking of NOT enrolling in more seminars, that they just became TICKET SELLING occasions, someone saying "It's not be here now, it's be there THEN," which he liked, and it's just total repetition, that the seminars COULD be good, but that they aren't. But he says he hasn't been sharing, which is part of a problem. But he KNOWS, he says, that it's not something that THEY are creating, since OTHERS say they have good seminars, and only THEY are stuck with the dunce. I suggest that the group may CREATE the dunce, but he said people STARTED very gently "Uh, well, what do YOU think of him." And there are still some FEW who say "Michael, we love you," and keep volunteering to sell tickets at the back of the room. And he told me to DEFINITELY keep August 7th free for Werner at the Felt Forum, and that I should buy my ticket at est, since their MAILING system gets so fouled up, witness partially the fact that I haven't been INVITED to it yet! Volunteers?

DIARY 9847
7/19/75

FOUR NEW APARTMENTS IN ONE DAY

1. Cyndy's staying at Phyllis Winslow's, and the first impression is of a long cluttered entranceway followed by a narrow cluttered room, and I sit down while she almost dozes on the sofa, and then give her a little kiss when she seems to WANT something from me, and I guess she DID end up sleeping with Darwin, who's taking her out to dinner tonight to say goodbye before SF.

2. Joe Brook's apartment looks fine, but he said he'd just cleared out a LOT of antiques that were NOT connected with the family, and was ready to re-do the whole thing in glass and chrome, mystifying the co-tenants in the building who remember when the apartment was shown in various housing magazines as an echt-ditzy apartment, which he said he wasn't into now. Lots of art on the walls: folios from medieval music manuscripts, his sister's "commercial" stuff: "Chase Manhattan bought three hundred of hers when she redid a lobby for them." Spacious bedroom with healthy plants in the windows, and lots of plants in the pictures of the houses at Southampton (sold) and Woodstock (rented for 6 months). I'll probably call him a few more times and leave the rest of the relationship up to US. Good-sized four rooms.

3. Michael's quite lucky to have found Stan Place, who flatters him to his pleasure, and he's out of town a lot, so he has the seven-room apartment more or less to himself. LARGE hallway shows great photos of what Stan USED to look like when he was young and sexy, an anachronistic dining room, quite bare, with shades pulled down against the glare, white tablecloth on which stands a too-small vase with three white-silk roses in it, and old junk on the walls like San Francisco of the 1940's. Living room with flowered wallpaper between the phony beams on the ceiling, the same "California bars" look, and then Michael's rug-less bedroom, Stan's sumptuous (20x20?) bedroom, and then the kitchen and annex and a bathroom complete the seven rooms and bath. Though it's not air conditioned, it's breezy, being one flight ABOVE the surrounding tenements, and quite light even with the shades partly down.

4. Stephen Waite's apartment, to the contrary, never sees the light of day since the front windows, on street level, are permanently shaded and air conditioner-filled. The kitchen (and maids room-converted-to-breakfast-nook) and bathroom are hideous Puerto Rican iridescent green, but the living room, parlor (with sheet-covered furniture), two big bedrooms and two baths are strictly old NYC.

DIARY 9859
7/24/75

TALK WITH ARNIE ABOUT EXTREMES

Throw out ALL programs and travel souvenirs? Throw away ALL books except for the "Ten Best"? Make NEW lists of what I'm doing, who's in it, what I'm reading? Make a PAGE for each book I throw out? Toss it ALL out and become an est-hole? Move? Write? All these go tumbling through my mind, and when Arnie calls, I give him what I call the "progression." At first, I lived in a small apartment and collected small things. Then as I moved to bigger and bigger places, I kept more and more, until now I essentially keep EVERYTHING. TRUE, at one time I throw OUT many ballet programs, keeping only a LIST, and that's been nicely sufficient. And they don't give programs for movies, so my list is OK for THAT, and I've NEVER looked at the old movie programs that I've kept, so I CAN throw those out all right. But what about the books? THEN I'd have the fantasy of moving into a camper, but how could I keep all my books and records and souvenirs in a camper? Then I'd think of moving to another country, and that reduces to maybe seven BOOKCASES (as I said to Arnie, meaning suitcases) full of stuff. Then I harken back to when I was a kid and wanted to be a priest, and think of going into a monastery just to GET AWAY. Arnie jumps in at that point and makes it clear that there is STILL enough that I enjoy that I wouldn't like to give up about living in SOME kind of city (since I named Kyoto, Madras, Rio, Jogja, and Paris as the cities I'd MOVE to). He insisted I DID have the room, so I should GET another bookcase, maybe throwing out SOME books, but keeping most of them, and he started telling me about what HE saves and throws out. Interspersed with lengthy tales about his telephone conversations this evening, at Community Sex Information. So I came to some sort of middle vision of what to keep: get RID of most of the boxes, and set up the FILES to keep most of my stuff. Put ALL the travel souvenirs into the metal containers on a bookcase, and throw most of the REST of the stuff away: leave VACANT closets except for tools and clothes and NECESSARY boxes to save. The packing cases from the stereo, tape, turntable, and Unitrex have been USED, so they have been PROVEN to be useful. So CLEAR out stuff, meanwhile making it more ORGANIZED so that I find things easier --- but it'll take time, and that's not time for writing --- well, I just don't FEEL like writing at this point, so THERE!

DIARY 9888
8/6/75

CIRCUS IN HARLEM

Lots of whites wandering the streets, so I don't feel out of place, but there are a few gangs of boys whooping it up that could have been threatening, but I was so high with the dentist finished that it didn't matter. Lots of VERY loud record shops blaring away, lots of movie theaters converted into revival-meeting temples, lots of shops closed behind rusty full-front grills. Streets are very messy, but the people seem cheerful enough. In the center of 125th Street is a couple of blocks of real barrio outdoor markets, with wigs looking particularly phony in the sunlight, and pants, wooden and costume jewelry, and just about everything else being sold right off the street, usually reinforced with blaring speakers from a cassette recorder playing junk. Across to Lenox, streets crowded with a lunchtime crowd, and up the swelteringly hot streets, past many cruising police cars, wondering if they're looking at me for "wanting to get into trouble." A few tank-topped workers display marvelous chocolate muscles, but not many crotches except for a boy walking past who was IMPOSSIBLY hung. Look down side streets to see a LARGE number of destroyed blocks, lots of buildings with windows out and bare walls having been torn down for some reason, and look down side streets to see crumbling tenements with lots of people on the sidewalks and junk in the streets. From a stoop high up, people are passing out free lunches that look pretty good: two half-pints of milk, fresh fruit, and some sort of sandwich and salad --- there seemed to be no checking at all as to who got them. Lots of churches and "religious relics" being advertised on the streets, and lots of posters with blacks on them. People hanging out windows, kids screaming in the streets, but lots of CLEAN kids acting polite to their elders seemed nice. The hospital still had its ludicrous wait for the elevators, with tranquilized blacks sitting apathetically in the hallways, and the noise in the cafeteria wasn't much different from the noises on the streets. In one place (many, actually) there were open hydrants that had run dry, and someone was filling a pail to wash down the crummy sidewalk in front of his shop. Many shopkeepers white, but there WERE a lot of black-oriented militaristic bookshops, record shops, clothing stores, etc.

DIARY 9939
8/22/75

LUNCH WITH LARRY PRICE AT YALE CLUB

He's a remarkably smooth-faced fellow who graduated in 1962 or so, so he's in his mid-thirties and looks rather like a taciturn Ed Godbold. Whirl around when he comes up and call him "Jack" for some reason, but then we walk to the Yale Club, and I'm pleased to see that those who can afford it still have "the club" with its rooms and cigar stand and meeting and eating areas and elegant lounge that is too monochromatically painted. The pub is the only dining area open, and it's rather crowded, so we sit and chat for a bit, I tell him I'm reading the Loeb book, and he disagrees with the 10% limit, saying that there'll probably be a time when he'll ask that I put all the money I can scrape together into his hands for investing. But that won't be for two or three months yet. He explains the selling (due to people "clearing out" accounts in which they bought Xerox at 150 and it's now 64, and to people making good tax losses for the year) in December and the buying in January that will send the market up at that time. He talks about the limited flexibility of large companies (or Rolf does) that have a half billion in holdings, and they can't unload or they'd swamp the market. He talks about his conservatism, about his 20% per year, which includes dividends, so if he gets something with dividends of 10%, all he has to do THEN is another 10%. He reports that people say that at SOME times he should try to DOUBLE his money, but that in the LAST TEN YEARS, the Dow Jones has only gone up an average of 2%, though it IS from a boom to a bust period. But he seems content to talk with me over the hot ham, cold pastrami and tongue, awful Yale hash, and my iced tea that clinks all over, and then we have ice cream and cake for dessert and I say "I think I'm more aware of the time than you are" at 2:30, and we get back over to sign my things over to him by 3 pm. The office looks rather like Warren's, he gives me one of his cards, checks to find that my unlisted stocks are very poor, and says that I should keep the IBM, which is a GREAT bargain at this time. Describes BOOK value as being the accountant's figure of depreciation, which is much LOWER than any sort of LIQUIDATION value if the items would be SOLD, and says that the NEXT action will be in "smokestack" industries like steel, cement, oil, and the hard-core basis of industry, which is due for a FABULOUS comeback soon.

DIARY 10040
9/19/75

ART'S BIRTHDAY DINNER AT OYSTER BAR

He shows up at 8:25 with a brown and white scarf over a brown sweater and brown slacks and saddle shoes, and under the sweater is an old-style shirt made from different materials that he's trying out before wearing in his act, for comfort, and though it's new, the cuffs and collar and dickie look quite old (and yellowed). He's feeling great, recognizing the restaurant as JUST like it looked when it was opened before, and the bar on the right is about half full and the tables on the left are about 3/4 full, and we get seated and menued by a tall quirky fellow, and Art orders the Soave wine for $7, and flips over the shore dinner for $9.90. Then he mentions that the scallops and mussels in mustard vinaigrette on avocado sounds just great, and I debate about having it, then decide if ANYPLACE would have it good, it would be this, so I try it. His Manhattan clam chowder is just fabulous: as thick as a gazpacho, very flavorful, even the CLAMS taste good. My shrimp cocktail for $2.95 is the least bargain dish of the evening, but still very good with great sauce. He loves his 1½-pound sweet little lobster, I don't like his clams, just as he doesn't like the tough air tubes sticking out for dear life, and the scallops are a total revelation: small and very tender, non-iodic from the bay, they taste like sweet little fresh lichee nuts, JUST delicious, and even the mussels aren't bad, except that they have about three pinhead-sized smooth items inside that I call pearls, except that Art says they don't live long enough, and they seem, to ME, to have lived long enough to secrete THIS about whatever was irritating them. They don't have apple pie or hot fudge sundaes left, so both have the nesselrode pie, and HUGE pieces come out that are certainly worth WHATEVER we paid for it, and the bill comes to $29.20, with $4.50 tip for a total of $33.70, expensive, but worth it, and we leave floating on air, even though he didn't want another half-bottle of wine to finish what we drank. Glad we didn't get in at 9:30, since they started clearing us out at 10, and at 10:15 we felt like we were holding them up, so we left too. The waiter service was great, and I look forward to going back to a new-found pleasure.

DIARY 10055
9/21/75

PARTY WITH THE MAOS

Madge is standing outside with Michele, who had been crying, and she ignored my wave at her because, as I said, "She doesn't smile at strangers," and she hates my beard. In to see a nattily-haired Margo, a Margery who might be pregnant again but who isn't, with Susan, her five-year-old, and Marsha, who looks like Margery. Mike is rushing around organizing everything, and Werner looks unhealthily fat and wan, while Mike laments that Madge is down to 93 pounds and looks worn out with the screaming Michele, who doesn't know what to make of anything except her birthday cake, which turns into the worst part of the meal. Mr. and Mrs. Mao all smile and shake my hand a dozen times, and Mike later says "It's indiscreet, but they really wanted you to be their son-in-law." I get the feeling that Werner's sucking and living off of Madge's energies, and he sits at our table, letting Mike and Margo do most of the serving, and I stand in when they aren't serving. Mike has a bit too much champagne and keeps on talking: he's writing his PhD. thesis on a 17th-century Chinese novel; he's taking two dance classes a day, and the dance doesn't know about the PhD. and vice versa. He's designed a label for a wine bottle, has done more traveling, and has been through est, and we chat about what we got from it. Mrs. Mao makes me feel very strange when she comes up and asks how I'm liking it, and when I say I miss such meals, she says she remembers how much I liked her sweet and sour pork, and that I should come to her home anytime, just anytime, really anytime. I begin to feel VERY strange, after I wander out, and think that I fucked up Madge's life by not marrying her, and then John's life by not staying with him, and maybe other lives before that (I think of Bill and Jean-Jacques) by not being close to THEM, and I end up feeling VERY heavy until I call Stephen and getting him to come over at 10:30. The food is fabulous; I try to teach the pretty Ken Howard (going to overweight, however) and his wife Barbara how to eat Peking Duck, but she doesn't like the abalone or sea cucumber, and I chat with Ju-Ju, or whoever, about HIS mathematics courses in Princeton, and talk with another Chinese woman about her career in SBC, where she worked after I left. Cheery evening, piles of boxes for Michele, and a harried Madge who says we'll talk on the phone, and a limp handshake from Werner who almost acts as I'm accusing him of something, which I am.

DIARY 10317
12/2/75

$2 STAMP PURCHASE EXPLODED

Couldn't resist the $2 stamp purchase: since the $1 included at least 20 countries, this would be from at least 40 countries, mostly NEW issues, and would fill out my collection. And the "special packet" might be just what I needed. Sure, the special packet contained the 4¢ US violet Lincoln and an 8¢ flag, and a few other junky items like a mint Uruguay and a Communist China (and then they had the nerve to advertise a stamp finder, since the China probably wouldn't be in the catalog!). Sift through the afternoon of the day I got it 11/26, and find there are lots of countries, and a few of the mints have to be sorted out, though the Cayman Islands is clipped at a corner, the Bulgaria is hopelessly creased, and a few other "would have been goodies" are damaged so that they're literally worthless. Begin to think it might not have been a good investment. Spent about an hour on Wednesday, then about 3 hours on Sunday (not really counting the time that I spent on MY stamps) and about 6 hours on Monday for a ROUGHEST total of 10 hours on the things. On Sunday I found only that I had stamps from 48 countries, a lot of them with only one stamp. Then on Monday I REALLY calculated the damages: I HAD 603 of the stamps, DIDN'T have 71 of them. So THOSE 71 stamps that I DIDN'T have cost me $2.16, over 3¢ apiece, which is LUDICROUS; I'm sure I could find HUNDREDS of stamps I don't have in someone's 1/2-cent stamp OFF the paper box; and those 71 stamps cost me 600 minutes, over 8½ minutes per stamp, AGAIN ludicrous --- at my $16/hour, 71 stamps cost $160, way over $2 apiece! Keep values for all stamps OVER 5¢ catalog value and get 3 at 6¢, one at 8¢ and one at 10¢, a Philippines stamp that I HAD. The CAP of the experience, however, was getting a Korean semi-postal (ANY Korean semi-postal) which enabled me to fill another blank double-page, reducing THAT total to 16. THAT'S nice. The "Have column" contains only 38 numbers, so that means for all of 10 countries, I didn't have ANY of them, probably one stamp from each, LIKE Korea, Chad, Bulgaria, and Cayman Islands. As for the MOST of the 674 stamps: 128 Great Britain and 96 Spain were SO bulky that I had to get out the XX files and file stamps in THEM, and the 107 Japan made the top THREE countries of 331 stamps, almost HALF the total of 674, though the FOURTH was tied between France and Australia with 44. JUST NOT SOMETHING TO BUY!

DIARY 10363
12/4/75

WHY DO PEOPLE DO IT?

Look out the window to again see the meticulously constructed corner of elegance outside the apartment of the compulsive builder-painter-neatener who lives on the ground floor of the garage building on Hicks Street, and wonder what would possess him to lay the quadrant of bricks outside the door, shingle above it with honey-colored shingles, plant ivy to trail down from above, and line plants outside his air conditioner. I fantasize that he did it so it would look good for ME, but surely he did it for himself. I think of Art going up to his place in North Salem, and Norma going out to her house in Bayport every weekend --- do they really dislike THEIR apartments so much that they have to get out? No. Do they have a lot of TIME to spend? No. Do they do it FOR someone? No, only for themselves. But WHY? Then I figure that maybe I can get a clue from the things I do that THEY wouldn't. I write (but I keep thinking it'll be published, and that it clears my mind for new thoughts --- which leads me to the question of why I think, I guess), I collect stamps (NOT for the money but because I enjoy organizing, sorting, finding new ones, collecting old ones, buying collections, going to post offices in countries I visit), I spend hours organizing souvenirs. But WHY? Because I like to seems the simplest to say, but why does "Because I LIKE to" not really satisfy me for Art and Norma?? Because I think they're doing it only to keep BUSY and OCCUPIED. Well, there IS part of that in my doing what I do. But I can use the phrase "self-improvement" (though hardly with souvenir collecting), and they can't. "Enjoyment" would be the puzzler. I go to movies and watch TV for enjoyment (purely sedentary) while they paint and wash and fix and arrange and buy for (surely more active and PHYSICAL). So they're ahead of me? Well, it DOES give them some activity that they CAN share with people, whereas I can share stamps with FEW and souvenirs only with people who may be specifically interested in ticket stubs --- and I haven't found anyone yet! But that's why I'm putting things OUT in bookcases and filing cabinets: to make them more accessible to ME AND to friends who'd be interested, rather than keeping them in boxes ONLY for myself (and which I never refer to except to fill up again). So, it seems, vaguely, that I'm getting closer to THEM in activity --- so maybe then I'll understand it somewhat better!

DIARY 10418
12/18/75

CHRISTMAS DINNER AT OYSTER BAR WITH ART AND JOYCE

Art's there already in a brown sweater, and Joyce shows up from the lady's with a suede poncho and brown pants and boots, and she shows me the diet list she got from Dr. D'Amato who took her blood, looked into her eyes, and gave her her previous medical history in EXACT DETAIL for $45. She was very impressed, referred to it to find she could have halibut for a meal and the fresh strawberries for dessert, and Art said that everything on her diet was good to eat. She's glad she didn't go to Orc, has IN FACT registered for the March D training, chatted with David someone, a famous lawyer, who was eating with his attractive girlfriend Tim across the way, who's talked her into going to the guest seminar; and thoroughly hates all the people who call her and bug her, who laugh only when she calls them an asshole. They both want to know what happened at my rebirth. Art's been watching "Lenny" and "Amacord" on his television, is looking forward to his trip over Christmas and New Years, and Joyce is getting together so she can work in the show while he's gone, though she has awful diarrhea, doesn't feel well, though Art says that the discipline of the diet will do her wonders. I talk about rebirthing and Leonard Orr, about the beauty of the Oyster Bar, about how well I look if only I'd get my hair properly layered, about how well Joyce looks even though she's sick. Art looks good, too, but no one mentions it. My scrod is a small portion of VERY tasty fish with BUTTERY hollandaise, and I order the Manhattan clam chowder which is STILL a dream. The gray wine is a total flop --- never get #1 on the list. The bill comes to $35.10, so I leave $5.90 as tip, Art gives me $5 for the wine, so it costs me $36 for the two, and the fresh strawberries with whipped cream at the end were almost worth it. It was noisier than before, but the service was still excellent, Art said his lobster was even better than before and that the shore dinner was surely cheaper than anything of comparable value at Oscar's, and Joyce said she's going to have to come back. We camped it up in the vacant lower level for a bit, doing bits of old movies, before we went up in the cold night for a cab home, kissing both of them goodbye.

DIARY 10429
12/22/75

PARTY AT RICK AND VITO'S WITH PAUL

Paul and I laugh and stagger our way to 1 University Place, neither REALLY sure of our destination, not REALLY sure which direction we're walking at all times, but up to a piano in the hall with people grouped around singing and women sitting and drinking in sofas around a fabulous Christmas tree, and Rick is VERY host-like, introducing us around and saying he'll get us drinks, but I have to go into the kitchen and mix my own vodka and tonic, and then people are talking and eating, I chat with Paul as we attack the fruitcake that Rick baked, the chocolate balls that have to be unwrapped from their colored foil, and outrageously sweet Christmas cookies with icing in red and green. Into the bedroom to smoke a pipe with Paul, and Rick refuses some, saying that Vito would be uptight about it, and I say we won't do it anymore, and I confide to Paul that I hope all the women leave and it turns into an orgy. Stand and laugh with Paul at the goings-on, but he doesn't like it. I drift over to the tree and marvel at the woodcarvings of angels, bamboo coasters in glued circles, tiny baskets, and loads of tinsel and trimming over a tree that's so lush and regular it MUST be phony. Women DO tend to leave early, and I'm impressed with the crew: young attractive men who are all more beautiful than I am, and even the older men are either sexy or tanned or look like Clint Eastwood, and only ONE older, stern-faced guy looks inferior to me, but everyone's talking with their own circle of friends. There's an outrageous quintet around the piano, one TALL blond who could be CUTE who lines out a countertenor voice that is so FUNNILY off-pitch I'm sure he's doing it purposely, and in the middle of carols or show tunes he'll boom an "Oh, Holy NIGHT," and the place will break up. "Clint" starts laying on my arm with laughter, and I figure I've found my partner for the orgy, but Vito looks disapproving of almost everything, though he's wearing the tightest pants, and I keep drinking and Paul keeps leaving, saying that I can SURELY stay, but then EVERYONE seems to be leaving, the pianists switch to someone worse, who leaves shortly, and it's clear that it'll either be a SMALL orgy or none at all, so I get my coat, thank Rick, and leave, somewhat puzzled as to what it WAS, thoroughly drunk, and I guess I know enough to weave north to 14th Street for the subway, but I really can't remember even THINKING of how I'm going to get home!

DIARY 10452
12/30/75

DINNER AT PAUL'S ON CHRISTMAS EVE

Paul buzzes me in and waits for me at the door, exclaiming over the cake, and I'm in to find he has THREE guests, who've finished dinner and are still at the table talking. I meet them, Gary and his talkative lover, and Martin, blond and pretty, tell them the story quickly about the cake, and then sit where Paul puts my place and eat some of his good, though lukewarm, chicken and cold Brussels sprouts and rice. Eat quite quickly, and he opens up another bottle of champagne given to him after the opening party for "Rip" which he organized the box office for, and I have four or five glasses, feeling good to get food into my stomach since I hadn't had anything to eat since two eggs for breakfast. I tell him just a few things about rebirthing, but concentrate on eating while the roommate talks about working for St. Martin's Press and experiencing all the dykes at the meetings who all walked the same way, talked the same, and lumbered heavier than a truck driver, and about the wide-beamed nun who kept talking about Frederick the Great, who was gay. Martin made cute coy jokes about serving the champagne to me, Paul and I chatted about things, since he seemed to be left out of the OTHER conversation, and I quickly finished after seconds on the Brussels sprouts and rice, and more rolls and butter, and then we all had the cake, which was sinfully good, though he didn't offer seconds with more coffee, and then we went into the living room to chat for a few minutes, and it was suddenly 11:15, when it was time for us to leave, and we got out coats and went out to the car. I'd seen some kind of tree standing in the corner, but didn't really LOOK at it, but Paul was happy that I'd liked the chicken, thankful that I'd bought the cake, even though I really didn't have to, and I didn't get quite enough champagne, but by this time I was feeling rather quiet and exhausted from the mental strain of the day, happy that the others seemed content to do most of the talking, and got out into the cold weather to get to the car, piling into the back seat to feel warmer, and I'd been playing with a headache through the day, which the champagne didn't help, but the whirl of events prevented me from feeling awful.

DIARY 10453
12/30/75

SMOKY MARY'S

I really didn't remember the church even when we found a parking space right ON 46th Street, followed Paul quickly into the vestibule to pick up programs, which I thought were nice, wishing the black man "Merry Christmas," and then walked up the left aisle to find no seats, genuflect across the center aisle, and then down the side to find a pew seat for me and a chair next for Paul, and seats just behind for the other three, and who should come out from the crèche-side altar but LEONARD ORR! He waggles his fingers at me and I'm totally astounded at seeing him here: he's mentioned going to midnight mass, but there must be HUNDREDS of churches that have it! Then up the aisle walks Michael Schames, with a woman friend, and he almost doesn't recognize me but talks with Paul. The organ starts up an incredible veil of whirling sounds as the processional comes through, and the censors are SO filled with coals and incense that the billows of GRAY smoke rise PALPABLY to the ceiling, filling the church with scent, definitely taking the hard edges off the ceiling spotlights, and making everyone around smile and comment. Three ministers, one cute, the others auntie-types, behind me chatter among themselves more than anyone ELSE in the church. The mass is VERY long, the Cavalli is rather pleasant, the censor goes and goes, the people exclaim, sing, respond, Paul alternating between the prayer book and the hymn book, they come down for a thing at the crèche, and all the ministers are quite young, handsome, and MOST probably VERY gay, and much of the congregation is: though mixed with ruffled sleeves and velvet jackets are Hindu robes on someone sitting in lotus on the pew, kids, married couples, and little old ladies like the one next to me who nod during the quiet parts. Ask Paul if I can go to communion, and he says yes, and Len is just across from me, and they give the host into the hand and the TINIEST sip of wine and back not even feeling self-conscious. The organ goes wild periodically, the censors sweep smoke through the church about four times, the sermon says something about the mind having to die in order that we may live, which I FREAK OUT OVER, and it's finally over at 2, and I'm almost INUNDATED with physical and mental experiences from the day, thanking Paul VERY much for the evening, saying I'd been happy to meet his guests, and ride the subway home.

DIARY 10582
1/30/76

RITA'S WEDDING

Mom sits beside me in her plunging-neckline (with Dad's old pendant) green dress, sobbing when Rita comes up the aisle on Henry's arm, and Denny is smiling VERY broadly (almost as broadly as his ass pushes out his wide suit) when they meet, and when the minister asks "Who gives this woman in marriage," Henry says "Her mother does," and Mom gets up to hand Rita's hand to Denny. Neat. Earlier, I'd said "I'm Rita's sister," and everyone has a laugh at THAT, too! There are some fumbles with right and left hands and rings, the minister is a joke with his rocking back and forth and Bill Woolf-like speech impediment, and they bobble quite a bit during the two-candles-light-a-new-one ceremony, and it would have been catastrophic if the new one had gone out: so much for the marriage. Mom is VERY down on it for some reason, saying that it's not going to last: he's too poor, she's too smitten with him, he's going to change and get independent and drop her as he did the first one (though everyone agrees that SHE left HIM) and I resist telling her to shut her face! Then they take TWICE as long to take the reconstructed pictures, but Bob Mercer is nice to look at, and later I say that if he ever wants a tour of Brooklyn Heights when he comes to New York, he should be sure to get my address from Mom. Indeed! Then they go out and toot their horns for a bit and Mom and Mr. and Mrs. Robinson and I go to see Grandma, cared for by the marvelous Scotch-accented Mrs. Russell, and I even return to the car to get Mom's shoes when there's no more conversation forthcoming, so she'll look better than in her black boots. Rita and Denny arrive and say hello to everyone, then we're all over to the Women's City Club for a good plate of roast beef and potatoes and green beans out of a can and three flavors of ice cream and "Nino's cake" with icing that tastes suspiciously of plaster. They open the gifts, Helen started the glass tinkling for a kiss, the conversations were quiet in the elegance of the City Club, the photographer was put through his paces, I had a long talk with Marion about "my sex," and she says "she knew long ago," and I say how well Mom and I now get along, and it's a good time for everyone --- I even got an early birthday gift of a mixer, portable, when she ended up with one full one from Mom and two portables from two couples who didn't speak to each other. All in all, a productive, memorable day, and Mom held up VERY well under it.

DIARY 10603
2/4/76

SNOWMOBILING

Everyone looks very WET and blown about, getting their glasses wet, too, but Don promises to take me right home to change afterwards (and I SAID that I needed two pairs of pants in case one got wet!), and then he's willing to pay half the $8, I've never DONE it before and there will probably never be such a CONVENIENT way to try it in such a SAFE place, so I'm over to pay the money and get the ticket and wave to the handler. Merely twist the right handle (squeeze, actually) for speed, and it's only the third or fourth time around that I test the left squeeze and find that it IS the brake, as I'd suspected, though there's not much difference just by leaving off the accelerator. It's sort of slow to accelerate and equally or MORE slow to DEcelerate because of the wet and ice on the golf course, and I'm extra careful in slowing for turns, and come fairly close to edges ANYWAY. Try the first few leaps slowly, too, and then get rather a surprise that the jump into the air is when you go UP a sharp incline, rather than DOWN a sharp incline. Stupidity again. Around once myself, getting the glorious feel of it, and then persuade him to hop on the back, which he likes, except that he loses the book that I've given to his safekeeping. Around again and find it, take it to him and give him a SOLO ride, and he's back to say he'll be in the car warming up, his wig awful when wet, but he says he loved it. By this time everyone's gone, I have the field to myself, but I don't quite want to shake them up by going around the reverse way, so I amuse myself by going slow; fast; along the edges in new snow, which seems to slow me down; along a bumpy area, where I almost tip over when seeing what the stability is, and it's NOT that GREAT; and then try the greatest speed (of course the speed is MUCH less with two on) over the hills and find that the jumps and jolts are rather fun, but one wouldn't do to take too deep a rut from the side, or you'd spill. See a pole taken out by two tracks around it, skid on the ice a lot, stay away from trees, zip around in rather wide circles, finding they're narrow as possible, get VERY hot shins from the motors and a black and blue mark on a knee where I kept hitting a sharp corner with it, and VERY wet coat and papers and what Don calls a FABULOUS color in my face, partly from my smiles of DELIGHT at the sport.

DIARY 10622
2/5/76

AAA MEETING

Arnie wears blue jeans and gets cracked at by Dick Singer and Betsy Wood, and Bob wears a jacket and tie, the older awful guy with no experience is wearing a THREE-piece suit, while cute Dennis with a black eye matches me with slacks, blazer, and turtleneck. He also has wide TRAVEL but no escorting experience. Neither does the pretty girl with the complicated name like Miriamne across from me, but she's matched by Jinx from Boston who comes in at 10:30 with 9 years of experience; Ellen Jacobs, who's gone on a number of trips for AAA last year; and Arnie, who talks a lot without saying anything. So if I had to put them in ORDER of expertise, it would be the two employers Dick and Betsy, the two AAA experienced Ellen and Arnie, Jinx, the two who have SOME experience, me and Bob, and the three travelers Dennis and Miriamne and the old guy, so there were ten of us in all, six to be interviewed, and I'm SURELY in the top three! Veddy good, and Arnie later says it would be a surprise if I DIDN'T get at least one job from them. The range of the trips is April 7 to November 17, but there are only two going in April and November, but that STILL leaves 88 spread over 6 months, so they'll need me, probably, at least during the summer. They said to call them collect for anything, and they'll call back on Watts lines. And that they'll be in touch with who they like with possible itineraries. We don't even have contact with the PASSENGERS, only the club escorts and the resident manager, but we should oversee EVERYTHING. Even the salary sounds good: $34 per day, $1 per passenger in lieu of tips, and $7 for each meal not included, which on most trips seems to be a LOT of meals not included! Just read the itineraries and they sound FABULOUS, seeing LOTS of things that I hadn't seen before, and I want MORE THAN EVER to be taken on EVERY ONE OF THEM. How GREAT that would be, but I MUST keep my enthusiasm down --- however, if enthusiasm can CREATE it, I'm willing to be VERY enthusiastic! Asked a lot of questions; they asked the OTHERS questions but not ME; and they seemed to know enough about us that they FOREWENT the individual talks with us, so I hope they judged by what they HEARD, and that they like ME for my questions and knowledge by asking about "the solitary complainer," tote bags, level of picayunity, information for ALL, and a few others. I HOPE I GET IT.

DIARY 10693
2/24/76

BOOK BUYING

The FIRST day, Tuesday, I can only find "Midwich Cuckoos" and "Sea Shells" for a total of $1.46 at Barnes and Noble. The SECOND, Wednesday, I concentrate at the northern end, getting a Heinlein and a Clarke from one place, a Nabokov and two Huxleys from another, picking up Wells' "Invisible Man" from a third, the Jerome from another (though ONE of these, and maybe even two of them, were gotten at the Strand, since I spent $26.35 there, and I seem to be missing $4 in the list that I REMEMBER buying at Strand: the poetry of A.H. for $2.50, Clarke's "Voice" for $5, his "Man and Space" for $2.50, Hesse's something for $4, the Halliburton for 90¢; the Purdy for $4, the Coover for $2, and the Sturgeon for $1.50, which comes to $22.35, or $4 off from the $26.35), and it SEEMS to me that the Wells WAS alone, but from the other places I got AT LEAST 2 packages of 2, but one may have been of 3, which means that the Jerome was WITH, say, the Heinlein, which could have left ANOTHER Clarke from Strand, though I seem to remember that I DIDN'T get "Profiles of the Future" at the Strand, and that there WAS a book that I HAD gotten somewhere else, because I had to go back and look in my package --- NO, that was on the THIRD day, because I was with Stephen, so I COULD have gotten 3 Clarke's Wednesday at the Strand, "Profiles" somewhere else, and the 5th Clarke on Thursday and then finding a duplicate of that AT the Strand --- ANYWAY I made a list when I got home on Wednesday: 3 of 20 Huxley's, 4 of 20 Clarkes, one each of Nabokov, Heinlein, Sturgeon, and Hesse, to make 11 INTENDED, and then a Coover, Halliburton and Jerome that were NOT intended, and the Wells and Purdy that I DIDN'T have on my list. So the 11 INTENDED was 10% of what I wanted, and I spent about $40: $3 Nabokov, $3.50 Huxley, $3 Huxley --- NOW that I think of it, I got the POEMS of Huxley on THURSDAY, with Stephen, so I could have gotten a $2.50 Huxley "Along the Road" too, from the Strand --- ANYWAY --- $9.50 from one place, $3 at another place, and $28.51 with tax from the Strand, for $41. The THIRD day, Thursday, I went around with Stephen and found, I think, the $4 Hesse and the Poems of A.H. for $7.02 with tax from the Strand, and had picked up "Young Archimedes" in one place that I really hadn't thought of going into; a Clarke and Woolf's "Between the Acts" at Pageant, where the guy was so snippy until I started calling off Huxley and Woolf and Blackwood, of which he said he'd seen a couple; and then the INCREDIBLE stack of books from the National down on Waverly: Nabokov's Dozen, Quartet, and Transparent Things, a new Sturgeon "Not Without Sorcery," the Assagioli book on Psychosynthesis, Burroughs's "Exterminator" for a great coup. But I still didn't spend NEARLY ENOUGH. Then the FOURTH day, Saturday, I got to the Science Fiction shop and spent $11.15 on Bradbury (finding that "The Silver Locusts" is really "Martian Chronicles"), Sturgeon's "Easel," Sheckley's "Omnibus," which has everything I've read already, and Clarke's "Lion of Comarre," a great find: 95¢, $1.25, $3.25, $1.95, respectively, for $7.40, but I got SIX books from there: adding "Star-Begotten" by Wells for 95¢, which leaves ONE book of $1.95 to bring me up to the $10.30 bill: the Blackwood "Ancient Sorceries"!! Happy across town to Metropolitan, for $19.49 and AGAIN get an enormous coup: "Letters of A.H.," list at $15 for $4.25, "Autobiographical Writings" of Hesse, list at $8.95 for $1.75; "JR," list at $6.95 for $4.75; Tolstoy's "Resurrection" for the only full price of $1.25; Fowles "Ebony Tower," Updike's "Month of Sundays"; Hawkes' "Second Skin"; "Dark Night of the Soul" in here SOMEWHERE, though certainly from the National Thursday; Woolf's "Room of One's Own," and I seem to remember a stack of 13 books that day, so "Soul" WAS Thursday. But the list kept GROWING: 2/16, when I made it, it started 106/26 for TITLES/AUTHORS. After Monday, I looked through my "books" scrapbook file and added to make it 110/29. On Wednesday I may have bought 11, but the bibliographies made me ADD 18, so I was up to 117/29! On Thursday I bought 13 and added 3, to make it 108/27; then Friday I WORKED with the list and ended up with 113/27, and after Saturday, buying 7, ending up with 109/27. Then, at last, on 2/23 I looked THROUGH the bibliography of A.H. in "Letters" and added 3 MORE titles, so that I want 22 by him, 18 by Clarke, 13 by Blackwood, 12 by Sturgeon, 6 by Woolf, 5 by Vonnegut, 4 by Burroughs, 3 by 4 others, 2 by 4 others, 1 by 12 others, for a total of 112 books by 27 authors: STILL worse than the 106/26 that I'd started out with LAST Monday AND I'VE BOUGHT OVER 40 BOOKS!!!

 

DIARY 10761
3/10/76

"RECOGNITIONS" PARTY AT PAUL'S

Having just read the neat conversational and character twists in "Recognitions," I'm tempted to see if I can capture the champagne muzziness of Paul's party. Myra kept talking to Bob across David, who I was sad to see kept his hand possessively on Bob's knee; he was attractive despite the lumpy scar tissue across his neck, as if the throat-slitter got botched up when he tensed the tendons of his neck. Kit kept throwing out comments that were sometimes better ignored, so we may have heard him but pretended we didn't. When Bob held forth about Big Bird and having to refuse small children from seeing the making of "Sesame Street," the place was quiet listening to him, but mostly there were four or five cross-conversations going, and with only 8 people, that's a good trick. The height of nonconsequentiality, for me, came when Martian-eyed Claude, or whoever, kept talking about dressing people's hair; Dusty kept saying his hair was so fine that a friend in Dubrovnik used him as a test case; Myra said how marvelous it was to talk about one's hair being cut in Dubrovnik, and he threw in, just for the name, that he liked getting it cut in Paris and London, too. Then people talked about the Southern gay's necessity of having everything tailored for them, talked about how certain people look impeccable even if they're only wearing jeans and a sweater; Myra kept mentioning she'd put on CLEAN jeans and her track shoes; Dusty brought his fireman's books to everyone's attention, or I wouldn't have noticed them; people kept talking so much about clothes I felt acutely aware of my baggy-kneed woolen trousers worn against the cold, not the on-looking eye, my hole-in-bottom Polish shoes for $10 that squeaked as I walked, and the simplicity of my blue pullover without any jewelry or rings. They talked about the $70 some people charge for a complete hair job, someone looking like an aluminum porcupine when she was getting frosted (her hair was getting frosted, rather), and how well Paul looked because Claude had done his hair. But I couldn't get over the fact that Claude's FACE and MIND were more important than his hairdo, which was quite neat but rather wig-looking in its total control. By this time I was quite stoned on champagne and was saying not much of anything. Earlier, Kit had wanted some champagne, he didn't have the wit to look in the refrigerator, I got out a bottle and opened it, and in pouring it around (including some of the white sparkling wine into someone's PINK champagne, at which I said "It's your glass,") it was emptied. Paul was afraid I'd start "a little of both" when he asked who wanted some of David's birthday cake from Sunday and who wanted cheesecake that someone else brought, but no one else got both, and Bob didn't take anything so it all evened out. I took a second when no one offered me one, and no one said anything, and there was a LOT of cheesecake left for Paul to finish. Everyone compared notes on "Grease," saying how glad Broadway will be when they fold and take their tasteless moneymaking show off the boards, and I said if they managed to foresee the taste (it seemed to be acting as a class in gang warfare, someone noted -- I noted when they made it clear to me that that's what the current kids who were seeing it were USING it for!) in THIS case, why wouldn't they foresee the taste in ANOTHER case, as they did in their FIRST attempt, which was to emphasize the homosexuality in "Fortune and Men's Eyes," instead of the PRISON REFORM theme which the Canadian author wanted, who was forbidden entry to the country when the US authorities read the play. He played some tapes from "Fiorello" and Myra said it was one of her favorite plays; no one mentioned "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman." Someone had sent Paul a LONG written Hallmark card about falling over in a photo booth; people made simple remarks about the organ he had in his living room; Bob turned the spotlight out of Myra's eyes at her request; Sandy kept talking about Arno Press, about the dykes at the book shows, and Paul had to finish the story about Michael (the pretty blond from Christmas Eve) and the archbishop at another time. Clint talked about the canyon in his floor-through on Madison in the 60's where they'd taken a partition between two apartments to make it into his one, which he installed a shelf above, as suggested by the decorator downstairs. They talked about other things, in funnier ways --- in more STONED ways, rather, though no one smoked because "Remember I'm only 24" David was "uptight" about people smoking around him, so no one did --- just got even MORE whacked out because of all the champagne, probably about five bottles among the 8 people, which makes it even SICKER and stonedier.

DIARY 10815
4/2/76

PRESIDENTIAL SUITE OF THE NEW YORK HILTON

Feel great asking for it, smile at the 2001-style hallway with light green walls and dark green trim and elegant carriage lamps on the walls, though the halls are full of dowdy maintenance people, and ring the presidential suite bell at the east end of the hall to have Paul answer. Into HIS three-room suite which is appropriately filled with Japanese screens on the wall and Chinoiserie on the tables, look out the window at the top of the Americana, the Hudson, miles of Jersey from the 44th floor, and look at photos that Paul's brought from home of his lovers, and thank him for his fundoshi book, his tales of how he loves those bars, and give him his address labels, which he doesn't even MENTION paying for. Al Barash is there, looking awful, suggesting "Pacific Overtures" which he doesn't come through on tomorrow, and he leaves for us to crow about Paul, leave Dennis to talk about Anita O'Day records while I call Michael, Don, BobG, Paul, Arnold, Stephen and CROW over how happy I feel (probably making Al, who looked sallow and sick, feel even WORSE by comparison), drink something from the private bar, and then take a tour of the place: a ROOMY entranceway for receptions, a GREAT state living room with windows looking out east across the whole side, and I guess since 44 is the top on the elevator ranks, that the duplexes START here and go up ANOTHER flight with the spiral staircase for $500 a day, but this is only $300 a day, or $9,000 per month! But Arsenault got it free for having the convention there, his wife couldn't come, so he asked Paul, who thinks he might be gay, getting him drunk but Paul, laughably, fell asleep last night when IT might have taken place. Dining room furniture laughably tacky and old-fashioned, but Paul liked the draperies all over, and Al talked about the canted windows to give everyone a view out both ways, rather than just straight forward, and Paul's still antsy about getting near the edge, referring to that awful night at the top of the Beekman Tower. Gasp at the menu prices: $1.75 for one egg, $1.75 for fresh orange juice, $4.75 for franks and beans, $8 for the LEAST decent meal, $2.25 for cereal with cream. Down STILL feeling elegant, really FLYING, handing them the pastrami "in case I take off and soar away from you, you can eat." GREAT FEELING!

DIARY 10817
4/2/76

JACK GILBERT HAIRCUT #1

His neighborhood is interesting, and I fantasize the tight-jeaned fellows as being him in my half-hour wait for him. He, in reality, is tall and rather sexy, with a plain face that looks good under HIS short hair. His apartment is torn apart since his carpenter's skills are being used to fix up the place that he intends to stay in for years with his $150 rent in two small rooms, and he sits me in a chair, puts a sheet over me, and starts clipping away, saying that his aim is for hair that can be toweled dry and fall right into its perfect place, giving the most flattering look to the person, and I say "You TALK a good haircut," implying that the results had better be as good. He says I have a lot of "dead hair" (except that I thought ALL hair was dead), with jagged edges, and it looks like I gave myself my last haircut. He says I should get a plastic massager and use it while I'm sitting in front of TV, that I have coarse hair that isn't easy to work with, though fine hair is his nemesis, and we talk about whiny BobG and his reactions to HIS haircut, saying that his FIRST one is usually quite LONG, and that the NEXT one gets everyone to where they want to be. When he finishes, I look into the mirror and my FIRST impression is "I look more feminine!" as I seem to see the round Polish face of Gertrude Stein looking out at me. The hair IS as I'd fantasized it might be if I really MADE it how I'd like it to be: totally carefree; and it DOES maintain easily: dries almost as quickly as my body does, stops my use of the drier, feels good to be blown through so small a displacement by winds. But he doesn't shave the back (which I do the next day), so BobG that night says he likes the front and not the back. Jack said at the end "I don't see you in short hair," which puzzles me, and he says it DOES work better with long narrow faces, which I certainly don't have, but Arnie says it DOES make my face look longer, though he says it makes me look OLDER. Jack says it makes me look younger, as does Dennis, except that Dennis says he likes it in the BACK and not in the FRONT. And that I should push it sort of to the side. Pope says I'll get used to it, JohnV asked "Who did THAT," and hates it; I pass at work as before, Ellen saying I look high on that Monday, about Dennis, Stuart saying I look grayer and older. I'm still not totally decided, waiting to see how it grows in, which Arnie says it'll do PERFECTLY. We'll see. Jack says I should go back in 6 weeks.

DIARY 10828
4/11/76

CHANGE OF FLORIDA PLANS

I ASKED the pivotal question "You WOULD take a job out of town, wouldn't you?" and ASSUMED the answer from Dennis, who only said, "You have to do what you want to do." I'd gotten flack from Arnold and Bob and even DON, on Saturday, about leaving Dennis, and then when he said NO on Sunday morning, I had to think and think about it, and finally, as much for the personal relationship effect as anything, I said, "I've just changed my mind; I'm not going on the trip to Florida," and suddenly I felt VERY good. Called Don through the day on Sunday to tell him about it, but he wasn't home, out of town with awful family in Jersey. Then called on Monday from work and left a message "You were right; I'm not going to Florida," and didn't hear from him on Monday or Tuesday. When he finally left a message with me on Tuesday, when I got back from NC, he said something about "we're leaving on Friday" and he hadn't gotten the message! So he called about 8 pm on Tuesday, and we talked until about 8:50, and he was VERY mad about it, despite the fact that it was HE who led me to bring the question back up with Dennis that got me to change my mind, and I kept saying that it had reduced to three weeks, Mexico was totally out of the question, and there was still July, wasn't there, which he responded irrefutably to by saying "If you did it once, you could do it again," and there was nothing I could say to him. Things came out in the conversation the three of us had on Wednesday, and I had lunch with Tom on Wednesday and talked about it, talked with Pope about it on Tuesday night, talked with BobG and Arnold about it, and everyone except Don seemed to think it was a good idea, and then even DON said that he didn't even want to see his family, just his mother, so he was thinking of flying down for a week, and THEN "remembered?" (What IS this?) that SHE was coming up to see HIM in three weeks, so he ended up by not going to Florida at ALL, and I got more and more reinforcement in the idea that that was the ONLY decision I could have made; I would have been silly to make any other, and the trip would have been ghastly, and even if I break up with Dennis NOW, it will be with the knowledge that I tried something DIFFERENT in my life: listening to what someone ELSE wanted rather than ME.

DIARY 10838
4/15/76

A PATHETIC CHINESE TRY

The Divine Flame had been efficient, smoky, busy, and American. Now it had a forlorn sign for chop suey on the door (and an even more pathetic fellow came in, asked to see the owner, and tried to sell his services as a sign painter, and the owner didn't even know enough English to listen to him: his daughter had to translate for him) and Chinese owner wishing me good day as I came in the door (which isn't a sign of welcome to me, an American, I quick look to see what's WRONG that his affability is covering UP), the daughter comes to see what I want, having to study the menu to see what comes with the ham omelet I want, having to be told to bring me catsup and a napkin, trying to push coffee or tea when I just want water. The mother, energetic, earnest and tired looking, goes off to the john, I suppose, since someone ELSE who comes in asking for the john is told it's being used. Someone else comes in for the telephone, and orders a coffee, light, to go, but somehow the communication isn't complete and the owner's making no move to get the coffee. Everyone in the family seemed to be trying hard, but already a feeling of doom hangs over the place: old-timers finding their Greek buddies and perky waitresses gone will go somewhere else: they're not about to teach the elders English and have patience with the plain-faced, flat-chested daughter's lack of knowledge of the menu. People passing will look in for an American face in the American-style eatery, and, seeing none, will pass it by. Someone like me will try it once, find the atmosphere of change and effort and failure oppressing, and won't come back. And the sad thing is that they probably studied it, found it successful, and paid a lot of money for it, expecting that their hard work and good intentions are all that would be needed. And they have nothing to do, no customers to tend, so they stand around looking more and more worried, fawning over the customers they DO get in an unpleasant way that'll chase them away, and will slowly or quickly go down the drain --- unless they have the imagination to come up with a gimmick that'll go over well, lower the prices, and get something NEW going --- otherwise all their intentions, efforts and money are quite lost.

DIARY 10859
4/28/76

DENNIS'S PARTY

Only Guy, Rhea, and Tom (?) are there before us; the three girls come up later while the Chinese guy parks the van somewhere; and then four came down from Poughkeepsie: two I'd met the previous Saturday, two others, none of whom was really cruisable. Rolf didn't know anyone and sat by himself when he wasn't talking to me, which meant that I couldn't talk much to the people I KNEW, let alone didn't know. The bottled white wine went fairly fast, the cheeses weren't spectacular enough to be appealing, the salad was quite good, and the dessert of Achtercocke, or whatever, a sensation of liquidity when first bitten into and then a marvelous crunchy curdiness when it got chewed up a bit. I'd dressed for warmth, then found it too cool when everyone was out looking at the back terrace or when the door was kept open during most of the evening. The children's book writer, Andrea, didn't seem to say much; Jeanyee was a marvel of communication, talking to everyone. The cutest thing, Tom, didn't speak to me at all. Rhea and I sort of talked in a kind of bitchy bantering way, and I don't remember Rolf saying anything about the people there, except that he seemed to be getting some kind of sickness that obviated his staying the evening with Dennis and me for some sex. Poor Dennis worried too much about everything, spending much too much time in the kitchen preparing, letting others do things for him, and gathering up the dishes. Guy seemed stoned, which he may have been, and I didn't find enough in common with the Poughkeepsie-ites to talk to them much. So there were 14 or us in very discrete groupings, the four in one car, the four from Poughkeepsie, the three in Guy's group, and Rolf and me and Dennis. I didn't really care for sitting on the floor and eating; I felt there wasn't QUITE enough food and possibly too much drink, and it was a pity that someone there didn't care for grass, or that Ishiwara, or whoever the Aikido expert was, didn't show up. But it was an interesting evening, even Rolf states, after due thought, that Dennis is a GOOD cook, reviewing the food served him during the evening, and I'm rather sorry that I didn't bring anything along at all, but that's the way it goes.

 

 

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