1968
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. LAST DAY OF WORK. Up at 7:30 to wash hair and get to work by 9:10, to show that I'm there, so I can leave at 9:30 to meet Don for the preview of "24 Hours in a Woman's Life." Stay for the press conference with Delouche, and get back to work at 12:30. Stu and Bill arrive at 1:30, and we're off to Mr. Richard's for steak (I mistake and order medium, and it comes out bleu) until 2:30. Meeting with Ro Corno has been changed from 2 to 3 to 4. Talk with Cissy and Barbara until 4, with the "presentation of the gift" by Chuck at 4:10, and then talk with Ro from 4:15 to 4:55. Gather Chuck and Cissy and Barbara and Ed and Bob and get to my place, where everyone but Cissy has frozen daiquiris. Talk and laugh and Toni and Joe join us. Ed leaves, and Chuck leaves, cute as cute, at 8:30, and we're out to Italian place for dinner. Back here at 10 and Cissy invites herself up "for a drink" and later I get the sozzled idea "I'm tired and want to go to bed, but I don't want to go to bed alone, so why don't you stay." She does, we have fruitless time rubbing soft genitalia together, sleep fitfully. It's humid and sticky, and whole thing is quite uncomfortable, and I sleep only after adjusting bladder by pissing, ears by plugging, and body by proning.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. Wake about 9, Cissy makes scrambled eggs in the nude with oil. I'm showering and she's washing dishes at 11 when Joan phones. "Come up in five minutes." I meet her at the door with "You won't believe this" and she does a lovely halt, arms, hands and fingers poised out from her sides, mouth drops open, then she laughs forcibly as she digests Cissy sitting on the floor looking at Michaelangelo. We talk, Joan suggest the park, we stroll after shoes, then up to the bridge, around to the boathouse, and paddle from 2:15 to 3:45. Back to my place for no-talk, they leave, Cissy smilingly giving me her phone number, and I shower, shave, and eat before going off to "L'Argent" at 5:30 with Joe. It's not so bad. Get back at 8:30 to find the Times out already, get pizza, and finish by 11. Dress sexy in new warm black trousers and out to Candy Store, smoky and snobby until 1, leave in desperation since I'm only eyed by unpleasantnesses, and I don't yet have the guts to talk to any save one, and he says no, so I've given it a "fair" chance, and leave. Walk to 700 East 57th, and there's nothing pleasant in the parks there. Up Third, and nothing hits me there. Up CPW, no one's walking, sit on bench and smooth-browed Puerto Rican passes, condeigns a sideways glance, sits on the next bench. I go to next bench, we talk "Would you like to walk to my place at 57th?" and we're here about 2. Kiss, neck, I go down, he goes down, he comes twice, we sleep.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. Wake at 8, he comes twice, I come once, he leaves, saying his name's Kent Valentin, lives with father and maiden aunt at 169th, and he'll call me. I read "Sense Awareness" and perversely come again from a sort of desperation (residual and leaving, I hope), read more of the Times, and by 1 pm I'm starved. Force myself to exercises (in 11.8 for set 3), then shower to get the crap off, and eat breakfast by 2. Type for an hour (US 68 pages 11-37), sleep for an hour, type for another hour, sleep for another hour. Eat again, work the double-acrostic, watch "Land of the Giants" and "Horowitz" on TV for 2 hours, and at 10 am exhausted, so go to bed, strangely trouble with diarrhea.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. Up at 9, feeling somewhat better, Don calls to meet at 10:45, I exercise and eat and shower and Marty calls for fifteen minutes, and I dash to Film Festival to see "Tropici" and Don buys fruit and we eat here and back for "Partners" from 2:30-5. I get groceries, type US 68 pages 38-42, watch the rerun of the nude section of first part of "Olympia, Part II" and Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In with Don and Tim Leary vs Lettick (?) until 10, eat, Joe calls and we arrange tomorrow's ballet meeting, finish the Times crossword puzzle, and to bed at midnight, still feeling exhausted; it's still warm and tacky.
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Up at 8:45, determined to have some sort of good day, and start by typing DIARY 1-3, thinking that 1) it'll force me to type something every day, 2) it'll be possibly valuable record (that nasty word again) of what happens when my time's COMPLETELY my own, and 3) will give me the material for endless tabulation and rationalization for contemplation later when things go wrong and I don't feel like doing anything productive. But I NEED such things as exercise, contact with people, and progress reports---don't I??? But then Don calls and says his friend won't be showing up for the Film Press showings today, so I meet him at 10:45 for "Hobby" (about a huge woman who catches and cages man-birds), "Signs of Life" (with a doll director, and a Greek-documentary type film FULL of life). Don leaves for the Museum of Modern Art's film, and I'm back to see a terribly disconnected "Two or Three Things I Know About Her" by the bete incomprehensible, Jean-Luc Godard. However, I'm playing kneesies with Merv Goldstein, whom I fantasy as rich, connected with films, well-hung, with a lavish apartment. None of these is true, and I can't get aroused. Oh, well. Home at 6 to meet Joan, and Joe's there already. Bonnie arrives and we four go to Angelo's, help Joan take my tape-recorder for the music lesson which she's getting free in return for palmistry readings, and get to the Joffrey for a distracting "Distractions," disappointing "Sea Shadow," and terribly terrifying and loud and cruel "Clowns." To bed by 12, very tired.
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Film festival again with a fabulous "Permutations" with thanks to IBM (circular dots on cathode display tubes), and hideous "Beyond the Law" with only one good statement from Mailer: "People can write their OWN dialogue better than anyone ELSE---" same that O'Horgan said about the cast of "Hair" rewriting some of THEIR lines. Don and I take grapes and bananas into a bare-chested-beautiful-jogger's paradise of a park and eat lunch, then back for "TGIF" (by the Second City, dated) and "Les Biches" with Chabrol and Audran on stage afterwards, and Goldstein's complementing my question "Who had the brilliant idea to cast Miss Audran as Frederique?" Dash out in the middle to take in the New Yorker double recommended by Joe: "Nazarin" (with a DOLL of a priest acting the ever-lovin' Christ figure) and "The Stranger," with a surprisingly shapely Mastroianni who kills without reason, and is sentenced to death by a judge and jury largely based on the fact that he appeared to be incapable of loving. Then dash back to see part four of Olympics on TV at 9, and get an hour's telephone call from Cissy---she CAN go on, and how do you TELL someone: "Yes, I know you love me, but you see I don't love you because you're just not my TYPE"? Read an additional part of "Joy" and get to bed at 12, only to rise again(!) to catalogue films by various directors until 1:30.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. Which explains why I'm tired when I get up at 8:45 to answer a call from Don, whom I meet at 10:30 to see "Off On," a nicely psychedelic featurette that tries everything but succeeds in little, and "Artists under the Big Top: Disorientated (Sic, from subtitles)" which I thought was lousy, but Don thought was very good. Must talk to him about that sometime. Home to do the laundry and eat and finally get down to typing diary 4-5. Will be glad when this first week is over and I can get accustomed to a more normal schedule, and there will have to be a more normal schedule if I'm to succeed in writing anything. Isn't it amazing how I can manage to type precisely to page-bottom?? Type US 68 pages 43-62, and figure it'll be finished before page 90, so there's only one long day left, good. Joan calls and says I "may" watch her lesson from 5:15 to 5:30 and carry my tape recorder back for her. So I do, meeting a motherly Mrs. Witte and a mopey Frederick, and Joan and I watch Olympics and "The Lost World" until 8, I eat dinner and watch an old John Collier story retitled "Eve," and get to bed early.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Marty calls with free tickets to Eunice Kutunda playing Chopin's Etudes and Bach's Goldberg Variations on Monday, and I call others to join us, missing exercises for the first time this week, then join Don and Merv for some terrible short about Ivory Coasters wasting time in Paris, and "Naked Childhood" which was pretty good, but hardly enough to make anyone cry about the "XYY child" as Don called him, who wrecked things with no apparent reason: and don't cite lack of love as a reason! Then we're to lunch at La Crepe and back for Nemec film on "Oratorio for Prague" and Foreman's "Fireman's Ball" a good bill, with questions after lasting until Joe and I leave at 5:40. To Joe's to talk until 7, then borrow $2 (since I have only $2 in my pocket, having forgotten to go to the bank) and go to Avi's. Eat at Nuevo Pekin for $1.50, then to Avi's for reasonably sad slides of the trip, two games of chess, and walk CPW home. I'm very tired and get to bed at 1.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. Up at 10, talk to Cissy, exercise, and Diary 6 by 11:45. Then finish US 68 by typing pages 63-91, the first big task completed. Continue to phone people for the concert, and watch the US Olympic Gymnasts' Tryout from 5 to 6. The evening is indefinite: Joe is suggesting nothing, since he doesn't answer the phone. Joan wants a party at her place, but I don't feel like going to it. Don wants to do something, but suggests nothing. Peter wants to see an Apollo feature "The Bride Wore Black" and I only want to see the Thalia, with "Anatomy of a Marriage." Finally I call Azak and he invites me for duck dinner, and I can't say no. Meet Norair, Kittie, and Howard, "her love" and talk and watch "The Train" on TV until 12, and I stop in at the Candy Store for a terribly smoke-filled hour, and walk CPW to no avail, home at 2:30 with the Times, and to bed about 4.
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. Joe calls at 9:45, which is quite a jolt, for the beach, so I skip exercising and go. It's nice until 1, when it clouds up, and we're back about 3, and I take off to the Light exhibit at the Whitney, good mainly for the one-way mirror fantasies of stars and lights and diagrams. Walk back through the park, get pizza and finish the Times. Watch the terrible "Land of the Giants" again at 7, telephone more people and work the crossword puzzle until about 10, when fatigue catches up with me, listen to music and contemplate my decision for awhile, and bed at 11:30.
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. Still fussing about the tickets. Iron handkerchiefs after returning from the Metropolitan, to which Joe called at 9:20. Determined to exercise, so I do, neglecting bathing, shaving, and eating to do so, and get to the museum at 10:15 to see the good show on Frescos, sent by Italy in thanks for our help in recovering Florence from the flood. Walk to and fro through the park, and it's pleasant to see it used, but lightly used, during the week. The compensations of being unemployed. Back to the telephone for the concert, and refuse an offer by Regina for ten tickets to add to my 28. John Connolly has said no, Doug Flynn has said no, and I can't get in touch with Eddie. Get to the bank and buy groceries, taking tape recorder to Ora Witte's for Joan, and clear things with Gladys and call Chuck about the bill, telling him he can handle it from here: since he got two hours sleep the prior night, he doesn't want to concretize. I wash and get apartment ready for possible party, and leave at 6:30 as Bonnie comes in the door. Watch terrible "Gaslight Follies." Up to Uncle Tonoose as everyone's late, Marty and Marty Perl and Regina still eating as I leave at 8. Give tickets to Allan and Peter (Jean and Kevin don't show), leave tix for Azak and Norair, who do show, to Gladys and Milda and Margo and Charlie, to Joan and Laura and Laurel, late to Bonnie and Lisa (Betty) Kelly and Paul, and to Avi and George and John Torres and Orlando someone and Avi's "cousin" and Merv Goldstein and another of Avi's friends. Leave tickets for Arno and friend, but they don't show because Arno doesn't have the intelligence to check the Carnegie Hall Box Office, and I don't have the intelligence to leave him a note at my place telling him to do so. The concert is surprisingly short, the Goldbergs taking from 8:40 to 9:20, and the Etudes taking from 9:40 to 10:35, and the first encore passing and the second: Fernandez' "La Jongle" capturing everyone. Invite everyone to my place, but Avi excuses his group for "reasons of awkwardness," Allan is tired so Peter leaves with him, and Joan is sick and is home to bed. First group in is Claire Walter (from apartment 305), Regina Fiorito, someone and Ardity something, and Lois and Hal Kellerman. Then in come Azak and Norair, followed by Marty. Claire brings up scotch and ice, and Tony Coggi, the fellow who started Marty in radio, is there. Much later come Paul and Lisa and Bonnie, and the end is brought up by Jerri and Ginny, who come over for the party. I play "Batuque" for everyone, mix drinks for everyone, and gradually they talk and leave, until at 2 there's just Hal and Lois and Ginny and Jerri and Marty and myself, balanced at last, but everyone married but me. Talk about life and death and books and concerts and opera, and have a generally good time, until finally they leave at 3:20, leaving me with a mess on my hands, which I ignore as I get into bed at 3:30.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 1. Marty rousts me out of bed at 10:40 with a call to come over to see his apartment, but I say I have to work, maybe tomorrow. Type DIARY 7-9 by 12:10 (NOW), having decided I MUST exercise, eat, and begin WORK. Get the Times and read IT and work the puzzle before getting finished at 1:30. Do exercise and eat, but the work I do is to clear out the receipt drawer and souvenir drawer, sorting out ticket stubs, matchbook covers, programs, travel information, and New York souvenirs and putting everything neatly away. This takes to 4, and I eat lunch rather late, then write a letter to Mom. Don calls and suggests "Rachel, Rachel," so I call Eddie and get the OK, so we leave at 8 and get back at 11, bringing a lush Crenshaw melon for my dinner. He hints to stay, but I don't take up the hint, and he leaves at 12.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2. Finally do the level three exercises in 10 minutes, liberating me to go upward to level four, which I've never completed, and hope there's another step upward THIS time to that unattained level five. Watch "Made for Each Other," find I'd seen it before, remember NOTHING. Joan calls twice about staying over this evening before taking off to Cincinnati, and I send off request to Encyclopedia Britannica, deposit for a course at Aureon, and send "The Ultimate Mandate" to Meredith (and have TROUBLE with the Meredity). By then it's three and I've finally showered and shaved and call Marty to say I'm about to come over. Do so and marvel at his great apartment for $235, listen unimpressed to Leonard Cohen, and leave at 5:30 to shop for an hour for a birthday card for Joan, to hold a singing lesson I give her by writing a $10 check to Ora Witte. Eat dinner and start a letter to Rita when Joan and Bonnie arrive, Joan looking kiddy to let her ride to Ohio for $14 under a youth pass. We drink and talk and have chocolate fondue while waiting for Paul and Lisa to come over, but at 11:30 I'm tired and Joan calls them to say stay home. We fuss about getting to bed, and Bonnie is "hyper" and can't sleep, but though I've been getting adequate sleep, I drop off with no trouble.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3. Joan leaves with much fuss at 7:45, and I doze until 10, when I'm up to watch "Eve of St. Mark" in which Maxwell Anderson makes a current fool of himself by playing the quondam hero by saying that a man's sacrifice of his life for his country is more important than the pain of the sacrifice of his love for and by his mother and fiancée. Boo and hiss. By the end, Bonnie is getting up, and leaves while I'm doing the dishes. It takes ages and then I sweep the floors, getting it done finally before finishing the letter to Rita. Write Cyndy and start re-reading Don's play, but then I watch the end of the ball game to find they've changed the movie schedule and I can't see what I wanted to see. Eat dinner and get out to meet Joe at the Metropolitan Opera House for a "Turandot" with Marian Lippert, who's no Nilsson, but sings the part reasonably adequately, and the production is still sumptuous, though I get annoyed with distant rattling bracelets, horrid crackly paper-openers, and whisperers behind and on either side. Just TOO much. Back and re-read Don's play, and SOME comments form before bed at 12.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4. Up at 10:15 and study Don's play, exercise level 4, and DIARY 10-11 by 1:15 (NOW), and where DOES the time GO???? Eat pancakes, hoping to stave off hunger until Cissy and I eat dinner, but have some yogurt about 4. The only thing done between is responding to Don's play "Diogenes." Cissy shows at 5:45 after I've showered and shaved (and looked up the EB article on Haemorrhoids), and we talk about nothing until we get out to dine at the Castillo Chino for great cheap food, and finish at 8 and I suggest "Therese and Isabelle" pretty good writing for Violette Leduc and explicit masturbations, fuckings, and cunt-lappings, and Cissy ends by saying she never knew women masturbated. Walk back enmeshed in talk, and she appears to be leaving at 11, but stays on, disturbing the evening until about 1, with conversations which I hope I'll remember.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5. Up at 10 and talk to 12:30, when I can stand it no longer, leave her to exercise, and we eat and talk some more, until she leaves about 2:30. I get back to Don's play and it's time to get ready for Marty's at 7. Buy a good Bravera Portuguese wine and Gail mixes a tasty tuna-mayonnaise-avocado half salad, and the celery-cum-tomato soup stew is great, probably because I'm starved. Bridge then from 9 to 2 am, and walk back through nothing in Central Park, buy the Times and read bits and do the double acrostic until 4 am, then get coldly to bed.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6. Up at 11 in time to watch Andre Watts on Camera Three, then continue to fuss with the puzzle and nothing much else except the Times until about 2:30, when I have some rolls without butter because I've run out of butter, and some cereal, this after exercising in some difficulty because I'm malnourished by this time. Continue to study the puzzle, and read nonsense articles in the Times until it's 6:30, and I decide to take the subway and see the Living Theater's production of "Frankenstein," and get there too late to get anything to eat, so I've had a roll all day and my stomach's so shocked by the whole thing it can't even reply. Amazing what I can get hung up on---at this point I've noticed that without too much trouble I've gotten an even RIGHT margin to this point, and so I've determined to finish off the page in that way, which will take more time for no productable reason, but a compulsion to do anything I feel like doing when I feel like doing it. That will take up more time, and fill up more space on the page, because not much happened Sunday, yet I want to get to the END of the page, and also want all the time I can to be wasted, I guess. MUST establish myself some sort of an early-morning wake-up time, and writing hours, and eating hours, or I'll die of scurvy with an empty refrigerator. "Frankenstein" was good, but I do wish critics wouldn't give away so many of the gimmicks: since I go for that sort of thing, a revealed gimmick is non-surprising, and I wasn't terribly jolted by any of the images. This is only filler to end the sentence at line end.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 7. Up at 10:30, finish Don's play, and DIARY 12-14 1 pm (NOW). Eat lunch (always so late!), get to bank (for the only conversation of the day), and spend the day writing Helen and Jimmy, the IBM stock plan, Jean-Jacques, Brian, the Seavers, Dad, and Claudia. Stop to watch "Rowan and Martin" which is getting dull from 8-9, finish the letters, and watch "Outcast of the Islands," with a good Trevor Howard, Robert Morley, and Ralph Richardson, while eating dinner at 11, but getting to bed at 1.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8. Up late again, write Paul, Bill, and tape the response to Don's tape, and the CORRESPONDENCE IS FINISHED. Most delightful. Mess around with other things, like washing dishes, and Don and I arrange to see "I Love You Alice B. Toklas," with Eddie. Oh, yes, and this was the day I brought my movie list up to date---to find only 77 films in over 300 days. What a change. We eat at Angelo's and get back here. He obviously wants to stay, but I don't feel like it, so he leaves about 12:30.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9. Write AMG and Calafran, and mail letters, buy window shade pulls and stick, and $25.80 worth of records, which I listen to as I sort through scrapbook for LSD stuff, and begin going through writing drawer for pertinent information. Peter and Allan and I meet at 6:45 to see "Mysteries and Smaller Pieces" at Living Theater, different, and eat at Bel-gem, bed at 12:30.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10. Avi wakes at 9:30 with phone. Sort through writings all day, play rest of records, type JOTTINGS, OCTOBER, pages 1-23, and DIARY 14 at 8 pm (NOW). Then eat dinner and watch TV 9-1, getting in "Soul," "Journey to the Unknown" with a good Julie Harris and stupid arrows from "Bright Arrow" in bad guy, then T.H.E.Cat to get to Joey Bishop with Streisand and Johnny Ray. Blah.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11. Up at 9:30 for exercise, then Apollo launch from 10-12, and send various letters. Finish "Joy" finally, and finish sorting out stuff for folder. Now it only remains to WRITE. Peter and Allan and I get out to "Barbarella" after I can't get tickets to "R&G Are Dead" for tonight. Fun movie, then home, disgusted with myself for not picking up anyone in CP.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12. Watch the Olympic opening ceremonies 1-3, then sports from 3-4. Finish "I Ching." Do absolutely nothing, and watch "Help" on TV, then out for the paper at 11 and pizza and read it and work puzzle until 3 am.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 13. Work again on the puzzle, fret about doing nothing on the novel, and Joe calls at 1:45, so I exercise and shower and shave and eat breakfast before he's over at 3 for an African-American Negro art "Similarity" show, we wander Center Park, hopelessly jammed, to the Met for tickets to "Walkure," back for TV from 6-6:30 ala "Corps Profound" with endoscope, then to Castillo Chino for dinner and to Joffrey at 8 for campy "Fanfarita," unaffecting "Lesson," poor reconstruction of "Gamelon," and striking "Light Fantastic," and get to bed at 12:30, thinking maybe I should settle down.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 14. Up and fuss in time to see TV Olympics at 1, then subway down to "My Sister, My Love" and "Dear John" at the cruddy Elgin Theater, and back to get a call from Peter for meeting for dinner at Mamma Leone's and then to "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," a reasonably affecting play with great turns by R&G, and much said about DEATH. Back to read the October, 1948, issue of Amazing Stories, and "The Brain," terribly dated and poorly written as I now look at it, but good in memory. So to bed at 2.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 15. Get up at 10:30 with a BIT more energy than usual, and decide this will be the day to get things done, and finally DO wash my hair, which badly needed doing. This done in time for TV of the Olympics from 1-2, and then again I'm thrown on my own. Getting reasonably disgusted with myself for not getting down to writing. Of course, I'm frightened to get involved with it, but my stomach churns as I tell myself that I SHOULD get down to it, and I don't. Even search through the Times for an interesting movie, and even the things on my list (scour tub, wash windows, ground the hi-fi, buy wheel for TV stand), don't influence me, though I think I WILL scour the tub, since it's really filthy, and I SHOULD sweep the floors, since they're fuzzy from constant use now, and it's warm, so I COULD do the windows, but I think I should SAVE them as intermissions from writing, but I'm not writing, so why do I need intermissions, and the days pass, and I SHOULD get up earlier, but now I'm hungry, so I SHOULD go out for groceries, but I decide to catch SIX days of Diary 15-16 (too many), and do it NOW, at 2:45 pm---so LATE??? Then I eat lunch, and in fixing up things read the rest of the stories in the October, 1948, Amazing Stories, and then actually scour the bathtub---SOMETHING, anyway. Then watch TV from 7-8, and Joe calls and says I should get up earlier in the morning. He says he knows from experience how much time can be wasted doing nothing---as if I can't verify that for him. Then eat dinner and watch TV 9:30 to 11, "The People Next Door" about parents who have a son who is a hippy but takes no drugs, and a daughter who takes LSD and speed and ends up psychotic with "strong tendencies to self-destruction." Down for milk and bread and butter and find the store around on 9th closed on Tuesdays, and find a package from the Seavers that almost wrecks my lunch. Also fix the records in order---what a BUSY day. Why ever it is, get to bed about 11:30, and Joe's advice about getting up early sounds reasonable: the first time is bound to be the hardest, and suddenly I decide to DO IT NOW, and figure dawn will be about the time, so I open the shades and drapes and wait for the sunrise (after coming with oil vigorously---to get tired), to sleep at 1.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16. Wake up to the sun pouring in at 7:20. That's what I wanted, but snooze to 8:15, and finally out of bed to exercise at 9:15. It's better than 12 or 1 pm! Breakfast and wash dishes in the morning, then scrub the kitchen and bathroom floors, watch Olympics 1-2 (and Chuck calls for slides tomorrow night), sweep the floors, wash rugs, and type DIARY 17 at 5:45 (NOW). Definitely decide that the current situation with writing can't continue, so take an infinitesimal step toward that by determining to type ONE COMPLETE DIARY PAGE every day, which produces that last page. From that point I shave and shower and get dolled up in my green turtle-shirt and white bells and boots and checked jacket and walk up CPW toward Avi's at 6:30. Stop along the wall when I get there early, and there's lots of activity, some of it not bad---when I finally get into my schedule, which includes at least an hour out every day, I may begin to appreciate what might be found there. To Avi's and meet Rick, Avi's former roommate, and when Laz Rodriguez doesn't arrive, we take off to Tad's, where Laz shows up cutely. Drive down to the Garrick for "Andy Warhol's Flesh" (that's what the marquee says!), and it's pretty bad and pretty good: Joe D'Allesandro has a BEAUTIFUL body, and not a bad face under certain lights and angles, and he has a good stiff cock at times, but it's still pretty much of a bore. Laz drives us back at 11, and I get out slides for a wicked come at 12, and get to bed with the shades down.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17. Wake at 8, and out of bed at 9:15 to exercise at 10 after watching nothing on TV from 9:20-10, and watch "Desire" with Marlene and Gary from 10:30-12:30, then read the mail (EB report on manuscripts) until TV Olympics at 1-2, then lunch and BEGIN WORK ON THE LSD NOVEL by reading LSD TAPE and getting ready for the first revision now after DIARY 18 at 4:15 (NOW). Looking into the folder has the effect that I hoped it would have: I spread out the LSD TAPE and desired to cut it to half its length and work over it; I looked at the LSD notes and wanted to read what they said; I looked at FIRST SESSION and wanted to tighten and clarify it; I looked at SECOND SESSION and wanted to finish it; I looked for THIRD SESSION and wanted to start it. It was only by putting away all but LSD TAPE that I could even get started on THAT. Go through and X out all that appears repetitious (though I fear that, forces now being similar to those operating on me then, I may cover up (take out) something which is important), and get in the typing quota by doing LSD TAPE (FIRST REVISION) 1-23. HURRAY, I'M STARTED AT LAST!! Do some small rewriting as I transcribe, but the final form of what started to be 49 pages will end up about 15-20 pages when tightened. Not bad tightening. Stop partway through at 5 to shave and shower in preparation for Chuck's coming over, and Cyndy calls at 5:15 and talks to 6 about quitting her job and moving away from Minneapolis, though she's afraid of New York because of its valid reputation of being hard to meet decent men (and don't I know?). Then Chuck calls and says he left the slides in Brooklyn, so it'll be next week. Finish typing at 7, watch Olympics from 7-7:30, then cartoons 7:30-8:30, SOUL, good, from 8:30-9:30 during dinner, then Olympics 9:30-11 and bed at 11, to sleep at 12.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 18. Wake at 7:15, talk to Joe 8-8:45, exercise, eat to 9:30. ((((((From now on, "DIARY XX (NOW)" will be assumed AT the time noted at end.))))) So MANY things come to mind while reading "Joy." Imagine that the human race is so fucked up with guilt and pain that the function of childbirth NOW takes place in extreme pain (with the husband not even participating), when it has the capability of being an experience of ECSTASY. Certainly SOME woman can give birth without screaming, with cooperation, and are women so different? It reminded me of my stomach pain under LSD---the pain which could be an ulcer, cancer, or a child. But since people eventually learn to expand their anal sphincter for the purpose of shitting (and fucking), why shouldn't giving birth be an ENORMOUS fuck, since the same organs are stretching to a delirious degree? Then there's the statement that people fear to fall in love because of the fear of REJECTION, which was such a feeling in the LSD with Arno. Do I fear rejection? Of course, witness my reluctance to cruise anyone unless there's unmistakable interest from them toward me. Then something about the free play of association being frightening to someone who fears that there is something in the unconscious which is frightening leads me to think of an encounter between Joe and me wherein I say "But life is HARD," and he agrees with me and SUPPORTS me, and I think of my mother crying in my arms when I almost left Ohio after coming from LSD---when have I ever supported her, when has she ever supported ME? We always seem to "miss," and I think back when she told me to clean off the sewing machine, which held my birthday presents, and I was so mortified (thinking she'd goofed, and not wanting to let her know) that I moved them, then SHE got angry because I didn't "react" to the surprise, and I was hurt because I made a mistake about not recognizing, and we both did the "wrong" thing and made a "mistake" and neither of us admitted that it was due to FEELINGS, she wanting to please ME (and not succeeding, and feeling sorry about it), and I wanting to please HER (and not succeeding, and feeling sorry about it). Quelle Horreurre! (DIARY 20 was Saturday's sheet). Watch "Bridge at San Luis Rey," reasonably good, except that Lynn Bari is so bad at La Villega (or whatever), and it's really not clear WHO were the five falling into the canyon. Down for the mail, and "Ultimate Mandate" has come back from Meredith with praise (for writing) and damnation (for lack of plotting). I spend a couple hours trying to fix the story, but it dawns that Alund HAD been the main character, and in trying to make the Trainee or the Controller, both originally subsidiary, LEADS, the point-of-view-rewrite became a major task, and the story was only MEANT to be an incident, anyway, so I DROP it. Watch Olympics 1-2, then shower and shave for Avi to come over at 6. We eat at Hide Japanese, not bad, then wander town looking for a movie, ending up at "Gone with the Wind" better than in 1961, from 8:30-12:30. Bed about 1.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19. Up at 10 to watch Spiderman, exercise, breakfast, then TV 1-2. Take "Joy" down to a page of comments after reading it again, and call Joe to get him over to try out some of the things, but he calls later at 6:30 and seems definitely not to want to come over, so I end up spending the evening alone, and abbreviate "Sense Awareness," also. Just to have somewhere to put it, I guess I'll make them DIARY 22 and 25. Olympics again from 6:30 to 7:30, and 10:30-11, and there'll never be a set of bodies as glorious as those stretched across the starting lines for the swimming events. Just hopelessly, relentlessly, effortlessly, beautiful, with some standouts like the fellow from Australia with a chocolate pair of trunks with a lemon sunburst centered on the bulge at the crotch, or the Russian with adult body and stuffed box looking downwards at the contestant next to him, and the dazedly smiling girls in the grandstands. Mr. Toomey in the Decathlon is 27 years of good eating, too. Watch the first part of "What's Up, Tiger Lily," because Woody Allen's subtitles promise to be funny on the Japanese James Bond film, but it turns out dull, so I go back to the Times and pizza from 9 to 2, getting most of the puzzles done, and getting to bed just before 3. Wasted day!
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20. Up at 11, finish the puzzle, decide that "Biorhythms" means nothing in my life, and exercise by 2 pm, seeming to get through set 4 in 14.3---rather amazing on a starved body. Eat brunch until 3, then come gloriously with rubbed sheets, read the Times magazine, and it's 5, time for more Olympics from 5-7. First the Film Festival for two weeks, then correspondence for two weeks, now Olympics for two weeks. Next? Finish at 7:30 pm. Eat dinner and read more of the Times Magazine and type DIARY 26-30, then do nothing until the evening Olympics session from 11-12, and get to bed.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 21. Up and work some more on LSD TAPE, and watch the Olympics from 1-2,l then call Avi and meet him at the New Yorker for a great Mifune in Kurasawa's "Hidden Fortress," this time a princess in disguise, as opposed to the prince in disguise as in "Men Who Tread the Tiger's Tail." And the fantastically staged and filmed "Battle of Algiers," most affecting about the stupidity of war. Bus back home by 7 for Olympics, then "The Soldier's Tale" on 13, and the evening goes poorly as I don't feel like eating, and end up with popcorn and yogurt while reading "Year 2000," and bed at 11.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22. Up at 6:45 am (imagine!) for television coverage of Apollo 7's landing at 7:10, and watch until 8:15. Then exercise (still always under 15 minutes) and eat, and finish and retype LSD TAPE (SECOND REVISION) 1-20, FEELING GREAT FOR HAVING DONE IT. Then shower and shave for the Olympics at 1-2, eat scrambled eggs and baloney (how boring the matter of cooking is becoming---have to do something to pep it up), then for groceries for cake mixes and some meals-in-a-can for those terrible evenings when I don't feel like eating anything. Decide to get BACK to the book after the mail, but have to get the diary out of the way, so I sit down to do this (to the bottom of the page, of course) until 4:10 pm. Begin to re-look at FIRST SESSION, but by the time I get engrossed in it, it seems that it was done in very near finished form the first time, and all it really needs is paragraphing. But since I'm so close to it, it's hard for me to say whether it's good or not. Keep at it as Joe calls and says he's going to the Albee plays, so he can't see TV. I watch the Olympics from 7-8, then "Uncle Vanya" with a fabulous cast: Michael Redgrave as Vanya, Laurence Olivier as Astrov, Max Adrian as the Professor, Rosemary Harris as Elena, Joan Plowright as the daughter, and Sybil Thorndyke as the Nurse, but the essentials of the play---so MANY boring and bored people---don't please me. Joe DOES come up at 9, and we watch to the end at 10, then he watches "60 Minutes" on 13 while I continue proofing FIRST SESSION. We talk for a bit afterwards, then he leaves and I watch Olympics again from 11:30-1 am, the schedule being lengthened to show the entire US-Brazil basketball game.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 23. Up late due to the lateness of getting to bed, and neglect showering to get out to buy squeegee, "Writing to Sell" by Meredith, Shepherd casters for the TV cart, and get my shoes shined. Get home a couple of minutes late for the 1-2 Olympics stint, and then lunch on cheese fondue, which gets rather cloying after awhile, since that's ALL I eat. But it does manage to fill me up enough so that I'm not hungry until quite late in the evening. For the first day, I DON'T type my page today, since I sit right down to read "Writing to Sell," and get almost through by the time the Olympics comes on at 7, then at 7:30 switch to a beauty of a special by the National Geographic about the National Parks, then Don calls to ask to see "Sophia," so I'm eating a glorious steak at 9:10 when he enters, and we watch the show till 10, and I force him to watch the Olympics until 11. We talk about exercising and coming and cocks and sex and Arno and other like matters, and one things leads to another and he asks "Well, what's for dessert?" I say "Me," and he says "OK," and opens his arms toward me and we're on the floor kissing. "So we want to remain on the floor or would you rather the bed?" from me leads to bed, and we come by hand and talk until about 2 am, when he washes and leaves.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24. Wake at 10, disgusted by my smells since I haven't showered (that's what Don GETS), and I'm farting up a storm. Still stay out of the shower to get down to the 69 cent shop at 12 and buy 12 records, mostly ones I'll seldom play---but they're such BARGAINS! Back about 1:30 and watch the rest of the Olympics until 2, lunch, and call Pete and Doug and arrange for "Tom Paine" for Tuesday, and then Shoshana calls and says she'll not be able to get to Marty's that night, so I call Marty and tell him the bad news. Had finished "Writing to Sell," and listened to many of the records, and in general wasted the day prior to writing these two pages, to make up for yesterday. WILL have to clamp down on the schedule, as I've done not much and it's 6:15 pm. Shower and shave and eat dinner while watching Olympics 7-7:30, and "It's the Great Punkin, Charlie Brown" from 7:30-8. Then dress in my yellow cashmere with black dickie and pants and cab up to Marty's. I'm the first there and Jerri and Dale aren't coming. Eunice and Marco and Marco's mother enter before Regina, and then Claire is called. The conversation starts with Marty's bibelots from South Africa, Egypt, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, and other places, and that leads to superstitions and fetishes, thence to piano playing, New York City, James Joyce's "Ulysses" and group theory for the solution of the twelve-tone problem and the differently-painted four cube puzzle, and music events of all kinds, ending up with excerpts from "Carmina Burana" and "Lover's Concerto" before Eunice invites us all to the Great Northern some weekend day for a private recital, and we're all too eager to accept. About 11 they have to leave, and we four talk until about 1:15, when Regina cuts out to buy 85¢ of roast beef for Creaky, her Siamese with vocal troubles, who quacks like a duck, gets into heat twelve days out of 14, keeps the entire apartment building awake unless she's kept in the darkened bathroom, and is gentle and playful and intelligent into the bargain. Claire gets her ice cooler finally and I get to bed at 2.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 25. Up at 10, down to lunch with Peter and view World Trade Center, meet Marty at library at 2, get "Tom Paine" tix, TV 7-7:30, dinner, wash dishes, and I've soon got to get packed for the weekend, since it's 9 pm. Watch Olympics from 9-10, then pack in earnest from 10-11, and settle down to TV of the final US-Yugoslavia basketball game from 11-1. But at 12:05 someone calls with the wrong number, and a SECOND later the phone rings again and it's Patty. "Did you phone just a second ago?" "No," she says, and this time the quaver in her voice comes through. She's feeling suicidal, so I taxi over to see her (see CREATIVITY ENCOUNTER GROUP pages 1-6), bring her here, get to bed about 2, she fusses with me, so I tell her I'm gay and she finally leaves the bed and I get to sleep about 3, feeling very wrought up inside.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26. I sleep through alarm at 7, but Patty shakes me awake, and I leave for Grand Central at 8. Sessions last from 10-12 and 2-4, group from 4-6:30, then another session 8:30-11:30 (see CREATIVITY ENCOUNTER GROUP pages 6-20 ). Feel exhausted, but the bed feels uncomfortable, or I'm uncomfortable, so I don't get to sleep until about 1 am.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27. Wake at 7:30 and wander the grounds with Mary, then with Steve, and sessions are from 9:30-11:30, and 12:45-2:30 (see CREATIVITY ENCOUNTER GROUP pages 16-24). Steve drives me and Sue to my place at 4, and I'm almost too tired to read the Times. At 6 Don and Merv come over, but by 8 I'm totally bored by their conversation and chase them out. Don and I shared a huge concoction of apricot nectar and milk, and I'm just not hungry, so I go to bed without eating anything, fearing I might not be able to get to sleep at such an early hour, but I have no difficulty and fall asleep at 8:30.
MONDAY, OCTOBER 28. Wake at 6:30 and laze about for awhile, then into the living room to finish the Times puzzle, and feel terribly sensual so I have a good come about 10. Read much of the magazine, and by 12 I'm again disgusted with my lack of self-discipline, so I push myself to clean the place up somewhat, exercise, eat breakfast at 12:30, shave and shower and get out to check on the National Parks---trying desperately to find WHICH are numbers 32 and 33---but Bookmasters gives no information on that. I spot a book of Leonard Cohen poems, so I get "Spice-Box of Earth," then spot "Giles Goat-Boy" and remember Don's recommendation of it, and of how good "Sot-Weed Factor" was, so I get it, then around to the science-fiction section to find nothing new by Bradbury, but there's T.H. White with "The Masters," which is short, so I get it, and John Wyndham has another with "Chocky," and I spy "Earth Abides" which I recall as one of the first science fiction classics I read, by Stewart. Then Steve's recommendation of Leary's and his rabbi's book about people's LSD experiences leads me to buy "Psychedelic Experiences" based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Gasp. Home to type CREATIVITY ENCOUNTER GROUP pages 1-24 to assuage my conscience, then read the Cohen book and part of the Leary book, but put that aside as unreadable, and start on "The Master." TV 8-11, including "Lost Patrol" and bed, tired, at 11.
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29. Up at 7:30, GREAT, and exercise and get to this by 8:45. Two days have been skipped between, and I'm debating calling the time away from work by the WEEK characteristic: the first week was the week of the Film Festival (so I got nothing done). The second week was a combination of correspondence and going places (Riis Park, Met for the frescoes, "Turandot," Cissy taking up all one evening, and bridge at Marty's another), the first full week of October was definitely for correspondence; the following two weeks were muchly taken up by the Olympics on TV (though the total number of hours was somewhat less than fifty), this week (the week that was lost mainly because I lost the two days of writing ANYTHING) was the week of reading. Let's see how far the imagination can carry THIS futility. Back to Tuesday: telephoned for a haircut appointment, and got one at noon, so I decided I would read until then: finished the "Master," got the haircut, and began on "Chocky" before it was time to wash and shave and prepare for Pete's birthday celebration. Met him at his place and meet a terrible guest: the first Al's old roommate, then Pete and I go to Peter's Cafe Europa on 58th Street, but the phonebook says that since three years ago the Cafe Europa is on 53rd Street, so we get there a bit after 6:30, but the tie-less waiter assures us our tieless state will be welcome. The décor of the small place is Spanishly pleasant, and for awhile we have it to ourselves, but then a couple comes in just behind us, then three gals, one with a lovely male voice, sit aside us, and we all chat about food. My chicken basquaise is good, chicken slightly tough with a good green pepper-tomato sauce, tasting rather like the gazpacho which preceded it. Peter loves his Beef Wellington, though it's a rather small piece, and it's sliced, like a paté, rather than encased, as it was at Lutece. Even the shrimp appetizer was good, though the 50¢ extra for the bananas in rum wasn't worth it, but in all, a pleasant place for a moderately priced meal. We stroll up Third Avenue to 73rd Street to meet Doug, and watch "Tom Paine," which has some striking moments, like the rocking boat, the mincing kings of England and France, the Mae West-like coronation of Tom Paine, and, of course, the nudity, with Geraci and Paine's reputation holding up the male end fairly nicely. Out about 11, Peter leaves us, and Doug and I return across the park, feeling chilly even in our trench coats. Afraid winter is upon us. Bed at 12.
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30. Up early and finish "Chocky," but perversely get started on "Earth Abides" and the old charm is still there. Out for the deed of the day, supposedly to pick up the laundry and get groceries, but the laundry is very bulky, with two pairs of trousers on hangers, so I can hardly pick up any more groceries than the loaf of bread which I really NEED to eat. Debate about lunch and my mouth waters for bacon, so I have bacon, and get rid of half a loaf of bread for toast, and the bacon taste is really luscious, though I have a moment of questioning whether the diet is quite balanced, but decide that all in all I'm healthy enough. "Earth Abides" lasts through the evening, and decide that Spanish rice is an adequate dinner, and it feels like it. Begin "Giles Goat-Boy" which is really a monster, and that carries me into the night, and I get to bed at 11:30, tired from reading.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31. Up to read "Giles Goat-Boy" and get so involved I don't even do my exercises until after noon, which is awful. I'm still stuck just slightly shorter than 15 seconds (don't I WISH) 15 minutes for set four, and I can't seem to get the pushups into any greater number than 26 at one time. That's the turning point, then I can concentrate on speeding it up to 13 minutes, which shouldn't really be impossible for one terrible sprint, and then go on to level five for the first time. Physically, I probably look better now than I ever did. The heat's supposed to be on today, but by the time I get into the shower at 4, the water's not hot, but I wash my hair and body in the cold water anyway. Continue to plow through GGB, an intricate, funny, boring-for-long-stretches-readingwise, and rather dazzling, but I would have been happy reading something half as long and 3/4 as interesting. Peter's supposed to be over, and Patty calls to hint to come over to return my key, but I brush her off. Avi calls, and by the time evening comes I'm ready for dinner at 8, but Peter doesn't arrive for "The Nanny" (nothing to do with GGB), at 9, watch it to 11, and read the last 30 pages of GGB before I stagger off to bed at 12. Oh, I forgot that yesterday, Wednesday, the poster and 6 shots of Chad Woodcock, and an elaborate cocky catalogue, arrived in the mail, so I came about 4, then came again about 5 because I wasn't sensible enough to put it away, then when I couldn't go to sleep in the evening, I made it for a third time, and no wonder I felt a bit fagged by the time I got to bed LAST night?
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1. Set the alarm for 8, but wake at 7:30 and get out of bed in time for "It's Love I'm After" with young Leslie Howard, Bette Davis, and Olivia De Havilland, good for historical reasons, but hardly others. By then it's 10, so I exercise and eat and come extravagantly, and I'm down to Goody's where I buy 11 records for 99¢ and Beethoven's 9th, to complete my symphony list by him. Get back and begin to play them, doing something that's been on the list for ages: washing the windows. Get the kitchen window washed on the outside for the first time, and that all keeps me busy between 1:30 and 4:30, when I take a well-deserved shower, finally to hot water. Oh, yesterday I called Eddie (he was sick, his projector needed a light, and he'd be over before 6 pm some night next week), and Chuck (he was moving from Yonkers, very busy, and would be over some night next week), and IBM (who knew nothing of my typewriter, so I'll have to GO there to check it out---I'd better GET one!). Then Peter calls and I snub him for the weekend, and call Joe, who's cooking dinner for Lois and her husband, so he's busy. Catch up on DIARY 37-40 by 6 pm. Again I skipped two days---it's becoming more trouble to skip than to do it, so I really should have more determination to DO it. This is essentially continued from DIARY - 40. After I finish that I make dinner and make the Boston Cream Pie, then watch "Women Beware Women" by Thomas Middleton, from 8:30-9:45. The acting is bad, but the plot is nonexistent except for the violence: the loyal husband is stabbed in a duel, the faithless wife is poisoned by her own hand after her husband, the evil Duke, drinks poison which she had intended for the Archbishop. Before this, the Countess, who took over the husband after the wife left him, has died of poisonous fumes, as did the girl who held it, and the Countess' brother fell to his death on the spikes, and someone else had been stabbed with the poisoned sword. Carnage, carnage, carnage. Then there was a film on emotional deprivation in a two-year-old who cried with rage when anyone tried to be affectionate with her, and the comment that an actual hormonal change results from the lack of love impelled me to consider getting someone close to me again. I ended that show at 10 in a very depressed mood, then typed DIARY 41-52 merely to get SOMETHING down about the farcical cake-baking, and to somewhat elevate my spirits. Thankfully, my stomach felt better when I got to bed at midnight, so the cake didn't actually sicken me.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2. Up in good time and exercise and eat, and decide that today I'll get the correspondence out of the way which has been piling up for three weeks since my last writing binge. Go at it pretty steadily until 3 pm, taking only enough time off for lunch, and get two small pages off to Mom, send in the LSD question to EB, congratulate Claudia and Stu on the kid, send two long pages to the Seavers, write Dad and Joan short ones, and get three bills paid, putting Bill and Don O'Shea off until later, with Brian. No use going COMPLETELY out of my mind. Then at 3 I decide to sweep, dusting first, and make a mistake trying to use the attachments under the bed. The motor doesn't shut off on the floor attachment, so even though the motor speeds up, there isn't much suction through the extension hose, and the bend near the attachment device is so sharp that fluff quickly gets stuck, cutting off ALL suction. Fuss for a bit, and get it over by 4:15. Take a shower, dreadfully needed after all that exertion, and watch the sunset again. The last few sunsets have been more watchable, with the sun sinking into smog clouds so gradually that it becomes a ball on which can be seen the areas of sunspot activity. Another reason for being home from work, since the sun goes down just before five now. Call Joe for "Weekend," and he says OK, so Peter's put off until tomorrow, and I'm up to Joe's after listening to record and reading letter and looking at stamps sent by Rita, YUM. "Weekend" is interesting enough to give Joe and me something to talk about on the way back, and at 11:30 we part and I cruise in the cold dampness until 1:30, thoroughly disgusted with the crowd: who I want doesn't want me, everyone else does. What a pity! Buy the Times and read a bit until 3, when I get to bed, quite exhausted.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3. Set the alarm for 10, but get up before that to watch a TV abridgement of the off-Broadway play "The Believers," and I'm glad I didn't pay to see it, but glad that they put it on TV. Exercise and eat, and decide that I'll soak stamps for the task today. Do so from 1-6, getting everything nicely settled in the stamp department, but rather addled in the mental department. Don't feel like doing anything, and a semi-chill from last night begins to feel like a cold, so I feel rather badly. To make things worse, I sit mooning on the sofa, playing with myself, and decide to come, which I do with the sheet through climax, and it's an interesting sensation, but more debilitating than exciting---though the buildup is quite incredible. When I've come, I REALLY don't feel like doing anything. Lay there for about an hour, mope into the living room, and really hit up against it. I don't feel like taking in a movie, I don't feel like calling anyone (anyway, there isn't anyone to call), I certainly don't feel like writing, not even about how lousy I feel, so rather than do absolutely nothing, I decide to watch TV, while eating popcorn, thinking to please myself with SOMETHING today. Want to shower and shave and cruise, but I've just come, and it's certainly too much trouble. Decide that tomorrow MUST be different, since I can't take much of this. Sunday evening was always a bad time, anyway. Watch the terrible "Land of the Giants" from 7-8, then get hooked by the lovely James Dean in "East of Eden" from 8-10. This REALLY makes me feel lousy. Here this lovely guy is yearning for love, and I'd love to give it to him, but he and I never get together. Isn't that the way it always is? Coming at the end of a frustrating day, the movie is a dismal climax to frustration, and I end crying for himself and myself, and doing neither of us much good. Toy with the idea of going to bed, but I've done so little today, I'm afraid I won't sleep, so I tackle the double-crostic, which I'd decided last night was almost impossible. With the held of my good ole Funk-n-Wagnall's, it comes through at 11:30, and I drop into bed, tossing and turning for about an hour, resolving to get to work on the book tomorrow. At LEAST the OUTLINE!
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4. Up at 9 and exercise and eat and perversely get to the crossword, but it's even more than impossible, and finally I put the magazine and newspapers in the hall for trash. Enough is enough. Waste the morning, but wash my hair and shave and shower at 12, then DO work on the outline until my hair dries. Then I eat lunch and get to the Park from 1:45-4:15, which is too long, but I needed the outdoors. Squirrels all over, as well as faggots and school kids, some of each of which are attractive. Meet Arno on the corner, call Estelle for reservation for this weekend, and catch up with DIARY 53-56 at 5:15. Dinner and again feel tired enough to lay down for about an hour, then Arno calls at 9:15 and comes over. He idiotly forgets his glasses, but goes through the 50 pages of the original LSD TAPE to refresh his memory, castigating himself for intellectualizing and giving me the verbiage to extend the session. He said it read like a textbook on a psychotherapeutic session, which didn't flatter me. He brought up the point of anger, saying that I probably don't allow myself to get angry at anyone, but what's so sacred about getting angry? On occasion I've been angry, but how often IS there to get angry? He says I must once have loved someone very much, and then been rejected, and keeps thinking I should look into those other hats. I try to convince him of the efficacy of LSD or encounter groups in preference to the lengthy, verbalized, individual or group therapy. He leave about 11:15 and I get to bed, but can't sleep, and finally masturbate with the sheet again, finishing at 12:30, sleep at 1.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5. Stay in bed until 9:45, feeling guilty, then exercise in the new record of 14.1 minutes, breakfast, shower and shave and out to vote at 11:15, the line taking until 12. Up to Central Park and about to leave at 1:30 when this cute body looks back and I strike up conversation and we end up here 2-4, where I strangely (probably because of last night) don't come up, but do him with great pleasure, Dennis living with Bill Diaz and Jack. Watch "When Worlds Collide" until 6, then prepare for opera and do this at 6:20. Dress quickly and get to the Met for "Die Walkuere," and talk to Herbert and his friend Dick then leave for Regina and her friend Harriett, and I take Regina's offer to stand during the last act: as a result we sit in about the tenth row on the aisle, and the singing and the orchestra surely sound better from there than from the second-last row in the Family Circle. Great cast, but terribly static production. Home and watch election returns until 2 am, when Humphrey begins losing his lead, and I'm tired.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6. Up at 10 and watch returns until 11, when it only depends on Illinois to put Nixon in, and it seems to me like he's gotten it, so I then turn TV off and exercise and eat. Take the laundry down, but the pilot light on the dryer is out, so I'm out in the 52 degree cold poorly dressed to gape in amazement as one woman wants to charge me 50¢ for drying, and I walk down another block and spend two dimes for drying, and get back about 3 pm. Rather inexplicably decide to re-read Aldous Huxley's "Ape and Essence" (because of an unfavorable review of his oeuvre in Scientific American, is why), and it STILL seems to say nothing much, one of his poorer novels. Do EARLIEST MEMORIES 1-9 before dinner, then eat and finish through EARLIEST MEMORIES 20 at 11:30, feeling that it might be interesting to push back the veil of the past when I go home in December, and jot down questions to that end. Tired and headachy when I finish with this, determined to get each day's done each day, and now it's 11:35 pm. Go to bed and fall asleep immediately, refreshed by a late bath at 9 pm.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7. Wake at 7:30, very pleased with myself, and laze agreeably until 7:50, then up and FOR THE FIRST TIME DO 30 CONSECUTIVE PUSHUPS, and THAT feels good, too. Get down to EARLIEST MEMORIES, and get out "Blessed Event" and my photo and souvenir scrapbooks to help jog my memory. At noon call Herman to make a tentative luncheon date for Monday, and call Joe and invite him to "The Seagull" on TV tomorrow, after Peter calls and wants to do something sometime. I'd debated going to check on the typewriter (before this ribbon completely disappears), and getting money from the bank, but the rain it rained all day long, so I end up going down for the mail and telling Josie all about my novel, and back up to lunch. Am reminded of "Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing" by Roger Paul Smith, so I re-read that to get some additional material for EARLIEST MEMORIES, and finally, in a mind-squeezing effort, finish through the predetermined page 40 (ironically ending up with two page 28's) at 5 pm, and put that aside. It feels so good to be working somewhat regularly, and it doesn't disturb me that I'm not working directly on the LSD novel: I AM working on my writing, and that's the important thing, but tomorrow promises to be a busy day, as I also want to stop off at Goody's for the weekly special. And my conscience is easy, I don't feel guilty, don't have the compulsion to change my ways of doing things, entirely satisfactory, now at 5:30 pm. Phone and see that there are tickets available for "Fiddler on the Roof," then call Peter at 6, and agree to meet at Fornos for dinner. I shave and dress and get the tickets and as usual he's late to Fornos, where he has kidneys which aren't prepared to MY taste, and I have tongue which is. End with a nicely-textured flan. Have aisle seats in the last row at "Fiddler" for the first act, and move down to the front of the balcony for the second act: the play is quite good, although none of the cast can really sing or dance, but the exuberance and spirit and comedy more than make up for that. I'm home (it's been raining all day) wet at 11:30, but can't sleep, so yield to the inevitable temptation and come at 12:30, finally getting to sleep at 1, brain going a mile a minute.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8. Wake at 9 and get out of bed about 10, fussing through the characters of "Giles Goat Boy," among absolutely unrememberable other things, takes till 11:30, when I shower and wash hair and record dates and prices of purchase for IBM stock, then at 1 out to shine shoes and withdraw cash from the bank and check about the typewriter, and it's supposed to be delivered Tuesday. Let's hope so, and that my quitting doesn't jeopardize it. Then to Goody's and buy 4 records for $1.49, 3 for $2, and 3 for $3---this record buying in quantity will have to soon come to a stop---and I'll have to concentrate ONLY on stereo, now that I'm getting into spectacular pieces. Listen to music and eat and bring music list up to date and do NOTHING all day until I do this by a very lazy 7:45 pm. Then I pack and Joe comes over at 8:30 to see Chekhov's "The Seagull" until 10:30, and the acting is good and the story more vital (even if he IS only talking about the agonies of writing from two points of view, and the pains of love from six or seven points of view), then most of his others, particularly the stultifying boring "Uncle Vanya" and the infuriating "Three Sisters." We talk until about 11:30, and he leaves and I get to bed, but have some trouble getting to sleep, but do so about 1 am.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Up at 7 and get into a cab at 7:55 and ride up to Irvington by 9, and there's the same wait for a taxi as before, Estelle ineffectually swearing that they'd have a taxi there. There are about 60 of us, and we break into four groups based on first dividing us into Controlled Males and Females, and Withdrawn Males and Females and counting off. Then we have lunch and get to the first session, which I feel great doubts about, and express them to Dr. Jim while drinking at the bar (and I still owe him $2.20), have dinner, then back to a session in which I break through to some sort of insights about anger and love and pain, and I'm beginning to believe in them. When the group breaks at 10:30, I'm feeling exhausted, so I immediately go back in the rain to the King house, which is pleasantly isolated, and get ready for bed, wondering where (and who) my roommate is. Lay and toss and turn from 11 to 12, and finally Carl's in (though we don't exchange names), and I drop off to sleep at about 12:30, my throat still feeling sore though I took a throat lozenge to sooth it from the screaming.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10. Wake at 7:30 and finish in the bathroom by 8, and we chat until 8:15, when I pack up and leave, have breakfast, and get to the 9:30 meeting early and chat with some of the people, particularly NORMA, who's made such a mess of things yesterday. Then she goes into it again, and gets something good out of it, and, through dinner, by the time the group is due to break at 5, there are only about three left to handle from the whole group, and almost everyone stays on till about 7:30, when the last gets hugs from the group, and then there's the leave-taking which goes on for ages, and my ride has left, so I importune Norma for a ride back. Barbara gets involved with Ted, which is just fine with me, as I'd rather have nothing to do with either of them, and Norma and Harriet and Estelle and I drive a rather uncoordinated way back to the city. Estelle pleads with Norma and me to come see her, Harriet pleads unspokenly with me to do SOMETHING with or for her, and Norma suggests we have lunch together sometime. Into apartment about 9, feeling positively green-sick and sweaty from car-sickness or stomach agitation or lack of food. Try to get ahold of the Sunday Times, but Joe and Arno are out, and Peter says his is at Allan's. I don't feel like doing anything but lying down, so I do about 9:30, and lay there comfortably, happy that the urge to vomit has somewhat passed. But gradually the feeling of hunger makes itself known, so I'm up at one to have toast and peanut butter still with a headachy feeling, and I stare moodily out at the sky, which flashes red and dark, possibly from a fire, but likely from a sign flashing on the low scudding clouds. Back to bed and rapidly to sleep.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11. Wake about 10, and feel terrible. Listen to the radio, drop out to buy the Times to check the TV ads, then Herman calls and we agree to lunch today, and by that time (after I do the daily puzzle), it's 12:30, and all I can do is shave and shower, and get out without eating or exercising to meet Herman for the walk to Mr. Richard's. We talk of his job and his home and my weekend and writing, and by that time it's 3 pm, and I just DON'T feel like going back home, because I'm still tired, my arms hurt from caressing, my stomach hurts, and I feel like coughing, and my voice is still hoarse, but not as bad as yesterday. So I wander toward 42nd Street, stopping to talk to Joel and Bob about work, and search for something to see, but the best is "The Naked Spur" with all of James Stewart, Janet Leigh, and Robert Ryan and Ralph Meeker, for a lousy time-waster, and "Battle of the Bulge" with a handsome Robert Shaw and goody-goody Henry Fonda, and explosive battle scenes, though hardly bloody AT ALL---death was never so antiseptic. Out at 7:15 and grab a pizza and then a pen from my apartment and get to Judson Hall at 8 for the first introduction to Kip Cohen and Transcendental Meditation, which is not bad at all. Answer some of the questions myself rather nicely, and out at 10 to kick myself into Bookmasters, and end up buying books (surprise!) on ESP ("Cayce on Atlantis"), Mysticism ("Varieties of Mystical Experience," by someone S.J.), eroticism ("Under the Hill"), and therapy ("Gestalt Therapy"). Home at 10:30 to finish "Under the Hill," and start "Atlantis" with popcorn, for the second (if you don't count the slice of pizza) or third meal of the day. Bed at 1, very tired.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12. Have strange dreams, and out of bed at 10:15, with many things on my mind to do, and a reasonable determination to do them. Avi calls and I tell him about last night, then I call Peter and arrange to pick up the Times (how important that seems to have gotten!) at Allan's tonight, then I DO exercise, though my arms and stomach are still sore, and I have just a slight headache hangover, then I have breakfast, for the first time in a long time, and fix up the apartment, waiting for the typewriter delivery. Write up the dreams, then, to get THAT out of the way, and then catching up on the diary is the last thing I have to do, and I can begin to get back into the swing of things. It'll be a pity if each weekend messes me up as much as THAT one did. But I get DIARY 61-64 done to catch myself up to date, and it's as if today was starting now, where it should, at 1 pm. Now I'm in a quandary with the new typewriter because it doesn't have triple space, but I guess I'll just have to type a whole page of the larger pages every day. To get on with Tuesday---and this on Friday!---I typed out three pages of dreams for the evening before, then got involved in the THERAPY PARODY, for which I type twelve pages, and then get started on the AUREON ENCOUNTER I, for which I also type twelve pages, and with the other things that I've done, that makes a total of 31 pages today, which is pretty good. Wait around much of the day for the typewriter delivery, promised for today, but it doesn't come. All that typing takes me until about 7, when I fix myself up to go to Allan's, and it's half-raining and half snowing outside, so I decide to take the bus, which I do, and get to Allan's just before Peter gets there at 8. Allan proudly shows off his two self-portraits, one looking suspiciously like the stern, slightly supercilious stare of the Van Gogh with the earless head, but this had a violet-yellow halo thrown in for added effect, while the other is lit from below, is on the dark side, and neither looks terribly like him, and I have the nerve to say so, but then Peter comes and HIS self-portrait (if Allan is him-self) is pretty good, and Peter beams. We sit and talk and drink wine for a long time, and then about 9 we're off to Joe's, which is just a divey restaurant with everything in the price range of $1.15 to $1.45, and the food isn't bad. We sit and talk there for quite awhile, and then we're back to Allan's, where I get the paper and bus back down to my place just before 11. Catch the last 10 minutes of "The Joker," and I moan because I missed both "The Rainmaker" and "The Prize" as TV movies, just for not having the paper, but that's the way it goes. Start to work on the puzzles, but I'm getting tired about 1, so I go to bed.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13. Get up the next morning about 9, and start in on the Times again, and get through with my exercises just at 10:15 only seconds before the internal phone buzzes and my typewriter's here! He comes up and delivers the box, and I dismount it from the backing and prepare to install it myself, but there are a few things I don't expect, so I play it safe and tell him to come over to put it in. Finish "Edgar Cayce on Atlantis" since I really can't get down to typing (though I should, since I have some dreams to record, but by the time I next get to the typewriter---which is now---I completely forget what the triple-threat dream WAS), and I feel like wasting time. Then the installer calls and drops over about 1, and he puts everything together and flips a number of the keys to get everything into working order and he recommends that I don't take the maintenance contract. Well, here I will find out how honest IBM salesmen are: it was obvious he didn't want to be bothered with my maintenance money, and he even said that he didn't get any commission on my typewriter. Toward the end of the session I discover that there's only a single and double space, no triple space, which means that every draft from now on will have 50% more typing on each page---and I'm running into ANOTHER disadvantage right now---when I accidentally hit the carriage return in the middle of the line, which I seem to be doing quite a lot of---it must be closer in than it was in the other---it's not possible to manually wrestle the carriage back to the center of the line---the only way to get there is to repeat-space, which isn't terrible, but it's not very convenient, either. Also I'm not having a very good time getting used to it---but then I haven't typed in three days, either. Fuss with the typewriter and get some things done in the line of cleaning up around the house, but the day goes nowhere until I get set to go to Judson Hall for the second lecture. I'm hoping it'll be short since I want to watch TV at 9, but the guy finds that half the audience wasn't to the first lecture, so he re-gives the first lecture until 9, and then gives the second lecture until 9:15, and there are questions until quarter to 10. I ask if I can defer payment (or hint maybe I can pay student payment), and they say I should bring whatever I can afford "So I won't deprive myself of food or shelter," and that I can pay the balance afterward---there'll be no bill. I get back at 10, and fuss around until 1, probably coming with gusto, then to bed.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14. Get up late again for some reason, about 10, and exercised, and for some reason felt marvelously like accomplishing something, so I called in for a dental appointment, cleaned up the apartment, called up Eddie and said I'd be to the theater at 9 pm to pick up his films, and called Chuck to say I'd be in at 3:30 to pick up his slides of our trip. Felt absolutely great while doing all these things, and washed and such in preparation for the trip to the office. Chuck still had his beard, and Ellen was back, and there was a new guy, Carson Worthington, or something like that, to give English companionship to Ed. Then Nancy came in to say that Don Conte was having a birthday party, and we should all get some cake, and so I said hello to Herman and Milda and Charlie and Natalie and Don and Jean and about a dozen other people, while people like Morris ignored me completely. Gladys and I decided to talk, and I told her about the two weekends at Aureon, but she said she was definitely too terrified about being touched, or about giving or getting love, and she characterized herself as saying "Nyah" to anyone who reached out in an attempt to help her. She retold her experiences with the Kuschners in a group that turns out to have had Lynn Tackett as a leader, and though she can admit that Lynn is fantastic, she just can't see going back. We talk until 5:15, and then I'm over to say goodbye to Jim Felicito, who's transferring to the Jersey office as an S.E. We talk for awhile about his upcoming vacation in the islands and the casinos, and he expresses interest in the slides, so I invite him over. Talk to Michelle Golden, and she IS someone, but she's got other arrangements (as she always has), so she can't come over, though she encourages me to ask her somewhat ahead of time, next time. Finally get out at 6 with Jim, and we're here to start looking at them and Mom calls to establish that I'm not coming home for Thanksgiving, but that I'm coming for Rita's graduation and birthday. The show goes on and the slides are good, and Jim finally leaves at 8 pm. I watch "The Winners" about insect life, get the films from Eddie at 9, then back to watch TV from 9:30-10:30, and Don's over to look at the films, which I find a flop when he's here, but when he leaves I come with enormous gusto over them, getting to bed wondrously tired a bit after 1:30. DAMN!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15. Amazing how my enthusiasm (ha, ha) (since it's now TUESDAY) gets carried away, but I refuse to do more than one of these expanded pages for ANY day, unless it's an encounter group. Stupid typewriter---again I return when I shouldn't, and I wreck the top of the last page by not raising the paper guide before I "index" the paper around the roller. Oh, well, it just takes some getting used to. Up rather late from the exhausting evening last night, and by the time I'm out of bed, there's not even time to do the exercises before shaving and showering, and there's not even time to EAT before catching a subway downtown at 11:30 to meet Warren Spencer Strauss at 2 Broadway, the 30th floor Customer section of Dreyfus and Company, for a most important meeting. Give him the two sheets on IBM stock purchases and on other stock purchases, and give him essentially carte blanche with everything but 50 IBM, which he says are best saved, anyway. Then he asks the question: "Well, what would you LIKE?" "Oh, an income of about $500 a month." He takes this somewhat in stride, and says he'll see what he can do. I further stick the needle in by saying I need $600 by the first of December "so just consider that the first month has only 15 days." He smirks, I look at the view, and we're down to Fusco's for lunch. There's a crowd, and we banter about Billy the dog having to be put out of the way for attacking Warren, Billy the roommate doing nothing but keeping up the house, and both obviously loving it, about getting the chandelier out to Great Neck for a tiny dining room, and I'm talking about Aureon and LSD and meditation. Lunch passes by 2, and he says I should come down to New Hope for a weekend (particularly before he sells the place and moves up to Boston). I walk uptown and explore the World Trade Center construction site, old record shops, and Job Lots for bookends, but come uptown at 4 having bought nothing---I don't NEED anything. Get some tiny bit of typing done with DIARY 65-67, and a Dream for November 14, then call Joe to watch TV, and I putter until he arrives for Jacques Cousteau's "Whales" 7:30-8:30, and NET Playhouse until 10, with interesting things, then we watch the films, and he leaves at 11:30, and AGAIN I come over them afterwards with GREAT gusto, and bed at 1.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16. Up late, and by the time I get started with anything, it's even later. The exercises are hard because I didn't do them yesterday. I vaguely consider retyping the movie list, since now I have a new typewriter, but I take a couple of hours to do nothing with three or four pages, and just figure and refigure endlessly, and get nowhere, until finally I give myself a headache and I have to stop. But then I don't start anything particularly good, either. Start a part of "Varieties of Mystical Experiences" and it's no good, so I stop. Start a part of "Gestalt Psychology" and it's not good, so I stop. Then start working on the cataloging of Chuck's slides, and that gets me into the typed report of the trip, which I practically re-read, and get extensively involved in searching through my whole box of maps and souvenirs from the whole trip. Joe calls and says he has a bag of stuff for me, and I say I'll call him at 6:30. By the time 6:30 comes around, I'm in a terrible funk, but call him, give him the excuse I'm in the middle of something, and tell him I'll be over at 9, since I SO want to finish the task of the slides. Decide that I'll have to eat something, so I get the Lipton Ham Cheddarton box down and mix that, and it tastes rather heavy in the stomach, but reasonably good-tasting, but we'll see about that later. About 9:15 I get dolled up to get up to Joe's before 9. He said Lois would be there, and I wanted to talk about meditation, but David is also there, and as Joe reports at 11, "He hates you---he disliked you at first, and he still dislikes you." He did his utmost to get me to hate him in return, but Lois was cheerfully communicative about the meditations, and recommended it to me, and Joe cleared the stuff for me, so at 10 I left---over David's "Why are you going home?" to which I answer "Why shouldn't I?" Buy the Times and that takes longish to read, and I do both the puzzle AND the Double-Crostic before going to bed, and it gets rather sloggy going, and I remember distinctly thinking "Why isn't it that there's some occupation directly suited to my kooky hours and persistencies?" Than I reminded there WAS such an occupation: it was called writing. Got to bed, exhausted at 3 am.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17. Up just at 11 to watch Avon Neal (doll of a rubber (of (all the following is done on Monday, November 25, for Sunday, November 17, and 8 days difference, I hope, has been set and will remain a record for tardiness) tombstones)) and his wife on Camera Three, and then turn the dial listlessly for something to look at, and watch something about Kaaunisaara, an island of Finland, and the lovely boy who's the only one living there under the age of 40. But then my stomach seems very sick, and I can only blame it on the Lipton's Ham Cheddarton which I ate for supper last night, assuming that the pot I inhaled at Joe's isn't enough to turn my stomach. I fall back into bed, feeling terrible, and lay there, dozing off and coming awake, feeling just terrible, until about 8 pm, when I'm considering getting up anyway, and the house phone rings and it's Azak. I first tell him that I'm sick, but I think of him BEING here, and I ask him up, and he does. I greet him in my tattered bathrobe, unshaven and dirty, and feel lousy against his fresh Vetiver scent and cleanliness. We talk about nonsense for quite awhile, and though he says he wants to see the films and the slides, tonight isn't the night. He stays about an hour, and even gives me a slight kiss. By this time I'm feeling better, and boil myself a couple of eggs, which are slightly sickening in their yellowness, but the food taste better than nothing. Watch "King and Country" on TV, and it's pretty good, again emphasizing the stupidity of war, and I'm back in bed at midnight, feeling sorry that the day was lost, but then I really DID feel pretty lousy. Have no trouble falling asleep again.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18. Rush through my exercises and washings to get to the meditation center, buying an apple and two tangerines for 45¢, and a rose and a carnation for $1, and a new white handkerchief, and get off to the initiation for Transcendental Meditation. Mrs. Peters greets me and talks with me, then performs a small ceremony with salt and sugar and water and flower petals and punk sticks in front of a candle-lit picture of Guru Devi, who taught the Maharishi, and turns to me and says that my mantra is "I-YIM." I find it not unpleasant, and repeat it a few times as requested, then take it inside, and practice it while she sits quietly by, then get put into a small room which lets me practice it myself. When all is satisfactory, she gives me someone else's fruit, flower, and handkerchief "as a memento," and sends me on my way. I'd taken a cab over, but I walk back, in the rain, feeling rather silly with the fruit and flower in my pocket, but it's nice walking, anyway. Have no idea what I do during the day (so late is this written), but it's probably nothing, when Stu Bernstein calls in the early evening to say he's in town, and would I like to join him for dinner? Chuck's supposed to come over by 8 pm, so I tell Stu that and say that I'll meet him at his room in the Summit at 9:15 or so. Wait for Chuck and he doesn't come, so at 8:55 I leave, leaving a note with the telephone operator for him, and call again from the hotel at 9:10, and of course he arrives a few minutes later, but so much the worse for him. Stu and I talk in his room, he showing off the 14-caret aquamarine he bought for Claudia at Stern's in Rio. We decided to go to the Lafayette, which will have a table ready for us in 15 minutes, so we decide what to order (he the filet mignonettes, I the chicken in herbs of the day, but the chicken was tough, the roast tomato a pulpy red mass, and the crème caramel hardly anything to rave about---and then the chicken had little caches of spice on various pieces, so at one point there was a mouth-reddening swig of pepper on one part of the breast. Something must be wrong.) and he tells me about the prostitutes, the shelling of the ship in the harbor, the taxi driver with the pistol to protect himself from the favelinos, IBM's bribing attempt of the CDC interpreter, the fantastic rents required to live in the city, the fun at the night clubs and churrascias, the food at the Bec Fin, his grandfather's prayer book, the cousins who are the first relatives he likes, the samba music by the three bands in the enormous clubs, getting bombed every night on Scotch he didn't know as Scotch, Claudia's sleeplessness, the disgust with his parents and the goodness of hers. The next trip to Zurich, and other trips to the West Coast and New York, with deals going everywhere. The bill comes to $13 apiece, and both go dutch, of course. I walk back home at 12:15, and get right to bed, tired.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19. Alarm rings to get me to the barbers at 9 am, then I cancel my meditation check with Mrs. Peters, since I hadn't meditated at all to that point. Get to the bank at noon and get my shoes shined and meet Norma Epstein in her office at Helena Rubenstein for lunch. I'd made reservations at Chalet Suisse, and she agrees, so we get there and talk about Betty Dodgson's exhibit which was raided to get rid of the 69 and the only male erection, her activities in a nudist camp which was still racially intolerant, her swinging in with other married couples, my upcoming Nude Marathon and just-passed Transcendental Meditation techniques, which she seems interest in, and she insists we have to meet again next week so I can tell her all about the Nude Workshop. Back to her office by 2:30, and I get back home to call Peter and tell him to come over for the films tonight. Then Eddie calls and says that Ernie wants the projector for some films HE has, and the evening ends up very pleasantly when Ernie agrees to bring himself, his friend Denny, and all six of his films over so they can be seen by MY friends at MY place. It's amazing who all accepted: Arno came right down from his Adler lesson at 10 pm, and Bobby even grabbed a cab (the only thing he'd EVER grab a cab for) to get here. John had just gotten in, but he ate and got here last, telling about his dinner next night for some TV executive who was interested in Literature, so he was giving a dinner party with Anita Loos, Glenway Wescott, the director of the American branch of Rizzoli, and a few other people. Azak came, but wouldn't ask John Gestner, because John had called for him to go out earlier, but he said he was busy. Peter came over with Kevin, and they talked through the showing about the new house Kevin bought, and other houses, and the travel business, probably to amaze Ernie and Denny, who were mainly interested in each other. All sat around through the films, afraid to touch anybody, though John tried manfully to get something started. Many of the films were surprisingly gay, with cock-sucking galore, even to a mouthful of cream as come. Kevin said he had to get back early, and left with Peter before the end, and Arno and Bobby left soon after. Ernie and Denny had left at 10, because Denny had to return to Jersey. John tried to seduce Azak, but couldn't, so that left John Connolly and me to have each other, which we did, rather abruptly, but I was grateful, and bedded down at 1:30.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20. Woke late, and had all I could do to exercise and shower and shave to get the projector and films to the Trans-Lux East where Richie was out to lunch at 12:30. Back determined to finish AUREON ENCOUNTER I, because this was the last day before the busy day tomorrow when I would take off for the nude workshop. Make out a whole list of things to do, and have trouble doing any of them, what with keeping the apartment in order, calling Estelle any number of times trying to get arrangements with the workshop correct, and thinking of some excuse for not catching up on my diary. I do get in two meditations, as I recall, but many questions come up and I figure I'm just all bogged down with details at this point, but after the Nude Workshop, things will settle down again. How many times have I heard THAT story? Finally finish with Aureon Encounter late in the day, disgusted that it took me so long to finish it, and watch "Suez" on TV, with a tremendous sandstorm as a sort of finale, killing off Annabelle, which was the only good thing in it for Tyrone Power, since Loretta Young married Louis Napoleon to become the Empress Eugenia who rode through the canal first. It's over at 1, and I set the alarm at 8, figuring to get up in time to see "In Caliente."
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21. But when I wake, I'm exhausted and decide not to watch it, since I didn't do anything yesterday and have to do everything today. Exercise and shower to wash hair, scour the tub and sweep the floors for Paul and Kone, and then through some final phone calls I'm leaving on the 4:45, not the 3:30, so I can get off to the Meditation checking without packing, which I do, and I'm spending a small fortune on cabs for this thing. Ask a few questions and get sensible answers, and back, to pack and type a quick note for Paul, leaving him Joe's, Peter's, and Azak's names to call if he wants to do anything. Talk back and forth with Peter trying to get in touch with Bob Coufos, who also lives in Glen Gardner, so that I can see all the lovely films they have in the free night between sessions, but all I get is their telephone number. Grab a cab and get to the bus just about on time, and can see no one in the bus who seems to be going there, and am glad I have the number for the Circle H, because when we get there, there's no car waiting for me, and I'm happy I had the chance to fill out the "eat, touch, smell, hear, look at, and do" questionnaire from Bindrim. Find that the first session has been cancelled, but Earl's taking Darlene to the Doctor's, so they'll pick me up on the way, and I can stay there overnight. Talking to Earl is quite a deal, which can go on for some number of years, and I tell him all about Aureon and its aims and methods, and he tells me all about nudism and its methods, and we're probably both wondering which is the more extreme. Back to the Ranch to meet Lucille, and she takes me down and shows me the pool, and gives me a great piece of coconut crème pie, and by that time Earl's undressed, showing a hard lanky body, middling-good cock, and John enters, with his lousy pop-eyed, Adam's appled neck, and absolutely fabulous body with lovely round, muscled arms over a tapering torso leading to a cock he seems to be afraid to show, but it's nicely in proportion to his muscular legs. Just throw a towel over the face, and he's an Adonis! Lucille and I talk until all hours, and it's 11:30, and she shows me to the dormitory upstairs, where I select the choice bunk, notice the cats running around, and get to bed at midnight. But not to sleep, since some of the insulation has worked into the blankets and I'm itchy, and my lungs fill up with my allergy to cat fur, and I don't sleep much, listening to the cock crowing "whenever he's had sexual intercourse" at 4-5 am.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22. Doze on and off, and hear them down in the kitchen having breakfast at 8 am. Remember their comment the evening before about being nude when there's a reason for it, and I'm going to shower to get the insulation off my itchy skin, and I figure they're nude down there anyway, so I put a towel over my shoulder, grab my dop kit, and parade ass-naked into the kitchen, where they sit fully dressed, but pay me no attention. French toast for breakfast, and I'm down to wander around the grounds, loving the duck pond and brown leaved trees, and wander the road looking at the property. Earl doesn't want me to help him, so I'm down to the pool with Ursula and Martin and Mike, and I strip and start swimming around, and quickly get used to the idea, particularly hanging onto a ball and floating, completely free, in the warm water. Relaxing!! Mike seem interested in me, and Ursula is reasonably interesting to look at, but I don't join them outside for a fast game of volleyball. It's really too cold. Up for a ham sandwich for lunch, and milk, and tell Lucille about my liking for a hot fudge sundae. Back down to the pool after reading magazines for awhile, and when it's four o'clock, I get back up to see who arrives for the session. Toni and Arnie show up early, and go into a technical discussion about Freudian versus the action type of therapy, and they try to exclude me, but don't succeed. We eat dinner early, as it appears that Bindram's going to be late. Betsy shows up with Dave Gooneyguy, and I wonder what the deal is there, but Betsy and I sort of click when we meet. Natalie and Pat show up, putting a lie in the idea that there are going to be few girls, and Dave and Mary Married are strange, since Mary looks doped or crazy, or something. Ben bounces in, remembering everyone's name, and when John Goodguy comes in with his bright crew-cut good looks, things begin to pick up. Bernie bounced in in his bells, and he's reasonably attractive, except that it seems he has problems. But the clincher is Ralph Blazee, and don't I wish I'd called HIM to try to find a way into the country, despite the fact that he seems permanently attached to Florence and Karen. Rachel overwhelms everyone with her enormity when she arrives, and finally Paul and Hal arrive, disgusted with the size of every room and the quality of the pool, but finally we get down to business, and Bernie picking Flo picking Ralph picking Karen picking Jaap picking Betsy (and here I dart arrows at Betsy, since obviously THAT'S the group to be in) picking me, but I have no one to pick as female except Rachel and Mary, so I pick Mary, who sadly picks the only fellow left, her husband, and those two and Jaap quickly prove to be the ones who need it the most, but go in for it the least. I start caressingly with Bernie, Karen, and Betsy, and satisfy myself with saying nice things to Jaap and Ralph, though my impulse (and why didn't I follow it?) was to do more, yet I was too soft, since no one at the end knew I was gay. We try eyeballing and some anger devices, and some peak experiences, and by midnight we're ready to go down to the pool for our first nudity, and we're EAGER.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23. I'm in in no time, and Bernie's quickly hugging me to see if he'll get an erection. We go through the floating through the aisle of hands, and the hugging in a circle, and at one point Ralph and Bernie and I are in a threesome, hugging each other for all we're worth in the center of the pool. WHEW! Back to the house for sessions of some boredom, then back to the pool, then back to the house, still nude, then from 6 to 8 there's a quiet period, and I amaze myself by re-living some of the LSD experience, and Betsy comes to my rescue with a suggestion we leave the living room and have coffee in the kitchen. Karen is looking great with her tousled hair, saying she's walked down to the stream in the early morning, and it's lovely out, and some of it's rubbed off on her. Earl and Lucille are down to begin serving breakfast, and we're off onto other devices, this time more or less in one group, and Paul's finally finally making himself effective as a leader, and Hal amazes me by taking off into Natalie with an anger I didn't think he was capable of. Then it's 1 pm, and time to leave, and Dave Gooneyguy says he'll drive us all back to the city, and I'm rather happy when Ralph leaves our getting back to the city in my hands, at least that means I can go where HE goes. That's even easier later on, when Karen says "I really dig you," and gives me her number, saying, maybe slyly, that she AND Ralph and Flo will be seeing us again. Bernie and I exchange addresses, after he refused to exchange affections in the pool alone, but then he WANTS to be a closet queen. The ride back is eventful, but I'm still exhausted when I finally catch a cab about 7 pm home, and Paul's waiting for Azak and Dwayne. They arrive and decide to go to "Big Buck," and I refuse to go along, since I'm so tired. In fact I read the first act of "Boys in the Band," but by 9:30 I'm so exhausted I make up the couch and fall asleep at 9:30.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24. I'm so asleep I don't even hear them come in, and when I wake at 9:30, it's none too early. Shower and unpack and shave, and it's time for them to wander through Central Park while I meditate, for the first time since Friday morning by the side of the pool. They're back, and they call Walter Joseph, who called me earlier, wanting Paul, and we cab over to United Nations Plaza to see Ed Lowman's fantastic apartment, and even more fantastic roommate, Bob, and reasonably nice friend John Reed, who turns out even nicer when he says he has 150 shots of Tom of Finland's pornographic work. Lovely!!! The view is magnificent, and we're shown around the apartment, and it oozes money, from the copper trees in the windows to the Chinese vases on the sills, to the constructions and paintings on the walls, and the green flocked wallpaper on the walls and even the doors, and the fabulous rugs, the collection of early American pewter in the display cases, as well as the collection of signets and seals I didn't even bother to look at. Then they, too, have pornography, and add to that the brunch, when it was finally served at 3, was excellent, too. Talk and talk and talk, about Joan Rivers at Upstairs at the Downstairs, about a $15 helicopter tour that takes them UNDER the 59th Street bridge, if so desired, the making of the apartment, the businesses, and I get off about the nude encounter, Aureon, LSD, and managed to get an in with John Reed on that subject. By that time Paul and Kone have to get to my place to pack to get to the 4:30 train, so we cab across, they pack, come back to get the tickets, probably miss that train, and I begin fixing the place up, happy with the day, when Don calls and invites himself and a friend up. The friend is Arcadio, an old lover of Don's, and they listen to my story of the weekend, and of the brunch, and we're out to Angelo's to eat, and by that time it's raining, and we all go home. It's 11, but I'm terribly hot about the Tom pornography, and when it's obvious that they're not going to call me that evening (drat!), I get my piddly collection out and masturbate to great satisfaction, for the first time in something close to five days.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25. Wake at 8, much before the alarm at 9, and meditate and exercise with great discomfort and eat and shower and get to Rosey Sheik's after 10:00, but she's late, too, but when she looks at my teeth, they're all OK, and that's something to be very happy about! Get the slip from Warren, call him back, since I'd cut him off about $900 profit when I had to get to the dentist, and find that my profit IS $900 in one day. HOW HAPPY!! So I call Joe for about an hour, until he has to get off the phone to get to his analyst, and I fix up the apartment until 2:30, when I eat lunch, meditate, and get out for my meditation check at 5 pm. There are a lot of people waiting, but she shoos me in for a meditation, and answers my questions, and I find myself in Central Park, quite alone, at 6 pm. Get cracking on catching up on my DIARY, pages 70-77, and watch "Laugh-in" while Arno calls, and I tell him about the weekend, (sort through mail and get three pieces out), then eat dinner and watch "In Old Chicago." I'd meant only to catch the last part, but by the time 11:00 comes, I'm too tired for anything but watching TV. That's over at 1, and I go to bed then.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26. John Reed wakes me at 8:30 to tell me it has to be Friday that I go to his place, and I'm back in bed until 9:45, when I get up, meditate, exercise, and eat breakfast about 11, then decide to begin on the movie list anyway, since I'm always thinking about it and doing nothing about it, which is terribly frustrating. Try to fit everything into a schedule, and it seems that typing this diary page after the PM meditation is a good thing. I feel so weak coming out of the meditation, yet my fingers are still nimble, so as my metabolism comes up to peak, I can get a page of the diary done, then set about doing whatever ELSE I have to do, whether going out, or eating. So the exercise comes after the morning meditation, the diary comes after the evening meditation: now all I have to figure is where to put the work. John calls again to say I should make it THIS evening, and that's fine, despite the fact that I came with the vibrator, exhaustively, this morning. That's the way it goes, and if I have a good orgy tonight with his pornography, I won't feel like jerking myself off in the morning---at least, I hope so. About 5:30 I have to get out for groceries, or I'll have nothing in the house, and am putting them away as Cyndy calls. She talks about HER groups and I talk about MY groups, and by that time it's late, so I decide I have to meditate then, and then get to work on this page, deciding that all I'll have time to do is shave and shower and get something to eat outside, and also take the $9 to Eddie, since I'm passing that way, and I get finished with this, THIS DAY, thankfully, at 7:30 pm. So I do shave and shower and take the $9 to Eddie, who likes it, and get to John's about 9. He looks at the Aureon stuff, but it seems maybe like only a front, since he quickly says "You said you liked pornography?" and runs to get a satchel with two large notebooks and two smaller ones, AND a snifter filled with amyl nitrite. I inhale and get a terribly red feeling in the head, and can feel the blood pounding away inside, everywhere but in my cock. The Tom stuff is really fantastic, but I can't seem to get a hard-on. He gradually disrobes, and finally comes over to tweak my nipples, but there's still no deal. He refills the snifter a couple of times, and I conscientiously drag at it, but though I drip, I'm still down. To make it worse, I'm beginning to feel guilty, particularly since his own private photos turn me off, for the most part, and his body certainly does, as does the dog and the hair all over the place. Finally he leads me into the bedroom, but it's even worse there, and finally I say I'm going to try it without the poppers, and eventually he falls asleep. Eventually I work myself up to an orgasm over the lovely pictures, then start putting lights out and the radio off, but find the door won't lock. Wake him to let me out, which he ruefully does, and I'm home by 12, feeling disgusted with myself.
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 27. Up surprisingly late at 9:30, meditate and exercise and eat breakfast by 11:30, then get started on the movie list again. Joe calls for me to type a paper, and he's over from 2:30-4, and I tell him about that, AND about the phone call from Norma, inviting me over THERE for Thanksgiving, being driven by Grant Taylor, and I'm so HAPPY at the invitation I LITERALLY squeal with pleasure and dance around the apartment, grinning to myself. HOW GOOD HAPPINESS FEELS!! Eat a late lunch and get back to the movie list, finally finishing to my satisfaction, with all the associated frills and lists and charts, and put it into the folder and away by 10:30. It's late, but I still meditate (to some swirling mental images about the eyes, too), and insist on typing this single page before dinner, which is at 11:30 pm! Have dinner, and get started typing the inserts for the lovely new address book, and finally feel tired about 1 am, at which time I go to bed, looking forward to tomorrow, which sort of stops me from sleeping, for a while.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28 [THANKSGIVING DAY]. Had set the alarm for 9, but wake at 8, and so I meditate and exercise and eat breakfast and wash my hair and watch pieces of the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, watching Mighty Mouse and Snoopy over the roofs down Broadway, then get dressed and walk over to 333 E 69, picking up flowers for Norma on the way: nuts to Aureon, as I call it, but it's the thought. Grant Taylor is shocking in his long straw-haired hippie look, complete with black jet beads, tan Harlow pants of some fine flannel material, huge black boots with gold chain from instep to---outstep?, and a black turtleneck with a black stiff vest with two discreet gold studs. He fusses about the apartment, with a large painting by Betty Dodson on the living room wall, but there's the "decorator sterility" about it, and he's embarrassed about the mess everything's in because it's just been painted. Down to the cellar to pick up his black and white cock of a Cadillac, after telling Susan "It's too bad you're not feeling well so certainly you're not coming with us." Down to 121 Madison to pick up Betty, and SHE'S wearing a black turtleneck with pearls, a pair of tight black leotards over which the black tunic fights tightly, set off by a neat set of fucking figures on a tiny chain around her neck, and a set of phony jewels sparkling in a large chain around her waist, with a pair of enormous velvet and leather boots with wide leather thongs to tie them, capping off the whole thing. She throws a rather conventional coat over the things while I use her lavender-seated john, and admire her large, skillful, semi-pornographic paintings on her walls. How I'd like to commission a gay set of pornography from her! Down to the car and a lively conversation out to Great Neck, and we all agree that bisexuality is where it's at, and they say that I should find a guy I'm hot over, and while
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he would give his cold to the kids, so he ended up at his cousin's parent's place, and was now recuperating in bed. He went on for ages about the terrible situation in school: the kids complaining about the extra five minutes thrown in at the end of every period, preferring an extra period in the middle of the day---since the students have study halls in which they can do nothing, since fifteen classes are sandwiched into the auditorium, sometimes with no seats, so they sit on mats, on their books, on the floor, and it's impossible to keep them quiet, so they can't study, the stupid situation of keeping kids in school when they should be in training schools, which are only shams in this country, and the janitors are angry because the teachers are getting time and a half for what had been a holiday, the day after Thanksgiving, but they weren't, so they might have no unlocked doors, heat, or light tomorrow. I said it was too bad the teachers didn't think about all this before they stayed out so long, but it was all politics and hurt feelings, and the whole situation seems enormously stupid. To top it all, he can only flunk so many, since not everyone can be held back since they simply don't have the room, so he's forced to pass stupid people, and I remark I couldn't put up with such a scheme. Then I call Peter, and he's nursing Allan, who's sick, and I tell of the weekend, the brunch, and the dinner, and then I take a long hot bath, since I'm feeling coldish (pissed all day long), but the hot bath is enervating, so I lay atop the covers, waiting to cool down, crawl into bed at 10:55, then Peter calls to says that we're all going to Kevin's at 1 pm tomorrow. Lay until about 11:15, decide I'm hungry, and up for two eggs, and sleep about 12:30, tossing about thinking of all that's happened, no meditation tonight.
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29. Wake just about 9 and lie there, thankful that I don't seem to have a cold, get out at 9:30 to meditate, and type DIARY 80-83 for the holiday, and still feel somewhat weak and sick to the stomach---well, is it mental or physical? How I'd hate to go for another amoeba checkup!
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separately in the same room that's bugging us." Still no answer; he lies unmoving in his bed. I get up and sit beside him, he makes some slight motion to give me room. "I just don't know what to do." Still he doesn't answer. "Maybe I should move downstairs." Still no answer. Little doubt that he's still awake, though, even though I can hardly hear him breathing. "I'm cold out here," I say finally, pulling aside his covers to let me into his bed. At least he didn't push me away, but promptly removed his undershirt and shorts, and then we went into some sort of clinch, and I was gratified to find that he had a hard-on---at least I wasn't totally repulsing him. But as the covers came up and the bodies melded, I smelled the unmistakable smell of shit, and I thought he might have some sort of intestinal difficulties which would make him speechless with embarrassment (suppressed JOY?!), but later in the morning I got the same whiff from myself, and feared the smell might have come from me. Whoever it came from, he kept his erection, and seemed not to want to kiss, so finally I went down on him. He seemed to appreciate it, and stayed hard as I lapped around his medium cock, with a strange upward bend, and a VERY slippery head, as if he were uncircumcised, and the head was always protected, and very "new" as skin went. I kept working over him, and finally he made some sort of excuse about not feeling like coming, and after we lay quietly together for some moments, it was obvious that this, also, could go on forever if it were left up to him, so I said, "Well, I guess I'll get back to bed," and we both fell promptly asleep. At least it answered the questions about each other we may have had in our minds. Whatever they were, it seems that we didn't quite work out---that time, at least.
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30. Wake to the smell of bacon frying about 10 am, and go downstairs to give Kevin a somewhat embarrassing kiss, and get the bacon detail before Peter and Allan appear, looking refreshed from their night together. I think they're the villains in the Kevin-and-me fiasco: it's so difficult to see two people together, and not to have the other two wish
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after some little talk, it was 11:30, and they all went to bed except me, as I wanted to read a bit further in "Dimension of Miracles," having already finished "Yellow Submarine" while waiting for the dinner to cook. Then at midnight I went upstairs, with Kevin in the bed in the same room no longer the same sort of mystery that he was previously, and I had no trouble falling asleep as soon as I hit the bed.