1970 3 of 8
DIARY 1021
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 1. Back home and laze around, getting ready finally to walk over to Norma's for lunch, and it's still rather chilly out, but the sun is bright. Norma's on the phone with Arnie, and he talks me into seeing him at 3:30 for a walk in the park, and we decide where to go and end up at La Petite Maison, which we get to walking under drippy and puddly construction works in the melting snow, even though it IS the first of April. It's not the place I thought it was (or else they enlarged it), and the prices were reasonably cheap, though the sole sauté meuniere was so greasy that I came down with a diarrhea attack again that night, though it didn't last after the one. Norma and I have a lovely talk about how well we're doing, how understanding and honest and open we are, and how good the results are, and then I'm home about 3 in time for Arnie to arrive at 3:30, and we're out immediately to the park. It's still pretty slushy and his feet get quite wet, but even in one day there are many MORE trees around the boating pool which are discernibly colored with the coming spring, and some trunks are beautifully golden in the setting sun. We walk and chat and look out over the pondish playing fields with sea birds heightening the impression of a pond under the excess moisture, and as Joe said yesterday, the snow is good for the crops. Arnie has to get up to his therapy at 5:15, and I get home at 5:30, and Cyndy calls from downstairs at 6 to come up and cry on my shoulder until 7:30 about her depression, her fits of crying and unhappiness, and his desire for therapy now that her affair with Don, and all other affairs, have come to "meaninglessness." I cite my happy gay life as a goal to be attained, and she goes off, I eat, and shout "Shit" and "Damn!" on 57th at 8:15 as I recall that the Met starts at 8! Sit in the hallway until I look into the real viewing room, and the reflected TV picture is terrible and the sound is even worse, though Stratas as the Composer is indisposed and singing anyway. Meet Azak during intermission, and the second act isn't as good as the record, and I refuse his invitation to a party, and bed at 11:30!
DIARY 1022
THURSDAY, APRIL 2. Sleep in a cold bed at home, and spend much of the next morning and afternoon on the phone: with the landlord getting mollified by his rational explanation of the lousy repairmen he fired, a strike that stopped another set, scarcity of parts, reluctance of the repairman to say whether it should be replaced or not, and then call the complaint department a couple more times, keeping informed by the notes that Lee Berkeley puts up on the past three days. Call Bob to find how the gallery's going, and it's bad because the day is rainy, and my wishes to go into the park some every day to watch the coming spring is foiled as the next two days are really pretty bad. Call Joan and she has a part-time job, and tells me to call her the next day, since she's crying about the showcase she'd been arranging for herself falling through and she hates her office job, but I forget and call her too late, and don't talk to her for over a week. Call Avi and he and I have a long talk about what he thinks is coolness toward him, and Joe seems to be feeling the same thing, and I tell him how silly it is: first HE hasn't called ME at all, then I've been taking a lot of time with John, he's been taken up with his friends Ronnie and Bob, and I've been busy with other things, too. We talk for a long time and finally he makes some sort of comment about my mounting message units, and I find where my extra telephone bills come from. Finally about 5 pm there's the clink of heat coming up in the pipes, and with joy I run down to start the laundry, hop into the shower to wash my hair, then do the dishes while the clothes are drying, and at this point the heat could go off for ANOTHER week and a couple days, and I wouldn't mind at all. Dinner and subway out to the Brooklyn Academy for a rather nice "Meadowlark," a longer and somewhat boring "Early Songs," and a magnificently bizarre "The Maids" with Sowinski and Feld playing anomalous female maids in a hotel room with another woman and man. Very windy and I report a hotel window flying open, then to John's for a snack of cereal and quickly to bed, talking about how nicely we feel together, and sleep.
DIARY 1023
FRIDAY, APRIL 3. Back home in the morning deciding to get some business done. Yesterday, troubled by the reappearance of the diarrhea, and a little uncomfortable through the long morning when John completely forgot about his morning's work at home to entertain me in bed, I called the doctor and he told me to leave a sample at Bendiner and Schlesinger, and I rather determine to go there this afternoon, but I just don't feel like shitting, so I can't, and anyway it's rather lousy weather in the afternoon, with much rain. In the morning I called the framing shop and took Joe's four paintings up to 65th Street, and got a reasonable quote of $43 for the four nice frames. Walked down 57th with John to his job at Boosey and Hawkes after 11, then got the pictures out, then spent a long time on the phone with Azak deciding that John and he and I will be seeing the shows at the New Yorker, but what will I make for dinner for them afterwards? Think and concern myself about it, then call Joe at the Door Store and ask him along, and since we're four, we can have chili. Then Azak calls and wants to invite Jim Hazel and Bruce Lovelady along, so it'll be six, then I get to the store and pay almost $15 for a bagful of groceries, then talk to Avi and decide it might as well be 8, if I do a little more shopping tomorrow, and he tells me at length about his new friend, Eddie, who'll come along, and it's all set up for tomorrow. I make the chili and have one mild and one hot pot, and it tastes pretty good, despite the fact they didn't have purple, only white kidney beans, and then talk to Cyndy on the phone, and by then it's time to get to the Joffrey with Joe, and we see a very good "Solarwind," and I even like the music, and Christian Holder is quite good in "Astarte," and even "Petruchka" isn't bad, though Verso is nothing to rave about. Invited Azak and John Boyle over, but they don't show, Joe comes up for tea, then John comes at 12. Um. We sit and talk for a bit, but he still has to get up early for work and for his dance class, so we drink beer in the living room and I kiss the beery mustache and am reminded strongly of my father's smell. Strange.
DIARY 1024
SATURDAY, APRIL 4. Up early to get John off, and I start vacuuming and getting the apartment in order, but it all takes so much time and I don't get very far because I sit in front of the TV watching all the kid's programs from 8 am to 11 am, and there's really not much on that's very good, and the feeling of nausea builds and I really feel like vomiting, but decide it's because the room is getting warm, so I open the window, and there's a nice breeze for the first time this year. John comes back from class at 2 and wants to nap, so I go out for more groceries, and fill up a bag again and the refrigerator is completely packed with stuff, and then I tackle the dishes because everything has to be ready for the coming evening, and at 4:30 get into the bathroom to give quick licks to the tile, which is dreadfully black, and then shower and shave and get up to the theater at the crack of 5:30, to meet Avi and Eddie there, and Joe on the way, and Azak and friends don't show up, and we're in to "Cluny Brown" which has the Lubitsch touch and which Avi and Eddie sleep through, and "Seventh Heaven" which is really very soapy, though Charles Farrel is hunkily sexy and she does seem to be a good actress, and that's the 92nd of the Academy Award movies I've seen, only 8 to go, the first seen since 1966. Subway home with Azak, who says the other two aren't coming, and Azak becomes the bartender and John prepared the salad and dressing and I cook the chili and set the table and we all sit down to eat at 10:30, everyone starved, and they all like it, smoothed by the drinks and all the wine, and everyone seems full and there's a lot of food left, and the salad is strange with its orange and grapefruit, and the strawberries are still frozen, which is too bad, but John's cream is good, and at 11:45 Avi suggest they leave, which is just perfect, because John and I can pile things up and relax onto the sofa for a bit, talking about the success of the evening and the pleasures we take with each other's company, and lie quietly kissing and caressing and finally get off to bed, where we won't have sex, but enjoy each other's presence in the warm bed, and drop off to sleep by 12:30.
DIARY 1025
SUNDAY, APRIL 5. The morning is full of sex and pleasure, and while he's showering I put all the dishes away and set things up for breakfast, and that's only cereal and juice, and I suggest Coney Island, but there's not much time as HE reminds me about Eddie's coming at 5:30 for dinner at Larre's, and I think of Inwood Hill Park, and we drive up there, park his "Queenie" beside grass for the first time in a long time, and walk up the hill and along the highway, looking out over the Palisades, then clamber down to see the cruising spots near the river, stand right on the rocks at the northern tip of Manhattan, sit looking at the sun through the trees, climb a hill to get back to the top, watch dog-watchers and birds flying along, and avoid the glen and walk down the other side, sorry that there is no greenery except for shoots and grasses on the ground. He has a taste for ice cream, and I get a double-dip vanilla butterscotch and vanilla-fudge which lasts ages, tastes great, and numbs my tongue: it isn't spring yet. Drive all the way down to 125th on Broadway since the West Side Highway is so crowded, and the onto the East Side Highway, which is clear, and over to Brooklyn to get the tickets to the Joffrey for the evening, and back to my place at 5:30. I tried to call Eddie, but the theater line was busy, and he doesn't show up, he says later, because he wasn't sure I'd remembered. Decide to take John to Larre's anyway, but it's closed, and I think of Topkapi Palace, and it's not bad, though John only has the lousy eggplant, and I have the ropy dried pastirma, or something, which isn't that hot, and neither of us can finish the saccharine Ekmek Kadajif with Kaymak, and we stroll down to the theater for another "Petrouchka" and "Astarte" from the audience, a new twist, and a terribly done "Viva Vivaldi," not even Fuente being up to his old spark. John invited me to his place, and we drive out to get into bed immediately and chat about how nice the day was. He managed to do me twice this morning, so to repay him I went down on him and did him very nicely this evening, and even complimented him on how good it was. We're both feeling increasingly pleased with each other.
DIARY 1026
MONDAY, APRIL 6. Hold myself in during the morning, having to shit, and get off the subway with John at 14th Street to walk down to Bendiner. The girl takes my stool request with equanimity and I'm sent upstairs, given a glass-covered Petri dish and directed into the ladies room to deposit a stool, and I say I won't need medication, I don't think. Immediately I produce a warm, rather yellow, long and smelly turd which steams up the glass when I drop it in, and the attendant says that will be fine. Glad that the fee was only $15, since I had only $20 to my name, and wouldn't have had a subway token to get home with. Buy four Moby Dick envelopes at the Post Office after making a fool of myself asking for a plate block of them, and then Bob calls, saying that "Women in Love" starts at 12:40, but he fears a line, so we should be there at noon. I shower and shave and get there just in time to read the ads and meet Bob, and he tells me all about his troubles with Avi, and Avi lied to him about Eddie on Friday, and the movie is just great: acting, storyline, thoughts about love, photography, characterization, application to today's living. Bob and I both love it. Then down to a photographer who turns out to have done things for Joan, too, for 100 shots of Carlin which are being dried, then to typesetters for a cute boss and cuter typesetter, then it's 4 and Bob has to get home, so I'm back home to watch a severely butchered "Kiss Me, Kate" on TV, and get a call from Mrs. Berg, who says Charlie brought back the antlers, tried to get me on the weekend, but her apartment is going to be painted, so I'll have to get them tonight. Call John and he says he will do it for me, so I agree to meet him at the Public Theater to see the Arena Theater of Sao Paulo for "Arena Conta Bolivar," and it's mainly in Portuguese (where they aren't spoofing the French, the Italians, or the Americans, and I find it very dreadful, and John and I talk about movement and feelings expressed, and I'm short with him and he's short with me. Get up to Berg's at 10:45, and talk with her a bit, and they're huge, with a big box of butternuts. Ask John to stay, but he says no. Oh.
DIARY 1027
TUESDAY, APRIL 7. Sleep until about 10, feeling much better from the long solo sleep, and actually get half the dishes washed from the party on Saturday, which is good because the onions were beginning to smell up the whole place. Then it's getting close to noon, so I shave and dress and it's so late I cab to Lutece, but it's so slow I get out and walk, being 15 minutes late, and John changed his name to mine, and we met at the table in back, and he was endlessly flattering of my looks, better because of my flowingly clean hair. He starts with something which has more salmon than the brioche de brochet, and I'm asking for madrilène, but the waiter demurs and recommends the asparagus, which is simply delicious with ham. And he has cucumbers with the cress sauce, too. He has kidneys Bercy, which are whole and strong tasting, so I liked mine better, and I can't find anything on the menu, so they suggest a beef cutlet with wine sauce and the cepes type mushrooms. Very good, with cauliflower au gratin and nicely blackened home-fried potatoes. We have the Beaujolais, and he pronounced it very good, so I decide I don't like Beaujolais, it's as simple as that. For dessert he has a mocha ice cream cake which is quite rich, and I have the mousse, which has bits of undissolved gelatin in it like tiny maggots, and bits of chunk chocolate, so the texture is nothing like perfect, but the taste is good. We have coffee three times and a couple rounds of cookies and it's 2 or a bit after, and I walk him up to his place in the bright sun, and one of these days Rita sends her birthday gift, a copy of "Bored of the Rings," and I start reading that, and I pick up laundry and do more shopping, and settle down to TV from 8 to 12, watching the rest of the Fellini film interview (OH, today I walked from Lutece to the Symphony, re-saw "West Side Story" with Feld and Verso, and "In the Heat of the Night" finally, for Academy Award films), and the Academy Awards to 12. Then read a bit of the "Bored" until 1, but felt very tired and had to get to bed.
DIARY 1028
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8. Up early and read the rest of "Bored" until about 11, then got up to wash the rest of the dishes until about noon, listening to records, then out to buy groceries since John's coming over tonight to smoke and we'll go to "2001" again. Buy fresh ears of corn, pork chops, a fresh cantaloupe, and frozen raspberries to use up some more of the cream that's flooding the refrigerator. Talk to people on the phone, and then it's time to start cooking for John, who comes in just before 6:15, and I look at the Sunday Times and find it starts at 7, so he quickly shaves and showers as the pork chops finish and the corn boils, and then we eat everything but the salad and light up the pipe, which is terribly strong and I cough mightily because of the heavy smoke. We get out walking and it begins to hit me, and we run to get to the theater on time, getting there about 10 after 7, and into the very plush lobby, which John hates, to wander through the lounge and up the stairs and around the corner and past the goody shop and the checking area of the enormously elaborate Ziegfeld Theater. It's just the end of the Dawn of Man sequence, and we find out later it REALLY started at 6:45, so we start into the thrills and I'm vaguely high as the flight to the moon takes place, but by the time the trip comes, after the intermission, I don't feel at all high, just very comfortable with John, and it's still a pleasantly spectacular movie, but when it's over we decide the pot hadn't helped us that much. Stay to see the moon landing again, then walk back home for the salad and dessert, and then we talk and cuddle and it's very quickly 11:30, and we go to bed. I still have the urge to catch up with the Diary all day, but the time seems to pass and I just don't get around to it. Each week seems to fill up with activities about the preceding weekend, and every evening is taken, and many afternoons are filled with various activities, too. I'm hardly ever alone for long stretches of time, and though it's pleasant, the guilt about not working on the book is building and building, and I've GOT to get to it.
DIARY 1029
THURSDAY, APRIL 9. Wake early for John and have lovely sex, and then up determined to put the apartment into order and get down to the Diary to catch up and then I begin to feel the surge for a "Where am I now?" and actually get down to it, typing ten pages. But the going is slow since I'm so much out of practice, and the days are so far into the past that I have trouble remembering what I did, mixing up the activities of one day with another, and having to correct myself and change things in an unpleasant way. Call Dr. Shiffman and he's finally gotten the results of my stool examination from Bendiner, and he says I don't have amoebas, but I do have Giardia Lamblia, which is an amoeba which usually infests children, which I may have picked up in South America, but it's relatively easy to get rid of, and he gives me a prescription for Quinacrine, which I find is related nomenclaturally to Atabrine. Decide since I'm down there to find the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, but get down to find the bookshop closed at the foot of Christopher, and look to find it's on Mercer St., which is over near Broadway. There are lovely people on the streets going down toward the trucks, and I debate going, following a cute twosome until they walk down Bleecker, and then find the Studio. There are too many customers to inquire if there's anything under the counter, and some drawings by Stryker are sexy, but not worth $4, and they have all of Colt's drawings and pictures and practically every magazine in the world, but none of them is really exciting, so I get back to the paperback shop and buy a hardcover "Love and Will" by Rollo May, and three early Hesse things, probably thinking of getting such a backlog of reading that I won't even contemplate sitting reading it. John's trying to get rid of his "Katarina Ismailova" ticket for Sunday so we can go to the ballet, and I finally call Neil Edison, who's going on vacation and an intern, and Bill Berkowitz, and Azak and Avi, but no one wants it. Eat chili and up to a fairly good Dance Theater Workshop, with sexy Aaron Osborne, and at 10:30 we drive over to John's and I shower and we get to bed to say how nice it all is.
DIARY 1030
FRIDAY, APRIL 10. Yesterday I'd hyped myself into thinking the dentist appointment was yesterday, and I'd gotten to 10 am, happy that my stomach was feeling so easy, but then I checked my calendar and found it was Friday, calling her just to make sure. So today I subway up feeling like the time is passing quickly, and she takes about two minutes to drill, and the form for the silver is the most painful part, aside from when she seemed to be ripping the gum into a bloody pulp to even out the surfaces. Out before 11, feeling great, but decide not to pick up the framings since it looks like rain. Back to the apartment and struggle through eight pages more of typing, finally getting close to being caught up, and then I call Eddie to see if he wants the opera ticket, but he refers me to Peter Whitehead, who comes over about 4 and chats until about 5:30, and he's young and seems to have a nice body, but his light skin isn't white nor black, and he's not tremendously sexy, so though the talk is nice, and he can get free standing room tickets in the Dress Circle because he works in the Met souvenir shop, there's no inclination on my part to go to bed with him. Also spent two hours with souvenirs to find the rubbing, and separate out matchbooks and cards. Call Joan through Bill Dremak, who definitely wants to put the make on me, and I'll have to start avoiding him, and she's working at "Dark of the Moon," so won't be able to see the dance performances. Just after I got back from the dentist's, Lois called and told me the dreadful story of getting beaten up by the drunken Angelo, or whatever his name was, and waiting in Penn Station before she got frightened and took a cab to Jersey for $40. Then the next night, Sunday, her husband hollered at her, she howled, and he slapped her. She was traumatized, couldn't even talk about it until today, feared for her daughters' fears, and asked me down to stay with her for the LSD lecture, so that problem is solved if John doesn't want to drive me down. Phone other people to tell them about the dance, but no one wants to go, so the second program I see only with John, and it's not as good, and we end up sleeping here, he still nibbling on all the Fritos that weren't eaten last Saturday. Bed at 12.
DIARY 1031
SATURDAY, APRIL 11. He's up to work early and I don't feel like doing anything, so I settle down with "Peter Camenzind," which I'd read about 20 pages of before, and get through the 200 pages by 11, not being terribly impressed by it as a Hesse, but it's a rather nice first novel. He just wasn't convincing as a 27-year-old trying to describe the life of a fellow beyond 27. Start fixing up the apartment in preparation for the dance this afternoon, and John calls at 1:15 to say he'll pick me up at 1:45, fifteen minutes earlier than planned, so I heat the chili and eat it on the run, getting there just a minute late, and Jeff and he and I talk about Feld's company and modern dance in general, and the afternoon performance is not even half full, and we leave at the first intermission to get to my place about 4:30, and he shaves and showers and I shave and shower, and that's about all there's time for, and we have to get back into the car to drive up to his "Hungarian restaurant that only Hungarians and I know about," the Tip Top, and they steal our table, and the pork goulash is tasty but not terribly good, and we have a nice chat and bull's blood wine, and the four of us are feeling very good as we drive back to Manhattan School of Music at 7:15. There's more of an audience for this, and the theater is about 3/4 full on the orchestra floor, and the program is better than the first time. John and I were planning to go to Club Jim, and we asked Bob and Jeff to go along, and we met Art, and decided to join Deborah Jowitt and her husband at some place called Sazarac House in the Village, and she's pleasant and we all talk about touring in DC and the problems with Clive Barnes favoring Eliot Feld, and we drop Jeff off and finally Bob and Art invite us to their place. John debates, but I say we can try it, so we do (see following pages), staying there all night. The wind on the streets is very cold, and there were days up to 75 on Thursday, and that got everyone interested in spring, and John was very sad that it wasn't warming up fast enough to suit him, moaning "Spring will NEVER come this year," but the forecast for next week is warmer.
DIARY 1034
SUNDAY, APRIL 12. I wake at 9 with an urge to shit, and I get Bob out of the bedroom to say he wants to sleep longer, and we have the session described on the last page. Art came out for breakfast in a robe, but he took it off at our insistence. The bacon was overdone, but the scrambled eggs were soft and tasty, the muffins delicious, the orange juice vivifying, and the second pot of coffee he made was drinkable, the first thrown out. We talked about his plants and the plans for fixing up the apartment, and then Jeff was called again, and John invited everyone over to his place for dinner before going to the Feld ballet in the evening. I checked the New York magazine to find this was the last day for the exhibit at Automation House, and we began hurrying to leave, but by the time we found a parking place just off Park on 69th, it was 2:15 and they had to leave for their concert at Carnegie at 3. John and I found the house and wandered in, paying the surprise dollar for him, and we left our shoes off and enjoyed stepping on the glass and neon floor, walking between the pulsing Mylar drumheads and making faces in the strobe light, but the Time-Lag Accumulator wasn't working, and many of the other exhibits were torn down, and we had much fun with the light-beam sounds coming from the four facing plates of stainless that looked like small Cinerama screens. Out about 3:15, after standing in line for the Infinity Chamber, which was nice, and to the Heights to do some shopping, and John started on the quiche and I started on the salad, and he baked brownies, I went out for Parmesan cheese, and everything was ready by 6:30, when Bob and Art and Jeff came in. We had a quick drink, they were impressed by his apartment, and Art and I sat across from each other and made no secret from Bob (but we did from John) that we were playing footsie with each other under the table. Yes, and John and I had a lovely walk and frank and open talk on the promenade in the afternoon, too. Then we drove to the ballet, and all but "Early Songs" seemed somewhat poorer than I remembered, and we got back for salad and dessert, and they left about 11:45 after saying they'd go early.
DIARY 1035
MONDAY, APRIL 13. Back to 57th at 9:15 after some sort of subway delay which kept the High Street station subwayless for 15 minutes, and then decided I really had to work on my Income Tax, just to see how much it would be, and how much I would have to pay, before deciding not to report my stock transfers at all. Find to my delight that I have to pay much less than I thought, and get all the scrap paper work done to find very nicely that I owe the government (federal) only $34.80, and don't owe the state anything, and owe the city 99 cents, which I don't have to pay since it's under $1. Call Avi to tell him the good news, and he tells about his last meeting with Bob, so the last time they had sex was the unsatisfying evening prefixed by Avi's forcing chess on the reluctant Bob on April 1, so the affair lasted from March 2 to April 1, EXACTLY the one month I thought it would last. Bob talks about the upcoming social events in the Erotic Festival of Arts, and he mentions his file cards with the "O" in the corner, specifying "Open for Sex," and he's thinking of having some sort of gathering on Thursday, so that takes care of that day. Then Joan calls, finally, inviting John and me to the "Dark of the Moon" on Wednesday, and then I think of the double I want to see at the New Yorker, and John agrees to see it on Tuesday, and suddenly the entire week, which had been empty before, is filled up. I get down for tickets to "Dolly" and spot a new "Steak and Brew," so I call him and we agree to eat there at 7. He comes down and we think we might go to the Sanctuary afterwards, so we dress in sexy bell-bottom jeans. The steak is pretty good, and a $10 dinner bill isn't bad, so I paid $10 for the evening with $2 tip, and Avi paid $10.10 for the dinner. The movie was spectacular and skillful, but it couldn't overcome a lousy play except for the "Hello, Dolly" production number in the spectacular Harmonia Gardens, which reminds me of the temple in Intolerance. We're tired, so I walk him up CPW in the balmy evening air from 11 to 12:15, meet and talk with Allan, and he's still remarking about how sexy I am and then calls at 1:15 to tell me about the astronauts.
DIARY 1036
TUESDAY, APRIL 14. Up at 9 to masturbate, then finish the Income Tax by 11. Then I keep at the desk and type 8 pages which catches me up to date on the diary pages again, and then John calls and I tell him I've been catching up and he asks if I'm going back to the book, and I say I am, but I get off the phone to do anything but, and that's writing a three-page letter to Rita. Call Azak and he still hasn't decided what to do about the weekend, and then I call Elaine to tell her to send a map, and she ends up giving me directions over the phone, and talking about this and that, and it's going to be quite a bill. It's raining rather hard out and when I go down to mail the letters I decide to use the mailbox in the building for the first time, since Josie guarantees me that they pick it up regularly. Call the New Yorker to get the time schedule, and John wants to make it as early as possible, so we arrange to meet at 7:45, but he doesn't get there until 7:55, and I've mistaken where the pizza place is, and have gotten a bit hungry, so I bought three éclairs at a pastry shop, ate one waiting for him, and then he arrived, we sat through the end of "Sunrise," marveling at the amusement park and the storm at sea, then during the intermission we eat the other éclairs and I dribble on my nice blue shirt. Then watch "Me and My Gal" and it's surprisingly funny, with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett making wisecrack after wisecrack, joke after joke, and they may have been old jokes then, but they were all new to us, and we found them very funny. John was a bit short-tempered and tired because he didn't have anything to eat, but he didn't want to walk up to 95th for pizza, Tibbs was closed, so we subwayed to my place and had raisin bread toast, Munster and Swiss cheese, tomatoes, and bits of goose liver, and I finished up with a piece of peach pie. By then it was 11:45 and he showered and we got into bed, and we kissed and cuddled, but I was tired so the light went out by midnight, and I could set the alarm quite late, at 8, since he said there was no use his getting there before they turned the lights on in the building.
DIARY 1037
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15. Up at 7 and stretched-out sex until 8, breakfast with him, then don't feel like writing so I settle down to read Hesse's "Under the Wheel," a rather uneventful account of someone's descent from a scholar to a welder's apprentice, and that takes to 11:30, what with washing socks, then shower and shave and subway down to John's at Dutton at 12:10, eat a quick hot lunch of ham and macaroni at the quaint Singing Kettle, where a wizened old lady looking like a 95-year-old Katherine Hepburn with matchstick arms and chicken wing muscles hanging below it lets us in the door, a plump smiling woman cook gives excellent service with the tiny salad with dressing, the five halves of bread with the crusts removed and a microtonic coating of butter, the vegetable soup with a strange sour-lemon taste, and the super angel cake for dessert literally drowning in mediocre fudge sauce. It's only $3.10 for the both of us, and John insists on treating. Then we walk around Gramercy Park for a bit, going into the National Academy of the Arts for an exhibit in the grand old townhouse, then I walk down to meet Bart at the Randall House Coiffures, but he's not in today, so I walk across 8th Street to the Lexington subway, vaguely wanting to buy something, feeling vaguely sexy though I just had sex in the morning, and I look at all the attractive fellows on the street and would love to have almost any of them in bed. Subway up and decide to walk in Central Park, where the forsythia is almost completely out, the willow branches are bright green clusters of sky-rocket bursts clustered about the center of the tree, the hedges are beginning to show bright fleshy green leaves, other trees are just barely starting, and daffodils grow in patches along the roadways. Home at 4:30, call Azak and Bob and Elaine to say we're coming Sunday, and Claude to arrange to sit in on his first Theater Games class. Count times I've had sex with everyone, come with difficulty over all my photographs, and it's time to go downtown, where I meet John (who knew it was me) in the Oscar Wilde Bookshop, we go for a sexy nude "Dark of the Moon," then to Joan's for tea to 12, then to John's.
DIARY 1058
THURSDAY, APRIL 16. Up at 6:30 for sex to 7, doze to 7:30, home at 8:45. Begin to write letters to the last remaining people, still thinking of absolutely clearing the way for the book, and write to Claudia and Grandma and Mom before it's time to get down again to lunch with John, this time going with a sweet-personalitied Tom Borek, whom John is interviewing for his assistant, to the Old Town bar, where we have sandwiches (I have a lovely cream cheese and jelly) and beer (I have a lousy imported ale that they were pushing), and we all pass up lunch. I'd gotten down to Bart's at noon beforehand, so that John and Tom could see and approve my new hairdo, and Bart is rather mouse-faced and rat-tail haired, but has one of the cutest asses in captivity under wildly striped red bell corduroys. He talks of his car and battery troubles which kept him out of work yesterday, and about his girl, how he's bought property in the Adirondacks, and when he builds a house he'll have to have "all the fellows" up for a weekend or so. Very good. The haircut is only 20 minutes, including washing, cutting, drying, and spraying, and the cost $7, but the effect is rather good as soon as I get home and shower and wash out the spray. Finish writing letter to Bill and Paul and Svein-Erik, and get everything out of the way before calling Mom at 7 to find out how she is, and she calls back to tell me that Larry Ball's father died on Sunday and was buried yesterday, so that's one more letter I have to write, at least, and many checks to send out when my check comes through from the sale of the last three shares of IBM, which is due to come through next Monday, so I might have the check by next Wednesday. Eat and Cyndy calls about selling her ounce back to her, so I go up to her place to recoup my $18, which gives me enough cash for the weekend. Also, I forgot, I went to Joan's after lunch for a great card reading involving success, fortune, fame, but I'll have to resist a current business contract, settle down to concentrate my energies on one field, and do something worthwhile in the next two weeks, when I'll be taking small trips. To Stan's for DIARY 1038-1057.
DIARY 1059
FRIDAY, APRIL 17. Up early, since I'm into the groove of getting up early, and fuss around to 11 fixing up the apartment, namely by washing the walls in the bathroom. Try to do the ceiling, but it's so dirty and the thing gets so streaky with the dirt that I just can't finish it. I'll just wait until they paint in a month or so. Call Bob and have the conversation mentioned in ORGY AT STAN'S, call Eddie to tell him all about it, John to tell him all about it, and he says he doesn't want to see the double at the New Yorker, nor the film at Eddie's so he'll buy a Village Voice and come over here to see what we'll do this evening. I subway up at 2:30 to see Shirley Temple and Jack Haley and Alice Faye in "Poor Little Rich Girl," and she really did have some little talent for a plump chick, and "Chandu the Magician," which had some rather good wind effects, interesting first tries at spectacular effects as the "Death-Ray" wipes out cities all over the world (in Bela Lugosi's imagination), and I also have a thing in the balcony and orchestra (see next page). Have only $2 with me, and spend the last of it on the subway back, and John is a bit late, so I didn't have to rush to get back at 5:05. He looks through the paper and sees Michael Kirby's name attached to something called "Bleecker Street Alogical," and calls for reservations for that, since he's liked Kirby's books on "Happenings" and "Art of Time," which he gave me to read. I cook chicken and defrost spinach and open Progresso split pea soup, and he doesn't want any dessert of peach pie, and we have wine and subway down to Bleecker Street, where we have trouble finding the loft, and then "Seven" proceeds to act out four skits, acts them again with variations, changes characters, breaks them completely apart until they read a list of the words used, and then they put them back together: sonata form carried not quite as far as I'd like to see it carried, but pleasant anyway. We'd promised not to talk about it, but did anyway. I'd packed rapidly and we subwayed to John's, where he packed and we went to bed at midnight.
DIARY 1061
SATURDAY, APRIL 18. Up rather late at 7:30 after lovely sex, and into car just after 8 with apricot Danish and hot coffee served up for breakfast, and I drip on his nice white levis which I decided looked better on me than my clothes. We chat about the play last night, coming to some hazy conclusions, mainly that we look at things differently, and we stop so that he can buy some new tires, talking to a girl who vows that Reading's dreadful. Into Winterthur about 11:30, walking the still-not-blooming azalea trail, seeing daffodils and magnolias, laying on the grass at the edge of a golf course doing sit-ups and somersaults and head stands and grooving on each other and the lovely day, then walking through pine woods, looking at robins and cardinals, gaping at the huge museum-house, then back at 1 to the cafeteria for a relaxing lunch looking out at the woods, still stark in winter branches. The short distance to Longwood Gardens passes, and we take in the fountains, the Italian water garden, the back woods, kissing where no one can see us, and into the conservatory for a mind-blowing collection of orchids, insectivores, tulips, roses, ferns, cacti, and finally when we were overwhelmed by the giant hyacinth, I agreed we'd had enough and had better go. It was now about 3:30, and we started toward Reading on some non-scenic roads which were very pretty and some "scenic" roads which were nothing but strings of motels and furniture salesrooms. On the outskirts we called in to find where Joe's Restaurant was, and got there to find a rather nice place, and the waitress assured us that the picked mushrooms, the piroshki mushrooms, the filet mushrooms, the crab meat mushrooms, and the mushroom pie were all different mushrooms, but we talked to the cook after and found that they weren't. Check into the Y at 9, wander the town looking for bus stations and bars, and find the Glass Door just down from the Y. Strike up a conversation with the cute Hayes, who refers us to the Washington Hotel, which we take two blacks to, but it turns out rather disappointing, so we leave in 10 minutes, having had a 15 cent draft beer (one), drive back to the Y, and put two mattresses on floor.
DIARY 1062
SUNDAY, APRIL 19. Wake at 8 and have nice sex, then shower and put the mattress back in John's room, congratulating ourselves on not being seen, and of course the downstairs hall is full of a good-looking guy we hadn't seen at all before, and we get $1 back, so the room was $5.02 for each, not that cheap. Lousy late breakfast where John wanted to get a good Pennsylvania Dutch feast, with greasy eggs, over-done bacon, awful scrapple, and terrible canned orange juice. But, strangely, the guy in the Glass Door gave me $5.60 change for two beers for my $5, and the woman gave OUR check to someone else, so our bill was 30 cents less than it should have been. John smiles that they look at my hair and are so taken they can't resist making mistakes in my favor. What a doll! Stop off at a blossoming pottery mill, then John sees a garden store for the potting soil he wants, and I take the chance to call Elaine to find Azak stuck in Trenton. We drive down the river to Trenton, looking at the old British barracks John finds so beautiful, then down to the flea market where Azak buys a "gold" Schaeffer pencil and wants to buy an andiron/fire screen set, but there's no room in the car. Get lost trying to avoid New Hope traffic and find Centerbridge, and call Warren for directions, and up the startling road to the lovely stone house "8-rooms" as he calls it, and Kenny and Bill and he sit uncomfortably with us, talking with Azak after showing John and me the house while Azak shaved. The pool looks great, and the river view is unparalleled. Down and to Bucks County, calling Elaine to say we'll be there (thanks to John) at 9:30, and we listen, question, eat (see next pages), and listen again before we have to leave, and Azak and he schedule a NYC talk about tissue cultures, and I say I'll be calling to talk to him, maybe about a job. To Elaine's, and I talk with a rather sullen Dick, and Elaine tells us all about Genghis, and Azak can't possibly sleep on the couch, so he pulls up a rug on the floor and John "sacrifices" himself by sleeping at the side, away from the rest of us, and we get to sleep quite early, about 11:30, in the shadeless room.
DIARY 1066
MONDAY, APRIL 20. I wake at 6:10, then again at 7 to hear John's story (next page) and Elaine's daughter gives Azak an "Earthday" pin in return for Azak's gift of his pencil to Elaine, and she refuses to go to work because it's raining, but doesn't do anything for us, lets us get our own breakfast, and we proofread parts of the River for next time, she gives me my copies and I pack up and we all get out in the rain to the car. Eat a snack on the way back and get in at noon, leaving Azak off for the subway, and getting back to John's where I read first part of "Art of Time" and go for his groceries while he does the laundry and a bit of work, and then we cuddle and have a shower and eat beef tartar with a salad, and it's not bad, but we're a bit late to Claude's at 7. He looks terrible with his beard, but then he starts showing the exercises and his shirt pulls up, he's nicely defined, though Al later says he's in a terrible state of extreme poverty and desperation. Etta is vapid and "will do anything" and Nedda is a part-time computer programmer who seems very sure of herself. John and Al look like they know what they're doing, Ric is cute and new at it, Dick Siegfried is plainly ugly, but has a nice body, though he tends to over-react in the class. Kay is bright and chipper for an older woman, and Lynn or Lee or Lynley is blond and vacant. He asks how I'm enjoying it at the break and I ask to join in, but he says it's all programmed, and I can't. I try to do bits of the foot twist, the relaxing (when John falls asleep), the people-staring, and the Who? Where? Exercise, but the tone turns me off, and he says I can join in the final tone, and it seems difficult. He and Etta do very well with the rope in the tug of war, the comforting thing looks like it could be exciting, the exercises start easy, and the "just be" and "reading without affect" seems about the hardest things to do. Everyone tends to be tolerant of people's hang-ups, in mirror-imaging, in the "trust" exercise in falling, in the way things are done, so I don't have any fears of goofing up. Except for leading from the head, not feelings.
DIARY 1067
TUESDAY, APRIL 21. We end up here in the morning, and sleep rather late, using the massage unit rather yummily, and out of bed almost at 9, when John does some work here naked and I get to various fusses with correspondence and letters and diaries, and then he takes his cushion out to have it re-sewn, I take the antlers finally to E. 53rd, since that's where he's going, and I remind him of the $30 charge quoted over the phone, and we look around the furniture showroom, and John is charged only 95 cents for a large sandwich and a beer, and he says the under-changing syndrome is still happening for me. I get up to talk to Daisy and Dick Triantafellow, who both are looking rather dreadful, and I'm sure they reacted also to my frizzy hair and blue jeans and casual growth of stubble from not shaving, but they didn't say anything. Call Joe to find out how things have been, and Bob calls to tell me about the party, the last one and the one coming up, here, and Eddie calls to ask if I want to buy an ounce, to tell me that they'll be accepting passes at the theater, and Arno calls to report about the date of the unveiling of Don's gravestone. John wants me to come over that evening, but I want to watch "Sylvia Scarlet" on TV from 11-1, and he says that's too late for him to be sleeping here, too, so he won't come over. Bob calls again to invite me over, but I'm watching a good half hour on Drugs on 13, and then John and Al come over because the ballet orchestra is on strike, and we talk about his book which was so liked by Harpers that they kept it for four months, then turned it down, and then 21 other publishers in a year turned it down, and so far he's done the outline on another book and worked on the staff of the A&P (Funk and Wagnalls) Encyclopedia. They get out about 10:15 to get home to bed, and I turn on the transvestite Katherine Hepburn, but though she's fun to watch, it's later and later, the commercials are terribly long, and by the time 1 am rolls around (which is the latest I'm been up in several weeks), I'm really ready for bed, and fix up the apartment just a bit, from the mess it was when John and Al were here.
DIARY 1068
WEDNESDAY APRIL 22. Up at 8:15 and decide to start typing the rest of "Orgy at Stan's," and hit on the idea of typing the date on the first page I type on that date, and then go through about 14 pages before John calls and says he can't work because of the fuss outside due to "Earthday" around 14th Street, and why don't I come down "I'm just another distraction," as he admits. I get down at 11:45, having washed and eaten nothing, and we have interesting stuff at the Singing Kettle, then walk to the Air Bubble, where John is hoping people will disrobe in the heat, and I get down to jeans only, but we're chased out to let them repair the holes people have kicked and walked in it. Listen to the speeches for a bit, preventing people from leaving the park by way of the bushes, which are being trampled down, and we watch a tree being moved in to be planted and run into Jeff Duncan, who runs into a black friend of his with cock two inches above his navel, and we walk, listening to the speeches and grooving on the lovely guys, and we're so blatant that a straight doll in a suit looks at us and smiles "Hello, Sweety," and I get a wave later on from a cute-faced guy wheeling a pram. We walk down 14th to 7th Avenue, looking at the uninteresting stalls and great people, John tight-rope walks the center line to rub crotches with a cute teenager, Jeff meets other friends then goes off, John meets David Amram and girlfriend, and another wife of some other composer, and we all stand and talk and listen to the conch-blower and purple-undershirted carrot-top, cute kids in tight trousers and happy faces, and we walk back to his office to get some money AND the stamps which he so generously let me select, giving me some REALLY LOVELY STAMPS, and we walk up to Altman's to buy hair shampoo, then I try the Abercrombie shaver for $32.50 which John's catalog wants $27.50 for, and walk home, tired, type some more, then get out to a terrible ballet of "Sleeping Beauty" with lifeless orchestra, weakening Margot Fonteyn, and muscularly precise Rudy Nureyev, and a cute Miss Vere and a slowed-down Bluebird. Out at 11:30 to find John sleeping from 10. Cuddle.
DIARY 1069
THURSDAY, APRIL 23. Finish sex exhausted at 8 am, and John leaves by 8:30. Decide not to eat breakfast and to tend to the restaurants in Cue, and when there are a lot of new ones, decide to see which old ones aren't there anymore, and put in written entries for those which I've seen there but which haven't appeared lately. This is finished at 11:15, a waste of morning. Determine to finish everything up, so I type 9 pages which brings me completely up to date on the diary, and send out many bills after I finally get my check from Warren, go to the bank, buy a new roll of stamps, and get back loaded with cash and money to write checks with. Send out about 7 bills and letters to Elaine (since I got the poems by Mike Horowitz, priced at 25 cents for which I paid $5) and Larry and Paul, then Norma calls to say she has an apartment on 57th and 9th, and then everything is cleaned up and it's only 5 pm, but showering and shaving and getting ready for the class takes up the rest of the time, and I get to Claude's just before 7, and Chuck is the new person, straight-looking and darkly cute, with a mobile face and pleasing body. We start with relaxation, do stretches and walks and runs, some strange---being drawn by strings attached to chest, tail, back, shoulders, shoulder-blades, and top of head. Pairs of pairs mirror each other, create precious object, pass it to each other, then put it together; two groups watch swimmers and a building construction, we feel, smell, make a chord, reach, feel space as different, pass around expressions which sum up our day, play the trust/fall game, discuss our reactions, have two breaks, and get out at 10:15. I want to take John something, so buy a cantaloupe, and get there to find that his surprise is a hot fudge sundae, and I burp cantaloupe up through sundae for strange effect. We sit and talk about the class and he sips sherry, then at 11:15 we get into bed and chat a bit, I saying how nice my day was partly because of him, and we get to sleep. It's getting easier and easier to sleep with him, I'm able to get off without any sort of counting, turning, fussing, or waiting for him to be asleep.
DIARY 1070
FRIDAY, APRIL 24. He does me nicely and wants to leave bed at 8, but I say "Oh, no, you don't," and do him, too, and we're slightly late out of the apartment. I stop at Chase Manhattan at 52nd and 6th for a Ticketron charge of 25 cents added to a price of $3 for "Elephant Steps" at Hunter, find that Brentano's isn't open until 9:45, get my dry cleaning, call the framer to see that he'll be there, wrap up Joe's and my portraits of me, and get out to find that it's just beginning to drizzle. Make it to the framers just in time, and then it starts pouring, and he gives me three frames, says the fourth is on order, prices the rubbing mat and the portrait framing and stretching, and I'm in a hurry to get to Joe's by 10:30, and he accepts my rushing off without paying him. Drenched to Joe's, and we chat about John and Joe's painting, and subway back home. Get to work on the dishes and they take 45 minutes, then vacuum the entire apartment after fixing things up and dusting completely, even dismantling the dog which stood in the metal sculpture so long since Joe did it, putting the humidifier away, and get ready to do the final thing, scour the bathroom tub, when I decide to see what's been doing, call Avi to find he's got gonorrhea again, still seeing Eddie, but only a little, will join me for "The Unknown," John calls three times about my getting into Hunter and joining them at the Casa Laredo, I call John Connolly who tells me of the "heart failure" of Miles Rosenthal from the nice house on Hudson, and his step-father was a naval officer and an alcoholic, his step-sister demanded the body be removed, the mother was a bitch, he was always high on drugs prescribed by a crazy doctor whose brother is an Admiral who mistreats his men---all very bizarre, and he invited me to Glenway's, maybe, this Sunday. Then it's 5:30, I have time only to shave and brush teeth and shower before subwaying down to Laredo, having the Laredo, and Allan Kreigsman is very pleasant to talk to, and we drive to Hunter and see a Chaplinesque Brecht play with camp, German Impressionism, great singing, deafening rock, and repetitious talk. See Reuben Ter-Arutunian, Jonas Mekas, Mrs. Morton Baum, talk with Eileen Schauler, Omus Hirschbein, drink champagne.
DIARY 1071
SATURDAY, APRIL 25. Wake at 7:30, hug to 7:35, John goes at 8, type to 9. (NOW) Call Lois, but she's still asleep, and decide I can't do anything, so I sit down and finally finish Celine's "Castle to Castle." She still hasn't called by 10:15, when I finish the book, and I start with "Gertrude" by Hesse, and she calls to say I should get there by 4 pm, taking the 3 pm train. Fine, so I have the whole afternoon to myself. Finish the novel, not really very good, and again Hesse seems more interested in the masculine Muoth than in the feminine Gertrude Imthoff Muoth. Still have some time left, so I soak the lovely stamps that John gave me, along with others, but I only have time to sort them into piles when it's 2 pm and I shower and shave and pack and get off to the subway, again thinking I'm late, leaving at 2:40, but I get there at 2:50, buy a ticket, wait around for them to announce that the train is the Washington train, and get on for the last window seat, and two luggaged people take up the other three seats, so I can stretch my legs out, watching the lovely clouds in the sky roll by. Get there just at 4 and Lois is waiting for me, and we quick kiss and get to the car where she announces we have to go shopping. $38.56 later, we're in the car and drive to her place, unload as Mark and Wendy talk to me and eat, and then she has an errand to run, sending in two Mormon missionaries who talk with our sharpshooting, and when I'm at my most pacific, the calico cat jumps into my lap and starts purring away! Wonderful! Then we're down to eat, pork chops and baked potato made lovely by a strong bloody mary beforehand, and we talk more, nicely, and there's no show to see, so we draw up a version of what they call Army Rummy and I used to call Tripoli, and before you know it, it's 11:15, and it's time to spring forward, so we lose an hour and it's 12:15, and Mark is talking on the phone to Heidi, the turtle is getting sick ("But it never came out for anyone but Bob---then it got sick") in the sink, so I get into Nancy's bed without too much in the line of washing up, and listen to the fuss about the milk-vomiting turtle which leaves a terrible stench in the bathroom, and I take a bit to fall asleep, alone in a bed feeling strange.
DIARY 1072
SUNDAY, APRIL 26. Wake just before 9 to get into the bathroom to shower, shave, and wash my teeth around the turtle in the sink, and then Lois announced that everyone has to get their own breakfast, because we're going to be late for church. Barrel down the highway at 80 in a 50-mph zone, and squeal up in front to be just on time, the service is icky, the Office of Equal Opportunity talker again being sharp-shot by Mark, and we're into the back for coffee, and the Bradburys, host and hostess, introduce themselves and welcome me, the Cannons start talking to me, and Lois introduces me to KC, the minister, and his brother, and the Reverend Sykes, who could be gay, and I say it's such a nice day, can't we leave, and we four drive to the International House of Pancakes, where I have banana-pecan pancakes with banana syrup AND a large cottage cheese and fruit salad (not as good as the pineapple in cold duck of last night), and I'm stuffed, and the place is full of DOLLS with big crotches, and we're back home. I telephoned Glenway from church, and he said John would be back at 1, and call at 1:15 for John to say they're leaving at three, and we'll get there at 2:30. Lois insists on resting for a bit, and we leave, going down through Stockton, then following his great instructions over the fabulous former Paul Whiteman farm to the little house with the superb semi-pornographic art collection of Tchiletchews, Shahns, Cadmuses, Jared French, Cocteau, and a number of others of Glenway, Monroe Wheeler, and George Platt Lynes, a heavy threesome. Lois is taken by Glenway, and Mike and Jim and John are taken by my tales of the ESP in plants, and I'm taken by Glenway's 1100's Carolingian solid piece chair. Across the river to Warren's at 4, chat with three old faggots, and out at 4:15 to barrel up the River Road in heavy traffic, getting to Bucks County Seminar House at 4:45, but it hasn't started yet. Starts at 5, out at 6:30 for buffet, back at 7:30, and the thing finishes at 11:30 (see following pages, 1076-1082). Lois is sleepy, so we talk about her hypnosis and LSD training, about her friends, and anything to keep her awake. Bed at 1.
DIARY 1083
MONDAY, APRIL 27. Groggy up at 9, shower and shave again, and she gets me to the station just in time to miss the 10 am train, and the next is at 10:50, getting in an noon, which makes a tight squeeze for the 12:45 meeting with John and Jean, so I pay $2 more and take the Metroliner for the first time (see DIARY 1084) and get in at 11:30, subway up to my place, clean up a bit, and get down to meet John and talk outside Jimmy's about Mike Shamus's problems, and Jean comes up and we have a tiny, moderately good, moderately priced lunch and she gives me some tips about becoming a book editor, and volunteers to get me a contact at McGraw-Hill. Had phoned for the New Yorker schedule and decided on the need of rushing to get in on the middle of "The Road to Glory," and it's boring, so I decide to see what excitement I can find, and find quite a bit indeed (see DIARY 1085-1087), and get out just about at 5, down to Joe's to pick up Sunday Times and Avi and Joe laugh at my hair (only ones), and shower and shave and quickly eat and get to Claude's to see John and Etta warming up in the center of the floor. After the normal stretching exercises, with Etta giving the instructions, Claude directs that the mats are to be gotten out for the first time, and I'm surprised how easily I can do the forward somersault with hands, the forward somersault without hands, even the backward somersault and the fall, after one bad trial, but the cartwheel absolutely floors me, and though I try it a couple of times, I still fear my wrists or elbows giving out, and I can't get my ass up into the air. We roll down, alone and in pairs, then relax, do the feeling thing, do some mirroring, and then we're all told to make ONE thing, and John becomes a tree, Chuck joins him to become roots, Etta is another tree, I her roots, Ric is a leaf (I think, though he says coconut), Dicks the weeds, Lynn the wind, and Al some little quivering creature. We pass around "Expressions of the day," do one simple motion in normal, begin-end motion, and re-integrated motion, and some other little things which I forget. Then, I think, we come up here to sleep, and he has some beer which I share and we talk about the day and about the weekend with the LSD session and get to bed, having John's off.
DIARY 1093
TUESDAY, APRIL 28. No, we're to John's, since we sex nicely, I start reading "The Art of Time" after browsing through his copy of the Voice, and I find lots of things that I don't agree with, and he says later that Tom Borek would be willing to talk with the both of us about the book if we wanted, so I'll have to finish it pretty soon. Then onto the subway with him into the city, and I stop off on 4th Street to get into the Waverly for "Wild Horses of Fire" (or "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors") and "Ballad of Love," a half-hour film about a boy who falls in love with a deaf-mute, and have three incredible hand-jobs accepted from me (see DIARY 1088-1092), and the films are pretty good into the bargain, so get out of there and subway home feeling rather great. Get started on typing again, and during the course of the day type ten pages, mostly about the two theater experiences of the past two days, just so I won't forget them, but I want to get to soaking the great stamps that John gave me, so I soak them off and put them out on single sheets of paper since I didn't save any newspaper but the theater section. Also this morning read the Times that I got yesterday from Joe, that I'd forgotten about, and it's precisely this sort of thing that I tend to forget when I go for a week without caching up on the diary, as I have this week, since it's already Wednesday, and I was nine days behind. Really don't have time to finish the stamps because I have to shave and shower and eat dinner before the Royal Ballet, and someone calls me to talk on the phone, maybe Norma or Joan, and I'm late dashing up to the Met, and John tut-tuts about my always being late. "Daphnis and Chloe" is re-costumed and the sets are more pleasant than literal, and Pan is tanned and sexy, but the choreography and dancing with Mead and Penney is just dreadful, and John really hates it. Then comes "Symphonic Variations," but Sibley and Dowell don't really sparkle, and it comes out only mediocre, and though "Wedding Bouquet" is vaguely amusing in parts, I've seen it already, and know its flavor, and Robert Helpmann is so terribly campy it's almost difficult to laugh WITH him, rather than AT him. Home here to bed with John.
DIARY 1094
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29. Call Bob in the morning to plan the orgy here, but then talk to John, and he seems so reticent to talk that I insist on finding out what's wrong with him. He begins to clam up, and I just gently don't permit him to finish talking, and he ends by saying that he really doesn't like Bob, figures he never will, knows that it's partly due to Bob's friendship with me before, but it's also MY not being able to say nice things about him: he's self-centered, uses people to his own purpose, and then I'm using him to get into an orgy group which John says, "You're so attractive you could just go out into the street and have anything you WANTED." I'm terribly flattered, but say he's romanticizing me, and finally he gets very up-tight and with a trembling voice says "Well, I can stand on my own feet: I've been alone before and I'm perfectly content being alone again." I hear the depth of the feeling for me in his voice, and I suddenly decide that no matter HOW difficult it is for Bob, I'll break the orgy off and have John here this evening. He asks why, and I begin to say that he sounded so much like he needed me, but tears come to my voice and I can only whisper "I'll tell you later." Then he whispers back, "I love you," and I flood with tears and stammer "That's just about what I wanted to tell you." He asks me over for dinner, but I say I want to get the call from Svein's Danish friend. Call Bob, but he interrupts for another call, I hit upon the idea of giving him my key, LETTING him have the orgy here, and I going to John's. Get engrossed, while waiting, in sorting through the stamp catalog for the smallest number of stamps in a country (3 for Ionian Islands), and the extent of the expensive stamps (54 stamps catalog at $1,201,500; 26 US for $550,000, one French for $55,000) and Bob agrees. Finish stamps and rush through cleaning the apartment and get to John's at 5, have vodka tonics on the Promenade, get very drunk and teary, back for good-sauced little meat loafs and more pecan pie, have sex with lotion on the floor again, and finish with wine through the evening, talking long and getting very close together, quite a budding relationship.
DIARY 1095
THURSDAY, APRIL 30. Also yesterday, although running out of money, I sent a flower to Mom for her birthday and got a card for Bob's birthday. Back home this morning to find the apartment very neat, and when I call Bob about how it went, Arthur showed up with no one and had to catch a 10:30 plane, another fellow entered, saw Bob's friend's Bob's blackness and left after "chatting" for five minutes, and then Bob and Bob sat around deciding there must be a better way to organize an orgy. John was happy about the fiasco, and I was glad I wasn't there, since Bob Black really doesn't turn me on. John also says that Bob Malchie and Art asked us about going bicycling this weekend, and I decide I really should get a bicycle, calling Arno and Cyndy to get their opinions about it, and even Doug Flynn, who astounds me by telling me about his affair with Roxanne for two months, fucking and carrying on for days. Move some of the paintings around and buy more hangers for them, and get out to buy the Soss hinges for the table when I get to the bank for more cash, and get lots of things done around the apartment, but still not quite able to get to the book. Then I have to get ready for the movies at the Film Festival, and I have an extra ticket to sell, which thankfully goes quickly, and in to see "The Extraordinary Adventures of Saturnino Farandola," funny, outlandishly inventive with whales, diving suits, monkeys, moving Niagara Falls, cannons, shipwrecks, balloon battles, and "The Unknown," where Chaney has no arms, arms, no arms. Out at 9 and get to Claude's at 9:15, relaxing, touching, then when I get up to "cone," he asks me who (Bob), where (here) and idiotically pleasant reaction to how I feel, and I sing "Drink to me only," and "Three Blind Mice," but he lets me off with only a few notes of each. We then get into a chord that many agree was rather individualistic, with Nedda going into variations on her own and Chuck standing far off. To 10:45, and come home, to find John here before me, and we talk for quite a bit before going to sleep somewhat early at 11:30, both of us feeling rather tired, and something's been wrong with John's stomach for the past week. Pity for him!
DIARY 1096
FRIDAY, MAY 1. He leaves and I get out to price bicycles and find no source of vermiculite, and get a typewriter ribbon and plant ionizer and a pot holder, and end up with the apartment a tremendous mess. Decide that since it's bright out, I'll do the windows, and do inside and out in just over half an hour, thanks to paper towels, but it's still quite a pain, and I have the impression I'm washing them every other week, though the average is about every two months or this, the fastest, after six weeks. Finish that and dust, and then get into the bathroom to tackle the bathtub again, scouring almost all the yellow away and continuing with the damp sponge on the floor, cleaning that up, and I got the kitchen and bathroom stuff into the laundry downstairs, and then went out for groceries (also took the laundry out yesterday) for Lois' arrival tomorrow. Get some interesting things in the mail and take out tiny packets of letters to the mailbox each day, trying to keep up with everything, but just have time to clean the place up before eating and subwaying down to the Judson Memorial Church to meet John and look at all the groovy guys in the audience waiting for the start of the James Cunningham Dance Company (also picked up John's shades before going to his place on Wednesday) recital with a great "Joanna's Dream," with the two of them spitting like great cats, scratching like monkeys, and playing all sorts of theater games with gusto, imagination and verve, interspersed with the simplest kind of joyful footwork indicating grace and ease and flexibility of movement. "Elevator for Ellen" was a bit more hectic with eight people, but the people contributed each of their own quirks, and the audience went out of its mind with appreciation, calling them back for Greek-Dance curtain call after curtain call. Walk about town looking at the people on the streets, stopping into bookshops, looking at clothing displays, and then get to his car for a quick drive to his place, another batch of hot fudge sundae, and I'm sure it must be doing terrible things to my face, but it tastes so good I really don't care. Caress and get to bed.
DIARY 1097
SATURDAY, MAY 2. Call Lois in the morning from John's, since she was supposed to call me at home, and she says she'll get in at 2:30, so I have time to stay at John's for a bit (but he doesn't use the drill that I borrowed from Arno when I went over to his place, borrowing "Sexual Perversions" also), and we have a nice talk, and I get home to do the dishes and finish fixing the place up for Lois, and then she calls to say she'll be taking the train that gets her in at 3:30, and just as I'm going out the door for THAT, she calls downstairs to say the train is an hour late, and won't be in until 4:45! Feel awfully sorry for her, and do nothing extra around the apartment, getting down to Penn Station to wait for her train at 4:50, and we bee-line for the 7th Avenue subway, get to John's and she wants to see the promenade after we have a drink, so we walk and talk and joke together and get back to John's for his pork and sweetish sauerkraut stew, but cucumber and coconut salad. NO, dammit (that's the PROBLEM of waiting so long), we get to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden by 10 am, wandering looking at cherry blossoms, narcissus and daffodils, the rock garden, the Japanese garden, the tulips, and we buy meat and spinach pies and olives from the Lebanese bakeries and elevator to the top of the St. George for a standing looking lunch, then I get down for home. Then we have his great Dobosch tort and it's time to drive in for "Threshold's Production of The Essence of Arthur Rimbaud," rather scenically effective, with only 26 chairs and spectators, and she wants to see the Playboy Club so we get to my place at 10:45, and John puts on her nightgown and my scarf and jacket, but the place is lined-up for a half-hour, so he leaves and we chat and get into the Party Room finally to find the kitchen closed, and she has three scotch sours and I two bloody marys and we talk about our childhood and masturbation and sex and love, and we hug on 57th on the way back, she making requests for bedding together, but I don't hear, nor understand "Let's share an egg," from her requests. Back at 2:30, she pushes in on John and me in bed, and by 3 the house has settled down, thankfully quite warm, and we all sleep.
DIARY 1098
SUNDAY, MAY 3. John and I wake at 9:30, he does me with great gusto, not caring what or how much Lois hears, but when I go into the living room at 11 she has a pleat in her face and she's gotten out a glass and debated urinating into it, but controlled herself. Then we're all up and they all sit in the living room while I segment the grapefruit and prepare three individual olive loaf, Bonbel and egg scramblers, and they have tea and toast and honey, and remark that the three eggs are filling, and we sit around and talk, they shower at various times, John complains that he's bored, and she cries about what she'd going to do to insure "quality time" from Leo for her children, who are getting uncertain of her love, and we talk for a bit before we all decide to go up to the Bronx Botanical Garden, where we see the extensive Rock Garden, then park for the Museum while they see the johns, and John sees the mushroom exhibit, and Lois comes over the tulip beds, then we drive past daffodil hill to the Snuff Mill, where I get a stupid tuna fish platter for $1.65 which takes minutes to make and hours to eat, and they're all finished first and sitting feeding the birds and cruising the cute guys and watching the stream and wincing at the jets screaming past and then we're back to the car for a drive past Magnolia glen and the river for a fast drive down the West Side Highway to try to get her onto the 5:30 train (after about fifteen minutes in the hot humid Conservatory), and she probably misses it, and then to John's for him to park the car and we subway back over to watch "The Unseen World," and then he asks me about his probing me this morning about the meaning of my dream, where I considered MYSELF rags and a loving person with tears in my eyes, and I finally got through to have HIM admit that though HE was capable of loving ME, I wasn't capable of loving him because he wasn't WORTH it! He almost seems to be saying, as I sometimes do, "If you REALLY knew me, you couldn't love me," based on rejection of loved ones in the past, and he cries "for the first time, before I always cried alone" on my shoulder, and then we shower and cuddle and crawl into bed about 11:30, and he BELIEVES me.
DIARY 1099
MONDAY, MAY 4. He leaves and I get down to the Times immediately, reading the whole thing at a gulp, and even doing the puzzle and the double-crostic, finishing by 12 and feeling disgusted with myself for not doing what I really WANT to do. Eat some cereal because I'm very hungry, and I actually do the first set of exercises again, since I really have to take them up again to build up definition for the summer. The apartment is a mess, and I go down for the mail and find something very sexy from the West Coast, and I can't take my eyes off it, finally grabbing the folder of sex stuff from the closet and spreading out all my drawings, the Tom and Colt drawings, all the pornography from the US and London, and take to my cock with feeling, getting Groom and Clean over it before I realize I haven't gotten the KY, and it keeps lubricating, but feels sticky, so I take out the KY and put on a layer of that, but that dries, and I get out the baby oil, emulsifying the whole thing so it looks like my hair is matted with come already, and it's very sexy for the first few pulls, but finally I get jaded and sock myself back and forth, looking at all the lovely photos and drawings, and adding handfuls of baby oil to keep it slick, but I'm down, and I try doing it gently, but I refuse to come up, and finally whack myself off with great desperation. Groan at my stupidity: is being in love with John such a frustrating thing for me? Does all the sex I have with him make me SO horny? Why? Want to get back to typing, but don't do that, either, and finally get some of the stuff cleaned up, and by then it's a lovely day outside, into the low 80's, and I get to "Year 1200" at the Metropolitan from 2-4:15, I want to get into the park, so I do so, encountering Edward Albee, and we talk about his Irish Wolfhound and his found female German shepherd, and the fact his country place is at Montauk, and we sit from 4:15 to 5, chatting, then he leaves, I leave, home to shave, subway down to Claude's, late again, and there's a new Ed, round-chested and fairly cute, but not really attractive, and we 4-people improvise (saw wood, roller coaster), use the mat, I move through space with Nedda, we pass "day's expressions," do "Dialogues in Motion," do the "Tail-Vibrate," and transform objects by passing them back and forth. To John's for more Dobosch Tort and sherry.
DIARY 1101
TUESDAY, MAY 5. Up at 7:30, sex to 8:15, and it's John's morning free! So I read the Voice while he works, drills holes in the ceiling, and then we talk long about my going down when he does me, and I FINALLY have the courage to tell someone about my prostate-tight vs. prostate-loose methods of coming, with the prostate-tight being divided into the ordinary continuum of easygoing vs. hard-going, with the results being proportional to the effort put into it. He laughs at a point, but I lash back because he STARTED the conversation, and again I refer to the leapfrog method of our relationship: he cries on my shoulder, giving me the courage to confide in him, giving him the strength to get closer to me, giving me the strength to say "You make me feel inferior," "This is how I masturbate," and "I love you." He gives me some pot seeds, Dobosch tort, and his underwear, and I subway home, seeing the vignettes on Diary 1073-1074, and typing the "Parable of New Yorkers" from the dream, and get started on some of the notes from Grof, but Marty calls and we talk, and John calls, and yesterday I called Jean, and Joan calls, saying she has no phone yet, and I wanted to see Albee in CP at 4 again, but I have to help Bob, and dress ONLY in tan bells and white shirt and shoes and socks, no underwear, shirt open, and pass Albee at a distance on dog-hill at 3:30, so I have his schedule down nicely. Carlin is there, and Otto Orr and I click, and he has lovely open eyes, a bulgy crotch behind a safety pin, and a urine smell, and he writes a biog as I let the people in, who are blasted by the flickering Kinetic Environment by Ruth Mollo, with whom I talk, and the people come and go, and he gives me an invitation to Betty's opening, Grant LOVES my new hair, as does Nina, and I leave at 7:10 to race over to get passes from Eddie, who likes the hair, and at 7:55 meet John at the Carnegie Hall Cinema for a negative, neatly-filmed "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" with an ineffective Sarrazan and good Jane Fonda and Gig Young, and at 10 here for pears and cottage cheese and wine, and John showers and we get to bed at 11, hugging and talking, happy to be with each other, sleeping side by side, waking together.
DIARY 1102
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6. I come with difficulty after messing up with vibrator. Then decide I have to get pages typed, and get 8 pages done, finishing the last of what I have to do to get up to date, but it's so confused with pages I'd typed before that I can't even follow the convention of putting the date at the top of the page, and again I've gotten a week behind without even half trying. Go through the day debating what to do, and just as I think about calling Avi, he calls me, and we talk for a long while, he about his troubles with Sally and her husband, who wants to commit both kids and HER for their actions, with the people he turns on with and is zonked out for the rest of the day, and I say I don't want to go bowling with him and Lynwood this evening, which is what he called me at 7:30 this morning for. For the first night since April 21, over two weeks ago, I sit home alone for the evening, watching "Search for Rembrandt" on TV from 8-9 and then Walt Swan calls from the Americana, but when I tried and tired to get in touch with Baxter to take the notes to him, which I edited into shorter, more to the point form this evening of the Grof lecture on LSD, I kept getting no answer, so I told him he could come over, but he said that he wanted to stick around the hotel and greet newcomers, but that he wasn't leaving until Saturday afternoon and that he wanted the two of us to get together. Just fine. I spend the rest of the evening doing not much of anything, and finally John gets in from the "Coppelia" at 10:30, and I'm talking to Arno, and we agree to drop over to his place so John can look at his rubber plant, and we try some too-strong Harvey's "Shooting Sherry," and some Harvey's Milk Sherry, which is a bit milder, and sit around talking until 11:30, when we leave and get back here to take showers and clean teeth and talk and get to bed together rather late, but it doesn't matter, since I seem to have completely adapted to John's "bed before midnight, up at 8:30 at the latest" schedule, and it's been something I'd wanted to change into for a long time, and he gave me the perfect opportunity to do so. He's so nice in so MANY ways!
DIARY 1103
THURSDAY, MAY 7. He's still here when Roger Evans calls at 7:45, and John will be out at 8:45, so tell Roger to come in an hour, and he comes when John's still here, but the topic of my gayness never comes up directly, though John and I both agree that he looks just like Tony LaGiglia with his large eyes and scraggly beard and mustache. His wife left him after he and friends smoked pot New Year's Eve, then came back and quarreled, and HE left for a few weeks, then came back, quit his job, collected his credit cards and left Florida on a bicycle, thinking not to go back to avoid support payments to his first wife, Jean, and two kids, and hassles with his second wife Abbey, and HER two kids. He cycled up to Atlanta in 6 weeks, staying in Howard Johnson's on credit cards, then got up to Atlanta for a drug hotel where he lived on LSD, mescaline, pot, hash, and lots of other stuff, never getting, he said, to heroin. I talk about yoga and meditation, but he starts to doze, so I suggest a nap, and while he dozes between 10:30-1:30, I get into "Sexual Offenders" and work on part of the Avco letter about the Mafia, and then wake him up and we get down to the Karachi restaurant which he likes so much for a good curry lunch, complete for $1.35, which is hard to beat, even with paratha and boujia and papadum bringing it up to about $2 apiece. Then up to SBC to find the third floor vacant, everyone about to move off the other floors, leaving only GO and a small branch office, and everyone has to move to Jersey or the Island or upstate New York. Ann Jensen is usually at 61 Broadway, but she's there, and Larry Migliore is usually in Connecticut, but HE'S there, and we run into Don Berger, who's "Surplus" and Al Brugnoli, who walks us to the streets, so we've seen everyone. Roger decides not to stay "because he thinks he's going to be very sick," so he busses up to his sister's in New York State, and I'm back home at 5:30 in time to grab a quick bite, shower for the class, an incredible session with Chuck handing a bayonet to John, who stabs everyone, we all stab, throw in, moan, fall on the floor to console, talk about it for a long time, and then to John's, exhausted, to bed.
DIARY 1104
FRIDAY, MAY 8. Back home at 9, but don't feel like doing anything, so I sit down and read the rest of "Art of Time," an interesting book, but we and Tom Borek should have an interesting time talking about it. Get into some more of "Sexual Offenders," the sections about the homosexual making more interesting reading, and then I go down for the mail and find lots of sex offers again, especially one about auto-fellatio, and I get turned on so much I zip off my clothes and trot into the bedroom for the big mirror, prop that against one chair arm, then put the smaller mirror between my legs, the smallest mirror against the other chair arm, and have an infinity of me's going off into unpredictable directions for a very sexy effect, and I come with gusto, for the first time today. Rather disgusted with myself for not even being able to get to typing the pages today, but I'm still sore from yesterday (at least that's what I tell John) in the stomach from Nedda's workout with me before the session last night, but, anyway, John came, and that's the important part. Planted some pot seeds yesterday or the day before, and still don't feel like doing anything important, so I call Norma, but she's not there, and try calling Joe, but I miss him since he left before 7:30, and I try calling Joan but she doesn't have a phone yet, and I eat dinner and meet John at Judson Hall for a Dan Waggoner concert, and his "Bramble" with George Montgomery is awful, mainly because of George Montgomery, his "Duet" with the girl is pretty good, but the music starts and stops, and finally his finale with all kinds of girls and some good dance steps is again made ludicrous by his lover of many years. Jeff and Rudy Perez and John and I then tour the SoHo district, seeing lovely lofts and talking with artists and playing the "flash-a-drawing" game, drive Jeff home and Rudy invites us to Westbeth, where I find Meg Terry lives, they complain about the space, Rudy wolfs a vodka-tonic and John and I have to leave at 12:30, very tired from the day, hurrying back to Brooklyn so we can get up early the next day to get a quick start for Jones Beach, since the weather is good.
DIARY 1116
SATURDAY, MAY 9. Wake at 8, have lovely sex till 8:30, up and out by 9:15, getting onto the not-so-crowded road to Jones Beach (see DIARY 1105-1115), feeling the heat of the sun through our shirts as we drove back. John and I talked about how well we felt about our mutually exclusive sexual freedom this morning and afternoon, and he rubs my leg and I stroke the back of his head, and we get caught in terrible traffic only on the FDR highway, and we leave it at 131st Street (NO, this is TOMORROW) to get caught in a traffic jam at 125th Street, and then dozens of hydrants are open, sending jets of water literally dozens of feet into the air, almost knocking over lighter cars passing by, and John remarked that water pressure might be rather low in Brooklyn Heights. We got back onto a better highway at 96th, and finally got home somewhat after 8 pm, after getting to the close vicinity of the city as early as 4:30. He's tired and a bit stiff from the driving, and he asks if I want to turn on (back to SATURDAY)---we get back about 4:30, and he has shopping to do, so I run the pine oil bath and soak before he gets in, and he gets back and we touch and stroke and whack away, and I end up coming with trembling and ecstasy while standing, almost falling, in the tub. Shave and he broils pork chops, not so well done the first time, and we eat good cinnamon biscuits and drink water and get full, and try calling Azak for the dance, but don't get through to him, and get into Manhattan just before the dance program begins at 9, and it's shorter because many of the people are in Washington at the demonstration, and it's only 5 minutes of "Start, Stop" and various postures against 6 pillars. Then to the Cinemateque to check the show, into lousier lofts and sadder people, to the "Walk-In Fountain" and the green strobe-light-with-streamers room, and to the Cinemateque for a lousy multi-leveled performance, and we leave, exhausted, at 11:15, finding a place to park quickly at 11:50, but all the delis are closed so I can't get milk for breakfast, and we get back to apply suntan lotion to my reddish sore back, though John insists HE won't peel, and we take the last blanket off the bed because it's warm.
DIARY 1117
SUNDAY, MAY 10. Up to a TERRIBLY strained come, this time going BEYOND any degree of pleasure, and we sit and talk about it, he saying it was only AFTER we talked before that I haven't let him do me ONCE, and I feel awful, can't think of reasons except self-consciousness and fearing making him sore, and he states beautifully "And if I want to GIVE you some small amount of discomfort and pain, can't I GIVE you that?" and "What if I said you couldn't GIVE me that lunch at Lutece, would you be happy if I wouldn't let me GIVE you want I WANTED to give you?" I felt the tears running down my cheeks to his neck, and it was noon by the time we finished that talk. He suggested a picnic, so I want out and got a chicken and apples and oranges, packed beer with ice in my bucket, and we ate breakfast rolls up the Palisades Parkway, being laughed at and waved at by a cute gal with an old husband in an Imperial, and we circled High Tor State Park to come to the door he knew, trudged up the violet-strewn hill for a picnic and a nude romp until the family drove by and the police cruised past, and then we went to the top of the lower hill, cooling in the wind, acting as chairs for each other on the rock at the top, kissing and touching and enjoying the view, eating apples and guzzling dirty ice water and talking and watching the sail boats on the river. Back down fairly quickly, stopping to look at the pool and get another drink of water, then down to the car just after 5, and get caught in terrible traffic only on the FDR highway, and we leave at 131st Street to get caught in a traffic jam at 125th Street, and then dozens of hydrants are open. Back at 96th, getting to his place at 8, and we don't feel like eating, so we pack huge vodka and tonics and get out to the Promenade, looking at the clear view and some pleasant people, including one hunky number in skin-tight shorts, and we get out to the Promenade Restaurant where I have a long-to-make club sandwich and he has a liver on toast, and we get back at 10:30, where we have another shower and get into bed to talk some more, and then I call Mom at 11 and talk to 11:15, and she's not feeling too good, and John's asleep, but I wake him, we kiss.
DIARY 1118
MONDAY, MAY 11. He tries me this morning, but I just don't come, so I do him and that's the end of it, and I'm back to the city at 9:15, so he must have been late. Get into the New York Times, along with the Monday Times which I picked out of the trash to read about the SoHo exhibit, and then get started on the crossword, and it goes very slowly, and I talk to Arno on the phone (tomorrow) and come and get back to the crossword, feeling stupid about the whole thing, and then I have to take back the nutcracker, so I wrap it up and get to the post office and send if off for 80 cents, buy some of the new commemoratives, get to the supermarket for groceries, though John's given me the pork chops for tonight's supper, and I end up only taking a shower and putting the chops on before he comes at 5, and I've done nothing all day but read the Times!! The grapefruit is in sad shape, so I make frozen daiquiris for the beverage, and the peas and pork are good, and we save dessert for later, and cab up to the Wickersham for Betty's opening, which is pretty bad because she's gone out of art into cartooning, though her potato-peeler being fucked is cute, it's not terribly erotic, and only Romy contemplating his erect cock is very artistic, and we talk to her, and Bob comes in for a quick chat, and we cab down to class, getting there at 6:40, start doing warm-ups, but my bells don't stretch to allow me to do much, and we're all sweating and out of sorts, and Etta seems short tempered, and we do our own warm-ups, coning, each create an object and we all add to it (phone booth and locker room and beach umbrella), and then we try the "begin-end" thing in pairs, and Ric and I have trouble with buying a soft candy, and then we go into an eight-way mirror that ends up with giggles and swinging motions, goes into a chord group with laughing and beep-beeps and siren sounds, and breaks each into corners of the room, maybe as a reaction against the intimate closeness of last week, this one seemed out of sorts. Subway back to my place and John has a couple of beers and I decide I MUST defrost the refrigerator, and we have cake for dessert, shower our dirty feet, and get to bed at 12.
DIARY 1119
TUESDAY, MAY 12. John wakes and starts "playing," and handling my balls and massaging my prostate, and I have the courage to stop him when he begins to rub my yoni raw, and then I DO begin to feel good, and sort of begin to stretch into orgasm, and it comes rather freely, and John almost bursts into tears at the beauty of the whole thing, and I feel rather good because he feels so good. I get around to doing him rather nicely, too, and then we eat breakfast and I do the dishes and he has tea and I start re-working the Avco letter, letting him read and critique it, and then Bob calls and we talk about the orgy here tomorrow, and I call Arno when John agrees to take us to the unveiling of the stone, but Arno has a way out, so I decide not to go, and John keeps insisting I didn't want to see the stone MERELY because I was curious, but because I wanted to HELP Arno. We argue mildly about it, and say though HE would like to ennoble me, and I tend to undervalue myself, of course the truth is that I SOMETIMES act nobly and SOMETIMES act selfishly, and not always quite "in character." We have lunch here of sandwiches and soup (and HERE we eat the cake), and he leaves about 1. Talk to Azak about John's Lomotil, call Arno about the stone, Cyndy calls, Joan calls with a new phone number, and I put the laundry in and go out to price Xeroxing around the corner, get more money into my checking account, go book shopping and thankfully find nothing, go to the bank, pick up laundry, get back to handle the laundry again, find how many copies of "The River" I want Xeroxed, Marty calls about the weekend, type 3 pages, and it's time for me to shave and shower and cook lousy steak after the icebox is exhaustively defrosted, and dash up to Krippner at 7:10, and he introduces me to Allan Vaughan, who's his assistant and will send me a reprint of his article for "Psyche Today" or something, and I leave at 7:40 for "Romeo and Juliet" with Nureyev and Fonteyn, and Daisy's not there, but Chuck is, so we talk and search for necklines, and Nureyev is getting better and better, and Fonteyn isn't bad, and the production IS sumptuous and the music dreamy. Back to beer and bed with fan on, cuddling.
DIARY 1121
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13. John WORKS on me but I don't come, but he does, EASILY. I excuse myself in that I was doing just what I WANTED to do, which was not to come, and I didn't struggle toward it at all. Decide I really have to finish typing, and by the time I've finished I've caught up to date and then some with 16 pages. Bob calls and we have the talk on the previous page, and I finish revising the "Mafia and Morality" letter for Avco and also write about America's Brain-Drain, and type them both up with cover letters without mistakes of any kind, after wasting lots of sheets of paper for the lengthy Mafia paper. Put them into neat envelopes and hope for the best. Dash around cleaning up the apartment, and there's just time to eat one meal at 5 pm, finishing up on the steak which has been in the freezer for ages, unfrozen since yesterday when I defrosted the refrigerator. Shower and wash hair and shave and get out in time to walk to the Trans-Lux East, talk to Eddie, and John and Dennis and Jean come in and we sit down and John lights up. During the Who's performance I get the typical idea of "Oh, THAT'S what it's all about" as each word he utters means everything in the world, his face and body and the color of the lights are earth-shakingly significant, and the smell of fire leads me to think of fire, and I figure that everything that IS, really IS, and if anything DIFFERENT would happen (bomb hit, screen split, building catch fire), it would be OK because it WOULD happen, and the only thing that would surprise me would be my death, and since I wouldn't be around to say "I died," it wouldn't make any difference. Again got hung up with breath, saw the red flanking figures as some ancient Mayan figures of cosmic significance, and the singer was definitely an angel with his leather fringes. Out at 11:15 and eat at Yellowfingers and back here for frozen daiquiris and Gay and "Tommy" and pot, and I lay down on John's lap to show I don't want a group scene, and they leave about 1:15, and John and I get into bed, and he says he has a lot to talk to me about his ups and downs during the smoking, when he touched me and I didn't respond, and we fall asleep very late at 1:30 am.
DIARY 1122
THURSDAY, MAY 14. Wake at 7:15, doze, John's up at 8, I'm groggy and out of it. He leaves and I stay up reading the copy of Gay which came in, and I want to send for some things, then I look at yesterday's mail of all the ballet companies and get out the ballet list and check back and forth about what I want to see, then I decide to get over and xerox the "River" pages before it rains, and look at all the greeting cards, tempted to buy one to send to John, but I figure it's the sort of thing he'll send to ME, so I don't do it. Back with a load of junk and John calls just to talk, then I call Bob, who tells me about the great 3-people session with him and big Bob and cute Brian, and I say we should make the next one for next Tuesday, and that fills up all the days until May 29. Then get down to mail and send out lots of checks, having eaten breakfast about 2 because I'm starved, and then wash dishes again this week, having done them Tuesday while John was working---that must be some sort of record. Put all the stacks of stuff away---how it DOES collect---and actually type the one day's diary page, as I should always do. Also, early in the morning I exercised, getting for the first time to level three without any great difficulties, and that means that level four will be the first real challenge, which feels good. Take a rather runny shit and attribute it to the exercises, then eat dinner, shower, and attempt to get out early to class, taking John's copy of the "River" with me, but get there just at 7, and we do our own warm-ups, I working with Etta, then mat-work, introductions where I get hung up on everyone looking at me through glasses, then we create an environment in pairs, Nedda and I working in a post office, and then we line up for group-story-time, and one-word clichés, and that's quite a lot of fun as everyone messes up but me, but I forget to sing during the introductions. Have a lovely fudge ripple cone and get to John's to talk about ups and downs in our relationship, and John (as I am) is terrified at how much he's depending on me, but I'm the first real FRIEND that he can talk to in 10 years. Try his good Japanese plum wine and get into bed rather late at 12:30.
DIARY 1123
FRIDAY, MAY 15. Blink up at 6:10, do him at 7:50 and he does me, since I want not to be tempted to come today since I didn't come yesterday and it might be difficult to have sex at Marty's. Home and decide that I have to revise some more things for Elaine, and work for a long time on all the eighteen character sketches from the subway, finally getting them onto two pages, and then I want to do more, so I look through the files for the other "Parables of New Yorkers," but can't find them, so I go through old stuff to see what I can send, and select "In the Middle of the Forest" and "Come to Me My Melancholy Baby," which take relatively little revision, and get them typed up for her and in duplicate to take with me on the weekend for John to read. When I'm finished I call Joe and Avi to catch up with what they're doing, nothing much, and then shower and settle down to preparing dinner. Elaine calls and tells me about her "Day of Stop the World" and I tell her I'm sending her some new stuff, and she says she's just about getting off another issue, and then back to dinner to have Daisy call about the tickets, and it's 10 after 8, I'm supposed to meet John at 8:30 at 57th and 10th, and so I forego dessert, pack quickly, and cart the heavy suitcase over to where he's sitting looking at the maps. Get up to Marty's apartment, they're not taking the dog, and they pack a few things and we all get down to the car for a bumper-to-bumper trek for the first hour to get out of Queens, then out the highway, everyone debating which way to go, and we stop at a Char-Broil place for a snack as they haven't eaten dinner, and I have a bacon and egg sandwich and a malted, good, and we're out to Amagansett Road about 11 pm, and the house is bare and dirty, with miscellaneous Salvation Army furniture vaguely scattered about, and the upstairs has two beds and that's exactly all, and we sit about and chat and drink some of John's red wine, and then Jerri's tired and up to bed, and John shaves and washes and goes up, and I join him immediately, to find to our chagrin that there's no door between our room and the hall in which the baby sleeps, but he's fixed the Venetian blinds for no light.
DIARY 1124
SATURDAY, MAY 16. Wake at 7 and we tussle about in bed, conscious that they can hear us, but then Jerri goes down for a feeding and Marty is snoring gently, so I tie up the lamp chain that makes a little tinkle each time we move, and I go down on him, chagrined when the bed begins ticking back and forth, and I can see Jerri terribly embarrassed downstairs as the floor quivers, and Marty getting a hard-on in the next room, but John gets his hard rocks off, and we cuddle nicely, and then downstairs to greet Jerri at 8, and it's almost as if she's heard nothing. We dress and then it's time to go out for groceries, I paying half the $20 bill over Jerri's protestations, and then back while John eats cereal and I finally have two soft-boiled eggs, going out to the front porch to sit and smell the nice air and look at the trees and grasses and weeds. John wants to get to Bayard Cutting Arboretum, so we get out at 11 and get there about 12 after stopping for cherries and other things, and we wander the not-blooming rhododendron trail, down the pleasant wildflower paths, then have a snack of meat pies and clam chowder and good sodas, and then across to the pinetum, where a group of kids blows incredible green and red bubbles that never break until they collide with trees, and a loud guitar sends us down to the birdwatcher's path, which we stroll in the cooling afternoon, getting back to watch two Muscovy ducks fucking, swans in full regalia, and walk among the Canadian geese after we decide we won't see Cypress Island this time, since we're cold. Back at 4:30, John changes his oil as we shop for hamburger buns and I read comic books, then up for pots and plants and topsoil, getting back at 5:30, growing dark from rain, and we have strong whiskey sours, Marty broils hamburger, we have great asparagus, cake for dessert, and we talk and talk, more wine, more whiskey sours, and it's 11:30 and we're all tired and very drunk, and we get off to bed, John determined to have sex, and he does me in the dark, but I come off relatively easy, and we don't worry that much about the sound, since their door is closed and Christopher is sleeping soundly in his chilly bed.
DIARY 1125
SUNDAY, MAY 17. Up early again and John does me again and avoids himself, though he's very hard, and we're out of bed to shower and listen to the rain. Jerri prepares a huge dish of scrambled eggs and bacon for Marty and me, and we talk for a bit, and we're out for a Sunday Times and a place for me to shit, since the toilet has gotten clogged and nothing solid will go down, and I have to go to bed shitless, or shit-filled. The Mobil station's john is out of order, so we go the other direction to Esso, shit, buy a paper, search an abandoned VW for needed spare parts, back to read the Times and work part of the puzzle, and then John decides on a walk on the beach while Marty prepared for painting by spackling chinks and cracks, and we walk down the nearest road, looking at all the lovely redwood and azaleas, and walk down the 100 steps to the fishing beach, where the white, pink and bright yellow stones are eye-wincingly bright even under the lead skies. Chartreuse streamers of gay seaweed and bright, and even the dun brown strands glisten with wetness, and they don't even smell, so the beauty is even unnaturally antiseptic. Walk down a bit, looking at the stones and the surf and the birds, get tired, tried climbing a sand cliff, talked about the pleasures of the weekend, looked at the kids fishing, watched the boats rowing about, saw the fog bank coming in, and walked back toward and past the steps to a private beach, up to sit down and watch more kids, holding hands and discreetly kissing, and then it starts to rain, so we're up the rest of the way, but it stops, and we walk back in the lilac-freshness to the house, where they're painting, but they soon finish, John takes a nap, we start two-handed hearts, which Marty wins hands down, then we three start rummy, and we go on to 7:30, when John comes down to watch and play, Jerri starts on dinner, we eat terrible Italian sausage and tasteless "garlic" spaghetti, I very little, and we pack and get things organized into the car in the rain, helping Marty out with the garbage, and we leave at 9, driving steadily on the crowded highway until 11, when we're to his place after leaving them off, and we fall tiredly into each other's arms, quickly asleep.
DIARY 1126
MONDAY, MAY 18. I feel absolutely awful on waking up, so we do nothing, and I get back at 9:15 to pick up Saturday's mail and find a letter from Laird about our visit the previous Sunday, get new checks, so I transfer the balances into the checkbook from the loose checks, making out a new one for Jacques since I again forgot to sign a check, wash socks, move the winter clothes into the hall closet and the summer stuff into the bedroom closet, move shoes around, call Daisy to find she doesn't have the tickets there, attend to the plants since they haven't gotten notice from me OR from Joe for a long time, exercise for the last easy time on the level three, being checked out by the list of things to do, which is becoming a crutch which keeps me away from "Acid House" until I finish all the other things, and debate getting down to typing, but really don't want to. Down for the mail a second time after lunch and look through the offering from Food's Plus, for lack of anything else to do, and search through all the record information from Record Club of America, ordering five records, and from that checking out what records and selections I have as compared with the Schwann selected listings, and in my interest in doing anything, get down to ballet lists, and then decide I want to find how many times I HAVE been with John, getting out the old diary pages, added "To John's," or "John here" on the respective pages, doing more work on the old "People" list, and find that as of yesterday John tied for third place at 57 times with Jean-Jacques, and will soon pass Joe Easter at 67 and will replace Bill Hyde at first with 71 probably sometimes during the first week of June, unless something drastic happens to our relationship, which I doubt, since he calls during the middle of the day just to hear my voice. Out to class without time to wash my hair, feeling grubby, and we do warm-ups alone (I also went to get tickets to "Tommy" talking to Azak and Bob, but they were sold out), with special things for my back, gibberish exercises where I see "A-e-oup" pillows, go to a brothel with Chuck to Etta, mirror dancing, mirror talking, transfer frustrating objects, for fun, to John's, drink sherry.
DIARY 1127
TUESDAY, MAY 19. Wake at 7:10 and John eases fingers up my ass, strokes with great care with lotion and his cock, and I ease him into my ass and he strokes easily and quickly, but is afraid to come into me, and he whacks off with great volume, and we talk about it, and decide it's a good step forward, and then he gets me excited and we both come, his second almost as wet as my first orgasm, and we're muchly together, walk across Brooklyn Bridge in the brightening day, catch a bus up Third to Azak's and he finds that I thought he wanted Lomotil for diarrhea, and he wanted Quinacrine for Giardia Lamblia, and we cab to my place after looking at the Ford Foundation building, and we have soup and sandwiches and cottage cheese and pineapple, and he naps until 1, when he goes off to work and I check the new stamp list from Clark's back and forth, and then start fixing the apartment up for the orgy tonight, and Bob says Brian and Big Bob and Tom, the fellow with the liquid for poppers, will be there. At 3:30 decide to call Publisher's Weekly, and they say I have to come to the office, so I do so, getting a copy and learning about the large Author's Market book they publish, then down to Daisy's to pick up the tickets and copy names of publishers that do scientific books, almost all of them, and get out at 5:15 after seeing no one there but her. Back home and fix up the rest of the apartment, which takes more time because I'm doing everything as it gets out of order, rather than letting a lot pile up and doing it all at once in half the time, and am just finishing with dinner when Bob comes over at 8 exactly, shares some pineapple with me, looks though the binoculars at the people to be seen as red-orange-pink lightening flashes through the sky. Bob comes in at 8:30 and we begin to smoke Bob's cigarettes, then Brian comes in at 9:10 and the music gets louder and we get into the session proper, which I talk about on the following pages. (DIARY 1128-1140) Big Bob leaves at 12, Bob stays around, eating popcorn and watching TV, until 2, and then Brian and I sit on the sofa watching the end of "Konga" until 3, when I try to get him to stay, but he has to shut off his radio.
DIARY 1141
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20. John calls at 10:15, getting me out of bed, and I tell him all about last night, and he says it sounds like it was fun, and it was. Then Bob calls just after that, and he agrees with me that Brian was shy, and tells me that Big Bob never satisfies himself, but he doesn't worry about it, and that makes the evening even greater, since things I'd been just the slightest bit hung up about were things of no real fault of mine. Call Norma to settle a tentative lunch for next Tuesday so she can meet John before we come out for the party in June, and I sit around doing nothing because the pot is still hanging over and I don't feel like moving at all. Get down to type five pages, but just don't feel at all like typing about yesterday evening, though I want to, and the ideas are whirling around in my mind as I wash dishes, but in a rather short time I have to shower and get ready for John's dinner with his friends, and get there just before Ben, who's somewhat late, and then his wife rings and we're downstairs to meet her and walk to the Middle-Eastern restaurant we'd tried so hard to get into before. I've had a drink and am feeling fine, and the day is bright and we shop for wine, and get to the restaurant for stuffed cabbage which is far better than the Polish, two shish-kebabs which we share, a salad which we share, and beans and ham, all of which is very good, and the wine goes down quickly, and we're over to the Damascus for dessert, and walk to the Promenade, where they show us the minuet and the gavotte, we talk about my book and theater games and their gamba and drum playing, the New York apartment situation, about Canada and Washington and other places, and about dozens of other things while cute people pass and re-pass on the Promenade, and I'd rather like to try it alone. Then it's almost 11 and we walk them to the station, and back to John's to talk about them for a bit, then he has some of his sherry and props his head up on the pillow and we talk about the previous evening, but he realizes that if he WANTED to talk me out of it, he could, but he did allow me to do it, even though he hated the way I told him "I'm having an orgy Tuesday," and I talk lots about Mom.
DIARY 1142
THURSDAY, MAY 21. Home and pick up the mail and spend lots of time reading the new issue of Gay, even though there's little in it, and go through the other mail, and fix up the apartment finally and decide I really have to get the copies of "The River" mailed out, so I send short letters to Laird and Don O'Shea and Rita, and somewhat longer things to Bill, the Seavers, to Claudia and to Elaine. Stop for brunch about 3:30, and then don't feel like eating before the class, so subway down with a suitcase after Cyndy comes up for a quick drink, telling me about her troubles with the project because of Joan Dublin's ideas about "cooperating" with the project leadership, and about the complete wreck of her and Don's relationship because he's so completely self-centered, and then chase her out so I can get down on time. Work on standing on my head, and the special exercises (grabbing my feet and rolling about on my back and ass into another sitting position 180 degrees away from the first; grabbing my feet, pulling them up into a V, then falling and rolling backward and tucking them in again to roll back forward and up; and the two-stage of three-bounce-and-up and go back down from top to bottom, vertebra by vertebra, and go back down with the point of the spine seeking to touch far before the rest of the back) really help, as I can get what feels to be a bit beyond the simple sitting-in-the-air position which I was surprised to find I could get to last time. Warm-up is warm because of the heat, and my head is sore from so much trying to stand on it, and Lyn is in tears before her two friends because of her visit to a paraplegic at the VA hospital, and Nedda and I do mirror introductions, not very well, since I feel overly influenced by what she does, and I still get impatient with Claude, but his talking to Lyn about how every actress will have violent emotions which she can draw upon, though he KNOWS it sounds ghoulish or using, and I see Rick's and her theater director looking at Claude with new respect: he DOES know quite a bit, and I try not to question him so much, but DO wish his instructions were clearer in some cases. Pizza for dinner and get to John's to bed.
DIARY 1143
FRIDAY, MAY 22. Up at 8 and out at 9, though he wanted to leave earlier. Across the Narrows Bridge and across Long Island, me feeding him the Sara Lee coffee cake I bought last night for a whopping 98 cents, and we lick fingers and talk about all sorts of things, and follow route 9 south to Freehold, to 537 and 539 past Fort Dix, which looks just like Meade and Aberdeen with sandy ground, unmarked roads through pine woods, and groups of fatigued fatigued soldiers going through lessons in killing. Stop in Lebanon State Forest to inquire about the ferry, then down to Chatsworth for hamburgers and soda and ice cream, then along 532 to drive up barren roads, strip for sun and hamburgers, walk along in the dusty heat, wave at trucks, look at lichen, listen to birds and far-off gunnery, do exercises in the sand, then dress lightly and back into car at 2 to route 206 to Atsion Lake, where we see them swimming, investigate the camping area and John swims while I wade and sun on the dock, and we look at carousing kids in canoe, then get off at 3 to routes 54 and 40 to the Delaware Memorial Bridge and get stuck in awful traffic around the Baltimore tunnel, but it clears up and we cruise in the heat down to Washington, getting lost in SE, but finally cruising around Rock Creek Park and into Paul's at 6:30. The dance program is at 8, Paul will join us, and he's already made meatloaf with Indonesian spices and Brussels sprouts, and it's pretty good after we shower and have a drink and talk about the trip down. Dash off to Church Street, almost losing it, and holler John back from a quick telephone call when we see the Church-into-Theater, and just as we get in (I paying $3 for each) it starts, and Art's thing is good, and both Bob and Art crowd around me, coaxing me to keep in touch, and they're very flattering and cute. Others in the crowd are cute at the party afterwards, and I talk with Paul's friends and with Deborah Jowett and Jeff Duncan, and then it's 12, and Paul wants to take us to 1832 Columbia, which has no one but blacks and one cutie upstairs, and drawings downstairs, and Ray invites us to a party at 2, but I'm quite tired, so we're home to make up the double bed in Kone's room, tearing sheet slightly.
DIARY 1144
SATURDAY, MAY 23. Wake about 9 and have good sex with both of us coming with enormous pleasure, and Paul serves toast and shredded wheat and juice, and we're finished about 11, and drive up into Maryland along the Potomac to just across from The Antlers, park, see a cute bare-chested guy getting down his kayak, John carrying the backpack, and we're down to the river, across the rocks surrounded by trees with drifted leaves packed to 10 and 15 feet above current water level, then to the other side of the island, where we see girls sunbathing, and go further, wading across when we see four people across, one of the guys naked, but they leave as we approach, and we lay out in the sun until I decide to undress completely, lay in the very hot sun, Paul reads, John swims, I get caught in the current trying to get out to his Lorelei rock, get very tired, Paul worries about poison ivy, I get hot in the sun and lay out in the stagnant side stream, urinating and farting and calling to the straight cameraman who says I look comfortable. Finally talk to the guy who keeps looking at us, the kayaker who talked to us seems to have gone, I've had enough of the heat, Paul's finished a few of his books, and we pack up and I take the pack around the back way, breaking through driftwood to scratch my foot, looking at huge fish which Paul throws things at, and we see 17-year locusts all over, coming out of their nymphal casings. To the car to get refreshment of ice cream and pie, then home for another shower, we eat at pretty good El Caribe, I having a yucca and root soup with pork called Ajiaco, and roast pork with spices and a half bottle of wine which gives me a heat. Dash back to car, park in a lot for the Lisner and Igor Kipnis' personable harpsichord playing, and after a few encores it's 10:45, we get back up to Church to meet Art and Bob, go to Louis', which is a leather bar, they're STANDING!, great group, and we get down to try Plus One, John and I and Art and I dance, again asking me to keep in touch, and they're both quite sexy in very different ways, and then it's 1, I'm exhausted with heat and movement and the sun of the day, and we say goodbye and get home to fall into bed, very tired.
DIARY 1145
SUNDAY, MAY 24. Again up late, have sex very longly, this time with the door shut for added privacy, and finally about 11:30 it's really time to get up, and Paul cooks breakfast as we read the funnies, and it's down to eggs in a casserole with spices and tomatoes, toast, nice broccoli with a mayonnaise sauce, coffee and juice, enough, as they say, to tide us over to dinner. Talk about the Englishman who's in charge of some foundation, speaking of snobs and democracy and WHO is our contemporary for almost an hour, and then about 1 Paul and John and I get off to the Freer Gallery, where I buy a copy of the Geese and Waves for $1.75 because it's so nice, and then I'm too tired to continue to the National History Museum that I wanted to see the gems in, but we've found where the Augustus Saint-Gaudens statue of "Peace" is in Rock Creek Cemetery, and we drive up there, investigate more statuary and cicadas, and I begin to get some sort of allergy, sniffing and sneezing again and again, my nose running something terrible, and all I can do is accept it. To a Hot Shoppes for something to eat, I having a chopped ham and lettuce which is good, and an everlasting hot fudge sundae, and it pours down rain while we're in there, but stops when we leave. John and I lay down for a nap, and I use the lotion on him and he on me, and we really come through the roof, and then it's too late, after talking for a long time about my philosophy that everyone is better than they think they are, to do anything but fix ourselves up and get down to Jenny's at 9:15, and have a quick meal of crab/chicken/lobster soup, Korean beef, pork with Chinese vegetables, and shrimp toast with tea, out at 10:15 to walk around in the cool lightning before the rain storm, and then get back to Paul's to wait to go to his party, but he gets in at 11:30 with the hairdresser from the basement so we go down there to see his enormous apartment and his boring conversation, and I don't even want to accept a drink from him, and get pooped at 12, going up with everyone, making up the bed, and crawling into it, setting the alarm for 7 am, since we want to get an early start because John wants to begin making the meal for his Hungarian friend on Wednesday.
DIARY 1146
MONDAY, MAY 25. Up at 7, shower quickly, pack, out with our breakfast rolls from yesterday, and to his VW place on Rhode Island at 8-8:30 waiting for them to open, and then they don't have the kind of seat covers he wants for airflow comfort. North on the main highways to Longwood Gardens, and it's very foggy, but the pansies and larkspur and huge iris draw us down to the Italian fountains again, and we walk back through bursting rhododendrons and azaleas through the garden forest path, and back to the conservatory, where we smell the roses and my lack of allergic response leads me to think that I must have caught a simple cold. Again look at the orchids and the ferns and the cactus and so many little flowers in bloom in the central section. Out about 1, looking for a place to eat since Winterthur's closed, and can only drive into Wilmington and park illegally for 15 minutes for 45 minutes and eat in a deli-restaurant which isn't bad, considering what the turnover they have is. Onto highway 95 and we spend the time talking about MY vision of reality in which everyone is everyone is God is everything is nothing, and HIS vision of reality in which people will never get better, only worse, and things will go to hell very quickly. Get so tired I actually lay my head down to sleep, and he says later he feels very protective over me. Up through all the fog along the coast to get to his place at 4:30, and he runs out for groceries, fixing up his plants, fixing omelets for both of us with truffles and rolls, and we're out to the subway with pot plants for my window at 6:30, and the class is a real delight, with me again standing on my head, doing somersaults VERY well, and then into Dialog, which ends with everyone doing a doggy grasping thing, into the center to clasp hands and butt shoulders and heads together for a chord which even Lyn forces herself to join, "A heaven group" per Claude, and then we do partnership transformations, Etta and I going through adagio, drunk, mother-child, sex, animals, lifesaving, other things, and Rick and Al are brilliantly funny with theirs, and then we do "Jamming," I getting along VERY well with "I have never lived as well as," though John balks and mopes.
DIARY 1147
TUESDAY, MAY 26. Do John for ages last night with the vibrator, he leaves for work and I really DON'T FEEL LIKE DOING ANYTHING, just moping around the house, not feeling like typing a thing, not feeling like reading, but I get down to the basement to pick up a fairly complete copy of the Times, getting junk in the mail, listening through the earphones to the three records that I got yesterday night ("Missa Luba," Berlioz "Te Deum," and Simon and Garfunkle's "Bridge over Troubled Waters") and that takes till well past noon and I haven't done anything yet! Debate writing a bit, but I don't feel like it, and for lunch decide to have popcorn, and settle down to read a bit of the Farb book on Indians, but when I finish the popcorn I just don't finish reading because I can't concentrate. "The River" came in the mail and I read that, and I sat looking out at the rain at the people in the building across the way, and then got down to the typewriter, but couldn't go beyond one page. Finally decide that I feel like coming, so I get out the mirrors and the pornography and have a good session with an emission just before I have an orgasm, so I still have that technique down fairly well, but I can't get onto a second emission before I simply have to come, which I do with enormous feeling. Then put all the stuff away and sit again on the sofa debating what to do. Called Marty and found it would be OK to stay there next week, and then Norma called to say I'd forgotten about lunch, and Bob calls to give his ludicrous idea about an orgy with me and him and Brian and Betty and Norma! Called Avi yesterday, so I can't call him today, and there's nothing to do but take a grip on myself and fix a lunch of franks and soup, finally feeling better with something on my stomach, but still sick and weak, and put the radio on and listen to it aimlessly, finally getting into bed at 6:30, setting the alarm for 7:30, then up to shave and pull whiskers and get to the Royal Ballet for Nureyev and Monica Mason in a passable "Swan Lake," but lose an umbrella, and here for wine and talk until 11:45, then John insists on using the vibrator on me, and by the time I force a painful orgasm, it's 1 am. Whew.
DIARY 1149
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27. Play with him and he comes at 8:15; I get to TYPING. Type about 20 pages through the day (at least, I think so, looking at date above, and seeing as how I'm at Sound Beach without my datebook), and at 1 stop a productive session to watch "Susan and God," which I'd seen the beginning of some months ago, and evidently I'd turned it off before the end, because I didn't remember it at all that Joan Crawford threw herself in Frederic March's arms with a very anomalous "I'll be better, I pray God I'll be better." The only God she admitted to was herself and her selfishness. Decide I'd better check up on some more items on the "Things to Do" list, and phone the framer to find that he DOES have the last painting framed, and then call the antler-mounter to find he DOES have them back, and the idea that they'd call me went completely nowhere. Get uptown to get the last painting, and get back to find a copy of Gay and Life in the mailbox, so I read all that and then put the painting up, and with other things like watching the houses across the street with binoculars, particularly the pot-smoking painter in the corner of the studios, also work lots on my Book Editor resume, the afternoon and evening pass, and it's time to shower and shave and eat and get out to the Royal Ballet, rushing up the street at the last minute even though I insisted that I'd have enough time. "La Bayadere" starts awkwardly when the fifth ballerina almost falls during the grueling entrance, but gains in interest with Coleman's solo feats of dancemanship, and it's too bad he's so terribly thin and the costume is so unflattering to his scrawny arms, because he could be a very exciting dancer. Intermissions are a bore with no one to talk to, and "Birthday Offering" is really dreadful with a second-rate cast, Park and MacLeary being very much off stride through the whole thing, and only the tights were worth watching. "Ropes of Time," which took a 35-minute set-up, was dreadful choreographically, and if it weren't for Monica Mason's death-eyes, and the low-cut tights on the chunky young dancers I'd never seen before, it would be a complete bore, including Nureyev. TV movie not on at 12:15.
DIARY 1150
THURSDAY, MAY 28. Wake to Roger Evan's call to say he's staying at my place for the next five or six days, then I drop in at the bank for more money, depleting both accounts, get my glasses re-bent and more keys made for both Arno and Roger, then walk to get the antlers, but the guy's not there, so I'm across to the Conspiracy for a nice silk scarf for $3.50, and the guy's back, I pay him the $30, and drape the antlers across my shoulders, two sticking up from my tousled hair, and walk home to comments like "I thought hunting season was over." "What did you kill to get that?" "Sometimes I feel that horny, too." "Aren't they beautiful?" "Hey, look at THAT." "Um, nice." "Isn't that lovely?" and unadulterated "Wow"'s. Debate where to put it and Roger comes in and we try to realign the antlers, but it doesn't really work, and I end up hanging it above the chest of drawers, and it really commands the vision even from the living room. Say I don't want it above the bed or desk because I can picture it coming down and embedding an antler in my skull! Roger wants to see his magic shop, so we walk down 8th and get attracted to the bus leaving for the Ed Sullivan Theater for a TV show, so get on and see the taping of "What's My Line?" from the balcony, and never see anything from the balcony again, since the stage can barely been seen, and even the applause seems to be lost in the lights, booms, monitors, railings, theater modifications, and tight seats. Bus back down and find the magic shop moved, and up Broadway to find them just moving in. Back up for franks and talk, call Arno who insists I bring him a key in an envelope for Thursday, and while I'm showering Norma calls from downstairs and chats with Roger while I dress and draw flower-watering charts. Pack a jammed suitcase with few clothes and get out to Claude's class for head stands, pair-introduction with Al, storytelling messed up by Nedda, a very disturbing retarded/normal child interaction, a foot-heap which I don't enter because of my poison ivy, and we're out at 10:25 to my place, Roger has two girls up already, up to Marty's at 11, drive to the island at 1, John very tired, and we're to bed with minimum unpacking.
DIARY 1151
FRIDAY, MAY 29. Marty worked on clogged john until 4 and sleeps till 12, and then three of us go shopping for $45 worth of groceries, which bugs everyone's eyes, then John gets down to vacuum lots and do some work, I search for something I'd like to do and sweep up the sun porch and start taking the larger branches off the back lawn and getting a lot of junk into one of the new plastic bags, and then it's time to get over to Norma and Ernie Grauman's for drinks, and meet the mumble-mouthed Joe we've heard so much about. John's lit the fire, so we're back to put more charcoal on and he does the hamburgers, and Marty does as well as he can with the buns on the dying coals, and we eat inside, topping it off with the Sara Lee cake of the week, and then begin to talk about LSD and what I got from it, and we're all off into a detailed discussion of "It's all one," and Jerri just doesn't understand it, and Marty adds some good comments, and John rather old-maidishly refuses to see any of my points, until Jerri makes the comment with some asperity that John's been HURTING me, and I can only respond "Does it hurt when Christopher kicks you?" and she replies "It does when he does it intentionally." There's lots of comparing notes about individual characteristics and general characteristics and "basic" similarities, and Jerri sort of proves the point by saying her list of five basics wouldn't be the same as MY list, but when I ask her what she's afraid of and she says "Nothing," and then I ask what she'd think if she were to die in the next five minutes, and then she says "Yes, of course, I'm afraid of death," and I state in triumph that that's certainly one of the five basics, even more so because she didn't even SAY it when I ASKED her about it. John read the I Ching this AM (while I read part of "Divided Self," alternately freezing in shadows and roasting in sun) for "What's bothering me about my relationship with Bob" and it says "Wait, fox's tail gets wet when he crosses the river" (hexagram 64), and I read for "Are we all One?" and get success, success, Superior Man, truth, teaching others, and all sort of lovely affirmatives. They wash dishes and we're to bed at 11.
DIARY 1152
SATURDAY, MAY 30. We've moved the mattress into the room with a closed door, and have lovely sex in the morning, prompting Jerri to remark the next day to the dinner guests "They wake every morning at 7, then come downstairs at 10, completely exhausted." Jerri wakes Marty up, because he'd gotten up to feed Chris this morning, since Jerri is slightly indisposed, and we have breakfast outside and pile into the car for a tour around Port Jefferson. Stop at the Jayne house and get a half-price tour for the Thompson House, but when we get there Chris is asleep so Jerri stays in the car for her own house, John steals some mint for the shish kebab tonight, and we handle everything in sight, getting a nice kind of impression from the livable museums. Back to Port Jefferson to eat in the expensive clam place that Marty will no longer recommend, then drive around looking at the clamming and the old houses and John and I gape at a true lovely with a kid who looks at us with straight-forward eyes. Out onto the east sand-spit of Port Jefferson bay, and it's a piney, sand-trailed peak which could be an ideal place for cruising in the evenings, and the water below is devastatingly blue and the trees incredibly green, and we stop off at Cedar Beach to look it over, then drive around in Belle Terre looking at all the houses, getting glimpses of the Sound again and again, getting lost a bit into the bargain, and back to the house in time for John to start the lamb on a fire of my making. Things broil very slowly, but the lamb is very nicely cooked and of superb texture, and even the oil and orange and cucumber salad is tasty. We chat for a bit, but then get down to canasta, broken when the john clogs up again, Jerri goes over to say goodbye to her Aunt Marion, and John and I go over to use her john, he gets the impression she's a dyke, we get water and chow mien from the place, then back over for another game of Canasta, which everyone finds nerve wracking, Jerri's stomach knotting up, John biting his fingernails, and Marty smoking cigarette after cigarette, even settling for some of Jerri's non-mentholated ones in his desperation. To bed about 11:30 after beach sitting.
DIARY 1153
SUNDAY, MAY 31. Up about 9 and they permit me to drive in to get cigarettes and the Times and milk, but have to go back because I didn't ask Marty what kind of cigarettes he wanted. We have breakfast inside and Marty gets back to working on various sinks and toilets, and John and I pack up the backpack and drive down to Smith Point Beach where a rather dense cold fog has lined the beach all along the island, and we walk in the endless haze and climb over the dunes to relax, and John gets out the oil and we start playing with each other, despite low-flying planes who seem certainly to be watching us, and I have lots of trouble coming after he comes, but I do, admitting that I'd rather he be able to bring me off, but I'm far more glad that I came at all in any way possible. Into trunks and the fog has vanished, and we walk further to see the surfers waiting for the perfect wave, and climb a high dune to see the surf to the south, the quiet water to the north, the hordes of people at the beach to the east, and the small knot of vacationers to the west in jerry-rigged bathhouses which can only be reached by boat from Long Island. Back to watch the paunchy papa playing catch with mama, and sun ourselves for about an hour, feeling very hot, and gather our stuff up and survey the not very interesting crowd on the beach, but things pick up a bit in the refreshment booth, and at least there are some nice teenage torsos to gape at. Back to the car about 3:30 and drive back up, stopping at Carvel, and get in to find the guests haven't been able to play bridge because of the kids, and the couple doesn't impress me, so I sit around reading the Times while the kids scream at each other and little Scottie throws fit after fit. The chicken for dinner is great, the hamburgers and franks less so, and finally they leave at 8 and John and I have the place to ourselves. Put some of the more dreadful furniture into the garage to hide it, lay around on the sofa petting, and fuss with the kitchen sink a bit, but decide to go to bed early, since we hope to get lots of work done in the next few days. Make ourselves comfortable in the place we're going to call home for the net few days.