1971 2 of 5
DIARY 1748
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17. Wake VERY tired and home at 9, right away to Old Diary. Do a couple of pages and then get tired and read some short stories from "I Sing the Body Electric," and do a couple more pages, and then decide to summarize the contents, and type a table of contents to the table of contents, summarizing everything on my sheets, and end up with 737 pages, and feel very good about the whole finished thing, until I get to cleaning out the top drawer, and find the portfolio of material set aside for "Acid House" and THERE are all the correspondences from the people from Hollywood Hospital, and THERE ALSO is over a hundred pages of Old Diary material that I'd separated out with the idea of putting it, as highlights or glossings, into "Acid House." Debate what to do with it, and just seek to brush it under the carpet by putting it in "Now Working On" folder with the rest of the "Acid House" manuscript in the top drawer, and get on to other things. Type one page of diary to keep up to date, and then it's time for dinner and out to meet John at the Elgin for "Abraham Lincoln" and "The Struggle," the only two talkies by D.W. Griffith, and they both seem like sketches for his great works, which, sadly, he had already DONE 15 years before with "Intolerance" and "Birth of a Nation." Lincoln is very awkwardly and sketchily done, and "The Struggle," against drink, is so melodramatically done it's equal to his one-reelers from 1910, not 1931. John's off enjoying sex in the corner, and various people sit next to me, but I don't make a move until a short Italian type starts playing with his nice erection, and I sit next to him and pat his leg and stroke his cock, then unzip him and play with the hard uncircumcised cock until he gets very stiff and starts wriggling in his seat, and I can't tell if he's come because there isn't much liquid, but the spit seems to go on for quite a time, and then he begins to go down, and he forces me to take my hand away, and zips up and leaves. There are a few other, awful, guys coming around, but I ignore them and they don't bother me. John comes back to sit next to me, and we leave at 10:30, back here to talk to 11. I have trouble sleeping, thinking about the orgy here and the Census work.
DIARY 1749
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 18. Up and cuddle, and he's very hard, so we get out the Baby Magic, and he drives me up the wall until I come, and then he grabs himself to bring himself to a climax, and I don't ask him why he did it himself, since it was probably the time element. Drained from the sex, and up to the living room to finish "I Sing the Body Electric," disappointing in that he didn't take it further, at 10, and then shower and fix everything up and down to work at 11, and get new work, curse Chu, and give a lot of it to Messing, via Barnes, and Rodriguez, over the phone, and to Hu, when he comes in at 12. Finished at 12:30 and leave to subway uptown to get to "Birth of an Art," with 15 early one-reelers by D.W. Griffith for Biograph, and see 12 of them and have to phone Milne to meet him on the subway platform, and down to hold the door open for him, and we're down to South Ferry at 4, and the boat just leaves, and I have a ham and cheese sandwich, a frank, and an orange drink for lunch on the boat, and the day is very clear, but terribly breezy, so we sit inside and chat, and get to the tower-offices of Richmond College at 4:30 to look out at the spectacular view, and someone comes to get us and we go to class, and he rather dogmatically talks about the history, law, joys, prejudices, and some of his personal experiences of homosexuality, and there are questions and comments from the class, and he has me participate to a small extent, and then Mike drives us home, again via the ferry, and I get out to watch the pendant of Manhattan on the necklace of Jersey-Manhattan-Brooklyn get larger and larger on the clear horizon, but there's an awful smell of oil burning on the water that belies the crystal visual clarity of the evening. Mike drives Bob home and then over the Brooklyn Bridge and to the Belt Parkway, where we sit and talk about HIS gay experience, but he's getting married, figuring he's straight, and to John's at 8:30, to read the Voice and have tasty steak and spaetzle, and I'm terribly tired at 10, so I just go to bed, to lie there, relaxing, and thinking about the busy day, and John comes in about 11, and I grunt to acknowledge his presence, then sleep.
DIARY 1750
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Wake and cuddle, home at 9 to watch "The Lady Is Willing," cute with Marlene Dietrich and Fred MacMurray, until 11, and then get down to looking at the "Acid Additions," and count the pages and find that I'll have about 102 pages, then do all the "puts" and get hungry around 2 and eat lunch, then do all the "retypes" and the table of contents, and then finally re-do the summary page for the entire collection of writing, and feel very good to have THAT out of the way. Then type two diary pages, and John comes in at 7:45, and he works for just an hour in the bedroom while I sift through the "Dictionary of American Slang" with the latest thing that's taken hold of me: going through and finding all the DICTIONARY definitions of all the gay terms in there (as well as a list of all OUTMODED terms), and feels tired and start dinner just as he showers, and then we eat until 9:30 and he says he wants to go check the cock-book shops, so we walk down in the balmy evening to pass three nudie-painting studios, two cock shops not sufficiently full, and down to 42nd to try the first one, and then in the second we hit gold dust, because they have two books for $7 each which describe in detail masturbatory fantasies just as I like them, and a great book on orgasm, and we look at them until 11, when we catch a bus uptown and get into bed, since John's tired. The sexy books weigh on my mind, however, and I think to use the Tsi-Dun membership list to send out a questionnaire for Tsi-Nano, for those who love to jerk off in various ways, and watch others doing it. These thoughts get me sufficiently riled so that I roll on my back and sneakily masturbate while John is sleeping, coming VERY deliciously with multiple bursts that shower my chest with semen. Dry myself off and lie there while he rolls back and forth, far more active later in the evening, and then I try AGAIN to sleep and can't, and think of thousands of photographed and experienced and tasted orgasms, and roll over and masturbate AGAIN, with gusto, and I even think he wakes up, since I pull the covers quickly over me, and then push them back to let them dry, and finally fall asleep about 1:30, feeling POOPED.
DIARY 1751
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 20. Wake early and work on John to ENORMOUS orgasm with Baby Magic and a lot of time, and get him so thoroughly riled up that he's thrashing all over the bed, gasping, and it's lovelily exciting. Then he goes to work and I wait around for people to come in to give me the last of the census work, but it's lousy with rain outside, and I figure that's delaying everyone. Type one diary page to keep up to date, and then John Pasko calls at 1 to say that he's leaving town at 2 for the weekend, and only has half his work done, and I angrily subway down to 55 Spring to pick up his junk and tell him that I'm NOT happy with his work, and he even has the nerve to ask, banteringly, "Why?" and I say I'm not even going to tell him, because I'm quite sure he KNOWS what he's doing. "I think I'll get over it," he says, with a smile, and I stalk out. Back at 2 and Jim shows up to give me a pile of stuff, and we talk for a while, and he leaves as Deborah and her husband come in at 3, and she admits to falsifying the two at one flophouse, and two more at another, and they talk about pot and I encourage them to smoke, saying I won't, and then take two puffs that set me flying for the rest of the afternoon, though I get through them OK. Sit and wait for Angelo to call, and fantasize about him, and sex, and come, and just don't feel like getting down to work, so I watch pieces of "Sinbad the Sailor," remembered from 1947, and "Tarzan the Magnificent," who as Gordon Scott is pretty, but almost WEAK by comparison with others. Then shower and watch "The Movie Crazy Years" from 7 to almost 8:30, eating also, and get out to Dance Theater Workshop at 8:45 for a very short evening of some pleasant scraps of dancing until 10:15, and we're over to the leather bar, and then to the Barn, which is very crowded and gets more and more crowded, and I do a couple of people and a couple go down on me, and it's difficult keeping on one's knees on the beery floor, sucking, with people milling around, hugging, coming, groaning, shouting about lost wallets, and John can be seen on various seats being sucked and necking, and it's very hot and sexy inside, with almost everyone participating, home exhausted at 1:30.
DIARY 1752
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Up without sex, since the evening took care of it, and I read the Times and John works for quite a while after we have scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast, and then I get down to the puzzles when John goes down to some board meeting at Dance Theater at 4-6, and I'm finished enough with the puzzles to shower and have a yogurt snack to stop my hunger pangs, and subway down to meet him at 6 to drive to his place and pick up the ham and sauerkraut, and to Igor and Judy's at 7, greeted by a large Tannhauser barking from the upstairs window. John's brought Jeremy a set of colored papers for drawing, and when Igor starts shouting at Jeremy for interrupting him when he's talking about "Chant of the Birds" with John, I take pity on Jeremy and call him over to draw for me, and we settle into a nice relationship of him eagerly drawing, face and mouth and tongue working away every moment, thinking furiously for the next thing he'll do, concentrating on rocket after rocket, handing him sheets of whatever color paper he wants, and nuzzling Tannhauser, a very close, affectionate shepherd, and sympathizing with Judy when she says that she's just worked out from the effects of the bustling Jeremy, Tannhauser and Igor, not to mention the efforts of getting the dinner together, and the work she does for John, which she "playfully" complains constantly about. Jeremy finally finishes his milk, the dog's shit in the hall, causing a mellifluous stink for about twenty minutes, is picked up, there's more outrage between the impatient parents and the eager child, and then he's into pajamas and begins a long shouting match from the bedroom. Dinner is good, with Judy adding cold endive and frozen chestnut mousse, with a Midwest beer, and after Igor takes the dog out, we see boring films of England, punctuated with planes for Jeremy, and slides of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England (the SAME scenes) and we're just about to get to Vienna when John begins to fall asleep and it occurs to us that it's 12:15, so we say that we'll HAVE to come back, and we leave, only having gotten through Manila in the trip itinerary, as seems to be more usual than not. Home completely exhausted to John's at 1.
DIARY 1753
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Home at 9 to worry about the people who haven't showed up for the census, and Angelo calls and comes over, and so there's just Helen and Frank not heard from, and all I can get is Helen's mother talking in her awful English, not comprehending. Phone Bijou for the film schedule for Wednesday and find that the Griffith series will be over TOMORROW, which is a pity, for reasons she won't go into. Finish most of the paperwork dealing with the turned- in work by noon, finish the puzzle, eat lunch, and (not having bread or milk, eat it at Chock Full O'Nuts at the corner) get down to the office at 1, to find that Frank and Helen have NOT showed up. Deborah comes in to give me the rest of her stuff, I get lots of the paperwork done when Frank comes in, gratefully, and when it's all over, I still have Helen out (and discover I'd written and dialed 878-7022, rather than 871-7022, so I COULD have called her) with 11, and Bordainick calls for work and comes in and HE gets 11, what with five or six that Chu adds to the list TODAY, and says that the Bronx is in trouble and needs help, too. Get out of the office at 4:30 and home to find a message from Helen, and she agrees to come into the office Wednesday about 4 pm, and hopefully Harold will be done at that time, and it'll be the END. Then go out for shopping, to fill up the fridge for the last time before the party on Sunday, and the "coming" list is now standing at 38! Then shower and trim the meat for the meal, and John's in at 7:45 for his shower while I start my meal, then we eat the meat and salad and cake and get to Carnegie Recital Hall for "Viva Musica from Buenos Aires" with Alcides Lanza and others, and I feel a great distance between me and the music, which Kenneth agrees with, who's recovered from hepatitis, and we're out at 10:30, into the still-falling rain, and all four of us are too exhausted to wait around the Blue Room for the composers. Home and immediately get into bed, John having one last Pepsi and rum before bedtime, and I have a sip, cuddling with him, and the lights go out about 11, though he sets the alarm for 7:30 for getting up tomorrow, this will catch up with SOME of the needed sleep.
DIARY 1756
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Up to do him VERY slowly from 7:15 to 8:15, and I get huge kick out of bringing him off so lingeringly. He goes to work and I sit down and type the five pages to bring me up to date, and then I read "The River" in order to answer Elaine, but really don't feel like doing it, so I get out to wash the dishes, and that's punctuated by calls from Azak and Harold and Wilkin, and by my trying to call Noerdin for John and me to see him this afternoon. Finish dishes at noon and John talks to Noerdin, arranging a meeting at 3:30, and we walk over to La Grenouille at 12:30, and they look at John strangely with his rubbers, umbrella, red gloves, and basketball bag full of work, but conduct us to a flowery table where John starts with something called Kir, a red sweet wine, and I start with sausage, not nearly as tasty as Stonehenge, being full of fatty pieces, and of a rather greasy taste, improved, however, when they decided to serve the mustard. John had clams, and I dipped a bit of the tangy sauce with my roll, and he said they were young and tender. Then I had the cream of pea soup (for which they charged me $1.75), good and of a very light green and creamy color, bubbling from the burner, and John had the grenouilles, which he didn't care for, saying they were better at Cremaillere. And I had the sole with minced mushrooms and blanc de blanc sauce which was VERY rich and buttery, and we had Chablis Val Desire, or something, which I didn't think was very good, and John had Oeufs a la Neige, or Floating Islands, which he went wild over, and I had strawberries with TWO scoops of the Grand Marnier sauce. I was stuffed, John was very tired, and he left me at Cepelia at 2:45 to go home (bill was $38.80, with tax, and I left $5.20 tip, giving nothing to the headwaiter, and $1 to the coat check, so this was lunch for two for $45: Happy Birthday, John). Walk to see Noerdin at Indonesia House at 3, out at 3:45 with books about Bali, subway to John's at 4:15, he takes a nap while I read "Love and Will," and then we go see "AC/DC" at Chelsea at 6:30, for the critic-filled audience, and a long talk afterward (see following pages), and both of us very tired to bed at 12.
DIARY 1761
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Absolutely fagged out on awakening, hardly moving, and home in a dreary drag at 9. Mope around the apartment, and because there's nothing better to do, I crawl into bed with mailings and vibrator and titillate myself for minutes on end, finally coming with the vibrator in a fabulous burst of semen that sprays my chest, leaving me even more tired than before. Get down to the D.W. Griffith movie at the MMA by Richard Shickel, and he turns out to be sitting in the row in back of me, and I get grilled by a tall blond bearded boy at the desk who says he KNOWS Spartacus Bernstein, and do I have any other identification. Then he talks to Arnie and says he's going to tear up the card if he sees it again. The film is rather poor, and I get out afterward to pick up the last of the 11 forms from Harold, buy a container of Drano for the stopped-up kitchen sink, and pick up the laundry, then get home for lunch. Down to the office at 3:30 to find that Helen has already been there, and she REDID the 1110 that I should have told her was a duplicate, and then threw out Harold's incompleted Chinese 1331 with Helen's 1110 information, and by 5:10 I'd given them all to Chu, finishing completely. Phoned John Henry, Rita's friend from City Hospital, and told him about the NY Cultural Center's movie on "Diabolerie," and he said he'd meet me at my place at 5:40. I'm there just as he's there, and he's a fiftyish graying Irv Stoner type who tries very hard to be "one of the guys" and doesn't quite make it. To the Center for the subtitle-less amalgam of 50 films, some not really very good, and many very talky to no purpose, and out at 7:30 to talk about eating out, and end up at Cafe Brittany, and he says he's never had such good hors d'oeuvres, wine, green beans, beef bourguignon, or cheese, and we're out for a hour's walk up to Lincoln Center, down through Central Park Zoo and skating rink, and I leave him at 10, getting back to John, who's eaten already, thankfully, and I shower and we lay on the bed playing at sex with the vibrator, but I'm up only intermittently, and not using the right touch on John, so at midnight, we simply quit, roll over and sleep.
DIARY 1762
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Lie in bed the whole time he's about ready to leave, getting up only to see him out the door, and then want to get down to writing the last of the letters, but simply can't get interested in typing in any form at all. Phone the Elgin and find that they're NOT showing "Intolerance" as the New Yorker indicated, and sit down to read "Raising Kane" in the New Yorker, and decided to continue the morning reading, and light into "Tolkein, a Look Behind The Lord of the Rings," which seems to offer respite for a really desperate outlook (see following pages), and get through that, pleased at the passing time, and immediately pick up "Mountains of Madness" and get into THAT. No, in the MIDDLE of "Tolkein" I'm due down at the office at 11 to start some sort of checking, but on talking to Chu, decide to spend the time on records and bringing my files up to date. Rodriguez hasn't come into the office, so I really can't finish EVERYTHING, and Bordainick comes in to start his work in the Bronx, and I'm finished about 1, having given everything to Chu except the payrolls, saying I'll come in tomorrow at 1 to help him with the final checkout. Home to finish "Tolkein" and start "Mountains of Madness," moving only when the sun causes incredible glare through the dirty windows. Interrupted by calls from a still-postponing Rodriguez, Arno about Joe Farinas, Arnie about MMA, and Marty about Gloria Caruso, and eat dinner, trying to clean out the refrigerator before the orgy here on Sunday, and finish about 10 STILL not finished with reading, so I call John to say I'm feeling very depressed and don't want to spread it around, so I won't be there this evening, and get into Clarke's "Voices from the Sky," but my eyes just won't keep open past 11:30, so I finish one set of essays and prepare to get to bed. It's just like old times, mooning around the apartment, logy from lack of movement, eye-weary from constant reading, brain pounding from ideas and reading and guilt for not doing anything PRODUCTIVE, preoccupied by thoughts of death and pointlessness and depression, and I fear lying awake, thinking, but I drop off to sleep in minutes.
DIARY 1765
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Wake, drugged, and up at 8:30 to immediately pick up "Voices from the Sky" and finish that about noon, and eat lunch right away, since I'm due down at the office to help Chu finish off the work at 1. Get down and do nothing but read the New Yorker while everyone laughs and talks about the end of the job, and about how much money everyone made during the regular census, and Barbara is proposing a BYO party tomorrow at her place, but I figure it's just a joke. Then Rodriguez comes in with his payroll, and I can finish up everything and give it to Chu, who comes up with five MORE last interviews to be done, and I lie to say I'm going out of town, Arnie doesn't want to do them, and then we make an agreement with Rodriguez that he'll be paid for the two days Saturday and Monday if he does them, and he agrees, so that's the end of the whole thing. Out about 4 and back home to type five pages and catch up on the diary, including a "Where am I now?" since I feel so completely depressed the past few days. But when I finish, pleasantly, I figure I'll go on to the next census job and send out some more writing, so that manages to bring me out of my temporary slump. What a cheap self-psychoanalysis! Eat dinner and subway down to the New School for the 8 pm showing of an awful Tod Browning-Lon Chaney silent called "Where East Is East," with a sensuous mother to the non-eastern Lupe Velez daughter of Chaney who's a cat man, and the ONLY touch of grotesquerie is where the ape attacks the mother, off-screen, at the end. "Six Hours to Live" has a good Warner Baxter brought back to life for six hours by a Frankenstein machine, and he gives his girl away and AGAIN (as in "Greatest Question") "ordains" that there's life after death by saying that it's PEACEFUL there, that he wants to go back, that he shouldn't have been brought back at all, and there's a pantheistic touch of being one with "the world," but I still get a sour feeling from it, and leave quickly at 11, to get back up to John, who's back from nude dancing at Automation House, and I've missed it, though they didn't do much. We talk for a bit, then get to bed just before midnight, smiling and snuggling.
DIARY 1766
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 27. Up at 8 and John's off to work immediately, and I start with the preparations for the party, beginning with freeing up as many hangers as I can by putting coats on top of jackets on top of shirts, and piling a number of pairs of pants onto one hanger, and end up by freeing 40 hangers, and the invitation list has stretched to 55, so there should be at least 40 here, probably closer to 50. Yesterday afternoon I'd gone out to get three cases of beer and two cases of Pepsi, paying for it all by check, even to the $10 deposit for the shopping cart to trundle the cans along 57th and into my apartment, and I made out another check when I took the cart back, since I didn't have enough in my account to pay for the deposit anyway. Put much of the stuff in the refrigerator, but still have about two cases of Pepsi that won't fit, so when I eat, I'm careful to get rid of lots of old stuff so there's room for the five cases of soda and the additional bottles for mix with the hard stuff. Then clean out the hall closet, and decide that the boxes will be fine in the hallway for shoes, and scrub the closet floor, which is quite cruddy, and pile everything into the bedroom closet, and things are getting very crowded and the place is looking like a shambles. Get into the bathroom to scour the tub and wash down the walls and clean out the toilet, even though I know the people will probably tear apart my place anyway. Vacuum the floors and get everything away in time to shower and eat dinner before John gets here just a bit late to watch the 2½ hour Channel 13 production of Clifford Odet's "Paradise Lost" with "Have another piece of fruit" by Jo van Fleet, and it seemed quite negative most of the time, until the flow of money into the household: from the sale of the stamp collection, from the Irish block-party leader to buy back the furniture, AND from the crook that got the son killed, rather nicely played by Cliff Gorman, menacing with his crossed eyes. It's a rather tiring play, though, and we immediately get into bed at 11:30 when it's over, and I'd gone out again, paying with a check that'll bounce, to get paper towels, mixes, and the last items for the orgy.
DIARY 1767
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28. We play with each other when we wake, but neither of us comes, seeming to save each other for the orgy, and I'm up to get down to buy the Times and also some butter, which I'd forgotten yesterday, since John was looking forward to having popcorn after the "swing" tonight. Back to read the Times while John worked, and take a half hour out to watch Camera Three, about Peter Brook's production of "The Tempest," and they'll be talking about "Midsummer Night's Dream" next week. I continue with the Times and John with work until two, when the afternoon is so brightly clear and warm (though not as warm as the 66° near record high yesterday, which I appreciated as I was cleaning up the apartment) that we want to go for a walk in the park, and we whiz up to the rocks, interrupted by an Arno riding past on his bike who assures us that we'll love his Joe Farinas, and we're up to the rocks, seeing that there's not too much around, and I cruise a fellow in gray trousers, but he vanishes after I say hello to him, and we dash back by 3, so that he can finish his work and I can do the dishes, very lengthily, since people are calling on the phone and I can't finish as soon as I want to, and I'm not even in the shower at 5, when George said he'd come over to look at the guest list from the cards sent back, and about 5:10 some of the first guests start arriving, and it was all I could do to get the bed off the base and put the pieces, jamming them against the doorframe, into the middle closet, and get the rest of the Pepsi into the fridge, and put in more ice to freeze, and put the typewriter away into the closet, and put fragile things into drawers, and put the table at the window under the flowered lamp, which will be the only light used, and the plants go onto the bookcase tops so that people can use the radiator covers for places to sit, and the reading table goes upside down on the bedroom dresser, and John lets the first guests in while I'm busy in the shower, messing up my hair because I'm too lazy to get the shower cap out of the drawer into which I put it, and shave poorly because I'm hot from the shower and sweaty from anticipation of the evening (see following).
DIARY 1773
MONDAY, MARCH 1. John's off to work while I'm still in bed, but I'm up quickly to see that the place really isn't in such a bad state, it just needs vacuuming, and the towels have to be washed. Fuss around with a few things, but decide I really have to get off to the bank to stop my Finast check from bouncing, and though the carbons come in the mail this morning, the check still isn't here, so I have to deposit $12 of the $30 I got as loot last night, putting it away when George hints that I shouldn't leave it until the end, because it might not BE there at the end. Since I have about a case of beer and of Pepsi left, I certainly came out ahead in the deal. Down to the bank and stop by the paperback book shop to pick up my readings for the afternoon: Volume 1 of the Chronicles of Narnia, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe," by C.S. Lewis, and read it quickly and decide that it really IS for children, and don't care to read further in the series, and Sheckley's "Shards of Space," and find that he's one of the few current adherents to the "surprise-ending" form, though most of the stories ARE old, but they're not quite as good as some of his other things. Then I want to do the clothes, but find to my chagrin that I only have one quarter, and to get another quarter I decide to take the clothes down to be washed, take the laundry out to the Chinese laundry, and stop for groceries, so that I can get change in quarters for the dryer. Do so, and come back into the apartment to lug everything BACK into the hall closet, carry the cans and garbage down to the basement when I get the stuff from the dryer, and Bob calls about pornography and photography tonight, and I call John and it's OK with him, so I hasten through the drying and vacuuming, and hop into the shower and wash my hair, and finally the apartment looks like it should, and it's past 7:30, so I can even shave and brush my teeth and get started with my dinner of John's rice pilaf, and at 7:45 Bob comes in and John's not even here, and he comes bustling in, crowing about his busy day, and he's into the shower and eats his hamburger, and we're out about 8:30 into the last half-rate cab of the current era down to (see following).
DIARY 1776
TUESDAY, MARCH 2. John's up and working at 8:30 before there's even a trace of sex from either of us. He's into the living room to work, and I'm up then to un-double the clothes in the closet, about the last thing left to put the house back into order, after he and Bob helped me put the bed back onto its base last night, and I get the junk out of the drawer that I've been accumulating for the past week and work my way down through all that, getting quite a stack of things to put away, and that lasts until 10, and I go down for the mail, and read that until 10:30, when I verify that in fact my program WILL be on tomorrow. Write three letters to camper companies in Hawaii, and then a letter to Paul, and by this time John's left, and I read about half of "The French Lieutenant's Woman" and then decide to call people and tell them about my being on the TV tomorrow, and I tell Arnie, who says he'll be over to watch it at my place, Joan, who talks a lot about how she wants to work for the census, too, and then about 5:30 call Mom, and Rita answers and verifies that she IS mad at me, for saying I WOULDN'T charge her rent, when I was verbalizing my guilt about not sending her a Christmas present, and talk to her, and she's terribly cold, and I just can't see taking it from her, so we hang up QUITE abruptly. Call Joe and he says he's not at ALL interested in watching, and Avi, and he's going to a therapist for the first time tonight, and will be over later, when he's finished, and John Connolly, and he's free tonight, wanting to go to a show, so I suggest the Park-Miller, that Arnie saw this afternoon and said was so good, and I also try to get Walter Joseph and Bob Malchie, but don't succeed with them. I'm eating about 6:45 and Avi comes in, to say how irritable he's been, and talks about the death-orientation of early American literature, and Arno comes over to give me four lush pieces of cheesecake, which Avi and I have two pieces of, and call John at 7:30, and he's over at 8, when Avi leaves, and we're to the theater just before 9, and see the good previews for "Adultery for Fun and Profit" and a funny "Beautiful George," lots of come, and come in others, except they don't seem to be ENJOYING it. I'm back to come over slides, just to COME, and John's sick in bed, and I listen to records to 1.
DIARY 1777
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3. John calls at 8:30 to say he feels awful still, and he needs groceries which I volunteer to take him this evening, before the radio recording, and I have breakfast and treat Arnie to it when he comes over for the program, and I look pretty good during it, though the pang of losing this time is just a bit greater, though I hope she's the finest champion they've ever had (to beat me, that is). Arnie sits around and talks about the census business and his personal affairs with sex until noon, and he's brought up the mail, which includes my check, so I have to go to the bank again, this time rather falling for a fetching teller's trainee who keeps looking at me with sidelong glances, and stop in for more books, and back to read "Snow White" and "Unspeakable Practices, Unnatural Acts," by Donald Barthelme, and though I must admit his style is rather different, I can't see that his CONTENT is anything to rave about, and decide they're praising him ONLY on his style, and I don't really care for that. Eat lunch and listen to some of the records, all of which came in today, and then decide I have to wash my hair at 5, so that it dries by 6, so that I can call John and see if he wants any more groceries and get down on subway to the supermarket just before it closes at 7 to get everything for him, and talk to him about Barthelme until 7:30, and then out again in the driving rain to East 39th Street and the WBAI studio, meeting Grant Taylor on the corner of Fifth, and Richard Lamparski at the doorway, and upstairs for a delay in the taping, and talk to Marcia Blackman, a young pussy on Screw, and Anselma Dell'Olio (who lives on W. 54th), who neatly put the woman's position in the question of penis size, and I have to get a tape recorder so I can record the program when it's on. Richard invites us to his place afterward, at 10:30, and he passes around a pipe, and puts out the smoked oysters (cunt) and steaming franks (cock) and the crackers and the chocolate covered breadsticks, and I eat and get caught up in his heat-luminescent toy, playing around like wax in the bottom, and get very high, and leave in a taxi with Grant at 1 am, getting home and falling into bed.
DIARY 1778
THURSDAY, MARCH 4. John AGAIN calls at 8:30 to say he's feeling better, and though I don't FEEL like getting out of bed yet, I decide that since I'll just have to get BACK into the habit of early sleeping, early rising when John gets better, I might as well start now, so I stay up and begin catching up on my diary, interrupting to watch Joan win from Gerri the very first game after mine, and Joan loses the next "Concentration" game to Lynn, though winning a car with a double wild card, so there's a quick turnover of winners. Back to type a few more pages, and then it's 11:45, and I'm down to Donnell for the two-hour film program on sport, most of it poorly photographed and boring, though my discomfort was heightened by a sick boy accompanied by two ineffectual Chinese girls, and when they finally left, I began to enjoy the shows more. Out at 2 and across to the MMA, where I wait around a bit to avoid the tall blond who threatened to punch me in the mouth for being Spartacus Bernstein, and get a schedule and find out when the Walker Evans book will be out, then walk home in the extremely windy cold to watch the tin molding on top of the building at 54th and Broadway blown off and into the street, sadly not mashing anyone or anything in its flight, because obviously that's what I was watching for. Back home for more typing, doing 13 pages in all, and eat a late lunch about 3, and I call Eddie to find he didn't like the party people particularly, Arno calls to postpone his party one week, John calls to say he's feeling much better and would like me to come over this evening, but I feel I don't want to catch his lingering bugs, and though I'm annoyed with myself for being so lazy, I say I don't really want to come over. Call Debesh and he says he'll come over on Sunday to see me at 2, and call all the numbers from Tsi-Dun to give them membership information, except I can't reach Joe Farinas. Eat dinner at 10, after writing a note to Don O'Shea and looking for 2½ page stories can send to "Michael's Thing," which I also called about, and then I don't even feel like reading, but listening to records high, so I smoke (next page), and woozily crawl into bed at 1 am, falling asleep instantly!
DIARY 1781
FRIDAY, MARCH 5. John rousts me out of bed at 9:30 with a call, and I type three pages to catch up to date, and then start on the retyping of "Acid House," since I'm willing to take John's word that Geis might keep it for as long as 6-8 months, and I'm not going to just let it sit: I want to send a copy of Don O'Shea, now that he knows I'm gay, give a copy of Joan Sumner, so that she might see play possibilities SHE could follow up with, to NY Literary Agency, that I called last night, and she said she wanted to see it, to Henry Clay Kern, who reads things and comments on them from the NY Times, Author Aid Associates, which is right here in New York City, Stuart Rose of Author's Guidance Service, who is in Pennsylvania, to Azak to give to Tom Davis, even though he IS out of a job, and to Barbara Brimberg to give to Theron Raines, even though he's only her cousin's agent. Then I want to send one to Bill Hyde, just to see his reaction to it, and I could send one to Elaine Restifo, who might know some publishers through the River. Then I want to send one to Hollywood Hospital, just to see THEIR reaction. And maybe Lois Cohen would be interested, she might know publishers. Arthur Derounian, being a writer, might be able to help me. Avi Golub wanted to read it, maybe he can help with some of his many friends. Let Bob Rosinek read it, since he knows many people through the gallery. Let Arno Safier read it, maybe he has connections who could help. Alan Vaughan is a freelance editor into this field, show it to him! And why NOT send another copy out to Random House; it sure can't HARM it. For 20 copies, at Copyquick prices, it comes out to $79.38, or $5.50 a copy. John might do it free at Dutton's, but with 2080 sheets of paper??? They may be generous and unobservant, but that would be asking TOO much. To John's at 6 for lamb dinner, very good, and to "Deafman Glance" at the Brooklyn Academy, which was so different it deserves a separate page of evaluation, and this really isn't a regular page of diary, anyway. Back to John's about midnight and fall into bed with anger (see DIARY 1783).
DIARY 1784
SATURDAY, MARCH 6. Up having great shooting sex with Baby Magic, and I'm home at 10. Don't do anything much more through the day except retype the second third of Acid House, and yesterday I typed to page 30, and today I typed to page 66, and even went through and proofread much of the first two thirds. John said that it was silly of me to retype it, but I said I was just tired of waiting for it to come back, and didn't want to disturb them by writing to them inquiring about it, even though Henry Clay Kern later told me that 6-8 weeks was long enough for any book publisher to keep a manuscript, and that HE would send a letter of inquiry. So I guess I WILL wait until 8 weeks is up, on March 17, and send them a letter---maybe even waiting until the 20th, when I can say it's two MONTHS, which sounds lots longer. Read bits of "French Lieutenant's Woman" between typing, when I just feel that the mistakes are taking longer than the typing itself. I paid for both tickets to "Deafman Glance" last night, even though I'd been smoking to make the evening better, but I just pushed through the crowd better than John to get the seats, and I also got groceries, so I was running out of money, and John had to pay for tonight. Since he didn't have enough to buy dinner meat with, we had to be satisfied with sloppy joes again, but it was tasty anyway. Then we drove down to the American Theater Laboratory, donated by Jerome Robbins for the performances, and it was an enormously large space, so large that the audience definitely was lost on the five-ranked bleachers along one small side of the wall. Fairly good performances, and then Bob van Cleeve was having a party at his place, so John drove me and Bob and Art down, and we looked at his jade and Buddha and bowl collection and told him about our trip, and looked at Mr. Silver in his purple undershirt, and ate the lovely pastrami and potato salad on the buffet, and talked with Bob about his new relationship with Deborah from the office, and Art about his not EVER again doing his non-random pieces because he can't stand the timing and rehearsing, and we left about 1, feeling great, and back to my place to fall into bed.
DIARY 1785
SUNDAY, MARCH 7. John's up and working before I get out of bed, and I get up to make bacon and eggs for breakfast, and we're rapidly going through all the dishes in the house, what with dinner here last night and breakfast this morning. Watch Peter Brook's actors talking very uncommunicatively with an awful Margaret Croydon on Camera Three, and I start with the puzzle, getting only vaguely dressed before Sarkar comes in early at 1:45. John and I go over our revised schedule with him, and he tells us how to get to the Manali Valley, and promises us that his friends in New Delhi and his family in Calcutta and his friend in Darjeeling will all be ready to make our travels as pleasant as possible, and he even invites us to his place for an Indian dinner, and I suggest we make it the 20th, since Rita will be here too. He talks about all his friends in town, in Queens, in the Bronx and in New Jersey, and about how impossible it is to find another hotel room with his accent, and how he's had to settle for temporary jobs of no connection with civil engineering just to get money. We go up to the roof to see if there's any snow left in Central Park, but there isn't, and the wind is too brisk to stay up there long, so we're back into the apartment to talk about dance performances, and finally he says he really has to stop bothering us (and we're desperate for him to go) about 4:30, and he leaves and John says he wants to take a nap, so I continue working on the puzzles, and---no, I guess we had STEAK (which I bought, YES) last night, and it's TONIGHT that we had the sloppy joes, since we ate in again, and this was the third meal, and it cleaned me out of clean dishes. Then back down to Art Bauman's performance of "Dialogues," and the audience really appreciated when his photo, which they thought was him, falls flat onto the floor. Gene Stulgaitis still fetches with his lovely body in "Fantasie pour Deux," but Rudy Perez is awful in "Residues," though Lenore Latimor and Barbara Roan really break up people with their acting, and I still can't take my eyes off Aaron Osborne in Kathy Posin's "Three Countrysides." How LOVELY is his BODY. Miss the party that night, and home to bed.
DIARY 1786
MONDAY, MARCH 8. To John's rather, and get home feeling absolutely awful. Mope around the house fixing up some silly things, and turn through the TV dial starting at 10 just to watch something until "Concentration" comes on, and then I sit, stupefied, watching through to noon, just to see Bob Clayton on "Hollywood Squares," which is hardly a good reason. Don't feel like doing anything, so I continue reading the magazine section of the Times and finishing the puzzles from Sunday, and then eat lunch, and decide I have to get to the bank for more money, and decide, while waiting on the too-long line, and watching ANOTHER set of people being trained, that I just have to withdraw the rest of the money from my savings account today, not even waiting until March 31 for the interest, since it'll only be about 50¢ anyway. Stop across the street but find it's not a savings bank, so they only give 4½% interest, so that crosses THAT off the list, since I just don't want two banks, so eventually I'll transfer the whole thing to the Chase Manhattan on the corner of Broadway (and then maybe I won't pass the paperback bookshop so often, and won't be tempted to buy so many books). Back to shower and shave and do absolutely nothing until it's time to get down to the Elgin, and for some reason I even do that fairly late, since it's a 2 hour 20 minute show and I'm supposed to get to John's at 7:15 to pick him up for dinner at Bob Malchie's tonight, but it's all I can do to get out of the apartment by 4:30, which is really too late. Get in in the middle of "Blood of a Poet," and I keep forgetting the sexy guy who wanders around without his shirt on, and they do "Chien Andoulou," and I don't watch the eye again, and "Salome," very dated, and "Lot in Sodom," which is quite sensual, made with the "repeating images" that MacLaren carried to heights in "Pas de Deux," and there were lots of asses and breasts and male-male kissing and jokes about "the virgin daughter" and "Mother is a temple," and I get sat next to by a sexy guy (see next page) and leave at 7, walking to John's office, and we get to Bob's at 7:30 (see following pages), and we leave at 1, catching a cab home for $2.50, the first of the higher rates paid.
DIARY 1791
TUESDAY, MARCH 9. John leaves to work in the living room while I'm still in bed, seemingly exhausted, though I really can't tell why, except from too much pot and hash last night. Finally get down for the mail, and there are more copies of "Smithsonian Magazine" and other things to read, and I read them until time for "Concentration," and by that time John's done in the living room and goes into the bedroom to read, and I watch the show and then John leaves, and I get back to finish retyping "Acid House," really sweating through the last few pages, and I eat lunch sometime and decide to finish "The French Lieutenant's Woman," and I'd agreed to go to John's at 9, but somehow when I finish with my shower and shaving and dinner, it's 9 already, and I phone him, and he sounds angry and tells me to bring my keys, since he's going out for a walk, and then Marty calls about tomorrow night, and I leave the house at 9:20, then the subway connections are poor and I get into the dark apartment at 10, and John's lying in bed, saying with deadly quiet that "I planned to be finished with my work at 9 so we could be together, and finally I didn't think you were coming at all." I immediately saw how stupid I'd been, and apologized, but he seemed to increase in bitterness, saying that I was taking him for granted, and I stepped into it by saying that I was feeling depressed and really didn't feel like coming to HIS place, and he took that poorly, saying he had to cart his clothes and work over to MY place, and I wouldn't go out of my way to go to HIS place, and he didn't like that at all. Then he let ANOTHER expression of sadness through, and I pointedly remarked that he could get LOTS further with me when he revealed he was HURT than when he grumbled indignantly about what I "should" be doing for him. We talked until about 11, and fell asleep quite discontent about the whole relationship, even though I insisted on talking about it, saying that I WAS sorry about my stupidity for the evening, that I SHOULD consider him more, and make more sacrifices for HIS sake, and vowed to do better, But there was very little physical contact, though both of us fell asleep promptly. Why am I so tired???
DIARY 1792
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10. He's up and DOESN'T shower, unless I napped through it, and it's barely 8:20 by HIS clock (which is always 10 minutes fast) when he comes in, dressed, to find me in bed still, and he says, with some strength "Honestly, I feel you're like an ALBATROSS around my neck in the morning," and I remind him that I HAVE the keys and can let myself out, and he huffs out, and I'm up and leave just afterward, feeling absolutely shitty. Home and get enormously cheered by the mail: two camper returns from Hawaii, and a River with loads of nice comments about my Poetry of the previous issue, and AGAIN I watch TV until noon, feeling AGAIN awful about it, and dawdle through the River's comments again, and then get into the bedroom to meticulously proofread ALL of Acid House for the second time, finding many more mistakes than I would have thought: 8 actual typing mistakes and about 6 things which I should have changed as I was typing it. Put out a TV schedule with Thursday's "Much Ado about Nothing" circled for John, and Saturday's "Long Day's Journey into Night," and shower and wash my hair and eat dinner before 8 to get out to meet Marty for "Mefistofele," and Salvador Novoa is rather cute, with a nice thin chest and not much belly, but a lousy singer, though Treigle is getting better and better, and Marty COMES over Cruz-Romo. Home at 11:30 and John is in bed already, angry with me, and I take out my contacts and wash my face and crawl into bed, and just after midnight the phone rings, and it's BILL, who wants me to put up Bob Jackins for a week, maybe with him, and I say it just can't be done, and promise to answer his letter fairly soon, and get back to talk a few words to John, but he mumbles as if he's half asleep, so I lay there with my hand on his knee, thinking about our declining relationship, and trying to fall asleep on my back, but I can't, so finally I turn over and fall asleep on my stomach. The past few days have been hellishly depressed, and John's been working harder than ever, very conscious about that, and I'm just making more trouble for him, it seems. Can't seem to break out of the cycle of depressing events, though I EXERCISED (1 & 2) today!!
DIARY 1793
THURSDAY, MARCH 11. Wake and he's out of bed immediately, and angry with me because I put out the TV ad, and he says that he's MORE angry since it just happened after Tuesday. I said I could ONLY say what I wanted and leave the choice up to HIM, just as I did yesterday: I ASSUMED he wanted to come over last night, but when he said he didn't know, it would depend on how tired he was after the day was over, I did NOT encourage him, fearing to ASK him to come over when he might come ONLY because I wanted him to come, which might overtire him needlessly. Then I called him BACK to say that I DID want him to come over, and he essentially said that he was WAITING for that, and that he WOULD be over, regardless of how the day turned out. But then, of course, he was practically asleep when I came IN! so NOW, angry, he said that he'd decided LAST night that he was going out to get the sex he hadn't had since Sunday, since he wanted an evening of purely sensual pleasure. I suggested I could come over that evening, and he said no, and I said I HOPED he was doing it because he WANTED to do it ("If you were doing it when we had NO problems, I wouldn't mind at all, but now I'm feeling you're doing it because you want to HURT ME!") and he said he did. I mooned through the morning, not feeling well (and glad that the recurrence of the AWFUL diarrhea of last night, I guess caused by the exercises 1 and 2 and rapid speeds yesterday), and watched TV again from 10-12, getting out just in time to see the two-hour show at Donnell about Gance and Griffith, strikingly similar, and back to call John and propose he smoke and I use the vibrator, and he said he'd called ME to invite ME over tonight, and I almost cried with pleasure! Ate lunch and got into the bedroom to finally write to Bill, type two pages which I couldn't go ANY farther than, work on "New York" puzzle---damn! And exercise (#3, within the 11 minutes, too!), and eat and shower and get out just at 8:35, getting to John's at 9:05, and he's nude in a hot apartment, and we have, sadly, a very unpleasant experience (see next page). We don't say a WORD about anything afterward, which is nice and not nice at the same time. To sleep rather before 11 pm, early.
DIARY 1797
FRIDAY, MARCH 12. Cuddle poorly, and I'm home to exercise AGAIN by 9:10 am! Decide to catch up totally on the diary, and type 14 pages, interrupted by watching "Concentration," probably for the last time, and eating lunch, and write a letter to Mom, and watch "A Hard Day's Night" on TV, interspersed with looking at the "Masturbation and Homosexuality" book I got when I went to the bank to cash the IBM dividend check for my checking account in order to send a check for the two different performances I won't be seeing with my Hurok subscription to the Stuttgart Ballet, and then I went down to 42nd Street to look for "Michael's Thing," to see what it's like, and it's pretty bad, and also pick up that cock book. Working on the last bit of the letter to Mom: the envelope, at 5:45 and John comes in, surprisingly, saying he didn't feel like going to dance class because he felt ill, and he takes a nap while I read in the living room, and then we eat (I just have the rest of the Spam, he has his own raw meat), and we figure we'll have sex, and I'm sure I'm ready for it, but I get to working on him with the saliva I easily muster, and I'm still not going up, though I am for just a bit as I straddle him and play with both our cocks together. He comes nicely and easily, and I'm determined to come, so I whack away at myself, trying to reach a peak and stop enough so I'll feel good and stay there, but I get to that peak a couple of times, just ready to come, but I'm still not hard, and immediately I stop, the sensation leaves, and I have to work just as hard getting it back, so finally about the fourth time I just grunt out "I have to come," and I send up one of my frantic fragmented showers that seems to go on and on, showering me and him and the blankets, thinking it'll never stop, and he later says that though I may have been disappointed with it, he wasn't particularly, and that made me feel somewhat better. Talk for a bit, and go to bed fairly early, since he's not feeling well, but doesn't have any idea what's wrong with him except that he has some difficulty with swallowing, and thinks his neck is getting filled with swollen glands. To bed about 10:30, exhausted.
DIARY 1798
SATURDAY, MARCH 13. To work with him about 9 am, neither of us having any more than orange juice for breakfast, and he sets me up with 8½ x 14" paper in the xerox room, and I go through the 71 pages of the first draft pages for Henry Clay Kern with one copy, and then through the 104 pages of "Acid House" five times for various companies and people, and by then it's 11:10, and I use the paper cutter to whack off the edges and leave about 11:25, barreling up to the Museum of Modern Art to get into the theater about 11:40 just for the end of "Musketeers of Pig Alley," a magnificently focused print of it, and watch "Lonedale Operator," very similar to "A Girl and Her Trust," except that in the former she uses a monkey wrench as a pistol to hold off the thieves of the train money until the hero comes to rescue her, and in the latter she uses a monkey wrench to shoot a bullet through a keyhole and is rescued from a FLATCAR by the hero in another train. Then "Judith of Bethulia" comes on, and some stupid people insist on laughing at just anything, and though Blanche Sweet is just too much, Mae Marsh and Henry Walthall are pretty good, and the spectacle is certainly a rehearsal for "Intolerance." Amazing that Judith was done in 1913 and such POOR stuff was being done in 1910. Home at 1:30 and John's gone to Judy's to get some antibiotics from her father's supply for his neck, and I laboriously go through ALL the "Rivers" meticulously recopying the sheet that says "who contributed what" and "When my stuff appeared," and that takes a NUMBER of fruitless hours, and then I shower and eat and John gets in at 8:10, a bit late for the start of "Long Day's Journey into Night," but he's simply too tired, even without commercials at all, and goes to bed at 10:10, and the thing is over at 10:20, so I wash my face and crawl into bed with him, and wake and sleep through the night as he gets up and down to go into the bathroom, but I don't hear the alarm ring at 2:30 as he gets up to take his pills, though he says it rang for a long time. Just lay quietly, touching him, and dozing off to sleep when I wake, content to be near him, hopefully comforting, while he's feeling ill.
DIARY 1799
SUNDAY, MARCH 14. Wake at 8 and lay until 9, then go out for the Times and a supply of soup and juices for his Royal Sickness, and back up to fix both of us some eggs, but he doesn't feel like eating anything but a bit of one, though possibly I made them too hard, and I eat mine, and he goes back to bed and I sit and read the Times, seeing that there's nothing on Camera Three, and he asks for some soup about noon, and then finds it good and has some more, and I continue reading the Times and working with the Double-Puns and Anagrams AND the regular puzzle, and then he's working in the living room, so I have lunch in the bedroom and decide to start correcting the first draft pages I'm giving to Kern, and get about half through with them when it's 4, so I go out again to get him more soup, and get into the shower to wash my hair to look pretty for the FAYA (Fifth Avenue Youth Association of the United Presbyterian Church on 55th and 5th) meeting with Bob Milne, and I meet him at 6, talk to the ingenuous guy who walked into the Candy Store and noticed something was wrong in 10 minutes, eat the mediocre chicken chop suey and salad and tiny piece of cake and tea until 7, and then there are announcements and prayer-offerings, and at 7:30 Bob starts his usual dogmatic, pedantic speech, and ends about 8:15 with questions, and there aren't many, but people talk about going out for coffee afterwards, and some girl starts asking questions, and her boyfriend corners me with his mouth and tells me about his girlfriend AND his boyfriend, and what would I do, and I think he means he's bisexual, and then he insists he really likes ONLY the guy. Hmmm. The woman talks about her toys and stamps and dolls and family, shocked that I'm 35 as she is (she looks older), and we talk through cherry pie and cheesecake, gradually getting more and more boring after they find out about all the gay bars and guides and cruising and love affairs, so I leave at 9:20, hurrying home to John, and he's waiting for me, dressed, and we leave, getting to Brooklyn about 10, and I get him some eggs which he eats three of, and I have rice pudding, and we cuddle and talk, and he says he's happy I'm there, and we fall asleep about 11 pm.
DIARY 1800
MONDAY, MARCH 15. Up about 9, John feeling a bit better, and I read "Love and Will" until just about quarter to 11, when I get dressed and subway to David Susskind's Talent Associated office in the Newsweek building, getting there late at 11:45, but Gregory Battcock is there later, at noon, and can only stay a little bit, and he has some strange ideas, and we chat and they praise my articulateness, but stress that they want a RANGE of age, occupation and outlook among their panel, and since GB and I are the same age and occupation, it seems they have to choose between us, and they say they'll let me know tomorrow. Home at 1:30 to have Daisy call about "Werther" on Monday, when Susskind would be taping, and they'll BOTH call me back tomorrow! Eat lunch and read some junk and call Bob Rosinek, and we talk about the cause of gayness (he thinks it's because he never loved his father, and he's getting into a whole non-sexuality because he's identifying with Alicia, who's just a loving child, and he's not interested in all the humpy numbers coming, eyeing him, into the gallery, and he and Richard went to look at some porno films and the guy's mentally doing them turned them BOTH off. Also, Bob took the "New Sexuality" series away from WBAI because of their word and idea censorship, so there goes my "Penis-Size" program. Also, when I came in, figured I'd go to the Elgin, and masturbated with great satisfaction with "Masturbation and Homosexuality," figuring I could say I was "drained" by the movie, but then, talking to Bob, I don't go, and eat dinner and arrange to get to John's at 9, which I do, after trying to get Jeff Washburn to answer the door to our proposal of renting his two floors for $350, which might be nice, and we talk and I give him the "Touch Me" that I bought on the way back from Susskind in the spring-like weather, and he tries to play with me with a leather pouch, but I'm absolutely turned off, and he just smokes and I play and play and play with him from about 9:45 to about 11:15, and slam him and whip him and beat him, only on occasion feeling myself excited, but John's not really responding except to the specifically phallic stimulations, and he comes finally, and we turn over to sleep.
DIARY 1801
Tuesday, march 16. Up about quarter to 8, and he's out of bed almost at once, and I'm home, stupidly taking the wrong subway (downtown from 34th Street, instead of the local uptown) while I'm engrossed in reading the incredibly dissociated (and terribly non-linear) MacLuhan. Back upstairs for breakfast and continue proofreading the extra four excerpts for Kern, and when I'm done with that, transcribe all the corrections to MY originals, and then retype a number of pages where I'd lapsed back into the first person, and the top pages which had gotten smudged, and decide that I won't go to the movies in the afternoon, waiting for the Susskind and the Roach calls, but they never come. Working on the envelopes for sending out the other copies of "Acid House" to four professional services (after having had lunch, and exercised almost up to par on the fourth level of exercises, at last feeling some sort of increase in bulk above the waist, and diminishing of bulk below the waist) when John enters at 4, to shower and lie down to rest, feeling better in his carotid nerve swelling with the hot towels and the aspirins, and I finish typing the envelopes and the covering letters (and debate who to send the fifth copy to, going to Elaine the next day in a burst of genius), and get down to the Post Office to find that 98¢ is the exact postage for it, and buy 6 $1 stamps for three more mailings, and get back to read the Village Voice on "Portnoy Kissinger," and then John's up, deciding that he can't see the Fields' films after all, since he wants to work, so we eat dinner and I subway down to the Elgin (with girls in the back row and almost NO action) for "Pool Sharks" (disappointingly all slapstick and pool-table animation, not HIS own skill with trick pool shots), "The Golf Specialist," where he again gets the paper-stuck-on-everything bit, as in his longer films, "The Dentist," with another good golf scene (dropping it over shoulder for a hole in two) and fabulous dentistry tortures of tall woman, bearded man, screaming girl, "The Pharmacist" selling stamps, giving away vases, daughter eating birds, robber shootout, "Fatal Glass of Beer" in north (not a fit night out---), "Barbershop" with shaving and the violin-offspring from fucking bass fiddles. Home at 10, talk, watch slides to 11:30, "Dark Passage" to 1:30, and bed TIRED.
DIARY 1802
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17. Up at 7 am for glorious sex for both of us at last!!! John leaves for work and I read magazines for a bit while eating breakfast, and choose to watch "Concentration" for one last time, and Yolanda, the last of the group I was in (the colored gal, who must have missed a day's taping, since there were others between us and her) lost, and played against a guy, so there's absolutely no reason for me to watch it ever again!! Type two diary pages to catch up, and it's getting to be a nice habit, and start on a letter to Elaine, which is the last I have to do, since I can postpone writing to Rita until I find out if she's coming here on Saturday or not: no use writing if she IS. The letter goes on as I explain about my sending her my last copy of "Acid House," and I stop for exercise and lunch about 3 pm, since I'm starved, and finally finish the letter with very elaborate critiques of the last two issues of "The River" at 4:30, so the letter took an enormous amount of time. Go on a multi-purpose foray into the outside world by putting the laundry in, mailing the letter to Elaine, buying groceries with a check that gives me cash to spend, buy a package of vitamin E at John's suggestion, and get back to put the clothes in to dry and put the groceries away and read the mail, then telephone Joan (not home), Azak (who might see "Werther" and tells me to call Tom Davis), Tom Davis (who specializes in history and biography, thus fiction is not "his thing"), Bob Milne, who isn't home, Arnie, who tells me that class is starting tomorrow, Peter Halloran, who doesn't tell me anything, since his wife can't even tell me if he's WORKING there or not, and then it's 8, so I put dinner on, eat it, shower and shave, and leave at 9:30 for John's, but it's actually 9:40 and I get there at 10:10, play with the "Touch Me" while John has his evening wine, and we lounge lazily on top of the covers until 11:00, when I say we'd better get inside before we fall asleep outside, so the lights go off with the note on the phone to call the next morning, and it's been an extraordinarily lazy day with next to nothing accomplished, yet the time somehow managed to pass by with no trouble.
DIARY 1803
THURSDAY, MARCH 18. Phone at 8, but no one's there, so I subway to Park Place and walk up to the Federal Plaza and ask for Mr. Dwyer, and he says that they only needed nine people from Manhattan, and he's got them already, so I'm out of a job! Leave without thanking him and subway home, eating breakfast and getting right down to retyping three more sets of sheets of "Acid House" outlines, and then write letters to Alan Vaughan, Arthur Derounian and Frank Ogden, each explaining what I'm sending in a different way, each asking for help in finding a publisher for the book. This is interrupted by lunch, a phone call from Zurich saying I'm not selected for the program, but am welcome to the taping, which is at 6, which fits in with the Met that evening, for which I've gotten tickets. Read the New Yorker which came in, looking at the ridiculous puzzle solution, and I probably won't be tempted to work on them again. (Or, at least, I HOPE I won't be tempted to work on them again!) Then tackle the last chores left me, including trying to get Toby Rosenberg's address, and writing to M.M. Wagle in Delhi to get it, sending a check off to Daisy for the Met tickets, and trying to call Joan (who's leaving again on Sunday) and Bob Milne, who's not there, and Bob Rosinek, with whom I leave the message about the taping. I also re-read my excerpts from "Andromeda Strain," just to see how good the movie might be, and it takes about 45 minutes, a surprisingly long time. Then I start retyping papers for "Michael's Thing," hoping I'm not too late before the stupid things goes out of business, since it seems to appeal to no one group, especially with the photo of the GIRL on the cover. Get a few things done, but decide I have to shower and wash my hair, then put on the sausage for dinner, and finish in time to shave and brush my teeth, and it's just 7:05, and I subway to the Academy to get there early at 7:35 to wait for John for "Midsummer Night's Dream," which is not as razzle-dazzle as I'd been led to think: everything "fits" nicely with the production, and some of the lines stand out as never before, and the finale of hand-touching IS touching. To John's at 11:30, cuddle a bit, and bed at quarter to 12.
DIARY 1804
FRIDAY, MARCH 19. Up at 7 to cuddle, playing with his semi-soft cock, and he's out of bed at 8 and to work. I decide I have to go to the bank today, so I write checks to Author Aid and to the Feld Company, and then want to get some pieces out to "Michael's Thing" before he forgets about me, or goes out of business (though I find tonight that it's on sale at MY newsstand), and go through all the old diaries and writings to find what might be acceptable to him, and even excerpt lots of things from the "Round the World Diary," just to see if he likes it. This takes, as usual, longer than I thought it would, and just barely get the letter typed to him by 2:45, and dash out in the rain to mail it, and it's windy and cold into the bargain, and I'm glad I decided to wear rubbers. Get to the bank just before it closes, then my fate lures me into the paperback bookshop, where I pick up some gay things by Mishima, "Them" by Oates, and "Electric Kool-Air Acid Test" by Wolfe, which I bring home and start to read, getting through quite a bit of it, and he talks about Kerouac and his followers, and he even WRITES a bit like that illiterate crew, though after I get into it, it's easier reading than at the start. Call Arno and Joe, and THEY don't want to see "Werther," then shower and eat dinner and call Rita, to find that she's NOT coming tomorrow, and Debesh calls to confirm our dinner at 6 pm, and then it's 9:15 and I'm out to catch a bus to Automation House, where the most striking exhibit is a slideshow of body parts of someone who looks rather like Joe Farinas, along with a movie of whirling neon designs remarkable timed with jumpy, bleepy music, and downstairs is only dozens of squeaky rabbits, plastic sheets with blinking lights, and Moog generators, and upstairs is a space-suit inflatable with a black part with waving streamers at the door which are effectively spooky, and we're out about 11, driving home, and John reads "Around the World Notebook" and doesn't like it, and he says, drinking his beer, that he's too tired to read the three pages of "Love Thoughts" to even say anything about it, though he apologizes for being sleepy. It's warm and humid, and I take 10 minutes to sleep.
DIARY 1806
SATURDAY, MARCH 20. Wake at 7, cuddle, do John with vibrator, doze, he leaves at 9:15. I get up and immediately get back into "Electric Kool-Air Acid Test," and though it's about acid, it's about as different as could possibly be from Acid House, though there are a lot of rather high-flown "this is where it all started" passages which make Wolfe's work something of a reference volume. Get tired of reading, and decide that the trip has to be worked on before we go to the travel agent on Tuesday at 3, as John's arranged, and erase the names off some of the folders from work before the skin on my writing knuckle begins to blister, and figure that's enough, and put on country labels and distribute things into their proper packets, and get ready to tabulate everything into sort of a "pre-trip journal" with all the places and things we want to see. Arno rings from downstairs and comes up to pick up the slides for his party next Saturday, and I show him the cock books I've gotten lately, and we talk about my wanting to call Joe Farinas, and he tsk-sks, saying I haven't thought about it, and I say that he should give me SOME credit for maturity, knowing that a casual romp in the hay, even with someone affectionate, isn't about to endanger my relationship with John without great advance warning, and I can worry about THAT when I come to it. John comes in at five and we talk a bit, then call Premdas to say we'll be a bit late, and I shower and shave, and we get flowers and cigarette holders on the way there, and get in to a crowded apartment which becomes even more crowded, until there are about 15 Indians, all with bright eyes and eager conversation, and finally dinner comes, with wine yet, and there's fried eggplant, good and hot, papad, peppery with lentils and spices, then dahl with rice, which I mix up with my fingers like the Indians, and rice with shrimp and a good sauce, then chicken with cinnamon and potatoes, and for dessert there's a sweet rice with raisons which is rather like the Chinese dessert with the same ingredients. Premdas and the cook sing for us, and I'm embarrassed to have to refuse Debesh's encouragement for US to sing, and we leave about 11:15, and John's tired, so we're home and bed at 12.
DIARY 1807
SUNDAY, MARCH 21. Wake and play with John, up, and he lays on my stomach and plays with my knee until I go down, then we snooze until Bob wakes us at 10, saying Art has to be at church for dancing at 11, and they'll come here about 2. We're up and have fried eggs for breakfast, and I settle down with the Times until 2, and they come in, Bob offers me a smoke, and I smoke some and we're in confusion at 2:30 when we're supposed to leave, and we take cheese and fruit along, and I dress for warmer weather, with the result that the wind and lowering sun find me very cold by the end of the afternoon. Walk into the park ejaculating about how stoned I am, and we get to the race site just as Bob's friend runs past, and we talk with him, and sit on the bench enjoying the lovely passersby, and then up to walk into the Sheep Meadow and watch the circles run into the center, and up onto a hill to watch instrumentalists, and I give my keys to Art, who has to go off for his second dance, and John goes with him, and Bob and I look at some fabulous fellows, smoke another joint in the open air, watch more people passing by, one sick hauled along by his friends, and then we tour various circles to watch a white-faced group doing some sort of satire, then a dumpy commune-type group playing instruments around an Indian, and one fellow takes off his shirt, then his shoes and socks, and dances around, but he takes no more off, and Bob suggests we should have had enough, and John's there, and I say I'm going home, but John and Bob move off somewhere else, and I wander toward home, pausing to look at others, feeling quite bombed, but nothing comes out of it, and I wander home about 5, and Art rushes in to pick up his stuff at 5:15, and I start listening to records, and John and Bob come in at 5:30, with nuts and candy, John into the bedroom because he dislikes the loud music, and he says he's going to a bar tonight for sex, and I'm knocked out, by pot and him, so I stay home, smoke two MORE pipes and listen to the Moodies until 9, when I'm about out of it, eat dinner to stave off hunger, and finish "Kool-Aid" and get started on "Them," finally getting tired enough to get into bed at 1:30, LOGY FROM SMOKING.
DIARY 1814
MONDAY, MARCH 22. Out of solitary bed at 9 and back to "Them," breakfast at 10, continue with "Them," but finally get tired around 1, and go out for groceries before I have lunch, and call John to say what my schedule is for the evening, and he says he'll be coming over anyway. Azak calls to say he'll go to the opera with me, so that's one problem solved. Exercise and shower and shave and I've eaten lunch quite late so that I won't be hungry during the evening, and get out at 5:30, fearing to be late, but the subways connect perfectly and I'm there even before 5:45. Wait in a crowded, smoky room with lots of gay guys with lambdas on their coats and back blue-jean pockets, talking and kissing each other, and Sam Zurich remembers me and my name, and Azak doesn't come. Into the studio at 6, and Jack Nichols sits next to me, and I introduce myself and we chat, mainly about all the people he knows, and the program starts late when Susskind misses the introductions twice, and then get into "Eli Segal and Aesthetic Realism" versus good gay guys, and Susskind messes it up by dragging in "Why are you gay?" "What's your home life?" and "Why don't you like therapy?" Segalites talk about having to love the world AS IT IS before you can love yourself, and that gay guys look at women with contempt because their mothers loved them more than they felt they deserved. I'm fairly glad I stay during only the first half, and the audience is unruly and Susskind not terribly smart. Out at 7:30 and walk across the park, getting to the Met at 7:50, meeting Azak and we take our seats for "Werther," with a too-Italianate Franco Corelli, a rather colorless Rosalind Elias (I wonder how Christa Ludwig would have been), and a nothing substitute for Jack Reardon. We talk about social life in New York, how he's buying lithographs from Tanguey and DeChirico and Delauney and Miro and Ernst and Man Ray, and representing them, and the opera's finally over at 11, after getting fairly interesting emotionally, always blandly pretty musically, and walk home to John, and I tell him I came three times last night, and we talk a long time, until 12:45, about how he feels PRESSURED by me into everything, has no feeling for me sexually. GREAT!
DIARY 1815
TUESDAY, MARCH 23. Wake early, despite our late sleeping, and we cuddle and he's far more active and affectionate than he's been in a long time, and he works over me with Baby Magic, flopping my erect cock around until I come with shooting pleasures, and I grab him while he hunches against the side of my body, and comes with grunts, and we lay together, seeping, and he's up to shower and I wash myself off, and it's 9:15 and I'm down for the mail and get a letter from Elaine, saying she doesn't like "Acid House," and I lay thinking about what she's said, and John comes in to talk with me for about an hour (see DIARY 1808-1813) and then he leaves for work at noon, and I'm depressed by the whole thing. Eat lunch and mope around not even working on the trip, and shave and get out to talk to Arnie Mandelbaum at 1776 Broadway, Afton Tours, from 3 to 5, and he says he'll take care of it for us, and John leaves, saying he's going home to see what we do this evening, and the Whitney isn't showing tonight, so we decide to see what the gay films at the Jewel are like, and I shower and wash my hair and get out (after exercising) to the movie at 8:35, and John says it's $5, too much, so we go up the street to the Variety Photoplays for 75¢, which I'd never been in, and it's smoky, jammed, hard wooden seats, filled with old men, drunks who have seen the show seven times and mumble babbly remarks through the films, and older faggots standing in the halls. John cruises through the end of "Barbarella," getting sucked "right in the open in the balcony," and I'm watching the "sideshow" as guys drop nickels into the men's room RIGHT AT THE LEFT OF THE SCREEN, catching the door to get in free, knocking to be let in, gathering and coming out in quick groups, while the women at least have a partition in front of their door on the right. There's a sense of deja-vu in the smoke and the ugliness of the place, and I get a mild buzz, thinking this is as low as I can sink, I've chosen this place, and I'm spending my life in places like this, during the boring sections of "Blue," with an aging Terence Stamp. Out at 11:20: "OK, everyone OUT!" and drive to John's to fall quickly into bed at 11:45, touching briefly before sleep.
DIARY 1816
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24. Knocked out with fatigue in the morning, call Winterthur to find their tour booked, home to "Them," and eat breakfast sometime and finish "Them" sometime, even though I put it down two or three times because I'm nodding over the pages, and I get involved in the families described, yet I'm aware that it's only the written word that's moving me, and I get disgusted with myself reading, yet when I stop to throw things away that I've accumulated for the trip, making up sheets of paper with important data, I feel hardly more useful. Somehow the day manages to pass without my going out of my mind, and John comes in after I've eaten, having eaten, and we get out early to Carnegie Hall for the Noh plays, and he doesn't even bother to read the EB articles I put out on the sofa for him to read, which makes me sort of mad, and we get to fairly close, side seats for "Kirokuda," or "The Gift Half Given" from Kyogen, and the oldest and most valuable player is very funny as the classical character Tarokaja, and it goes on for forty minutes, and we sit in our seats and read the program for Funa-Benki, the Noh play about Benkei in a boat, and it's quite long, and only the main player has a mask on, a rather large-nosed sneering-lipped woman with "expressive" eyes (indeed, I even imagine I see the expression of her face change as she turns from side to side, changes from happiness to sadness at leaving), but the sight of the triple, bent-back chins under the mask, and the large, pink, mannish hands, much older-looking than the photograph of the face would lead me to believe, were rather disquieting, particularly when put in front of the eyes to depart in anguish. The Kyogen section in the boat was sad because all the actors were in one line of sight, thus all but the first were invisible. Then the Ghost-mask, brilliant with its dirty-butterscotch colors, was quite handsome and had wondrously DIRECTED vision from the eye slits, and there was too little of him, and the play was over in 50 minutes. We sat and talked about it for awhile, then went home and got into bed, still talking about it, and there was no indication of any sex at all as the light went out and we both rolled over our own ways and fell asleep at 11.
DIARY 1817
THURSDAY, MARCH 25. When John leaves I ask if it's too late if I leave here at 10 after watching "They" on TV, and he smiles and says "Oh, there's no reason why we can't sleep alone tonight," and later he calls to say that his acquaintances from the Cleveland Orchestra were coming over at 8:30, so he had to quit work in the evening early anyway, and I mope through the day, even avoiding the exercises today, which I've been doing fairly faithfully, even though there seems to be no discernable change in my body or weight. Read "Forbidden Colors" in a number of sections, because most of the writing is incredibly boring, and the sexual scenes are so elliptical, compared with the explicit joys of the same scenes today, that they quite lost their color, and it isn't due only to Japanese restraint, either, since I have the idea that Mishima was TRYING to shock. Debate calling Joe Farinas on the phone to come over for the evening, but I get hung up in mooning about my plight, fearing that I will prove to be impotent with him, and then Bob Milne calls to say that I have a speaking engagement on "Prejudice and the Homosexual" at Bernard Baruch College on Wednesday, and I think about what I could say to them. Watch "They" on TV, which is rather disappointing, since I expected that the silent Mike would have something to do to the play rather than to make it handsome with his Christus-face and rather sexily slim body, and then was surprised that it was Cornelia Otis Skinner who had the main woman's role. Rather want to be with John when the program's over, and I mope about reading and avoiding any kind of writing, thinking that I'm certainly being perverse, not working on the second book when I have the chance, thinking about going back to work, debating what to do about money, hoping that the check comes in tomorrow so that I can send off the deposits and payments for various things that come in the mail, and go to bed with my head spinning with thoughts of the talk on Wednesday, rehearsing phrases in my mind, thinking of ways of saying things and connecting things, promising myself not to be as pedantic as Bob, but fearing his evaluation of my talk, since he'll obviously be there to check me.
DIARY 1818
FRIDAY, MARCH 26. Up lethargically and out of bed at 10 am, rather sorry that John didn't call to root me out. Even though the idea is quite absurd, I can't remember anything I did today except to get intrigued by the Kent cigarette contest, which boiled down to typing every word from the Webster's Seventh Collegiate Dictionary (all 1221 pages, as John told me, saying that SKIDDED and SKIDDING was spelled out) that did NOT contain the letters B, D, H, J, P, Q, U, V, W, X, Y, Z---just those 12 letters. I figured, from looking in my own dictionary, that there would be about 15 words per page, and the total would be somewhere between 19-22,000 words, and if I got six columns of sixty lines per page, it would be about 60 pages, and I typed a half page (full of mistakes) to find how long it would take, and a page would take about a half hour, so the whole thing would take bout 30 hours for about $900 in prizes, or about $30 an hour, which would reduce to $15 in case of tie-breakers, and that for no certainty, so I figured it wasn't a good deal, BUT THE WHOLE DAMN THING TOOK SO MUCH TIME!! The only other thing I did (beside looking through Book Digest DATING the 2000 titles) was pick up "Tertium Organum" by Ouspensky in paperback when I checked for something MORE to read, and cashed my large check for the first three IBM of the year, and promptly sent out $126 for insurance for a year, $100 to the author's company in Pennsylvania, $50 deposit for Holo-Holo Campers, and the REALLY every-two-months' bill from Con Ed, and showered and dashed out to John's at 8:45, getting there at 9:15, and he's through work, I look at the neat guys in the Parr catalog, and he smokes, sitting in the chair in his overalls, and I'm lying on the floor, playing with his legs, and we're sitting quietly in the candlelit living room listening to music, and time passes and it's obvious he's asleep, and I didn't feel like coming anyway, but what a depressing evening as well! Wake him about 11:15 and we quickly get into bed, and I bemoan my contrariness: last night, choosing to be alone, I wanted to be WITH him; tonight, choosing to be with him, I felt I wanted to be ALONE, and he said that my depression was certainly coloring everything, particularly my constant fatigue and irritation with myself.
DIARY 1819
SATURDAY, MARCH 27. Out of bed about 8 after nice sex, and I have cereal and we're out at 9 to the bike rental place while he searches for a place to get air for his tires, and by 9:15 he's still not there, so we're back and get into the car and drive to the Brooklyn Museum for the Van Gogh exhibit, but there's an enormous line waiting to get in, so we just look at the primitive art for about half an hour, and glance through the shop at all the things we'll be having sold to us on the trip, and then walk in the bright sunny air to the greenhouse where we look at the cactus and the succulents and the ferns and the very few flowers, and we're back home about 12:30, John going to get minute steaks and English muffins for lunch, and we have them, then he decides it's nice enough to work on the Promenade, so I take "Love and Will" and go with him while he works, and look mindlessly at the people (see next page), then decide I HAVE to read, but the words just run together and the whole thing seems silly, so I walk slowly up and down, then sit down and sit again, and finally we're back to the apartment at 5, and I read the Voice while he cleans up, and I wait until I get home, and we leave about 6:15 for Atlantic House on Atlantic Avenue, and he has the Yemen Feta, which is good, and I have the Yemen Raga, which isn't so good, and the Yemen salad is fantastically hot with cumin, and my mouth burns, except for the soothing apricot custard for dessert. People are nice and friendly, the service is good, crowd pretty to look at, so it's a success, particularly with John's Lancer's wine, following on the sherry that I had earlier. Home while I shower and shave, then to Arno's at 8:55, just following Joe Farinas in to be the second and third guests, and Alan Pollack and his friend Jim, and two short lovers come in, then George and his cute guest Bruce from Montreal, then Bob the gardener, then Avi and David, awful looking in a mustache, then a cute guy with beads, and finally Azak, for fifteen in all, and the slides are an enormous success, though two guests don't show up, we eat tuna casserole, everyone leaves, John and I just about last at 12:30, tired to my place and flop into bed immediately.
DIARY 1819
SUNDAY, MARCH 28. John's up to read the Times and work while I read the Times, and then it's 1:30 and I trim the steak and braise it, and eat quickly and it's 2:15, and I shower and shave and John asks where the Noh plays are, and he doesn't KNOW where the corner of Myrtle and Jay is, and calls Arnie at Norma's to find he's left and Norma disappointed that we're not coming to her party this evening. Leave at 2:35 and John's annoyed because he knows it takes him a half hour to get home, and we stumble onto the playhouse thanks to his luck in turning down streets, and park and into the hall to find a long line waiting to get into the one open door, and Arnie's there to chat with us, so THAT score is settled, and the Noh is interesting, and we're out at 7 after chatting with Ruthie and Jeff during intermission, and drive into the city, where John and I have an argument in the car (see next page). Into the orgy (see following pages) and out at 7:30 and down to Norma's, where the only guests who have left are Norma's son and his girlfriend, and we eat beef and peppers in Arabic bread while Grant and Betty and Norma and Arnie and Roger and Shirley and Romy and Jackie Valensi and HER boyfriend yock it up and Ruth and Jeff neck on the bed, and they leave fairly quickly, and we're to drive Ruth and Jeff to Arnie's, and we sit around talking, and Norma says she and Arnie are much like John and me in that Arnie has nothing to do, which bugs Norma, while my doing nothing bugs John, and she insists that we all have to think of OURSELVES. Arnie goes into the kitchen to watch the Tony Awards on TV, and we sit and talk about the families (this after I had a long talk with Ruth in the hallway about living and making mistakes and writing and getting criticized), and then about 10 we're into the car (avoiding the sprays of shaken spritzes of club soda on 9th Avenue) and to Brooklyn, conversation awful, and they're out and we crawl into bed to talk more freely about our quarrels during the day (see following pages), and I feel much better by the time we get to sleep about 11:30, and I even have a wonderful dream which I relate to John in the morning (see pages afterward), which implies I'm feeling BETTER.
DIARY 1828
MONDAY, MARCH 29. Home at 9, jerk off twice, eat breakfast, watch "Klondike Annie" with Mae West on TV from 12:30-2, eat lunch, and decide I have to catch up on the diary, so I sit down and pound out 12 pages, feeling awful while doing it. Loaf around for the spare times through the day, and John gets in at 6, hungry, and eats almost immediately, while I mess around with Concentration game and John's gift of paper modules for mobiles, and then I eat and get out at 8 to get to Pope Hill's what I think to be early, at 8:20, and the session started at 8, so I'm late. He describes the six first houses, and I'm amazed at how closely my description seems to fit me, though John laughs about the first five words: energy, vitality, assertiveness, drive, enthusiasm. One fellow there'd worked at ARE, the Edgar Cayce Foundation, and speaks a lot about him and "There is a River," and a cutish guy who worked with Pope talks about the fellow who went out of his head every month until Pope told him to watch it, and then he could control it. There's a lot of talk about numerology and fortune telling of many kinds, and there seems to be SOMETHING true that's not scientific, even though such adepts as Pope hold a skepticism even though telling stories about predicting one's father as a drunkard and another as a minister reading the SAME signs, but only adding a bit of intuition. He sent a son to his mother's bedside for an operation during which she died, and shocked me by saying that's he'd do a chart for me, but that July 2 - November 2 were cycles of Mars and Aquarius, and I got shivers as I told him that John was an Aquarius, traveling with my Mars. He'd planned for only 90 minutes, but kept on going until everyone left at 10:45, when I called John to say I'd be home late, and then we talked for a bit, his bull-tenacity showing, and I left at 11, getting the "idea" to hurry down the escalator and the subway was JUST waiting for me (reminds me of the coincidence of Mae's boyfriend being the "Lord of Stratton" in "Klondike Annie," and the Greek Statton was one of the first collectors of homosexual Greek poetry), and got home to the scoffing John at 11:30, and we chatted, Bob Milne called late, too, until midnight, but he wasn't even the first step convinced, though I'm sure I'll be going back again.
DIARY 1
TUESDAY, MARCH 30. Up at 7 and try the vibrator literally wrapped around John's cock, but work on it about an hour when he says to stop, because he's become numb, and I really was unhappy that it didn't work out well. Make arrangements to meet at 456 at 8:30 tonight, and I read a bit of "Tertium Organum" and fix up the apartment a bit until it's time for "Goin' to Town," with Mae West as a classical "Delilah" in the opera, with the rudiments of her muscleman show, and even reprising "Come up and see me some time" after she's the Lady of Stratton. Then study for the talk on Wednesday, rehearsing a couple of times, going through EB and Kinsey and Wolfenden for statistics and quotes, and then I exercise about 6 and Cyndy calls for downstairs, and she's up after going to the drug store, to tell me about Phil Crawford, who's living with her, who wants to get rid of his apartment, and they're going to Martinique, and she hates working with Herman. She leaves at 7, I shower and get down to the new 456 for Peking Duck which is very tasty, but sadly rather cold, and John doesn't care for it, and Joe's brought wine for some strange reason, and we have tea and rice and spare ribs and prawns (with the shell still on) with hot sauce, and I'd seen on the menu that the duck was $14.50, but I don't know what the bill was (probably something like $28) but he gave a $5 tip, and said in defense of himself that it wasn't quite as much as I spent for HIS birthday at La Seine. I tell him that John's given me a weekend at Cliff House, and were out at 10, stopping by Ferrara's for orzata and baba au rhum for the Lewisburg people, and to John's at 11, and I call Amitava with the news about the apartment after calling Cyndy and talking to Phil about it, and it sounds perfect if they take it. John's got his new lamps up, and gives me a lampshade the next morning, and we talk a bit before going to bed, this time without the electric blanket on, and I feel better in the morning, as I mentioned to Cyndy, when I said that the astrology talk made me think that I should see which way I should move my bed to sleep LINED UP with the earth's magnetic field. Sounds crazy, but it MIGHT help my stupor.
DIARY 1830
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 31. Up at 7, John does me nicely, I do him, out of bed at 8. Decide not to buck the subway crowd with the lampshade, so I sit and read a somewhat more understandable "Love and Will" until 9:30, then get home to read all the mail, letters from Paul included, then Bob Rosinek calls to say that he's "puzzled" about his desire to accept a sex invitation from this guy, but I suspect he just used the method of indirection to say he could use my place for sex, and then he called back later at 2 to say that he'd "thought it over" and decided not to come over. Looked at something connected with the opera, then decided that I wanted to catch the opera list up to date, and that took hours because of the cross checking and the filing of dates (and who says I'm not still keeping records?). Then I'm starved, and tell myself I have to stop biting the skin around my fingernails, a nasty habit I seem to have re-acquired, and eat lunch, wash dishes, then Avi calls and wishes me a happy birthday, and Arnie sent me a card, and when I came back in the evening, I found a package of four towels from Mom, so that about does the birthday scene! Rehearse the gay speech again for Bernard Baruch College, leave at 6:50 after John comes in, and I decide to skip dinner since I'm so gassy recently (is it the lettuce?). Get there at 7:20, hoping to be early, and I'm WAY early, since the class is at 8, but he "wanted me to relax," and it seems HE wanted to relax, since he was very blatant about his NOT being gay, telling about how his supervisor said he SHOULDN'T dress provocatively, the things that went on in the swimming locker room, about the orgy rooms in bars, but the class of 30 between 17 and 58 were very good, I managed all the questions except those specifically about Mattachine, then took notes from Bob's anecdotes, accepted his praise for a good job, and lasted until the last people left the classroom about 10. Home at 10:30, starved, and have a three-egg omelet, and tell John all about the talk, and I'm feeling very good about the whole thing, and lay atop him to get warm, but he doesn't come up, so there's nothing much done before the lights go out at 11:45, and we sleep.