1971 4 of 5
DIARY 1972
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19. Up very fatigued from the evening's smoking, don't do much of ANYTHING through the day, since I'm busy cleaning up from the night before and doing just the tiniest bit of work, and getting a whole group of 67 surveys in the mail, which I sort out by spreading all over the coffee table in street-number order, and it's there until the next evening, but I don't do the first things on them until the following Monday. Decide I just MUST get down to letters, so I write to Holo-Holo, sorry that it's taken so long, hoping they aren't fully scheduled yet (but they are), and write a long critique of "The Last River" to Elaine, hoping to get something of mine which I call Try-Ope, which I worked on during part of the past few days, but stuck with the original section and version, rather than taking the chance of revising anything too much, and even John says he likes it better than most things I've written, so I hope Elaine likes it too. Forgot about meeting Hamp at Parke-Bernet at 1, looking at exhibit, to Metropolitan for Cubists, lunch in Museum restaurant, to Whiney for West Coast films at 4!! Then write to Squibb about the electric toothbrush trade-in, to Vantage about "What do I do with a book LONGER than 20,000 words?" and to Bill with the list of stamps I want, all of them 1¢ above face value. Feel good about getting this much done, and then the phone rings from downstairs and it's Roger, who comes up looking more hippy than ever with a headband and enormous earflaps of hair sticking out from under them, and for once he's not wearing shorts, and there's a pleasantly plump length of flesh down one leg which he seems very conscious of as he slouches down in his chair. I show him changes and tell him about the upcoming trip and moan about the book and the work for the census, and he brings back a Sheckley book and brings ME three books to read, which I hate him for, but I read one of the S-F stories about "Gee, I chose NOT to remember, I wonder why?" and it's good, so I decide to read what he's brought, and then he's off, I dash into the bathroom to wash my hair to get ready for the latest Tsi-Dun, eat, dress, and am late as usual as I catch the 8th Avenue subway down to 19th Street, but I mistake the address as 325 until I see Bill Graham going across the street to 328, and there it is (see following pages).
DIARY 1975
THURSDAY, MAY 20. Up fairly late, STILL feeling completely unsexy, and John leaves for work and I do some little things before meeting Hamp at the information desk at the Museum at 10:45. He was late this time, and Leo Hollister was older and crewcut, rather like a florid Dr. Sumner, and we gave our passes and were promptly escorted into the storage chambers of the Metropolitan (see next page). We were finished at 11:15, and Hamp showed Hollister his favorite gallery again, and at 11:30, when they were on their way back to see the Cubists, I excused myself and got over to Donnell just on the stroke of noon to see an awful bunch of old dance films, except for the still-fascinating "Pas de Deux" by Norman McLaren, and dash out at 2 for a taxi up to the Park-Bernet auction, where I get in for lot 4 and still sit till 4 for lot 93, for $905,000, watching a Longhi go for $135,000 to the old fellow who was sitting in his wheelchair in front of the Velazquez when we were there this morning. Grab a cab down Park to the Barclay, serve him coffee in his bath, call the METROliner for his reservations, get shown Dr. Hollister's not-so-large balls, though Hamp again got hard for Hollister's benefit, and then I guided them through the subways so they could get up to the Kaufman Collection up in Riverdale, and I got home at 6 in time to get "Acid House" back from Don O'Shea with 20 pages of corrections, and re-sent it back out to Bill, with a little letter, and then I ate dinner while watching a fabulous Ken Russell feature-quality film on Dante Gabriel Rossetti on "Biographies," with women who were remarkable for their evocation of the Pre-Raphaelite era. It was flashy and marvelously done, well acted by Oliver Reed, also, though he was hardly consumptive looking. John had called to say he was going to the Elgin, and he got in for his before-bedtime drinkie just before the start of "Dante's Inferno," on television again, and I urged him to stay up to see it, but he pooped out and went to bed, and I stayed up and watched the part (which was clipped from a silent film, so Arnie told me later, and it's quite possible, since the excerpt was so GREATLY FILMED) about the Inferno, and climbed into bed at 12:45.
DIARY 1977
FRIDAY, MAY 21. Wake rather easily at 6:30, John makes coffee, and we call a chipper Norma who answers "Of COURSE we've been up for hours," and we get there just before 7, John waiting outside with the luggage while I go up to ring their bell, to find that Norma's car is in an unattended garage, and the doorman is singularly unhelpful with advice, so Arnie shifts the blocking car out of the way and we're off about 7:15, onto the West Side Highway and up the New York State Thruway just as it starts raining very hard, and we're sitting around talking about John's book and Arnie's lack of working and ballet and contemporary music, and we drink John's coffee and then stop for more coffee later, where we have a piss break, get out to look at the Hudson at John's traditional stop, and at 1 we stop in Indian Lake to search for restaurants, and finally end up shopping in a Grand Union, where we hear that a road is wiped out by landslides and rain, but not between here and Hemlock Hall, and we stop to eat bananas and dates and goose liver and cheese and milk shakes right next to the cars whizzing past on the highway, and we're around a detour and up to the Hall at 2 pm, where we're shown to Balsam cottage, and they take the bedroom and John and I have the couch-beds in the living room, with the fireplace, and we use the john and then go up to the house to inquire about directions to Castle Rock, and get out just as it starts drizzling, following the wrong road on occasion, but eventually climbing a great distance, detouring for a sip from a stream that John thinks gives him diarrhea, and end on the top of Castle Rock, for a great view down over many of the lakes of the area, all of Blue Mountain, and many of the surrounding peaks. Start down and lose the way, getting back only in time for Norma to take a bath before dinner at 6, and we're at a table for 12 crowded because of a wedding rehearsal dinner in the dining room, and the boy across the way with tiny silver ear-bobs is the only person of interest, who's traveling by Greyhound for 3 months for $160. Back to the cabin to dress and rowboat for a couple hours, I have chilly shower with no hot water, then sex in front of the fire and bed.
DIARY 1978A
SATURDAY, MAY 22. Arnie refuses to get up, we enjoy morning fire, and then we have one of the huge breakfasts, John requesting we be separated, and we get two couples from upstate New York who were directed here by chance because of the road washout, amazed at their similarity. John gets directions for Chimney Mountain, and I want to hear them but don't, so after we look at the damage to the road (see next pages) we get lost, and finally drive up the right road, marked with a small sign after all, and end up in a boy scout camp where the rangers are planting trees to stop erosion, and we start up the easy road to Chimney Mountain. But the path quickly gets steep, and it's like climbing a long flight up stairs, passing forests of trillium, mountain beauties, small violets of yellow and purple, and even a small fiery orange salamander who seems unconcernedly to dig into anyone's hand with his clawless hands. Norma's really pooping out, and Arnie stays behind with her, and John tramps on ahead, I racing to catch up with him the last few dozen feet, and we come to the top on a woodland scene, with no roads, farms, towns, or even lakes visible, and the clouds begin to clear just a little bit so that Norma's encouraged to undress on her rock, and I slip down my trousers under my bare chest, too, but the wind and clouds come back, while Arnie feeds life-savers to chipmunks, and we decide we'd better get back down. John's feeling poorly and wants to nap while we see what Puffer Pond looks like, and it's a very easy road until Norma has to cross a log across a stream on her hands and knees, and I discover the first beaver-chopped tree, and we think THIS might be Puffer Pond, now drained in a valley of dead trees. Go further up the hill while the trail fades, then turn back to find John sleeping, and we drive the long trail back to Hemlock Hall, picking up marshmallows and franks at the inevitable Grand Union, and we have hot fudge sundaes, too, and then back for two baths, with the water now hot, and we dine together with one other couple for a boring dinner, canoe with Norma and Arnie around the island, then back to read lots of Roger's "The Great Explosion" while John reads, Norma reads, Arnie reads, then John naps, and I wash my hair late and sit in front of the fire, drying it, bed at 11:30.
DIARY 1980
SUNDAY, MAY 23. Doze off about 12, then have a frighteningly convincing dream about an earthquake, and wake to feel one at 2:30 and again at 5:30 (see following pages). Up to breakfast, where the earthquake/sonic boom is all the topic of conversation, where there isn't dead silence, as there is most of the time, when John and I share the breakfast table with the mother and father and two sons of the cabin next door, and though they look like they might have shapely bodies and nice legs, their ugly faces and pointed heads sort of put them out of the running. Norma's out for an early morning stroll, and insists on the sun for the day, and John wants only to lay around, his diarrhea going away, but he feels still weak, so I suggest the Cedar River Flow which John remembers only after we get there, and we lay out under the sun on a slope and all take off our clothes, and I start on the "50 Short Science Fiction Tales" where I can between the conversations, and Norma plays with Arnie's erect cock, and John and I don't do anything. Start at the paper-sound of birch bark being stripped by the wind, and laugh at the canoers who pass by our nude bodies. Leave at 2 pm, and drive all the way down to Poughkeepsie before we're thinking about dinner, and I suggest the Steak and Stein, and we stop in after getting directions from a gas station, and everyone has the club steak and beer (except Norma), and we like the bread and the salad, have no dessert, and John pays for the meal (which I forgot to pay HIM back for!), and we're back on the road again, and although there's no traffic, what with going off the road for the dinner, we're into the city at 10:30, drop off my stuff and I walk down to Norma's, where John is almost asleep in the back of the car, and Arnie drives us to John's, where we lug all the stuff up the stairs and John busies himself putting everything away and watering his flowers, and I simply strip off my clothes, take a shower, and we both fall into bed, quite tired from the weekend, and I can feel a slight burning on my back and shoulders from the amount of sun we had, particularly at the backs of my knees. We're feeling rather good about the whole thing.
DIARY 1
MONDAY, MAY 24. Subway home and get out to work immediately, getting a lot to territory covered even though I don't have many forms to give out and many places take lots of time. But at least the weather is nice, though later in the afternoon it starts clouding up and getting windy, but the rain held off. Most of the people want me to leave forms with them so they can fill them out, so from the whole day's efforts I don't actually get ANY forms completed, though the work is necessary. John gets in and goes to take a nap at 4, and I sit around finishing the second of Roger's books, "Fifty Short Science Fiction Tales." (See next page.) Then I called the Thalia to find that it's the last night for the double feature they're showing, and John has to work to make up for the weekend, and we eat steak and I get up to the Thalia at 7:45 and sit in the back row for just a couple minutes, and the people back there are awful, and the glass portholes at either side make is obvious that passersby could look in and see whatever they wanted to, without the thought of the lookers-on making the performers very uncomfortable even if they COULDN'T see very well. So then I went down closer to the screen, since I actually wanted to see "Thief of Baghdad" quite badly. It was really quite a trip, with the jugglers and flying horse and six-armed goddess, and the lovely evil eyes of the villain, though the audience quite rightly broke into great gales of laughter at the languidly pallid romantic songs sung by droopy damsels while they wafted the heroine back and forth on the summer breezes. But the words were lovelily poetic and spoken very well, and Conrad Veidt [oops, WRONG!], though thin, made a perfect hero, and the underarms of Sabu are about the sexiest things going, and his transformation into a dog was just perfect. "Love Happy" certainly wasn't one of the better Marx Brothers efforts, but Harpo had a lot of nonsense to do, and the lead guy dancer, though a horrible actor, was pleasant to watch, and Illona Massey was a perfect camp Marlene Dietrich. Home at 11, and John's ready for sex, so we play and play and play for just about an hour before he finally comes, and we sleep at 12.
DIARY 1986
TUESDAY, MAY 25. Wake tired, John goes to work while I work, too, and watch the television showing of "Big Broadcast of 1938" with W.C. Fields, and I total up the Fields films that I've seen (which takes a nice chunk of time from the day) and this makes the 18th out of the 37 listed (or the 21st out of 40, if you count the four shorts as four films), so however you look at it, this film puts me at the halfway mark in seeing Fields films. Then get back to the visits and phone calls for work, and get a number of forms which I can send to the office to make my 8-hour days seem truthful, and John and I went down before he went to work (and after I washed my hair) to get our visa pictures in the photo machine down in the subway lobby, and he'd finished his forms, and I phoned Plaut to find out that tonight, being Tuesday, was Madison Avenue closing time, so he'd be open until 10 (and was actually there until 2:30), so I could bring them in anytime. But the work went very slowly, and I was only at 6 that I could get out of the apartment, and walked across town with the visa forms to give to Plaut, and his niece was there helping him out, along with a lot of sailing captains in their neat uniforms and smiles, and he took the forms and THEN realized they were only the FORMS for the visas, and not the visas themselves. Then I went down to see what Eddie wanted when he called last night when I was at the movies, and he's not there, but Richard says he'll tell Eddie about my coming in, and it's just before the trip of "2001," so I go in for the last 20 minutes, and it's by far the best part, and enjoy it fully. Out at 7:05 and dash home to eat and get up to the State Theater at 7:50 to meet John for "Mozart Concerto" which seemed to go on and on and on, with more and more steps and steps and steps, with Keil and Cuoco having one partner, two partners, ten partners, and they danced and leaped and turned and spun, and John hated it and I loved it, though it DID go ON. Then a "Russlan and Ludmilla Pas de Quatre" which was showy Russian fun, "Coppelia," where Cuoco and Oxenham showed they're really not first-rate yet, and the mirror scene from "Eugene Onegin," not very well done, and "The Seasons" again.
DIARY 1987
WEDNESDAY, MAY 26. John's off to work and I'm working about 8 hours all these three days, just trying to get production rates up, but they don't go up, and I still haven't gotten the check for last bimonth. Take time out to watch "Four Frightened People" by C.B. DeMille for an hour and a half on TV, and it's rather fun, being SET in Malaysia and FILMED in Hawaii. Decide I have to get some correspondence out, and telephone the Italian Tourist Agency to find a very long address indeed for the Samadi Medical Clinic for Lisa, and then write to Sublet (from the Village Voice) and to Touch-Me (to see if they'll sell them cheap for gifts), and the rest of the day is spent working, and John never calls, so that means that the possible Pakistan dinner tonight with the girl who lived there for a year isn't going to happen. Then he decides he's going to stay home and work, so I take this chance to call Arno and ask him to come over to read "Acid House" from the professional point of view, and he comes over at 8 and thoroughly depresses me. He only reads pages 26-30, but says that Jules, in his "satyr-like" and "ass-grabbing" moments, might very well be doing something which would disturb Ken very much, and a professional wouldn't even begin to think to do something like that. And this was after he'd absolutely dismissed any possibilities of Russ's being professional because of his actions, personally, with his patients, and Arno insists that this is one of the first tenets of professionalism, that the patient isn't to be a "friend," since that destroys therapy. Then he begins to talk about existential therapy, which he says is a whole different thing, where the patient and therapist might go to bed, but that's a whole orientation that I know nothing about. And then, finally, on page 31, he simply asks why Jules should be "content" to astound Ken. What would be the POINT? So I see no need for him to read further, and this added to his normal reluctance to critique ANYTHING, and I figure I've had it. He has to leave to meet his new-found lover, someone his own age finally, and I subway to John's, having crossed ANOTHER possibility off my list. Only 6 more to go, and John's in town.
DIARY 1988
THURSDAY, MAY 27. Back from John's to do more work, checking the mail to get nothing from the census in the mail, which I'd hoped would be my final productive efforts, and I continue telephoning and dropping in on people and sending things off to the office, and then decide I just have to go down to check for food stamps, and get everything together, knowing that I don't have the right forms for the payroll, but hoping to bull my way through anyway, and thankfully the building is close to the subway and there aren't enormous lines, and I sit right down and give her my data. She remarks that I have "a rather large rent" to be living alone, and she is very disturbed about my average wages, and it's obvious I have to make enough to cover it, but the "savings account into checking account" story seems to go over well, and she accepts that as the only money I have, and computes to find that I would be eligible for help, but she won't tell me how much, and will only say that it takes about 4-6 weeks for the first authorization to come through. But I can't get anywhere without my payroll for the next period. So I go back home, hoping it'll get in the next day, but it doesn't, and when I don't get it on Tuesday, I call the office in annoyance, and Mrs. Mayo checks to find that they ALL bounced for some stupid reason, and they have to be sent BACK to Philadelphia on Wednesday, and we MAY be getting them on Thursday, which is already June 3. Great! I also buy tickets for the Fillmore, which was another thing I wanted to do, and get seats for three performances, holding off on others to see how I like the first three, and by then it's 7 and I dash uptown and have a quick bite and get down to meet John in front of the Post Office and we get into the menagerie and into the circus (see following pages), and it's not quite so headache-making as before, and John likes quite a lot of it, and we're out at 10, coming back here where we go rather quickly to bed. Oh, and I also bought some polo shirts (after learning to call them tee-shirts by the smirking girl in Naked Grape) for all of $8.75 on 14th Street, and the blue one comes in very handy in the next few days for GREAT cruising.
DIARY 1990
FRIDAY, MAY 28. John's off to work and I make a few phone calls, then get the mail to find a letter from Bill wherein he quotes prices for my want list, so I add those up, and then figure which ones to fill IN the list that I'd want from the "Face+1¢" Rapid company from the Times, and then figure I really should give the guy on 54th the chance to compete with them, and then I'm again into the album and the catalog to see what I want and don't want, and consequently let most of the census work slide for the day, except for a few necessary ones. When I'm finished with my fiddling with the stamp lists, it's somehow time for lunch and to go to the bank and cash all my checks (including the one for $110 from John for "consultation," of which he gets $90), and they've finally put in the "One line for all windows" system which works so well, and then get three shots for typhoid, typhus and tetanus, just BEFORE finding out that my OLD tetanus shot would have been good for ten years, so I really didn't NEED it. Out quickly (after finding that I'd walked there with my FLY open), and when I came back from seeing the guy on 64th Street, I met Ed Berger merely by crotch-watching, looking back, stopping, and asking "Where are YOU going?" and he says I should call him next Wednesday, when he returns after some weekend trip over the holiday. Talk to John and say I'll probably be at his place about 11, since there's an 11:30 show at the Fillmore, so they have to clear the place out. Eat dinner of a rather small steak, and finish the last of the yogurt because I'm still hungry, and get down to the Fillmore, walking quickly with everyone else who's late, just as the first act is announced, and I'm rather surprised to find it's a FEMALE group. Watch the show (see next page) and get out at 11, then decide I have to have a book to take to John's, and can't easily find one, so I settle on Barthelme's "City Life," which is the only one I can find that I want to read in the SLIGHTEST way, and then catch the BMT, watch a Bell System baseball player urinating into a trash can with a bitten-looking cock, and get to John's at 11:30, quite tired, and we don't do anything but go to bed.
DIARY 1993
SATURDAY, MAY 29. Up sadly to find it raining out, but we come nicely, and it's ten o'clock by the time we crawl out of bed, knowing we won't be going to the beach. Dress and John showers and drives me in to his office, and then I subway home to start typing, finally, to catch up with the diary, and I type ten pages in agony, then decide I have to stop, and start dusting, and then scrub and scrape and scour the kitchen and bathroom floors, just to get them clean with the rest of the apartment, and then empty the vacuum cleaner bag, but there's still a haze of dust around the light when I move the cleaner in a certain way, and either the new bags are awful for it, or there's some repair job needed, but I gritted my way through the vacuuming, and then sat down to do another 11 pages, doing 21 pages in all today, but by that time it's 6:30 and I'm supposed to meet John at the Koh-i-nor at 7. Shower and get out at 6:55 because I'd been scraping the mold off the shower curtain, and telephone the restaurant to tell the guy to tell John that I'll be late, probably 7:30. Well, it seems I don't get out of the apartment until 7:15, and take the D, getting off at the wrong stop and waiting a very long time for the E, but get an A, and have to transfer to the E later, and then on the way uptown (having walked 3/4 of the way to 1st Avenue before seeing the signs to Second Avenue), I pull out one of the straps on the sandals, and by the time I get to the restaurant it's 8:15 and John is justifiably miffed at me, and I understand UNTIL he starts saying that I WAS SO LATE deliberately, and while I agreed I wouldn't have been so late in making a plane, he couldn't say I DID get there so late ON PURPOSE. But the meal is on the quiet side, and the veal Karen style is not so terribly good, but the breads and vegetable fritters for appetizers were great, as was the mixed fruit juice, which seemed to be apricot and lemon and maybe tomato, just a bit. Out at 8:30 and I said I really DIDN'T feel like taking his treat to the Continental just that evening, since I was feeling the shots in my arm, and just didn't feel terribly sexy. So we found "The Confession" and "Benjamin" from 9:15-1:30, and bed TIRED.
DIARY 1994
SUNDAY, MAY 30. Again we're up about 10 and I start working on him, but he swings around and starts on me, and I groan and moan and writhe about and flex my muscles for him and for myself and groan loudly into a prolonged orgasm that really gets the day off to a lurch. The day is still quite rainy, with no hope of it clearing up, so he goes in to the office again, and I sit and read the Times, getting into the Double Crostic because I KNOW that the director of "Tol'able David" is King Vidor, and later find that it was Henry King. This lasts till about 1:30, and I'm starved so I have some lunch, and then it's 2, and I sit down hoping to get a lot typed, at least 16 pages in the two hours before 4, when I'm due at Joan's, but by 3 I've been so slow and agonized about typing that I've only typed 5 pages, which is terribly discouraging, so I decide I'm NOT going to be late for Joan's, and I have to wash my hair anyway, so I'm into the shower and wash my hair and get out and put some things away and get the garbage ready to be taken downstairs and wash my teeth and shave and see which subway goes closest to Joan's, and lo, it's 3:50, so I dash downstairs and the AA just NEVER comes, and I get into Joan's about 4:15, which is fine, since John is still the only one there, and he's brought the gallon of Hernandez that I bought for the party yesterday, and Joan looks awful, with her very light blond hair, very pale skin, highlighted by an unnatural flush to her cheeks and nose, and she says she's terribly ill with a cold, but she'd dosed herself up with antihistamines and bothered to clean up the apartment, and anyway there were about 14 people coming and she'd already bought the food, so the party HAD to go on. I busied myself taking down the pictures her sublettor had pasted on the new paint job, and she was grateful for that, but it was about 4:30 before the first guest arrived, and it was the start of an unusual party indeed. I think only in New York could such a varied array of people have gathered together (see following pages), and whenever I think about LEAVING New York for somewhere else, I try to think WHERE I could find a comparable evening, and I simply fear that I couldn't ANYWHERE!
DIARY 2000
MONDAY, MAY 31. Up at 8:30, laze to 9:30, John does me AGAIN with Baby Magic, and we're out of bed at 10:15, and I take a shower while he toasts one glorious English half-muffin for me with butter and honey, which tastes absolutely heavenly, and then we drive into his office (the day is still gray and rainy, what a lousy weekend it was! for the holiday) and I start on my job for him at 10:50. I check the cards against the books, then alphabetize the list of names, and then type "List of 196X: Composers of the Americas 8: 55-57." On every one. Stop about 2:30 for a quick trip to the deli for a chicken and an orange, which we eat in the office, and I'm still feeling slightly spaced, and then continue with the work until I take a break about 5 and start copying names and addresses out of the Writer's Handbook that I see on a shelf, and get all the way up to the S's when it's 7:15 and we decide we've had enough for the day. Drive to my place and John does a few things while I finish "City Life" and then we go out quite late, about 9, to the Yangtze River to eat the Family dinner with beef with pea pods and pork lo mein, which has very little meat, but the food still tastes good, and I have my wallet there, but the next morning at John's I can't find it, and I figure pretty surely I've left it at the restaurant when I didn't (possibly) put it back into my pocket when we were leaving, and I just left it in the mess on the table. John insisted that I don't usually do things like that: I know it, but I seldom lose my wallet in ANY way, so the way in which I actually DO lose it HAS to be bizarre. Back to my place about 10:30, and John gathers up the laundry he'd done (while I was reading the end of my book), and we hop again into the car and get to his place, and I'm quite tired, so I get undressed immediately and crawl into bed, since the previous night I'd only gotten 5 hours sleep, and I'd worked long and boring hours on junk today, which is not my usual way of doing things, and the continuous stretch of gray and drizzly weather seemed to finally get through to me too, but I lay there, quite exhausted, waiting for John to come to bed so the lights could be turned off.
DIARY 2007
TUESDAY, JUNE 1. On the way home I think of many things (see following pages) which I transcribe onto the back page of "City Life," and want to get home to type them all out, but the best I can do is to type 10 pages, and lots of other nonsense things during the morning, out to check restaurant for wallet, not there, and meet a cute Chris, who says he'll come over at 5:30, but he doesn't, and buy set of airmails from 59th Street for $3 and put them into album, including working for quite a bit of the time, and eating breakfast and lunch, and then at 4:30 I settle down at the TV to watch "1984" (after coming back from a work appointment expecting to see John here, or even expecting to meet him along the way, since the appointment is at Walter Scott's on 57th, and another one at 57th and Fifth, which I'm almost late to, but they have the form waiting for me as I dash down the street, getting very warm walking so fast) but then John and Marlos come in, and Marlos is quite tall and rather nicely-bodied under his fairly sexy clothing, and we sit and talk about the state of ballet and opera and contemporary music, as well as the relative climates for music and enjoyment in New York City and Rio de Janeiro, and Marlos is quite charming and warm, and John says he drives him to distraction because his hand is always on his arm, his shoulder, or his knee in typical Latin friendliness. He leaves about 6, later than he had intended to, and we sit around and talk, having dinner in, and then I decide it'll be a nice time to find out about hotels in various foreign towns, so I call Mattachine to make sure they're there with some sort of information booklet, and John and I walk up in the pleasant weather to go into the library and copy out many cards of information about many hotels and bars and baths and cruising places in many cities, but nothing for many other cities, which is sad. Also give the specifications for our apartments to the guy sitting behind the desk, who says they'll be typed up and put on the bulletin board. Bob Milne is there talking to some lawyer-type about homosexual law reforms, and John's introduced to him and then we leave after dark, getting back about 9, which is later than I'd planned, but John goes to work and I fuss around reading something or other, and then we have delightful lengthy sex with Baby Magic and sleep.
DIARY 2008
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2. Have a 9 am appointment down on 51st and Fifth, and talk to a fairly slobby representative of the Dworman Realty Company about three buildings, and he enjoys talking about nonsense, so it takes about an hour. Then telephone back to 57th and Fifth, because they neglected to fill in the back pages of both THEIR forms, and they say it's just an oversight, so I go up there and copy in the final information, and then it's 10:30 and I call Ed Berger, and he says I should come over to his place, and we have a very nice session until about noon (see following pages), and I grab subways home, getting in just at 12:30 in order to see "The Phantom President," which has someone I think is Pat O'Brien who turns out to be George M. Cohan playing a dual role of a schmuck who ends up on an Alaskan island and a song-and-dance man of the worst blackface style (who also waves flags) who ends up President of the United States, married to Claudette Colbert, with Jimmy Durante being his absolute WORST as a raucous, loud-mouthed troublemaker in the name of "friendship" who's a complete pain in the neck. It's over at 2 and I eat lunch and telephone many places for work until close to 5, and then I type 10 pages which STILL doesn't bring me up to date, though, at least, it DOES bring me up to the month of June AND up to the fateful page 2000! Also stopped into Rizzoli just by chance, looking for Paul's recommended "Gold Guide to Southeast Asia," and it's there, and glance through that, and it seems like quite a good book, and take it along in the subway to John's, and he's still working, so I read a few of the pages while he finishes up, and it's pretty close to 11, so we just get stoned, he does me as I feel VERY free with my body, allowing him to hit and squeeze more than normally, and have a couple of glasses of things to drink, and get to bed to talk about the trip, and about how much longer he has to work, how everything is pointed toward successful completion and a fabulous trip, and I keep thinking about the flights and pushing the idea of the trip out of my head, dreading calling and re-calling Plaut about reservations (since Holo-Holo writes we CAN'T have Hilo camper first), and rapidly heading for depression OVER the trip.
DIARY 2012
THURSDAY, JUNE 3. Home quite early, since John's out of bed at 7:45 lately, saying he's thinking of letters he wants to compose during the day, so that rather than lying in bed thinking of them, he might as well be up DOING them. This is the FIRST day since the two before that I don't get in just as the mailman is depositing a HUGE stack of mail in front of the frowning Josie, from the weekend with the holiday. Have to go down to 42nd Street to talk to Mr. Nimar, and get just the slightest bit annoyed when all he's telling me is that it's a transient building, but I've stopped at the Modern to get the latest movie schedule, checked at the Donnell to find that they don't have the "House in Bali" and they'll send me a new library card to replace the one that was in my wallet that's totally gone by now, and stopped by the main library to find the branch at 40th Street, where I copy down some new addresses from Writer's Marketplace for 1971, somewhat more up to date than the 1969 Writer's Handbook at Dutton's, and leave about noon. Walk back up by way of 42nd Street, trying to think of a new way of wasting time, I'm sure, vaguely thinking about getting a new cock book, and pass the Victory Theater, for only 99¢, where they're showing "A History of the Blue Movie," which has many funny sections in it, including the old-time cartoon a la Krazy Kat, an old hitchhiker story with cocks and tits, the nun's story, with an awful looking woman and a cute guy, and the "famous" Candy Barr scene, where I'M fairly convinced she didn't want to take his cock MERELY to heighten the interest by getting in another female. None of it was directed toward the males, however, and though there were a lot of guys sitting around the theater (see next page) nothing that I could see happened. "Suddenly, a Woman" was terrible, not even being very sexy, not a cock in sight, and barely breasts, but the audience was too sex-oriented to even complain: maybe they thought it was an art show. Buy Masturbation Fantasy for $6 and come home to jerk off over it, John's in, I watch the Danton Biography, which makes EACH side look wrong, and John goes to bed, I read the guide book, and watch "Passage to Marseilles" till 1:40 am!
DIARY 2014
FRIDAY, JUNE 4. John's up early again, and I get out the book and jerk off with enormous gusto while reading the salacious parts of the descriptions of jerking off, and some of the photos were capable of inspiring me to great heights. Work for a long time, trying vainly to get some forms in, but the mail's been rather good for the last couple days, and my average time per form has finally come down to 2.6, which is far more acceptable than the 4.1 I got up to earlier. My check still didn't arrive, though Mrs. Mayo said she got hers today, and that she'd send me more work, which never arrived, either. Didn't put the book away, which was a mistake, because I looked at it again and couldn't keep my paws away from my dong, so I masturbated again, barely making enough come to dribble over my thumb. Then turned on the television for "Twelve O'clock High," interested in seeing that Gregory Peck was nominated for the best actor of the year for it, and that Dean Jagger won the best supporting actor award for it, but it was rather dated and VERY slow, except for the section where Peck went out of his mind, really chewing up the scenery in a great acting tour de force. Dean Jagger wasn't really bad, but there couldn't have been much competition. Finished at 3, having eaten lunch, and figure to get down to something more useful, but there really isn't anything more that I want to do, so I wash the dishes while listening to more tapes, and then eat dinner, and it's time to shower and clean up for the Ze'Eva Cohen recital at the Cubiculo, which I get to at 7:30, way before John, and buy a ticket, and the five dances are rather nice, but she doesn't do them very well, doing particularly poorly on "Harriett," being too graceful and beautiful at odd times, and with "Contrasts," Gerda Zimmerman's study in precision which Cohen didn't follow, but Deborah Jowitt's "Green River Road (Summer)" was beautifully refreshing, but "Resonances" was poorly done and even her own "Cloud Song" wasn't very well done. She might just have been tired. Back to take after John with the Baby Magic, so he won't touch tired me, and he loves it, squirming around in enjoyment as I finally allow him to come in huge spurts.
DIARY 2015
SATURDAY, JUNE 5. John's up to work, after I do him again, this time with an assist from the vibrator, the first time that's been used in a long time, and I'm down for the mail after going shopping, and find there's just two pieces of mail, but they're both perfect: the letter from Bill with the stamps, and the letter from Rapid with the stamps. Spend the entire day with the stamps spread out all over the place, checking to see which ones they sent me, taking the old stamps out and putting the new stamps into the books, cataloging how much I got from them, seeing which of the want lists have now been taken, enjoying the sensation of seeing the want list reduced from 303 to 153, and incidentally finding a few used stamps in the book whose number I hadn't put down, and deciding to put the few USED stamps I want onto the list with the MINT stamps, so there's just one list, though somewhat larger, like the old list. OH---in the morning Avi called me at 10 and said I should join him in the park, and I finally get there at noon (see next page), and get back here at 2:30, which is when I started on the stamps. By the time it's 5 pm, I've called Joan to see where she is, since she was supposed to come over to read "Acid House," and she calls from downtown to say that she'd just seen "Sleuth" and is exhausted, so I ask her up for a drink and supper, going out to the supermarket while she watches the readiness for the Belmont Stakes, and she's almost crying when Canonero II doesn't win the Triple Crown for the first time since Citation in 1948. Then Avi calls while I'm cooking and she bursts into tears about the bear being shot in Central Park because a man annoyed him, and then we sit down and eat, which she likes, and she's finished a large scotch, and we have lots of iced nebbish rosé with the meal, and then we run to catch the bus to 74th and First for "Charlie Was Here, and Now He's Gone," which isn't bad, but it isn't good either, and out at 9 to find that Faith Geer doesn't want to join us, and we stop down at Art's to pick him up, getting a joint, drinking LARGE gin and oranges, and finally get to Joan's and Joel's, which we stay at (see subsequent pages).
DIARY 2019
SUNDAY, JUNE 6. Wake fairly late, feeling awful, and get down to the subway when it's clear that it's NOT clear outside, and we won't be going to the beach. I feel that's best for me, but feel awfully sorry for John, and when I tell him that later in the afternoon, he says he's actually glad the weather was bad, since he would have been worrying about work, and now he actually got it done, so he felt better about it. I took two aspirin at John's, and when I got home I took two Alka-Seltzers, but that seemed to be a mistake, because my mouth began that awful salivating just before I vomit, and I leaned over the toilet, literally dripping at the maw, letting the water drain into the toilet, hoping that I wouldn't have to throw up, too dizzy and nauseous to even take my clothing off. Finally the feeling passed, I took several deep breaths, and then lay down until John arrived. He sat down and worked for awhile, and then I thought it would be good to have something to eat, and made three scrambled eggs for each of us, but about 3/4 of the way through, my tolerance for staying up just vanished, so I told John he could have the rest of the eggs and I crawled off to bed, where I lay in the fetus position, pillow under my head, air-conditioner making me slightly too cold, so I got up and shut it down, which made me even dizzier, and I lay for a couple of hours, not daring to move. Then I got disgusted, and got up to read a bit of the Times, then had to go back to bed. Then worked with stamps for a bit, and then back to bed, but I was feeling somewhat better, confident I could make it through the Fillmore tonight. John said he thought beef broth would be the best thing I could have, so I had yogurt and beef broth, and felt a bit better, and at 7:15 I started my leisurely trip down to the Fillmore, knowing I wouldn't be able to rush this time. Got there in plenty of time, and my seat was at the side of the balcony, where I could look at the groovy bodies climbing the stairs. There wasn't any light show, which was a big disappointment, but some of the show was good enough without it (see next page). Out, hungry, for a slice of pizza and a root beer, felt better, had a hot fudge sundae, felt good, and had an egg salad sandwich at Rikers at 12:15.
DIARY 2021
MONDAY, JUNE 7. Up feeling quite a bit better, even doing John in the AM. Out to the living room and am appalled to see myself pick up the crossword puzzle and start working on it. Finish the Times when I can't get any further, and then get back to the stamps, finding out what more I need. Then the idea that I'll go to 54th Street just preys and preys at my mind, and at 12 I'm out onto the hot street with $40 in my pocket ($20 of mine and $20 from John's wallet, which he forgot in his trousers again), and he's happy with my 2¢-over-face purchases, and we get into some fairly heavy buying, but I'm just as happy he couldn't locate a $5 mint stamp for $10, even though it will probably cost me more later on. Just about to get into the Washington Bicentennials, but I figure I'd better see how much I spent, and it comes to $21.40, and I give him $21.25, which is all I have except for the $20 bill and a token. Back to find that I'd bought 69 stamps (and he charged me for 70, but nevertheless, I got fairly close to half catalog for most of the items). Sit watching "Souls at Sea," fairly static except for the ship's fire and sinking for the last twenty minutes, and sorting through the stamps in the meantime. Then make a few phone calls for the census, getting a refusal and a "too far out" for my pains, and get back to the stamps, easy in the air-conditioned bedroom. The house phone rings at 5:30 and it's Fred Courtney, who comes up to chat for 15 minutes before his class at 6 across the street, and I finish stamps, trying to see what OTHERS I want on my want list, and (FORGOT that I showered, thinking about the flight and the trip, and typed the two pages 2005-2006) about ten to six got out walking rapidly toward Mattachine, but the group was supposed to assemble at 6:30, so I read Queens Quarterly in the air-conditioned library until Bob Milne's humpy stupid roommate came in to help me count the votes, and we finished at 8:30, congratulating Bob Milne, President, aghast at the VP who was there, Califiero wasn't there, but the other officer was the guy (tanned) behind the desk, and Alan Henderson was the young fellow who won, Shaw wasn't there, and (ugh) Sergio Ponce won. Eat a Dicken's Burger (Nedicks!) with John's money, to his place at 9:30, read the Golden Guide until about 10:30, talk with John about the trip, and bed.
DIARY 2029
TUESDAY, JUNE 8. Up early and he plays with me nicely, and I do him, too. Simply MUST get down to typing, and type quite a bit before settling down to "It Started with Eve" with Deanna Durbin and an elderly-looking Charles Laughton pretending to be sick so she'll marry his son, Robert Cummings, and end at 3, and then Fred Courtney calls from downstairs at 3:15 and comes up to wait for his dance class at 4:30, and we talk but I'm not getting anything done, so I start washing dishes, and John walks in about 4, to turn down Fred's offer that we both appear in MacDonald's multimedia thing at Alice Tully Hall on Saturday, and then he leaves at 4:15, John's in the shower, I get back to typing, catching up with the diary pages FINALLY, and begin reading [redding?] up the apartment, and we eat fairly early, hamburger that I had to borrow money from John for because I hadn't gone to the bank today, and then we're out bicycling in the soot from the pier fire on 68th Street (sounds like a bit of "1984," doesn't it?), and go around the park and stop at Cheryl Seltzer's so John can pick up the last bit of work from her and give her a present of a vegetable steamer, and we're back here at 8:15, because it looks like rain, and at 8:30 Avi and Rolf come up and talk about their friends in Katmandu and Taiwan, and about subletting my apartment, and they leave about 9:30, since Avi has to get up so early these mornings (5 am!), and Rolf is pleasant, softly-accented, and very thin and blond and active-looking, and John and I wonder what to do (though I don't feel like sex), and he decides to work for an hour, and I get back to typing, actually finishing 19 pages today, everything I can think of to type, then take a shower and fill a tub for John's SECOND bath today, and he's already had two showers. Sort the stamp stuff from the letters from the things to do, and decide I really have to start getting busy with everything if I'm going to finish by the time the trip starts, and decide to make TWO lists: one that I have to do TODAY, one that I have to do before the TRIP. That should work better. Sleep with the air conditioner on for the third night in a row, and have the dream from DIARY 2026.
DIARY 2030
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9. Up early and do John with slaps and hits VERY slowly. Then I remember my appointment with Levine at Madison and 43rd at 9 am, and subway down to him at 9:20, leaving duplicates with him and decide to walk back at 9:35, cashing a check and getting in just in time to say goodbye to John at 10, and watch "The Great McGinty" about a tough-guy who becomes a grafting mayor and tries to become an honest Governor and ends up bar-keep in a dive in Mexico, fighting (homosexually?) with his only true love, Akim Tamiroff. Sit down to type four pages to catch the diary completely up to date, then put pages into the book, catching the table of contents up to date, then gather up the census pay vouchers that came in the mail today and go down to Food Stamps at 1, getting back at 3:30 after being assured that I'll be accepted, will get an ID and authorization card in the mail in about 5 weeks, which will be good for six months. Wandered the floor looking for things to read, and the employees were models of bored uninterest. Back to go through a bit of the stack of stuff on my desk, eat lunch, phone Rosey Sheik for a dentist's appointment on Friday, great, and try the still-not-there Schwamm. Watch an awful "Black Water Gold" without even finding Keir Dullea interesting with his Spanish accent and puffy chest, though Ricardo Montalban certainly has a nice body. Art calls about the orgy, and Ed doesn't call, and John calls for the address, and I shower and shave and brush my teeth and get all ready by 7:20 (also found that "Acid House" costs $1.20 to mail and return, mailing it to Crown, and took the Chinese laundry out---good day), leaving at 7:35, getting to the door just a few minutes before eight (see following pages). Inside just after someone I find is Bob Lohr, and Art and John and Ed and even Joe Farinas are all there. John leaves early, at 10:30, and I stay around a bit until 11, then leave, starved, wondering how best to spend my last dollar, and have scrambled eggs and toast for 65¢ at the next-door place, and get up to bed at midnight. Roger had come at 10, leaving me a note John found the next morning, and I had another colorful dream (see subsequent page).
DIARY 2035
THURSDAY, JUNE 10. Up tired, and John and I decide I have to see Plaut today. So I get to type five pages to again get me up to date (oh, for those one page days, like today), and then settle down with the travel brochures, notes, "India on $5 a Day" and the other guide book for hotels, type the first draft of an itinerary, add lots of things about air and rail and hotels to it, type another copy of it, and figure it's about as good as it will get, and it's about time that I did it. John calls with the great news that he's sublet his place, and I'm beginning to realize that I have a dentist's appointment tomorrow, which begins to bug me. Have steak and decide I just HAVE to defrost the refrigerator, so I finish the last of the rosé wine, and then I phoned Avi and Azak and Joan and John to go to (and Arnie) "Pericles" with me, but none of them want to go, so I go down at 7:15 myself to pick up the single ticket for $3.50, and stand around with my read travel books, talking to Wasarky, or whoever, about subletting my apartment, but he only wants to pay $125, and we get into the Noh-arranged theater to see the five-man chorus standing with staffs which come in handy later for battling, coffin-handles, oars, and dance utensils, and Boult with his knotted rope cock is just as neat as can be, there's very contemporary references to a woman liking a man "as meat" and a woman being a "piece of virtue," and a great line about "the greater dream" which is some sort of super-reality where everything works out right, and the bringing back to life, the reunions, and the battle scenes are so nicely done that they bring tears to my eyes, and I leave at 10:15 thinking very highly of the whole CSC Company. Dash to John's by 10:35 and we chat about the itinerary, he questions staying overnight in Singapore, but I want to do it, and we argue again about Plaut's competence, and finally John says he's tired, so I wash and get into bed, lay on my back, lay on my stomach, lay on my other side, curl up, stick my foot out, count backwards, think of people burning to death, fear the dentist, and don't get to sleep until well after midnight, and then wake early to fuss and fume about my fears.
DIARY 2036
FRIDAY, JUNE 11. Tell John that I'm preoccupied with thoughts of the dentist, and he says that he's still worried about the trip. He leaves and I sit around reading the Village Voice until about 9, when I shower and shave and brush my teeth for Rosey Sheik, and get on the subway at 9:20 and get there early, but she takes me right away, cleans, takes X-rays, and announced that her visual examination shows that everything looks OK. I'm out feeling just fine, smelling the roses on the fresh summer air, and it's wonderful to be out from the yoke of THAT worry for awhile. Subway home at 10:30 and get a letter from Sidney Porcelain saying he actually LIKES Acid House very much, is looking forward to getting the rest of it, and has sent it to a publisher, who might take two or more months to respond. I also call Mrs. Schwam, and she says she just got married, and she'll get in touch with me before I leave on July 2. Thanks a lot. By then it's noon and I'm late for my meeting with Plaut, so I decide to take the bicycle and park it in the entrance like John does, but the traffic is awful, my brakes don't work terribly smoothly, and it's a poor thing except that it's faster without being too much effort. He hasn't done anything except make a few plane reservations, so I settle down with the airline schedules and finally come up with Kabul-Istanbul-Zurich-Lisbon from 6 am to 11:10 pm of the same day, and figure a couple of other flights, including the ones to Hawaii, and after getting a couple of nephews, some friends, and a bored painted lady out of the way, as well as taking in checks for over $10,000, he's ready to give me some attention, and says he'll have more for us by Wednesday. It's 3 pm then, what a waste of time doing HIS job! Eat lunch and watch "Destination Saturn," which appears to be a redo of the old "Buck Rogers" film written up in John's Science-Fiction book. That's over at 6, I shower and wash my hair, eat dinner, and get out to the Fillmore at 8 pm, while John says he'll probably just stay here and smoke. The performance is the best of the lot (see following pages), and I stop off afterwards to eat greasy, stick-to-the-teeth ribs to assuage hunger, home at 12:15.
DIARY 2039
SATURDAY, JUNE 12. Up feeling awful, John goes to work, and I sit down to read "India" by the Time-Life Library, getting some good notes from it (see next page), and getting three good story ideas (see following page). Watch "Island of Lost Souls" while talking to Joan on the phone, and then get back to the typewriter to write a letter to Sidney Porcelain, telling him the publishers I sent to already, that I don't have the book finished, and that I'm going away July 2-Nov. 5, and send a $34 check to Concept/Research for 48 Touch-Me's. Then Marty Sokol calls and says he'll sublet my apartment, which is just GREAT news, and I debate how to thank him, and finally say I'll give him 10% off, making it $700, if he pays me in advance, so I won't have to cash as many IBM's for the trip. He says he'll think about it. So BOTH apartments are rented, and NOW I feel like the trip is TRULY immanent (I wouldn't WANTED to have felt it get any closer without the knowledge that it WAS sublet). Then late to Alice Tully Hall to find "Oboe Rampant" already started, and there are oboists from the ceiling, campy dancers, singers stretching across the walkways between seating sections, and during intermission we talk to Fred, get introduced to the primo ballerino assoluto, meet Bruce and other groovy people, look at the slides and movies being projected all over the place, and look at transparent shirts and tight-fitting pants on many of the viewers. Pity the dancing and the oboeing were merely mediocre. Then there are the hard-edged demarcations between "fun dancing" and "serious music" which was a bit hard to take. Tell Fred that we accept his invitation to his place afterward for ice cream, and I'm happy he DIDN'T get Bruce along, as I'd suggested, and drive to his place to look at a couple of books on India and Jung and psychedelic art, talk about a few things, and then John conks out on the sofa, and I suggest we leave, and he wakes enough to borrow Fred's top hat, and the evening seems curiously aborted, as if no one was willing to say EXACTLY what they wanted to do: me to see the MacDonald party, John to sleep, Fred to have sex with us. Down to my place, buying the Times, and shower and get into bed at 12:45.
DIARY 2042
SUNDAY, JUNE 13. Up VERY logy at 9:30, finished the Times by 10:30, phoned Joan to meet me at the Metropolitan as soon as possible, get busy and type five pages to come up to date, then get out at noon to walk to the Puerto-Rican parade-strewn Fifth Avenue to wait for Joan at 12:30, then to see the Egyptian Writing exhibit that got such a great write-up in the Times, and it wasn't terribly interesting, except that it was about SOMETHING, and there was the initiative to see IT. Finish about 2:30, Joan's hungry, so we have a sandwich (her) and a salad and cottage cheese plate and cake (me) until 3:15, then walk across the park and subway down to my place, but she continues down, saying she wants to read "Acid House" when I'm there, and I'm up just as John's finishing his work at 3:30, and we're out on bicycles to get air in our tires at 9th at 53rd, but then the black clouds, blown by strong winds, are all overhead, so we come back to the apartment, and when I get upstairs, it's already started raining, big wet drops. Down to watch TV for "Invitation to the Dance," missing only the Youskevich episode, and remembering the funny two Persian guards in animation in the Sindbad the Sailor episode. Then it's 5, and we decide to go to the office while John works, and I read, finishing "Southeast Asia" and "Tropical Asia" in the Time-Life library series, taking notes to be taken along on the trip, and that's finished at 8, when I suggest we have dinner at the Shalimar, at 29th on the way down, and we have separate dinners, the mulligatawny is mediocre, the bujia poor and doughy, but the chicken mild-style with almonds is very delicately tasty, and John's spiced meatballs are great, and the lemon chutney is out of this world in strength and distinctive taste. The roshgalla is fairly good for my dessert, but I don't like the honeyed fritters of his Kabul Jamal, or something of that sort, and the whole dinner comes to $10.75 with tip. Down to the Italian fair to find that the parade is already over, and since we're full from the meal, we don't feel like eating, and we don't want any of the questionable merchandise, there are a paucity of cute crotches, so we leave at 11:15, feeling we've seen it. To John's, and tired to bed.
DIARY 2043
MONDAY, JUNE 14. Home at 9 to find no mail yet, do the puzzle (DAMN!) to 11, and down for the mail to find that Laura Stevenson of Crown Publishers likes "Acid House!" She has a number to call her, and I do, but she's at lunch, so I call John to find what I should and shouldn't say to her, and when finally I get in touch with her (about 3), she's only a first reader who thought it would be best if she could pass along the information to the second reader that this is actually nonfiction, and that I should call next week, and she'll tell me if I should send in more chapters, if the second reader passes it on to the editor-in-chief. 1 level down; 2 to go! But of course, in OTHER organizations, it could have been through ALL the readings, without my knowledge, and STILL been turned down, but I have no way of knowing. Watch "Once Upon a Time" with a fairly funny Cary Grant in a VERY small story about a dancing caterpillar betrayed by Walt Disney's money, who turns into a---get this!---butterfly that they willingly let go. Do a bit of work by telephone, go out to get stuff from Walter Scott, and John comes in about 4:30 while I'm still finishing, and we sit around and talk for awhile before dinner, then eat, and Bob Lohr calls to say he'll be at my place between 6:30 and 7 for dinner and ?. John decides he'll go home from work, and I'll join him there later. Then I get into the bedroom and type letters to Steve and Barbara Yeaton, and Bob Francescone, and Lois Cohen, and phoned Norman Tinkle to find that only $1.50 could be saved through him on a $25 Scientific American subscription, but he'll send me a list, and then it's 9:30, so I shower and wash my hair and shave and clean my teeth and ask John when he's going to be finished with work, and get out the Tiger Tops article for him to read, and when he's finished, I start smoking, two pipes full, and he lays the sofa cushions out on the coffee table after I turn out the lights and put candles on, and I crawl up on the table to lay down on my back, adding the second cushion, while John brings up the chair for support, and as the Moody Blues comes over the hi-fi system, I lay back for an enjoyable high session (see next page).
DIARY 2045
TUESDAY, JUNE 15. Up hazily and start caressing John's cock, then get vibrator out after he's very hard, and he comes very nicely, and I'm so hot that I want to come too, and grab hold of my own cock and bring myself off while he watches. Then he's off to work and I look at stamps and want list for the last time, deciding which stamps I REALLY want and which I don't, and making up the list accordingly. Then down for the mail and Harcourt Brace has sent back my manuscript, so I decide to send three chapters to Vantage Press, since they want it, and send the additional four chapters to Crown, going down to the Post Office to weigh both packages up, and the 21¢ for fourth class is quite an eye opener, but I wonder how long it takes to process. It's raining as I take them down, and I'm carrying them in the census folder, because I have to go back to pick up the stuff from Wood on Madison and 44th at 11:30, then find a GREAT surprise in the elevator as Dick Hsieh goes on up to 22, comes back down, we stand around talking, he comes down to Chock Full with me for a hot pastrami sandwich, milk and a brownie for lunch, and go up to his place to talk about his wife, mother-in-law, kid, Cathy, Herman, and Hawaii, and I leave at 1, still in rain, to walk down to 25th to talk to IGLWU people about one place, get runaround and talk to London Terrace, and back to IGLWU to get it referred to the SAME girl. By now it's 4 pm and I'm back to eat lunch and (No, I DID at Dick's) shower in preparation for Bob Lohr's coming, and he comes in at 6:25, just before I'm finished shaving, after exercising, and we sit around and talk, and at 8 he tells me he thought John was coming over, but he's not, and he decides on Japanese food, so we have regular stuff at Fuji Sukiyaki, talking about his life in Tarrytown, his visits to Akron's bath, my book and trip, past and future, and we're back at 9:30, he suggests smoking, but I don't want to, then he strips me and goes down on me and I don't move, calling John that I'll be late at 10:15, but he doesn't answer, and Bob leaves, sadly saying "I wish you were in a hornier mood" and he wishes me a good trip. I get to John's at 11:30, and he can't sleep, looking out the window, SAYING he's not mad at me, bed at 12:15.
DIARY 2046
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16. Up and come nicely, to prove that I didn't come last night, and he seems happy about it, and he wants to drive into work so that he has the car in town for Stonehenge, and we look and look for a place to park at 8-9, finally finding one at 20th East of York (or where York would be), and walk way back to the office, and I subway home at 9:30, calling a few places, but mainly taking out the stamp album and rearranging the stamps on page one in ORDER, which is much better, thereby eliminating the need for 188, and move other little things around, adding numbers to some which had been previously unnumbered, and I need about 100 mint stamps and my want list will be gone, but I decide to wait for the new Chassey mailing list, and put it away for GOOD. Decide I have to get some letters done, so I write Bill, and then before writing Paul decide I have to get the airmail envelopes, and I get picture hangers, too, and also the laundry and groceries, so it all takes a long time, and I'm listening to the tapes, too, which takes some time, and get back to find that I have eight pictures to hang, which means I have no hangers left over to use on the NEXT one that falls off the wall because the adhesive's dried out. Then John calls after I call about caviar, and says I should be there at 2:45, but it's 2:10 already, so I quickly eat and shave and shower, and get out of the apartment at 2:45, getting to John's just on the dot of three, and he's not EXACTLY ready either, so it worked out nicely. Through Queens tunnel (while he's wearing sunglasses because his eye's sore from some sort of reddening infection), and the Long Island Expressway to Community Road in Great Neck, and through that community to Maple Drive, a lush enclave of one-acre mansions, each with barking dog, and I wander sweet-smelling streets (with sounds of jets and LIRR very close by) as John collects manuscripts from Hugo Weisgall, and at 4:30 we're on our way to the Throg's Neck Bridge to view the marvelously clear air over the city and the blue waters of the Sound, and drive up the Hutch to Merritt Parkway, getting lost on the way to the Kipnisses just at 6 (see following pages) and bed just before 1 am.
DIARY 2050
THURSDAY, JUNE 17. Tannhauser barks almost before the birds chirp at 5 am. I doze on and off and am awakened by John doing work quietly in his bed beneath mine. It's 8:30, and we're up to putter around until about 10, when Igor exclaims about two sets of workmen coming at once, and we get back to the main road, talking with amazement about the trials and agonies of the Kipniss family, and John's eye is even worse, and he says he's going to see a doctor today about it. Long slow drive into town gives me many quite startling ideas (see following pages), and we're to his place about 11:30, and I subway home to find a letter from Lisa in the mail and not much else, which is disappointing, because I want to hear MORE from Crown and Porcelain. In and finish typing the letter to Mom that I'd started yesterday, getting it up to four pages, which I hope makes her happy. Then I read the letter from Paul, and he asks for an itinerary, and I start typing that up (between a couple of telephone calls for the census, and a call to Plaut, and he says he'll call me back, but he doesn't that day), and then the Martys Sokol and Perl come over to bring double arm loads of book reference material and records, and they guzzle soda and talk about my trip, and Marty assures me he's paying me in advance, so I HAVE $700 from him, which is heartening. They're here from 3:30 to 4:30 and I forget that today's Eddie's birthday (yesterday, I mean). I get back to type the letter to Paul, and then find to my chagrin that he's LEAVING TOMORROW, so he won't get it until he RETURNS to Singapore around the 1st of September, hopefully enabling him to get in touch with us at Raffles. Type a letter to Claudia, but I really don't feel like doing it, and my throat's strangely sore. The water's back on, so I shower and wash my hair, and watch "Biographies: Julius Caesar" from 8:30-10:30, eating some awful beef tartar when the GAS STOVE is off, which is very sad, and then John's tired, so he smokes and I take a large toke, and we're in bed at 10:45, and I'm feeling very comfortable just lying there in bed, not thinking about the flight that takes place in just two weeks, and maybe I'll take a puff EVERY night: it works!
DIARY 2053
FRIDAY, JUNE 18. Try to do John, but unsuccessful, and the phone repair rings at 8:15 just as John coaxes me to give up, and he makes the same stupid comments like the one made yesterday about referring my problem to the head office. I start typing in the diary to catch up on the last few days, and before I know it there are 6 pages typed. All day I'm also listening to the tapes, getting quite a few run through, but still the list of those to hear seems prohibitively high. Out to Scott to get only two of the four still outstanding, and back to find nothing interesting in the line of mail. Phone a couple of places for the census and then get into the bedroom---FORCE myself---to re-read Don's critique of "Acid House" and write him a long single-spaced four-page letter about his questions and comments, and include an itinerary of the trip. This takes an enormous amount of time, and when I'm half-through with Elaine's letter, I decide to actually DO the four-column form I thought I'd do for her, and that takes a couple of hours, stopping for lunch, and I'm glad TV is quiet these few days. Finally finish with "Quadrilogues," which name I like, and finish two whole pages to Elaine, and give HER a copy of the itinerary. Relieved to find that I'm only left with letters to write to Rita and Lisa. Finish in time to shower and eat dinner (also was disappointed at Wood at 3 pm, when this mousy guy came out, admitted he'd made an appointment, but said I had to call him on Monday, since he had no time this week), and finish at 9:15, getting out of the apartment with it looking fairly good at 9:30, and actually getting to John's EARLY at 9:59, saying hello to Allan Bettancourt as I pass him on Hicks. John shows off his Parr trousers and we're out to stroll in the pleasant air on the Promenade, not seeing too much of interest except the evening itself, and just before 11 we get ice cream cones. Back to his place and he clears up the last work details while I shower, and then saddened to find he's finished the Malaga, so I have some Cointreau over ice while he has the Hernandez wine, and we're amazed over the fact that, in TWO weeks, we won't be in New York City anymore, but off on the trip!
DIARY 2055
SATURDAY, JUNE 19. John does me nice and slowly with Baby Magic, and we drive to his office about 9:45, I read a bit of the Voice while waiting for him to get everything together, and then wait until 10 for Paragon Sporting Goods to open, and buy a maroon solid bathing suit for $4.95, and upstairs to turn down a $5 poncho because it had no sleeves, a $22 raincoat because it was too expensive, and end up with a brilliantly orange rainsuit for only $10, a GREAT bargain. Back to get a call from Jeff Duncan about tonight, and try calling John but there's no answer at all. Joan decides not to come over, so I write the LAST LETTERS I HAVE TO WRITE, which is a chore but it's a great feeling when it's DONE, writing to Rita, Lisa, and Boguslaw Shaffer, who sent me a great stamp-cover from Poland, and then I get out at 2:30 to stand in line for the sold-out "Whoopee" with Eddie Cantor who's almost so dated as to be CAMP, and it's all in TECHNICOLOR, and this was made in 1930! There're also a lot of references to people being gay, too, which struck the audience as rather unfunny. The schedule said it was 94 minutes, but we were out after 80, so something's funny. Back home to pick up John's bicycle and ride down a bumpy Broadway in just under 50 minutes for a glorious ride across the Brooklyn Bridge, and he's not home yet, and I begin to fear maybe something's happened to him, and so close to the trip, too! But as I'm showering to wash my hair, he comes in just after six, saying he's done something like me, thinking it was 4:30 when it was actually as late as 5:30. He showers and we walk over to Atlantic House, where I try the first dish on the International section, Veal Francese Georgia, and it's tender veal in most succulent dressing which tastes like all egg yolks, smothered in peaches on pilaf. Spectacularly good, one of the best dishes of all time. Over to Spencer Memorial Church to a small crowd for Fred Rzewski's concert, and the Zoo is loud, but that's it, and "Les Moutons de Panurge" is an enormous hit with everyone, including me, but the last two are dreary. It's over at 10:30, and everyone's into the back for an awful reception (see next page).
DIARY 2057
SUNDAY, JUNE 20. Wake rather groggy at 8, he drives in and I buy the Times and get home about 10, and Joan doesn't call, so I watch a Camera Three show about biological clocks, which is rather good, about the influence that is INSIDE man and animals, and the interesting idea that man IS a clock himself, keeping time in his OWN way. Finish reading the paper and don't feel like getting into anything else, so I settle down with the puzzles, both of which are rather difficult, making me dip into EB and the dictionary and the Bartlett's and the Almanac, and finally finish it at 2 pm, feeling rather stupid for having done it. Then feel vaguely sexy, since neither John nor I have been coming much lately, and I masturbate satisfactorily with pornography, and then take down the blue jeans which I'd washed yesterday, and dried them by wearing them, hoping to wear out some of the stiffness washed in by the Woolite, and then washed my socks, which hopefully is the LAST bit of washing before the last load just before the trip. Read "Kathmandu," which takes until 5, and then since I have THAT done, decide I can make up a NEW list of things to do before the trip, and write a letter to DerKoorkanian because it's "there," and call Matthew Mattiello to find that his cousin in Nepal is now in England, and try to call Fred Courtney, but some Frenchman answers and he doesn't call back. Supposed to meet John at 7, but get to the Eagle at 7:50, to find the chicken gone and settle for the ham, feeding the cat in the meantime, and we guzzle our beers and drive over to the Waverly to see "Claire's Knee" by Max Rohmer, a very French and talky movie with lovely scenery and endless subtitles and nuances of accent delineating character, and a pretty boy to wake John up as he dozes, and an excellent Truffaut "Bed and Board" (how they got that from the French "Conjugal Domicile," I don't know), which was VERY funny in spots, and quite charming, better than "Claire" by a long shot, and we're out, John dozing, just before 12, and get a fabulous butter crunch cone, which has nuts and bits of toffee in it, and drive to John's place just as the clock says midnight, and it's officially SUMMER. Shower and bed.
DIARY 2070
MONDAY, JUNE 21. Sleep surprisingly well, seeing as I go to the dentist this morning, and there's the slightest hint of an idea that I might be not as touchy about such things as I once was, which makes me feel great. Do the dishes while John leaves, and get out of his apartment at 8:45, maybe thinking I'd waited too long, but the subway connections were perfect and I got there a few minutes early, carrying a half-gallon of wine left over from his party. Sit a few minutes, then get in to have her debate over using a needle, but once it's in and she starts working on it, I can feel a number of twinges from the tooth in the lower left, and I wonder what it would have felt like WITHOUT the shot. In the chair until after 10, and it's after 10:30 when I get home, and get right down to the task of making the list of what I have to do before I leave for the trip bearable. Type four pages, including a loaded one from Ann Eristoff's books, which we'll take with us, and get up to date, then fix up the apartment a bit before watching "Holy Matrimony" with a droll Monty Wooley and an affectionate Gracie Fields as matrimonial service victors above the system. That lasts until 3, and I'm talking with Joan on the phone, who wants to come over at 5 to read "Acid House," but Peter Betcher says he's coming over to talk to me about his trip to India, and John says he's just too tired to go to Jeff's panel this evening, so it looks like it's going to be dinner here for four. Out for groceries quickly, splurging for cake for dessert, melon for appetizer, and corn for vegetable, and back to shower quickly, to have Joan call to say I was right, she didn't feel like coming over, and I watched outside as the sky got very dark and the rain came down in torrents, strangely pelting down in horizontally-moving pillars quite vertically composed of various angles of raindrops. Peter arrives and we chat for awhile while John rushes up and down the stairs for his washing, and he's quite adamant that he has to do things NOW and not wait to hear what Peter says, which is quite sad. We talk for quite a while (see next page), and eat, John quietly goes to bed about 10 pm, Peter stays until about 1, I shower and bed.
DIARY 2072
TUESDAY, JUNE 22. Up quite fatigued but John does me longly because I'm worn out, sexually, for Kwawer, and worn out from the heat and air conditioning, which has a tendency to give me a sore throat. John seems very dragged out, too, giving dire predictions that he won't be able to do ANYthing until his party next Tuesday, but the only thing I can say is that his dire predictions that his last MONTH was going to be hell have now turned into only one WEEK of hell, so that's all for the good. Get out just after him to get down to the VA hospital for Kwawer's investigation (see next page), and get out at 10:30 to stand in the hallway for a half an hour watching them tearing down a building, the hose not managing to quench the flying dust from the bricks crumbling down onto the pedestrian-protectors that pedestrians wisely avoid walking under. Back home at 11:30 after taking the scenic route via 14th Street subway, then phone Fred to borrow his ID card, and decide to bicycle up to get it, and he's amazed at the speed of my travel. We talk about cooking rice for a bit, and he's still very kissy and huggy with me, even with a trick in the apartment who's cute but rather fleshy, and I cycle over to Plaut's at 2:30, just in time for the rush for the bank, and I sit during another series of phone calls and interviews and interventions by inept help, and I finally get him to say that he HAS reserved many hotels and many flights, locates some Borneo person to send us information, and assures me that everything will be OK by Monday of next week. I check through the flight cost to see lots of discrepancies, and he can't help with student flight information. Call and leave a message for Joan when I'm not home at 5, get there at 5:30 and call Joan to find she's home, and I invite myself for dinner, and get down there at 7 to have liver with her and Virginia, and we chat and she reads "Acid House" (see following page) and I figure I won't see the TV movie that I want to see that night because her comments are so good to me, and I manage to bring up the subject of leaving shortly after 9:30, but still don't get to John's at 10, but 10:15, but he's still working, so I shower and we talk about my busy day, and we're into bed with no hanky-panky at 11.
DIARY 2075
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23. Wake lying on my stomach, and stay there, and John lays on my back, gets out the Baby Magic, lathers me up, and quite quickly sticks his cock into me. It's uncomfortable at first, so he gets out and I lather myself better and he's in better this time, and he comes quite quickly, seeming not to enjoy it so much, and he says afterwards that he's very concerned about hurting me, but I say that when he was IN OK, it WAS OK, and he could have kept up with it. He seemed not to trust me to tell him when it was uncomfortable for me. Get back and read the mail and just miss the beginning of "To Be or Not to Be" with a dead-pan Jack Benny going through Hamlet, himself, an actor, a German general, and a Polish spy in rather good makeup, and Carole Lombard is quite funny in her last film. That's over at 11:30 and I make a few quick calls on the census, but then decide I really want to see the double feature at the Elgin, so I get down there at 1 for an INCREDIBLE SEXUAL ENCOUNTER (see following pages), as well as a fairly good "Sancho the Bailiff" with everyone suffering "like in an Italian film" to quote the black, and a terrible modernistic "Floating Weeds" where all the action took place in the balcony. Out at 5:30, and home to eat, since I'm starved, and talk to Marty again, and Avery calls to say that she'll either not be there at all, or be very late, and I tell Marty to come over at 10, and get into the MacGregor place for the haircut about 7:45, and read a bit of "Tertium Organum" before they give me to the same guy, where I watch the beautifully tanned blond with the sun-not-tanned around-eye-areas, who strips off his shirt for a fairly nice body when they shampoo him, and the cute slip of a guy with an edible middle in his bare-belly shirt, and the glum fellow who does mine finished at 10, saying "That's my last haircut," I think quitting right there, but it's a good haircut, and I give him $2 tip, which is unthinkable. Home to talk to Marty, and John comes in, and we all sit around talking about books and drinking frozen daiquiris, and at 11 John goes to bed, and Marty stays around until 11:40, when I decide Avery just isn't coming, and I'm very tired from the exercises of the day, anyway, and shower to creep into bed beside sleeping John.
DIARY 2082
THURSDAY, JUNE 24. Try doing him, and he says he loves it, but he doesn't come, though he says it all felt VERY good. Then he leaves and I figure I have to work for a bit, setting up an appointment at 3 this afternoon with Fleisher, that I didn't get to yesterday, and phoning Friedman, threatening to never call again, and surprisingly they ask me to come over and get it right then, and I get four of them right there (one to be mailed), and back to feel very good about it, even getting one back in the mail, so there are really very few left to do, and I'm wondering how to make this week my last one. Call Louis to try to postpone his coming until tomorrow, what with my 3 pm appointment, but he's busy tomorrow, so today it is. I fix up the apartment a bit, not much, and sit down to watch "Love Me Tonight" for the first half hour, and then Louis knocks at the door, and he gives me lots of India information (see next page), and LOTS of sex (see following pages). We shower and I leave at 3:15, and he takes his guitar and says he'll practice in the park, and a number of cuties cruise him just in the short block between 57th and 58th. Up to Fleisher, to get all HIS work finished, and back feeling VERY happy, to write DIARY 2058, and then census called to say that I should be there at 10 am tomorrow to turn everything in, so that'll be the end of THAT, too. Joan's going to be early, so I get everything ready for her, and she's here at 5, disgusted with work, and she drinks quite a lot of scotch and water, and I give her a carbon for her own reading, and an original (saying it's a second original, which makes her feel better about taking it) for Alex and Norman, and she tells me about her frigidity with Hector (see subsequent page), and then Roger calls from below, saying he wants to come up, and he and Joan talk for a bit, and we all chat about shooting up heroin and smoking opium and grass, and Joan about meditation, and Roger plays his guitar a bit, and we all sit around getting sozzled until 8, when Roger decides he has to see his girlfriend in the hospital, and Joan and I go to Angelo's for DELICIOUS mushroom and pepperoni pizza, and she leaves at 9, and I subway to John's telling him about my day, and we smoke, he does me to palpitating eternal orgasm, and bed at 12:30.
DIARY 2089
FRIDAY, JUNE 25. Up strung out with too much activity, and home early to make a list of things I want to do today, and fill out a payroll form for my last session at the census, and get out to Mrs. Walsh to get the last of the forms from her, deciding that EVERYTHING can be turned in, all 20 of the last ones, giving me a grand total of 106 forms in 223 hours, for a rather good average (I hope) of 2.1 hours per survey, which makes it sound like I actually WORKED all the time I said I did. Down to the office at 10:20, and Harlan is involved with others, so I capture Courtney and get downstairs to the cafeteria for a brunch of two hard boiled eggs and a piece of cherry pie and a pint of milk while she plays with ham and eggs, happy about quitting at the end of her tour on June 30. Harlan accepts everything I've given him, I give my folder to Murray, who's happy about it, and I talk to Bordainick and say goodbye to everyone, getting out at noon to look at the awful paperback shop on Chambers between West Broadway and Church (which at least has its paperbacks in author order, but they don't have a very good selection), buy old Army socks in an old shop for 69¢ a pair, and decide to walk down to pick up my check from Dreyfuss. The streets are busy and I walk fast, get the check, then subway up to 12th and Broadway to the Strand, Jeff's reference, but the paperbacks are in NO ORDER AT ALL so it's impossible to find anything, so I'm out, disgusted, check the Metropolitan bookshop to find they don't give discounts on "mass audience" paperbacks, continue walking to 49th to get my cholera booster and another oral polio dose, then across to deposit the check and get $100 out, and stop at Bookmasters to buy 24 paperbacks, 22 by Heinlein, for the trip! Home exhausted at 3:30, convince John to eat at Shalimar, which we do at 6:30, then walk home (I'm quite exhausted by now) at 9 for "Doctor Faustus" with Richard Burton and a speechless (but not cackle-less) Elizabeth Taylor Burton, and John flakes out at 10, and I get into bed at 10:45, but can't sleep, and even grab a paper and note down manic thoughts on the back of it (see following page), and that exorcises my fears enough so that I can sleep at 12.
DIARY 2091
SATURDAY, JUNE 26. Wake early again, at 6:30, and lie there, just thinking. John gets up fairly early, too, and turns over to sleep again, and later he said he'd been unable to sleep, thinking of the number of things he had to do this weekend, getting up to make a list of THEM, so we were both troubled with the same sort of things. We cuddle briefly and he gets up to go to work about 8:30, and I do a few things around the apartment until I decide that typing the Taylor tape will take the longest of anything I have to do before the trip, so I really should get down to DOING it, so I cart the desk and typewriter into the living room to be near the tape recorder, and start transcribing it at 9:30, using the earphones for double use: it amplifies the quiet sound from the recorder, and it masks the sound of the typing from the playing in my ears, and it also allows me to play it "silently" to the outside world. Finish the first draft of DIARY 2059-2069 just at 12, when I stop to watch "International House" with W.C. Fields in a relatively unfunny role, except for the autogyro and the tiny car, and for the heroine sitting on "Oh, it's a pusseh." Stop at 1:30 and get to re-listening to the tape for editing, and that goes on until just before 4 pm, and I've gotten a headache from the earphones and from the concentration, but at least the task is finished. Then want to catch up with the diary, and type 21 pages in all that day, then decide I have to shower and eat quickly, to meet John at the Firehouse at 9:30, and I'm late, almost at 10, but John's even there after me. But the place is crowded and hot, and there are so many people of mediocre looks and clothing there, that even when someone spectacular DOES pass by, there's not much, in the mass of unpleasantness, to concentrate on, so we look around, and then very quickly decide that we can leave. John puts on his chains and denim jacket and I expressed annoyance that he'd PLANNED to go to the Eagle and hadn't told me. He's surprised, as I am, at my annoyance, and we walk into the Eagle to have the bartenders and the manager refuse to say why they won't serve us, but they won't. Out quite chagrined and to Christopher's End (see next page).
DIARY 2093
SUNDAY, JUNE 27. Up even before the alarm at 6:45, and we cuddle until 7. Then out of bed, but it turns out to be too late, because we're to beach 9 just at 8 am, but it's already filled for about 10 minutes, and John gives me the choice between Beach 6 and Fire Island, so we choose to go to Fire Island, which is quite empty when we get there at 8:20, and we have some breakfast, though I don't quite like the frank, and the coffee tastes like hot water, and we walk down the beach trying to find a gay area, but we decide to stop where we are and watch who passes by. It's very hot even this early in the morning, and I lay out for just a bit before deciding I'll be painfully burned if I don't protect myself, so I put on my shirt and start working on the Times puzzle, but can't go very far with it, and start reading "Tertium Organum," but that gets boring, so I'm down in the sun on my stomach at John's suggestion, then get too hot and put my shirt on again and watch the waves coming in and out, trying to catch a glimpse of SOMEONE cute enough to look at, but can't. Then work on the puzzle again, try to get into the book again, and finally decide to dress up completely and get some sleep in the sun, moving up to get away from the screaming girls who've invaded the place. Then at 1:30 John decides he's red enough, and he surely is, and we're back to the car, I've eaten lunch already, and we're back to the city without stopping once, which is great, though it's only 2:30. Buy beer and Champale (which isn't so good as beer, even; I like the bitterness of beer better than the tastelessness of Champale) and drink them quickly to get a nice buzz on, and into the tub with John, to feel very nice toward him, and I'm running my sensitive souls [that's what I had and that's what he typed] over his insensitive chest and hard nipples, and start playing with him with soap, until it gets into his hole and makes him wince, and then we shower and dry ourselves off and crawl into bed for some rather remarkable sex (see next page), and I never DO show him what I've written at the beach (see following page), and we doze off afterwards, then subway to my place with a pot plant, and eat pizza which turns out rather poorly, and have a strange evening (see subsequent page).
DIARY 2100
MONDAY, JUNE 28. Up determined that he's going to be done, and finally he IS. But I'm not entirely happy with the businesslike way I have to go about it to GET him done. He's getting to be as difficult as I. I decide to finish up the eggs for breakfast, so I go to the store (finding that my shoes aren't ready yet) for English muffins to go with them, and back to eat and get rid of some old magazines (at least clear up the past, so the load when I get BACK won't be so great), and with great determination finish both crossword puzzles in the Times, and DO do them, damn it! Feel good about that, and then get down to typing, trying to get to THIS page (2100), but there's just not enough to do it, and I run out of steam after 17 pages. Eat lunch after Marty calls and says he'll be over with cash for apartment, and he sits and talks for about a half an hour, and I leave to pick up shoes and find the Touch-Me's are downstairs, and give 3 to the guy in 1008, and he buys 3 more for $2, and call Azak about medicines, and he'll give us them all free for a $25 visit, which seems a bargain. Think of more things to add to the list than I take off, but it's getting more practical all the time. Read "Garuda" and save it, though it starts off better than it ends. Then decide to give Arnie's stuff back to him by taking it to Norma's, and talk to her just before 8, and back to call Anne Eristoff and she's going out of town for a long weekend, so it has to be tonight that I take the stuff back to her. Call John to say I'll be late, shower and eat dinner, and get to her place at 9:10 and talk to 9:30 about her Ecological Law and our trip and how we should be in touch when we get back. Then subway down to John's just after 10, and we talk about the drugs and packing for the trip, and then we smoke his new crop, and I get only semi-stoned into a state of unreasonable expectation (see next page) and we go out onto the Promenade in the cool evening air, watching everyone pass by, a bit paranoid about a group of little black boys who insist John looks like their ice cream man, but there are no takers for the two of us, and we stroll back to John's about 12, semi-stoning about over, undress and get into bed after popcorn.
DIARY 2
TUESDAY, JUNE 29. Up early again, cuddle, he works over me, but I turn the tables on him and get HIM to come, and we lie wetly together until he gets up and showers. I'm into the living room to finish the Sunday Times while he's getting things together for the party, and going to the bank, and I bring the VV home on the subway with me to clip out the "sunshine" article. Home about 10 and the mail isn't distributed yet. So I put the tapes on and type five pages to start the new volume IV of the DIARY, finishing the table of contents pages, and each volume 1-3, has that many table of contents pages, which is neat. Write a long letter of condolences to Lisa Bieberman, and then call Fred to return his ID card, and he invites me over for lunch, so I walk up, getting there at 1, and he says Robert is coming over, too, and he's a clunk who doesn't say much except grin in the shit-eating French manner. We have fried eggplant and chicken and salad and Sara Lee cakes, purchased with my first food stamps, and we stall around, talking about the people next door and the state of CIA suppression in Columbia, particularly Bogotá, and in Guatemala, where 500,000 have been killed by the US via local police, and I'm getting very depressed when I leave at 3:30, coming home and showering for John's, getting there at 5, to talk to Sergio and Wendy and her roommates, and the funny Hungarian Sara, and Arnie and Norma, and see Milton Babbitt and Hersey Kay and the president of Dutton's, but miss the guy who's taking John's apartment, and barely remember John's instructor and his wife---and of course there was Igor and Judy and Cheryl and the girl who drew the cartoon. Cheese and champagne and crackers and nuts make a good dinner, so I subway up to Central Park to meet Joan at 7:30, who'd eaten in my apartment and brought a blanket which we didn't need. The Prologue to "Timon of Athens" was presented by August Hecksher, John Lindsay, and Joseph Papp, and the play was sumptuously produced with thousands of scattered coins, but a poor thing of a rich man growing poor, finding his friends are false, a strange series of scenes between Timon and Apemetus, well played by Michael Dunn, and then finding gold again to get his friends back, only to die. Home at 11 and chat with John about the entire day until 12, drinking wine to get to sleep, worrying.
DIARY 2103
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 30. Wake at 5:30, lay, cursing myself, doze, John up at 7, and we lie together a bit before he gets up and goes into work. I phone Ms. Schwam and she says she won't have sent "Acid House" back to me, and I continue the day as before, putting on tapes to listen to them to get them rewound on the new machine, finishing up tiny tasks necessary before the trip, worrying slightly about the upcoming flights, though not as much as I'd done before, but THAT means that I have a hard time convincing myself that I'm really LEAVING the day after tomorrow, and I keep thinking of that phrase: the day after tomorrow, almost, maybe, HOPING I'll get worried so I'll at least have SOME emotion about the trip. Wash dishes and eat and defrost the refrigerator for Marty, and wash my socks so they'll be dry in enough time, and then it's 1 pm and time for me to get to the bank to deposit the $700 from Marty and cash my check, and get to the Museum of Modern Art for "Hollywood Revue of 1929," and some of the "performers" are simply awful, like Ukulele Ike, and even the dance numbers get to be an enormous bore. Out at 4 and search about a half dozen places for LeGuin's "Left Hand of Darkness," but they don't even have the author, let alone the book. Home disgusted with that at 5, call Cleve, and take the convenient 104 bus straight to 42nd and Second Avenue to get up to Azak's, pay him $46 for the pills, give him a blood sample in a sore fourth finger, and get out at 6:30 to bus across for Backster, talking to him about his heartbeat-findings in un-embryoed eggs, amphetamines from Roger, the trip, his lack of funding from foundations, and I give him Rosenboom's, Cage's, Teitelbaum's, Roger's names, along with Pope Hill. Out at 8 and walk up, eat dinner, get down to John's office at 9:10 to help him move crates of his archives to the car, drive to his place and up the three flights four times, and then we're out to the Promenade to drink a very dry tart wine and listen to a drunken welfare-hotel screamer uprooting the whole place with his shouts of "Fuck, Jesus Christ, and I don't HAVE any friends." Back about 11 to fall woozily into bed, and have no trouble getting to sleep.
DIARY 2104
THURSDAY, JULY 1. Wake at 5:30 again, lie there thinking: tomorrow's the day! I simply don't feel anything in the world like being sexually excited, so I go down on John, fending off my soft cock from his inquisitive knee, and do him fairly nicely, but with not as much pleasure to me as I'd like. He makes some nice comment about "Now I have the time to really ENJOY you," and I don't have the courage to tell him that this really isn't the TIME to enjoy me, but things will be better once the original flights are over. I sure the hell HOPE so! We're into the subway to get to my place, and I do some little things while he reads magazines, then we call Plaut and walk through the park to get there about 11:30, finding him just as busy as ever, and at the end we find we have everything except the visas from Burma, Nepal, and Afghanistan! Find the ticket is for 43 flights for $1864.51, or a surprisingly reasonable $43.36 per flight! John's up to Burma at 2, and phones to say we'd filled out the wrong forms, so I walk up there after finishing with the awful Plaut, John pays the $12, and then we bus down in the rain to 30th Street for Afghanistan, and she says we have to leave them there overnight. When we call Nepal, SHE says we have to leave them there overnight, so it's not possible to get both of them, though John calls Plaut to tell him to try to pull strings so that when we pick up the visas from Afghanistan at 11, we can get over to Nepal and get them quickly. Back to my place and John harvests my pot, makes phone calls, and listens to the news while I vacuum the rugs, clear out drawers, try to get in touch with Debesh, and fuss around the apartment. We're out to Yangtze River for dinner, I'm still feeling pretty good, and back for more work and phone calls, and then we're smoking at 10, the new stuff from which I managed to save the seeds after they'd been in the oven, so I hope they can still manage to survive the heat and John's mishandling. I get into a very strange childhood thing (see next page), but then start nodding on the sofa, and John says "Time for bed," holding out his hand to me, and I can remember hitting the bed, but that's all, getting to sleep instantly, which I loved.
DIARY 2501
FRIDAY, JULY 2. But I woke when it was barely dawn, probably before 5 am.
[I'll label the pages TNNN, because there'll be a lot of them, and I don't want them to get out of order.] [This first page will start where the diary pages end, with MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8, at the bottom of the preceding page.]
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8. I wake about 6 am and wait for John to wake, which he does about 7:30, and I've gotten so nervous that I've gone into the bathroom to take a Compazine, because I feel the tension building. Lay and talk, not having sex, and pack and get down to the breakfast room at 9:45 to hassle with the help because they don't want to seat us at the window, since they're setting for dinner. I wanted a big breakfast, but we have just chocolate and coffee, and leave at 10:15 to eat out, but John has some errands he wants to do, so I find a book to read on the plane, finally, the "Playboy Book of Science-Fiction," and get to Suica for breakfast, only changing a beer to coffee at the end, just in time. Ignore the shaky caricaturist who draws an awful thing of me, and like the mushroom omelet, then get to the Restauradores Post Office to be given an address on the Rua General Semil Cordes, which I have to find in the taxi driver's guide FOR him, and get upstairs to order one of each stamp in French, and strangely they're lacking three values. It's noon, so grab a cab back to hotel, where John's posing in the window for a red sweater on the roof of the building across the street, and the guy wants $5 for just TALKING to John. Cab to airport at 1:30 and have wine and cheese after checking in, and I'm feeling terribly nervous, John goes to the john and I wait outside after changing the last of the money, and he comes from outside and says the plane's about to take off! Private escort to the plane, jammed with people, and we're two rows from the back on the left, and take off to leave Portugal quickly behind, and the clear ocean rapidly closes in and we're in clouds. Lunch is awful, they re-show "Bed and Board," which I don't care to see, and read a bit until the plane rocks so much I can't focus, and curse and curse the pilot, and finally after an INTERMINABLE flight go low and circle over Long Island and land at 4:25, just exactly 7 hours after taking off. Customs is a snap and we're to John's by cab for $10.50, out to the Mexican restaurant for great food, bed at 9 for sex, Arnie in, and sleep at 9:30.
DIARY 2502
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Wake at 3:30, John's up at 4, and we have fabulous sex AGAIN, and we're out of bed at 5 am and I re-pack and give everything to John and get onto the subway at 6 to get a seat with my suitcase, after panting with it all the way to the A station, having even to carry it down the non-working escalator! Home at 6:30 and the new super lets me in, and Marty's gone and my apartment is in a pretty good state, too, and he's left stacks of mail divided into "Important, junk, and other," with the amusing thing that the Food Stamp coupons were in "Junk," so I figure the notice to report on October 1, not being heeded, will cancel my stamps, and a lot of sex mail is in the junk stack, too, as well as lots of price lists from Chassey. Sort quickly through the mail to get out all the sex stuff, and when I finish I can't resist masturbating, and then I go back to some of the other mail, and end up masturbating a second time. By this time it's about 10 am and I'm absolutely starved, but I don't feel like going for groceries yet, so I'm down for a lovely bologna omelet with French fries and coffee for only $2 at the place downstairs, and check the mail to find few things there, and then back up to read the Times and see what I've been missing in town, and then begin thumbing through all the Life magazines, which takes a very long time, and it's finally 4 pm, I masturbate a THIRD time, this time with vibrator, and I still haven't shopped for dinner for me and John, and I take my last cash to the store and the bill is $11 and change, which is just exactly what I have, so I bring it back, then take a travelers check down to the wine shop across the street for Hernandez with the steak tonight, and they cash it somewhat reluctantly, and with the change I get three copies of the downstairs door key for the ridiculous price of 50¢ apiece! Back up to quickly empty out the suitcase before John arrives at 6 pm, for the place to look SOMEWHAT in order, though there's mail all OVER the place. Since I haven't had any lunch except for a toasted English, I'm starved, so we eat rather early (Oh, and I called Norma, who hadn't been told by Arnie about the fiasco with stonedness and sex when he came in last night, and Marty, who was away most of the four months in North Carolina, and Joan, and Daisy who gave Hurok tickets to Lloyd Moore, and leave word with Azak, and Joe Easter, and Avi, just to let them know I'm back), and then John just wants to watch TV, so we see "Don't Fold, Spindle, or Mutilate," with a fun cast of Helen Hayes, Myrna Loy, Sylvia Sydney, and Mildred Natwick, and a fat Vince Edwards. John dozes off and goes to bed at 9:30, I follow promptly at 10, VERY tired.
DIARY 2
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10. Wake at 2:30, even worse, to shit, again at 4:30 and John's still asleep, and we determinedly lay until 7 am, when he asks for the vibrator and I try it on him until he's obviously numb, because after I come he has to finish off himself with his own touch. He leaves to take care of his own business, and I get caught up in the stamp price lists from Chassey, going through the stamps I want, then going BACK through WITHOUT the want list to see how many mint ones I could get for under $1. Figure all these numbers out to somewhat more than $50, which is depressing. Then grab a quick sandwich and get out to see "Henry V" with Laurence Olivier, the last of the Foreign Film Academy Awards that I hadn't seen (or hadn't RECORDED that I'd seen, since I think I saw it one Friday afternoon at Akron U), and it slips nicely from "inside the globe with boys as women" to "in the real world with women as women" nicely, and back at the very end, but it's faithful to the obscure play, cutting only the conspirators, some few scenes with Pistol and Nym, and that's all. From 12:45 in a loud audience until 3, and back to finish culling Life Magazines quickly, and start on New York Magazine, which goes somewhat slower, since I check all the films, and find there's been a number of Mary Pickford revivals, none of which contains "Coquette," and "Wings" has come and hopefully not gone for good, and one series actually showed Jack Smith's "Flaming Creatures"! Come again twice with great cock book and mail. Azak phones, and when John brought Gay Scene last night we decided to see the old 1929 Fanny Brice film "Be Yourself" and Laurel and Hardy in drag in "Twice Two," so I tell Azak to meet us there at 9:45. Call John Connolly and he invites us for Canasta on Tuesday with Ivan. Call Arno and Bob Rosinek and Eddie, and leave word where Roger Evans works. Eat and subway down to 20th and 11th Avenue, and it's almost empty, not very nicely done, and most of the people have big cocks, but that's about all. Azak arrives late at 10 for the films, and John gets in very late from dance class at 10:30, and leaves quickly to see what's "around the block." Azak talks to a dumb guy who was stationed in Azak's birthplace in Turkey, and I look at a plump-thighed guy talking to the German who's about the only other attractive person there. John's back at 12:15 and we subway to my place to sleep.
DIARY 2504
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11. Wake at 6:15 and lay until about 8, then John's out of bed even before sex, and again he leaves very quickly, and I make a list of things I have to do today, but again get caught up in finishing off the interminable stack of New York Magazines, and that takes simply hours, and also I'm terribly hungry these days, eating breakfast and English muffins between times, eating lunch and strawberries and cake between times, and satisfy myself by coming not at all today in masturbation, since I'm saving myself for Tsi-Dun tonight. Get out about 2 pm to get all the checks (Traveler's) cashed at the bank, see Jean-Pierre Aumont there, buy food stamps which strangely came through again, and deposit money for rent in the checking account. Then pick up MMA movie schedule, down for another check for $55 from Pan-Am for the ticket refund, leave my shaver off for repairs, and subway down to the unemployment center from 2:50 to 3:20, which is very simple, and I report again on Tuesday and Thursday, and it seems like I might finally be getting something (besides food stamps) from this crazy government! Subway back and buy pills and more groceries, and then telephone Joe Farinas, who says he's going to dinner at a friend's, but he'll try to come, but doesn't, Fred Courtney who does come, only for a short time, delighted to attend the orgy, and Glenn May, and Charles is delighted to speak with me, but he won't come, though Glenn will, looking strange with his long hair, and we scarcely acknowledge each other's presence. Then decide I MUST start in on typing, but the only thing I can do with my terribly decayed typing skill is only one page of the Trip Diary, and then I decide I have to start exercising, and don't even finish the FIRST level in the time I should, and feel actually winded and stretched-out and a tiny bit sore from it---I AM out of shape. Then shower and wash my hair and shave, and in talking on the phone there's not much time to eat, so I wolf down a sandwich and some cucumber, and get out at 7:30 just in time to meet John coming UP in the elevator, saying he's found a free pass to the 56th St. Sauna in the Voice, and he'd rather go THERE for acres of STRANGE bodies than go to the orgy. I say shortly I just DON'T understand him, but let him do what he wants, to get off to the orgy myself (see following pages)