1972 3 of 8
DIARY 2925
SATURDAY, APRIL. Wake about 8:30 and do little things around the apartment like shower, wash my hair, wash socks, eat breakfast, talk to Charles Mountain, and as a result what I thought would be finished at 10 (the Mattachine typing) was finally finished at 11:15, and John drives me up to leave it off, and we drive into New Jersey on a very smoggy way to Jim Maher's. Get there about 12:30, since John can't find a place to stop to get his snow-tires changed, and we're shown around the house, praising a primitive wooden Polish statue of some saint, laughing at John G.'s closing the door for fear of letting our gayness into the neighborhood, and Jim starts drinking with us, so that John G.'s arguing with him to prevent his drinking more and making a fool of himself stop. John V. had said he was hungry, getting all of us uptight about his hunger, and the chicken's overdone but still quite tasty when we finally get down to eat about 3:30, with wine, and we've talked about our old acquantances, and our meeting through Harvey B. Canter as two people who enjoy going to operas and ballets, and we tell about our trip, and John G. says how awful it is to work with a company for 16 years and not be friendly with anyone, and Jim reluctantly tells about why he can't go out when it's very cold or very hot beacuse of his heart, and how they must play it cool in the community because of his job as a commercial teller in the bank. John G. dozes about 4-6 as we talk about more of the trip and opera and various activities, and we leave about 6, happy to be gone, and John doesn't want to join me at the movies, so we stop by my place for my stamps, all of them that I'd bought, and we drive to his place, where I feel still stuffed with the chicken and the rolls from the afternoon. John has something to eat and goes out to Man's Country after smoking at 8:30, and I start on the stamps and continue through until 1, getting coldish and stiff while doing them, but geting to the point where I have most of the small countries in, and John enters at 1, saying that there was a great crowd, including go-go boys, and we get into bed, very tired, and chat only a little before falling asleep, very tired, at 1:30 in the morning.
DIARY 2926
SUNDAY, APRIL 2. Wake about 8 and get out of bed, and John takes the typewriter into the bedroom and starts working on some kind of application for a grant for DTW, and I'm completely back to stamps by 8:30, getting most of the middle-sized countries in, and I decide to count them all to see what order I should put them in, and about noon I find that I have 7 countries under 50 stamps to put in, 8 countries between 50 and 100, and 16 countries over 100, including five blockbusters which may reach as high as 1000. Stop after John comes back with muffins for lunch, and have tuna while he has salmon and we chat, and then I get back after about half an hour's recess, and finish the seven countries with under 50 stamps left between about 2 and 4:30, when I just can't keep it up any longer, and I break to read the Times in the light of the setting sun, and then John suggests that we have his restaurant dinner which had been cancelled out of last week, and I say that'll be fine, and he says he'll join me at the movie I want to see at the Garrick, but since the schedule doesn't fit in, we'll just go when we're done with dinner. To "The Old Garden" which he's never been in, though I've been there for lunch with Paul, and the prices on this Easter Eve dinner are probably higher than normal for their menu, and we have turkey and I have pot roast for $5.55 each, and we have a bottle of sweetish Harvey's Beaujolais, and the bill is a whopping $19 with the tip, not what he expected, since he only has $1 left for the movie. We get to the Garrick at 7:15 and I buy a book for 10 tickets for $10, sell him one for $1, and we're in for the last half of "Candy," quite funny with Marlon Brando as a kohl-eyed guru in the back of a truck (like Richard Burton in the back of his Mercedes, quite phallic), and John didn't recognize Charles Aznavour or anyone else. "Zachariah" was funny, but though the heroes were cute, they were hardly good actors, which is the pity, and there was little nudity of taste, except for the rock band, and they weren't the cutest. "I think I'll die now" was the best part, on the old man's accepting the arrowhead, but on the whole, a flop. Out at 11:30, tired, and back to John's to bed, smoking to relax from stamps, sans sex.
DIARY 2927
MONDAY, APRIL 3. Wake about 8 and lay together stonedly, then John's up to shower and I get right to stamps at 8:30, he leaves at 9:15, I work on until I run out of hinges at 11, with only 19 countries to go, but those the biggest, requiring something like 19 hours to finish, I'll warrant. Also, picked up the mail on Saturday, getting lovely things from Bill in the mail that have to be added, too. Leave and the subways are slow in midday, getting home about noon, and I telephone for the schedule after eating breakfast, and decide to see the double at the Thalia, subwaying up just before 1 for a colorful, though poorly acted "The Taming of the Shrew," and I hadn't realized that Michael York made his rather undistinguished debut in that, though he did a far more impressive job in "Romeo and Juliet," and that was again under Zeffirelli, which makes one think, like Christopher Gable with Ken Russell, um? "Plisetskaya Dances" was pleasant enough again, and she certainly DOES have incredible arms, and there were awful people in the back row, me getting nothing though I was playing kneesies with someone who later moved away, and the tall gaunt one was given poppers by the old fellow who looked like Charles Mountain and therefore I didn't care for. Out at 4:15, getting a slice of pizza to fill my empty stomach, and get to my place to fix up the apartment, do dishes, then even EXERCISE, again about time, and vacuum the rugs, to get things done, sew the button on my raincoat, and then shower and wash my hair before 7:45, when John comes in from three hours of dance classes, showing his burst-blood-bruise from hitting his hip bone somewhere, and John Casarino calls back to say he'll be receiving after 9 pm, and John decides to come along. We get there at 9:30 to find that John's friend isn't going to show up, having some business to do at his regular job, aside for the hustling-pushing job he has, and we chat for a bit about Tsi-Dun as a form of therapy, get prescriptions for both of us for amyl nitrate, AKA poppers, and then John C. gets out the pipe, shreds some hash in with it, and on top of Grand Marnier and Brandy it takes effect quickly, clothes come off, and go back at midnight (see next pages).
DIARY 2930
TUESDAY, APRIL 4. After John leaves I get out the income tax to start figuring how much I'll owe, and then stop at 10 to watch Laurel and Hardy in "Bohemian Girl" an unbelievably stagy production with camera-eyeing groups in frozen tableaux, overly operatic acting clichés, and mouth-mimicking choruses by the dozen, broken only by Stan Laurel's brilliant wine-bottling sequence where he gets gloriously drunk. Then down for the mail at 11:30 and find a Canadian Club ad for "Tell us where to drop a case of whiskey," and I work on that for a couple of hours, doing research on Ur and Attu and Alice Springs to get some good places. Work more on income tax and get it down to a reasonable level, but, having come while watching TV, feel listless and out of sorts, and finally at 3 pm I'm driven to eat lunch and write T422 about how awful I feel in order to get started with typing, and then I do eight pages with no troubles, and wreck the kaleidoscope trying to boil it, taking time, for what reason I'll never know, except for an anal sense of completeness and neatness, to weed out all the plastic bits into a tray. Call John and say I don't want to go to a restaurant tonight, but we'll save it for Saturday, and I get a call from Marc Williams for a sneak meeting of the Mattachine Times staff, and am delighted to be able to participate in it. Have dinner and write two letters, one to Mrs. Schwam with a postcard enclosed to ask about "Acid House" without GOING there, and one to Mr. Walentas about the silly $4.81 interest on $177+ in rent deposit, which starts the enormous pile on the downward route, hoping to entirely clear it up this week, so that I can start looking for a job next week with a clear desk. Then take off for Mattachine about 8:15 (see next page) and leave promptly at 9:30, as I'd said, subwaying to John's at 10, to get into a long colloquy about my writings about Einstein (which I used as an excuse not to have dinner with him tonight), and he sort of follows, yet ends by saying that he doesn't like models (such as balloon-membranes of silver-foil balls) because they sometimes lead to erroneous conclusions that the model maker is the last to admit. Fool around with his Electreat from 11:15-11:45, bed.
DIARY 2932
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5. Home early on the subway, reading "If the War Goes On" by Hesse, and after I get home I don't feel like doing anything else, so I finish reading that book, then have breakfast and watch "Barrier" on TV from the Film Odyssey series, and it's a pretty awful thing about a wastrel's romance with a trolley-car driver, surrealistically hooked up with a restaurant with dancers, and slide from an observation tower, and nice chesty game-players at the beginning. Finish at 12:30 and get to type two pages to catch up to date, but then I merely fix up the apartment, have lunch, and turn TV on just after 2 to watch the Charlie Chaplin film series, after talking to a number of people on the telephone to invite them to the next Tsi-Dun, which is in a week. Watch "Twenty Minutes of Love" which takes ten minutes to show, filmed as a potboiler in some park, and "Work," with Charlie tilting the camera to make him look like he's pulling a rickshaw type wagon up the hill. Then the awful commentator (and I have the feeling that the moderator doesn't care for him, either) tells about Billy West's copy of Chaplin (with Oliver Hardy) in "The Hobo" and I could tell the difference right off, and Chaplin's "Police," which I hadn't seen before. Then talk to Marty for a long period of time about his "job" he's trying to get me into, mostly a pyramid club ala Koscot, and the day seems to be over. John decides to join me tonight at the Netherlands Ballet, since Jeff said that this program was better than the other one, and he's late coming in, which is great for him, because I meet Joe Easter and his cute, though pimpled, young friend, who's trying to give away a ticket, and I also meet Fred Courtney and get ignored by Tracy, and John gets in free while I have to pay the $2 for the student ticket. Also see that Friday and Saturday nights are sold out, so that I have to arrange my plans for the Netherlands and the Pennsylvania Ballets accordingly. The performances are pretty awful (see next page), and they last a long time, making it rough on John, who's got a bad cold and he's feeling awful when we get back and get into bed, and he smokes while I lay beside him, and the lights go off at 11.
DIARY 2934
THURSDAY, APRIL 6. Get home and moon around the apartment, paying some bills, doing nothing, when it suddenly strikes me at 11:30 that this is my day for unemployment, and I dash out to get there just before noon, the time that Arnie says the lines close down, and they take me just before they DO close down. With relief back uptown to do banking and grocery shopping, and the time is suddenly just before 2, when I'm supposed to meet Arnie downstairs for the Museum of Modern Art that he's gotten tickets in advance for, and during the morning I also looked through the film catalog from Audio-Brandon that he sent me, checking off the films that I saw, reading the synopses of many of them, and in general letting the time slip through my fingers. Meet Arnie downstairs and see "It is not the Homosexual who is Perverse, but the culture that makes him so," and I got the decided idea it was the FILM that made him so, since I questioned him (Rosa) and couldn't get him to admit what was obvious to me: he'd tried to make it as sensationalistic as possible, with people in extreme dress and posturing (and I felt frustrated when he insisted that people in New York DID dress like that, even though I know for a fact that most don't) and some of extraordinary beauty, also. (I think today was the day that I ALSO---no, I picked up "Acid House" after jury duty, one of the troubles of doing this thing about a week behind.) We talked for a bit afterwards and got out about 4 from the film, and Arnie wanted to go for coffee, so I suggested he come up here, and we had tea and talked about movies and moving and various things until it was time for me to shave and shower and get ready for Mattachine this evening. When Roger doesn't bother me by taking up entire days of my time, ARNIE seems only too willing to waste time. I played music for him, too, and we talked, but I didn't offer him any grass, since I knew I had to be straight for Mattachine. Get out fairly early for it, getting there just at 6 (see next page). Out at 9:30 and subway to John's, and he's still very tired from his cold, so we get into bed almost immediately, and he moans about how awful he feels about his job with Virgil and his cold.
DIARY 2936
FRIDAY, APRIL 7. Start reading "Rosshalde" on the subway back from John's, and it's convenient that he has a cold, since neither of us thinks about sex. Then finish the book this morning, too, since I get interested in it, and then call Marty for a long talk about the banana award (he got it for setting his clock radio on at 7 am and waking when the station came on the air at 8:30), my looking for a job, the house at Sound Beach, which is now Jerri's property, and the Bestline product showing which I cancel out of this evening, and he says the guy's car broke down, anyway. Decide to get things off the list of things to do, so I go out to look for a hacking job, but get fairly depressed when I find that it's only about $30 for an 8-hour day, and later Al Bennett told me that Nedda sometimes averaged as low as $2 an hour, so it doesn't sound very hopeful. Buy a great kaleidoscope set at FAO Schwartz, and why didn't I think of it sooner, and get to work taking it apart and putting it back together, but the jewels don't work because they occupy so little area, but they work fairly well in the metal one, and I re-melt the bottom to make it contain the smaller one's bottom, and spend a couple of hours making my eyes sore looking at the two different designs of kaleidoscopes, but anyway it takes another item off the "to do" list. Eat lunch late and get tied up on the phone with Daisy Roach and with Arthur Warner after I shower, and get down to New School for a great production of "Bird of Paradise" with a pleasantly lanky Joel MacRae going around in a loin cloth most of the time, with good volcano sequences, and "Street Angel" a soapy thing with Janet Gaynor, the LAST of the three films I've to see for her 1928 Academy Award. Get a double-nostrilled inhaler at Pleasure Chest, then subway to John's at 11:20, getting there at 11:45 and have bland bean soup, fairly tasty pig in a cabbage-head blanket, and great tart creamy lime pie until 12:30, talking pleasantly to Gerald and David, who'd look good together in bed, but they don't do it, and they leave at 1:30 after I practically fall asleep on them, and John and I cuddle about the evening and fall quickly asleep, he's finally getting over his cold.
DIARY 2937
SATURDAY, APRIL 8. Wake and read the Village Voice until I finish it, then get to work on the stamps, getting about three countries done in three hours, happy to have gotten the hinges in at last, and I have a can of tuna fish before going off to see the Netherlands Ballet, and John's not going to join me for it, and the program is again pretty awful (see next page). Meet Al Bennett during the first intermission, and again leaving the subway platform for the train, so we chat and I invite him to John's. He's in bed when we get in, but he has a lot of professional and personal things to discuss with Al, so I absent myself with stamps, doing ANOTHER three countries in three hours, but one is the US, which surprises me by giving me five stamps to put in, but it goes faster. Al has a job offer for research on fiscal matters for a rich woman's book, and she's willing to pay $7.50 an hour under the table, so I can't resist and tell him to put my name in. He calls on Tuesday, sadly, and says she wanted someone with experience in the field, and found someone already. Another chance down the drain. Then at 8 John showers and we get out driving into town for the Jamuna Restaurant, my choice for a cheapie since we're going to DTW tonight, and the food is pretty good in a very plain atmosphere. We're out at 9:40 to get to DTW and find most of the people inside already, and I sit next to a thick-legged doll, but nothing happens. Jack Moore's "Gardenstrip" is lovely, with a program full of punny titles and portmanteau words, and lots of drama and comedy with quirky eye-movements and vocal sounds with a leitmotif of flowing white kaftans and a slope-shouldered dancer with a commanding eye over the other dancers. I'm feeling pretty lousy and chilly, like a cold's coming on, and John drives me straight home where I buy a Times, and then he changes into my torn blue jeans and goes out to the Eagle. I smoke and sit in a hot tub, and then put on music and try to come with grass and poppers, but I do it only as a very last resort, whacking away painfully on my cock, and I feel awful that I'm so DOWN when I smoke or sniff. Get into bed just before 2, and John says he gets in just after that, his pants not a success, trucks great.
DIARY 2939
SUNDAY, APRIL 9. I'm up before John and read the Times for a tiny bit before Avi comes over: he called at 9 am, just immediately after we woke up, and comes over at 10 with date-nut-raisin-fruit bread which we three have toasted with John's coffee, and it's a nice session. Avi borrows the binoculars for the nude Netherlands Ballet tonight and goes off, after getting me interested in the puzzle, and then John and I go for a walk in sunny but cool and breezy Central Park about 12:30, and we meet and talk with Arno and John meets Marcia Marks, with whom we chat about our trip, and get back to my place about 2, when John leaves, saying I'll be over to his place this evening. I'm back inside to work on the puzzle for about an hour, and then feel horny and jerk off very slowly to pornography, and then the phone rings and it's Arthur M., in town after a couple of weeks away, and he's pleased to hear I'm doing nothing, so he says he'll be over as soon as he can make it. I sing around showering and shaving and brushing my teeth, sorry that I don't feel much better, but better than last night for the bath. He comes in about 5, and we have a rather incredible, but not entirely pleasurable, session (see next pages) until just after 7, when he leaves, and I sit down in my stonedness to watch "The Oscar Nominees" on a special from 7-8:30, interrupted by a Joan Sutherland "Who's Afraid of Opera" version of "Barber of Seville," but there's lots wrong with it: the voices are post-synched, and not very well, so all the kids can rightfully say to the puzzled parents: "But she's NOT singing," the puppets are too middle-class children oriented, the plot names go by too fast for any sort of recognition, the songs are fairly well sung, and the Barber himself is an enormously attractive doll with a great voice and sexy demeanor which I hope I can see more of. Spiro Malas does his usual excellent villain. Then watch "Oscar, the Story behind the Statue," pretty bad with some Hollywood reporter saying nothing much, and stagnate through Rona Barrett and her interviews from 9-10. Then get to John's at 10:45, and he's obviously ready for sex, so he smokes and I oblige (see following page).
DIARY 2943
MONDAY, APRIL 10. Woke quite early and started necking with John, and he seemed eager to come again, so I went down on him, but he didn't come very quickly, though he did eventually, and he said he hadn't cared for THAT, either. I got home just after 9, after TRYING to be early by leaving at 8:15, but the express was changed to a local after very many stops, and I didn't even have a book to read along with me. Blocked the doors until the stupid conductor decided to say, at 42nd, whether it was an express or a local the rest of the way, and it was the latter. Watched Barbara Walters and the start of a week's series about "Death," with an icy-faced woman whose husband had just died from cancer a year ago, a toothy psychiatrist, a fawning hospital chaplain, and some defensive MD's. Then Al Perry called, playing "Guess who this is?" and he said he was very unhappy about losing his job and getting a summons to appear in court for support of his wife, and though he didn't want to come into town, since he'd spent the weekend here, he said he'd be tremendously pleased when I suggested I could come out there. The train I was to catch came at 10:56, so I had a chance to shower and get some things together and get out there just before 12, and he's a bit late, driving me down to the beach for a view from the boarded-up boardwalk, then shopping for lunch and dinner, and to his place for wine and a tuna fish sandwich, while it became clearer and clearer to me that he didn't so much want to talk as to have sex. He remarked very early that he should take his "hat" off to get sun to his head, and I asked why he wore it, and said it was only for his brother's wedding in which he was best man, but when he had THREE of them, and that after he and his brother argued and he WASN'T his best man, was too much for me to understand. We had unpleasant sex (see next page) and then chatted some more about Lianie Kazan and Jim Christie, or someone, and then his girlfriend called about 4:30 and talked with me to pass muster on me, then we strolled the beach until sunset, back for steaks, then he took me to the 7:49 train, getting to my place after 9, and John wanted to talk (see following page). I watched Academy Awards 10-12:30, John surprisingly lasting through with grass, and bed right after that time.
DIARY 2947
TUESDAY, APRIL 11. John's out at 9:10 and I watch the end of Barbara Walters and "Death," and then figure I STILL don't feel like doing anything, and finish reading "Klingsor's Last Summer" in about an hour, and get in to do some typing. But yesterday still preys on my mind, and I sit at the typewriter and do the first, second, and third drafts of "Needs" and finally finish it to my liking and do the final draft about 1:30, and then I get out the Harcourt Brace test and go over it AGAIN, and defrost fridge, finding an appalling number of errors from the first two times through it, and study it thoroughly, prepared to call Judith Aspinwall and tell her that my original mailing must have gotten lost, but that I'd kept a copy and would send her that one. John showed up just before 4, and we kissed and necked nicely, and he flattered me by saying that he was thinking about me all day, and we sat down and talked about the things he had written on his list, and I'd forgotten his suggestion that we write down things we questioned about the relationship, but the subsequent conversation finished off everything nicely, and I was quite convinced that I loved him more than ever, if he would only submit himself to realizing it, and that he didn't have to WORK to be attractive to me, he WAS attractive to me, as I realized when, with tears standing in my eyes, I asked to make SURE his "shaving" statement was for ME, and not misunderstood by me. I said I STILL thought I had to pull comments out of him (see next page). Then he lay down for an hour's sleep, and I read part of "American Customs" for lack of anything else to do. He got up about 6, we showered, and at 6:45 we left to walk down to Joe Allen's, John's choice of restaurant for the week, and my mixed grill was nothing special, but the waiters were cute and the cat was pleasant. Then walked up to the Cubiculo at 8:30 for Barbara Roan's "October Parade" and Jeff camped it up in a coaster wagon pulled by a disgruntled Art Bauman, Chip and Tom Clifton and the guy sitting in front of me looked very sexy in their costumes, Jeff puffed grass-smoke into everyone's face at the end, and then we got out at 9:30 and subwayed to John's for ANOTHER VERY hot bath for me, and I got sweaty into bed while he read, asked for water, and dozed off at 12.
DIARY 2949
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12. Dried off before I went to sleep, but the cold isn't noticeably better in the morning. Back home way before 9, and see all the "Death" show, with a new minister, and then settle into typing seven pages, which doesn't come close to catching me up to date, however, Then mess around the apartment, trying again to telephone people for Tsi-Dun, getting in touch with Ed Berger, and then have lunch in order to get down to see "Un Chien Andalou," "Blood of a Poet" and "Saragossa Manuscript." (See next pages.) Out just after six, feeling very sniffly with no underwear on, and get home to shave again and shower and eat dinner (lovely burnt broiled pork chops) and get down to 168 Waverly Place, which I now know belongs to Chuck Lund, thanks to Ed Berger who knows him. The subway is full of very attractive people, and I fantasize about inviting them to Tsi-Dun, but it occurs to me that that's the very thing that a plainclothes cop would LOVE to be invited to, since he could probably get everyone arrested in the whole club for lewd and immoral conduct, and the address books which would result from that one raid could lead to the downfall of the entire New York homosexual community. I'd gotten everything ready for going to John's for tomorrow, including the unemployment folder, glasses to replace my contacts with, a book to read, etc, but he floors me by saying that we'll go back to my place tonight. Neither Azak nor Ed shows up, through John Casarino is there, as is Arnie, and Reve has signed up for membership, so I suspect he must have been sent by Azak. The set-up of the duplex is rather awkward, because the stairs, when stoned, seem to pose an insurmountable obstacle, but no one tumbled up or down the length of them through the evening, so I was just being paranoid again. It started out very slowly, but then got going quite well after I started smoking (see following pages). John and I among the last to leave at 11:15, though Arnie called the next day and said he WAS the last out at 11:40, feeling guilty about it. Quickly up to my place, into bed, and Bob Milne calls at midnight to check on my speaking engagement on Friday, which I call about.
DIARY 2957
THURSDAY, APRIL 13. John's up and out again by 9:10, I watch TV to 9:30, Marty calls about 10 wanting to borrow my tape recorder for his program tomorrow night on WFUV, I make out the schedule of things I want to do today, and when Marty arrives at 11 I'm dressing in my rainsuit to go around the corner to pick up an application for a hack license, get down to unemployment, buy a gallon of wine and some groceries, and return to the apartment at noon to hear Marty say he'd gotten a call from Lois Cohen. I listen to his stories and recordings until 1, when I turn on "Thirteen Hours by Air" with a long-suffering Fred MacMurray with a rotten kid on his plane, a pretty blond Joan Bennett, and an eye-rolling ZaZu Pitts in a cops-and-robbers, landing-in-the-snowfield, kid-shoots-villain-with-water-pistol basic plot. That's over at 2:30, and I've eaten lunch, so I settle down to typing more for the diary, SO sad that I'm STILL not around the correspondence block, and type 8 pages before I have to start getting ready for Mattachine, shaving and showering to be ready both for John this evening and for my tomorrow morning's class, which I called to verify this morning, long distance. Forget to bring along the Income Tax forms to mail today to arrive on Saturday, but I'll do that tomorrow. Get to Mattachine promptly at 6 (see next page) and leave late at 9:45, because the jerk-off caller had to wait (and my embarrassment had to wait, too) for David to leave. Then out in a rush, even before Bob Milne shows up to get the last bus ticket to Albany purchased from the doll of a Tunezi who wants a live-in houseboy for his Staten Island home, and get to the subway to wait until 10 for a slow train, and I'll HAVE to get that schedule down pat: I ALWAYS just miss one. Some lovely people on the subway and in the elevator, and John's not home when I get in. Read a bit of "Impressions of a Mask" and eat my tuna fish and John's in at 11. I'd found crabs from Al yesterday, before showering, but didn't want to ruin John and Tsi-Dun with the news, so I told John I "found" them TODAY, and I search him while he chortles in glee, then he rubs me with A-200, or whatever, and I shower and we get to bed at 11:45, alarm at 7:30.
DIARY 2961
SATURDAY, APRIL 15. Wake about 8, John still feeling awful, and we cuddle and I suggest that I can stay today to pick up the meat for dinner tonight, and he asks whether I don't have things to do at home, and I say I can write letters here, so I stay, make him fairly hard soft-boiled eggs for his and my breakfast, and then take about two hours to write two pages each to Mom and Rita, finally, and a page to Bill, too, and then at 11:30 I start on stamps, counting all the ones I haven't counted so far, and come to the terrible conclusion that I have closer to 7000 stamps, rather than the "at least 11,000" of the ad, and though I certainly can't send them back, I'll surely send them a message of "regret" hoping to get 4000 more in "reparation." Then out for an hour to pick up the breast of veal for $7.40 at the butcher's, and groceries at the not-so-jammed Bohack, and he has some fried rice that he gives me the rest of, and that's all I have for lunch, since I decided to wait until I was hungry to have my tuna, and I never got hungry. Then back to stamps about 2, getting through the Netherlands and Yugoslavia until 6, now taking two hours per country, leaving 11 countries to do, and I shower and start setting the table for dinner, and the vegetable soup is quite good, of the "chunky" variety, and the breast of veal stuffed with spinach, mushrooms and rice is tasty but rather bland, and I suggest some lemon and he agrees to lemon rind for tartness, and the biscuits with buckwheat flour and crunchy outsides are fabulous with the perfectly ripened, sweetened, solid strawberries, and I even have a salad which John doesn't want, and I'm stuffed with pleasantness. John slept most of the afternoon after reading through the morning, and he said he felt better, so he lay down to digest dinner at 8:15 when I took to the dishes, and then we cleaned up the place and left for John Casarino's party at 9:05, getting there at 9:30, surprisingly still the first guests to arrive, and we chat with the co-host Henry Newman, resplendent in suede but fairly unpleasant in personality, and the party started with the arrivals of the next couples (see next pages). John's feeling MUCH better and we drive to his place at 1 am.
DIARY 2966
SUNDAY, APRIL 16. We wake rather late at 8, lay for a bit, and I decide to casually play with John, and the casualness leads to real sex, and we end up with Baby Magic all over and John coming by rubbing against my stomach and then he does me nicely. We shower and figure to maybe do something, he even calling information for Guidotti's number, and then I go out for the Times, which I read while eating breakfast of Wheatena. Read it all and John decides to stay in and write letters, so I get down the stamps again and work through Spain for an ungodly amount of time, interrupted to have lunch of tuna and muffin and the last of the biscuits and strawberries, still great. Then about 3 we decide to go to my place, since John's finished the work he has to do, and we gather up the rest of the veal to have for dinner tonight, two umbrellas, his briefcase with two day's stuff in it, and we take off reading for the subway and get right up to the Beacon in the rain, where we see "Tales from the Crypt" and "The House that Dripped Blood" (see next page). I get up home at 7:30 in time to watch another sad "Opera-Watching Made Grueling" or whatever, with Sutherland even more badly mismatching her voice in "La Fille du Regiment." Then switch channels and see a fantastically sexy Mike Henry playing Tarzan in "Tarzan and the Jungle Boy" on TV, and Rafer Johnson is sexy, also, though I don't know until the credits that it was HE who played the muscular villain, rather than the rather seedy black hero. Lots of cuts of animals and stand-ins swimming and sailing through the air, and his muscularity changed with the scene, his previous weight-lifting, and the lighting, but it was generally great to watch. John got in at 9:15, watched the end of it, we watched a bit of "Last of the Mohicans" to see it's too complex to hop in at chapter four, and heat the veal and have that and wine for dinner, and then at 10:30 I want to smoke and listen to raga music, and John goes immediately to bed, and I listen to two records with the earphones, and they're good music for tripping, and I feel SENSUAL but not sexual, and get no hint of an erection, and get into bed about 11:30, falling asleep immediately next to warm John.
DIARY 2969
MONDAY, APRIL 17. Wake with a muzzy smoking after-effect and lay close to John until we're both erect, and I begin to play with him and we're into 69 quickly, and he gets me off fairly nicely, but however I work on him, he doesn't seem to come closer to coming, until he reaches down and whacks away at himself, then slows to a frustrated stop, and then I take over with my semen and manfully work him into a climax. He showers and says he's going to work with the typewriter until 11, so I have breakfast and finish "Confessions of a Mask" which I probably would have finished anyway. He leaves right at that point, and I get to type the ten pages which brings me, thankfully, up to date, even writing the last page in honor of the weekly event. Have lunch then and sort out the mail that I have to answer, getting 24 stacks according to various efforts, and by dint of ignoring Laird's, since I've seen him since, realizing that I'd answered Bernie's when I was on jury duty, calling Warren to be told I should just sign that thing for Globe Rubber and send it in, addressing another envelope to the New YORK Literary Consultants, writing a short missive of congratulations to Cyndy, and throwing away Jim Maher's card, since we've been to see him, I get rid of six of the 24, or 1/4, leaving me only 18, and with the spare time, write a letter to Bill with some information, but it's still not the FINAL thing I owe him. Then it's almost 4 and I subway down to the Elgin (see next page) for the end (which I guess I didn't see before) of "Saragossa Manuscript" where the sheik says everything was acted out FOR him, to test his faithfulness, and there are bits with mirrors, returns AFTER he expected he knew where he was, and added confusions with the book, which he finally throws away in disgust. The Man Ray, Dimitri Kirsanoff, and Fernand Leger films were bores. Home at 6:45 to find John there, having eaten, so I cook hamburger and eat it, and then we walk down to the Cubiculo for Veija Vetra, who's pretty good for the Bharat Natyam dances, but I think awful in the slow boring Latvian things, and merely energetic for the Corroboree that John likes so much. Home at 10:30, shower while John reads Contemporary Music stuff, bed at 11:15.
DIARY 2971
TUESDAY, APRIL 18. Arnie phones to ask about Virgil Thomson's dress rehearsal of "Lord Byron" this afternoon, and John leaves and I get typing on the diary, catching up in two pages, then write letters to Lisa Malsin and Don O'Shea, getting the stack down AGAIN somewhat, though there are still 15 to go. Waste time until 12, and then get out for the performance (see next page). The Juilliard Theater is very spacious and intimate, and we walk downtown for my errands, and Arnie suggests that I can get stamps at the Post Office that I didn't know existed at 59th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues, and we all go "ugh" when all they have are the Eisenhower 8¢ stamps, and then to the Record Hunter on 57th, rather than down to Goody's, for the Schwann catalog for Schaffer. John's in and nude, and I tell him all about the opera, and that Arnie's willing to go to DC if we want to, and might want to go to Rehoboth Beach, too, but we might have to share the expenses of the car with him, which John doesn't like. I'd made reservations at Marchi's for the restaurant tonight, but John wants to go to Carnegie Hall for a Henry Brant concert and wants to eat in the neighborhood, so I made reservations at La Fonda. Walk slowly down there when we have lots of time, after I fill out my ballot sheet for Mattachine that came in the mail today, and they've cut down on the menu, the prices, the drink list (no more Coktel Alegria!), the floor space, the attractiveness, and the service, and though the food's not bad, it's not a place to go back to anymore---someplace like Nirvana has to have taken its place. Out before 8 for John, and I stroll down to Times Square to look at the cock books and find a copy of Bradbury's "Wonderful Ice-Cream Suit," which is just a rehash of three earlier stories, but I buy it for 75¢ for completeness and walk the rest of the way to Mattachine. The meeting is hectic (see following page) and I should leave when it's over, but I wait around for a ride from Carl and Henry, and they fuss and fume, finally getting out at quarter to 12, and I get to John's at 12:15, waking him, telling him about the meeting, but I can't sleep, toss and turn and lay awake on the bed thinking about the letter I have to write to Mattachine, and then about an ad in Village Voice.
DIARY 2974
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19. Finally at 2:30 (I'd gotten my watch, gotten a drink, pissed, and still couldn't sleep) I got up and smoked, and fell asleep right away, not being at all troubled by sensuality. Wake early at 6:30 and lay thinking until John's awake at 7:45, and I'm up and to the typewriter while he showers and makes his coffee, and then he says that nothing I've written so far is any good except for some FACTS, and I leave about 9:30, subwaying home reading "Ice-Cream Suit" and decide what the hell and FINISH the book by 10 before doing anything else. Then spent about an hour comparing texts, getting my book-list and Hesse-list up to date, etc. Then do the questionnaire handed out at the meeting last night on drugs and sex, and THAT takes an hour. Then Al calls and I can justifiably tell him I'm busy on the letter, and then try to call Don Goodwin, but he's not home, and neither Dick Smith nor Bob Girton knows anything of the details of the suits, so I call GAA and Charles Choset talks to me and gives me what I need, so I put the letter together by five (after feeling so disgusted with myself and the general atmosphere (the fact that the temperature reached 86° today for a new high record may have helped) that I got out the pornography and teased myself into a very deeply-felt erection and orgasm) and read it off to Dick, who neatly suggested that the description of the wounds come first, and to Don, who thinks it's fine, and to Bob, who also agrees that it shouldn't be shortened, and then John walks in and thinks it should be one page, as I do, and HE edits it down. We talk very agreeably and I have my steak while he eats salmon, and we both have wine, then I get in to shower, leave for the opera only to have to come back to put in my contacts, which I seem always to be forgetting, and leave the building at 7:54, getting into the seat at 8:04, and would you know that the lights go down JUST then for "Der Freishutz." Meet a lovely Nicholas Philolius during intermission (see next page), and when the opera's over at 11:20 he says it's too late to come to my place, but he says I should call him tomorrow. John's been to "LA Plays Itself," felt up some guy and invited him HERE for sex and grass and poppers (he owes me one), and we talk and cuddle and get to bed, very happy, at 12.
DIARY 2977
THURSDAY, APRIL 20. Wake as the alarm goes off, and we feel quite sexy and both of us come, I ending up lying exhausted in the bed as John goes off to shower. Most of what I did during the day is described on the preceding page in IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS, and don't do really anything of note except type the six pages that keep me up to date, and I debated going to the Elgin, but I didn't feel like more sex, and anyway the schedule didn't quite permit me to go to the early show, and Mattachine prevented me from going to the show that let out at 5:55. Finish the last of the pages and decide I have to exercise, and get to the first level once again, doing it in 5 minutes and 15 seconds, feeling good for having done it, and I squeeze awfully large pimples on my legs, wondering how Nicholas is going to take them this evening, and I'm getting a lump on the side of my nose that's annoying too. But thankfully the large blood-pustule hasn't reformed on my left shoulder ever since the time I vengefully scraped it off and let it bleed for a long period of time, then slathered it with Vaseline and a bandage, and when I took the bandage off there wasn't even a scab, and the redness went away so that now only a very close look suffices to see where it was. I figure the marks on the legs will go away, as will the redness where I scratched out a fragment of what I think was a louse on my stomach. Read lots of Scientific Americans yesterday, too, and I'm finally up to January's issue, which means I only have four issues on the stand, the least in over a year. But Life Magazine didn't come this week, drat, probably the mailman or someone in the Post Office taking them. So I shower and wash my hair, getting out too late at 5:25 to do anything else beside dress and gather everything together to leave for Mattachine at 5:455. Get there just before 6 (see next page) and leave just at 9:40 as the phone's ringing, but I don't answer it: either it's someone on business, and he should have called before 9:30, or it's the jerk-off call and I don't want to spend the time, and HE should call on time, or it's John, and I'll find out soon enough. He's got someone there (see following page).
DIARY 2981
FRIDAY, APRIL 21. Up still blasted from the grass, then leave for home, reading Asimov's "Adding a Dimension," and then I feel I have to finish the entire book, which I do, and get into the bedroom to type four pages which brings me up to date on the diary, including a page about the book (T480). Then it's time for lunch and a subway ride down to the Elgin, where I find that the schedule given on the phone a few days earlier (when the previous feature was showing) was wrong: it didn't start the second show at 2:30, it started the FIRST show at 2, and so I miss the beginning of "The Puritan" which is good to a small extent, since I don't KNOW that he killed the woman, as it shows rather senselessly in the beginning, so that I had to operate along with the police inspectors (still being very greatly horrified by Baurrault's horrendously effective acting of the extraordinarily hypocritical man) in concluding that he was guilty. "The Idiot" in the French version, despite the fact that it has the enormously melting eyes of Gerard Phillipe, isn't as good and intense as the Japanese version, and no female could easily duplicate the tortured expression of the Japanese female who played the Natasha role. Sex was quite slow (see next page). Out at 6:15 and subway back uptown, and get involved in tiny things (take time to shave, but not time to shower) and get out of the apartment at 6:45 with the bicycle, to find the tires low on air, so I have to walk it to 53rd and 10th to get air in, and he insists that ten pounds is enough, and 30 will explode it, so I don't fill them very full, and have a terribly hard time pedaling down Broadway (since it's not gotten dark, and even a cop car stops beside me at a traffic light, and I'm sure I hear the phrase "You should have a light on the bicycle at night," but a truck's going past and I'm not sure, so I choose to ignore it), across the Brooklyn Bridge, and through the dark streets of Brooklyn Heights to see John walking toward Arnie's just at 7:45, and I lug it up the steps, feeling shaky in the knees from the exertion, and wash and try calling Nicholas, but the line's busy, and get to Arnie's at 8:15, leaving at 11:15 (see following page).
DIARY 2984
SATURDAY, APRIL 22. Gave the excuse last night that I was feeling tired because I'd bicycled to John's, and John added when we left, jokingly, that we were going to see the sunrise in the Botanical Gardens at 5:30 the following morning. When we got into bed at midnight I was feeling absolutely pooped, almost shivering in the legs, with my eyes sore into the bargain, and when we woke about 8, I felt not at all like moving. We cuddled for a bit and John got out of bed, and I simply didn't feel like moving: if he wanted me to get up, he'd tell me. So I lay like a stone until 10, taking heart from the swish of liquid around the tires of passing cars, and got up to find that it WAS raining lightly and steadily, so I praised the elements, and John left for wine and groceries for the dinner tonight. I got out the stamps, started in at 10:30 on Argentina, but that was broken for about an hour as John said how much he disliked my actions on Thursday night, and I got into a discussion with him about our sex gap (see next page). Then back to stamps and finished about 1:30, have lunch of tuna fish while John doesn't eat anything, then he says he's going to have a nap, but gets up in about half an hour, saying "It was a short nap" and starts working on letters and reading and working in the kitchen. At 2:30 I start on Germany, finishing up at 4:30, stopping in the middle to make a pie crust for the fabulous apple crunch pie that comes later, and Nicholas calls to say that he'd called all morning but the phone wasn't working: his parents are in town and he has to have dinner with them. For the rest of the day John and I try to get Sergio, John C., Azak, Arnie, and Glenn May, but get no one, to my great sadness. Do Indonesia from 5 to 7, then shower and have dinner of good artichoke in oil-onion dressing, a good first try at chicken ala Kiev, rather tough asparagus (which seems to give us the urine-smells for the next few days), and a tasty salad and the great apple pie. After it's over at 8, John doesn't feel like going anywhere, so he's out for a walk in his rainsuit, then back at 9 to say he's going to the baths. I keep working on Turkey through "Les Troyans" on FM from 9:30-1, not hearing either end, and John arrives at 1 as I'm reading the Times, and to bed.
DIARY 2986
SUNDAY, APRIL 23. Wake and think about sex, getting close to John when I'm hard, and he plays around for a bit, and I strain into him, but he doesn't get more than the slightest bit hard and then I go down, and later he asks me if I wanted sex, and I lie and say no. Damn! We're up and it's bright and sunny out, so I have Wheatena to start, happy that I'm feeling physically stronger, and we're out about 9:30 on the bikes to peddle through Brooklyn and pass over the Gowanus Creek on the zigzag way toward the Brooklyn Prospect Park. Houses and neighborhoods become very nice, and we get to the park in a blaze of sunlight on the forsythia and magnolia blossoms which are at their height, and we go around the whole park, John going a bit too fast, but it's empty and very pleasant. Then up a hill which winds me and tires me, and down the dividing road to the Botanic Garden, shackling our bikes to a sign and into the gardens, bright with hyacinth, low hybrid tulips with flames of orange-red, forsythia, a mass of magnolia blooms in front of the conservatory with their over-populated goldfish tanks, and the daffodil hill brilliantly yellow against the green grass and blue sky. Around the end of the Japanese garden and the cherry blossoms, and into the central area where the four lanes of trees aren't blooming yet. Then back to the bikes about noon, and wheel home, tired at last, and find to my chagrin that I have to miss "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" on TV at 1, because Arnie's not home. Lunch of the remaining chicken breast and a large salad with pimiento and salmon, the rest of the apple pie for dessert, somewhat down from its sweet crunchiness, and finish the Times while John's out for another walk. Work the puzzle on the way home on the subway, shaving to get down to MCC at 4 (see next page), and back to my place at 6 to find John still not there. Work on the puzzles again until he arrives at 6:30, we decide to see Chaplin at 8:30, he takes a nap while I finish both puzzles, and at 8 we're out for the film "City Lights" (see following page). Back in the rain at 10 to watch TV Tony Awards, with parts of "Jesus Christ Superstar," "No, No, Nanette" and "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" and to bed at 11:30, tired from the works of the daytime.
DIARY 2990
MONDAY, APRIL 24. We wake and talk as described on previous page (T489), and then I spread out all the mailings I have to do again and get to work on diary pages, doing 9 to bring me up to date, again having the feeling that I'm doing more like CREATING the pages than actually being FORCED to write them, as if I'm willing to do ANYTHING to postpone thinking about actually getting back to work. Then get to the Elgin for "Dementia" and other strange movies (see next page), to only a little activity (see following page), and "Blood of a Poet" is thoughtfully tacked onto the END of the program so I find that I can leave at 4:30 from the three-hour show. Subways uptown are crowded at this early hour, and I get to the mailbox to find that I've been "sent" (probably by the mailman) the copy of Life Magazine that hadn't come last Tuesday, on schedule. Didn't feel like typing this morning, and fussed with the mail and washing dishes to take the time away. John said he was getting in at 6 or at 8, and when he wasn't there at 6, I figured it was for 8, so I showered and washed my hair, giving the front to it a trim that John said was too regular, even though I intentionally hacked at it irregularly. Sew the button back onto the chair that had come loose, shined my shoes, which always look so terrible, and looked around for more to do, finally ended up erasing the old return addresses off the old "Acid House" envelopes in preparation for sending copies out two more times, and find that Alex Fedack gave me a XEROX of the copy I gave her, rather than returning the original. That seems to say something. Then John comes in just after 8 and I guiltily put the manuscripts under the bed to hide them from him. We fix our meats and have dinner with lots of wine, and I decide I want to get stoned and build with the Lego blocks, so I get them out and get out the grass, newly mixed with the recent culls, and it smells very strongly, and the next morning John said "I never smoked such strong grass." So we smoked quite a bit of the billowy gray smoke and I felt not at ALL like building with the Lego blocks, so John came over and started necking, and we had lovely sex (see subsequent pages).
DIARY 2994
TUESDAY, APRIL 25. John finally comes with the vibrator this morning, and since I feel like coming and he's not about to do anything about it, I then put the hand around my own cock and come most pleasantly, with John kibitzing from the side. He showers while I start on the first of four pages to catch up with today, and start paging through the copies of "Acid House" to make sure they're complete to send to Rolie-Morrell, just on the fluke that my mother sent it to me, and to Ellie Kurtz, since she wrote to me, and about 11:30 Roger rings the bell downstairs. He comes up to chat for a bit about the place he's planning to spend June-August after a month back at Alton House, after being ripped off out in Brooklyn, and then going to San Diego. He moves around. I say I have mail to get out and he goes to pick up a watch he left to be repaired as I write a letter to Boguslaw Shaffer to send with the Schwann's I bought for him, and a note to Rita to go along with the article about Lutece, and look at Mom's letter to decide that I'VE answered HER (along with sending HER a birthday present of flowers this weekend), and that decreases the correspondence pile nicely, but I DO have to get to the Harcourt-Brace before I blow it AGAIN. Then to the post office with Roger to get everything mailed ($1.44 for Schaffer!), and subway down to his hotel, which is dank and smelly, with a barely acceptable shower and toilet in the hall, and then we have ribs in Chicken America and walk into "Andromeda Strain" late, and it suffers from the same flaws the book has: too much science, though nicely done, too little human interest. "Forbin Project" is obviously one of a series, and the hero is VERY pretty. Get cruised by someone so cute I almost excuse myself from Roger, but decide I CAN do without it. Out at 6 and find "FOOD" NOT at 67 Prince, walk hippy Prince Street, wait for John, then walk to get him, he's angry because I was supposed to meet him at 67 PRINCE, not "FOOD." Decent meal, but I break a tooth, which colors the evening, then decide to go with John to Eric Salzman and his Quog group at the Mercer Arts Theater (see next page). To his place at 10:15, he wants to write, so I get out stamps and start DDR at 10:30, tiring at 12:15, after John's in bed, shower and join him.
DIARY 2996
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26. He's up and out of bed and I'm immediately in to finish off DDR, starting at 8:30 and finishing at 10, and it's still running according to schedule: about 1 hour per 100 stamps, so with the five countries left with 3000 stamps, it'll be 30 hours! Leave then in the spring warmth for home and call Rosey Sheik for an appointment, and she has a cancellation at 1:30, which is good news. I make a list of the lists that I have, just to see how many there are, and am appalled to find 50 of them at first glance, and get another 17 without really racking my brains. What a LIST! Al calls at 1, just after I've washed my hair and shaved and gotten ready to leave, and he says "Ah, you never want to talk to me. Call me back." I subway up to Rosey's in discomfort, get right in, take an injection, get a filling replaced without ANY pain, and chat about the Pak-Indian war. Out at 2, down to buy groceries (going really only for toilet paper and tissues, and ending up with $9.90 worth of resupplying), then back to type two pages to keep up to date, mail the Masseur ad to the Village Voice, then start working on the Harcourt-Brace test, taking a long time to transcribe the results to the new copy, writing the letter, and putting everything away, and then call Al to say the relationship should be cooled down, and finally he agrees, so hopefully that's the end. By the time everything's finished, it's time for dinner and getting out to the Royal Ballet for the first one of the new season (see next page), and I get back feeling pretty good from a day of accomplishment, and John's been drinking, so we chat about what's been happening to each of us during the day, and I bring up the good things that I've been doing, though not telling him about the re-test by Harcourt-Brace, and then he says he's tired, so I shower and we get into bed. I have such a better feeling of accomplishment these last few days, even today being ruined by a trip to the dentist's didn't bother me so much, because I just figured there wasn't any movie I really HAD to see today, anyway, and there's been no TV programs of note this week, and I'm getting through with my correspondence, finally, after leaving it slide since January.
DIARY 2998
THURSDAY, APRIL 27. GREAT sex for both of us this morning, with pressures and pleasures and orgasms on both parts. I get a call from Laird at 8:30, telling about his move to Athens, Georgia, for three months, then shower and get to work on a letter to Elaine, hoping to catch up to date with her, and get out at 11 to get to unemployment and then up to try to buy a sugar bowl WITHOUT a creamer at Azuma on 6th Avenue, and can't do it, and stalk out in disgust up to the Donnell for their noon films (see next page) which are generally great, and then decide to GET the sugar bowl at the 5th Avenue Azuma, but pass Brentano's first and decide to buy books, and end up buying "The Idiot," "Love's Body," "Leaves of Grass" in the king-size version, and want to buy all THREE Clark Ashton Smith books, but only have enough for "Hyperborea" for $8.80, close to the $9.20 that I possess, so there's no buying of a sugar bowl TODAY. Back home at 2:10 to put lunch on and get a triumphant call from John to the effect that he HAS the job in Washington, and it will require him to be out of town 5-6 times for 2-6 days, and we talk about what THAT might do to the relationship, but I end up saying "I'm very happy for you," after saying in jest, "Maybe you can support me now." Write letters to Laird and the O'Sheas, then continue the letter to Elaine, getting through three pages without completing my critique of River #25, and it's 5, so I have to shower and shave and get ready to get up to Mattachine, which I do at 6, and then telephone Dubose McLane to find that the MCC meeting (that he called John about last night) is for planning the next Sunday's service, and that I should call at the end, but then they have only about 30 minutes left, so I leave Mattachine (see following page) at 9:35, get rid of Carl Bordman and David, shaking his hand and thanking him for his help and wishing him luck on his dancing, and subway to John's at 10:15 to eat tuna while reading the Voice, and then we talk for a long time about Eric Salzman, and we get into bed after my shower angry, but then we talk a bit more, iron things out (see subsequent page), and I cuddle him and kiss, saying bitchily, "I love you even though you ARE pig-headed," at 12.
DIARY 3002
FRIDAY, APRIL 28. Home on crowded subway, catch up on the diary from two days by typing six pages, and then make myself feel better by sitting down immediately to finish typing the marathonically long letter to Elaine, doing six pages to her in all, three yesterday and three today. Also write two to Terrence Kennan in the Canary Islands, and am completely appalled by how long it takes me to finish the letters to the two of them. True, it's connected with literary endeavors and I'm reading the River and the letters and the notes, and then co-relating things back and forth, which takes time, but the ENTIRE AFTERNOON goes, following the morning, and I want to answer more letters but there just isn't time. Shower and shave and try to leisurely get down to the Performing Garage at 6:15 by leaving at 5:45, sure to be early, but I take the express E, rather than the local E, and it bypasses Spring and leaves me off at Canal Street, and then I have the idea that it's at 99 Wooster, but find that that's the GAS Firehouse, and so I have to backtrack after asking directions, and find that John's already gotten the $6 tickets for two, and he thinks Chinatown's too far to walk, so we end up walking across to the Grotta Azzura, which I'd wanted to eat in, and we get the last empty table in a bustling place, I have mediocre soup and good pounded veal, and the neighbors at the table next are very attentive, giving us some of the Spedina in Brodo, or whatever, and they laugh with us at how much they're eating, the girl being ignored in the quartet of male glances. Out at 7:30 and walk back to be part of the crowd led in, and we're almost last in, forced to sit way up high on the rafters and ledges and chair backs nailed to the floorboards, and the production is marvelously wacky, with Pietropinto changing from beautiful to grotesque, looking and sounding rather like Streisand, and the Dormouse with bulging eyes and mouths, the same guy doing the stoned caterpillar, are just too MUCH, and the rabbit-guy is nice, too, the other woman isn't so hot, and we laugh aloud at its ridiculousness and neatness. Drive to John's and talk about it, loaf around apartment and get to bed early without any sex at all.
DIARY 3003
SATURDAY, APRIL 29. Wake about 9 and cuddle, then we decide NOT to go bike-riding, which is fine since I feel vaguely sore from exercising yesterday, and we drive out to Jones Beach from 9:45 to 10:45, paying $1 for entry, and the parking lot isn't nearly full, and we walk to a breezy vantage near the water. There's much looking around, but not much actual activity, though John indulges quite a bit (see next page). I'm reading "The New Social Drug" while I'm rotating from 15-15 on each side, to 20-20 on each side, and am in the middle of 30-30 when John says that my face is getting red, which I've been feeling for myself, so I decide to go for a walk and play around in the bushes for a bit, but nothing really works out, and I'm back to find John just setting out, and I put my shirt on and read while others pass by and stare at me, and about 2:30 he's back and we've had enough so we drive back into town, and I decide to have NO lunch at all at John's urging. Back to his place and we're out shopping for groceries and wine, and I send a plant to Mom for her birthday, and then I get into stamps (Bulgaria, being the fifth to the last country) for an hour before dinner, then shower and help him set the table, and we have good steaks which he's pounded quite a bit, and a good salad, and we sit around and talk, and then he want to type something, so I get back to the stamps. He'd wanted to go out earlier, thinking of Man's Country, but by 9 he decides he just wants to go for a walk, and comes back at 10 with the Times, his tiredness gone enough for him to read until 10:45, at which time I'M tired, too, and he comes to say he's going to bed, and I say "It's about time, I've been starving for sleep for hours," in jest, and we get into bed to snuggle together and talk about nothing in particular. I've been trying to get some sense of living together and what it would be like, and I'm not feeling any more pressure from his mere presence: if he wants to do something, he'll do it (and today he said he might start working on a patchwork quilt "to give me something to do" and I smile), and I'm content to read or work with my stamps (funny how I avoid saying, as I used to, "play" with my stamps).
DIARY 3005
SUNDAY, APRIL 30. Up fairly early and I go down on John, determined to make him come, though I think afterward that might be some kind of plot on my part to make him enjoy his evening with Howie less, since it's planned that I'll be going to see "LA Plays Itself," and he'll be here with Howie. He comes and we're up, and I finish Bulgaria, taking about five house for the 400 stamps, which means that the last four countries, with 2600 stamps, will take at LEAST 30 hours, still a lot of time, and then the extra pages have to be filled at the end, another six or seven hours, so it's not finished yet by any means, and I still have Bill's collection to go through, and then it's time to soak the ones I've been saving, and we can start from zero again. Finish with the stamps at 11 while John vacuums and polishes around the apartment, then read the Times until 12, and leave at 12:30 for my place on the bicycles, John taking his briefcase in his basket, and it's an easy ride to my place at 1:15, we have lunch, and then get into the park at 2:30 to see its Birthday Party (see next page). Return home feeling still quite stoned and a little bit headachy from the poppers, and John's agreed to go down to Howie's so that I can watch the Bing tribute on TV. I'd put out the hamburger from the freezer to thaw, and at 6 we cooked and ate that, and then I got out at 6:40 to hope to catch the first part of the short, which John said was pretty good, but both movies were on the disappointing side (see following page). Out at 9 and dash home to strip and get out the pornography and grass and poppers and try to come, but though I try to a great effect, it really doesn't work, so I disgustedly turn on TV at 9:30 and watch the good hour's entertainment with Nilsson, Price, Merrill and Tucker, Pavarotti and Sutherland, and lots of others, with a Texaco ad by Bing himself, and Rise Stevens looking and sounding exactly like Eve Arden. End and John's not back yet, and I go to bed at 10:45, feeling fairly awful, and think that John returns at 11, but I'd been asleep and wakened again, since he got in about midnight, saying that he had a great time, and I felt even awfuller.
DIARY 3008
MONDAY, MAY 1. The time change seems to be working opposite: I seem to be operating EARLY when the time actually became LATE. Wake at 4:30 and can't get back to sleep, thinking about jobs and making money and letters to be written and books to be read, so I decide to get out of bed and READ. I get down "Hyperborea" and it's not very good, so that's the end of Clark Ashton Smith, and John gets up at 8 and we talk about why I can't sleep, and I STILL feel a headache from the poppers. He leaves for his last week at Virgil's, and I still don't feel like getting away from books, so I finish "The New Social Drug" (see next page), and that takes me up to about 11:30. Call Harcourt Brace to give her my phone number, re-call McGraw-Hill to find that I'm STILL on her freelance list, call the rental agencies in the city to find that I CAN'T get interest on my deposit, since it's before 1970, and they'll send forms for reporting my falling-out windows. I feel good about these accomplishments, but I simply DON'T feel like doing any of the writing, either of diary or letters, so I decide to have lunch and get down to the Elgin for "Joyless Street" and "Testament of Orpheus." The street was so joyless that her small happinesses even seemed phony, and the intensity of disgust engendered by the dressmaker-pimp and the secretary-loosegirl flooded the whole movie. Garbo was beautiful in a heavily made-up way, and her talents showed, but it's not a very good film. "TO" was even more of a bore the second or third time I've seen it, though the black horses were sexy. Not much else (see following page). Back home at 6, putting the dishes away that I washed earlier, have dinner while reading the February Scientific American, having finished Life, and then watch a pretty good production of "La Rondine" by Puccini, starring Teresa Stratas and Vrousimos, or someone, who actually looked pretty sexy in tight-fitting blue trousers, though the end, where she "must" leave him for fear of "hurting" him with her "wicked" background, must be one of the least convincing in the history of opera. Fuss about and subway to John's at 10, and we chat a bit and I shower and get into bed, feeling extraordinarily fatigued at 11.
DIARY 3011
TUESDAY, MAY 2. John's out of bed almost immediately, and I'd been debating whether to wait around until Radio City time, but decide to leave at 8:25. Subway terribly crowded, let one go by, local slow, in at 9:30 but the mail sack isn't there yet. Up to eat breakfast and catch the Ballet list up to date to find that I HAVE seen Nureyev and Fonteyn in "Sleeping Beauty," so I put the ticket in my wallet to see to Azak tonight. Then down to Radio City Music Hall to a very funny production of "What's Up, Doc?" with a tanned gamin Streisand and a muscly-blond Ryan O'Neal and a great supporting cast, notably Austin Pendleton as a goony awards chairman. But the two points were the auto chases through the streets of San Francisco, with cars being blasted right and left, and a LOVELY ladder-knocked-out-swing-to-break-plate-glass sequence. Debate seeing it again, but the stage show is DREADFUL, and they HAVE removed the Easter sequence, so I'm out in disgust and hunger at 1:30. Down to Takashimaya to guy a sugar bowl and cream pourer for only $1.61, including tax, and look for LeGuin's "Left Hand of Darkness" but can't find it. Have lunch about 2:30 and try to fix up the lesser pot pot by removing most of the vermiculite, then fuss around with papers without really doing anything, fix up the apartment, and then have to shower and shave thoroughly for Azak's cocktails this evening, and John doesn't get in at 4 or even 5, but at 5:10, and he's been shopping for materials for his shirts, spending over $30 for ONE sample, and will spend $20 to have each shirt tailored, so that's quite an expensive set of shirts! Out at 5:40 in the slight rain, and we take the 50th Street cross-town to get to the elegant Buchanan where he has Penthouse Q for 13 months, and it's a pleasant start to the evening (see next page). Leave, highly high, at 7:20, taking the shuttle in a state of fugue, and downtown to 59 Christopher Street about 8 to find the meeting already started. Through that and the following dinner at the Horn of Plenty (see following page), and depressed at the lateness, getting into my place at 12:30, waking John, as he confessed later, without his saying anything, shower and crawl into bed.
DIARY 3015
WEDNESDAY, MAY 3. Have great sex (see previous page) and John leaves after I have breakfast of muffin since I have no milk for breakfast, and then I determine to catch up with the diary, doing 13 pages until my shoulders ache, and then it's 1 pm and I have to go to the bank to get money for the dinner at the restaurant this evening. Get two unemployment checks cashed and buy groceries just as it starts raining, and it's so convenient to not have to be controlled into going out in the rain if I don't want to. Then have lunch and settle down to more letters, writing a page to Paul, two pages to Bill, a small thing to Ellie Kurtz, a note to Schaffer with lots of stamps for his son, a small thing to the Seavers for their Christmas card, a note to Michael's Thing about my "Not By Bread Alone," and a complaint about lack of service to the Rent Control office. By this time it's 6:45, I exercise and get ready to take a shower, but there's no hot water, so I shave and wash a bit in cold water and subway to John's, reading the first chapters of a ludicrous "Love's Body" by Norman O. Brown, and get there to find him there at 8, and we walk in the rain to Tai Lung Dao, or something, a Szechwan restaurant in Brooklyn Heights advertised in New York, but the food isn't hot enough for John and flavorful enough for me, though the clientele is nice, and we leave about 9:30 to get back to his place and talk about the happenings of the day. He says he's sleepy, but he sits and reads the Village Voice while I get out the stamps and get into the fourth-last country, Poland, doing the Postage Dues and air mails and everything EXCEPT the old ones and the new ones before John is ready for bed at 10:30. Then I remember to shower and brush my teeth, and we caress for a bit before getting into bed, and he lies awake drinking while we talk about my scheme of waiting for some freelance work in copy-editing, and he's very discouraging about it, so I'll have to set myself another deadline: if I don't get anything by July 1, I'll really HAVE to start looking for a good-paying job in EARNEST, despite the working conditions and possibilities for vacation, except for Eastern Europe in October.
DIARY 3016
THURSDAY, MAY 4. Wake and John leaves, I do the rest of Poland, finishing just before 10:20, so I get to unemployment just at 10:45, the start of the period, and there's almost no one on line, so it's a good time to go. Home to work for long hours re-editing "Melancholy Baby" for Wendy, even though I thought of writing to Elaine and getting my original back, yet I wanted to edit it down to two pages and put all the footnotes into the body of the text. It's crowded, but I think it works. Also retype three others for her, and send them all off with notes to Elaine and Rolie-Morrell, and that catches me up COMPLETELY with all the correspondence I have to do, although the correspondence stack also contained the Xmas carol works for Marty and the Canadian Club contest, which I put on the "To do" list separately and finally cross off item #10, which was that horrid "Write letters" which had hung over me for the past two months. Now I feel that I want to avoid the mailbox so that my empty correspondence stack won't be FILLED again, yet at THIS time there are letters from Laird and Don, a large letter from Mom, and various bills and tickets to be sent away for. It'll never be done, I keep telling myself, yet the impending necessity to get rid of them is ever-present. Then I type the one page that brings me up to date, just as John appears, and I punch holes in the hundred pages of the ICWU papers to put them into the folder, and I'm now into the 500's and STILL haven't caught up with the trip diary, and that's the NEXT "Must do" that will hang over me until I'm finished. Have enough time to walk up to Mattachine in the brightness of the daylight savings time, getting there just at 6, and there's no one waiting for me at this time (see next page). Out at 9:30 with no overtime, and walk back downtown mailing the packages of envelopes Marc left with me, and down to find that John's eaten already, so I have my food and we sit around and chat for a bit, but neither of us feels particularly like having sex (and he'd been out, anyway, when I called for phone numbers), and we undress and get into bed fairly early, feeling generally fatigued and worn out for no particular reason, a horrible state of affairs to continue in.
DIARY 3018
FRIDAY, MAY 5. John's up and out for his last day of work at Virgil's, and I don't really INTEND to, but I sit down in a chair with "Straight" by "William Aaron" at 8:30 and read it all through by 10:40, taking notes for a review which will appear somewhere (T566-567), and that kills a great part of the morning. Nicholas Philolius called on Wednesday, and I think it's a pity I didn't get his phone number at work, since I want to call him this morning, since I've again gotten the yen to finish everything on my "To do" list, but call Michael Gonzalez at work and find out that he hasn't been in THERE for a week or ten days, so there's just no way to get in touch with him. Do some silly things around the apartment like wash dishes or go out for groceries, and waste enough time that I don't even eat lunch, just subway up for two lovely tasty slices of pizza outside the Thalia before going in at 2:10 for an amusing "Allez Oop" by Keaton, where he takes his girl to an acrobatic act, practices on a swinging tree limb, and rescues her from her burning apartment by double loops with a clothesline. "An Old Spanish Custom" is awful in a number of ways: the middle is completely missing, so it's only 40 minutes long, the other acting is laughably abysmal, and the only funny parts are him getting surrounded and taken by all the Spanish salespeople, the villain posing under a steer head with horns, and the ludicrous attempt at Busby Berkeley lavishness with 37¢ and a box of sequins in the "Production Number." Intended to stay to see the Keaton twice, but "No Man's Land" was so dreary and well-intentioned and poorly executed that I left, getting home at 5 to a surprised John, and we ate our steaks and I debated going to the free midnight movie at the Olympia on Vampires, but by the time we walked down to St. Clement's for the Medicine Show, I was ready to go back to John's, so that we could get an early start on the beach tomorrow. The show as attended by 12 people, and the cast made me very ambivalent: they tried VERY hard, but the begging for money by selling bananas and soda, reading palms, and doing massages during intermission, and the "Buy me, PLEASE buy me" and the Indian maiden's lament who stole the magic elixir were too heart rending, and we chatted about it on the subway to John's, depressed to bed at 11 pm.
DIARY 3019
SATURDAY, MAY 6. Wake about 8:30 and smooch a bit, then up to leave for the beach after Wheatena for breakfast at 9:20. Get there at 10:15 and walk over the interdicted construction site to get laid out across the path again just at 11. I read "Love's Body" again while turning every 15 minutes, not wanting to get burned like last time, and John's off and wandering, returning at 1, after I've eaten lunch, to say that the beach is full of pretty boys, and I take off in the hot sun to see many pretties nude bathing, but they don't welcome me into their midst, and I get depressed seeing all these people who are obviously THERE for sex, but not having it. The woods are too cool in the shade and the stiff breeze, and everyone available is old and flabby, while the pretty ones manage to elude me. Back along the beach at 2 to see John right out in the open doing someone cute, and I get disgusted with him, reading while watching everyone stop and openly stare at them going at it in the depression in the sand, and I get more and more disgusted, squinting because I'd forgotten my sunglasses, burnt by the sun even though I put on a shirt and sat in the shade for the last hour, so that when John finally shows up at 2:45 I suggest strongly that we should go, and he doesn't want to, but does leave. Back dejectedly along the beach, brightening for a dog-bodied man sitting in the sand in an optical illusion, and into the car to feel better in the shade, and then drive back through the tunnel because the streets are jammed on the way to Brooklyn. I shower immediately, feeling the redness and heat of my body, and John's not quite so annoyed at leaving early when he sees me. I settle down to the stamps of Poland, the variegated new ones, while he's out shopping for meat, and I keep working while he cooks up a meatloaf with a hot ketchup sauce which he thinks is good, but it can't be, because I think it's nicely seasoned, and we smoke and have sex without the radio on, and when he gets poppers I sort of go down, but work and work AND work on him, using a very heavy-handed stroke, and finally he comes with PAINFUL explicitness, and I'm down and depressed at my downness, and we wash quickly in the sink and bed at 11:30.
DIARY 3020
SUNDAY, MAY 7. Wake about 8 and back to the stamps, deciding not to get the Times until I'm home about 2, as John promises. We're into the car at 9:30 for the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, parking outside the gate and waiting 10 minutes until it's opened, and walk the deserted park under flowering fruit trees and extravagantly blooming rock gardens and patches of color, and get to the cherry-tree alley which is just coming into flower, and we look at the patterns of the sun on the bright pink leaves, smelling the more redolent blossoms, then over to the Japanese gardens to pay to get in, listen to the Japanese tourists exclaiming over the names of trees, and look at the fish and blossoms and streams and vistas of color and texture and fragrance over the waters. Out to see that only the latest magnolias are still in bloom, and narcissus have replaced the multitudinous hyacinths and daffodils of the previous week, and the tulips are out in force too. Back to the apartment at 11:15 and John bicycles to get a shirt-fitting while I work on the last of the Polish stamps, and he gets annoyed at the guy in the basement apartment of his garage, who's painting and planting the area for his beauty's eye, and John gets annoyed at the rocks flung at the car during the course of digging up a side for flowers, and he drives us into town at 2:15, and we get out into the park for a jammed Mall area and hillsides around it for the Fourth Anniversary celebration of "Hair" and the songs are good and the crowd even better, but John wants to sit down, so we pass the Hare Krishna entertainers around the jammed fountain, and into the ramble, which is also completely crowded, so much so that it's like a five-ring circus rather than a cruising area, so we very quickly get bored with the sights and sounds and fights and crotches, walk back home past "Hair" and Frisbees and balloons and flowers flung into the audience, and home to watch a VERY corny "Mary of Scotland" with a histrionic Katherine Hepburn, a dour Frederic March, and a Davis-like (before her time) Florence Eldridge as QEI, until 7:30, while we eat. Drive to John's at 8:15, meet Kenneth who comes up to John's place to talk while he and Sergio watch awful Jim Fulkerson, and we four talk until 10:30, John and I smoke, have shared sex this time, me without poppers, good, bed.
DIARY 3021
MONDAY, MAY 8. Wake at 8, feeling logy, but decide to beat the subway rush home, so I leave at 8:20 and get home by 8:50, having succeeded except at the IRT local up from 42nd to 59th. Read the rest of the Times with breakfast, and then can't resist doing the puzzle, which I finish by 10:30, which isn't bad, but it ruins the morning, and I want to do everything that the apartment's demanding to be done that I DON'T want to put on the list: so I get the pot transplanted in the earth I brought from John's this morning, taking enormous quantities of time and energy to sort out the stones that I used originally to stretch my finite quantity of soil for the first two pots, and end up with three pots after about two hours work, and a drying paper of wet rocks, clean as the day they were picked from the Sound. Then I scour the bathtub and work for a long time on the walls to the tunes of the trumpet music from the hi-fi to keep me going, and stop for lunch, then do the dishes, still going with the music, and dust everything, particularly the air conditioner, putting away the humidifier, and when I'm just finishing up vacuuming about 5 pm, JOHN comes in, and I'm glad I didn't let it be postponed until later. When we have dinner I push vegetables, since I have to clear the freezer of non-refreezable vegetables before defrosting it, and I have a box of peas and of corn, of which John chooses the peas and we have two portions of them, I with pork chops, he with steaks, and we finish frying and eating by 7:30, when I watch a tiny special on insects, with footage quite different from "Hellstrom Chronicle," particularly the lifecycle of the flea on rabbits, voiceover by Wally Cox, over at 8. Then I show John my kaleidoscopes, and he "fixes" the jewels by putting them in with ANOTHER set of colors, and it DOES work, and then we smoke at 8:55 and listen to Nixon and his despicable plans to mine Haiphong Harbor at 9-9:30, with its commentary, and then we start on sex, but I'm not terribly excited, and never really get up, but work away on John until I simply tire, and then he does himself and I squeeze my prostate into injury while breathing my last gasps to pump out the semen, and am STIFF with tension and anxiety, and don't even wash, just groan and sigh and suffer blankets be put over me, and sleep.
DIARY 3022
TUESDAY, MAY 9. Up quite logy, but out of bed when John gets up, and when we eat he goes into the bedroom to start typing letters about the mining of Haiphong to senators on the Common Cause list, and I stay in the living room reading magazines. He leaves about 11, when we agree to meet at 7 at Beatrice Inn for dinner, and I catch up with the diary with 6 pages, a new record with five "day" pages and only one extra page for Mattachine Phone. Then call Arnie and get ready to go out at 11:30 to take stuff to cleaners, and walk in the rain to Radio City Music Hall, where I see the last part of "Play It Again, Sam" and the show with David Gleaton doing adequately with his gold earring in place, and meet Lloyd Evanson (see next page). We RUN back here for sex and he leaves at 2:30, and I'm just cleaning up the place AGAIN and getting ready to write (to Elaine for her letter, to the UNPA for some kind of mistake with the stamps) when Roger calls and asks if he can come over. I give his two books back to him and we talk about the Marijuana Commission report, his living in another hotel besides Alton House, the diminishing quality of life in America, the rationale behind a guaranteed wage and a 50% income tax for everyone and a very strict limit on inheritances, and then I take a break to call Ed Berger about Tsi-Dun, and he's moving to Paris for a job for three months, so I give him JJ's name, along with Charles' and Denis' names (so I guess I have to WRITE to them!), and then call "Paul Weisel" and he's got a party at his place, so I should call him later tomorrow, and then I get ready to go out with Roger, and we subway south together, and I walk over to Beatrice, low-ceilinged with a great handsome long-fingered guy with a shapely chin talking to an awful blond girl he seems not to like, and the food is merely adequate. Out and home at 8:30, and I want to smoke and listen to raga music, so I put in on and John and I start having sex, but I'm not really hard, and when we adjourn to the bedroom, he almost gets me going, but I have to finish myself off, and then keep trying to do him, then HE tries, and finally I get him off while he throbs and pants, and we both fall into bed fairly early at 10:30 pm.
DIARY 3024
WEDNESDAY, MAY 10. John leaves and I type two pages to keep up to date, and then start on the ballet article for Mattachine Times, going through all my files on the New York City Ballet for the article, and then I construct another "Help Mattachine" article to go above the Member Profile, calling Charles Mountain to read it to him to find that it's OK, and that layout isn't going to be until the weekend of the 27th, so that this is a combined May-June issue for the Gay Pride Week, and might even be 32 pages, so there's a need for lots of articles, and he tells me to write up the MCC chartering, so I call Norman Wells to get information and get THAT article out, and by that time there's nothing left of the day, and all I've done is type the article perfectly and kept up with things around the apartment, and eaten, and nothing else into the bargain, except that I can at last chalk another entry from the TO DO list. Then I have dinner and drink loads of wine while I'm showering and shaving and brushing my teeth and putting in my contact lenses, thinking of all the things I have to take with me tonight for tomorrow: the contact lens case, my regular glasses in a case, Bill's letter so that I can find the National Geographic items that he raved about at the New York Public Library tomorrow, John's and my student identity cards so I can xerox them (hopefully in the library for somewhat less than 25¢) for the BAM student subscription discounts, the unemployment form, and I take only the tiny wallet with only $3 in it, which I'll later regret, owing Arnie $1 still, and not even having enough money to buy a paperback if I found one of the ones I'm searching for. Gather everything up into various pockets of my jacket, and choose to wear underwear since I'll be going to all those places tomorrow, and sweep out of the apartment at 7:45, after finding by looking at a couple of maps that Horatio Street ISN'T where I put an old friend, which is RENWICK Street, but it's just below 14th, and not really terribly inaccessible. Walk along the pleasant street just after 8 and see others going into the building, and one of the most incredible Tsi-Dun evenings YET starts right on time (see next pages).
DIARY 3029
THURSDAY, MAY 11. The alarm rang at 7:15 and when I said I couldn't remember exactly what happened, John said that for HIM that was the best sign of success of an orgy, and I was beginning to see clear to agreeing with him. He got ready to leave for Washington at 8 am, and I read the Village Voice and started on stamps, doing lots of Poland, I guess, before it was 10:30 and I left for unemployment, carrying the bottle of orzata and a photo-ad for DTW that John gave me to deliver to John Wetzig in the American Metal Climax Building. There just a bit late, having not to wait on line, then walk north to find a xerox place for 15¢, and he bought two subway tokens from me, so I had enough money for a brunch of a pizza slice and a Coke at 31st Street, halfway on the walk between 20th and the library, and got into the library through a barricade of Salvation Army tambourine-beggars on 5th, to walk up to the reading room to look at article on Homosexuality (see next page), look up the pictures in the National Geographics, looking at the rest of the volume at the same time, and got out about 3:30, feeling quite hungry, getting home after delivering the photo at 4 for lunch, talk to a couple of people on the telephone whom I've forgotten who they were, and kept trying to get in touch with Nicholas Philolius. Took off for Mattachine, walking at 5:45 (see following page), and got him there, but he was going to a cocktail party which might be a dinner, and he might not like it, so could I call him at 10:30 or 11. I got back home at 10, ate, tried calling him, got no answer, showered and shaved and got ready for him, but called the last time at 11:05 and he still wasn't home, and he should have been told to call ME, and though I WANTED to see him, when I couldn't, there was only one things left to do, so I sat down and came up with the first attempts at Christmas carol words for Marty, starting out very slowly, but getting up steam quite nicely until I had anywhere from three to five verses in each of the four types of songs down on paper by 12:30: it wasn't finished, but it was something to work with, and by then I was so tired by being beyond my usual bedtime that I fell into bed and slept, alone.
DIARY 3032
FRIDAY, MAY 12. Phone rings, waking me out of a sound sleep, at 7:45, and it's Laird, wanting to come over at 8:30, and we chat about his moving down to Athens Georgia temporarily, and the difficulties of even getting job INTERVIEWS (even though the best time is May and June, and he has to get all his money from the grant by July 31, but he can spend two weeks there and get paid for a month's work), and he leaves at 9:30 after making a number of calls, having coffee, and listening to my problems with John, and then at 10:10 I get out for the Mattachine lecture (see next page) to the Clinton Program at PS 17 adjunct in the YMCA, and get back at 11:10 to read all the mail that I get from Mom and Elaine and the manuscript back from Rolie-Morrell and loads of other things to pick my correspondence stack up to pretty near where it was before. Call for the schedule at the Thalia and decide to make it to the 1 pm showing, but start to defrost the refrigerator with pots of boiling water, and that just freezes the frost and seems to make the whole process lengthier, and I'm frustrated because I wanted to get out to the dance performances on Sixth Avenue at noon to two, but I didn't have the refrigerator defrosted and wanted to get to the Thalia so that I'd get home early enough for meeting John. Finally get it finished at 12:40, gobble down tuna fish, and get up to the Thalia to find the projectionist late, stuck in an accident, and "Love Parade" starts at 1:15, and there are awful people in the back row, and the performance is so silly, and then "Love Me Tonight" starts and it IS the French morning-symphony thing that I saw on TV recently, but I DIDN'T add it to my list, and the whole thing makes me VERY depressed, despite the "Broadway Melody" colorfulness of the streets I walk down. Get to the New Yorker bookshop to find books, but can get only "Future Shock" and "Too Strong for Fantasy" which surely doesn't LOOK to be mainly about Tom Wolfe, and subway home to get a phone call from John at 5. I'm feeling dreadfully depressed, and that gets through to him, so we decide NOT to see the ballet I wanted to see, or the Barnard dance that he wanted to see, but spend a quiet evening at Brooklyn (see following page).
DIARY 3035
SATURDAY, MAY 13. Weather reports say it's going to be raining tomorrow, so John keeps trying to telephone Sergio and Kenneth and make the cookout today rather than tomorrow (I did him in bed this morning, and he seemed to enjoy it, but I wasn't up at all). We can't get in touch with them, John goes out to buy the meat for the shish kebab, and finally we get in touch with John Casarino, who's delighted to come along, even willing to drive. I get to work on the next to the last country: Romania, in the stamps, and enjoy that, and we skip lunch in order to have a bigger dinner. John arrives about 3 and we drive out in his convertible Thunderbird, which is great no matter how small and noisy he SAYS it is, it's great luxury compared with John's VW. Get out about 4:15 and stop in parking area 6, not wanting to see the blight beyond area 9 for the sewage, and go beyond the crowds to a quiet, though windy spot, and then I return for the joints that John forgot in the trunk. Sit around drinking wine, talking about the trip to India and his coming jaunt to Russia, and the John scoops out a place in the sand to broil the meat and tomatoes and onions in the breeze, and we smoke, feeling great, and the charcoal is John-right, but the wind cools the coals and undercooks the meat (though they take off the burned pieces for me, which are great) and thoroughly salts it with sand, and we have the second joint and the second bottle of wine, and are feeling no pain as we lie and shiver in the wind, bringing the blanket up over John's feet. Drive back from 7:30 to 9, and we all shower one at a time and make out on the sofa, John tries out the electrotreat without too much success, and we're into the bedroom for Baby Magic and 69, and I'm not too much help, but they're ending up doing themselves anyway, and John V jerks himself off and John C takes him, then John C comes and I have him, then I jerk myself off and John C goes down to WATCH, though I get the come all over me, and then there's the part about wiping off and we sort of zonk out, sleeping as we lay until 12:45, and then pull down the covers and all crawl in, quite stoned after another pipe, to fall asleep en trois, a big happy family.
DIARY 3036
SUNDAY, MAY 14. I wake about 6:30, cold as hell, and with no bed to sleep on, and when I get up for a blanket, everyone's up, and we lay for a bit, shivering, until about 7:30, and John's out to shower, and John C and I start cuddling, and I feel very horny, come up in no time, and John C goes down on me and John V is in from showering in time to lend his fingers and lips, and I come, then move aside to watch the two of them go at it, and again they end up doing themselves, but I enjoy watching John C's arms and neck and chest forming lovely lines, and seeing an incredible concavity forming in John C's middle when the sides of his back fold down and his back arches when he's making side-love to John V. Shower again and chat, and John Chas to leave to see his mother on Mother's Day, John V calls HIS mother and I call MINE, and that's a very painless way of taking care of everything, and I work on the Romanian stamps again until about 3, and see Lonny Gordon at Japan House 3-4, when he cooks some lovely tuna salad for lunch on toasted muffins, and we drive to my place, so that I can zip off three letters to Jean-Jacques, Charles, and Denis about Ed Berger's advent---this is after I read the Times---and then send out lots of bills and applications, about eight pieces of mail in all, and John's washing his socks and trousers and himself and his laundry, and then about 8 we're ready to eat at the Tip Top Hungarian Restaurant in the rain, and walk in the drizzle, have fairly good chicken soup, great pork, and sauerkraut, and sublime palachinta. Listen to the diners around us making fun of John's shirt and our gayness with displeasure, and leave to drive back to John's, since I've watered the plants and emptied the mailbox, so I have nothing to go home for. Back about 10 and I go to stamps a bit, then smoke after showering, and we sit in bed with the waterless pipe and I have to drink a sip of water after each puff, otherwise my lungs feel like they're burning up inside, and we slide down and shut off the lights, and there seems to be no thought of sex, and he even said during the afternoon "I'm so exhausted from sex, I wouldn't think of having it again soon" though I thought he was kidding. I guess he wasn't, and we both went RIGHT to sleep.
DIARY 3037
MONDAY, MAY 15. Wake at the alarm at 7:45 and we lay together, and I make the bed and put everything away, but want to stay with stamps for a bit to finish up the Romania, which I'm coming into the home stretch of, and he leaves about 9:30, saying he'd get back to Brooklyn at about 3. I finish the Romanian stamps about 11, but then really can't put them away, and there's nothing I have to get home for ANYWAY, since it's not very sunny out and the plants won't need watering, so I start on the last country, which is Hungary, and get very involved in them, looking at my watch at 2 and again at 3, and getting up only at 3:30 to call my place to see if he's gone there to make things "convenient" for whatever we decide to do this evening, and call again at 4, but he's still not there and there's no answer at DTW, and I've taken the landlady's address from a surprised Mrs. Johnson when I answer John's door. John gets in about 4:15, surprised to see me there, shocked that I can sit in one position so long, and we talk about a few matters, and I return to stamps while he decides to split the remaining lamb and I can have tuna, and he's making some soup which is driving my foodless stomach up the wall with its lovely barley smell. Then the news comes on at 6:30 that Wallace has been shot, and I confess to feeling very mixed emotions: horror, with John, at the idea that THIS is the way that American "democracy" operates, but a bit of relief at the silencing of such an odious voice. John doesn't understand that, and we talk about it all through dinner, finally he gets my goat by saying "Whoever condones the shooting of Wallace would obviously condone the bombing in Vietnam," and I spit out "You really have followed that through, haven't you?" and I got back to the stamps from the table, getting into the kitchen to talk about nothing serious, only make-work things, while I wash the dishes, and then back to stamps. By that time it's about 10, and he's going to exercise, I shower and then smoke a bit on the water pipe, he's drinking and I've had a vodka and tonic, and we get into bed to have a more serious conversation about where we stand, and I'm feeling worse than ever before (see next pages).
DIARY 3040
TUESDAY, MAY 16. We're up to leave the bed quickly and he has some work to do while I get back to stamps, and we continue the conversation as described on the preceding pages about Wallace. I continue to work on the stamps of Hungary, the last country, having taken the time yesterday to tally all the number of stamps and the value received, and it seems to be MUCH less than what I'd though it would be, and the thing is a gentle rook. Then I'm running out of hinges and put all the stamps away until I get the new hinges bought, and out of the apartment about 10 to stop in the place near the subway entrance and buy two new packets of hinges, since one will be entirely used up by all the stamps I have still left to put in, counting all the blank pages I have yet to fill after adding (and I have to get them before I can add them), and feel good about not having to get to the stamp store above Bookmasters, with their incessant "We sell stamps, too, you know." Home to recall that I'm a week behind in the diary, and determine to get into the bulk of that, and type 14 pages without really getting caught up with it, leaving the pages about the discussion with Wallace for the "tomorrow" that only comes twelve days later. Don't know what I do for the rest of the day: a Life magazine comes in and John looks through it, but I don't have a chance to read anything in it, so he's over late in the afternoon to sit around and chat and have dinner and get ready to go to the Mattachine meeting, and probably the typing of the 14 pages took most of the day that wasn't taken up with buying groceries, doing the dishes, and fixing up the apartment. Shower and shave and get ready for the meeting, and subway down early because John doesn't want to be late (see next page). He leaves after the meeting's over, and I agonize about the extra time for the first Board of Director's meeting, and get home to find John watching TV (which he shuts off [School for Clowns]) when I get in, and I help him with the last of the popcorn he's popped, putting the butter into the bottom of the popper [yes, I know that five of the last 10 words have double middle letters---as do last two, too], and we're into bed, looking forward to travel tomorrow.
DIARY 3042
WEDNESDAY, MAY 17. We're up to no sex, and I'm looking forward to the vacation in the Adirondacks to get some good sex into the background before John's week away, and after he leaves I start on Elaine's reply, getting into "Love's Body" and "Life after Death" in great detail, bringing in lots of information and research, and I get to thinking about the Therapy Parody and it strikes me as so good that she HAS to have a copy of it, and I work on THAT after finishing the four-page letter to her, and THAT takes me the rest of the afternoon. Then Roger calls and says he wants to leave me some seeds, and I tell him I have to leave at 7, and he says OK, and is there almost immediately. I give him a copy of "Therapy Parody" to read while I check over Elaine's letter for blatant errors, and he says it's very good and should be sent to National Lampoon, it's that good. I have hamburger while he makes some phone calls, and we leave together at 7:30, fearing I'll be late to the Brooklyn Academy, but get there at 8:10 in time to stand in line waiting to get in to Witkiewicz's "The Water Hen," and when I read that it's supposed to be "dream-like" and "unreal" I'm prepared to dislike it, but the first act is sort of zany, like a 30's Marx Brother's comedy with lots of kooky people talking endlessly about nonsense, the second act is marvelously done as a Richard Gorey sketchbook with crumbling castle, Frankensteinian butler with Transylvanian teeth and lisps, a popeyed heroine tinkling around the stage in bugle beads, a Charles Addams child with black-rimmed eyes, and a wildly costumed nanny for the child, not to mention 4 manic footmen and three hilariously caricatured businessmen with no neck, a fat shoulder, and a pot chest. The third act is somewhat downhill into a Brechtian modernism with cynicism and black humor thrown in for good measure, not to mention another killing, and the spidery-legged microcephalic who plays the "hero" is marvelously inept with the right amount of overacting and underskill. We venture onto the roof at intermission, charmed, then drive to John's at 11 to smoke, while he gets ready for the trip, and we go to sleep without having sex, ready to get it all out of our system during the trip to the mountains.
DIARY 3043
THURSDAY, MAY 18. Home quickly to try to get everything together, but there seems to be too much to do in too little time, and I get down to unemployment at 11:30 and up to Donnell just after 12 for "China '71" by Canadian Broadcasting Corp, with good fireworks and no cuties; "Easter Island" by Arnold Eagle: Statues, overpopulation, wars, cannibalism, ruin, smallpox, slavery, depression and tourism (bad static on sound track, and China had top of film darkened); "Cambodia: The Angkor Mystery" (1970) was the story of a civilization exhausted by its greatness; "Empty Quarter" about Wilfred Thesiger, made Arabia quite dull, which is a trick, even though he seemed to like it because of the FRIENDLINESS of the Arabs. Home at 2 to eat and pack and leave a note for Arnie and get to John's about 3:30, leaving at 3:50 into awful traffic that he said our earlier leaving would have avoided. Drive for an hour to get to the Whitestone Bridge, then up the Hutchison River Parkway to Route 7, and get into Great Barrington about 7:30, find a place to stay just outside town in a motel for $12.60, and buy Lancer's Rosé for dinner and get to Aladdin for a tenth-time pregnant Fatima looking radiant in a green gown, Hassan is cooking and chortling over John's presence, and they talk about ways of advertising and increasing business, and he tells about all his student and women's club customers who never seem to come back, and the restaurant IS expensive, since we spent $25 in ADDITION to the wine for $4, so it's the most expensive restaurant we've been to by almost 20%, but the food is out of this world, and I get the idea to write it up for the Mattachine Times and John loves that idea. Sozzled from the wine and pleased with the evening, we get back to the motel, peeping out to see that the back-passenger on the motorcycle next door is, sadly, a female, and then we smoke and start cuddling on the bed, and we go and go and go with the sex until John's groaning aloud and he comes with an enormous spritz, and we smile and kiss each other and find that the evening's been perfectly delightful, we're so pleased to be together, looking forward to Hemlock Hall tomorrow, hoping for good weather for the upcoming weekend in the mountains.
DIARY 3044
FRIDAY, MAY 19. Wake at 8 and into the car to drive up a lovely side road to the bottom of the Massachusetts Turnpike, and I drive for a bit until we stop for a good breakfast in some little town in New York State, with a painting on the wall that John likes, and then he takes over the driving because he says we're going to be doing start-and-stop driving through towns, and we go and go until we get to Hemlock Hall about 12:30, sad about leaving behind all the flowering dogwood that was so beautiful on the way up, and the ground cover went backward from lilac to narcissus to hyacinths as the road went further and further north, until finally in the Adirondacks there was hardly any green on the trees at all, not even the hazes we'd seen further south, where the maples had a halo of red fringe around their outlines, light with budding leaves. Stopped a couple of places looking for maple syrup, but didn't find any, and they didn't even have any fruit beside apples, which I got some of, and when we asked for fruit in the hall they gave us three oranges, and we took off for John's Pond, since I wanted to start walking to get myself into condition for John's first proposal of a re-climb of Ampersand. Got directions that I couldn't follow from Mr. Webb, and we had to drive all the way back to Indian Lake and follow the signs to Rainbow Lodge, and then no one knew where we went, but John drove around the newly graded roads by instinct and came to the cutoff that we wanted, walking through the damp woods, I seeing a snake and marveling at the black-beaded ribbons of slime that enclosed the frog's eggs, looking at the couples clinging together at the bottom of the road-ruts, and we went on to the pond, where John stretched out on the table and I couldn't resist doing him, swatting the flies out of the way and watching for interlopers at the same time. Back to the Hall at 4, and I started reading "Too Strong for Fantasy" while he napped, then we showered and had dinner at 6, sadly at a table full of fishermen, and later the lake was too windy for canoeing, so we sat and looked at the stars coming out, then got flashlights for grunion-running, a fantastic sight to watch (see next page), which affected me for the whole rest of the trip.
DIARY 3046
SATURDAY, MAY 20. Wake and get together in my bed for sex, and I think 8 is breakfast, but it's only the first bell, so there's time to wander around before going to breakfast, and we're at the SAME table as the fishermen, and with a couple with whom we were there LAST year on May 22, and they said that there have been continuous earthquakes since the first we felt, and they'd even installed a seismometer at the Adirondack Museum, after getting a snide remark from a local columnist who praised local papers for informing the public about the quake months after it happened, letting California and Florida run away with the scoop for the days after the story. It was cloudy and we expected it to clear up any minute, so John was content to let me sit and read into "Too Strong for Fantasy" which turned out to be quite a bore, with only minimal amounts about Maxwell Perkins and Thomas Wolfe. About 1 John decided to find out about the Blue Mountain Festival of the Arts, so we checked in at the gift shop which had lots of nice junk, including a spherically-mirrored ball that caused nice eyestrain, and then down the road to the center itself, a lovely barn converted from a gas station with all sorts of electronic and clay-working and lead-casting machinery, and we decided the day was gong to be pretty bad, and I found myself able to indulge in the fantasy I'd had when I thought about the trip: reading most of the time. Managed to finish the book before dinner, and got up at 6 to find John ready for dinner, and I had the feeling we weren't going to go anywhere, and didn't even shave, and we were sat at the SAME table again, and this time we did NO talking, and John even got annoyed with them. Left and went down to sit on the pier looking at the sunset, and then back into the house to start reading "The Future of Man" until the conversations got too loud, and then I went into the room and demanded to smoke again, getting angry with John for poking into my pipe with a can opener and punching a hole into the side, and we smoked and I sat on his bed and we launched into sex, but I went down before he came, and didn't feel like coming myself, so we left it go at that and went into our separate beds to fall asleep in the silence.
DIARY 3047
SUNDAY, MAY 21. Wake early and he does me to make up for last night, and it feels very good. Requested someone different for breakfast and we get the awful couple again who talk about hydrocephalus through the meal, and the nurse of the other couple contributed to the sickness of the discussions. Decide to leave this morning, and I point us toward Whiteface, going up roads we'd never seen before, which are dampened by miles and miles of road repairs on Route 30 toward Paul Smith's, and there are many old homes donated to many universities as "Seminar Houses." Whiteface isn't open until May 27, next weekend, and we can still see snow on its white faces. Continue east to the Ferry at Port Kent, and that's flooded by the overflowing Lake Champlain, so we drive north past Ausable Chasm (which John saw five years ago and doesn't want to see again) to Plattsburgh and JUST get on the ferry for the windy chilly ride across the lake onto Grand Isle, and when we get to the mainland we find a place to buy a half-gallon of maple syrup, and then I take over the driving down small country roads toward Hancock. Have an awful contretemps when I'm making a left into the face of traffic, and there didn't seem to be any time to STOP, but it shook me up a bit as we drove along old roads toward Lincoln, and even older, dirt roads toward Middlebury, past the college for the first time, and then out to Hancock, John driving now, and we try to find Harvey's farm, getting a map of the area in the meantime, but find that they won't serve us meals, so we decide not to take the $16 room and drive down to Rochester, where we see the Inn immediately, and a double room with shared bath is only $10, and we figure there's not going to be anyone in the place to share it, so we take it. Hungry without lunch, so we're into the Inn about 5:30 and have fairly good chicken cacciatore, a mélange of tender chicken and mushrooms and tomato mixture which I sop up with the bread, and John has chicken livers, and we have cherry pie ala mode for a great dessert. Sit on the porch afterwards and John goes to smoke (after finishing up the sherry before dinner in the park) and we sit watching Rochester life (see next page), and he's in bed when I go up at 9:30!
DIARY 3049
MONDAY, MAY 22. John's up about 6 am, waking me, and I sleepily get dressed and get down to the car to drive up the side road in the brilliant sunrise toward Bethel, and again the road peters out into dirt, following streams and crests of hills for pleasant views across the deserted countryside, though much of the land HAD been cleared for farms. Down into Woodstock by back roads and there we decide to have breakfast about 8:30, and find the place on the corner closed, and we wander through the old town until we get to the New England Inn, which has a hearty breakfast of ham and bacon and eggs and good coffee for about $3 for the both of us, and they also have a room with a fireplace and shared bath for only $10 a night, and we make a point of recording that during the ski season we need about a month's reservation, but out of the ski season and the foliage season it would be pretty much available on a drop-in basis. Drive toward highway 91 and go down it, pleased at the pleasantness of the drive through the now-greening hills of Vermont, and we cross over into Massachusetts quickly since John's even getting up to 75 for long periods of time, and we get off for gas somewhere around Waterbury and I take over driving, having trouble AGAIN getting into traffic, since I slow down but they won't pass me, looking at me with suspicion to cut in on them, and I have to stop and wait for an open space, and John suggests I could try slowing down sooner. But then onto the regular highways and take most of the Hutchison River Parkway until we get into the toll for the Whitestone Bridge, and John takes over and we get into the awful city traffic, and I'm glad he's a good driver and tell him so. Get into his place about 3 pm and he's chagrined to find that Arnie locked the bottom lock on the door, so he has to climb the fire escape and come in the window to get it open, and he's in to water the plants and get ready for his next few days in his briefcase, and I read while he fusses around, and we subway to my place about 5, taking steak that I buy at Bohack along, we fry that up and subway up to the Thalia for "Kiss Me, Kate," and "Cabin in the Sky" with John in the back row of the applauding audience, and we're home about 11 and get right to bed, tired from a very long day.
DIARY 3050
TUESDAY, MAY 23. John leaves early and I read all the Times and then get started on the puzzle, getting almost finished by the time the door buzzer goes and the super and Angel come in to try to fix up the windows, after I put away the pot plant, and they fuss around for about an hour, and I decide that it's only MY business what I do on my own time, finish the puzzle, and get started on "Italia da Salvare" while they finish up working, and then I have lunch and finish the book, not feeling like doing anything else, and put things away from the trip, having gotten angry at John last night for putting the supper dishes away until he rather sadly insisted that he had nothing to do and wanted to help me out. "Are you sure that's what you were doing?" "Yes, that's what I was doing." "Then thank you." "You're WELcome." And that was the end of some heat, and I felt sorry for myself for suspecting him of doing things to make me ANGRY, rather than doing things to make me HAPPY. I shave and shower and wash my hair, and that takes all the time up that I have in the day before getting ready to go to the first Mattachine Board of Director's meeting (see next page). It's over at 10, and I'm disgusted to get to John's so late, but he's out at a dance performance at Judson Church of Frances Alenikoff's, and he's not back when I get there. There's no tuna in the cabinet so I have salmon, doctoring it up with parsley and Worcestershire sauce, which makes it almost palatable, reading "The Future of Man" and then I shower just as John gets in about 10:45, and he has stamps to lick and paste on envelopes, but I'm determined to have sex before he leaves on his trip, so I fix a pipe and we both smoke, and start playing with each other, and then into the bedroom, and again I'm up for a long period of time, and play longly with him until he's really very hard and aching to come, and I bring him off, and he does me finally, too, after I take a hand with myself but figure he does it even BETTER, and when I finally come, we're both limp with expressed excitement and orgasm, so we're cuddling into bed for his last night at home, and we both wonder how we'll take seven consecutive nights of being without each other to sleep with.
DIARY 3052
WEDNESDAY, MAY 24. Up and cuddle a bit, and I take the spare set of keys over to Arnie with the maple syrup at 8:30, and he's willing to do both waterings for John, so I don't have to travel out there at all. Home to STILL not feel like getting down to typing (though exercising has been coming along somewhat better: John, starting his own on Monday when we get back here, starts me on level one of mine, and yesterday I did the first and today I did the second repetition of the second level, so tomorrow I'm ready to go on to the third, hoping to stay THERE only three times so that I'll be well into level four by the time John gets back with HIS expertise on that level), so I settle down and finish "The Future of Man" which has been on my bookshelf for over a year, as I recall, and then I get into some crazy scheme of extra reading, since I have EXACTLY eight books on the shelf, with EXACTLY 800, 700, 600, 500, 400, 300, 200, 100 pages left to read in EACH, and if I start TODAY and read one book a DAY, I'll be finished with the shelf by the time John returns on Wednesday, despite the realized fact that the 800 pages will take over 13 hours to read ITSELF. Then have lunch and John phones to say that he's finally leaving through the dense smog that makes the city grimly gray for the past few days, and he's gotten addresses from Mattachine and from me for Brice Evans, and he figures I'LL be doing most of the outside sex, and I figure HE'LL be doing most of the outside sex, and we'll probably end up with NEITHER doing ANYTHING, since I don't even feel inspired to call people to SCHEDULE things to do, just feeling like reading and catching up with correspondence AGAIN, since I've been getting letters from Mom and Boguslaw and Bill and even Elaine which I'll have to answer soon, and Ellie sends back the thought that "Acid House" should be a MOVIE, yet I don't feel like writing back to her at ALL. Get out to see the furniture at David Sudarsky's building on East 77th, and he plies me with drinks and cuddles, then Henry drives us up to 86th to see the office he "bought" and list the furniture, then he drives me to "Grande Cuisine de France" where I have a glass of Beaujolais, Croque Monsieur, and a pretty bad cherry tart before 8 pm and "Romeo and Juliet" (see next page), and home to watch a funny "The Lady in Ermine" with Betty Grable 11-1 am (and popcorn).
DIARY 3054
THURSDAY, MAY 25. Wake just after 9 am, showing how easily I slip back into late rising when John's not around, and STILL don't feel like doing anything but reading to reduce the stack of books to be read (so that I won't have any more to read so I'll have to go out and buy some more so that I'll have a stack of books to read again), and polish off the "Persian Drawings" book, having no place to put it onto a shelf, so I just stack it on top of the bunch of Indian souvenirs, and there'll be a lot of stuff to distribute when I finally DO finish the trip diary! All the way down to Barclay Street for the new unemployment office, and by some coincidence Arnie went down there on HIS 13-week extension for the first time yesterday---they said don't "bank on getting another 13-week extension." My thirteenth week will be August 17, and if I get ANOTHER 13-week extension, it'll be November 16. It takes literally a minute to sign for it, and I'm back home to get another visit from the super and this time a cute kid with a handful of putty, who hangs out the windows to putty the windows which are falling out, and he does a number of them while the super and I agree there's nothing that can be done about the slipping windows in back of the air conditioner without taking out the whole unit. They leave in time for me to have a quick lunch and subway up to the Thalia for "Rhapsody in Blue" (during which I play with a guy who later moves away), a story about a composer who dies from a mysterious pain in the head, and "Look for the Silver Lining," a story about a dancer who dies from a mysterious pain in the head. It must've been contagious. Saw the good part of "Dante's Inferno" on TV BEFORE going down for unemployment. Out at 5:20 and walk down by way of the New Yorker bookstore, and pick up a copy of "Greening of America" and then walk down to Mattachine for a very busy evening (see next page). Home at 10 to have dinner and miss John just the tiniest bit, but I settle down to read much of the remaining material in "Customs" since I really want to get rid of that clunky book from the shelf of things to read, about 12:30 I'm too tired to keep my eyes open, so I get to bed and to sleep without too much tossing and turning.
DIARY 3056
FRIDAY, MAY 26. Wake about 9 and remember just in enough time to shave and shower and eat breakfast and brush my teeth that I have an appointment at 10:30 with "Sale of the Century" and I get out about 10 after 10 and stroll over there right on schedule (see next page) and get out at 11:30. Wander past Brentano's and then back and in to check what new books they have that I want, and they don't have ANY, so I just stroll out with the copy of "Walden" that I walked in with. Back home to finish "Customs" and put THAT off the shelf, and then get out the pornography and come with enormous feeling and pleasure, and then put the stuff away quickly so I won't be tempted into coming again. Talk to Arnie for a long time and decide to go with him tomorrow to Belmont with Norma and Jonathan for breakfast, thinking to do the Mattachine articles today, but I simply don't get around to doing them. I sort through all the stuff that I piled away for the Adirondack weekend, and then want to get my last copies of letters to each of the people in the correspondence stack, and things are woefully out of order, so all I can think to do is file away all the old correspondence, so I sort them according to people and lug them over to the file and file them all away, bringing the Miscellaneous list up date and making a new entry for Boguslaw Schaffer, and that takes such an ENORMOUS amount of time that I have everything scattered over the bed in stacks to type, including the five articles for the Mattachine Times, and then I have to exercise (doing the second of the third level exercises in well under the time, so I'm a bit ahead of the schedule, but I neglect, from sheer laziness, doing anything Saturday and Sunday, so it's only late Monday that I polish off the third and last set of level three) and shower and eat dinner for the ballet this evening, so the final effect is of doing nothing much of anything; I have no trouble "blaming" it on John's being away, but the emptiness of my life without PEOPLE hits me very hard: all I want to do is read, watch, and WRITE! Get over to the NYC Ballet for "Bugaku," "Chopiniana," and "Firebird" (see following page), and get out at 10, plenty of time to watch "Million Dollar Legs (Grable)", and THIS, like the other film, has really nothing to DO with legs, but SCULLING! Bed at 1, tired.
DIARY 3059
SATURDAY, MAY 27. Norma calls at 6:15, even earlier than planned, waking me from a WILD dream (see T568), but I'm hoping it's too early for Jonathan to come along, and don't really hear her if she DOES say, as she said, "I'll pick you up downstairs in half an hour" because her request that I buy a Times for Arnie makes it obvious that I go to HER place. Get there at 6:45, ring, read the Times, fear the bell doesn't work, check the garage with an illiterate mechanic, and get back to my place, back to HER place, but resist calling the super, just calling Jonathan (and get surprised when Lou answers) and tell Norma to call me. She does and says she was waiting at MY place, but "That's life." Arnie later says that she was VERY impatient to get to Jon's at once, and the breakfast wasn't very good, anyway, though the commentary was interesting. I read some of Thoreau for a couple of hours to wake up, come with mirrors, then get to work typing up the Mattachine articles, trying again to call Arthur Warner, but he doesn't call back so I have to get the Speaker's Bureau article without his engagements, do the review on "Straight," rewrite the "Personnel Profile" thing, do the précis on the 24th annual report of the George Foundation, and write "Dining WAY out" about Aladdin. Finish just after 3, shower and get ready and bicycle to meet Don Goodwin at the office, and we chat with a faggot who comes in wasting time, and then at 4:30 I get to "the front porch" to see part of Bernstein's Mass, but it's jammed with shouting kids and crying babies and obnoxious adults, the loudspeakers are dreadful and windblown, and the whole thing isn't very interesting, so I get back to my place at 5, sort out the correspondence AGAIN to do nothing with it finally, except dash off a first draft of letter to Times Sunday editor about Mattachine, have dinner, discouraged at the fact that the refrigerator is AGAIN freezing up much too fast, and the hamburger is practically rotten, since you can't freeze things wrapped in aluminum foil, I guess, and read some more before trying to watch "Topaz," but that's not on, so I flick to "The Last Laugh" 9-10:30 with Emil Jennings as a doorman who gets put into the bath-attending hell, then inherits loads of money in an "unlikely epilog" and has "The Last Laugh" smoking and eating (though we MISS his triumph with his neighbors). Fuss around MORE and finally smoke (see next page) to 1 am.
DIARY 3061
SUNDAY, MAY 28. Up about 9:30, still feeling pretty stretched out from last night, and whacked off almost without thinking about it, just to get the early-morning itch over with. Down for the Times and rather quickly got through it, finding there wasn't anything much on TV that I wanted to watch through the day, glancing out at the people on the neighboring rooftops sunbathing, then settled down with the double-crostic, which I did in no time, seeing quickly that the book was by Thurber, and finished the regular puzzle in about two hours altogether. Then absolutely determined to get SOMETHING done, and get to the typewriter to find myself horribly out of condition for extended typing, and all I can do is nine pages before the time's run out, though certainly 9 pages is better than none. Shower and wash my hair, again cursing myself because I'm not exercising, and get out about 6:30 to see if I can get tickets to the ballet again. About the only thing of value I did (besides reading the Times and washing dishes) was sorting through all the Mattachine junk to throw lots of stuff away while putting away the information from the latest issue, but still leaving the desktop pretty much of a mess, and STILL I've done nothing more on the lot of correspondence that's AGAIN bugging me. There are MASSES of people in the lobby on the "cancellation" line, and LOADS of people outside accosting attendees for "Selling any tickets?" so I sink into a funk, telling myself harshly that if I DON'T expect to get a ticket, I WON'T, and even though the situation looks bad, I should still THINK positive. Just about to leave, right at 7, when someone comes through the door and says "I have an extra." Someone rushes up for two, but she says "One" and I say "Here." I think she gets "One" from the back from a female, but she ignores her and sells $2.50 worth of pasteboard to ME, and I thank her and go upstairs to settle into a pretty bad back and side seat, with a tickle in my throat that makes me cough throughout the silently-musiced evening (see next page). Out at 10 and home to eat and watch "Stairway to Heaven" with a lovey-dovey David Niven (who should have died, per Marius Goring, a French pick-up man) and Kim Hunter, and some knockout amphitheater/nebula, stairway/statue special effects. Bed OK at 1:30.
DIARY 3062
MONDAY, MAY 29. Wake about 9:15 and turn on Barbara Walters, but there's some other program on, and click other channels to see nothing. Breakfast (it seems all I do these days is eat and read and write) and again move around making the apartment pleasant to live in, worked HOURS going from "bride" to "groom" and "sex" to "egg" and "it" to "to" in legitimate one-letter-change steps (see following pages), getting out the pornography and coming and then staring for about a half-hour at the dripping semen (see next page). Determine to get some typing done, so I do seven pages and don't feel that I can do any more, though I'm certainly getting lots done. Talk to Arnie long on the phone, use the shaver that I'm going to have to take back to be repaired, remind myself that I should have been calling Jerri to clear the house for a weeklong visit, and use the binoculars on the many people sunning on rooftops, but I just don't feel like doing that. Read more of Thoreau and even get the introductory pages of Whitman read through, and looking into "The Idiot" I check back and find that I've READ it already, so I read through in about an hour the places I marked in the OLD edition, and put both away for good. Still wanted to do some more things, but there just didn't seem to be enough time after lunch, between reading, and then I watched "Invitation to a March" with its war of the conventional rich against the unconventional, though happy, poor, and though I'd seen it in 1961 with Celeste Holm and Eileen Heckert, I could hardly remember it, and didn't recall that she DOES finally waltz off with the doll of a guy who's the son of the unmarried hippie Elaine-type who had a romp in the hay with the husband of the woman who's such a bitch and has a son who's supposed to marry the girl who's the daughter of the awful southern mother. Finish at 10, exercise frantically, have tuna fish for dinner, read to the end of the April Scientific American, which means I only have THIS month's issue, May, to read! Try to go to sleep at 11:30, but it doesn't work and doesn't work, so I'm up to smoke and try mirrors to arouse myself, which doesn't really work, since I lay on the bed, the vibrator turns me off, poppers turn me off, but I still want to come, so I strain and sweat and tug away at my limp cock and finally come in a pool of sweat, dry myself on the towel, and roll over to sleep in the humid bedroom about 1 am, wishing John were BACK NOW!
DIARY 3069
TUESDAY, MAY 30. Up about 9:15 feeling cruddy from last night, so I shower and shave with the increasingly poor shaver, so I decide I have to do something about that, and brush my teeth twice to get away from the puffy feeling. Breakfast and determined to catch the diary up to date (is it because I exercised that I feel so full of industry?), and do so with 13 pages just after 12:30, feeling great. Call Jerri about the house and she says we should meet for lunch, and I say I'll be at 46th and Lex in about 45 minutes. Type a quick letter to Ellie and send it off to her with the extra four chapters of "Acid House," drop off the sunglasses for fixing, find that all the razor needs is a new cord, and get to Jerri's in the dribbling rain for marinated chicken at the Brochetteria, telling her all about our trip, she telling me about her job, the house, her tennis lessons and movie going, and leave her at 3:15 to AGAIN find that Brentano's doesn't have the books I want, so I stop at Bookmasters to get the numbers and the addresses to WRITE for the two books, pick up the free-fixed sunglasses, and get some wine, finding they have no Canadian Club entry forms. Back home still feeling industrious, so I sit down and correct the letter to the Sunday Editor of the New York Times about Mattachine, call Don Goodwin for an OK while I'm preparing dinner of pork chops, and find out Kei Takei's address from Art Bauman at DTW. Then sit down at the typewriter and send off "Therapy Parody" to National Lampoon, send my form to Lend-a-Hand saying I'm an editor, proofreader, and masseur, notes to Don O'Shea and Kei Takei, the two book orders, and it's 11:30 and I walk them up to 60th to find there's no mail drop up there, then down to 52nd to slip the 11 pieces of mail through the slot (including 3 misc and the letter to Anthony Dowell) and felt absolutely great about the accomplishments of the day, though I refuse to pick up the MANY cardboard boxes along Ninth Avenue for packing the books from Mattachine into on Thursday. Alan Henderson calls at 11:30 to say we're moving EVERYTHING, which I didn't think so, and I read "Civil Disobedience" before it puts me to sleep at 1:15, and I drop off immediately.
DIARY 3070
WEDNESDAY, MAY 31. Wake at 9:30, have breakfast, and figure that I should write letters to Paul and Mom, so I do, and then do the one diary page to keep up to date and start on the Canadian Club Drop-a-Case contest when Roger comes in at 11:45. He's up with an ounce of grass that he bought for only $15, so we smoke some, and I don't feel much from it, so I'm in to type the rest of the Drop-a-Case entries while he reads National Lampoon, and then at 1 we eat franks after smoking the rest of the pipe, and I'm starting to feel somewhat uncoordinated, turning the oven on three times for varying reasons. He's slow with eating, so I get out at 2:30 only, late for the start of "The Big Sky" and "Wagonmaster" at the Elgin (see next page), which started quite late at 2:20. Home after six and shower and shave with the cord that keeps falling out of the shaver, which means I'll have to go BACK to get the RIGHT one, and then I'm up to the Metropolitan Opera House for "Anastasia" (see following page), which isn't as bad as everyone seems to have made it out. It's over just before 11 and I forgot tokens, so I'm out in the pouring rain to get up to 72nd and catch an express rather than waiting in the impossible line for the one attendant (can't they put extra people on at SUCH a key point?) to service all the Lincoln Center patrons. Get to John's, delighted to see the lights on, and he comes to the door and we kiss, and he looks at me with wistful sympathy when I said how much I missed him, and he said he was frankly too busy to miss me much, except for the night he wrote me, when he went to see "Clockwork Orange," and he praised all the factual people he talked with, how much they understood him and thought he was doing a good job, even calling Washington to tell him that. He drooled over the Track and Field contestants staying in his dorm in Wichita, didn't get out to Novelty because his parents objected to his taking even MORE time away from them, and brought back a gallon of red grapy-tasting Catawba wine, which we drank a lot of, then smoked, and started necking on the bed and we both came way up and played for about 45 minutes and shot like hell all over the place.
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