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1974 1 of 8

 

DIARY 4318

TUESDAY, JANUARY 1. John's up at 8 but I can't move, and get up about 9:30 and have breakfast and get to work on the index at 10:30, finally getting over the hump of getting into it, and finish at 12 for lunch, and get started again at 12:30 and go through until 5, and then pick it up again from 7-8. There's a lot of references in it that won't get picked up to things like GNP and demand and supply, but I'm hoping that David Delete won't know enough about it to say anything. John's been very depressed lately, and during these days we have long talks about what I can be doing for him to make it easier for him. I have to keep it in the front of my mind that he DOES get most of "vindication for living" from what JOB he happens to be doing, and no PERSON can ever hope to give him the feeling of fulfillment that the JOB will, and it's becoming increasingly difficult for our relationship the longer he's out of meaningful work. He moans about how many people he has to telephone, and I say that he SOUNDS like he's not qualified because he does it so diffidently, then naming his book and OBVIOUSLY everyone's going to think it's only a ploy to advertise his book, but he says that he wants to be RECOGNIZED for the resource that he is without having to SELL himself, but I keep telling him that people just don't THINK like he does, and if he wants to deal with them at ALL, it has to be on THEIR level, or they'll just dismiss him. I also say, from my feeling from IBM, that anyone who PHONES is just a pesky person to be disposed of as painlessly as possible---unless they're KNOWN to be powerful. But a LETTER is a different matter, something that can be shuffled around and handled in a more official way, and finally he said that he telephoned ONLY when a letter would be too slow, so I said, rather lamelily triumphal, "Then we DO agree." But neither of us felt good about it. Read "Forerunner Foray," and watched "The Monster" with Lon Chaney on TV from 10:30 to 12 with the SAME music, and it started so slowly John went to bed, and ONLY at the END did the hands come out of the walls, and best of all, the arms enfold the heroine on a cot that started slowly sinking into the floor! Bed at 12 after eating junk, tired.

DIARY 4319

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2. Up ready for anything at 8, have breakfast, and get to work at 8:30. Stop at 10:30 for unemployment, but get back at 11, work to 12 and lunch, then 12:30-6, stopping for dinner and washing the dishes, and then straight through from 7:30 to 2:30. I'd finished typing and was in the process of sorting out the cards and ordering them, and was disappointed about how FEW cards I'd gotten of the 3600 I SHOULD have gotten, except that most of the cards were multi-entry ones, though when David refused to give me any cutoff on the number of characters, John went anywhere from 50-60 before making a turnover, so THAT would increase the number of NORMAL lines in a NORMAL job. It was clear that it wouldn't be done by Monday, when I wanted it done, so I called him and he said it would be OK by Wednesday, which was great, but I felt that I still had to finish it so John could start typing tomorrow. But sitting at the table for such long hours (with the admittedly not very good light from the two wall-sconces) I began to get physically nauseous from the effect of sitting and concentrating so long at one time, feeling my throat grow reeking from stuffs brought up from the deepest pit of my belly, and my eyes beginning to ache and my head to throb slightly. John "went to the movies" but came back with a Britisher, who wanted a threesome, but I SAID I had to work, looked and him and had no trouble making it STICK. The strangest effect was a sort of generalized dizziness that made it difficult to shift my point of focus from anywhere but the cards without getting a feeling of vertigo at the base of my throat. That, coupled with the strange taste-smell from my depths, made me fear that I might be making myself physically ILL with the effort, and thought with sadness that this was ANOTHER sign that I couldn't completely control my body anymore, and thoughts of arthritic fingers that wouldn't be able to go as fast as I'd like them over a typewriter, or of eyes that simply wouldn't put up with reading or looking as long as I wanted them to, or a body that demanded more sleep or rest, was something that I wasn't looking forward to. The money-income was good now, but what would it be in the future, when I didn't have my "youth" to appeal to the people to have me work for them. But I didn't see any reason to think about THAT.

DIARY 4320

THURSDAY, JANUARY 3. Drag myself out of bed at 8:30 and start work at 9 to 12:15, and since John was at the doctor's I had to eat lunch over Velikovsky's writings in Pensée, which was quite enthralling with the number of people who seemed to be doing research in support of his theories, or CONSTRUCTIVELY offering criticism or alternatives to what he's been saying. John came back saying that the massage was painful but effective, but that it was his LEG that was the problem, not his back, and he had to go back on Monday, on which day he'd receive a water-pack that he said gave him relief, though it might have just deadened the nerves, he wryly conjectured. I work from 12:45 to 4:45 and then just don't feel like doing any more, so I read the Voice and do some assorted things around the apartment, and we have an early dinner and it's been sleeting so hard that John even considers taking the subway to Alan's for the pinochle game tonight, but he says he just can't stand the subways, so he finally decides to drive, going so slowly and cautiously that it begins to seem that there's something wrong with the car, but it might be only the way he uses (except that on Saturday when he wanted to go somewhere, the car didn't work) it. The roads aren't freezing, thank goodness, and there are enormous 50-car lines at the gas station on the Bronx River Parkway. The instructions are clear enough, except they don't read well, and it takes over an hour to get there and John glumly announced that this is the LAST time he's going there. Then the grandmother and another Bob are alternating play, the phone rings and people keep coming in and out, and the room is so hot that John requests the kitchen window open, and then there's smoking, so his eyes begin to smart. The spread of food is positively sickening, and I indulge in all of it: tiny Hershey bars, small O'Henry bars, lots of pretzels, candied fruit, the most marvelous chocolate creams, four ENORMOUS Napoleons, six heavy pieces of cheesecake, coffee, tea, sangria, milk, soda, water, hard candies, and maybe a few other items that I forgot. Leave at 11:10 and get back at midnight, still thankfully not freezing, and John's disgusted and I'm sad with his disgust.

DIARY 4321

FRIDAY, JANUARY 4. Work on the index 9:30 to 12, 12:30-6, 6:30-7:30, and he manages to root me out for a good double feature at the Cinema, except when we've gotten all dressed up and gotten out, they haven't put ON the double, so I go back home to finish working on the index from 7:45 to 11:45, finally getting the cards for the As and Bs finished so he can begin typing in the morning, as well as type out an instruction sheet for him. The speed on the index is still pretty good, and we end up with something like an $11.50 per hour rate, which is good for ANYTHING. I every so often look at the list of things I have to do, and since I FINALLY mailed the package to Rita after looking it over on December 31, I had nothing I really HAD to do except things that involved reading, stamps, or writing, and the only thing that was really SAD was that I didn't do anything with writing. But I was forced to the observation that writing is always the thing that takes the LONGEST to do on my list, so it's the thing I put off until last, and then OTHER short things keep coming along to replace the things that I DO do, and so in short do VERY little writing except keeping up with the diary (which is the purpose the diary, of course). Even relaxation is relegated to a backseat until after the lists are disposed of, unless it's something "other-listy" like TV or movies or plays or ballet that I want to go out and SEE. But there's just no end of things to be done, which makes John's freedom all the more poignant when HE has nothing to do. But I'm now finishing up the Economics index, have only the Sociology index to do, and stuff (20) to do for LTS, and then I'll have some time to relax and catch up on OTHER things. Put away the Christmas cards and catch up on THAT list when John wants to, and do other little things, but the apartment on my side desperately needs vacuuming and dusting, and the red fungus is attacking the toilets again, and there are STILL the books I want to read, but things are looking BETTER instead of worse, and the only thing on the horizon is that Sarah Parker said that Walthur IS probably buying Century 21---I might have another job back THERE again!

DIARY 4322

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5. John's up at 7:45 and starting on the typing of the Economics index at 8, and I get to work at 8:15 and for awhile it's nip and tuck as he zips away at the rate of 9 pages per hour, which is great, and by the time he finishes at 3, he'd done 57 pages, which, when I put the cards together, is more than half---good for his typing, bad for the line count, which looks to be somewhat under 3000 lines. But I get proportionate ratios of the sizes of the two books and decide that 3000 is about RIGHT, and anyway the index should be 100 lines per page, not 120 as in the too-fine Samuelson index, and THAT makes the perquisite 30 pages. Work from 8:15 to 11:15, and then take down the Christmas wreath from the hallway and put on John's picture, scrub the GREEN fungus from the inside of the humidifier, and find to my delight that it WORKS again, as it's been doing only with great effort, and THOSE are nice things to get out of the way. Work from 1 to 3:30, and that's all there is to do until John types the rest of the stuff, so I settle down to typing, and type 12 pages, groaning about the fact that I let myself get two weeks behind again, with long stretches of days where NOTHING HAPPENED BUT WORK, always hard ones to fill in, and get through with 1973 before dinner, and so after dinner I can get to the 1973 datebook, which I finish and put THAT away in almost record time, and I feel that things are enough under control that I can indulge in some TV. Sadly, the "Silent Running" that's been scheduled at 9:30 has been replaced by "Number One" so I go BACK to finish the datebooks and get into other things in my drawer, and then get over to smoke and hope for some kind of interaction with John, but he pleads that his back is hurting, so there just isn't ANY way that I can EVER get through his barriers against sex. And the heat level's been so low in the apartment that it's COLD after midnight, which makes it difficult to get excited enough to come pleasantly without FREEZING in the process, so there's nothing to do but steam up the bathroom with hot water, shower, and crawl into the electric-blanketed bed, shivering until my body heat reaches the sleep-temperature.

DIARY 4323

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6. The clocks have been pushed ahead an hour for "energy-savings time," so it's pretty dark when I get up at 9 (formerly 8) and quiet outside on the streets as I go for the Times. Read only the TV section to find there's not much to see this week, and then get to the Sociology index from 10-12 while John FINISHES the Economics index, far faster than anyone thought---only 10 hours, he says, for the 96 pages! Great! Back to the totally boring Sociology reading from 12:30-5, reading sentences so dull that even JOHN likes them, and then proofread more of the Economics from 5:10 to 5:40, when I have to shower and get ready to eat and go out to "Candide" at the Brooklyn Academy. Get there at 7 and go upstairs to wait in line and read, then into the ramped, Performing-Garage-ledges-for-people-type auditorium with the central, three small side, one small curtained side, one LARGE curtained end, and multileveled other-end playing spaces, not to mention the central bed-at-start, fabulously effective ship-in-center. The inventiveness of the streamers from the ceiling for the forest (and the not so interesting whirling lantern for the volcanic eruption, but I wonder if they didn't make a mistake by NOT turning off the house lights while it whirled?), and the fine use of the side ramps and great acting by EVERYONE (so WHAT if Cunegonde didn't have the best voice, and Candide seemed OVERLY schleppy in the whipping scene, but his "The Jew?" was one of the funnier moments, and the old woman's "Manny celemities" was marvelously spoonered in accent. I couldn't understand the few straight-faced gays in the audience, and wondered about the twisted disgust on the black's face when they talked about blacks, and told John that I HAD to see it again when it went to the Broadway theater, and I felt that it was a combination of "Hair" and "The Fantasticks," and hoped it would run as successfully as "Hair" and as long as "The Fantasticks." Typed one page sometime through the day, and smoked again, though John has put out an amount and said "THIS has to last through January," and I didn't even bother to worry about it: this time a PSYCHIC energizer crisis, yet?

DIARY 4324

MONDAY, JANUARY 7. [The PAIN of getting BACK to this is enormous!] [I don't feel like typing, I don't feel like typing, I don't feel like typing, but I've already gone through the AGONY of getting READY to do it, so I'd better DO it!!!] Up after 9 again, simply because it's still dark and gloomy out, and proofread the last pages of the Economics index from 9:50 to 11:50, have lunch, and take it in about 3, taking the time to tour the bookshop (nothing) and the Little Church around the Corner, meeting Madeline Sunshine as I go out the door, and she says that Walthur IS signing to take over ACC, and I go upstairs to talk to Ron, and Tom Aloisi comes through and I say I'm still available, and he says they have to see what's going INTO Math Achiever, but he knows I'm there. Hunt up Bernie and talk to her a long time about freighter travel, and Tom comes through a few times to tell her about a meeting later in the week (which, when I call her on Thursday to give her the rates from the Meyer line for my fare and the Landa's address, she says hasn't taken place YET) and seems vaguely annoyed with my being there. Dick Sime isn't there again, but I talk until 5:15 with Bernie and then get out around the corner to Apollo to buy 4 boxes of cards and 1000 sheets of blue paper for carbons and 500 sheets of 3-hole punch for typing on, and John had gone out for lunch without getting in fish, telling me to get it, and I work until 1, then don't feel like going out, so I finish up the cheese and salami from Avi's Christmas package and have raisin bread toasted with them so I don't have to GO for the fish, and leave a note to John telling him that. Too much to carry on the way back (my gloved hands are red and sore from the weight) to get it then, either, but John is VERY pissed and says we should go out to dinner. So I get the address of the Tripoli and we go there, he not wanting to walk because his back is bothering him, and it's new and empty and they don't have what he wants at first, but I go out and buy LOUSY Almaden rosé from a cold store and the bill is a bit higher than the other places, but we enjoy looking at the CLEAR full moon in the sky, wondering if the comet has been visible earlier. Home to get six pieces of mail out and try to get to bed early to work MORE tomorrow.

DIARY 4327

TUESDAY, JANUARY 8. Up again at 9, still not used to the time change, but John's been getting up at 8 and going over to the other apartment, so we're not even having any good-morning cuddles anymore. We talk during lunch about his anger at my not going shopping for him yesterday, and he says he just feels the RESPONSIBILITY of feeding the both of us TOO deeply. I try to think of an alternative, saying I'll cook every other week, and he thinks of doing it once a week, on Wednesdays, say, and I figure I'll have pork chops tomorrow for dinner with the canned green beans, but then he says AGAIN he doesn't feel that I'm thinking enough of him, and I lose patience and say that I'm thinking about him CONSTANTLY, and even thinking LESS of myself because of it, and I don't like THAT feeling at all. Then I suggest we take our meals separately so he won't have to feel responsible about feeding me AT ALL, and he immediately jumps to the idea of separating the APARTMENTS that I'd brought up before, and possibly I get the same feeling of panic at this thought that HE got when I brought it up the first time, because I said then I would do ALL the cooking, and felt miserable about the whole relationship, saying that I didn't feel it was fair to talk to him about his depression since I KNOW he was going through a hard period with unemployment about to run out and no prospects for a new job in the offing. He hopes he can get a 13-week extension in payments, until he can find something that he WANTS. But then tomorrow he shifts BACK, saying that he WILL do the cooking, and I say it CAN be simpler, but he then, frustratingly, says that he DOES like cooking, LIKES shopping, and likes my being around because it gives him the OCCASION to do more elaborate dishes. I can't work my way around it, and feel SO depressed that I write DIARY 4328 in response to my feelings. Worked on NASA from 10-12 and 1:30 to 4:30, getting the drafts for 14 compilation items, and then I struggle through six more diary pages, feeling that I'm pulling teeth---which reminds me that ONE day this week I lost that SAME filling, and had to go to Rosey Shiek the next day to get it filled, ONE HOUR in the chair, probably Thursday, but I'm not sure.

DIARY 4329

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9. Manage to get up at 8:45 and start to work immediately, and finish retyping at 11:15. Got another notice from the Science-Fiction Bookstore for two MORE Sheckley books, and at this point I have HALF of them! Ask if there's anything they want from the used bookshops, and they only give me one title which I've forgotten. Eat at 12 and get in to Logical Technical Services at 1:30, just as Graham is leaving, but he comes back to give me not the 30 that I'd asked for but 40, saying he's going on vacation next week. I get out to the bookshop and then walk down in the slush from the recent snow to look at the Ancorp National Services Warehouse on Varick Street, and they have TONS of books on ENDLESS shelves for sale, all at 80% of list, and two hardcover books by authors that I've heard are good: Eiseley and Godden---just more to read. Search shelf-by-shelf for a bit, then really start skimming, and someone ELSE comes up with a Krishnamurti book that I envy him for, but in general the selection is worse than I'd anticipated: lots of kids' books, school books, junk self-help books, mysteries, and NOTHING that I can see of good cheap science fiction of all the authors I want, and hardly anything of CURRENT interest except Jacqueline Suzann. Leave at 3:45 with a bulging briefcase for $6.50 that eventually breaks open, finally, and it's still sitting beside my desk waiting to be repaired. The guy at the shop said that "The Game of X" wasn't any good, but I couldn't wait to get into it, so I settled down in the chair between 8 and 10 after dinner and the dishes and polished it off, and it WASN'T very good, but it had touches of his humor and bits of science fiction even in the middle of Venice with his "instant" mastery of scuba equipment and machetes and flying small planes, and I get over, probably tonight, to shower and smoke by 10:30, when John gets to bed, and have a NEW kind of orgasm, and take the notes on DIARY 4330, and am NOW worried about the Sociology index that John has to type and maybe I won't get finished on time, but thank god it's the LAST index!

DIARY 4331

THURSDAY, JANUARY 10. Up again, with strain, at 8:45, still quite dark outside, and now it's not even because of cloudy weather, it's just DARK at 8:45 am! Rita sent a later letter saying that she used to be able to get to and from work without using her car lights, but now it's impossible NOT to use them in the morning. Get into the Sociology index with less pain than I would have thought: work from 8:45-9:45 and then from 11:30-12 and 1:30 to 5:15, finishing the reading and getting into the typing of the cards, amazed at how LITTLE CONTENT there is in a sociology book. And now I can better understand the verbosity of the sociologist who might appear in any anthology, and the jokes made about the high-flown language that seems to have no real contact with the PEOPLE that they use all the time. John's been going to various performances in the evenings and I've been staying home and reading or writing in general, and tonight he seems very surprised to hear that I'm going out to the ballet on my own, even though I told him about it earlier in the week. Eating dinner of his lovely bean soup, I just put a hot spoonful into my mouth and mush it around a bit when there's a hard object inside with a crunch, and my filling has fallen out again, and the gaping hole is rather ominous. John immediately starts condemning the skill of Rosey Sheik, since none of HIS fillings have ever fallen out, but I point out that none of his fillings encompass 1/3 the area of a tooth, either. Fuss inwardly about the idea of having to go to the dentist so early, but outside in the cold marvel at the efficiency of the human body, where the cheeks, so thin, really, perfectly insulate the hurt of the tooth from the coldness of the air much better than thicker gloves do for the hands. Get there about 45 minutes early to a short line, and the students in front of me are hassling about ID's, and I say innocently "Do you give student discounts?" and get a Third Ring seat with my two-year-old ID for only $2.50. It's WORTHWHILE going to the ballet. Sit and read "The People Trap" throughout intermissions, bored with the thought of wandering around during the pauses. Great performances, see DIARY 4332, and home about 11:30, weary, and get to bed without any smoking or coming.

DIARY 4334

FRIDAY, JANUARY 11. Call John's old dentist in the morning, but it turns out that he's retired and the other one of the same name can't take me for a WEEK, so I call back and say that John will take my place after I call Rosey and she can make room for me THIS afternoon, so there's NO sweat of anticipation necessary. Work on the Sociology index from 9-12, 1:30-3, when I have to start getting ready to get there at 4:30. But she's got someone else in the chair, and I read something about Garbo and a strange short-short story by Nabokov until 5, when she take me, injects me, and starts in before it's really numb, but it's truly dead when she gets really into it. She decides to put in a pin, very cautiously drilling a hole and then fussing endlessly with the metal post put rather far back in the tooth in an attempts to hold down the filling. The next step, she says, would be a crown, and I'd like to hold off on THAT step for as long as possible. My jaw gets increasingly sore, and my tongue just seems to have nowhere to go to escape from the clamps and cotton and water-aspirator and her tools, and then she tells me to bite down gently, and I bite down VERY gently, I shatter some of the filling, so she has to ream some out and put some NEW stuff in, and I can only think about the extra JOINT now existing in the filling, with the pin there to complicate things even more. But when she finishes with it, it FEELS good, better than before, and she said she didn't build it up QUITE so much in a cusp to get pressures to break it off again. Feel funny with the numb lip, particularly since we have the hot soup again, and I'm chewing into my RIGHT cheek to keep the food away from the LEFT cheek and tooth, and eating is slow and there are flecks of what seem to be traumatized skin coming off the insides of my mouth. John goes out, I finish dishes and then get back into the expanding of the index from 7:45 to 12:15, keeping fairly accurate count of how many lines I'm getting into, rather determined that her 1900 WILL be 1900, and I start with too MANY name references, then have too FEW at the end, and end by expanding by sub-referencing names AND concepts, and finish the A's through C's for John to start on in the morning.

DIARY 4336

SATURDAY, JANUARY 12. John gets started on typing and I'm finishing up the editing from 8:45-12 and from 12:30-6, and he gets through far more than half the pages, which is fine, meaning he'll finish tomorrow and I'll have no trouble taking it in on Monday, which is a relief, since it looked so bad for awhile there. But I still think there's a chance of making about $13 an hour on it, though it finally settles down to $11.50 an hour, which means that John makes $115 for only 10 hours work---work that he hates, but he admits that I'm doing all I can to help out his situation and he likes me for doing THAT, anyway. It's awkward when I'm expanding, because I find new things that have to be added to pages that John's typed already, and he keeps suggesting things that I should add, for instance, Europe, see and then list the countries in Europe, and do the same for the Middle East and Africa and Asia. I can't see the point to that, any more than I can see his point of saying I should put in Bangladesh, see Pakistan, East. I sincerely doubt that he would suggest I put in Sri Lanka, see Ceylon, would he? But some of his suggestions ARE good, and when I'm finished with the counting it IS 1900 lines, depending on whether the blanks between the letters are counted or not, so that's a happy conclusion. Then have dinner of hamburger, the best before an orgy, and I shower and shave and get back to a bit of proofreading from 7:10 to 7:40, and Arnie was going to join us, but ever since we've gotten back from pinochle on January 3rd, and John went out to the car to try to start it for something on Saturday the 5th, the car hasn't been working, and he even went around looking for a spare battery and there was none, and a truck can't fit into the back to jump the motor, either. So John can't drive, and then Arnie's busy with the opera and making cheesecake (in preparation to going into BUSINESS with cheesecakes on East 83rd Street, next to the super-duper chocolate factory that sells a half-pound of chocolate-coated fresh strawberries for $3.50!), so he meets us there, and because it's at Cott and Leedoms, and because of two BEAUTIFUL boys that I have, the evening is quite a success. Home at 2 am, gorge myself, sleep.

DIARY 4338

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13. Up at 8:15, a new record, and work on proofreading until 12, pausing for a half hour for a Camera Three program on the Royal Shakespeare's production of "Richard II" with similarly-clothed alternating-king Richard and Bolingbroke, which is nice in theory but a bit boring in actuality, and work from 12:30-3:30, during which time John finishes typing, and I've taken lots of time to gather all the "theories" together, and then get over to watch "Masters of the Congo Jungle" which it turns out I'd seen before, narrated by Orson Welles and an over-black William Warfield, and then watch the beautiful bodies of gymnasts going through the six exercises of the competition: floor exercises (which they might start doing for the MEN with music, which would be nice), horse-twirling, parallel bars, stationery rings, the fairly boring vaulting, and the high bar, off which more than a few slipped with amateurish awkwardness. Watch that until 6, having popcorn to assuage my hunger pangs, which are really enormous when I'm going through difficulties with John, and then we have dinner and get out to the double feature at the Cinema, one of the two I want to see this week. "Bang the Drum Slowly" is thankfully not the TV film of the dying football player with the wives crying around, but a reasonably well-acted film with Michael Moriarty as a sort of loving inarticulate John Voight-type making Robert De Niro's last days happy as a baseball player. But it never really got TERRIBLY sad, and the disease seemed as characterless as the nameless diseases in "Love Story" and other works of fiction. "Child's Play" was neatly confusing at the end: since the evil in the children didn't end after James Mason jumped off the roof, it MUST have been due to Robert Preston, but after the kids supposedly killed a cute Beau Bridges, they gathered around Preston in the church (John thought to KILL him, I thought to report back their success) and the CANDLE went out, I thought that GOD left then, and they might have KILLED him, and HE wasn't the evil, either, but John sagely observed that I'm assuming there was a REASON for the candle going out, rather than just a gratuitous theatrical touch without CAUSE. Home and it's too COLD in the apartment to even jerk off so I get to sleep after smoking & writing the notes in DIARY 4339-4340.

DIARY 4343

MONDAY, JANUARY 14. Up for the last FULL day of work on indexing for a long while (with all this talk about the LAST, I hope it isn't HONESTLY the last, or I'll be VERY sad!) from 8:30-12:30, working on the last of the Sociology index, phoning Charlotte to see when she'll be in, and get there about 2, to have her say there will probably be NO feedback, but that though she seems to think the bill will be high, she WILL be in touch with me for more indexes, mainly because I get them IN on time! Then I go to the New York Experience, which is sort of like Underground Atlanta with its escalator descending from the already-basement level of the sunken plaza, with its old train-platform look (subway, actually), and then down to the storefronts and old music and "underground" feeling, even with the mirrors and doors. The next show starts at 3, so I'm JUST on time, and they throw in ALL the facets I can think of: restaurants, traffic, subways, Statue of Liberty, schools, kids, crime, theater (no dance), art, burlesque, shopping, trade, pornography, and have neat special effects of fog, a hanged man, Chinese lanterns, and surround-sound (though the pictures didn't particularly surround, and the side-slides were one step AHEAD of the synch), and about 8 people in the audience. I filled out the form, saying it was GREAT fun, but 504 for a bag of popcorn was a BIT much, and they should expand ala Atlanta, hopefully, and be open more in the night. It would be a GREAT show to see again stoned! Then enjoying my freedom I go down to Times Square, having a perfectly DREADFUL slice of pizza to fill my stomach, and browse through the porno shops to see if they have anything new, which they don't. Then home about 5:30 for dinner and John's out to a show, I work on NASA, to take in tomorrow, from 1-1:20, 5:40-6, and 7-7:45, when I smoke and VERY much enjoy "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" again---everything is perfectly PLAUSIBLE, but totally ABSURD, and John would LOVE it, and I work through FOUR Hershey bars, feeling almost ILL from the indulgence, and "Cries and Whispers" is AWFUL for women, so bad I don't even REMEMBER the men, but the PAIN of the dying one, the self-centeredness of the young one, the FEARS AND HATES of the older one, the FAITHFULNESS of the maid, quite striking, though I don't really understand the END, when they're all happy---it seems a copout!

DIARY 4344

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15. Drag myself out of bed feeling pretty lousy, maybe from all the chocolate last night, and get to work on NASA from 8:30 to 12, asking John if he wants to type, but he's suddenly become involved in a lecture that he wants to give, and having gotten involved, his outlook suddenly brightens, his concentration on his work takes his mind OFF his personal problems, and he becomes far more conversational at dinner, far more joking and open throughout the day, and the change is so drastic that by the time Thursday comes around I actually TELL him that I don't know if the talk I had with him CONSCIOUSLY made him change his outlook toward me, or if it's UNCONSCIOUS, but I like the change, and since he looks at me in surprise, I guess the change was unconscious. He'll type later in the week, he says, but that's no good, since Gross is leaving today for Panama for two weeks, and I have to get to him NOW. Retype the pages from 12:30-2:30 and get in about 3:30 to have him give me 12 more items, and since I've taken in 14 of the 42 that I have, I have a total of 40 left to do for him by the 28th. AND THAT'S ALL. I request one of each stamp from the Panamanian post office and go off at 4 with the load. Have dinner at 5:45 to get off to the Liberty Theater at 7:05 for the films I'd seen there yesterday, that they said today was the last day of, but which were held over for another week, but since I was operating on the both-and principle again, it worked out OK anyway. Told Gross I was spending over half an hour on each one, and he said he'd talk about a raise for me when he got back. Good! In to the crowded theater for the end of "The Godfather" not being able to hear because of the roar of the crowd, and "Lady Sings the Blues" isn't that good, but it's surely a different IDEA from "Lady Day," since the men were all FOR her in this one, and it was ONLY her drugs that pulled her down. The acting was pretty good, but it DRAGGED in so many parts it was a mixed bag. Then "The Godfather" was disappointing because Brando acted ONLY a grapefruit-jawed mumbler, and the acting was really all Pacino's, but the AUDIENCE was another matter, see DIARY 4345, and the VIOLENCE in the film was ABYSMAL. Home at 1 am, exhausted, no trouble falling asleep, after a pizza-slice on 42nd St.

DIARY 4346

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16. Decide, when I finally get out of bed at 9:30, that there's so many things to do that I actually have to make a LIST of them, since again they're preying on my mind, so I make up a "vacation" list, which pleases me with its TITLE and amazed me at its LENGTH, coming up with only 20 entries without really stopping to think about it. Talk to John about how I can deal with the stamps, and he makes it clear he doesn't want them in HIS part of the apartment, and I'd thought of the storage room before, but discarded it as being too cold and dark, but then thought of the standing lamp in the closet, and found that the radiator DID work to an extent, so I took over my card table and the stepladder for the catalog, and found when I spread everything out that it DID fit nicely on the fairly limited-size table, and I took the opportunity FIRST to go through the stamp drawer and throw some things out and put things into some sort of order. Then the plate blocks from Hills arrived in the mail, probably THAT was the other slip from Atlantic Avenue Post Office by mistake, since this was the SECOND notice, and I got a notice for the CHASSY stamps that I picked up when I went to unemployment, as well as buying a card for Grandma, getting more cash from the bank, taking in the laundry, and even buying myself an ice cream cone! Picked up Chinese laundry, too, and got home JUST at noon for lunch. Then back to stamps, rearranging the LAST of the American stamps, feeling GREAT about that, NO MORE BLANKS IN THE AMERICAN SECTION AT ALL! Put the piles of stamps in order, produce new boxes for all the ones to be soaked and sorted, separate out the plate blocks and the other blocks and the mint stamps, and get so engrossed that I decide to pass up a re-showing of "South of Pago Pago," have dinner, wash dishes, and then even decide to pass up the vampire movie that got good reviews, and John ended up watching another vampire movie, that I heard parts of when he said the music was too loud for him to watch TV, so I shut off the music, moving the speaker back against the wall so that I wouldn't have to crawl under the wire that I strung across the hallway because it wasn't long enough. Smoke to get the stamps out of my mind and get into bed about 11:30, earliest in ages.

DIARY 4347

THURSDAY, JANUARY 17. Had enough of stamps yesterday for awhile, and since they're out of the way there's no pressure to get to them, since I've been through another 30 countries or so, and I now KNOW that I have to get another post binder for the overflow, so I can set up new countries for the book, and I just don't feel the PRESSURE to get to stamps that I had before. Now the pressure moves to the top dresser drawer, since I took all the souvenirs from the study shelf and stuffed them into the overcrowded drawer. First, however, I see the receipts, so I go through all those, incidentally sorting out all the receipts I'll need for Income Tax, clearing out the ones I DON'T need from the desk, and that finishes about noon, so I get to the programs, and go through getting out stuff for the scrapbook, receipts, personal stuff, and other finds like the Adirondacks map that I move into the study closet and the 4th Avenue bookshop map, which I'll take with me to update the next time I shop for books. Finally finish the Times in the morning, too. Then get into the storage room shelves and decide a major reorganization is necessary, so I move around the boxes on the top of the closet, labeling everything from the trips according to dates, large enough to be read from the floor, and take most of the stuff OUT of the storage room until 5, when I have to move things still unfinished BACK to get ready for the ballet tonight. Dinner and dishes, and then off to the New York City Ballet again, this time getting a $7.00 seat for $2.50 by telling the guy selling them that I'd get a student ticket for that, and he was willing to take it, so we were both happy. See review on Diary 4348. Back with Marcia and talk about the new work and invite her up to Nikolais, but she doesn't want to come, so I go up and watch it with John, then smoke and watch "Double Solitaire" eating ice cream, and it's pretty good about the couple married 20 years who find union ONLY in sex, and when he's about to fuck her at the final fadeout and she says "Nothing will CHANGE because of this," I suddenly realize that as HIS parents play double solitaire for SEX, THEY play SEX as a game of Double Solitaire, mutual masturbation, not REALLY coming together at all. Bed quite exhausted, after more stuffing with food and too cold to come, at 1 am.

DIARY 4350

FRIDAY, JANUARY 18. Up full of energy because today's going to be a busy day, and the first thing I do is retype the plan I had for the quiz show "Whaddya Know?" for Ron Greenburg this afternoon. Then I think I have enough time for cleaning up my apartment, which is a large mess because of all the dust and scraps put onto it from cleaning out my drawers yesterday, but I get everything torn apart by the time I have to get ready to have lunch at 11:15 and leave, so I tell John that I'll finish it when I get back about 3:30. That leads him to tell Joe Easter to call back at 3:30 to chat about his trip up from Philly, but since I'm not here then, we don't get to talk. I take off in the cold without a hat because I don't want to muss my newly washed hair, and get there at 12:15 to show the papers (see DIARY 4351-4355) to Cynthia, who reads them aloud and doesn't really give an impression of them. We're in for yet another version of "Toss Up" called "Run for the Money," see DIARY 4356, and we don't get out until 4, having even had another lunch ordered by Cynthia and a DREADFUL gluey cheeseburger, badly thawed French fries, and a watery vanilla milkshake. I debate going home, but there's just not enough time, so I walk across to the YWCA to see the poster for the dance series that Carolyn Lord is at 8 tonight, not 5. Try calling John, but he's already left (or is out), so I settle down to read and when he comes in at 4:45, we decide not to eat in town but to go back home. I finish the vacuuming and then finish reading "The Hero with 1000 Faces," so that I have the information for Campbell's class, and then we take off for the class at 7:30. There are over 40 people there rather than the paid 30, the difference being freebies who take class at the Open Eye, and the first talk is quite stimulating, so that I feel my mind being stretched, and I take notes which I later type, and we stand around until 11 asking him questions, and then leave. I don't feel like sleeping when we get back at 11:45, so I sit up and watch "Genesis II" on TV with a fairly sexy Alex Cord, and lots of naked limbs applying sonic-sadistic devices to people who writhe and scream, and I smoke, but the horseback Arizona-modern world isn't even convincing, and there's no REAL sexy people, so I go wearily to bed at 2.

DIARY 4357

SATURDAY, JANUARY 19. Up at 8 and put the dishes away, then settle down to type the notes from yesterday, thinking he might be going over some of the data and I'd have something neat to annotate, but he didn't go backward one bit, which means that I have to RETYPE them for the final notes that start on DIARY 4359. The wine and cheese was a nice touch at the end of the session last night, and this morning, getting in just before 10, it was pleasant to find hot coffee, apple juice, dried fruit and prunes, and cookies waiting for us. I gorged myself a bit, and settled into the session that lasted from 10:30 to 12:30, with a joined talk AND discussion, which seemed more satisfactory to everyone concerned. Then Paul Jenkins and Connie Sue-Ping Chen asked us out to lunch, and we went around to the Cedar Tavern on University Place where I hated their bullshit but loved the eggs Benedict, ultra-rich with the thick yolk melding with the yellow cheese on toast. Paul isn't the most interesting person in the world, but I took the impulse to pay for their bill, and he said something surprising about being able to accept gifts, and then thanked me. Then back in the cold to the next session from 2:10 to 3:05, mercifully short, though I've taken to sitting on my sweater, which makes the hard seat more bearable, and then from 3:35-4:30 we had another discussion, where a few of the females made themselves totally unpleasant, particularly Tabetha, whom John observed always thought of HERSELF, pushing herself into everyone's attention all the time, and I hope not to do that. Then from 4:00 to 5:15 were Paleolithic slides that John was interested in enough to say we should see them in Europe, so THAT was a good dividend from the class. We subway home, eat, and then quickly subway back, after I try the Promenade on a night I could see about a dozen stars on the West Southwest horizon, but nary a Kohoutek. The session starts late again, as usual, and goes from 7:50 to 9:15, and then everyone started indulging in the wine and cheese early, so it was a rather happy crew that came back for a discussion session from 9:40 to 10:15, and we left immediately afterward for John to go to bed and me to watch "Loving," an exceedingly stupid movie in which George Segal insisted on DRINKING to ruin his life with Eva Marie Saint and the two OBNOXIOUS children and the funny seduction scene on TV in the playroom. VERY tired watching, and staggered sore-eyed and mind-blown-by-Campbell to bed at 2.

DIARY 4358

SUNDAY, JANUARY 20. Up feeling like I'm in the last stages of SOMETHING, but look forward to the fact that TODAY is the last huge set of obligations outside, and then I can just INDULGE myself in catching up with everything. Think to type the notes, and actually start, but the job is formidable, and I decide to leave everything to, actually, today. Convince John that he doesn't have to get there until the STATED starting time of 10. Coffee is just getting ready and there are neat gingersnaps that we engulf, and we start at 10:30 even though many of the people aren't there at all yet, and then about 10 more come straggling in through the next half-hour. The session goes to 12:45 and then there don't seem to be ANY more questions, and from being MIND-weary yesterday, I'm sort of back in shape now, very pleased with the session, and John's asked Joe to dinner next week on Saturday, since Jean's away for the rest of the month. We're out to wander looking for a restaurant, and settle on Zum-Zums, where I have three cocks (braunwurst, hot dog, and bratwurst) and John has two FAT ones (knockwurst). Out at 1:30 and I think to go across to the bookshop, but then think of John Casarino, so since he's not in the phone book or listed, we go across and talk to him on the phone, and he's in, serves us Bloody Marys, and we talk very nicely about the class and Jungian psychology, and HE'S coming on Saturday to dinner, too, but won't join us for the get-together at Paul Jenkins'. We get there just after 3, and it's an ENORMOUS bright studio fixed up very nicely with his rainbow-watercolor paintings, and the Indian miniatures are about 12 feet above everyone's head, there are lots of interesting chotchkas, and the people talk around, the only one I have a nice exchange with is Rhoda, the crook-nosed writer, and John insists on leaving about 4:10, after we've had a neat amount of his pickled onions, crackers, cheese, salami, and nuts and chips. Up to Kei Takei at the Clark Center for a SHATTERING performance by almost everyone (see DIARY 4367), and out at 6:30, having dinner, calling Madge about Chinese opera, since it's so close to the New Year, and then Rolf Houkum calls, I put him off while I watch Matty Troy and Carter Burden talk about Intro 475 from 8:30 to 9, and then Rolf talks about cross-country skiing and money until 10:30, I move into the study to talk, and he agrees to start the car for us. I'm tired enough to smoke and get into bed at 11:30, no trouble sleeping.

DIARY 4368

MONDAY, JANUARY 21. Up after John gets up at 8, perfectly dark outside, and I get into the bathroom and can no longer stand the dirtiness of the sink, so I clean that, then the tub, and then the shower, just so there won't be anything more to do in THERE to think about. Then over to start typing, and Rolf calls at 11:15, thankfully after it's stopped the heavy downpour it's been doing for awhile, and he comes into the back garage where luckily the blocking car is gone, so we can move around, and he jumps from the positive to the positive, battery to battery, negative to negative, and I don't even have to start, HE can do it in HIS car, and it runs for awhile, and then I let it stop and it starts again, so he follows me to the station where I leave the keys and John's note of the list of things that have to be fixed, and they JUST call a few minutes ago and HE tells them to fill it with gas, so it's all OK now. Rolf drives me back on his way to errands, and says he'd like very MUCH to see my pornography. Great, maybe I can get my hands on his delectable body just ONCE more, hoping he might let it become a habit. Lunch and John goes out to interview for a job, and Arnie calls to tell about his upcoming cooking of cheesecake on the Upper East Side, and his successful dinners on Fridays, and Norma's now in Switzerland. I type seven pages in all, but really can't STAND doing it, biting fingernails and cheeks thoroughly, and the kids are clumping around upstairs, so I stop after 7 and go over to read "Left Hand of Darkness," which is really pretty BAD, and John's back to talk of the MISERY of trying to sell himself to an agency, but the fellow is kindly and he can type something like 75 words per minute with a minor error, and he's got an interview tomorrow at the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. He starts on a beef bourguignon for Joe and John on Saturday, and I watch Cousteau on penguins on TV from 8-9, and then we watch "Rabbit, Run" on TV, after it got such AWFUL reviews, and it's FAITHFUL to the book, and NOT that bad, it's just a very NEGATIVE picture of PEOPLE, but TRUE, and James Caan does it very well, and fairly sexily. I shower and jerk off, which prompts DIARY 4369. Bed at 1.

DIARY 4370

TUESDAY, JANUARY 22. [GOD! The last page at LAST!] Up at 8:15 again, after John's up and out to the interview. I get started on typing and then John's in utterly crushed by seeing that he was expected to sit at a typewriter from 9 to 5 every day, and he goes through the thing about his intellect being wasted. I try to tell him what HE himself said before, that he IS unusual in that he's gotten exactly the kind of job he's wanted SO far, and so he's spoiled for ANYTHING else, and that he shouldn't REGRET not being known, since he ADMITS it'll probably take about 15 years for his ideas to catch on. But it doesn't make any difference, and he stabs at his tuna in the bowl and chokes up and tears rain down on his undershirt. I can't honestly think of a thing to help him, and when I get back to the idea of borrowing $3,000 for the book, it's suddenly gone up to $12,000, both for his support and for the commissioned article. I just don't think I can swing that even WITH Warren and Rita and Mom and Henry and Edward. He calls Paul Jenkins, who invites him to a gallery opening (for his signed Abrams book?) from 5-7, and John wants to eat out because he doesn't have the heart to fix food, and then calls Ciao Pagano who Special Deliveries a letter to him to say he wants to meet, and then says we'll go to Chuan Yuan for dinner, so I say I'll stay home while he goes. Finish typing 19 pages, which makes me feel just great, hopefully being able to finish tomorrow, which I'm just doing! Ciao calls and I tell him to come here at 7, as John told me, and then I shower and take some minutes to write Joe Easter and send out a couple of orders and other things, six in all. Ciao (KYE-ow [as is sow]) gets in at 6:50, we chat about Germany and Portugal and Brazil [he's never even been to Iguasu), and John gets in at 7:15, ordering daiquiris, which everyone loves, and then we get out to the Atlantic House for HIM for the best (veal Georgia), John for worst (veal third on list) and me for the not TOO good veal Cordon Bleu. John bought the Mateus and CIAO bought the dinner (for a $100 travelers check, already signed!) at $17, and we came back to chat for a bit, he left at 10:15, and I read "Left Hand of Darkness" to its rather banal finish, not REALLY that good a book, and bed at 1:15. AND THAT BRING ME TO TODAY, I'M HAPPY TO SAY, AND LET'S HOPE I CAN SAY IT TOMORROW, TOO!

DIARY 4371

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23. It just seems normal now to laze in bed until 8:30, after John is up and out at 8, so I make the bed and put the shades up and fill the humidifier and start it again, and then decide I MUST get back to exercising if I'm going to start active sex again, so I go through the first level without any trouble, thankfully still true, and then get over at 9 to put the dishes away and get to typing with a determination. Leave at 10 to shop for paperclips, envelopes, wire for the speaker, and go into the bookshop and am flabbergasted to find a copy of Sheckley's FIRST, "Untouched by Human Hands," for only 254. Far better than the Sci-Fi bookshop. Then around to Goldsmith's to find that POST binders only take LEDGER pages, all columned and lined and headed, with pull-outable pages, which I DON'T want, so I'll probably settle for my RING binder at last, unless I buy a Scott empty album with empty pages, just for looks. Then to unemployment, finding that IF I work half-weeks, I can get unemployment for 52 weeks---ALL 104 days, anyway I cut them. To the post office to pick up the Blackwell's catalog, buy two sheets of the drummer, to the bank for $100 cash from two checks, and to the library to find I need ID WITH MY CURRENT ADDRESS to get a card, and check that the Remington waterpick is OK. Home at 12:15, content with my shopping, have lunch with John, proposing that I BUY his antiques FROM him at an appraised value, selling them back if and when he wants at 6% interest. He says it makes him feel better. Good---I add that I'm buying a piece of furniture, not HIM, when he says he hopes it doesn't make him dependent on me. Back to typing, debating whether to stop, but with the 5 pages of the "Whaddya KNOW" copying easyily, I finish 21 pages to get UP TO DATE (sigh). Then have dinner and read all through the Voice for the week, and over to see "Enemies" by Gorky, a dated boring play about the decline and boredom of the Russian aristocracy and factory owners, from 8:30 to 10:30, and then back to play the radio and sort through programs on the living room sofa until extreme fatigue sets in at 1:15, and over to brush my teeth, wash my face, and get to bed. And though this ISN'T done the next day, it EPITOMIZES a day that comes out RIGHT!

DIARY 4372

THURSDAY, JANUARY 24. Exercise again, and then to the programs I left strewn all over the sofa last night, finishing with ordering and putting away the Concerts section, and ordering and finding what dates I don't know in the Recital and New York Events section, deciding that I really MUST start two different New York sections: one for SOUVENIRS that I won't be looking at as much as the RESOURCES, a sort of catalog of things to do in the City, with maps and plans and guides that could be taken along profitably when I RETURN to those places, or to give me or anyone else an idea of WHERE to go. Play the radio, and then John closes the doors on me, and I organize my day in town, shower and wash my hair, and eat lunch at 11:15 to get out at 11:30 with John's resume, Updike's book, and my list of things to do in my pocket. Get to town a bit late, but get my Art Deco ticket at Radio City, get into the Donnell film showings about five minutes late (see DIARY 4373), and leave just after 2 to get to Trans-World Publications and talk to Steve for an outline of what I'm to do on the Laser article, giving John's resume to the girl I talked to on the phone, and out feeling VERY good to find that the photo album refill pages are impossible to get, so I settle for red construction paper which I will MAKE into a set of album pages, find two of the Jung books at Bookmasters, along with dozens of others on the Bollingen series, including the mandalas that Campbell showed in a book called Mandala Symbolism, which he photographed for the lecture. Then decide I have enough books, walk through Central Park past the construction, lots of happy and wobbly people skating at Wollman Rink, through the zoo, fairly empty, and visit the new sections of the monkey house for Patty-Cake, a new lovable gorilla who won't eat her bottle but wants hugs and kisses from her hippy hippie keeperette. Across to the monkey house, then uptown to the Doris Weiner Gallery to a couple of spectacular tankas, passing a Dan Greenburg, or something, bakery on Madison and 68th, buying John a DAY OLD cake with good semi-sweet chocolate icing for $3.55, which he say is the first birthday cake he's had in YEARS, liking the THOUGHT, and home to dinner, construct the photo album pages, finish with THAT, reordering many, at 11, John's back from an awful "Dance Uptown" and I date Recital programs until 1 am, tired and smokeless and sexless to bed.

DIARY 4374

FRIDAY, JANUARY 25. Exercise and get over to type 3 to catch me up to date in the diary, seemingly much EASIER to settle in if I have just ANYTHING over one page to do to catch up, as today, when I have an added page in mind (see DIARY 4375). Then I take the stack of recital programs and go through the final page typing up to date, and that takes until about 11. The mailman buzzes and I go down to find my books from Marlboro have arrived, and I page through the India from Fodors with delight, and look through the Dinesen bibliography to see that my list of books IS up to date, and check that I got everything I wanted. Then go into my apartment and put on tapes to alphabetize the play programs, deciding that the alphabetical order, as for opera, is the best, and then add all THOSE, though there are fewer than 100 and "Candide" of January 6th, the last added, appears to be the 333rd PLAY (rather more, since I haven't been counting plays OVERSEAS, at least the Paris and the London "Hair" productions) and the 365th PERFORMANCE of a play, with "Hamlet" still in the lead with SIX productions, and I guess "Hair" would follow with 4 or 5, I forget if I saw the Broadway production once or twice. Lunch and share John's joy that the 13-week extension for unemployment will be coming through in another month. Yesterday, for his birthday, he had the joy of looking at the blues of his book (and still finding errors, among them the misspelled name of a composer). After I finish the play list, I get started on the New York stuff, gathering EVERYTHING from the shelves and drawers and closets, and sorting them into New York Souvenirs, which get their own box, Programs, their own biggest box, and the closet New York (and nearby) resources neatly ordered. Then dinner and dishes, John goes out, and I have nothing left but the DANCE programs, and get to sorting them out, finding that DTW will have a difficult problem to pose, and manage to get through all the MAJOR companies, and am just left with the 30+ of DTW and the 100+ of miscellaneous SMALLER companies to sort and list, but I keep thinking that I'LL HAVE to get to the NASA work, PARTICULARLY since I bit down on a lamb-wrapped-with-cabbage toward the end of dinner and CLUNKED on a tooth-bit, a TOOTH cusp from the often-filled tooth, and I have to go see ROSEY SHEIK tomorrow!

DIARY 4376

SATURDAY, JANUARY 26. Up to exercise and then get to all the dishes waiting for me from last night, leaving [no, this is TOMORROW]. Up to exercise and determine to get to the NASA work, and surprisingly it goes rather well, not even anxious to get to something else. Work from 9:25 to 12:25 and do 10 of them, which isn't good or isn't bad, but could be quicker, since I'm not typing the final copy yet, and then have lunch and back from 12:55 to 4:30, finishing the 20 that I have to do today. Then type two diary pages, and start getting ready for Campbell's dinner. It's a good thing, too, since John's just ready and I'm just ready at EXACTLY 7 pm and the buzzer goes and it's Joe Campbell! He's charming and charmed to be here, and when John Casarino shows up about 7:30 I make daiquiris, some of the best in the first batch, but the second batch is watery because the ice hasn't completely frozen, and I find they then go down VERY quickly, so it IS best to make them pretty frozen. Then to the beef bourguignon, which is good in taste although the noodles are somewhat stuck together and some of the chunks of beef are on the tough side, and we talk for LONG periods of time between the courses about dining in France, travel, courses, and incidents from life JC not QUITE getting in his share of the talk, but he seems interested throughout. The walnut cake for dessert is totally spectacular, and we again sit over coffee, and then JC looks at his watch and discovered that it's 11 and he has to GO. Joe Campbell sits around until 12:15 talking about the history of his getting into writing, and it's so fascinating that I just HAVE to record some of the details of it, see DIARY 4377-78. He talks about getting RID of things at his age, and since I'm so vulnerable about my lists, having just spent about a week keeping some of them up to date, the thought of getting RID of some of them goes through my head. But when he leaves I'm quite tired, so leave the dishes for tomorrow and get over. But my mind is whirling so fast I can't sleep, so I'm up to smoke and have ANOTHER extraordinary (exact sense of that word at LAST) orgasm and write LOTS afterwards (see beginning DIARY 4379), and get BACK into bed about 1:30, VERY stiff and too tired to even THINK to keep from sleeping.

DIARY 4383

SUNDAY, JANUARY 27. Up without exercising to do all the dishes waiting for me from last night, leaving some for this evening (but exercise at 5:30, just to keep at it, and to work out the stiffness in my sides and legs from the INCREDIBLE strain on my body from the five-come of Saturday night), and start on a VERY broken-up day because of all the TV programs. Watch a program on mysticism from 9:30 to 10 that turns out to be about WITCHCRAFT, which I hope isn't coming to be the ONLY meaning of that lovely word, mysticism (see DIARY 4384), then read a bit of the Times to get the rest of the TV schedule for the week down, then back at 11 to watch Sylvia Plath's poetry set to throbbing songs on Camera Three, and then a program on Cell Fusion (see DIARY 4385) until 12, have lunch, and work on NASA a bit from 12:25 to 1, John's already finished typing yesterday's work in 22 hours for 20 papers, or 8 per hour, which is pretty good, but I can't figure where I'LL SQUEEZE the OTHER 30 today, since John's due out to see Jose Coronado again this afternoon, with Ciao Pagano, and they're due here for dinner and we three will go out to another concert this evening, and I have TV for most of the afternoon. Over to watch the start of "25 greatest heavyweight fights" but the introductions are too long, the films of the TV shows are pretty bad, and the sex interest is low, so I'm back OVER to work on NASA from 1:20 to 3, doing lots in a short time, and then at 3 get over to the Nicol Williamson "Hamlet" on Channel 13 that I've tried to see perhaps 5 times by now, and he's got a funny whiney accent, his mother is MUCH too young, but the emphasis on his FACE is pretty good, and I flip back to watch an auto race that turns out to be MUCH more interesting, particularly when it's interspersed with BEAUTIFUL people, like Erfredl [Ferrigno?], or whoever, the 21-year-old Mr. Universe from Brooklyn, from Geneva. John's back at 5, saying Ciao didn't show up, and he decides NOT to go to the concert tonight, so I work from 5:40 to 6, then eat and dishes, and FINISH the next 20 from 7:10 to 8:25, only 12 minutes apiece, GREAT, and proofread what John did, pretty well, as I should have expected, until 9:35, and then get to read the rest of the Times, and I'm feeling VERY tired, so I'm over to shower at 10:35, smoke, and crawl into bed at 11, feeling eye-sore and body-weary and TIRED from coming!

DIARY 4

MONDAY, JANUARY 28. Up to exercise while wondering whether Rosey Sheik's call was going to catch me out of breath, but over and start catching up on the diary from the busy weekend when she calls and says that I should come in at 2:30. I proofread the rest of what John types for NASA, and call Graham who wants me to come in after I see the dentist, not before, since he wants to leave his lunchtime free (and he doesn't trust my promptness), so I have a chance to finish my diary at 10 pages and to look through a few items about the programs before having lunch and cleaning my teeth and getting out with loaded briefcase to Rosey's. She welcomes me at 2:25 and takes me JUST at 2:30, injecting me, filling me, and telling me to add $5 to the bill and send it to her. Out at 3 and down to LTS at 3:30, where Graham HAS stamps from Panama waiting for me, which is lovely, and takes back the 40, shows me some of the comments from the people around about how good I am, and I chat with the blue-pencil fellow who talks about my name and the much-marriedness of a Polish woman he knows. Back home at 4:30, with only 23 new ones to do, and get back into the programs before dinner, and talk about going to the movies, but John decides to stay home, and I figure he WANTS me to go out. We talked at lunch about sex, and he said he wondered why we weren't close anymore, and I retorted as calmly as I could that I knew he DIDN'T want sex, and he DIDN'T initiate closeness, so as I say it, that left me with one alternative: start it myself but don't go on to having sex. At that point he sighed and said he didn't feel like talking about it. At least the topic is brought up. Subway out in the drizzle to the St. Marks at 8 to see "Money, Money, Money," a funny subversive thing about a gang of 5 who kidnap a singer for publicity, sell a leftist leader to THREE sets of people who want him, hold up a bank by acting as police, and all KINDS of nasty things and get AWAY with it! "The Long Goodbye" has Elliott Gould SHOOTING his best friend (Frank Gifford) in the head because he killed his own wife and made it LOOK like he was dead, and the bottle-across-the-face-because-she-loves-me scene was a real SMASHER. Out at 12, across for pizza, and home in the drizzle on 4 subways, getting confused, and reading Updike. Smoke, tired.

DIARY 4387

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29. Wake at 8 and scoot over to touch John JUST as he's getting out of bed. So much for THAT. Back into the program-sorting, coming finally into the last phase of it, thinking to finish in a few hours today, while listening to tapes, but it goes on and on, and there are lots of dates I don't find quickly, so I end going ALL through the datebook transcription finding MOST of them, except for "Bluebird," the "When Queens Collide," and the FIRST Govinda and Rathileka among them. AND find that there are about 50 pages of diary MISSING! (COULD THAT BE THE ENTIRE MAINE section??) AND find that I've READ "Anecdotes of Destiny" by Dinesen on 10-26-60, a real puzzler. I was in SRI, so it COULD have been borrowed from Carl, say. Also find a chunk of A pages in with the D pages, and it's a pain to switch, so I'll just keep a LIST of what I find and put it all in order at ONCE, in with typing out the tables of contents. But it's been so LONG since I've been into the correspondence stack that I REALLY am beginning to feel guilty about it, so I figure TOMORROW I'll get to it. Go through to 5 and get over to find that we're having dinner at Kei's tonight, and he's exasperated because "I told you twice," and I resisted telling him back, "Yes, the first time you said dinner, the second time you said party, and to me "Party" is not SURELY dinner included." Out at 7:40 after FINALLY finishing putting all the pages and sheets in order (but I still have about 10 DANCE pages to RETYPE), and showering and washing my head, and we're into the car and get there first at 7:55, and into their big new loft, with a friendly cat that I think gives me an allergy, except that I seem to have a DREADFUL cold at the same time. Louise from Clark Center is there, talking about her early encounters with Martha Graham and Jose Limon and the "Sundays of Dance," where no one appeared at any OTHER time. And Maurice someone from Brooklyn Academy who talked about the Ito family of 9 siblings, the rabbit-burrowings on Nantucket, Katherine Cornell and Martha Graham; and Kei and Mal talked about their dancing, so there wasn't much for ME to contribute except head-nodding, and we left at 12, and got home where I lay and lay and lay, DETERMINED not to smoke, nose dripping, feeling awful, and I suppose I fell asleep about 1:30, woke about 5 times, felt LOUSY!

DIARY 4388

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30. Up again at 8:15, exercise, type 2 to get abreast of diary, and over at 10 to watch "The Way of All Flesh" (after talking to Arnie and washing the dishes) with Akim Tamiroff, since they never seem to show the Academy Award version with Emil Jannings I've been trying to see for over 15 years, and don't understand how someone can call a sad coincidence of occurrences in a man's life a "dreary drama." Jannings is probably HEART-rending in the final "This is my father's favorite song" scene and in the Christmas tree scene at the VERY end. Then quickly out to unemployment at 11:30, withdrawing $100 from the bank in preparation for Food Stamps and $1500 in savings, as I phoned about this morning (GOT to get items off the list) and back for lunch. Asked him yesterday if he thought about my question Monday, and he still seems to say it's up to ME to do what I want to start things with HIM. Then get into retyping "DANCE" pages as John goes off to Trans-World Publications and comes back with FOUR articles to do, which makes him very happy with their challenge, except that he thinks they are SOPHISTICATED and looking after the good of the READERS, while I'm convinced that they're TERRIBLY dumb and after only the BUCK. But I'll let him have his fantasies if it helps him write a better article. Then shave and get out to Residence, passing it on the street and meeting HIM at 6:15, and the place is pleasant though strangely empty, the paté and fois gras is great at the start, the salad is good, the wine isn't bad, but my veal is stringy compared with Lugano, though John's Quenelles de Brochet are excellent and he'd like to bring, say, his mother here. Out at 8:30 and home to watch Nixon's "State of the Union" and I even take NOTES: 1) talking about welfare, a DIRECT QUOTE IS: "We must . . . replace---the discredited . . PRESIDENT (precedent, he had written)" and NOW I believe he will NOT be president in 1976! He ALSO said, "My FINAL three years of the Presidency." 2) His ludicrous statement that we must maintain the armies to ensure the success of the peace-initiative. 3) "America must never become the second-strongest nation in the world," is also horrid. 4) on "Legacy of my EIGHT years of the Presidency" he got a STANDING OVATION. Is there NO JUSTICE? Into warm tub to soak from 10-10:30, smoking, get GREAT ideas, and sit in bed writing until John joins me at 11, so I go and sit in the chair, write (see starting DIARY 4389) and write, get back to bed, up to write again, and finally up to write in the KITCHEN, eating, getting to bed at LAST at 3:45 am!!

DIARY 4397

THURSDAY, JANUARY 31. Up as usual at 8:40, feeling dreadful from my 3:45 workings this morning, and my cold is so strong that I just don't feel that it would do any good for me to exercise, so I don't for the first time in a long time. Then over to type 9 pages from the notes I took last night, and when I finish at 11:15, I'm over to the other apartment---so that John can work undisturbed---and phone "Help" and get advice about the Westchester suit and the Greenburg quiz-show presentation, and then talk to Martinez and try to call the woman from Lever Brothers. It feels good to do all THAT, and over lunch, telling John about the Mattachine fantasy, and he puts the idea out that this really should be done for the National Gay Task Force, but I judge that that organization might be too powerful for me to get too good a hold on, and think I should still try it first with Mattachine. Tell him about the GRAVITATIONAL force-idea ruling the atoms, and he says that THAT is the kind of idea I should follow up! He's been cooking all morning, dirtying dishes for the dinner tomorrow night, and so I do the dishes, and get to the mail stack to get to some of the bills that should have been gotten to MUCH earlier, and write a note to Cyndy care of Phil, and there are 6 pieces of mail to take out when I stop at 2. Over to get ready to go, having called Dror, who'll put away his yogurt and join me at Radio City, and I leave at 2:15, telling John I won't be back until 10. The lobby is jammed with booths of exhibitors, the lights of which go on and off due to faulty connections every so often, and wait for Dror, who's waiting outside. The March of Time is incredibly STAGY with its talk of (Volume 1, No. 3, 1935) the "munitions king," the suppression of Catholicism in Mexico, with a ludicrous staged hanging of a Communist teacher, a report on Huey Long and the first Pan-Am trans-Pacific commercial flight. "The Informer" STILL isn't that good, though Gypo, played by Victor McLaglen, is a rather convincing character with his bravado, cowardice, and informing. Then wander the exhibits, leafing through posters and books, eating Drakes Cake and cream soda on the steps, talking, and "She" is vastly interesting, worth the $2.50 alone. To his place for dinner (see DIARY 4398) leave at 11:15 after a strange "Want to stay?" from him, and bed at 12:30, cold awful.

DIARY 4399

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1. Over and get to work on various correspondence during the day, getting out the letter to the New York Times about photographers, Mattachine dues, the second part of the Holiday Contest comes in and I spend from 11:15 to 12:15 finding the maximum letter configuration, amazed that they have the GALL to ask for an extra $8 from the contestants who want to try for $10,000. John's out to have lunch with Jan LaRue, so I warm up the rest of the chicken that I was supposed to have had last night and have it for lunch, and get into reading the rest of "Untouched by Human Hands," which I finish after lunch. Then get to the dishes again in preparation for dinner tonight, and John gets in just as I finish them at 3. Back to the letters and write to Claudia, Seavers, Joe Easter, Elaine, Mike, Rita, and Paul. The last letter was to Rita, and at 5:45 I went over to shave and shower, and John was about ready at 5:45, and they didn't come, so I even started a letter to Mom when they finally arrived at 7:30, saying they were there at 6:30, and even came up to MY apartment, but she SAID I hadn't told her about the A. bell or apartment, which I can SCARCELY believe. Anyway, there they are, and I fix frozen daiquiris and hear them talking gaily with John, so the evening's going to be OK. Drinks are the best yet, but they go quickly, and we're down to eat John's homemade paté, which is just dandy, and the lamb in cabbage, which to me tastes slightly acid, to him tastes as if the meat may have spoilt, and Werner spills HIS glass of wine, and then we have salad and dessert, and then he spills MADGE'S glass of wine. Then into the living room to look at their photos of the trip through the Greek islands, so we should be SURE never to take a tour, but they rave about Santorini and the Blue Grotto, and then we show them the Bali carvings, the Indian paintings, and we're over to look at MY place, and I get out the souvenir boxes and we're looking at Chinese museum books and Japanese house books and Indian books, and finally John drags over at 12:30, saying he wants to go to bed, so we're back to the front, and talk even MORE, and they leave at 1:45, and I put out the lights and smoke to let myself fall asleep easily.

DIARY 4404

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2. [I'm so good at this for the past few days I'm making myself SICK.] Up to wash a stack of dishes between 8:30 and 9:30, then finish the letter to Mom at 10:30, and then get over to listen to Bill's tape, while washing the windows between the rooms, fixing the mirror, and putting up the wire for the speaker in the storage/stamp room. I'm getting so many things off my "Do" list that when I look through the Village Voice I make a point of marking more than a few things, as if determined to have more of a choice of things to do. John goes out for a walk, and I decide to type the People List, which I'd NOT like him to see, and do that even after he gets back and ignores me, as usual, at the typewriter. By then it's 5, and I go over to see the Weightlifting Championships to find they've been moved to tomorrow, so I get over to decide I really don't want to write a letter to Bill, and put last things away and get back to stamps, sorting through to see if there are any mint Russian or Polish that I might want to give to Sergio to repay him for the great stuff given to Peter Mike (there aren't), and then it's dinner and the dishes and refusing to go to some modernistic impressionistic play by Michael Smith that John gets a reservation for, and I'm over to listen to more tapes and work on stamps through Western Australia until 9, leaving me with only (HA) about 60 of the largest countries left to transfer in Cyndy's collection, and THEN I'll get to Sergio's collection, and then I can bring MINE up to date, and then find a new notebook and make TWO books out of my overly fat one. That's all. Then watch "Silent Running" with Bruce Dern, slow and fairly uninteresting (except for the drones, seemingly children walking on their hands inside machine-like boxes) about a forest cruising through space, and the last 3/4 of "The Tribe that Hides from Man" about the search for a tribe that was actually FOUND (as voiceover comment, ONLY, at the end) later, and then watch "The Go-Between," mystifying and nonlinear and not a little confusing at the end when Michael Redgrave, as the grownup go-between, visits an old Julie Christie who MARRIED the scarred James Fox after being fucked by Alan Bates, and MR's to see her GRANDSON, a doll, unnamed, who looks like Alan Bates (or better!) to tell him he's NOT hexed, which of course he is. Eat; bed at 2 am.

DIARY 4405

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3. Up at 8:20 as usual, and out for the Times in the snowy morning, back to check on the TV list and go through the Magazine, and then over to work on NASA from 9:50 to 12, getting 9 of them done. Lunch and read some more of "Gone" and then don't feel like doing more of NASA and don't feel like reading more, so I get the Magazine and do BOTH puzzles, the crossword and the double-crostic, until 3, delighted at being able to do them so quickly (with a lot of help from EB) and then over to finish reading the Times while watching the beginning of the Wide World of Sports from 3:30 till 5, and the auto race even gets interesting, showing me that I want to watch SOMETHING. Feeling depressed with the cold, feeling that I'm doing everything for myself and nothing for JOHN, and I feel that he's cool toward me also. Then watch the beginning of "The Tribe that Hides from Man," and find that they MUST find them before their river is totally built-up from factories on the far outskirts of Sao Paulo and moved into a reservation before the frontiersmen find them and KILL them for sport. "There is no other alternative" is the phrase most often heard. Then Avi calls about 5:15 and talks to both John and me for about half an hour, and then I dash into the tub to wash my hair before we go out this evening. John had been talking about the play last night, and he wants to go again, so we plan to go this evening. Eat more of the pigs in the blanket, and I do the dishes, and while he's downstairs cleaning the snow off the car I take a fairly large pipeful of grass to give myself a good entrée to the evening. In the car I say that I'm feeling depressed, worried about the relationship, and when John says "I spin my wheels" I think of huge 2001-type wheels of logic and ideas coursing through my head, bringing my brain always back to the point where it started, and I can't tell HIM how apt his simile is or else he'll KNOW I'm stoned out of my mind. Get there early, at 7:10, as usual, and I look at a map of Africa and South America on the wall and LITERALLY trip out on them, then up to the MARVELOUS play (see DIARY 4406), which we're home from at 9, giving us time to watch Tennessee William's story about migrant farmers, well acted by everyone, until 10:30, and I do stamps for a bit, smoke some MORE, come with enthusiasm, and get to bed at 1.

DIARY 4409

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4. Go through the morning ritual (see DIARY 4408), deciding it's about time to start exercising again, since the worst depression of the cold seems to be over, though I'm still coughing and snuffling through the day. Type 4 pages in the diary and decide I should catch up on the movie list as my "thing" for today---that is, after working on NASA from 9:30 to 12, having lunch, and working on NASA proofreading for a few hours after John's finished with the typing at 3. Then by 5 pm I've even added some things to the DO list, to fill the page without really DOING anything on it, and I'm feeling a frustration of pressures that I might NEVER have a chance to get all these things DONE. Over to stamps for a bit, getting into the countries which have lots of stamps in Cyndy's father's album, which takes an enormous amount of time, and get over exactly at 6, when John said dinner was to be, and he's still shaving in the tub, having gotten a call about 5:30 telling him to come over at 11 pm. So I settle down with "Gone" for a few minutes, not saying a word of the kind: "Whenever I come in a few minutes late, I'm blamed, but of course I'm not permitted to blame YOU when YOU are a few minutes late." Even the beef and kidney stew is better today, from a combination of taste and my cold's letting up, and after the dishes John goes to see Tina Croll and I'm back over for stamps until it's time for "Junie Moon" on Channel 31, which I focus every BIT as well as a regular channel, but then "Umberto D" comes on instead, and there's been a mistake in the listings, but on a hunch I thumb through the channels and it's on 41, which doesn't come in well at ALL, but there it is, and I watch it until 10, with Stephen Sondheim as Max Schwartz, a sort of budding Oscar Levant, and a can't-be-seen Austin Pendleton as the Little Fox, the house-songwriter. And it WAS Estelle Parsons as Lucille! Then back to stamps, tape quieted because it echoes in the room, and I only get six countries done in the whole evening until 12:15, when I shower to get to bed, and I'm spending MINUTES on each hinge, where it would probably be better to just SOAK the PAGES that don't have mint stamps on them, And maybe I STILL will! But it's AMAZING how some of HER stamps are JUST the ones I need to fill holes in series that I DO have! John's in then, so I smoke, and bed 12:45.

DIARY 8162

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5. Type 1 page to date, then do the thinking described on DIARY 4410 and the pages before THIS, and get everything spread all over the dining room table trying to get things into order. Get all the conceptual ideas down in writing, as notes on the pages, and all the processes straight in my mind before lunch, then put everything back on my desk. I'd started the day planning to get out early, go shopping for books, and see the double feature at the Quad, but a number of things went wrong: I couldn't get Joan on the phone last night to include a visit to HER in the schedule, it was 10E outside and VERY windy, so it would be torture walking on the streets, and it'd take minutes for my glasses to adjust in temperature in each shop I went into, so it did not sound like a good idea, and then Betty Borger from Macmillan called with a proofreading job, which I couldn't resist just to get Macmillan on my resume, so I said OK. So when I left at 1:15 I went first to the Science-Fiction bookshop to pick up another Sheckley book they found for me for $1.50: "Pilgrimage to Earth," then to LTS to take back the 24 that I had and get only 8 from him, plus three TSPs, and I complained that I'd really RATHER have more, which he said he'd try to do, and he said that I MIGHT be able to charge $4 for each of these, and maybe get even MORE when they write the new contract, hopefully after March 1, Now if I WAITED until then ...? Out at 2:30 (see, would have missed the start of the double feature anyway) to subway up to Macmillan, get it from a cheery Betty Borger who would like a resume, and then subway all the way home at 4. Don't feel like stamps, so I finish "Gone" and then get over for some stamps before dinner, promptly at 6, since I have to leave for the class at 7. Leave here at 6:25, about 5 minutes too LATE, since I get in at 7:05, but the class is a REAL ditsy-number (see notes on T17) and even though the PEOPLE are stupid who ATTEND, the business-types who run it are engagingly money-oriented and excellence-finding, so I feel that I may have stumbled onto something. Home at 10:30, do dishes, John's out, I start sorting out OLD DIARY on the table, put it all away when I smoke and get to bed at 11:15, just after HE gets to bed.

DIARY 8163

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6. Type three diary pages to consolidate the latest series of changes in the diary organization, and then put everything out on the dining room table to work most of the day on paging, figuring out where stray pages went and where they came from, typing tables of contents, and I find myself sitting and staring at the pages, wondering if it's all WORTH it. Then get out to unemployment at about 11:15, and get to the library with various bills and an unemployment book to get a library card, which they fill out for me, and I give them 154 for the laminated form. Then decide to see what they have on the Laser, and look through a few encyclopedias and finally to the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science, and there's a nice article about Lasers, which I decide to xerox: 5 pages for 154, 754, not bad, since now I don't have to sit and TRANSCRIBE NOTES from it. But glance at it and it appears that I'll have to get a set of REFERENCE pages for MASERS, since that seems to give the BASIS for the operation. Home at 12:15 and John's not quite eaten yet, so we eat, and I take the bull by the horns and ASK him if he thinks the relationship is OK, and he says that he's been feeling more relaxed now that the pressure of sex is off him, I TELL him that I realize it's entering another phase and he seems to agree, but says that he enjoys sex outside ONLY for the physical stimulation, that that could NEVER lead him into love, and that he DOES love me for reasons OUTSIDE sex, and I say that I had felt PARTLY better after "The Prussian Suite" and now I feel TOTALLY better, and we feel chummy and close. He goes out and I continue working on the sheets, playing the radio for distraction, and get him to let me keep the stuff on the table through dinner. Then shower and get out at 7, having smoked, to "Pygmy Gamelan" at WBAI's Free Music Store, with Arnie, and leave at 8:10 for Rajkowkis's Tsi-Dun (see T11). Though there are lots of nice people, it's a flop for me, and we leave at 11, Arnie inviting us over for cheesecake, and we smoke hash (see T12) and I get back home to have MORE at 1, and don't feel like going to bed, so I finish "Pilgrimage to Earth," eyes aching under contacts, and get to bed at 2:30, exhausted, and strung out from hash.

DIARY 8174

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7. Work on the diary ALL day, and go through a series of changes, so many that I FINALLY break through to the point where I just want to get SOMETHING done, confident that it won't be the LAST that I do, but just to be FINISHED with it for NOW. Probably to be redone NEXT year when I add the NEW pages to it. Get all the Reviews and Essays and Fiction numbered and put away and contents typed, but then I get to Gay and Autobiography and it's quite clear that the volumes will be SO big (even though I DO type up the Gay Table of Contents) that it really won't be usable, and gradually I get the idea of breaking up all the MULTI-volume sections into ONE-volume units. Then decide it would probably be better to number the volumes in a SERIES so that they'll be easier to expand, and come up with a series that starts with 10 with the Workbooks, 20 with the Datebooks, 30 for the Journals, with 31 for 1958, 1959, 1960, and 1968; 32 for 1969, etc, and 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s for other sections. Work with THAT framework for awhile, deciding that I'll have about 31 volumes at that point, which IS too much for a unique alphabetical prefix, and somewhere along the line decide that since I'm changing so much, maybe the diary page number will be ENOUGH to say how MANY pages I have, and that I'll type a table of contents not with a volume sequence number but with a page-length, thereby ELIMINATING the need for other codes. This is VERY appealing, since it would save me a lot of trouble, but then I think of the 30-odd pages of the diary sheet-list, with only the VOLUME as reference, and I'd have to go there and EITHER have the DIARY NUMBER typed on the table of contents, or have them in sequential ORDER, but I wouldn't really know how far IN it is---and then I sort of slid BACK to the idea of volume numbering. Then the idea of numbers for the VOLUMES didn't seem too good, so I went back to a MAIN letter and SUBSIDIARY letters, like A for Autobiography, AS for the Subjective volume, AP for the Autobiography: People, Places volume, etc. Have lunch, have dinner, talk to John, type many pages, read a bit between times, but that's ALL I do ALL day, getting to bed, smoking about 12:15. USEFUL in a way, but WASTEFUL OF TIME, too, and I'll be GLAD when it's SETTLED.

DIARY 8175

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8. Again work on the diary all day, rearranging the order of some of the sections, expanding some of the sections so that the number of volumes now appears to be 33, and decide, for example, that the volume NUMBERS will only be on the master volume-list, until I decide that I have to have them all NEARBY and AVAILABLE, and so the labels on the volumes themselves should have those numbers too. But change them SO many times just during the DAY that I'm getting a GOOD idea that WHATEVER idea I come up with, it'll ONLY be as tentative as the next reorganization. Then I'm DETERMINED to get the stuff OFF the dining room tale, so I put away by brute force the journal pages, the travel pages, and put the seasonings into a volume and the workbook pages into the notebook, so that by the time John returns from seeing Pat Wollner about a summer at Martha's Vineyard as Business Manager for her Dance Sessions up there, the table is CLEAR except for the Autobiography, which prompted much of this rethinking ANYWAY, and I'm in the process of dividing it from one LARGE continuous group into the FIVE groups of Subjective, Objective, Dreams, Lists, and Mattachine. And it's only be getting them into the AUTOBIOGRAPHY order that I could even skim through to see what five areas I COULD divide that section into. And so I'm even MORE resigned to the idea: DO it, let it SIT for awhile and see how it works out. Feel VERY good about this alternative. But sadly find many travel pages, gay pages, workbook pages, and reviews in the autobiography section, too, which makes the idea of a VOLUME-code still difficult to accept, but I can't think of an ALTERNATIVE. John suggests cards, but I can't see how that would help me. Finally finish at 6:45, in time for dinner, and out at 7:15 to smoke a pipe and get to the New School for two films. It's snowing lovely outside ALL day, snarling traffic, but the subways are still beautiful and outside is crystalline and mica on the walks. The films are probably strange even if you're straight, but stoned they're a real mystical trip (see T15), and I get out at 10:45, figuring to miss "Cyrano de Bergerac" on American Theater, so get into the restaurant for a bologna and omelet and home-fries plate, with a bowl of fruit, and go home to read some and have some more cheesecake. Really too MUCH!

DIARY 8177

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9. Now I have them all in books, I'm still drawn to making the diary pages TRULY orderly, so I take them over to the other apartment to process, paging through all the journal pages to make sure which are there and which missing (a couple of both categories), taking out some duplicates, making other notes, and making lists for tables of contents. Type them, then get to work on the autobiography section, finding it an ENORMOUS pain to number AP1 through 453 and AS 1 through AS 382, and then when I actually TYPE IT UP, find that there are lots that SHOULD be in the gay section and others, but it IS clearer now that I HAVE the pages what FURTHER sections I could divide them into: gay people and straight people, for example, or separate out John, or sheer NEW YORK color pieces. The latter would include parties and things not REALLY necessary to MY life, but experienced and written up BY me. But I'm having a greater urge than ever to FINISH with it. Typing and typing pages of contents, then have dinner of clam-sausage and noodles, and John's out to a show and I continue working after the STACK of dishes (he's pouring things in and out of huge containers because of the shortage of refrigerator space due to the number of soups and stews and essences he's collecting, ALMOST as bad as some of MY collections that I don't know when to stop!) are finished. Then shower and shave and watch "Omega Man" with Charleton Heston and a good Rosalind Cash (black and beautiful) from 9-11, and it was REASONABLE that he died, but UNREASONABLE that he died so easily after going through SO MUCH beforehand! Then smoke a large pipe, modeling my new red pants for John, and get out to the Brooklyn Heights bars described on pages T6-T10. Back at 3:05 and put out John's coat to try to air off what will obviously be a clinging smoke-smell, and put on two pieces of toast, that I devour with and without the ginger preserves, then have a bowl of "100% natural" cereal with a little bit of milk because I don't see the extra quart until I put the half-gallon container BACK, and wash my face, put my pants and pullover out to air, read part of the Times for the TV section, and bed at 3:45 am!

DIARY 8181

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10. Wake at 8:30 to find John gone from bed without my knowing it, then doze asleep again to have the dream described on T4-5, and then get out of bed at 9:45, deciding that 6 hours has to be enough for tonight, and John comes over to hear how dreadful the places were, and to say that he might be interested in seeing the show over the weekend. Get over to start working on typing, and do 17 pages of a lot of leftovers before and after lunch, and get to a few pages of diary table of contents, too, and then I'm just tired of working, so I settle down with the puzzle, and I took time off for a Camera Three show on "The Cosmic Connection" which told me little that was new except that they HAVE photos now of Phobos and Deimos that prove that they ARE asteroids or satellites (natural) and not hollow artificial moons. Finish the Times (the puzzle was a snap) and by then it's time for dinner, and then I get to some final correspondence: send out a job application, request a $3 subscription to "Travel Agent," pay the Con Edison bill, send duplicates of "Dance and Dancers" to Michael's Thing, and I think one other thing but I can't remember what it was now. Run the "Do" list down to the very bottom of the card, and even have to come up with an additional card of things to do very quickly. Discouraging to have so much to do STILL, though the list NOW is certainly quite different from what it started OUT being, and there are lots of NICE things on it, like labeling the collection in the glass case in the storage room. Then after the dishes get out to the Theater St. Marks for the last half-hour of "Ah, Wilderness" and the first hour of "Strange Interlude," but there are a pair of bright eyes down the row that belong to Evelio Alonso, and we get together and leave early. He stops at a House of Pancakes, and as chance would have it I stopped at a pizza shop for a slice to take the edge off the stomach-desires not quite satisfied by John's rabbit stew---and do I begin to see a parallel with "Frenzy" here? Then to his place for unsatisfactory sex (see T21) and leave at 12:30, with DREADFULLY slow trains getting me back home at 1:45, and I'm reading parts of Jung's "Four Archetypes" sleepily.