1974 2 of 8
DIARY 8183
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11. Just can't root myself out of bed before 9:30, feeling guilty about it but lazy and comfortable at the same time under the warm blanket in the cold, forbidding room. Then can't stand the splotches on the carpet anymore, nor the white flakes from washing the windows between the rooms, so I start dusting and vacuuming, so I don't get over to the other apartment until 11 am. Then type two diary pages and decide to get out to shop for books as an excuse to be in the neighborhood of the St. Marks so that I can see the rest of the films I saw part of yesterday. I want lunch at about 11:45, trying to think of things to do to fill up the time usefully before then, and JOHN is late in exercising, so we actually eat at 12:10. Out at 12:30 and I get to Barnes and Noble first at 1, find they've organized their books into publishers and they don't have a THING that I want, and then make my way downtown on Broadway, following the map, and finding a lot of shops ARE gone, as my intuition told me, and get into the movie about 2:10, to find I'd missed quite a few details in the scenes with Evelio yesterday, and see the REST of "Strange Interlude" and the start AND end of "Ah, Wilderness." Out at 4:45 and look into a few remaining bookshops, searching for Dinesen's "Anecdotes of Destiny" mainly, and where there is Science-Fiction, going after Sheckley. Absolutely nothing. At 5:15 I'm totally starved, so I have a Vanilla Fog ice cream cone for the awful price (considering it's almost frozen, though it COULD be tasty) of 324. Buy rubber gloves and shower caps, subway back to pick up the laundry from the dry cleaners, and get in at 6 for dinner of fried chicken, underdone at the wings and not NEARLY crisp, and then phone Joan (typing Louis' play yesterday and Dremak's play tonight), Rolf (who's found his cross-country ski-partner in his young friend from Princeton, but he has to work tonight), John Connolly (and we set up a Scrabble date for March 6, and I can cross THAT off the list), and Alan Henderson (he's not home), for company, finding none, John's off to a dance performance (followed by a threesome with two he met at the movies at the Spike), and I smoke and swing off to the movies (see T23), getting home at 12:30 to jerk off VERY nicely with Baby Magic before John gets in at 2.
DIARY 8186
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12. Up at 8:30, have breakfast to try to do away with my insatiable appetite, figuring I have to get back to exercising, too, and type three diary pages and decide to proofread the book today. Get it out and am pleased to see that it is NOT the 400 pages I thought I was told it was, but only 176, so I should be able to finish it today, which is happy. Start at 9:30, interrupted by 25 minutes of Arnie's conversation, including the news that the Trinidad dancers might be appearing here in Brooklyn at 12:30 on Thursday, and then back to 12:05, finding the book "Wildfire" fairly interesting, though with FEW printing errors that haven't been found already. Then have lunch, debate about going BACK to see the rest of "Soylent Green," but on playing the movie back it isn't THAT good that I'd want to sit through it all KNOWING what was going to happen, so I get back to work at 1:20 and work through until 5:30, taking 15 minutes off for Cynthia's calling about coming down next Tuesday at 5:20, promising me that I can leave for class at 6:20, AND a call from Peter Rooney who wants to put my name in for some sort of officer's position in ASI, which might be OK since he says that the President and Vice-President are currently good, running again, and pushed through a Board of Director's meeting in just three hours. Sounds FAR better than Mattachine, and another "plus" for some sort of final resume. At lunch, talked with John about my "Crest" last night, and by coincidence the New York that arrives TALKS about the very crisis I'm going through! Then over to shave and get ready for class at 5:30, getting back to perfectly-heated soup at 6 exactly, and leave at 6:23, which turns out to be a bit EARLY, getting me to class at 6:58, so I can leave at 6:25 and still get there on time. Class is somewhat more of a bore (see T26 on), with the instructor revealing himself as being quite STUPID, and pushing more and more that we shouldn't WAIT for business, but that we should go out and gather groups and plan itineraries and BRING PEOPLE IN to them for fleecing. I guess I should have guessed. Out at 9:05, indulge in a pizza-slice, home at 10, finish proofreading 10:10 to 11:15, a little over 7 hours for which I'll charge 12 hours, just UNDER $7 an hour, a bargain for them. Then over and to bed WITHOUT smoking, hoping to NOT feel so TIRED in the AM!.
DIARY 8190
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13. Do get to exercising, though there are twinges from muscles even at level 2 that tell me I've been away too long. Get over to the other side about 9:30, ridiculously late, but have cereal anyway, type 4 pages of diary, and get out to unemployment about 10:30, going to the bank to get money, waiting on line about 15 minutes, then go to A&S and find a Golden Fleece for only $19.95, almost too good to be true, and buy three pairs of undershirts and shorts at the same time, and there goes almost $30. Then on my way out I see some GREAT pullovers for $3, marked down from $6, and I buy a red, green, and black trio, and also notice that they have specially priced shoes as low as $7, and $10 shoes MUCH better than the Polish ones I got from Modell's, so I'll really HAVE to do more shopping there. Back home just at noon, and have lunch with John, and he's off again to the Dance Collection, where he's started working on a large collection of Ruth St. Denis material that'll take him MONTHS to sort, so he says. I get the idea that I should get the "Acid House" and "River" stuff together so that I can see how many pages are added to the end of the Diary so that these can come off the "T" series, and do THAT until 3, when I'm over to watch a badly cut and horribly acted, even though she IS Maria Montez, "Mystery of Marie Roget," with incredibly stupid screenwriting, and then see that a MARVELOUS crew of Jeff Chandler, George Nader, Lex Barker, Keith Andes, and Jock Mahoney, among others, are on "Away All Boats," so I sit and watch THAT from 4-6, finding George NADER absolutely beautiful in and out of clothes, and no WONDER I had a crush on him when the movie was made in 1956! GORGEOUS body and LOVELY face. Then over to dinner at 6, great cold tomato soup, bean sprouts, and pork chops in fresh orange, and I even kiss John thanks after dinner. Then go off to food stamps, getting there at 7:15 and finding almost NO line, but disgusted with their joking around and lazing, but get out in time to get back at 8:30 for "Antigone" with Genevieve Bujold, Stacy Keach as the Narrator, and Fritz Weaver as the ineffectual Creon, and impressed by the CRUX of the play: "Why must dirty work be done?" It's so SIMPLE! John's back, to bed at 11, and I'm over to shuffle "Acid House" pages around until 12:15, and bed WITHOUT smoking!
DIARY 8194
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14. Go through the morning routine and get even the single page typed of the diary. Do some work in the renumbering effort by getting stuff from "The River" sorted out and go through much of the "Acid House" material, getting things in order, throwing out some few copies that I don't need anymore, but there's not much time to do anything, since I'm starting at 10 and stopping at 11:30, to have lunch early and meet Arnie in front of the St. George at 12:05 to get to the Jay Street Auditorium, where his student card from New York Community College entitles him to $2.50 prices for $4.50 seats for the Trinidad Dancers, Ambakaila (see Diary 8195). Pity that John felt he couldn't come because it was too expensive, but I tell Arnie that I'm really getting VERY anti-black, since audiences I've been in that have BEEN primarily black have been SO rude. It's epitomized by an enormous bearded black who doesn't applaud for anything, and when the applause goes on a MOMENT before his patience runs out, he starts shouting out "On with it," as if he literally RULED the performance. Others shout out their comments, regardless of general applicability, and they sit forward in their seats, kick the seats in back, and laugh at the most serious parts. And then there's the constant undercurrent that we're "Whitey," and I'm going to begin rather indignantly saying that I would have told a WHITE person the same thing LONG ago! And that a white audience wouldn't even THINK of acting like that in the first place! And then have my head handed me, probably. Out just before 3 and to the bank to get a $218 Money Order for the February rent so I can have a receipt for Food Stamps NOW, rather than two months from now, then to Goldsmiths to find they have NO typewriter ribbons in all black, NO bond paper, through I buy a box of 3-hole in case the scarcity runs to THAT, stamp-pad ink for John, and some folders, 4 of which don't have the holes in the CENTER and have to be returned. Home to tell John he didn't miss much, work some more, and Alice calls to say that SHE'LL be at "Stimmung," eat, meet Arnie at 7:30 but we get there in time (see DIARY 8196), Arnie goes home, Alice and I go to Ashoka for an oniony shish kebab, pappad, samosa, and tea for $5 and change, and I have JUST the $5 required for the Continental, from 11:10-3:10 (see DIARY 8191-8193).
DIARY 8197
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15. Out of bed at 9:30, six hours seemingly enough sleep from last night, though my calves were marvelously stiff from the straining to come at the end, and over to finish up the pagination for the "Acid House" stuff so that I can type in the REAL page numbers to replace the T numbers that had come into effect, and am gratified to be able to assign the number 8190 as a representation of the number of pages I've typed, 12 books at 44 pages PER! Don't really feel like doing anything, and I sit for minutes, mesmerized by the contemplation of the problem of affixing labels to the outside of notebooks, since I'm sure putting the stickers on the bookcase would cause more trouble than they would be worth, being always slightly out of order. Finally seem to fix on something involving two paperclips, though the paper will probably tear each time I open the book to remove pages, and even when I opened the TEST book I forgot to remove the clips! Get working on the final table of contents page, separate the fiction into the two books, put all the "Acid House" books away, and find that I have to put the PAST journal (except for CURRENT) and the PAST travel books (except for CURRENT) against the wall, 11 in all, so that I have room for the other 22 on the shelf. Type and type, and John gets a call from Joe Campbell to have dinner with them this evening to talk about his class at the Open Eye this spring (seems to be 8 classes starting April 8 and ending on Memorial Day (which might even conflict with the Dance Aesthetics Classes he's taking at DTW from 5-7 on Mondays starting February 18). I work through until 6:45, having finally made a list of the fairly SMALL number of things yet to do with the diary pages, and put on the leftover chicken to heat for dinner while I wash my hair for the rest of the Continental ticket tonight. Eat until 7:30, wash dishes, type three pages [oh, YESTERDAY I READ Poe's "Mystery of Marie Roget" and "The Purloined Letter" from 4-6, TODAY I finished "Four Archetypes" after lunch, read the Village Voice, and even read "Ehrengard" from 1:15 to 2:10 today, to diminish the number of books I have still to read to 19!], shave, put in contacts at 8:30, smoke, and get out at 9 to get to the Continental at 9:30 (see DIARY 8198) for an INCREDIBLE evening, leaving at 6:10 am and getting to bed at 6:40 am!!!
DIARY 8206
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 16. Wake with somewhat of a jolt at 11:10, having gotten only 42 hours sleep, and am in a very sad state, as described on Diary 8205. Don't have to wash anything since I had three showers yesterday except my face, and get over, too stiff to exercise, just about in time for lunch. Then figure I can at least type the diary pages though I can't see too well, so I do that from 12:30 until about 3, doing 13 good pages, but feeling that my arms are really overly sore, hoping it's only lack of sleep. Then over to tape a response-tape to Bill from the notes I took on playing his tape OVER A MONTH AGO! Really too long a delay! Then over for dinner of the end of the rabbit stew, just about in time since I'm losing my taste for it, and then do the dishes and get out about 7:15 by subway (since John went out to try to stand in line to get gas, saying he didn't know where the line ended and obviously got into some kind of argument twice, and came back exasperated to say that the car's in storage for the rest of the winter) to the Washington Square Church, which I keep confusing with the Judson Church ON Washington Square, which isn't this old place on 4th Street a number of doors FROM Washington Square. Get the two front center seats on either side of the aisle, and the performance of "Lazarus" is pretty awful. The only good thing about it was my introduction to William Zukof who has a lovely natural countertenor voice. But my DISrespect for Eric Salzman has grown quite a bit since I detested him with QUOG long ago in the Kitchen and even John didn't like this piece, saying we should leave quickly so we won't have to talk to Eric, but Eric stops him for a few words and then Fred Rzewski and Tom and Cathy Johnson ask him out for drinks, but I say I'm tired and want to get home. My call for reservations to the Trockadero Gloxinia Ballet for the last midnight performance at La Mama elicited the response that there was no room, and it was probably a good thing, since "Lazarus" exhausted all my patience: the old mode seemed good until the new mode sounded AWFUL, mixing opera and comedy, modern wit and old-fashioned "Will you, will you, will you come to dinner, to dinner, to dinner" verbalizations. REALLY turned me off. Home at 10:30, have a slice of pizza, good for 404 on Henry Street, check off only 5 hours in the TV section, bed at 11.
DIARY 8208
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17. Up at 9 after 10 hours sleep, eyes perfectly recovered, for which I'm grateful, and the average sleeping hours for the past three days is now just a BIT less than seven, which is ALMOST good enough. But I exercise, stretching muscles gratefully in another direction, and shower and then go through an ORGY of salving: Desenex on some anomalous itches on my right hip, and Vaseline on nipples, buttocks, and what turns out to be a real scrape on the right knee. The elbows and other knee feel better, the abrasions inside the lips are going, and the redness of the eyes is back to the pinkish normal. Have cereal while scanning the Times Magazine, then over to read the Times until 11, when I watch "Le Piano Vivant" on Camera Three and "Research Project" on Brain Waves from 11 to 12 (see DIARY 8207), and then get over to lunch. Chat about the play last night and the ideas I got from the commentary on Camera Three, and then John goes out for a walk and I get over to do BOTH Times puzzles, and they're both LOGICAL this time, no QUEER words at all! Then back to write two letters to NBC and CBS (more to compare what results I get from TWO of them), and write two job applications for ads in the Times, and then I feel I MUST get down to the NASA work, due Tuesday, after typing two diary pages to come to date. Start at 4:40 and work to 6:05, then have green peppers and good sauce for dinner, John goes out to see George Faison with a friend of a friend from DC, and I put on chocolate to melt for fudge, work from 7:25 to 9:05, getting almost finished, make fudge until 9:45, where it ACTUALLY goes into the hard-ball stage, looking like a little solidified brown sperm or tadpole in the measuring cupful of water, and then decide I MUST label the diary books, and discard the idea of the paper-clips-with-bridging paper as too complex and fragile, and go WITH the idea of putting in a center-page with a gummed label attached at right angles by scotch tape, and TYPE the labels, quite a job on the tiny area, until 11, John gets back and goes to bed, saying George Jackson's friend Someone Gillespie was DREADFUL with his opinions, even worse than ME, and I continue putting in the identifiers, which look GREAT, until 12:30, when I'm tired enough to get into bed WITHOUT smoking and go to sleep almost immediately! Fine!
DIARY 8209
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18. Up at 8:30, finally boosting my average for the past 4 days over seven hours per night, and even the exercising doesn't overly tire me anymore. Shower, disgusted at my dirty hair which I'll wash tomorrow, I again apply the Desenex to an itchy area on the thigh, and put Vaseline on areas that seem to need it quite a bit less than yesterday: the nipples, buttocks, and the elbows which were annoying me yesterday. But the abrasion from inside the upper lip is almost completely gone---only the bump on the head from the can opener in the kitchen is really a concern. Over to work two hours on NASA, finishing that and proofreading the typing that John did for it, and decide to concentrate finally on the Laser article. Find that my old Scientific American issue on Light from 1968 has an excellent series of articles, and as I look through it, decide that I'd have OTHER articles about laser in my scrapbook, and in my desk, and end up spending a couple of hours (this was in the morning BEFORE NASA) going through the desk-scrapbook to sort out the Science material, and going through the over-large Science folder and making new folders for Laser, Gravity and Relativity (in case, I think only LATER, I get THAT article to do), Biology and the Future of Man, and Ecology and the Current Earth. That goes VERY well, making the General Science folder smaller than almost any of the others. Then have lunch, do the NASA, type a diary page, and get to actually WRITING the Laser article from 2:25 to 7:55. Kei and Mal drop up for a visit just before John leaves for a DTW Dance Aesthetics class at 4:30, and he comes back at 8, we finish green peppers and talk for a long time about his teaching class, and then I'm back to essentially finish the laser article from 10 to 11:15, subject only to his reading and understanding it, and retyping. Over to bed even before HE goes to bed, and I put in earplugs to sleep at 11:30 while he's playing the television, in a seeming reversal of our roles. I'm almost tempted to go out and see if he's using the pornography to masturbate, but I'm too tired and close to sleep. The next morning, I even get UP at 7:45 and start typing THIS before he arrives!
DIARY 8211
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Up at 7:45, before John, and type 2, then finish working on the "Laser" after he reads it and comments adversely on a number of things. Then decide to start on the telephone reading of Sally's letter and can't get Dror but talk to Ron Tiekert by way of Tom Aloisi, who have phone extensions, and Tom AGAIN asks me if I'm available for freelance work, while Ron tells me that Chela has moved to Macmillan, Dick Sime to McGraw-Hill (but when I call him there, they don't have him listed; I call him at home and it's his FIRST day at McGraw-Hill, so I leave word), and Patty Leach to HBJ, and Bernie's gone and Nick's back. Lunch and type the laser right up to the deadline, when I've phoned everyone to clear a remarkable schedule that's so complicated I even write out a five-step card of stops for the day, with subway connections, which work out VERY nicely. The only thing that's wrong is it's RAINING (as it usually is when I go to LTS), so I have to wear my rainsuit. Out at 1:45, to LTS at 2:15, Graham has some comments on other stuff that I did: I have to "sell" it more, and he WANTS to give me lots, but only ends up giving me FOUR TSPs, saying he has to mail me more tomorrow. I leave at 3:25, taking the B to 57th and 6th, and see some stationery shops, and pick up five packs of 100-sheet bond paper, almost clearing the place out, and then get to Carol Day, who says she'll have to read "The Laser" later and gives me "Gravity" and "Nuclear Reactors" and tells me where there's a stationery shop that actually sells me TWO IBM Selectric ribbons and another pack of heavy bond paper for John. I'm feeling wonderful, though the briefcase almost can't be closed in the wind-blown rain. Walk down to Macmillan and take my pants off in Betty Borger's office and go through ALL the questions, and they're ALL good, so she'd better be impressed, and I'm finished there just at 5, waiting a long time for the elevator, and walk over to 52nd and Madison and arrive JUST at the scheduled 5:20 for the session (see DIARY 8212) and DO leave as I said I would at 6:25, walking over to 6th to catch the D direct to the travel class at 7:10, and it's long and concentrated (see DIARY 8215), with lots of free talk at the end (see DIARY 8213), home at 10 with $.99 worth of popcorn, the last on the list, from Waldbaums! (after pizza, square, filling) to warm up the last of the green pepper and eat that until 11:30, over to Bradbury (see DIARY 8214) and to bed before John gets in at 12:35.
DIARY 8220
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20. Up at 8 with John and get over to wash the dishes and eat breakfast right away, so I can't exercise until the afternoon. My desk is a total mess of everything, and I plow through a number of things until 11, when I have to get out to unemployment, stopping in to see that the guy will test out my Uher microphone, and then back to mail Bill's tape for 564, cash a check at the bank, and exchange folders at Goldsmiths. Back in time for opening lunch, and John goes to the library and I [forgot] phoned Dror in the morning and HE gave the clue on Food Stamps: my Blue Cross insurance, that averages about $14 per month! To get THOSE things ironed out, I get over and get OUT the membership cards from the top drawer and COMBINE them with the membership and personal cards I'd put in the "Personal" box, and move the restaurant receipts into the "Receipt" box, and find what cards I NEED and what I DON'T need, and find more Food Stamp stuff, and call about getting my eye exam from Brooklyn for the driver's license renewal, and write a letter to Mike with more stamps, and call Doubleday about buying another Sheckley book, and somehow it's 4 pm and John's back, so I tell him to buzz the buzzer [OH, forgot to say that I've hit ANOTHER set of coincidences, which I'll talk about on Diary 8221] while I try to connect our two bells, but though what I want to do SEEMS to make sense, I can't get it to work, and Mr. Gray and someone ELSE from the building pass, and pedestrians look at me VERY suspiciously, and it just doesn't work. Back up and put the rest of the stuff away, not having even had the time to touch the diary, and John MIGHT go to the movies, but decides to see the Brooklyn Heights movies, and I read the Voice, and get over at 8:30 [after making a batch of "FUDGE SQUARES, IRRESISTIBLE" that turn out to be BROWNIES, which I should have known from all the FLOUR] for the James Earl Jones "King Lear," [Act III, Scene VI, Fool: "He who trusts ... a boy's love ... is mad"] taped in Central Park last year, with handsome Raul Julie (like Evan) as Edward, and a MASCULINE Sam Waterson, and gentility in the Albany of Robert Statler. Guzzle down HALF the production of brownies during that from 8:30 to 11:30, and then I come with GREAT pleasure and splurting, and watch the end of Vincent Price's "Monster Memorial" and watch a charming "Casanova" from 1 to 3:05 am, feeling QUITE tired. OH, forgot the RED CHINA DREAM (see DIARY 8222).
DIARY 8224
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Up at 9, getting to 20 pushups and 30 sit-ups to prepare me to go to the third level tomorrow, and then get over to type 10 pages from the diary, and then arrange to spend the afternoon out doing various things. Since John's going to be eating dinner out tonight, and there's dinner waiting for me (the great ground-meat-enwrapping mushrooms with a good tomato sauce), I take the opportunity to go to the male burlesque, since I want to get in at 4 and sit through till about 7. So the day starts when I go out at 1, walking to 333 Schermerhorn for the eye exam for the license renewal, and that takes until about 2:30, which I decide is too late to go to the Varick book sales, and I get to the more awkward eastside subway in the LIRR station and go to the Village to catch up on the four bookshops I hadn't gotten to before. Colonial is a mail-order place primarily (and I send out the "Anecdotes of Destiny" and the Sheckley book requests to them tomorrow), the Raven is closed, the National will be getting paper copies of the Seth material soon, and Weisers gives me the Jung Autobiography and Blackwood's tales that I would have wanted. Buy the WRONG Malvinia Hoffman book of sculpture for $4 and "Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis from Colonial for $3.50, MUCH too much. Almost a rip-off, but I DO have it and don't have to look for it anymore, which is a relief. Then since the day is nice buy a peanut butter and jelly ice cream cone from Baskin-Robbins, and it's fairly tasty, but only for once, and walk up to 5th and 32nd for Aberdeen, but the building is new and it's obviously closed. Up to the male burlesque at 201 W. 46th, wait for a couple to pass before I enter, and it's FAR better than I'd ever HOPED it would be (see DIARY 8225). Out at 7:15 and home, hungry, and put on the double-boiler with the meal, seeing what Blackwood stories are duplicated, and get only 7 new ones, but still worth it for $3, not to mention the rarity of the book, and I eat and read New York and then DON'T feel like working, so I'm over to jerk off with lots of material, finish the brownies (which JOHN finished 1/4 of!) and then make popcorn, MUCH too much, and finish the last orange, while listening to music and watching "Channel H[Hidden]" and get to bed at 12:30 JUST as John gets in, and fall asleep even before he gets into bed. High-notes on DIARY 8226.
DIARY 8307
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Up at 8:30, after John clears out, and exercise for the first time in AGES at level 3, not bad because it's been prepared for by the proper number of sit-ups and pushups, but because I've come so energetically the past two evenings, I'm feeling quite weak, anyway. Over to type six pages to catch up with the diary, and then get into the thick of the labeling, going over to the other side to divide up the Review book into three sections, and type the tables of contents for those, and then there's only the Gay book left, and when I finish with THAT into three piles, one still looks suspiciously like 450 or so, and the number of pages is very high, though I'd forgotten that the G series is the one in which I made the 80-page drop, so there are 80 fewer pages than I think. [Ivan Rebroff singing on the other side, and he HUMS like a strong woman, way high, and then I feel the floor shake with his quite orotund bass, not bad!] Anyway, now I have an extra "Movie" book that I don't know how to number, so I'll leave it until next year, when I'll have at least one OTHER book to divide into two or three, and then I can renumber the whole series, including the volume 0 that I decide to come up with either today or tomorrow. Don't quite finish by the time its dinnertime. Also, during the day, I called Random House to find that they don't have "Anecdotes of Destiny" in print, and took the chicken out of the soup for John, who went to the library in the afternoon (not the library, but a convention of the National Association of Musical Composers, or something of the sort, where everyone wore suits and cursed the avant-garde). I wash my hair for dinner, showering for the Man's Country Baths, and John says we should leave about 8, and I get ready, contacts in, and smoke, and we drive over, but they don't let both of us in with the discount which is really HIS, so he goes to the Everard, he says, but ends up at the Metropolitan Theater for the fun he ALWAYS has there, and I check into my full-length locker at 8:30 for a rather mixed evening. (See starting DIARY 8308.) Subway home by 3:30, eat a muffin, and fall into bed weary at 3:45 am.
DIARY 8312
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Up at 9:45, figuring 6 hours is enough sleep, and really don't feel like exercising in the morning, intending to do it before dinner, but I forget and have to do it at 7:30, before showering and just under an hour after eating dinner. Stomach doesn't care for it. Type 4 diary pages and get into the final stages of the contents for the diary, actually getting to the point where I have TWO self-referencing pages, one the Table of Contents for Volume 0, which describes itself, and then I give all the contents and index pages a number, so I'm typing ON page 30 the fact that page 30 is actually diary page such-and-such. But the afternoon is VERY long since I really can't EXACTLY think of what to do with the numberings, and now that I'm about FINISHED the question seems to come in more strongly: WELL, NOW WHAT? Decide that I really CAN'T go through the trouble of listing the pages against the Title Pages, since the LAST time I numbered them it had such a short life: what was A is now 5 volumes, what was R is now 4 volumes, what was G is now three volumes (or 4, I forget), and D pages are now JA through JG, and even Seasonings has been changed to Interlardings. But I finally finish that and put everything away, 36 volumes of writings: 11 along the wall, where they've all been before, and the other 25 in the bookcase. And volume numbers 0 and 22A to renumber when I go through a year-end ritual which seems to get bigger and bigger as time goes on. When it extends through to the next year, I'll have come full circle. Then have some time to kill before dinner so I write a letter to Sally Goldberg and get ready to answer Mom and Elaine. But then it's time for dinner, I wash dishes and shower, and we leave at 8:30 to drive almost the entire length of the bumpy roads in Manhattan to get up to 115th Street for Neil and Richard's party. John had insisted that it wasn't in costume, and had a bit of a jolt when Neil met him at the door in a mask that made his face look like a pig's, but that was the only touch. In to meet Photius, a cute Greek, and the evening went on from there (see DIARY 8313) to Photius's place until 3 am, VERY stoned, and a tired snack at 3:30.
DIARY 8315
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Wake at 9:30 and call Arnie about the microphone, but he says he's just about to leave. Over at (NO, this was YESTERDAY) 10:15, with everything ready to get out to the Elgin at 11, and John's not going, and I'd called to see that Mal and Kei's fair and food-raising funding is today from 12 to 6, and I say I'll go up after the Elgin, John says he is planning to be there at 4, so I say maybe I'll go to the Polish movie, too. Feel quite hung-over and nauseous from last night, so I'm glad I had no more than THREE vodkas, though I think it's as much or more a stoned hangover than booze. Out at 10:25 and get a train right away, so I'm early on the street and stop in for scrambled eggs and toast and coffee for $.95 at 10:50, and then up to the line for "Sleeping Beauty" done in 1965 (see DIARY 8316) so it is NOT the Sleeping Beauty film that I saw in 1959! To the back row, and there's action there (see DIARY 8317), and the movie's pretty good, too, though apparently severely edited. Out at 12:30 and walk across to the Academy of Music on 14th off Lexington, and they have a short about Poland starting at 12, so I'm in without lunch at 12:40, and "PAN WOLODYJOWSKI" IS A FABULOUS FILM (see DIARY 8318). Out at 3:50, hungry, but walk across to 14th and 7th and find that Hudson Street starts at Chambers Street, the subway comes right away, and there's 19 Hudson RIGHT there. Upstairs and John's been there since 2:30, having bought a blue peasant shirt, and I look around, determined to support them, and buy a great hanging paper-wisteria for $10, and a replacement wall-hanging for the dining room for $7, and John says that's enough, so I don't buy sushi for $1 in rolls. Poor KIDS! John walked and is walking back, so we leave the purchases to be picked up later, Kei marking them "Sold" and thanking me gratefully, and I get out at 4:30 and subway up to the Museum of Modern Art for "The White Hell of Pitz Palu" with Leni Riefenstahl, and the DRAMA is lousy, but the SCENIC EFFECTS of the torch-search, the crevasses glittering in ice, and the plane flying and looping are GREAT. Starved at 7, so eat a Blue Max (AWFUL) and Farmer's cake (pretty good) at Zum-Zum and get home at 8, to find CHICKEN waiting for me, not soup, so I read the Times and heat it up at 9, eating pretty well, and work BOTH Times puzzles, John's back, dishes at 11:30, and watch Guru Maharaji from 12:30-1:30 (see DIARY 8319). Sleep with NO trouble.
DIARY 8321
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Up at 9 and exercise on the third level without TOO much pain, and then go through the angst described on DIARY 8311. But after lunch I decided to GET to the diary pages (having finished reading "Isak Dinesen and Karen Blixen") and do ten of them to finish up, and then send out some bills and a job application and write to Mom, and then get over and label the items in the glass case, wash the windows, and put out even some representative stones and shells to complete the collection of manmade objects on the top shelf and natural selected objects on the bottom shelf. Then there are just too many seashells left, so I sort through and select a small box of little ones, and throw out about 75% of the big ones, putting the ones left, with almost all the angel's wings and sand dollars but FEW of the whelks from Bull's Island, into a box onto the shelf below the case, which is quite a bit emptier by now. Listening to music all the while, feeling good about getting something off the list, but things keep getting added TO the list faster than they're taken OFF, and currently (now) it has 47 items on it with only 16 crossed off, which is even more than I had on it when I redid it BEFORE! Admittedly much of it is sheer entertainment and self-indulgence, but it's still a pressure to be DONE (which is GOOD, as directed against the anomie described on DIARY 8311), and I feel just plain NERVOUS when the list is so long. There must be a MIDDLE way through all this! John's out at 12:30 to the library and to his class in the evening, so he tells me what to do for dinner, since I'm going to the movies tonight, and we kiss and say "See you in the morning." Is this REALLY what we want in a relationship?? Call and reach Joan finally and we settle on Friday afternoon for the books and her place for a visit, which is nice and takes THAT off my mind, and then I eat dinner at 6:15 while reading articles in New York and get off at 6:35 to the Olympia for "Up the Sandbox" and "The New Land" (see DIARY 8322) until 11:45, then have TWO slices of pizza at only 254 a slice (didn't know there was any LEFT like that) and not THAT bad, and home and bed at 1, not smoking.
DIARY 8326
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 26. John's up and out at 8 and I get up the earliest in ages, at 8:15, and exercise and shower and have breakfast and type three pages to catch up in diary, and then determine to get stuff out to Elaine as my project of the day, since I've called Joan and THAT day will be Friday. So I start by writing a two-page letter to her, telling her about "1964 Rambler" and MY hang-ups about viewing and reading such scripts, and then get to gathering stuff from the diaries to send to her, going through the seasonings and selecting out MORE BOOZE (see DIARY 8324-8325), and then look through the rest of the stuff and the only thing that's really LEFT is the "FUTURE OF MAN" section of the Workbook, and I get it out and look at it, and then add "Breaking the Hymen" to the stack, and start working on it, but it's very slow going because things won't fall into place. I find myself sitting and staring at the material for long periods of time, chewing on the insides of my cheeks and the edges of my fingers, and then get a whole glass of the granola-snack that John generates to STOP eating MYSELF, but still it goes very slowly. Add more things to the DO list, bringing it to a staggering 47, over 30 still to do. Then shave and get ready for the Travel class by telling John that we should eat at 5:55, earliest ever, so that I can get to the class early. Out at 6:25 and get there almost 10 minutes early, but he's not taking the names of the people interested in the class until afterwards, and the class is devoted to handouts (see DIARY 8327-8328) from the Official Airlines Guide for the most part. He seems to have learned that I always know the answers, so that now when I raise my hand he says "not you," and searches for someone ELSE. When I DO answer, and he doesn't agree with me, it's usually HE who is wrong, so he might not like me very much, except that I keep getting these sexual overtones from him, and I think I'll mention to him that he should use "gay" as the word of choice rather than the unpleasant "fag." His classes at Kingsborough will be Wednesday, which I think for a bit will conflict with John's classes, causing a problem, but thankfully John's classes are Thursdays. Home at 10, dishes, and it's cold over there so I come over HERE to smoke and have a DELIGHTFUL brinksmanship orgasm and get to bed at 1:30, seemingly unable to get to bed before midnight.
DIARY 8329
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27. Up at 9, feeling very draggy again, wondering if my feeling of constipation and the aroma of VERY pungent farts aren't results of my handing the sea shells again on Monday! Exercise, feeling good about being so faithful to it, and in fact my midsection is looking more defined than it has in months, and my shoulders and chest are gaining that padded look that I like so much. Finish just about 10, in time to watch "Under the Red Robe" (sounding rather like a masturbating bishoPRIC), and it has very little of Raymond Massey as Richelieu IN it. Ends at 11:30 and I dash out to cash a $75 check and withdraw $20 from savings just to make SURE I'm under the $1500 for Food Stamps, and the line is VERY small (one, in fact), so I have time to stop at the post office and pick up the $3 1973 stamp folder with $2.72 in face value of stamps, and then pick up the library card and John's Voice, getting back at 12:10 in time for lunch. Then he goes off to the library and I sit and fume about not being able to get to the movie tonight AFTER Food Stamps, and decide I can go from 1:45 to 5:45, so I leave a note to John saying I'll be back at 6:15 for dinner and subway off to 8th Street. Arrive at 1:30 and the theater's not open yet, so I browse Marlboro's and find nothing, then in to a chewing, talking, rustling audience for "A Touch of Class," a slapstick, cliché movie with SOME bright lines and Glenda Jackson as a nicely liberated woman, but if THIS is one of the five best movies of the year (nominated for Oscar), the American film industry is in REAL trouble---artistically, if not financially. "The Ruling Class" has some painful acting by Peter O'Toole and some nice ideas, but the best parts were his SCREAMS when he kills people, and the cobwebbed skeletons in the House of Lords. The castle was nice, too. Out at 5:50 and home by 6:15, dinner, and then out to Food Stamps from 7 to 9:15, having to SHOUT to get my Blue Cross bill from last year accepted as an expense for THESE months, and home so disgusted that I just smoke and watch Bernstein's "Mass" done up more like a square dance in Vienna than as in a church at the Met. Some of the music is still nice. Watch pieces of "Thomas Crown Affair" and other things till 12:30, when they do Will Roger's "Big Moments from Little Pictures," but sadly it's all HIM. Eat lots, appalled at myself, and get to bed at 1:30.
DIARY 8330
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28. Up at 9:30, and I MUST be fighting off some kind of bug: I feel so weak, my nose has been running and dry at the same time, and my bowels have been off, farting, constipated, then rather loose movements, smelling like seashells. Irritable and listless, even with exercising, and I hope it breaks, or goes away, or whatever! Type four pages and call Suzanne Parillo, who says I should come in to take a test for the Webster Division or I'll never be considered, so I call Dick Sime and say I'll meet him for lunch at 1. Then work a bit on the stuff to Elaine, tell John about my day, get schedules for the movies I STILL want to see (though the list is finally down to a manageable size [8 movies seen the first 4 days this week!]), and leave at 12:20 after having called "Ulysses in Nighttown" and found that they are sold OUT for the preview except for extreme side mezzanine seats. So I decide to go tonight, stop off for a ticket, and get a turn-in on the 10th row just off the aisle for $6! Great luck! To McGraw-Hill and Dick's office is still to be established, and he laughs at the number of people I've seen already, and takes a resume to give to HIS boss, Sylvia Webber. Down to lunch in the cafeteria, futuristic escalators sweeping people past the desk where I have to sign a guest chit as the 705th guest (of the day? Week? Month?), and down to a fairyland of rotating display cases, lines for hot foods, sandwich counters, rows of condiments and sauces and dressings, salads, desserts, beverages, then pay, and into the large, whitely decorated place where the booths are full and I introduce Dick to WHY the trays have corners off. Talk about laziness and food and IBM and McGraw-Hill, and up at 2:10 to see Suzanne, take the test from 2:30 to 3:30, though I'm sure I got a FEW things wrong, and her boss John Aliano talks and TALKS to me about the team effort and the search for excellence and the need for cooperation and good pay. Out at 4 and home, fuss with Elaine's stuff again but it's just not GOING well, and then have dinner and talk with John about my reactions to Elaine's "1964 Rambler" and I STILL can't get used to the new FREEDOM IN ART that John advocates. Out to "Ulysses in Nighttown," decidedly mixed (see DIARY 8331), home at 10:30, John's got his Elgin trick in, I read the Voice and work on Elaine's stuff, and over at 11:45 to get TIRED to bed, and have no trouble falling smokelessly asleep.
DIARY 88332
FRIDAY, MARCH 1. Up at 8:30 and exercise and type two diary pages and get ready for the afternoon out, calling Joan and Peter to check for their being home, and talk to Alan Henderson to find that he resigned from the Mattachine Board in mid-January and that the latest board meetings have about 3 members attending, and that even Nath Rockhill can't work with Don anymore, and has withdrawn the New York State Coalition of Gay Organization's New York address from Mattachine because "it won't be around very long." Record "Song of the Forests" in a new Angel stereo release from 9:30-10. Then out at 1 to go to the discount record place, and I should have predicted: junk acid-rock records by TOTALLY unknown groups with trippy covers for 504, and the better Lyrichord records of GOOD stuff are $3, no bargain. Walk down to Peter's and he seems happy with my idea of being the travel agent for ASI, so long as I don't interfere with his Blue Cross mailings to the members. I'm to call Barbara Preschel to arrange things. Leave about 3, after he talks lovingly with me and asks for a secretary through Joan, and check through more of the Apthorp books, getting three more and a waterpick for $5, and then at 4:15 get to Joan's. She's tired out from filming in the early morning and the return of her repaired organ, gift from her mother. We talk about the cats, John's book, my work and hers, and she serves beer, has lost my sunglasses again, and finally brings out crackers and cream cheese before I leave at 5:20. Reading through the almanac and miss the Chambers Street transfer to the express, so I ride down to South Ferry and stupidly get OFF, rather than staying on as the same train goes back north. Catch the next train and transfer, turned off by the headlines of someone spraying Picasso's "Guernica," which adds to the OTHER things I have against the city (see DIARY 8333). Home at 6:10 and have dinner of the hamburger wrapped around mushrooms again, good, though it produces a heck of a lot of dishes, and then John goes out and I stay in, feeling sickish, and do a bit of research on the Gravitation articles until 10, then across to soak in the tub, smoking, and then across to gorge myself with food and jot down some more notes (see DIARY 8334). Bed at 11:45, thinking to masturbate, but I get tired and just roll over and go to sleep.
DIARY 8343
SATURDAY, MARCH 2. Up at 8:30, but because of my cough and my feeling of dreadful weariness I don't exercise, but just get over and do three diary pages and get to work determinedly on the writing to Elaine. It doesn't "fit" very well, and decide to leave most of it up to her, merely editing sketchily and putting headings down where I can't decide whether to rewrite, reorganize, or leave it as it is. I just want to get it DONE. Do ten pages of that, much to my relief, and then send the copy of "Therapy Parody" off to Michael's Thing, with an inquiry about what they thought of my OTHER stuff. I'm beginning to think they don't want to PAY for anything! Work a bit on rewriting the "Whaddya KNOW?" script, but about 4 I just feel lousy and go over to take my temperature, and not TERRIBLY surprised to find that it's 99.6E. Debate going to Tsi-Dun tonight, but John has arranged with Joe Campbell to do some photographing of his programs and ads and posters for the class; I call Henry Messer and he's going to Sandy Hook for the weekend (and we make arrangements to talk on Monday about my Mattachine idea) (and I've called Eddie Jimenez and Rolf Houkum to go, but they can't); and call Arnie and he'll drive if I want him to and then I call Bob Grossman and HE wants to go too, since there's a car going, so I DO want to go! Shower and dinner and dishes and clear up little things, and to Arnie's at 7:45 with my microphone to try on his tape recorder, and find that HIS works in his and mine DOESN'T work in his, so I bring his along to try on mine tomorrow (where it works and MINE works, to puzzle me completely), and after he gulps down dinner and his lisping hearing-aided friend Don and Bob and I chat we leave about 8:15 to get into New Jersey and follow the wrong turn to drive along the river's edge, seeing old towns as they were about 30 years ago with the city blazing with lights across the way, the yellow-orange streetlights looking like bridges across the blackness between the buildings, and finally we're parking the car outside 6600 Boulevard East, and 23 IS the top floor, and it DOES face the river, so it's a start of a GREAT evening (see DIARY 8344). Out at 11:45, home at 12:30, after buying the Times and keeping Arnie's change.
DIARY 8346
SUNDAY, MARCH 3. Sorted through the TV section yesterday and found a program about the "Prostate" on at 11:30, and read the Times until it's time to look at that, but there's not much PREVENTION information or CAUSATIVE information given: just "get an annual rectal checkup" so that the benign or malignant tumors, growths, infections, or bladder stones can't get started because they're found early. Nothing about gays at ALL, and Frank Field doesn't succeed in antagonizing the guy from Presbyterian Hospital as much as others. Call Sergio after he calls me, and neither Kenneth nor John will be joining us at the movies tonight, which is a pity. Out at 2:30 for the TV taping, getting there just at 3:05 (see DIARY 8350) and out at 6:05, so $50 for 4 hours is $12.50/hour, not bad since I'm only in the audience---thankfully, since I'm coughing pretty badly and feeling NOT in the best form. Subway down to 7th and 14th and chagrined to find that the L train stops only at 8th and 6th, so I exit and walk across town, eating a frank (not NEARLY as good as I remember, but then I DO have a cold) and French fries at Nedicks for 854, and then further on stopping for a raspberry ice, which isn't so great, from Carvel for 354, and that's dinner. Get to the St. Marks at 7:05, but the movie's started already and Sergio is a bit annoyed. The theater's VERY crowded and over-hot, and I sneeze THREE time VERY rapidly, something quite unusual, and then cough and sneeze through the whole thing, feeling very coldish and warmish. Determine that I'm having a good time seeing "Westworld" (which IS quite slow moving, though the effects are still GREAT, and the crescendo of tragedy VERY well built) (though the end with his just SITTING there might even imply that he STARVES to death?) and "Soylent Green" (which is even better when you FOLLOW the plot, which I couldn't because I was stoned and had missed the first half-hour of it, but you're supposed to KNOW what's wrong when they tell ROBINSON about it) UNstoned for comparison, and I wouldn't care to see "Soylent" a THIRD time, but it's good enough a second. Out at 10 and home at 10:30, exchanging stamps with Sergio and riding the F train, and warm up the hamburger and mushrooms to eat at 11:15 [oh, did the puzzles between 12:30 and 2:30!], and then over to jerk off nicely with porno to 12:15.
DIARY 8347
MONDAY, MARCH 4. Up feeling dreadful, stuffy-headed and coughing and runny-nosed, and I'm seemingly getting my typical cold in REVERSE: feeling lousy then coughing, THEN having the sneezes and runny noses. Just don't feel like doing anything like exercising or even TYPING, so I get out the science fiction Hall of Fame Volume IIB and settle down to read that until 11, when John comes in to chat for about a half-hour, saying that he's worried about having his privacy invaded when the book's published, and that he KNOWS he's taking himself away from the relationship, but he thinks it's only temporary, wants me to understand that it has nothing to DO with me, and we talk about the book and possible future activities of his, and then he kisses me about three times, the warmest in ages, saying it's been nice to talk. I DO feel better because of it. Lunch and continue reading, too lazy to type the diary to call Susan like I should, but determined to see the movies tonight, so I call Henry Messer's office and say I won't be there, and John's gone out to Dutton's to look at THE BOOK ITSELF which has come in AT LAST, and then has class, so I leave him a note about a couple of things, nap from 3 to 5:15, warm up the soup at 5:30, and eat until 6:15, then getting out on the subway, feeling quite fragile, to the Elgin at 6:45 to find that the schedule is wrong AGAIN, and that "Birth of a Nation" starts at 7:45, so I see the last half of "Citizen Kane" again. The only REAL reason I WENT to the double is that THESE PRECISE TWO are the ones at the top of my favorite list that I SPECIFICALLY SAID I should see again, so the double was simply irresistible. "Kane" was even better in detail than I remember it, and BOAN is really quite DIFFERENT from what I remembered, never QUITE recalling that it is so MUCH about the KKK and how GREAT it MAY have been at that time. Strange to watch a movie made in 1915 centering around events in 1865, which means it was MADE closer to the events PORTRAYED than to the PRESENT, and it seems even MORE like a newsreel. Discouraging crowd, not even worth another page: they move around a lot, mostly old farts, ONE cute kid I sat next to and played with, and I finally play with an older fuzzy-haired guy who goes after my ass and wants to meet afterward, but I say no, and that I'm engrossed with the film, so we stop playing. Home at 12, slice of pizza, bed at 12:15, drained.
DIARY 8
TUESDAY, MARCH 5. Up at 8:30, warm and drizzly out, which means that it's damp and clammy inside, bad for a cold. John recommends sherry and aspirin, so I have that yesterday and we're out of sherry so I have wine today, making popcorn both days just to fill my demanding stomach, figuring the salt will be good for me, and I finish Volume IIB of the Science-Fiction Hall of Fame edited by Ben Bova today, not finding TOO many novellas that I like, though Sherred and Shiras are good for characterization (and in fact these stories seem actually OVERLOADED with characterization, so that they read quite SLOWLY---and THESE are what they think are BEST, or what they think isn't that usually DONE and therefore worth of note?). Start immediately on Volume IIA, reading backward because they're heavier from the front and I read the shorter things first, and get two calls right in succession, one from Cynthia saying I should come in for taping tomorrow, one from Ron Tiekert, saying I should come in to WORK at ACC tomorrow, but I'd called Arnie this morning at 10:15, he was still in, and I took the microphone and the change from the Times back to him, and walked with him to his car by way of the TV repair shop on Cranberry and Willow, who said he'd be over tomorrow between 1 and 1:30 to look at the off-on of the Zenith, and then of course there's unemployment tomorrow, too. Feel weary after getting back from Arnie's and the TV and getting the laundry and stopping off in the bookshop and picking up ANOTHER unknown sci-fi by John Wyndham, and settle into reading again, have lunch, and check through the DO list to see that the ONLY thing really pressing are the two articles for the encyclopedia, and they're not really CLOSE yet, so I settle down to reading and eating popcorn for the rest of the afternoon, then have dinner right at 6 so I can go out to the travel class, and get there at 7 to find that Steve's been delayed somewhere, so we have a fruitless session with Colette of Roses' Tours (see DIARY 8349), useless except for the brochures that I get home and type a letter to Barbara Preschel from (and Peter Rooney), and then Steve's in just at 9, saying class is tomorrow, registration at 7, and home at 10 to type the letter, talk to the LaRues, and read for a bit, getting to sleep at 11:45, before John gets back from wherever HE was.
DIARY 8351
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6. Up at 8:30, feeling more rested, but the cold is surely still there in force. Read a couple stories of Science-Fiction and type 8 pages, and then have to get out to unemployment, cashing the $50 check at the bank, and finding out that if I get a TEMPORARY job for something like a MONTH, I DON'T have to send in the card, merely stay OUT, and then go back and fill out a form and start the BOOK again. I LIKE that way of doing things---hopefully I'll be safely back on unemployment by the time the FOOD STAMPS come through! Back for lunch, TV man came at 1:45, saying it'll cost $30, finish reading "Primitive Mythology" just to get through with the book, and by that time it's time to go out at 2 to pick up the Macmillan book. When Ron called yesterday I'd predicted to John that I'd get THREE jobs MORE by the end of the week, so that when Betty Borger called this morning with a book on China for me to proofread, I said with triumph, "That's ONE." Hoped to get there at 2:45, but the subway was very slow and I didn't get there until 2:55, and she had lots of things she wanted to say to me, even to the fact that they found three "grey" that I hadn't caught BEFORE the first query. NOT very good! But I get the names down OK after calling Cynthia that I was sorry but I'd be late, and she said OK, that would be fine, and I dashed across town in the drizzle to get in at 3:15, and it IS "The One and Only Twenty Questions," and Cynthia ASTOUNDS me by saying that it looks like I'd be one of the final team! (see DIARY 8352) Get home about 4:30 and burble out my wonder at that with John, and he says that he keeps thinking it's some kind of advantage they're taking of me, but HE can't see what it is EITHER, though we laughingly agree that I sure do keep up my ENTHUSIASM! I have to eat at 5:45 and he warms the soup up for me but won't eat with me, so I set the table for both and he sits and chats with me while I eat, and then I leave at 6:10 and subway down to Sheepshead Bay, find that the Claridge Travel is at the WRONG end of the station for the bus to Kingsborough, walk to the other end, and catch a bus about 7:10, getting to the college with NO one waiting to fork over their $25, we have a class (see DIARY 8353), I wait for the Edelsteins, or whoever, to get their motor charged, and ride in to Flatbush Avenue with Moe Hill of Amway, the Guyanan, the Texan (see DIARY 8355), and my disgust at 11. Nibble and wash dishes just before midnight, and bed at 12, tired still.
DIARY 8357
THURSDAY, MARCH 7. Get up when John gets up, at 8, and get everything ready after eating breakfast to leave at 9, taking along a list of phone numbers of people that I should call from work, but one of the first things that hits me about ACC when I get there at 9:30 is the crowdedness of the people on the floor and the awkwardness of having phones on which an outside line has to be requested EACH TIME. I try to call Susan but she's not home, and call the new number of John, and get my work from Ron: copyedit the informal descriptions of the Teacher's Manual, proofread some things that Nick is composing on the machine right next to my desk, and do some practice problems that seem to have gotten lost. Tom says that I should make up a cost estimate of what I'm to be doing and submit it to him for an OK BEFORE I submit a freelance cost sheet. It sounds overly complicated, and I'm eager to get my figures in before I stop work on Friday, but they seem to assume that I'll still be working on Monday, and I talk with both Nick and Ron who say that the pay is even MORE than generous, and I shouldn't worry about it. If they say so, and since Tom doesn't seem eager to put an END to what I'm doing, that should be OK. Nick talks with everyone who comes past, telling about all the things he's going to, and popping vitamin C tablets into everyone's mouth. I work through much of the descriptions but then find that many of the numbers should be LEFT numbers, and "numbers" and "numerals" should be pretty much LEFT as they are, and I get down after lunch, while reading, since Ron doesn't have a Scrabble board there anymore, and get some awful Drake Devil's Food mess, a pecan chunky, and a roll of fruit certs for my breath, and before I really know it, it's 5 pm and I'm exhausted from working through my cold and get home to find a letter and test from McGraw-Hill: I can copyedit a COBOL book, and THAT is JOB 2! Dinner before getting off at 6:35 to "Medea" (see DIARY 8358) which isn't terribly earthshaking, and find they have NO more tickets left at the Met for the "Trojans," so I'll be standing in line on Monday, and get home at 11, getting to bed before John comes in at 12. Finish reading "The Secret People" by John Wyndham, not as good as his others.
DIARY 8359
FRIDAY, MARCH 8. Wanted to get to work at 9, but it just didn't work and I got there at 9:35. Work on the now-boring stuff and Ron decides that I should really be copyediting the FORMAL objectives so they'll AGREE, too, and not have so many mistakes, so that about doubles my initial estimate of THAT job. So I'll definitely be there through TUESDAY, anyway, and Graham Gross calls at 4:30 with my THIRD job, JUST as predicted: he has 21 compilations waiting for me but he INSISTS on my putting in my bill, which was just what I wanted to do AFTER he sent me the next batch, but he wants me to bring the stuff "I've done" (HA) in and get the new on Tuesday, which is a BIT of a pain, but I'm rather charmed with the fact that the THREE jobs I predicted DID come in, but one WASN'T the Aliano job I'd EXPECTED! Nick is talking more than ever, and he tried to make me a reproduction of the silvery man from the flying saucer, but it doesn't work well, and we all laugh at how Ron has to put on a tie and jacket and tie his hair back for some kind of photograph for some kind of newsletter. Strange! I have to do some units in advance so Nick can type them up, and more than a few times I'm used as an arbiter to settle sentence construction, and Susan is coming in on Monday for lunch on her way to Macmillan. Everything is working out nicely, but I'm beginning to feel pressures to finish ACC, NASA, the CHINA book, the COBOL test, and the two encyclopedia articles. Not to mention the fact that I KNOW I'm so far behind in the diary. But I AM getting though the DO list, getting FINALLY below the 25 needed to make a NEW list, which I do on Saturday, to my relief, so I can add the items I keep FORGETTING. Leave at 5, not much done, actually, and John still wants to see "Zardoz" this evening and I call Bob Grossman, who doesn't want to go, but he lets me invite myself over afterwards, and then says we can smoke before, so we have dinner, John looks at his slides in my projector, I do the dishes and quickly shower and shave, and we're off at 8:15 in the POURING rain to park and get to Bob's at 8:55, smoke to 9:05, miss the first five minutes of "Zardoz" (see DIARY 8360) which I think is GREAT, get to Bob's to smoke again and have good sex (see DIARY 8361), home at 2:15, eat loads, bed at 3, exhausted, but knowing I can sleep late and catch up on THINGS tomorrow!
DIARY 8364
SATURDAY, MARCH 9. Up about 9:30, feeling that I've had too little sleep at 62 hours, and get to the stack of stuff on the desk. Want to finish at least ONE book, so I take "The Great Divorce" over to the other apartment and finish that, pleased with it, and then go through the mail of the past few days, sending some things out right away, and by lunchtime end up with a stack of diary pages to do and the freebies to take care of. John goes off to the library for an aesthetics class movie-showing, and I don't feel like typing yet, so I settle down and finish "Can You Feel Anything When I Do This," by Sheckley until about 2:30, having lunch in the meantime, and then getting down to 11 whole diary pages, and send out 10 letters for free materials from Selections, which includes a letter BACK to Selections saying I want my $1 back. How's THAT for BOTH/AND? Make up a new DO list with fewer than 25 items on it, but I think of a number of things I'd been avoiding thinking about doing, like putting another lock on my apartment door, so I add those items on and quickly get up to 26. Dinner is breast of veal, good with a tasty rice stuffing, and I do the dishes so slowly that we're late leaving for the Joffrey at 7:20, but get there at 8 before it starts at 8:10, and "The Dream" is danced just AWFULLY by a spade-faced Burton Taylor, though Rebecca Wright shows good balance as Titania. "Secret Places" has a Dennis Wayne who's beginning to look like Gary Chryst, so they must be lovers, and I'm AGAIN struck by the piece with their changes of pace, their use of quick moving diagonals, and their easy use of the floor, but John sees nothing unusual in any of this, since "They've been doing it since 1900." Home with the Times at 10:30 for "Rachel, La Cubana," and it's notorious for Lee Verona's resemblance to Lili Darvas in playing her young alter-ego, and for Alan Titus's MARVELOUS chest and slender form, but the Henze music is glaring, glaucous, and glitchy, and I turn at 11:30, unable to stand it anymore, to "Carrie" with Jennifer Jones and Lawrence Olivier in the odd story (from Dreiser) of the WOMAN who mounts to the top and the MAN who looks at a longing distance at his SON'S wedding to a rich girl and then goes off to commit suicide while his wife enjoys stage success as Carrie Madenda. VERY tired when it's finished at 2, a muffin, and exhausted to bed.
DIARY 8371
SUNDAY, MARCH 10. [Ten diary-days to type, and so very MUCH has happened in the past ten days that I truly despair of getting everything down right.] Read the Times and probably work both the crossword and the double crostic. Watch TV from 10-10:30 for a great close-up of the medieval tapestries at the Metropolitan, watch the first part of "Nightwalk" by the Open Theater (funnily transposed to the "opera theater" in the Times) and get turned off by the ad hoc nature of the performance: it's patched together, each seeming to do what they do best (Shami Chaikan again coming across as a real bitch, Paul Zimet and his "creature" girlfriend charmingly open), but some of the GENERAL ideas (people spend lots of time talking about junk) are too overdone to be funny. And the contrasts of "I am now sleeping" and "I am saying these words" is too obvious to be used too often. Over to catch up on some little things and three pages of the diary, and then work on the 4 Technical Service Packages (or whatever TSPs are) for NASA from 4:25 to 5:25, then from 7:40 to 10:40. Stopped at 5:30 to watch a great TV show on China. Coupled with the book on China I proofread later in the week, I'm more than EVER impressed with the distance they've come and the effectiveness of what they have NOW. Then probably felt too tired to continue and went to bed. I wish I HAD kept track of the diary through here: the sickness I've had has been TRULY long-lived. I KNOW I had it way back on March 1, preparing for Tsi-Dun, and on March 2, when I WENT to Tsi-Dun, but I said since I was COUGHING, that was the END of the cold. But then through the next week I felt awful, though I managed to control my coughing through the "Medea" on Thursday and would control it through the "Trojans" this Monday, but I always got UP feeling dragged out, went to BED with a clogged nose, but I just pushed on through, hoping Bob Grossman wouldn't get sick from me LAST Friday when I went to "Zardoz" with John and then had sex with him, or NEXT Thursday, when I went to "Zardoz" with Bob and had sex with the TWO of them. Dry nose that I stuff with Vaseline, chapped lips that I salve up, dry throat that I keep a tumbler of water at the bedstead for. What a pain to have a cold so LONG!
DIARY 8372
MONDAY, MARCH 11. Wake at what I THOUGHT by the clock was 9, marveling at how I could sleep so long, since I got to bed last night at 11, but when I'm getting things together for ACC I find that it's only 8:45 when I'm leaving, so it was 8 when I got up. Out without breakfast and decide to start paying more visits to the 494 breakfast place, and I'm so hungry that I have a glazed donut that skyrockets the price of the lunch by another 214, so obviously I don't want to do THAT again, but the eggs are STILL lovely. In to get more proofreading to do, and Tom and I decide that when I finish the Teacher's Manual copyediting at 4, I've worked on it 20 hours, but he doesn't want to give me a raise, though I suggest $8, or even $7.50, so I put in a bill for $140. They say they don't know whether they want me for any more days, they have to decide about the Classroom activities, so I say I won't be in tomorrow since there isn't a full day's work without them, and they should call me at 3 pm tomorrow when I'm at LTS. Susan was supposed to come in at 12:30 but didn't make it until 1:15, and we go out to a fairly small serving of pizza at Goldberg's for $6 plus, which is a bit much, though the beer put a nice glow on the rest of the day. A glow indeed! Back at about 3 and Nick talks about how to see an aura, and AS HE SAYS "you have to look UNFOCUSSED" my eyes unfocus and I see an area of greater lightness around his dark body against the light beige background. I freak out totally, telling Ron about it, and we agree that there IS something about astigmatism, or something, that causes edges to blur, and I recall the cross-line-graying test for astigmatism and agree that that has something to do with it. I ask Nick if I'll get tickets to "The Trojans" that I'm going to tonight, and he thinks and says "It'll be very difficult, but if you REALLY WANT it (see yourself sitting in a seat), you'll get it, and it will be a lesson for you." He ORIGINALLY meant "It will be a time for me to practice my powers," but I TOOK it to mean "It will TEACH you whether you have or don't have powers." Off to the "Trojans" (see DIARY 8373) very spectacular, and meditate on extrasensory powers (see DIARY 8374). Home at 12:30, and I THINK I jerk off very nicely in the front apartment on the sofa, feeling disappointed when a touchless come IS rather a disappointment!
DIARY 8375
TUESDAY, MARCH 12. Up about 9:15 and get to work on NASA for only 45 minutes from 9:15 to 10, and then over to watch Ronald Coleman and Fay Wray in "The Unholy Garden" one of the WORST, CHEAPEST films ever made: every cliché in the book in the "zoo" of minor criminal characters: the coising [what DID I mean?] American, the button-missing stiff-necked hideaway German, the African with something to hide, the Frenchman with a past, etcetcetc. And Ronal Coleman even flubbed a few lines, seemed to suspend waiting for the cut, and, never getting it, went on. Fay Wray was ALMOST as bad as the tart I thought with horror might be her in the beginning. One of the worst films ever. Fun. Then finish NASA from 11:30 to 11:45, have lunch, and get out for the pen-finding episode described on Diary 8374. (Have 3 ideas on Diary 8392.) Get to the Ancrop place again and find, not the 4 or 5 I THOUGHT I might find, but SIX books, more on travel, and some library copies of authors like Golding, Wylie, Cheever, and another. But at LEAST now I'm convinced I've SEEN what they have to offer. At last. Up to NASA loaded with the books at 3:05, and Ron's called already to say that I should come in tomorrow, that the Classroom Activities ARE going to be done. He says I can bill an hour for the time I take to fill in the 31 or so compilations I get to do, and he says I don't have to have them before two weeks, which is good since I have a McGraw-Hill test, the China book to proofread, and two encyclopedia articles to write before WEDNESDAY, and I wonder when I'm going to get STARTED---except I STILL know that it's not a matter of PRESSURE quite yet. Back home to look through the mail and New York and get out to the travel class (see DIARY 8376), where Steve staggers me with the offers I indicated on DIARY 8374. I mention the Ngorongoro Crater as the sort of place one really can't get to on a WEEKEND, and NEXT week he floors me with an offer of a TRIP to the African veldt PLUS $7000 or so in CASH! But he just gives me a "gift" of a cigarette package with a joint, and then I get seduced by the black on the subway, and home to wash dishes and eat and am so tired that I probably get to bed and fall asleep even without masturbation or smoking to still my mind.
DIARY 8383
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 13. Get to Appleton at 9:30 and finally start to work on the Classroom Activities, but they're awfully out of order, someone has stolen all the folders that weren't filled, and things are partially reproduced and thrown in any which way. I have to sift through absolutely everything to see what might be there and what isn't there, and get around to xeroxing a few things, but the xerox machines goes down right then, and so the only thing I can do is write notes to myself on the stacks of things that still have to be xeroxed (Savined, I should say). Everyone agrees it will be OK if I don't come in until next Thursday, since I've got so much to do in the next few days. Bob Kelly comes in the afternoon, looking terrible, and Nick says that his aura isn't even there, which is a sign of a person who's about to die, and he might commit suicide. He wants to do the drawing he feels is in him, and thinks he should be supported (he doesn't care how) while doing it. Wouldn't I love the same thing, and who would earn the money if EVERYONE was like that? The old answers, but now I'm the one who's giving them! ISN'T it remarkable what age will do to you?? Finish "Exploration Diaries of Stanley" during lunch and get home at 5:30, with some plum wine that John turns down, making me angry. We talk about the trip offer I got last night, and he gets angry about THAT, too, and there are so many negative things said during dinner that I'm furious about his relationship with me, and I type DIARY 8366-8368 the next morning largely as a reaction to the dinner tonight. But I have to get to the dishes and zip out to the "Anna Bolena" at 8, actually getting in JUST at 8, so that I'm taking my coat off as the lights go down, and I don't even have time to read the program beforehand, and since there are only two acts, I miss the explanation of half the opera. Rather unimpressed with the sets, all the men, which leaves the costumes and the two skirted women to be admired, and VERY much I admired them (see DIARY 8384). Out at 11, back to probably get to bed, since I have "Zardoz" scheduled again for tomorrow, looking forward to a week of work and then some relaxation after the 20th and everything's done. Miss the second Kingsborough travel class for "Bolena," but take the notes on DIARY 8385 from the MATERIAL for the class.
DIARY 8386
THURSDAY, MARCH 14. Up about 8:30 and type 6 pages, among them the DIARY 8366-8368 in which I seriously question the relationship and what I'm getting out of it. I finish reading "Lore of Large Numbers" and am impressed with the tables in the back, typing DIARY 8369 (or thereabouts) about it, and get things cleared away so I can begin working on the Nuclear Reactors paper. Out to the bank and post office and take out cleaning and laundry and buy stuff for the chili I'm making for Herman and Nancy's visit on Saturday, and then settle down for a lunch with John that turns into a crisis. HE says the relationship has to be evaluated seriously, and when I was typing the pages this morning I was TEMPTED to show them to him, but now I can't resist, so I tell him to read them, and he does and says that though he may disagree with some of the details (and disagrees with some of the EMPHASIS given to some of the details), he thinks it's essentially, fairly, a summary of the relationship. The thing that DOES floor me, MAKING it a turning point, is that he says there is NO basis for the hope I've had that the relationship would return to where it was once John got a job and settled into something new in which he could respect himself. He said the relationship could NEVER turn back to that because he's moved so far away from what he was, and that's not where I am, so that there will NEVER be the sex and the affection there once was. I summarize what he's told me in just about those words, hoping that I've misunderstood something, and he agrees entirely. So where before I had HOPE of something better coming of it, now I have to face the fact that John sees NO hope of anything better, only some kind of accommodation made by the both of us. He says AGAIN that he would feel better if the apartments were separated. I'm crushed---more importantly, my HOPES are crushed. I make out a list of "good and bad points" to see where I am on the issue (see DIARY 8387), then concentrate on making the chili for Saturday for a couple of hours, work on "Nuclear Reactors" from 3-6, have dinner of soup and get out LATE to Bob Grossman's at 7:55, and Bob Rosinek is up there already for the start of a STRANGE evening (see DIARY 8388 and on). Home TOTALLY bewildered by the emotional strains of the day, dazed by grass, and fall into bed about 12:30 and mercifully sleep INSTANTLY, not sorting out ANYTHING.
DIARY 8393
FRIDAY, MARCH 15. [God, there are so many PAGES between DAYS: 30 since I typed last SATURDAY.] Up at 9 and work on the "Nuclear Reactors" article until 10:30, and then I just don't FEEL like working on it: the topics are so lumped together I have trouble following my editing through them and I have to go to the library to find out more current information about them, and I just don't feel like doing THAT either. Then I get a call from Linda Schaffner saying that she wasn't thinking when I'd called her earlier in the week: I should send in the test BEFORE I come in to talk with them, and I say I'll send it in by Monday, but then it occurs to me that I have to do EVERYTHING by Wednesday, so why not work on the TEST now? So I get to it at 10:30 and work through until 12, have lunch, talk with John for a long time trying to get some points clearer, though it seems I'm just not TALKING WITH him, but AT him. SOMETIME this week I say it's ironic that he wants more imagination from me in sex, but one of the things I find he DOESN'T care for is to investigate different fine STATES of the orgasm, and he wants more new IDEAS from me, but when I talk about added dimensions he says it's just fantasy and is not interested in talking about it. He frowns and says he IS interested in that, and I blow up and say he's simply a LIAR, and stomp into the bedroom. Later have to apologize, saying that I'm being torn apart by this talk of ending the relationship, I'd realized that his feeling of always being right was sacred and I should never criticize him, but I just couldn't take it anymore, even KNOWING he was in a sad state because his book has been delayed, his class has no enrollment yet, and he has no jobs forthcoming of types that he likes. Continue working on the McGraw-Hill test until 3:30, convinced it's RIGHT after "only" 4 hours, and then get back to "Nuclear Reactors" between 3:30 and 4:30, go out for rum and other groceries needed for tomorrow, have dinner, work on "Nuclear Reactors" from 6:30 to 7, and then get to proofreading "China" from 7 to 11, and it's quite an interesting book, though obviously "Communist-loving" and biased, though Chiang Kai-Shek really DID have the responsibility for hundreds of millions of Chinese deaths. Smoke to erase the details of proofreading from my mind, and get instantly to sleep.
DIARY 8394
SATURDAY, MARCH 16. Work on "China" proofreading from 9:30 to 11:30, then look through the mail, getting some of the Selections freebies already, and then go over to watch "The Return of the Phoenix" by a Chinese opera company from 12 to 1, eating lunch during the last part of it, and John goes off to his class at the library as an extension of the DTW course, and I work on China from 1:30 to 3, and then get started on vacuuming my apartment and cleaning it up for the Washingtons, get started on the ice cream, and it so fills the canister that I can't even work on it very long before it expands to the top. But there isn't enough ice even though I saved two sets of it in the large bowls and use all of the THIRD set of two trays, and I have to dash out in the rain (my cold still AWFULLY around, and for the past few days I've been SMELLING my nasal discharge, making me fantasize some sort of brain tumor, and my deliquesced brain is draining down through my nose, but John says he's not been smelling anything---I vow if it lasts until Monday I'll see a doctor to find out what's wrong---it's now been over TWO weeks!) to buy some more ice for 394 and use all of THAT, and much of it is melting. Finish with the churning and pour it back into the large bowl, but it overflows that and I need another, and John rinses about a cup of it down the sink. [I later total the charges for the ice cream, and it comes out 2 ice @ 394 = 784; 7 creams at 484 = $3.36, the chocolate was 794, sugar and coffee say 134, 8 eggs say 644, for a total MATERIALS cost of $5.70, and if I add our hour of my labor for $6.30, cheap, it comes out $12 for 3 gallons, or 504 a pint, which is about HALF what I'd pay in the store, so it's STILL a bargain!] Put it into the fridge, find that John has DONE the dishes in exchange for my cooking, and I shave and shower and get the table set by about 7:15, but they haven't shown up yet, and I finish up the salad and cover it with a wet paper towel and put it into the closet at John's advice, and, trying to make conversation, I ask John what he thinks about Jung's ESP experience of telling a tale from a stranger's life, and he says "Interesting," and after hollering at him for a few minutes find that he BELIEVES in that kind of ESP, which I didn't know, and tell him THAT'S what I wanted to KNOW about what he thought about it, but Herman's ringing at 8, by this time, and I let him in for a pleasant evening (see DIARY 8395). John washes up after, until 1, I'm in bed at 12:30, exhausted.
DIARY 8397
SUNDAY, MARCH 17. [21 ghastly days behind, with merely an entire change of lifestyle to cope with. Not for a long time has the sensation been so great directed toward just IGNORING it from here on out. But I MUST go on with it!] Wake about 8:30 and out in the pleasant air to buy the Times. Read it for awhile and stop to watch "Nightwalk" on Camera Three from 11 to 11:30, then finish the Times, have lunch, and finish proofreading "China" from 12:30 to 3:30, just in time to watch "The Andersonville Trial," which goes on at 3:30 and surprisingly lasts until 6. It's the old Eichmann problem, and a couple of telephone calls keep me on the phone (I think it's today when John Casarino calls from Sun Valley to chat with us from his convention-side sickbed), but he ends up guilty, as everyone was sure he would, for not following his CONSCIENCE while his orders told him to do something else, WITHOUT getting really into the problem of whether orders can be QUESTIONED or not. So it essentially sidestepped the issue. Then have dinner and over to watch "Whales, Dolphins and Men" on Nova, about how eager dolphins are to communicate with each other, though we can't find what their informational content is. This is from 7:30 to 8:30, and then I watch "6 RMS RIV VU" with good Carol Burnett and a cute Alan Alda, and there are some funny lines in it, but I can't imagine paying good money for it to see it on Broadway. That's over at 10:30, and then we're out at 11:15 (my hair's dry at last) to La Mama for the Trocadero Gloxinia Ballet (see DIARY 8406). John laughs and laughs as I haven't heard him do in ages, but I can't really think that it's all THAT funny: they are SURELY camping it up, and I think he must be PURPOSELY making himself blind to the INTENTION of being funny in order to enjoy it. I can't possibly even BEGIN to talk to him about it, however, and it's a measure of our estrangement that I feel that his opinions just WON'T be attacked, he surely WON'T change, so there's no need for an unpleasant scene, and I'm condemning myself to swallowing so much that I could say to TRY to wake him out of his dreams, and am blind to the REAL situation at this point ANYWAY. Over at 1:30 and bed.
DIARY 8408
MONDAY, MARCH 18. Up and agonize about what I'm going to do today, since I want to see the Cagney films tonight AND the double at the Guild AND I'm not feeling very good about not seeing Cor Bakker, Laird's friend, so I decide that I'll take BACK the "China" book today, meet him, and go to the movies. Call him and he says he'd like to see the films and meet for lunch so I pack up the pages FORGETTING to initial the bottoms of the galleys, and subway up (after shaving and showering) to Macmillan to go through all the queries and be given "Seal-Singing." It's much too late, since I was to meet him at the Taft at 11:45, and I don't get there until 12:30, but the movie doesn't start until 2, so we chat for a bit, and walk up to the Nirvana, where he tells me that the people in New York look POORER than in Europe, the streets are dirty, but he's liked the Met and the New York City Opera and other things that he's seen. The food is chilly and the place empty, and they don't have Espresso, so he's determined to have some cocktails, and we walk back up CPS to the Essex House, which isn't serving just coffee, and I suggest the Tower Suite, so we're up there to find it's been CLOSED for about two years, is now ONLY a private luncheon club, and he says the Top of the Sixes has been closed, too, and there's only the Rainbow Room, at 4. Flabbergasted, and he suggests the Hilton, but on the way there I see the Ground Floor, know they'll have coffee, and get over to find a large bar, and the rest is a COUNTER and BOOTHS just like a Howard Johnson's, and the menu had a strawberry cheese with CANNED strawberries that are ghastly, and finally he has TWO cups of good Cappuccino for 904, and I'd paid for lunch, so he pays for my cheesecake. Then at 3:30 I get over for the end of "The Way We Were," and all of "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams," in which Joanne Woodward reminds me VERY much of my mother. Home at 7:30, before John, and we eat about 8, and then HE wants to watch "Z," so I call Arnie, presuming he'll be watching Cagney, but HE'S watching "Z," so I tell John to go over THERE, but he refuses, I sigh and think it's another facet of his masochism, finish the dishes, and watch a GREAT tribute to Cagney with EVERYONE in the audience, including Mae West Rosalind Russell Loretta Young Steve McQueen Ali McGraw John Wayne Frank Sinatra (who sang a STRANGE song), and others. Bed at 11:15, feeling guilty for taking John's program, then KICKING myself for doing so.
DIARY 8409
TUESDAY, MARCH 19. Up at 8 and gather all the books together for the Nuclear Reactor article, and start at 9:30 and work till 12, and it seems that John's gone out somewhere, so I eat alone until 12:30, work again until 4, when I finish it. Then immediately work from 4 until 6 on the Gravity article, pouring through Encyclopedia Britannica, have dinner, and dash out to the travel class. Take the notes on DIARY 8410, but that official part of the class wasn't the best part: when I got in, he asked "How would you like to go to Africa and do a job for me and get a couple of thousand dollars on the side?" I gasp and say "Sure," wondering who I'll have to kill, and he refers to it a few times, and then outlines the trip that El Al's going to be offering, and how we'll get something like 17% commission on the people who go, not to mention going ourselves free, AND he says I'll be able to stay on afterward as long as I like! I can hardly believe it, and my mind has been whirling from the articles that I have to finish for tomorrow, the impending breakup with John, and even the strange evening with Bob Rosinek last Thursday is still preying on my mind. And also I'm realizing that I'm about 10 days behind in the diary, and the things have been happening so quickly that if I don't get caught up with it soon, it's going to be a mess. [How's THAT for hindsight foresight?] Stay after class to talk with him about it, but he says he'll have the folders at the class tomorrow night. He's spread out a desk, blocking the door for latecomers, so that Walt and I can write on it, and Norman Elms grabs a corner and the franchise on handing out the handouts to latecomers. Steve seems to have cooled to the other Steve for some reason, and Walt and Moe and I are his fair-haired children now, and finally when I see that he wants US to sell HIS El Al trips, I know what HIS rip-off from the class is, and since I finally see this master rip-off artist being in his element, I can relax and feel that I know WHY he's teaching the class. Back home at 11:15, after long coffee with him and the Jewish couple in the cafeteria, and work on "Gravity" from 11:15 to 1:45, getting to bed exhausted at 2, programming myself to wake at 7 so that I can type the final version of the articles to take in that afternoon.
DIARY 8412
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20. Wake EXACTLY at 7, EXACTLY when programmed, and slip out of bed and over to work on the end of the "Gravity" article from 7:05 to 8:35. But I still have to go to the library to get the full names of the scientists I only know by initials, and then I want to see the Ritz Brothers and Don Ameche in the movie that's over at 2:30, so I won't be at McGraw-Hill at 3. I call to say I might be a bit late, and Ed Reilly says that Linda Schaffner's sick, so won't I come in tomorrow, so I call Carol Day and say that since McGraw-Hill cancelled, could I come in a day late with the articles [and I don't understand why she's happy about TWO articles until she reminds me the next day that one WAS not due until a week after the first, but I put them on the first date for my OWN "convenience." What a jolt!], and she says that would be fine. So suddenly I have NOTHING to do today! Type 5 pages with great pain, since I'm so far behind in the diary, and "The Three Musketeers" IS rather fun, as the reviewers said, though the Ritz Brothers aren't NEARLY as wacky as the Marx Brothers, and they're so much look-alikes there's no individuality, and I believe there was SOME individuality in the MARX Bros! Finish at 2:30 and then go to the library from 3 to 3:30 to look up the first names, finally finding the last one by calling general reference. Leave the final typing for the next morning (stupidly) and John reads them through and finds them OK, even though I gently suggest he doesn't think they're worth discussing, which he denies. Then have dinner and out to the travel class, for the last time assisted by John's cooking dinner FOR me, and have an ice cream cone, double-dip Carvel for 354 while waiting for the bus, and the class, dealing mostly with travel in Europe, is rather a bore, but he DOES give out the first of the folders with the Africa tour described, and it looks GREAT on paper, though I'm sorry I don't have the time to go around to all my friends and their offices and try to SELL it (see DIARY 8413-8415). Home for the dishes and to bed early at 11, tired from last night's 5 hours, STILL laboring under the COLD that I've had for about THREE WEEKS NOW!
DIARY 8416
THURSDAY, MARCH 21. Up at 8 and immediately over to finish the "Gravity" article from 8 to 10. With the extra time put in on it, I'm very happy with the BOTH of them, and it's a pity I have to sign away all rights to them, though I'm sure I could give them out for strictly INFORMATIONAL purposes AND to give an example of my writing. Much later, when I get the contract of payment for "The Laser" I find that I'm not supposed to include more than two lines of a quote. We'll see what happens about THAT! Get in to New Century at 11, stop for lunch for a bit, and work through until 3 on various jobs, and then I have to leave for Carol Day, and of course it's raining VERY hard as I get out. Over to catch the F at 6th and 32nd, and up quickly, and she has nothing much to say to me, so I get back into my trousers and get over to McGraw-Hill quicker than I expected, at 3:35 rather than 4, but Linda comes out, plump and blond and smiling, to take me in to her boss, and I look at an incredibly neat manuscript of the COBOL book, which is only about 800 pages rather than the original 1200 page estimate, and we chat about how unusual it is, and then they ask what I want to be paid, and I said I thought it was standard, but they said they'd ask me, so I said that SINCE I wasn't going to be pushing commas around because the manuscript was so neat, I'd be doing mostly TECHNICAL work for which I thought $6 was good, and they said OK, and I felt good about that. I'd sat and talked with them about my IBM past and editing and encyclopedia article present, as if they wanted me to entertain them, and got out about an hour later, at 4:45, and walked down to Times Square to get a crowded subway just at 5. Ate dinner of chili while John finished up something else, and then I subwayed in to see "I Puritani." It's a pretty lousy thing (see DIARY 8417) with some pretty music, and intermission finds such thoughts churning through my head that I have to sit down and take the "Notes on a breakup" that I transcribe starting on DIARY 8418. I'm beginning to look FORWARD to sleeping alone, however, since I can come in and write when I want to without John sleeping nearby---how's THAT for a rationale?
DIARY 8420
FRIDAY, MARCH 22. Up at 7:15 and flee the bed John's in: any thoughts I have with him lying next to me are not pleasant: I want to take him in my arms and try to tell him that everything's all right: he'll feel better when he gets a job. When we talk together I want to touch him, but that causes trouble because I choke up, and then he gets to looking very controlled and that DRIES ME up. Or HE starts getting cry-eyed, and I feel that ONE of us has to retain control, so my soppy feelings vanish. What a hell of a mess. I'm just about to start typing at 8 when John comes over and kisses me good morning, and I can't stay in the room. Talk with him during the morning, and then get to New Century for more work, jotting down some notes in the subway and it's there that I transcribe starting on DIARY 8421. Work at NC for six hours from 11 to 5:30, with a half-hour for lunch and reading Jung. Don't feel like working, but I certainly don't feel like thinking about the breakup, since it just makes me feel lousy. I can't even get down to type any diary pages. Then we have a talk in the evening, just before John goes out, and I get down to transcribing that talk on DIARY 8378-8382 (GOD, that's 40 pages ago!), and type 9 diary pages in all, with time out to watch TV. Watch Jacques Cousteau's "The Blizzard at Hope Bay" one of the more constructed sequences: how can he record "We've got to get out of here," and then STAY? So the speech must have been put in later. Since we HAVE the speech, we know he got OUT, so THAT part of the suspense is removed. But the formation of the ice is spectacular, which may be the reason he stayed in the first place. Very hokey. That's from 8:30 to 9:30, I type, and over to "The Rimers of Eldritch" by Lanford Wilson, which he's rimed up with confusing flashbacks and a dense exposition that hurts more than it helps, with the crippled girl taking out after the young boy, the sexy stud laying the restaurant owner until he moves on, and the old fellow coming in to be shot by the crazy-lady's daughter when it was the GUY who was trying to rape the girl, not the old man, if you follow, which if you don't won't be better than me following the play, which I didn't. Not funny enough for the comedy part of comedy-drama, and the style wrecked any LINEAR drama, and I don't know if nonlinear drama EXISTS! Bed at 12, worn out. Physically from the cold; emotionally, too!!
DIARY 8424
SATURDAY, MARCH 23. Up and type 8386 to 8396, with a torture that I try to make explicit on DIARY 8390. It's a torture to write but it's a torture to know that I'm STILL far behind in the diary, and the longer it goes without writing, the harder it will be to actually DO and the LESS valuable it will BE since it gets less and less accurate. Get through the 11 pages and get through lunch with John as recorded on 8396, and then I don't recall what I did for the rest of the day: I could have read, or one of these days I vacuumed the apartment because it needed it so desperately. Also read the Village Voice one of these evenings, knowing that if I'm going to read it for the next weeks, I'll have to be buying it myself. There are TV programs that I wanted to watch tonight, but I shower and get out to Norma's, feeling sad that I'm not eating with John, yet after the finality of lunch this afternoon there just wouldn't be anything to say. Haven't thought at all about the move tomorrow, just kept so busy that IT will overtake ME rather than ME overtaking IT. But thankfully there isn't much in the line of movies that I haven't seen that I want to see, but the Academy Awards are coming up in a few weeks, and most of the movies and actors and actresses nominated are in movies I haven't seen, so that will be added to the list soon. Asked John somewhere along here if he WANTED to see the Joffrey tonight, but he said he wanted to see the Twyla Tharp thing---though there wasn't any need of it: I'd wanted Cor Bakker to buy it if he wanted, but he didn't phone after he came back from Poughkeepsie in the middle of the week, and I thought I saw the back of his head waiting to get a turn-in ticket at the "Puritani" but I couldn't be sure of it, and about a week later I got a card from him from San Francisco. Talked with Norma as described on DIARY 8399-8401, and then went to the Joffrey, where John was of course already in his seat. AND of course the "Sacred Grove on Mt. Tamalpais" was taken off, since that was what I WANTED to see, and "NY Export, Opus Jazz" substituted (see DIARY 8425). John didn't drive, so we rode on the subway together, reading, not talking, and got into bed quite independently. For the last time together? For THIS relationship, anyway!
DIARY 8426
SUNDAY, MARCH 24. Up about 8 and John's over getting things ready to move even before I finish with the Times. Get over and his dining room table is loaded down with stuff from his desk, as before, and therefore HIS apartment really looks like it did before right from the start. I can't quite get started in it, having made no plans, but obviously John had planned out every step of the way. I get involved in some elaborate "Well, I can't move that until I move that, but I don't want to do that until John does that, which he can't do until I---" etc. At first I want to leave the bedroom the bedroom and the storage room the storage room, and tell him he doesn't have to move the archives, but very quickly it becomes apparent that the living room is going to be very crowded, and then the idea of the TV room becoming a study with EVERYTHING in the line of books in it takes shape, started MAINLY when I wanted to put a bookcase on top of the little table BEHIND the desk and put the wooden bookcases on TOP of them, and then move other storage items into the study, and it becomes clear that most of the storage room can in fact be cleared out and be made into a bedroom, so by that time I've watched the 1/2 hour Camera Three on Japanese Photographers, not very good, and we move some more, and then settle down to have lunch together (see DIARY 8402), and he gets all of his stuff out of the kitchen, I put the cabinet below the sink, where it fits quite PERFECTLY, and the enthusiasm for a totally new apartment begins to grip me, and I get into the swing of organizing things, so that finally I'm telling John what I want out next, and piling things into closets just to see what's left to be sorted out, which means that most of the closets are inaccessible for the next two weeks until I can get a chance to sort THEM out. But at last, at least, there will be enough bookshelves, since I'll be moving the record stuff into the living room back onto the record cabinet, which will be resurrected, and it begins to HANG TOGETHER. We have dinner together, a disaster (see DIARY 8403-8404) and then I watch "The Search for Life" on Nova (see DIARY 8431), about the possibility of life in the universe, and the first part of "Cleopatra" better than I remember in the theater. It's over at 10:30 and then I jerk off SURROUNDED by pornography, great; bed at 1:30; TIRED!
DIARY 8427
MONDAY, MARCH 25. Up about 8, tired, apartment in a shambles, and somehow get through 8 pages of typing of diary before dropping everything in the apartment and getting to NC at 10:30. On the subway I write some notes that I'll start transcribing on DIARY 8428, and there's lots of odds and ends of things to do at NC, so I even work through until 6:30, which is hardly the time to do it. Get home just after 7, to find that the Finast closes at 7, so there's nothing to eat but eggs, and everything that I get out of the kitchen cabinets has to be washed before I can even EAT out of them. And then there's so much stuff I have to get that I HAD when I was living with John: sink drainer, and sink stopper and can opener and ALL sorts of things, and there never seems to be enough time to go to the store when I want to. At least I have the eggs, so I whip up four of them and have them with the Seasoning Salt, and the whole thing turns out very darn well, not even the pan being dirtied by the eggs: I've managed to condition it very well. Settle down to eat in the chaos and see that "The Selfish Giant" is on TV, so I watch that, a lovely animation technique that looks like Sendak a bit, with Beatle-cartoon-type Ice and Frost and Snow to make it slightly chilling. Then at 8:30 is the show about "Dr. Suess' The Lorax" and it's depressingly true about the defoliation of the very beauty that makes an area beautiful and attractive to produce some sort of commercial material whose market is PRODUCED by advertising. Then back to "Cleopatra" again, and I've set myself up to record the costumes for Liz Taylor, which I transcribe starting on DIARY 8430, and throw it into the stack of things that I have to do. That's over at midnight, and I'm slightly tired from only 62 hours sleep, but I don't feel sleepy at all, and am AFRAID to think about not sleeping with John anymore, so I get out all the pornography again and start sorting through it, smoking, and come with enormous gusto again, feeling at least good about the freedom to jerk off that it gives me, which I haven't had in the last six months, but I'd far PREFER the sex that WE gave each other as sleeping pills during the BEST of the relationship, for 4 years.