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1974 7 of 8

 

DIARY 8968

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Wake at 7:30 to the clumping upstairs, thinking rather miserably and fleetingly about the dentist, and then up to have a breakfast of eggs, since I'm out of milk for cereal, and make a shopping list and things to do list for the next few days, assuming we're leaving for the Adirondacks on Friday, and get out to unemployment at 10:30 without a word from them, get to the bank to find that a $315 check by Trans World hasn't been SIGNED by them, and subway very early to Dr. Sheik's, to sit in her outer office from 11:20 to 11:40, and then get in for the worst session in years (see DIARY 8969). Out at 12:20, not feeling very chipper, and get home for the mail, then push myself out at 1:30 to buy the Voice, pick up the Chinese laundry, cash another check for $250, buy groceries, and then home to eat lunch, and then get back to a bit of the index from 2:50 to 3:40, and then start looking through the Voice and see that there are a couple of double features that I want to see before I leave, and decide that the only way to see them both is to see one today, and that would be the double at the Brooklyn Heights, so I get out at 4:30 to pay an increased price of $1.50 and see Truman Capote's "Trilogy" the last two of which I've seen on TV, and the first is "Miriam," about nanny Mildred Natwick being "possessed" by a grim little girl named Miriam who moves in with her after terrorizing her, and no one else can see her; "Paths of Eden" the one where Maureen Stapleton cruises cemeteries to marry widowers like Martin Balsam; and "Christmas Memory" where a daffy Geraldine Fitzgerald and a younger Truman Capote make up fruitcakes to send to Presidents and Indians. Then "Paper Chase" is marvelously good: true, funny, well acted, somewhat sexy (though Timothy Bottoms certainly has a straight-fucked stomach-slouch), thought-provoking (see DIARY 8970) movie. Out at 8:15, talk to John (see DIARY 8971), home to talk to Bob and Joe, who like my machine, and then call Grandma and Rita before watching "Tancrede and Chlorinde" on International Performance, with a SEXY Patrik Frantz of the Paris Ballet as Tancrede's page, and then call Mom, talking to her about the robbery and her possible moves until 10:30, and then get into an electric-blanketed bed for the second night, and fall right asleep, no coming.

DIARY 8972

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. Up at 8:30, literally sleeping 10 hours, and then have breakfast, type five diary pages, and settle down to look through all the astrology pages, making up a sheet of notes and questions that I finally type because it's so involved, and by then it's 1, so I eat lunch, shave, and get out to Pope's at 2 for a two-hour discussion about his rich demolition relatives who own their own jet and are written up in Playboy, his uses of TM and how I should get into it again, the way he makes up his charts, answers various questions of mine but leaves more of them unanswered, and ends up saying that these signs that HE would interpret as "don't fly" under are actually signs OF travel, and I'm only going to be doing what the signs say I should be doing. Feel quite flat, and he's been suffering from diarrhea and says he's washed out, but he does far more talking than I do. Back to pick up the mail for the WSDG, and it turns out to have an announcement for a new week's performances by the Ballet Trokadero de Monte Carlo, and Michael's going to the opera, so he won't go again, but Bob will go, and I slip a note under John's door and he's going to the ballet, without bothering to mention to me that Leo Hollister might come along, and since I don't know his name, I can't introduce him to Bob, and he's angry about that, I think. Work on index 4:45-5:55 and 11-11:30. Leave at 6:15 and meet Bob at Le Beau Pere at 6:45, and he loves the place, I go out for some tasteless Inglenook rosé for $2.60, and the meal comes to $14.10, or $16 with tip, so the whole thing for the two of us is $18.60, a bit much, but my mousaka is very good and he likes his chicken and garlic, and the salad is great. To the WSDG for the ballet, and it conjures up strange thoughts (see DIARY 8973) and we're out at 10:20, and I get home by 11 to watch the TV special on Paramount Pictures, really very good (see DIARY 8974), and afterwards smoke and come with GREAT pressures and pleasures after teasing myself VERY hard and taut in the cock for quite awhile, and don't get to sleep until 2:15 am, again falling into the lateness routine. Put the phone near me so that Rosey Shiek will wake me when she calls, hopefully at 9 am, to say I can come in.

DIARY 8975

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Up at 9 after laying in bed from 8:30 listening to the noises around, and then finish the index from 9:10 to 11:10, though I get a call from Bob Rosinek who wants me to sell Richard Etts' pieces to shops in the Heights, and I call Rosey to find that she's not going to have time for me before next Tuesday, which is a pain because I'm tired ALREADY of eating in one side of my face only. Phone and say I'll bring in the index at 1:15, planning on the movies, but Mark Krauss of Trans World calls with a problem in Trig and a small error in a diagram on current in Physics for me to solve, and by the time I finish lunch and shower and shave, it's quite late. Out to get to ACC at 3 to give in the index, and then across to the subway up to the movies, disgusted because it's 3:30 and I'm going to be late for dinner, and the most incredible things happen (see DIARY 8976). Out at 7 and have a slice of pizza after watching "Going Places" and "I Could Never Have Sex...," and then get to Joe and Bob's at 7:35, up to meet Stanley, who's awful, telling the most boring stories in the longest way, and we talk about my travel experiences, their building and getting-job troubles down in the Keys, and they serve good spaghetti and chicken for dinner after lots of drinks and paté and cheeses, and then there's fruit and date-nut bread for dessert with the coffee, and then they get out the cordials and the photographs of the house, and I tell about learning Portuguese, and about my coming-up trips to the Adirondacks, the Greek Isles, and around the world (and still I'm DEPRESSED!). Get a bit of sniffles from the cat, and finally leave at 1, but it's a long wait for the local and then a long wait for the express, and I finally finish reading "Don Quixote" all the way through to page 940 by 1 am, and get home at 1:30, feeling quite drunk and very, very tired, and fall into bed, hoping to be up by the time the exterminator is supposed to come at 9 am. Warm enough, again, to get into bed without warming up the electric blanket, but I put out the heating pad to take with me to the Adirondacks, because it will certainly be chilly there. Drop off to sleep immediately.

DIARY 8977

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. Up just after 9, the exterminator didn't come, and type five pages and start putting things together for the trip tomorrow. Write a long note to Bill Kirkpatrick to tell him exactly what to do with all the plants. Had intended to get out the maps that I had of the area, but in the hassle of the packing and the day, I don't get them out. Talk to a couple of people on the telephone, finish things like washing socks and picking up laundry and dry cleaning, but the life of me I can't think what else I did all day. Had a little list of things that I had to do that I finished off well enough, leaving me enough time to get to the movies "Fat City" and "Love and Anarchy." "Fat City" stars a very seedy-looking Stacy Keach as a boxer, with a cute Bridges-kid as an upcoming battler who ends up marrying and raising kids, and a tremendously whiney, self-destructive, complaining, irritated and irritating female whose name I don't even catch, but she does such a good job I hate her thoroughly. "Love and Anarchy" stars the bush-haired clover-leaf-size freckled Giancarlo Gianninni as a duo from the country come to a whorehouse to kill Mussolini, and who ends up being brutally beaten and "disappearing" at the climax of the grueling film. The colors are almost rotten in their decadent brilliance, the mania for the love and violence scenes is very well portrayed, and it's almost as arresting as the crowd in the theater, standing-room only, who mumbles dementedly to itself, smokes cigarettes, talks across the aisles, laughs at the wrong time, and completely ignores squalling babies. The place is heavy with sweat and the presence of value-hunters who come from all over for the $1.50 movie double, and they don't even mind sitting with their view partially obscured by the pillars because it's so cheap. The drunk babbles and mumbles and sways over the parapet behind me, and I've moved from the smoke of a cute fellow who protests "I didn't mean to get your allergies up" when I pass him and bitch about his smoking. Try bumping knees with him later, but he leaves, and I get out into the rain to get back home with the Times, glance through to see with relief that there are no "not to be missed" TV shows next week, and bed at 1, nervous.

DIARY 8085

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5. Up a few times at night to piss and add blankets and look at the blare of the porch light, then up when first bell rings late at 8:10 and to breakfast with the Hoyts, Whites, and Griswolds, lots of goodbyes and address exchanges, and Dave's wife has multiple sclerosis and won't live long, and they're moving to DC, and she MIGHT be back year after next. Pay bill, $159 for me and $39 for John, he reserved 6 days in the boathouse for next year, and we're off about 10:30. Straight down to 90, which I drive from 12 to 1, then down along lake to the Bowells about 2, and we talk and get news clippings about John's class and drink cider and finish John's gallon of sherry and take baths and fix mushrooms before going to Moosewood in the converted schoolhouse at 7:30 for bland chicken paprikash and a good grain side dish and a FABULOUS brownie-ice cream-hot maple walnut syrup dessert that STUFFS me. Drive around campus and get out to Ludlowville Falls (that Cathy, who's been with us practically all the time, just as her dog is practically always with Willie, when he's not in the kennel, as he is now) says was used in the "Perils of Pauline" when Ludlowville was the closest thing to Hollywood anywhere) and back at 10:30, Cointreau drinking, watching moon struggle out of clouds, and out for an elbow-brushing with Fran, Joy, and Peggy (or Cathy, I forget), and back to the TINY part of the bed John leaves me at 11, after I harp at him in AM for finally saying he's sleepless in a small bed with me, and I have to resolve to go to Elmira directly tomorrow. No trouble to sleep. Joy's been on her diet a long time, but still she's very hippy and thighy, though she has lost a lot, and she looks obese in the photograph of herself she keeps inside the cupboard. Kids upstairs scream and beat back and forth across their floor, our ceiling, and I'm glad I just have ONE woman and ONE cat upstairs. Geese constantly going over head, between cornfields and lake, and we see two deer that had been killed by motorists; their bodies not yet collected. Try driving down 90 earlier, but there's no real way to drive alongside the lake without hitting lots of dead ends. Bowells beautiful.

DIARY 8986

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 6. John's out already when I wake at 8, in to shave, good breakfast, though small, of eggs and oysters and jam and homemade bread and coffee, and out about 11 to pick up rest of stuff for picnic (I pay the $5 for that since they paid the $22 DINNER for all five of us last night) and we drive to Sapsucker Woods and roam around the building and I get VERY hung up on the intense gaze and blond-fuzzed legs of a guy in cut-off shorts who rides away on a bicycle, leaving me really AGONIZED by desire for the nest couple of hours. Binoculars supplied at the large viewing window are partly broken, some of the exhibit rooms are interesting, there are few ducks, and we go out to walk just a bit of the paths and find loads of mushrooms, as we have everywhere this fruitful year. Then we go to Buttermilk Falls for a picnic at a good table with a view of the falls, good selection of goose liver, cheeses, grapes picked from the roadside, crackers, apples, and beer, and then up falls trail for more mushrooms, till we turn back when Fran says Joy can't hike because of a torn muscle under her shoulder from an auto mishap. At about 4 we drive down to Elmira, stopping for cider and pumpkins, and there's almost NO talk and I'm glad I'm leaving, though staying just ONE more night would have permitted me to hear both of John's talks, scheduled for 2 and 4:30 Monday. The YMCA is full for the Watkin's Glen Grand Prix which ends today. Drive around, try one tourist home that recommends another one on 1300 Lake Street, and Mrs. Hardiman is pleasant, her place is empty, and it's only $5 a night, so I say goodbye to them and move upstairs. Settle in to read paper to find there's nothing worth seeing in town, and read "Limbo" to 7 after calling Jane Roberts and getting no answer, and then Mrs. Hardiman recommends Cavaluzzi's in Divan Plaza, so I walk past the sidewalk's end and have ground veal parmigiana and root beer for a total bill of $5, and back at 9:30 to read some more and smoke and come with GREAT feeling, almost falling asleep while I dry, and doze off completely at 11:30, wishing there were something more to do in the flood-ravaged town (hotels closing, too) of Elmira.

DIARY 8987

MONDAY, OCTOBER 7. Wake at 7:30, lay until 8, shower and shave and eat Ritz crackers instead of breakfast until 11:30, reading "Limbo," and then I call for a bus schedule back to NYC, and Jane will NOT see me today, only for class tomorrow, and she recommends Moretti's for dinner. Call Rosey Sheik and cancel my appointment for tomorrow, making it Thursday. Then walk down Lake to Water Street, stopping and searching used paperback shop, find a Sunday Times at 1 and walk down to College Avenue, then see a MacDonalds at Main, and decide that their sandwiches are SOGGY, and look at some of the sexy guys with their long hair and their girlfriends, and some of the suited guys looking all dressed up with no one to appreciate them in his hick town. Walk all the way out Main, past the college and not much else, and around the 1100 block wonder where I am, and a mailman directs me to the end of the street at Woodlawn, WAY across the tracks at the end of town, which takes me across Grand Central Avenue to the 1400 block of Lake, and very tired home at 2:30 to work the puzzles and read the Times until 5. Then get back into "Limbo," leave at 7 to walk Lake to Washington to College and past it to find a BOOK to read, Castaneda, and see Moretti's from the bridge over the tracks, and get back there to get into a small side room, two other rooms totally full of swinging Elmirans, and spend $8.75 for a daiquiri, while starting "Journey to Ixtlan" and for the same dinner as last night: veal parmesan with spaghetti and a salad with Italian dressing. Bread not as good, meat much more substantial, but it was a waste of money, as will be shown later. Leave at 9 and talk with Mrs. Hardiman for a long time about the flood that hit, coming up to the garage in the backyard, bringing people from "as far as Manhattan" to help clear away the mess, the last of the temporary dwellings of trailers leaving just last June after the June 20, 1972, disaster that was by FAR the worst ever experienced in the city and surroundings. Talk to 10:15, getting books that I skim through until 11:30, then to bed to finish "Limbo" at 12, smoke and jerk off to 12:30, AGAIN a GREAT experience, and doze off quickly to sleep.

DIARY 8988

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 8. Up at 8, read more of the Times Magazine section just to pass the time to 10, read the flood books entirely, then piss, fix myself up, take down the books, and write the rest of the notes for these pages from 10:30 to 11. Call Greyhound to find that the bus fare to New York is $14.30, and when I add the $15 for the room for three nights, the $3.50 for the class tonight, $1.20 for the cab, 354 for the subway fare, and I only HAVE $35 or so, I have only $1 to EAT with the next two days! Down very embarrassed to talk to Mrs. Hardiman, and she says she can't accept checks because she doesn't have an account, and she can't let me owe her, since she must pay her bills, but suggests that I could only pay $4 a day for the room, so I give her $12 and thank her, intending to send her $6 back, but instead just send a $5 bill. Wanted to check again for the Voice, but when I walk to the Sub place, I decide I've walked far enough, since I'll be walking to Water and back again tonight, so I have a roast beef sub for $1.35, and I STILL only have $3 left for food. Back to eat and read "Journey to Ixtlan" completely by 5:30, when I have to stop to wash my hair, shave, brush my teeth, and get ready to leave. Someone else has checked in while I was reading, and she says she'll just leave the door open for whenever I get in, and I say I'll call the taxi tomorrow, borrowing an alarm clock from her to get me up. Out at 6 and eat an awful slice of pizza for 254 in Pudgies, but that'll keep me until I find if Jane will trust me with a check for HER bill. Walk along the concrete abutments in the backyards along Water Street, and 458 is a rambling yellow-painted wood building and their apartment is up on the second floor. Follow the sound of the bubbling voices at 6:50, and enter a room crowded with about 25 people, and Jane's sitting in the middle, horridly thin and crooked in a bright purple and red Martian-flower pattern, jabbering away with people sitting around her. There's definitely an "in" feeling, and the evening is MOST bizarre (see starting with DIARY 8989), not ending until 12:15, and I walk back to town, along Main, finding Barbara's all-night diner, having eggs and toast and orange juice and coffee for $1.20, walk home, can't sleep till after 1:50 to wake at 5:50!

DIARY 8994

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9. Turn alarm off before it rings at 5:50, and wash and up and dress and call taxi at 6 and out at 6:10 when it passes me by a few doors. To the station for $1.50 and buy a Voice for 504, solving the problem of what I'm going to read on the bus today, so I don't have to buy a book. Elmira to Ithaca from 6:30 to 7:30 through frost-whitened countryside with the sun brightening a sky from violet to orange as we drive into the Ithaca station. Looking in the phone book at 7:30 for the Bowells and a voice behind me says "Looking for someone?" and I turn to gasp in amazement at FRAN! He's brought Joy to the bus to Hartland, and I'm out to say hello to her before the bus leaves, and then he drives me to the Royal Court for breakfast of pancakes, paying for it when I say how low of cash I am, and I'm actually left with $2! Back to the station at 8:15, so that he can get to work, and I read the Voice until the bus leaves at 9:05, stopping in Binghamton at 10:15 for 20 minutes, and I read in the lobby to get away from the continuously-on bus motor, and then from 10:30 to 1:30, or a bit after, is the straight-through trip to New York City through countryside brilliant with colored leaves. I read every article in the Voice, quite tired by the end, and throw it onto the floor like everyone else threw their pop cans and sandwich papers and cigarette butts where they weren't supposed to be smoking. Subway home by 2:15, and out to the unemployment office after quickly going through the mail, and stand in line for about 20 minutes when I reach around and HAVE FORGOTTEN MY BOOK! Feel TERRIBLY stupid, get to the bank at 3:05 to cash checks for cash, back for the book, and have to go to the information line, line B, and then to the cute blond I'd noticed before, and he "says" that I was "out-of-town: job interview" last Wednesday, and I get TWO weeks' check! Get haircut at little shop for $2.25. Home at 4:40 and quickly call Travel Dynamics, and Polly says that I AM going! Then check the list of phone calls (see DIARY 8995) and try calling many of the people, skim LAST week's Times, look through mail, write a few checks, and Arnie calls 11-12:15 to talk about coming trip, I jerk off with great spasms, then eat lots of toast, and write High Dazzle (see DIARY 8996), bed at 2:15 am!!

DIARY 8997

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 10. Wake about 7, thus getting FOUR hours sleep the night before and FIVE hours sleep last night. Lay, fretting about the flight, until the woman upstairs starts walking around at 7:30, and then I get up, take a Compoz, and regret that I don't have any milk for breakfast, but am too lazy to go out and get it. Go through all the rest of the mail and get about eight pieces of mail to send out with checks, requests, answers, and general stuff, and make a number of phone calls, and finally decide that I have to make up a list of things that I have to do before the trip, since so many things are preying on my mind. Check that, in fact, Rosey's appointment DOES conflict with my $10,000 Pyramid tryout, so I change the appointment to 4 pm on Friday, to conflict with the Wine and Cheese tasting. Call Arnie at 9:45, and he says he'll be leaving at 10:45 for Travel Dynamics, and I should come along, so I finish a few more details, dress neatly in a red pullover and the squared sport coat, and he says the colors aren't quite right, so I lug all the stuff he has for me home and change into a BLACK pullover, then get MORE money from the bank, and into the Lexington subway to meet him at 11:40 at Fulton Street and we ride up together to Travel Dynamics to find that Glenn Davis isn't there at 12. Arnie wanted to see a movie at the MMA, but he can't, since he has to get his tickets for a 6 pm departure tonight! I get loaded up with bags and cards and tickets and information AFTER an incredible half hour at the Dime Savings Bank across the street, where Arnie tried to deposit some money (see DIARY 8998). I leave at 2:30 to have my first meal of the day, a Big Boy at MacDonalds, and even THAT is a catastrophe with loud radios blaring and AWFUL people. Back to call ABC and they say I can go to the taping WITHOUT the ticket, so Arnie walks me to the studio at 58th between 7th and Broadway at 3:45 (see DIARY 8999). Out at 5 to call Bob Grossman and say I CAN'T schlep my stuff to his place, call him later to talk, eat Spam while watching "Tornado" in Xenia, Ohio, from 8 to 9, and I smoke, jerking off again, TREMBLING because of the cold, and bed at 10.

DIARY 9000

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11. Up at 7, having finally caught up with 9 hours of somewhat steady sleep, and take care of odds and ends before it's time to start typing six diary pages and talking to Bob Rosinek on the phone. Realize with a start that I have to get traveler's checks today or not at all, particularly with the $100 cash that Arnie gave me yesterday to get for him, and I feel so much like DOING for him to thank him for getting me into Travel Dynamics AND to get me into the habit of being a personless host-type. Shower and shave and dress in the OTHER sports jacket (the black and white stripes) for THIS day's travels, and get out at 11:45 with lots of things to mail to get $400 worth of Barclay's Bank's traveler's checks for no added fee (except their use of the money, of course) by 12:30, and then down to 55th Street for the tryouts for "$10,000 Pyramid" (see DIARY 9001). Out of there at 1:30 and dash up to the Coliseum to look for Eddie, supposed to meet me at 1:45, but he's not there, and the crowd is small enough that I can leave and buy the first meal of the day: chicken picnic for $2.35 from the place on 58th, and have eaten about half of it when the crowd moves down to the other door and Eddie comes out of a cab at 2. He helps me finish the food, and we're in about 2:10 to the Wine and Cheese Festival (see DIARY 9002). Meet Michael Sullivan there in a great surprise, and leave at 3:20 when all my tickets are gone to get up to Rosey's at 3:50. She's waiting for me, and there ensues a half-hour in the chair of great frustration and determination. She injects me OK, then again repeats that she's put in a double lining, but if the tooth reacts too much, the next step would be a root canal. That's not bad enough: when she starts with the filling, she discovers that there's not enough of the tooth left to wrap a proper form around, so she's afraid that the filling will come out, AND there's so much extra flesh that's grown into the holes that I'm bleeding badly, and she SCRAPES around the flesh, which doesn't help, and also I'm sore-jawed from gaping while she gets in with everything but knees and elbows. She wants to see me in two weeks, too. Out at 4:30 and call Bob, buy 5 books by Clarke to read on the plane, talk to Richard at Trans-Lux, who hates me, get to Bob's for our usual 2-for-him/1-for-me Backgammon, eat at Singles, pretty good for $9, and home at 12:30 to smoke and get to bed WITHOUT coming.

DIARY 9003

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 12. Not very much sleep last night, very aware of the upcoming flight, but I console myself with the fact that I'm going to have to get to sleep only ONCE more (and fear awful dreams that would tempt me to cancel out of the flight and the possibility of the job before even TRYING it!). Fertilize the plants, make a list of things that I have to tell John to do for me, cut down on many things on my list of things to do before the trip, and get started with the diary pages until about 9:30, when I figure I'll have to take out the cleaning before 10, and I MUST get to some shopping. So I take all $190 along with the laundry, asking for it back in the "fast service" at 10, then buy twine and a knife as recommended by Arnie, and look at Modell's and various other places before getting into A&S and NOT being able to find a blazer that I like for a price that I like. Finally over to Korvettes for a blue flannel one for $32, including tax, and then get blue sneakers there for $5, too. Decide I have to get a windbreaker like Arnie's, and the basement of Modell's furnishes a perfect one for $8.50, and then I get back to A&S basement for the rest of the things: a pair of VERY dark blue Levis for casual wear and two blue shirts, one light and one dark, to look TOTALLY like Arnold Bernstein, my partner in Tour Escorting, for $23.50 or so, and THERE went about $70! All into two hand-tote-boxes, and I pick up my laundry for a third, get milk and meat which adds to the stack, and then pick up the dry cleaning for 2, and stagger upstairs with the mail at 12:30. Settle down for lunch with the Voice, then continue with typing through the afternoon for a grand total of 17 pages, and I'm not finished YET. Add more to the list of the things to do, get rid of the opera tickets, write Bill and Laird, and then it's almost 6 and I've decided to take in the Bodybuilding Championships (after liking to watch the champion gymnasts on TV from 3-4). Shave and have dinner of me-cooked meat for the first time in three weeks, then out at 7 to buy a $10 tickets for the Felt Forum performance (see DIARY 9004). Out at 11:25, finish "Time Limit" and home with the Times at 12, glance through the TV section, and smoke and bidi and popper to orgasm and sleep by 1, thankfully FALLING asleep!.

DIARY 9034

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26. Wake in pitch blackness and find that it's 2:30. Lay for a bit until 3:30, dozing some, and 10:15-3:15 is only 5 hours, but I don't seem to be ready for more sleep, so I get up, listen to the phone messages while going through the mail again, take down a list of people to call, making a list of 21 of them, then separate the mail out into different piles depending on the amount of time it would take to handle them, and then get to unpacking my suitcase and the tote bag, sorting, sorting, sorting things out into things to do, things to put away, things to process further. Slip a note under John's door telling him that I'm back, and then read through the last of the Village Voice (now a week old), read through the NEW VV that John got for me, and through last week's New York Times, and find that I can watch TV for 6 hours today. Finally the sun comes up about 7, and I'm still working away putting things into order. Have breakfast of two eggs about 8, finish reading "The Halloween Tree" since I don't feel like writing, then lunch of tuna at 12 while watching "It! The Terror from Beyond Space," rather ghastly, with particularly inept acting and dialogue, and the large-chested creature wasn't even sexy: they never showed WHAT they would do for the crotch in the dimness of the spaceship (in which they exploded GRENADES!). That's from 12 to 1:30, and out of inertia I watch the start of a Dead End Kids "The Bowery Boys Meet the Monsters," and see practically all of it before I drag myself back to my desk. But I just DON'T feel like typing, John said he'd be over at 4:30, so I creep into bed with my clothes on from 2:15 to 4:15, and John rings then, and we talk until 5:15, and he goes into ecstasy about his book on Kei (see DIARY T2). Then I watch two programs from 5:15 to 6:30 about the upcoming fight on Tuesday in Kinshasa, Zaire, between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, both reasonably sexy, but it just shows how much my taste has changed. Don't have anything for dinner, hadn't gotten out for groceries, and talked on the phone to Bob Grossman, Dick Sime, Susan, Paul Bosten (who has a new lover and will call ME back), and left word with Alice (Joan), Arnie (Steve), and Avi (roommate), so I have only 14 left to call. VERY weary and almost nauseous, so I think to nap at 7 until movies at 10, but wake at 2 to put out the lights.

DIARY 9036

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 27. After putting out the lights at 2, I wake again at 4:30 and debate about getting up, but simply undress finally and crawl back into bed with earplugs, and sleep again until 8:30, so I sleep ABOUT 13 hours, so with the 5 Friday night from 10:15 to 3:15, and Thursday night was 1-6, also 5 hours, and Wednesday nights was 1:30-7, 5.5 hours (and the nights before that sort of evened out), so that's 28.5 hours for 4 nights, or just over 7 hours, so THAT about evens out, too! Up feeling quite a bit better, fuss some more with things piled up, have three eggs for breakfast, and then out at 10:45 to buy the Times, milk, and meat for dinner, finding that the time change makes it actually 9:45, and I read part of the Times, watch Merce Cunningham on Camera Three from 11-11:30, and then continue with the two puzzles from the Times, sort of out of practice, but it comes through thanks to EB, which I check up on Antinuous [now FOUR versions: (1) he died to GET AWAY from Hadrian (Mina), (2) he died to give his YEARS to Hadrian (Arnie's guide), (3) it was an accident (always possible), (4) he died to take to himself the death "touching" Hadrian (EB)] and finish puzzles about 1:30. Get to letters and mailings for about five pieces, checks and small letters, and then watch "Dr. Terror's House of Horrors" from 3-5, silly because he predicts BIZARRE deaths for all of them worrying everyone, and they're "actually" killed in a TRAIN wreck! Later call John Casarino, Pope, Madge (who's a manager and has had Michele through Caesarian section) (who took the 7-day cruise on the Stella Solaris), and Marty (who's going into translations now), and left word with Azak's service. Have just about caught up with things, and feel that letdown when the INTERESTING things are finished, and the only thing that's left is the typing or the new imaginative work. But can't seem to get to the typewriter, so I read more articles in the Voice and the Times, getting caught up to date with New Yorks, and then watch "Poseidon Adventure" from 9 to 10:30, when I watch a rather silly program on sexuality until 11, and watch the end of PA until 11:30, and think to go right to sleep, but some of the sexy things turn me on, and I smoke and have one of the strangest "gap" orgasms I've ever experienced (see DIARY T4). To sleep at 12:15, up at 6:30.

DIARY 9038

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28. Up at 6:30 and water the plants and have breakfast and care for things around the apartment and start typing at 8, stopping at 9 to start telephoning: Bob Rosinek; Michael; Ellen Oken who's had to give away the proofreading stuff she had for me; Ron Tiekert, with whom I arrange to come in tomorrow to look at some statistical work; John Bryce, who by coincidence is flying off somewhere, so I should call him next Monday; Marge Dumond, who hates me for my luck; Rolf, who's eager to do something; and Eddie. This just about finishes the list except for Joe and Bob, whom I try calling for the next couple of days, but then on Thursday I throw the list away. Between talking on the phone I'm typing 12 diary pages to get not quite half of it out of the way. I'm hoping to do more than half of what's left today so that I can finish up to date tomorrow, finishing the last of October by November 1. NOVEMBER!? With exercising and then later trying to call lots of people about the orgy here tomorrow night, that just about takes up the entire day, except that I go out and buy groceries and look through the last of the mail---though there isn't any today because it's Veteran's Day. Also talk to Arnie and decide to go into TDI tomorrow, and they've offered him the job of Cruise Director aboard the Stella Oceanis for the Sunshine Coast of South America: he's not sure if he'll take it or not. Feel tired through the day, and I'm still troubled with diarrhea that seems not to trouble me except once a day, when I shit. Far out of shape, and even 11 push-ups feels like a lot. Demand that I keep at it to get back into great shape. Have dinner early because I'm so starved, finally getting back to reading the Scientific Americans, and then watch Dr. Seuss at 8:30-9, followed by Bert Reynolds in "Shamus," which really isn't that bad, since all the stunts he does are so "look-I'm-an-actor" tongue-in-cheek that they are rather funny, though there's still the same mystery about how the evil villains can continue shooting at him and he'll never get shot. That's over at 10:30 and I'm totally weary, so I get right into bed, smoking just to make sure I don't get concerned about the dentist tomorrow, but it's really been quite far from my mind: after that FLIGHT back, dentists aren't worrisome.

DIARY 9039

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29. Up about 7 and have breakfast and do the dishes and even dust in preparation for this evening, but I've determined that I'm not going to go through the effort of putting a speaker into the study room (since no one's IN the study room), or changing the lights to very dim ones in the bathroom and kitchen, or even moving the sofas apart and moving the coffee table into the study. Get everything shifted around and fixed except for vacuuming by 9:15, and get out onto the subway to find the express diverted onto the local tracks until 96th, but still another train comes and I get to Rosey's at only 10:05. She looks at the filling and says it's OK, and then cleans VERY thoroughly and looks around to say that some of the white fillings are beginning to wash away, but there's nothing that needs taken care of right now, and I get out at 10:20, feeling the relief of no flight and no dentist's appointment for the first time in a couple of months. GREAT. Down to LTS at 11, Pat's in a meeting and says she'll be out between 11:30 and 12, so I talk to Graham Gross who's actually proposed a project on Kirlian photography (see DIARY T7). We talk for about an hour, and then he has work to do, and Joe comes in and I fall in love again with those intense clear-blue eyes, and when we go down for lunch at 1, he walks down the 13 flights for exercise, in addition to what he does in the morning, and he only has an apple for lunch, so he only has coffee at Gefen's while Pat and I share a cheese kreplach and a potato pirogen, both fairly uninteresting for second tries, but the potatoes are nicely flavored and the cheese is pleasant and sweet, and the apple sauce and sour cream dressings are nice. Pat pays, so we'll have to have lunch again sometime. Out at 2, walk over to the Metropolitan Bookshop to by "I-Thou" since I'm getting to the end of "Tales from the White Hart," which I finish at NC, and get up to NC at 2:30 to wait for Tom until 3:30, and we talk about getting data from the Weekly Progress Report until 5:30, when I say I MUST leave to meet Bob Rosinek on my doorstep at 6:05, after I buy more white wine for tonight. We eat in the Promenade, the fish sandwich good, and back for showers and I vacuum, and the party starts at 7:55 and ends at 2:15, fabulous (see DIARY T8).

DIARY 9042

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30. Wake at 8, so I'm up before Arnie calls at 8:15 to arrange to meet at his place at 9:10. Don't even have time to put away the ashtrays LOADED with ashes, but shower and shave and dress after breakfast and meet him even a little early to subway to TDI, where he goes into conference with Vasos about becoming a Cruise Director, accepting $300 a week for the solid 12-week stint, and Polly's amazed to hear that I'm 38, she accepts my expense account, I talk to Bob Krosskey about Cathy, I give the shoes and letter to George, and then feel that I WILL be part of the South American cruises, except that they WILL be using four escorts, 2 each for three cruises to the SAME place, to gain expertise, and Arnie says I should call tomorrow and put in my request for his ship, if I want it, but Polly says that I'm literally the last to have my choice, so I'll get what's left! But that's still better than nothing, and I'm ahead of the millions who have not as yet done ONE tour for them! Out at 11 and subway to unemployment, where the same handsome guy processes my form, telling me about the Fatima-hand that appears in three different manifestations on his bracelet, but he gives absolutely no sign of getting personal, though I think I've gone pretty far in trying to be friendly. He gives me a 1/4 check for this week and says I should come in in TWO weeks next. Out at 12 and phone Tom to arrange to be there for lunch, and I get in at 12:45 and we're over to Munk's Place for a Bloody Mary and cheese-baconburger for me and two martinis and a hamburger for him, and the bill is over $11! He's almost soppily pleased that I'm back, and he says he likes me, he likes talking with me, he's happy I'm back, so when I ask for $10 an hour, he says OK. Back to talk from 2-6 about the form of the statistics, and it's finished satisfactorily; they'll call me when they need me next. Home by 7, have dinner while exercising, talk to Rolf about Tsi-Dun on Saturday, talk to Arnie about TDI plans, call Avi, and finish eating about 8:30, when I start putting the apartment back to rights from the orgy last night, finish reading a few things, and then I'm STILL very tired at 10, so I get into bed at 10:45, still waking up during the dark of the night, about 5:45, and finally get out of bed at 7:45, rested.

DIARY 9044

THURDSAY (sic!), OCTOBER 31. Again wake at 6, lay until 7:30, and realize that I hadn't done my exercises yesterday, so I have to do two today: so I do the first set at 7:50, then have breakfast (this is too much!), and get down to sorting out things that have to be typed, but each page gets more and more difficult, and I'm talking to Bob Rosinek and Bob Grossman and Arnie on the phone about Tuesday's orgy here, and then start talking about SATURDAY'S orgy preparations! Call Polly and find that I'll probably be ousted by other escorts with more seniority for the East Coast of South America. Get in the second set of exercises at 11:50, feeling a bit sore from them, and have lunch. Get back to typing, but it's torture so bad that when I finish 11 pages I figure I might have a nap, but then decide that I'd like to read on the subway, so I get out to pick up the Uher recorder for $51+ repair bill with the tax. Home at 4 and start testing it, finding to my chagrin that Arnie's tape HAS to be what looks like backwards to WORK. Talk to John and find they're leaving at 8:15, and get into the bottom drawer to find that I threw out the leaky spirit gum bottle, so I have nothing to glue on a false half-beard with, so I just experiment with the pencils and greasepaint, and then decide it WILL work, so I shower and try to dry one-half my hair neat the other messy, but it doesn't quite work. Cook and eat dinner during the last stage of the preparations, and find that a shower nozzle wrapped in a hand towel makes a great tit, and sew the sign that says "Support HELL: Hermaphrodite's Equal-Liberties League" onto the front of my pullover. Then at 8 remember that I said I'd get wine, so I knock on John's door; he's amused; and go to the liquor store without looking at ANYBODY, buy Almaden for $7.94, and back to the car with John's stuff in his suitcase, we pick up pretty Kei in her kimono and gitas, get fouled up at 17th and 7th because 7th is blocked off, but find a parking place and get up on the elevator to Avi's and Joan's and Alice's, finding Alice's dog in the downstairs lobby so we bring her up, and I'd had a full glass of wine during dinner, but that doesn't quite explain my AWFUL reaction to a rather pleasant-to-watch party (see DIARY 9045) that lasted from 9 to after 3, when John guided me home.

DIARY 9046

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1. [LAST DAY TO CATCH UP WITH, THE FIRST DAY OF A NEW MONTH!] Wake at 6, lay until 8:30, teasing myself into orgasm, feeling still pretty rotten. Up for breakfast, but don't feel like doing anything at the typewriter at all! Check through the diary for list of times when I'd gotten SO sick at parties, and it happens about once a year since 1966---and I wish it would STOP! Many more phone calls through the day trying to get Bob Rosinek, a way to the Tsi-Dun in New Jersey tomorrow without have to stay until the next morning, but it looks like it won't be working. Rolf calls to say he IS going, so Arnie and Malcolm (if he gets back from upstate in time) and I will be going with him. Call Paul Bosten, and he has it out with Jim and THEY may be going, too. Call Tony, Bob Grossman, and Bernie Rosenfield to try to get things set up, and my phone bill will be enormous! Since I don't feel like writing, I take myself to reading, and read the first part of Clarke's "Earthlight" by about 3, and then just can't stand sitting up, so I go in to take a nap until 5, when Ron calls to say that I should come in on Monday at 4, and then Cynthia calls to say that "Showdown" has been SOLD and I can appear on the ABC network as many times as I can. GREAT! Writing many notes to myself, finding where addresses are around Philly in case there's a chance to call any of these people on Sunday, and have been too sick to exercise today, so that means two sessions TOMORROW again! Finish "Earthlight," which I hope to be his only entry in the war-spy-violence genre, and read "Island in the Sky," which I hope is his only KID'S entry, with the enormous coincidences and simple-minded plot complications of the younger Heinlein. But his technical details and setting twists always seem so REAL, that his rather sad characters are excused. Dinner, and finish "Islands" while looking at one of the bombs of all times: Bruce Dern in "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant," and why ANYONE would put the head of a homicidal maniac (eye-pops and lolling tongue and all) on the head of a giant with brain damage to make him an 8-year-old is something that only the Polish producer/director team could excuse. That's over at 12:30, and I don't have to smoke or come to crawl exhaustedly into bed and hope tomorrow FEELS better than awful today did.

DIARY 9047

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2. Wake at 6:30 again and up at 7:30, and again I have to exercise twice, so I do it once before breakfast as 8 and once before dinner at 1, feeling good to be caught up, and then get down with a determination to typing up the diary, between calls from Bob Grossman (see DIARY 9048) and Bob Rosinek and Rolf, and then I went to Arnie's at 12 (after waking him at 10, and find that he'd gone to the Jewel Theater and then to the BATHS from 12-2 last night!) for the map and phoned the directions in to Paul Bosten, who's coming with his lover and a friend of Paul's. But Malcolm doesn't call. Finish typing with 16 pages, up to date at last for the first time since the trip---admittedly only three weeks ago. Then get to the shambles above my desk, and sort out all the TransWorld stuff and put it away, and put away all the Latham stuff that had been hanging around, and then decide that with the Latham books to be put away, the Greek books to be shelved, and the overflow on the "just read" shelf, it's time to rearrange the books on the shelves. So I put the two boxes of maps below the desk, opening up about 3/4 a shelf for more fiction, and succeed in neatly filling it, moving poetry down, and now BOTH shelves are full to the brim, and there's just the "just read" shelf which is practically empty for expansion. Put all the Greek stuff into a TDI box in the closet, put the books on the shelf, go through lots of stray mailings like the Unitrex warrantee form, the TransWorld last bill, and sort out the letters I have yet to write, and the whole thing finally falls into place. Then I get stuff together (blanket, toothbrush, Binaca, comb, shower cap, etc) for the overnight orgy, shower and wash my hair and shave, and get down to meet Arnie downstairs at 7:15, hearing my phonemate go, and when Rolf's not back at 7:30, I'm upstairs to hear his watch is 10 minutes slow, and then he arrives at 7:35, and we drive the dark streets with many pauses to ensure we're following the right directions, and arrive at the house in the woods at 9:10, before most of the people but NOT before Ralph Mandelbaum, or whoever he is, who greets us at the door as if it were HIS place. It's a great place, but not great people, and I sleep in the trailer about 3 am (see DIARY 9049).

DIARY 9052

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3. Early part of the day covered in DIARY 9050-9051, and after we left Bob off and picked up two copies of the New York Times (and after they all refused to wait around Staten Island for the Tibet Museum because Bob said he was dead tired from not sleeping at all last night), Arnie suggested we have lunch at his place, and Rolf said that he'd like to sit around and chat, so we went while Arnie cooked omelets and talked about the foundation, running, and current crowd and possible future of Tsi-Dun. Out and home at 4, feeling that the whole day was somehow gone, and read the Times and worked the puzzles until about 7:15, at which time I decided to put the stuff away from yesterday, and then remembered that I hadn't exercised at all, so I did that just before the 7:30 starting of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pitman," and it was every bit as good a program and as good an acting job by Cecily Tyson as all the awards seemed to say it was. I sat there eating my solitary dinner with a large glass of wine (which didn't seem to sit well with my stomach) and felt the tears rolling down my cheeks more than a few times. Feeling sorry for the plight of the blacks that enabled people to kill them with less compunction than they would feel for killing animals, that permitted them to be used as property, that gave her the strength to turn into the (fictional) great woman that she was. I also envied the writer who could affect so many millions of people so strongly, and wondered for the thousandth time when I was going to start affecting such masses of people (other than on my nationwide TV appearances on quiz shows). Over at 9:30 and I fuss about the apartment for about half an hour, leaving out the grass to smoke, but when I actually get into bed about 10:15, I'm just so TIRED again that I fall asleep without smoking or coming, and I MUST have been sleepy, because I didn't wake until 7:30 next morning! Think of the Herpes Simplex 2 that's been going around, enough to warrant a front-page Wall Street Journal discussion, and of Bill Wolf's calling Arnie to get me to tell Bob Naess that he's had a slight case of gonorrhea on Tuesday, and I still feel that there might be something marginally wrong with me to produce easy fatigue and nausea.

DIARY 9053

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4. Wake at 7:30 and up at 8 to exercise, eat the last of the cereal for breakfast, type six diary pages, and talk to Bob Rosinek and Arnie on the phone until it's time to get off at 11:30 for a slice of pizza and "Juggernaut" last half hour, which shows me that the ship never DOES get blown up, and somewhat decreases the tension in the first half, except that the parachuting into the sea is exciting, and the two explosions that took place BEFORE I came in hinted that they could explode each bomb separately and NOTHING would have happened to the Britannic. "Skyjacked" was a bit better with the complete competence of Charleton Heston as the pilot and James Grodin as the crazy (and they both had the same theme: men who worked for the GOVERNMENT were so fucked over by the GOVERNMENT that they were out for whatever revenge, fame, and money they could get) soldier who gets shot and then blasted with his own grenade. Out at 3:40 and get to New Century at 4:10, sitting through the ludicrous memo-writing of Ron Tiekert while Vi Wiener and Tom Aloisi look on, and that lasts until 6:40, when I call Bob to say I'll be a bit late for the Backgammon. Get there at 7, and we play the first game where he gammons me, and he chortles that he's just won $48,000 (if we were playing for $100 a point and the doubling cube had gotten up to 16, that is). Then the next game I win the $48,000, and he doesn't talk much about that. Terry O'Sullivan (no relation to Cathy) thanks Bob for typing his letters (so Bob DOES do things for others!) and we go down to his lovely place to look at a Greek picture book and walk up to the Chinese restaurant, where I sit near the window looking down on great crotches and trousers, and watch an accident when truck from the center lane clobbers another car turning right at the terrible corner. Food is only mediocre for $5 apiece, and we're down to play three or four MORE games, each of which I win, and he starts to say he doesn't like the game at ALL. It's now 11:45 and I subway home, very tired, too tired to read the heavy "I and Thou" which is taking TOO long to read, and I still feel like coming, so I smoke and take poppers and come with ECSTASY and then fill up on chocolate chip cookies and doze off in sated bliss about 1:15 am.

DIARY 9054

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5. Up at the dot of 9, travel fatigue and jetlag done with at last. Breakfast on eggs after exercising, talk with people on the phone, and Polly says "Be my guest" for the Mayan film tonight, so it looks like I AM part of the group (and Arnie verifies this the day he works there, Thursday). Out on the subway still reading the difficult "I and Thou" and see "Three the Hard Way," which is a totally non-rational (the truck barrels down on the phone booth with James Brown inside, and the camera sways upward to catch the debris, sways downward to show him hanging on the rope on the back of the truck; Jim Kelly poses so much before and after his karate chops that whole batteries of guns [which the villains have all thrown down in order to attach him (fairly?) with their fists] could have perforated him like a sheet of stamps; Fred Williamson (a real cutie) shoots at dozens and never misses while dozens shoot at him and always miss). But it's VERY fast, good music, lots of action, and you don't even QUESTION that a Henry Gibson-type would try to poison all the blacks in the country. But EVERYONE owns a gun and the police are good for NOTHING; such is the current American ethos. "Serpico" is even worse, with the knowledge that the SAME corrupt police officials are STILL in power, and the persons responsible for his bullet in the face are still unpunished. Totally ugly film, but totally believable: current American beliefs. Out at 4:20 and up to man the projector for "Stairway to the Maya," which turns out to have been written by Joseph Campbell, and it's a good flick. Help Polly and Pat write blurbs about the Yucatan, and out at 5:30 to have dinner at Martin's (good pastrami) and watch election returns on TV. (Didn't have time to vote, and since everyone said it would be a Democratic landslide, I figured they didn't need my vote: they didn't.) and then get up, rather determined to get a free ticket to "Village Romeo and Juliet," but had to settle for a sincere-faced man's selling me his $8 mate for $5 (but he COULD have bought them as a student special at $5 anyway!). The opera is an anomalous success (see DIARY 9055) and out at 10:20 to get home to smoke and come with GREAT ecstasy and chocolate chip cookies again.

DIARY 9056

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 6. Wake at 8 and feel so hard, still, from last night that I jerk off again, and don't have to wonder when I feel SO tired while doing the exercises, finally reaching 30 situps in level 2, so that I can start on level three tomorrow at last. Did the dishes for the first time in a week either yesterday or today, and wanted to take out the laundry but the place is closed, so I settle for taking out the dry cleaning, then picking up the Chinese laundry for OVER $6, and buying shampoo and picking up the Voice. Back to read the Voice, looking for more things to do, except that everything to DO is on Friday, when I already have Annabelle Gamson. Talked to Arnie twice, and he calls to say he has tickets for me to "Scapino" and so I have lunch (without having had groceries to have breakfast with) and get out to meet him at Duffy Square at 1:50, and he says he'll get tickets for NEXT Wednesday matinee, too, for
"Sherlock Holmes," and I'm into an aisle seat in the last row for the waiters acting already, and Jim Dale is close-eyed and heavily made-up, but his thick wrists and agile body show me that he's probably quite sexy underneath, not quite as young as his face would indicate, but his speed and agility of moving about the stage are perfect foils to the pear-shape (I hope phony) of Gavin Reed and the hilarious exaggerations of Ian Trigger as the fabulously funny Argante. Christopher Hastings is lovely, frank-faced and open as one son, and Phil Killian is more tanned and Hollywood as the other son, and their scene in bathing trunks and snorkel is one of the high points of the afternoon. The waiters clown through the short intermission, the final "mandolins and trombones and basses" audience-warmer at the END is rather gratuitous but very funny. Out PRECISELY at 4, feeling very pleased with it, and home to buy groceries until 5, read a bit, have dinner, and when I can't decide what to do (surely can't come AGAIN; there's nothing on TV, and I don't feel like phoning anyone---maybe because there's no one to phone), I feel it's a good time to get back to stamps, which I do, working avidly away until 12:30, happy to be back at them, delighted to find some other way of wasting time outside the money-spending "entertainment" bag noted by Rolf.

DIARY 9057

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7. Wake at the dot of 9 again, and get directly back to stamps after breakfast and exercising, and come up short at 11:10 with the realization that I have to get to the "Showdown" test at noon, and quick call Eddie for reservations for "Phantom of the Paradise" at 1:45 for Arnie and me, call him at TDI to arrange for it, and out to get to the test at 12:05; fill out the interminable form, take a rather hard test, and out at 12:45 to have lunch of a drippy "Big Chock" in Chock Full O' Nuts, and walk up to the Trans-Lux East to talk with Richard for awhile about Greece, and tell him about my next trip to the Galapagos, and then Arnie's in and we're in to watch the making of the "Towering Inferno," coming next month, and we're the fifth and sixth persons to see the movie, VERY good in some parts: the birdlike mask, the rolling eye, some of the production numbers, parts of the plot and the music; and VERY bad in others: the total NON-charisma of the female singer Phoenix until she launches into a quick dance sequence that's over too soon, the ludicrousness of the plunger over the mouth as a takeoff on "Psycho," and the easy-way-out quality of having EVERYONE having sold their souls to the devil. The use of the Museum of Natural History as "Swanhenge" is rather fun. Interesting that they USED "Majestic" on the marquee of the Majestic Theater of Dallas for the interiors and "City Center" down the side of the building for exteriors. Part of the contract? Out at 3:15 and have coffee with Arnie until 4 after buying, FINALLY, another stamp album JUST like the first from 57th and Lexington for $7.40, and buy two MORE packets of hinges, though I'm still working on the first of two at HOME! Won't have to buy for AGES. Home to finish "I and Thou" finally, taking notes on the subway in the back of it (see DIARY 9058), and get back to stamps until dinner at 7, and then I'm out for the VD test at 247 W. 11th, a good facility, at 8:15 and back at 9:15, very quickly, and back to stamps until 11:30 (and the tape recorder breaks down again!!), when I watch a special on Harold Lloyd with an AWFUL Dick Van Dyke at his house, and Lloyd's still ALIVE? Take notes on GREAT films (see DIARY 9058) and get to bed at 1 without even having to smoke or jerk off; stamps a marvelous time-waster!

DIARY 9059

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 8. Up at 9 for breakfast and exercising, then type five pages to keep up to date in the diary, and John rings the bell to say that the clothing sale by Wallach's in the St. George ballroom is really worth it, so I gather the $50 that I have left and get there to buy a VERY nice velvet sports jacket (originally $100) for $15, two pullover woolen sweaters for $5 apiece, and ten undershirts for $10. Home to dump things off and then take in the last checks I've got in the drawer to get more cash from the bank, hoping that some of the coat prices will reduce even further on Saturday, the last day of the sale. Lunch and then back to stamps, getting into my usual thing of playing tapes, and where the recorder had been going off slightly before, it seems to have cured itself (until the parts warranty for the recent $51 repair job gives out, I suppose), and I manage to take care of 10 countries, leaving only 23 left. Then have dinner and shower and shave and get out at 7:30 to get to ATL at 8 to pick up my two tickets and put Brown and Kennedy on the waiting list as the 21st and 22nd on line. Michael finally comes at 8:15, and by 8:30 they haven't come YET, so I give the tickets back and get my TDF vouchers back, and we get right inside for the lights to lower and they're just about totally filled up, great for a good feeling in the audience. But the performance isn't all that good (see DIARY 9060). Out just before 10, chat with Michael down to the subway, and then read on the way home at 10:30, stamps until 11:30, when I put on the second anniversary program of "In Concert" with Keith Moon, the drummer from the Who who goes into an INCREDIBLE drum solo with TRANSPARENT plastic drums and drumheads that have a marvelous metallic-bonky sound that does great things with my stoned head. Most of the acts were taped from before, and if this is really the BEST of the two years, they haven't done very many good shows. It's scheduled to go on until 2:30, but I find myself dozing in my chair, and I've eaten myself out of any more appetite, so I turn off the lights and get to bed at 1:30, again not bothering to have an orgasm. Once tomorrow before the orgy on Sunday, is all.

DIARY 9061

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 9. Up at 9:30, have breakfast, don't fertilize the plants because of the smell for the orgy tomorrow, and get a few calls about tomorrow, after having talked to Arnie exhaustively last night before he left for the Island with Norma. Start on stamps at 10, and seem to do one country per hour for a long time, eventually doing 8 countries in about 8 hours, and totaling to find that I've accounted for $244 already, and have less than half the BULK of the collection still to go in the final 15 countries, many of them very extensive collections of expensive stamps. It feels so totally glorious to have all the time to spend on stamps (and I push from my mind the thought that THIS is the time I should be writing, or THIS is the time I should be sending out correspondence), listening to all the old tapes on the machine one right after the other, ignoring the noise from upstairs, except to put the recorder louder when she starts banging away. Don't exercise, finally working into the third level, until before a very late lunch at 3, and then get out at 4 to find that the TV has been raffled off, so I needn't have brought back my forms, that all the coats have been removed, and that none of the other prices have been lowered, and $6 for rather unfashionable pants, and $35 for awful jackets aren't bargains, so I scout around to make sure I haven't missed anything and then leave. Back to get more calls about the orgy, and then work through with stamps until 9, when I have dinner and watch "Winning" with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and a "debut" for Richard Thomas, John-Boy looking the 16 he's supposed to be. Not a great film, but his expressions when he sees she's been unfaithful with Robert Wagner are pretty good, though it's obvious he WILL move back in with her. This goes on until 11:30, I've had wine with the meal, so I just smoke when I get to bed and come so hard that I actually doze off until about 1:15, when I put things away and get to sleep without eating the cookie that I'd left out for myself on the blanket-control. Had been up with peanut butter on the chocolate chip cookies for the latest in sybaritic insanity, and the orgasm with a good one after two days of laying off. Hope the party tomorrow is a smash!

DIARY 9062

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 10. Up at 9 again, breakfast and directly to stamps, determined to do six countries today to keep my progress up to date: 13, then 10, then 8, now 6 done in one day. Take care of lots of little countries and start building up a file of "unknown" stamps, flagging them when I come across them again in the album, making up lists of countries that look like other countries to aid me in the future. Out at 1, feeling grungy because I haven't showered or shaved since Friday, to buy the Times, and check through the TV listings to see that the first show I want to watch is tomorrow evening, so that's OK. Paul Bosten and Alvin Warren and Malcolm Simmons all coming, so the list is up to 16! And that doesn't count the possibles, like Steve Perlberg, Rolf and Joe Farinas, and Guy St. Clair. Alvise asks if his friend Ted Kennedy and another friend can come, and I say OK. Continue with stamps until about 3, when I drag myself through another exercise and lunch, and then back to stamps until I'm in the middle of China at 6, and decide that I'm simply not going to be able to finish, so I stop and make the bed, take the mirror and bicycle out of the bedroom, switch around the lamp and the speaker, and clear out part of the closet for putting in clothes. Get dimmer lights for all the lights that will be on, and then start making dinner about 7, after I shower and wash my hair with the marvelous Helene Curtis Green Apple Shampoo and shave, and then am eating the last of dinner while putting away the dishes I just washed when at 7:45 the buzzer goes and it's Alvin Warren, early! I wolf down the last of the food as he takes off his coat and pants, and then recruit him to help me put the dimmer bulbs in the bathroom and kitchen, and that about fixes up the place. Bob Grossman comes in second at 8:05, just after I've put in my contacts, and then Alvise and George enter with FOUR bottles of wine, to say that Ted Kennedy and friend are NOT coming, and then the rest of them arrive, Paul presents me with a little grass that is gone in two pipefuls, and the party is off and not so running (see DIARY 9063). Bob Grossman leaves last at 11:45, since everyone was either bored or had to go to work the next day, and I flopped tired into bed.

DIARY 9064

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 11. Up at 9 again, surely cured from the trip to Greece, and after breakfast tool around fixing up the apartment to how it was before, and finally get to the stamps about 2, after reading the Times and working both puzzles and getting everything away except doing the dishes. Finish China and do Hungary as if it was yesterday, and thus about 4 I'm ready to exercise, weary of the constantly increasing number of pushups, up to 24 today and have lunch and want to get down to typing, but the pressure of the stamps is just too great. Decide to call no one until they call me, and as a result the phone doesn't ring ONCE all day! Plow through the huge countries of Canada, Japan (which totals the marvelous sum of $86.61), Italy, and Great Britain, just in time to stop and have dinner and watch "Pete 'n' Tillie" on TV from 9 to 11, a show that doesn't quite seem to know where it's going: no one laughs at anyone's VERY funny jokes for the first half of the film, then for the SECOND half they're frantically making life a joy for their son who dies of cancer, she goes into a rest home where she's proposed to by Rene Auberjonois "who's had many propositions before, some even from women" and then goes off into the sunset with Pete caressing her ass. Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett make a good odd couple, but the movie didn't really know where it was AT. Back to stamps for a bit, can't resist doing a pre-check of Greece, and get into bed with a pipe and poppers and porno to get SO hot that I can parade before the mirror and go to the fridge and STILL keep it hard, and the orgasm is so great I don't even count, but then into the kitchen for FOUR pieces of raisin bread toast with butter and peanut butter, and I really have to cut down on that eating, since I'm not at all hungry for breakfast when I get up in the morning, and though I haven't been eating any OTHER food, my weight is still much too high at 158. It just means that I want someone for constant sex, that's all. But the warmth of finding that some British stamps are worth $5 is truly great, and I eagerly look forward to continuing lovely days with stamps, stamps, stamps, and stamps! Bed at 1:30 and even wake as late as 9:20, which SHOULD be the latest of all.

DIARY 9065

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 12. Up at 9:20, amazed at the amount I seem to want to sleep; have breakfast, and back down to stamps, getting into the really huge countries such as Belgium, Greece, Germany, and France. But these are being sorted differently: into sets, rather than into individual stamps, which makes the initial sort much faster and doesn't REALLY slow down the final cataloging, so the stamps move much faster, especially since there are as many of one stamp as 50. Stop at 3 to exercise, as usual, even rougher to do 25 pushups, have lunch, and then push myself to get down to the typewriter and type the six pages to bring me up to date. I'd even gone down for the mail from Monday at 10:30, just to empty the box, and then went down again at 1 to pick up today's mail, but still the only thing I have to look forward to is the "Brief Encounter" tonight on TV. Arnie finally breaks the telephone silence at 8 with the report that Polly and Pat were working late on Friday in the office and couldn't make it to the dance performance. I expressed disappointment that they didn't call me, but Arnie merely repeated the fact that he thought she was disorganized. BUT that I was DEFINITELY scheduled for the 2nd, 4th, and 6th cruises to the Galapagos, omitting the first since George would be sailing on that and she'd remove me from his perview (purview?). "Brief Encounter" is watched while having a three-egg omelet, since I've neglected to buy groceries (but when the milk gave out the next morning, I KNEW I had to go to the store after unemployment), and it's really a BORE: it's just not possible to sympathize with these superstars acting mousy, ordinary people. Arnie had recommended "Castle Keep," so while finishing up the last of the French stamps, I watched the colorful, exciting, and explosive and killing and thrilling antiwar (there's a paradox there somewhere?) film until 1:45, and then finished up France at 2:15. THEN recalled the page I'd wanted to write for a long time and never did: on watching the fruits of many man-hours (see DIARY 9066), and took notes on that. Into bed and tossed and turned until 2:45, when I wrote ANOTHER note (see DIARY 9067) and finally fell asleep. Woke at 8 for some reason, but dozed until 9:50.

DIARY 9068

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 13. Up at 9:50 and finished the milk with breakfast, then typed three pages to get all the notes out of the way, made up a list of shopping items at the grocers, and at 11:20 went off to unemployment, where for whatever reason I had no business on line "T" as the fellow wrote in my book, and when I went to line "B" she looks at it as if someone had done something wrong, and then filled it out, making me fill out two cards, saying that if I didn't get my check for one day by NEXT Wednesday, I should tell her and she'll be able to do something about it. Looks like I have only two weeks of benefits LEFT! Back to get groceries, then have lunch, deciding that there's just no time today for exercising, which is actually OK since I've been so VERY good about them for the past three weeks. Out to meet Arnie, who's late, arriving at 1:56, for "Sherlock Holmes," and even though it'll probably get good reviews and the audience seemed to love it, it left me quite cold (see DIARY 9069). Out at 4:40 and vaguely look up 42nd to see if there're any movies for me to see, but get home, reading Clarke, to get back into stamps, the US this time, and I seem to want to prolong my agony in the stamps, because I get out (1) the "to be sorted" box of old US stamps and sort them into piles of various types, and (2) the old stock transfers, envelopes, and documentary and revenue stamps that I'd never added before, and catalog them ALL and add lots of new loose pages (the better to thicken the book so that they look like TWO filled books as soon as possible). Turn on the TV at 8 to find that I want to watch it TOMORROW night, not tonight, and continue with stamps until I'm almost finished with the US, but not quite, and then put on the pork chops about 10:15, stomach growling with hunger but I'm still addicted to the HINGES entering my mouth. Bob Grossman phoned while I was out, for only the second call, and then JB calls, reminding me that he'd actually called Sunday NIGHT, and calls Bob "a fart" because he won't let JB fuck him though "he really wants to." Wine with dinner addles my brain so that when I finish at 11:20 I merely smoke and get out porno and come with great spurts that drip down onto the sheet while I eat cookies, and sleep at 12:45.

DIARY 9070

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 14. Up at 9 again, a habit, breakfast, type two pages, and finish with the US stamps from Cyndy, putting them all away until I soak off my CURRENT holdings. I call Bob Grossman to make sure he wouldn't like to be fucked by JB, and at 10:30 Arnie calls to make arrangements to see "Earthquake" tomorrow, and Suzie Leeson calls for a re-pagination of an index. My first job in AGES! She'll mail it. Then I get to all the stamps from South America that Sergio gave me so long ago (around last Christmas, as I recall), and put them all into the book with many additional pages. Exercise, almost at the limit with 26 pushups, have lunch and look at all the dirty dishes, and finish with the South American stamps, all except Uruguay just before 8, when I watch Cousteau denigrating the natives who live in Tierra del Fuego by saying they've lost their dignity, but it's HE who causes that loss of dignity: how ELSE would they proffer boats that they've carved for money to such gods from outer worlds (particularly when the thing they want MOST to do in the world is TRAVEL---they're not so dumb to tell these traveling gods THAT) who have positively everything they could dream of and a few things that probably aren't even in their imaginations! "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" is the fourth in the series, after "Planet..." where Heston was found to be on Earth; "Beneath...," where Heston and everyone but Zyra and Cornelius were killed, because they "Escape..." and come to modern Earth to have a son who leads the "Conquest..." and THAT ends with what they call the first day of the Conquest, and OBVIOUSLY there's another one, but I think the fifth's the last. Finish at 10:45, having had dinner, and finish Uruguay and then get to sorting Sergio's "European" envelope and find 90 that I don't have, some VERY common items of a common series, and the best, I hope, the $5 half-crown British oldie, followed by the $1.25 cable-laying newie. Take until 1:45 to clear up THAT part of it, and wash and smoke and get to bed in the cool evening, falling instantly asleep with the grass, and I'd inhaled with a SLIGHT discomfort after spraying the pot leaves, and then to think that we're SMOKING the poison spray residue on the leaves?!

DIARY 9071

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 15. Up at 9:30, typing one page to keep up to date, and after breakfast sort through all the stamps that have been accumulating for over a YEAR in the in-box, even dividing the stamps to be soaked into two piles: US and other. But by the time I finish sorting it's about 11:30, and I have to shave and shower for the movie, and there's just no time left for the first soaking. Exercise and lunch and out at 1:45 to meet Bob and Arnie in the theater at 2:15, saying I'd rather that they wait for ME than I wait for THEM, and I have the impression that I'm being a rather bitchy person to talk to recently, probably due to the pressures of the stamps and the pressures of NOT doing anything ELSE. "Earthquake" is a blast, and the tension before the quake is so great I don't even notice that it's as bad a movie as they seem to say it is, and the low-frequency sounds for the floor-shaking are really impressive in the front row: chest-thumpingly effective to the point of a slight feeling of strangulation. Out at 4:30, a two-hour film filled with bodies falling through the air, and Bob's already suggested Angelo's for pizza since he hasn't had lunch yet. We get there at 5 for a somewhat soggy grand large pizza and share a bottle of Chianti for $5.50, and then get another small one that we manage to finish, and I've had OVER 5 pieces. Then Arnie suggests the Pennsylvania Ballet and then the baths, but Bob isn't interested, and we subway home about 6:45 so that I can pick up binoculars and contact lenses and more money (having paid Bob $7.50 for a skating ticket, REFUSING to pay him the $.35 for the Ticketron charge, which pisses him, but he finally accepts it), and meet at the subway at 7:15 to get two fairly good seats to a fairly awful ballet company (see DIARY 9072). When the second intermission is over at 9:40 I hope to get out early for the baths, but the last ballet lasts until 10:30, so that we don't get to the baths until 11. Agree to meet at 12:30 and I just can't get into the redecorated Club Baths (see DIARY 9073) and sit in a funk at 12:30, but Arnie wants to stay, so we say we'll meet again at 1:30 which I misinterpret as 1:15, and sit until 1:28 and then decide to leave, feeling dreadful, reading "Sands of Mars" since I'd finished "Deep Range" in PM.

DIARY 9074

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16. Up at 10:15, just about 8 hours after I'd gotten to bed, and didn't feel like exercising at all, so I just started in on soaking the stamps. Arnie called to see how I got home, and remarked that I seemed to have a bit of a cold, and as I soaked the stamps I got rather a case of the sniffles, which the getting-cold water didn't help. Stamps after stamps after stamps, and I worked and worked on them right through any reasonable hour for lunch. While waiting for them to dry, and for the postcards to dry from soaking off their stamps, some from as long ago as October 1972---OVER TWO YEARS AGO---I decided to find how many countries HAVE issued stamps, so I sat down with various lists and typed up a final list of 425 countries in the catalog and album, and will later check through to see how many of those countries I HAVE and how many I have tradables in. As sheer coincidence I pick up the Times tomorrow and there's an ad from the Harris Company that appeals to me: 229 stamps from the 229 stamp-issuing countries in the world today, and THAT'S a good way of finding out what the CURRENT list is, so I'll send for that and bring my list up to date THEN (and will retype it once and for ALL then, too!). Sort out the stacks of stamps and come out with about 65 countries to put away, some of them enormous. Put away a few until about 5:30, when I can't take not eating anymore, so I have some steak while reading the Village Voice, and then get back to the stacks of stamps, and finally finish with all except the eight biggest ones: Greece, Israel, Mexico, Poland, Hungary, Russia, Panama, and the USA. Problems with albums I and II, so I put away the Panama and Russia until about 12, and then get to work on the Poland, and work, and work and work on those, marveling again at all the WONDERFUL stamps that Mike has sent me, feeling guilty that I haven't been sending stamps back to HIM for quite a while, and finally get them all away by about 2, having been through all the tapes and now going into records to provide background music and to drown out the noises from upstairs (hammering at 11 pm!) and from the parties outside somewhere playing loud jazz. Bed smoking a bit at 2---no, I guess I COME tonight, stuffing myself on cookies afterward because I hadn't eaten lunch.

DIARY 9075

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17. Up at 10 and have breakfast, then John says that he's heard there are problems with the flight and I should call as soon as possible for the confirmations. Out for the Times, leaving the check for Mrs. Johnson, who called to remind me the rent was due, and I thanked her and her sister AGAIN for all the great stamps they've given me, and she smiles her pleasure. Back with the Times and look through for TV, watching the Henry Moore show on Camera Three, and then shave and shower and have lunch, and about 1:15 decide it's too early to leave for Joe's, so I settle down with the puzzle until 1:50, when I leave, getting to Joe Farinas's at 2:30, with more than half the people arrived, everyone nicely squiffy from his not-so-strong drinks, and not the last to arrive either. Rolf was invited but didn't show up, and some hustler who proclaims Vladimir Horowitz as one of his johns calls to say he won't be coming in his purple velvet either. Jake Everett is one of the guests, and he's leaving at 4 for a performance of "Tubstrip," which is closing tonight and he says he can get comps for everyone who wants to go. GREAT! Jonathan and his lover Baldomere are about the nicest there, though they live in Westchester, and Adam, the film collector, is quiet and rather cute, but otherwise it's a second-rate type of collection of people who chat about movies and ballet and TV and food and places to eat in Washington and New York, and bars and baths and places to cruise. Dinner finally comes off about 5, and his meatloaf with currant jam on top is good, though the potato salad and cooked vegetables not so hot. Lots of wine, and then Jerry's back, saying everyone's invited, and Margaret comes in feeling sick, and the two dykes Martha and Irma show up too for the show, and we all walk down Broadway about 7:30 to get to the site of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe for the play, which is far better than I would have expected (see DIARY 9076). Out at 10, no one seems to be doing anything, except Adam and someone else seem to have paired off, drat it, and I subway home reading my book, getting in to wash and smoke about 12:10 and have a good orgasm, then eat about five pieces of toast with butter and peanut butter, then more cookies, and I haven't touched stamps all day!

DIARY 9077

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18. Up about 9:30, not quite understanding why I feel like being in bed so much, but maybe it's general depression over my lack of any kind of love life. Up for breakfast and then directly into stamps, where Israel and Greece go very quickly, Hungary takes quite a bit of time because I decide I have to make up a box of double-tradables for the enormous stack in the envelope---and still the envelope's one of the biggest---and then Mexico goes fairly quickly since they're all new stamps and I just have to hinge and hinge and hinge them in on blank pages. I've started on the LAST packet of hinges, so I've gone through more than three in the past two weeks. Incredible! Called Fran to get John's reservations finished and called Arnie who gives me Bill Wolf's phone number, and when I call Bill it's obvious that there's an orgy at Arnie's at 8:30, but with people I don't care to be with: Arnie, Bill, and Manny, whom Arnie describes later as a 40ish barrel-chested hairy bear. Great! So I have lunch very late and dinner even later and sort through the US stamps wondering what to do with them, and decide that the only thing is to rip out all the stamps from beyond the dates in the book and put them in according to the dates of issue and numbers from the Held catalog through December of 1973. That takes ages and then it's 11:30 and I'm too tired to start sorting through the mint and used US and filing them all away, so I just put everything on a pile on the desk, sorting out the soaked stamps so that I can pile books on top of them to flatten them out by tomorrow, and I stop with the confidence that tomorrow will see the END of the stamps (except, of course, for the order of the 229 from 229 countries and the final counts of stamps, countries, and tradable countries and the final retyping of the country-list, which shouldn't take more than a day). Don't feel like coming, so I read Sunday's Times, taking a long time with the magazine section, and when I finish with that at 1, I feel that I'm actually tired enough to go to bed without smoking or coming---even figure that since I'm not smoking I'll have some dreams to write down the next morning. Bit of trouble falling asleep, but I manage to do so without resorting to external stimuli about 1:30.

DIARY 9078

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19. Up again at 9:30, feeling absolutely lazy for laying in bed so long, and I wake with such an erection that I whack off before I crawl lazily out of bed. DO dream, but neglect to write it out right away (see DIARY 9079). Breakfast and right to sorting the US stamps, and they go and go and go until about 1, when I call Bob and say I'll be over at 4, but then I decide to sort through the mint US too, deciding that it's much simpler if the commemoratives are divided into the horizontal and vertical formats, since that means that only about HALF the stamps have to be on the table at once, depending on whether they're the 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, or 10-cent commemoratives, and so I sort the stacks into their NEW order and put everything away, and decide I have to have a special packet for the mint US that have been issued in the current year before I know their Scott numbers, and there are a couple of stamps still to be soaked, and one US used to be filed, so that places have something in them even now---though even today's mail may bring stamps that start cluttering up the "to be soaked" stall on the bookcase. Get into the bathroom at 3:15 ready to shower, and discover that I've forgotten to wash my awful hair, not washed since Friday, so I call Bob and tell him I'll be over at 5 instead of 4, shower, have lunch, and get involved in putting stamps and cases away so that I actually leave at 4:50, much too late, getting to Bob's at 5:30, and he complains that I'm "two hours late" for the rest of the evening. I win the first two games of backgammon and he wins the third, thankfully, and then we're out to a quick dinner at a very expensive Burger and Brew ($3.60 for a hamburger, a carafe of wine, and lousy French fries), and then I dash to Carnegie Hall at 7:55 to meet Azak who's just come in, and we're in for a mediocre Heen Baba Dance and Drum Ensemble (see DIARY 9080). Out at 10:15 and home by 11, look through a bit of the indexing job I have to do, and with a bit of triumph cross OFF "Finish stamps" from the DO list (see DIARY 9081). The other things that I have to do start flooding in on my mind, almost prohibiting me from being able to fall asleep, but after I finish reading the Times and the Voice until 1, eventually I count backward from 100 and doze off at about 64 (see DIARY 9082).

DIARY 9084

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20. Wake at 10 as usual, feeling rather discouraged that by the time I put my window shade up, most of the light has gone from the plants on the sill. Put up the stamp table, put away all the papers I'd gotten out for stamps, make the bed for the first time in weeks, and have breakfast and water the plants and start the humidifier going, then get out to unemployment at 11:20, debating doing other things, but it's been starting to rain all morning, so I just go for that (12th week, and the woman at the desk said that there's still no news about a further extension---it's still "before the House") and buy toothpaste at the vastly cheaper discount house on Myrtle Avenue, buy pills at the pharmacy on the corner of Hicks and Montague, hardly the best place, and then buy groceries. Home for munch (hm, LIKE that m!) and type six pages in the diary, ending about 3, wondering where the day has gone and what I'll think to put on THIS page. Then sift through the stuff on the desk, and phone for many reservations for Friday, decide on the ballet on Saturday, the movies on Sunday and DTW in the evening, and call both Jeff Duncan and Sergio Cervetti who have "just talked to John," and Sergio says that he's been invited to John's Thanksgiving dinner. How ABOUT that? He feels awful for telling me, and I insist that he NOT tell John. He may come over afterward for stamps. Call Polly to invite her on Friday, and SHE tells ME that she's penciled me in for the second batch of SOUTH AMERICAN tours, with Arnie, unless there's TERRIBLE flack from Anna or others. Fabulous! Send out eight pieces of mail: two stamp requests, two dance tickets requests (actually Eliot Feld and a phone bill), two membership things (NGTF and Literary Marketplace), a bill to Tom for $85 and the social security number to Macmillan. Then it's 6:10 and I shower and ruin a frying pan and steak by doing a sirloin on too high a gas in the little pan, have dinner, and get out at 7:05 to try to pick up a ticket to "Coppelia," which is easy to do since the balcony is half empty, though the preview crowd is quite formal, and it's one of the best Balanchines done since "Jewels" (see DIARY 9085). Home at 11, smoke, poppers, bidi, come, eat FABULOUS toasted Italian bread and write MORE stoned notes (see DIARY 9086). Bed at 1 am.

DIARY 9089

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21. Up at 9:30, breakfast, turn on humidifier, and get right down to typing four pages of diary. Then decide that before I can get started on answering letters I have to go through the old file and see what I have for the people I'm writing to now, particularly Rita, whom I have the impression hasn't written me in a long time. So I spread out the "Letters-Save" file all over the floor and get into the file drawers to put everything into order, adding people to the "Back" files, adding new people like Sally Goldberg to the "Current" files, adding many new people to the Miscellany file, and getting the remaining stacks by Mom, Rita, Bill, Laird, Cyndy, Mike, Paul, and Elaine into order on the floor. Then decide to answer Don O'Shea's Christmas card from 11 months ago, telling him about finding "Origin of the Brunists" in Mykonos, request more tickets from TDF, write to Mack Griswold and John Parker about the former's visit to the later, order cards from UNICEF, request more checks from the bank, and finally start on a long letter to Rita and an even longer one to Mom. Have lunch in here somewhere, go down for the mail (nothing but the unemployment check, the last of the $190 ones), and debate putting away the "Scrapbook" file, but it's too depressingly big, so I just file IT in the Miscellany section to put the whole thing away later. Think about taking more out of the desk-file, but I don't feel like doing it. There's a cold breeze coming in through the French doors, moving the poor plants on the floor, and it's the first cold day of the year, down to 40E, supposed to go down to 30E, and the wind is whipping around in the air well outside at about 30 mph. Showering about 6 and come across the stunning idea described on DIARY 9088 about the isotopes of electrons, and forgot that I typed 9087 about the dream I had this morning. Then have steak, having to wash the knife and fork I'm eating with because the dishes have piled to the sky again, and leave at 7:20 for the ballet, getting there at 7:55, still before Michael, and we get to our seats in the row just in front to, to his amazement, many of Michael's coworkers at "Ask Mr. Foster," which is second in size in the world! The Swedish Ballet is decidedly mixed (see DIARY 9090), out at 10:40, home to finish "The Sands of Mars" and start "Origin of the Brunists" until 1:30. Bed, chilly.

DIARY 9092

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22. [And today is exactly one month before CHRISTMAS!] Up at 9:30, have breakfast, type three pages, and get back to typing the rest of the letters, after working through the lethargy described on DIARY 9091. Write to Paul, Laird, and Cyndy, and then decide to exercise for the first time in about a week, before lunch, and get out to the post office (after stopping in the bank to buy a $40 check for Cyndy's stamps, feeling great to be finished with that) to buy stamps, but none of the multiple-issue ones for Mike. Home for a late lunch, since we've agreed to have dinner after the Open Eye performance tonight, and then finish with letters to Elaine and Mike, having gone through part of the US duplicate collection to select a bunch of airmail stamps for him, hoping I hadn't been through those before, and selecting a batch for my second letter to him next. But then it's gotten quite late, so I'm in to wash my hair, shave and get ready for the evening, and put the letters from Bill, the last ones left to answer (on tape) and put away, back onto the shelf, which looks quite empty now. Call Polly to tell her about not having diner beforehand, and leave at 7 just to make sure I get there on time, and when I get in at 7:30 it turns out that the women have BEEN there already, and quite quickly BOB comes in, staggering me. We sit around reading stuff in the sitting room until the performance starts, and it's very interesting (see DIARY 9093), and it's made even more interesting by the arrestingly made-up eyes and fabulously sexy body of Henry Smith, whom Bob and I both flip over, he somewhat more than me, though he says that when HE came on, WE looked through the cast of characters, and when an attractive WOMAN came on, THEY looked through the cast. Talk to Jean Erdman afterwards about the possibility of her or Joe doing an enrichment program for Travel Dynamics, and she says that Polly should call Joe on Monday. Bob describes someplace with a skylight overhead, and later when I mention the Cedar Tavern he says "THAT'S it," and I take the note that anyplace so well known wouldn't be expected to be not named only described. VERY talkative wine-beer-veal parmigiana dinner until 12, everyone babbling away, Polly talking about BOOKS and RESEARCH that I'll have to talk to her later about. Home to jerk off, thinking of Henry Smith, till 2.

DIARY 9094

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23. Up at 10, maybe closer to 10:30, having a very late breakfast (partly due to the fact I ate so much last night before I fell asleep after I came). Then decided to record the "Song of the Forests" for Arnie (who called later in the afternoon to say that the Sea Venture was a lavishly decorated ship, even though it sailed rough seas all the way back to New York; it got in late, at 1, and he chose to come here rather than go to the Island, and asked me to pick up a ticket for him tonight at the ballet), and played it back while I was doing dishes, and the tape that made the recording seemed to have slipped a bit, and some of the solo arias seem almost played at the wrong speed. Then decide to record the tape to Bill, doing almost all of one side before Bob calls to chat, and then at 2:30 watch "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" with a really incredible turn by Pauline Lord in the title role, taking care of her daughters Europina, Asia and Australia, one son that dies and another that sells wood and his horse at needed times, and surprisingly she has the SAME inflections that Mae West did, and a comparison of their two voices would be interesting. W.C. Fields didn't have MUCH to do in it at all, but Lord took the whole thing. Back to taping at 4, and it's time consuming to listen, rewind, record, rewind, listen, etc, in order to record side by side, but otherwise it just seems that I'll be missing too much. Finish with side 2 when I decide it's time that I have to shower and cook dinner, which I do with the hamburger which is getting a bit high already, and get out to the ballet at 7:15, having just enough time to buy a ticket for Arnie for tomorrow and FORGETTING to leave it at the box office as he'd requested. Delighted at the chance to see THREE WHOLE NEW BALLETS of Balanchine in one evening (see DIARY 9095), and get out at 10:30 to subway home, buy a Times, and get home to read the entertainment section and then get right into the puzzles, and both of them go rather quickly, even though they're difficult, and I finish both the crossword and the double crostic by 1:45, and get off to bed without smoking or coming.

DIARY 9096

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24. Up at 10 and look through more of the Times after breakfast, watch an abridgement of "Medea" and "Electra" by the La Mama Company on Camera Three, thinking how SILLY it is to do it in Greek, when it could be JUST as effective with all the elaborate vocal tricks as SOUND and MUCH more effective if understood as ENGLISH. Call Arnie at 12, but when Michael calls at 12:15 it DAWNS on me that he said I should leave the ticket THERE, so at 12:15 I try frantically to call the box office, leave another message at his place in case he drops in and thinks the ticket won't be there, and dash out at 12:25, thankfully just getting the subway there AND at 42nd Street, chatting with Marcia Segal, and getting in to watch Clive and his wife and Joel Gray and lots of important-looking people catching the "Coppelia" and then Arnie comes in and we chat, and he says he might join me later at the movies. Get home at 1:35, thankful that I had the book "Brunists" to keep me busy on the subway, and it's a GREAT book, again thanks to Don O'Shea. Quick lunch, reading the Voice and the Times, and then out at 2:15 to make sure I'm not crowded out of the Parents of Gays meeting by too many people coming to see the movie program, but only about 5 people came exclusively to see the movies, saying how little such ads bring in (though later Art Bauman said that NOT putting ads in the VV about their studio series HURT their customary crowds). The woman in charge of the meeting is rather dreadful, Mrs. Manford, but Morty is sort of a quiet jewel, and there's a 26-year-old that I wouldn't mind having. The list of movies is rather amateurish (see DIARY 9097), but it makes a good start for an anthology. Out at 5:30, and decide there's nothing to do but sit on DTW's steps, which I do until someone tells me that the program will be over about 8:15, so I go around to find no one at ATL to make an appointment with, and then Art comes in at 6:30 and we chat for a bit, and I'll have to contact him about his stamp collection. The performance is fairly awful (see DIARY 9098) and I get over to Jose Coronado's piece and enter, free, for the third part (see DIARY 9099), and leave at 10:20, home feeling very hungry, eat hamburger, watch "Yoga" from 12-12:30, then come until 1:30.

DIARY 9113

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25. Up at 9:30, finish breakfast, and read through the rest of the Times and finish up with the Voice by the time I'm finished with lunch, about 2, and then type 8 pages to catch up with the diary, and---the above is an example of an imaginary day, because I ACTUALLY got up when the alarm went off a couple of minutes before 9, and I watched ALL of "Come Back, Little Sheba" (as opposed to the cut version before, which cut out ALL of Richard Jaeckel's body, which is quite nice in the posing-for-the-javelin-poster sequence), and THEN I read the Times and had lunch late because Bob and I decided to eat after the skating exhibition. Out at 6:30 and get into the Madison Square Garden, quite empty, at 7:10, and no one's rehearsing for the show at all. Just before it starts, who should walk up the aisle but Arno, and he comes over and we chat, and when the lights dim we all move down, sharing our binoculars only reluctantly with the other two. Bob described Eddie as being "off the wall" because, I guess, he's not very attractive: big and beary and rather gruff and stupid-looking, though anyone who supplied the furniture for the Harkness Center couldn't be THAT stupid. The skating show was somewhat of a disappointment: Bob wouldn't buy a program for $1.50, and then some of the people, such as Toller Cranston, that he was looking so forward to see, didn't show up. Janet Lynn was hyped as the "best paid woman athlete in the world" which implied she might have demanded to be PAID for the appearance, but the best of the bunch was young Randy Stewart, or someone, who dazzled when alone and when skating with a small partner. Many fell, along with a wobbly Melissa Militano, not so hot, and others didn't bother to show off, and the poor daughter, Elin, of the former champion, Tenley Albright Gardiner (Gold in 1956) fell and wept through the rest of the performance. Only during John Curry, or someone, from Britain, doing "Scheherazade" was there a shiver up my spine, mainly because Arno said there was one up HIS. (Gordon McCollum was good, too. Dorothy Hamil nursing an injured ankle.) He'd skated (on roller skates) once for polio benefit in the old Madison Square Garden. Across to Italian Fisherman in the SNOW, and the Fettuccini Alfredo had NO meat in it, ridiculous for the $5.75 I ended up paying. Out about 11:30 (performance 7:50-8:50, 9:20-10:20), home, TRY to come but DON'T!

DIARY 9114

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26. Up feeling that today is going to be a day that I'm going to finish quite a bit, and after breakfast actually get out at 10:30 to try putting my claim into small claim's court, but I have only a PO box for Westchester (I'd called Chris Kingsfield, too, who encouraged me to settle for something and call her back) and they say they can't collect money from a PO box, and I'll have to go to 60 Centre Street for the street address. Chris tells me to look in the phone book, and by golly there it is! Back just at noon and put it in, taking a while for the guy to fill out THREE forms, and then on the way back just before I decide I want to see the double feature at the Olympia, so I subway up there, have pizza in two places, and the NORTHERN place, in the middle of the block, has FAR superior pizza for 254 a slice, and a nice root beer for only 204, though they shout back and forth distractingly in Italian, like Sicilian squabblers, all the while, Into the just-opened-for-the-day Olympia and read a bit before the "California Split" starts at 2:05, and it's fun, with Elliott Gould sharing an unhappy George Segal's incredible winnings of $82,000, but hardly a GREAT movie, though "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice" is, with even Natalie Wood's embarrassing acting not ruining a very funny play about one couple that attends "an Institute" weekend that almost breaks up the OTHER couple. And then the strange stare-in outside the hotel in Vegas is totally gratuitous, though Elliott Gould was a gambler in BOTH films. Then a rather awful short on Robert Frost and Norman Rockwell (by the Franklin Mint, who did the medals of Rockwell's sketches of Frost's poems) and home to have dinner and continue to work on Bill's tape, recording the third side, and then listen to the fourth side and decide to copy out most of "Bill and Todd" onto DIARY 9100-9106, until the stroke of midnight, and the next day I meet the woman downstairs, who says it sounded like I was RUNNING in the BEDROOM, strange as it sounded. Then smoke and decide NOT to get out the slides again, since they didn't turn me on enough last night, and with poppers and not much grass finally manage to come a bit, bed at 12:45. Seem to have lost the possibility of staying HARD for long periods of time!

DIARY 9119

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27. Up at 8:45 and cook Wheatena for breakfast since I've run out of cereal. Back to finish typing the last two pages of "Bill and Todd" on DIARY 9107-9108), and then lug the typewriter back to its place, then decide that I should type up the tape that I'd sent to Bill and had him send BACK, so I type "My Tape to Bill" on DIARY 9109-9112, and then I finish the tape to Bill. Type 3 more diary pages. But interspersed with this was going to unemployment for the next-to-the-last time, she telling me that they still haven't signed for the extension, so I'll be back next week to sign for 3/4 of a check for my last three benefit days---anyway, if they don't sign the bill for the extension next week, I would only have been able to get one more day for the week ending November 30th and then four more days for the week ending December 7th, and that's the end of my benefit year. Get groceries for dinner tomorrow, and check to see how Paul's Borneo hanging will fit over the card table, which I get down from the wall, and then wash the dishes in the---no, tomorrow I do that. There's a lot of mail to go through, most of which I throw away, and I forget to buy the Village Voice, so there's not that to look through yet. Arnie calls and---that's tomorrow, too! I DO vacuum the apartment this evening, dusting first, and before that trying out the Glamorene on the spots on the living room rug, and it works perfectly: spots gone, but there's no telling where I cleaned and where I didn't. Spend a long time brushing it in and brushing it off the bathroom rug, too, and it cleans up perfectly. Good choice of stuff. Then I drink a LOT of wine (to get rid of the bottle) with the awful Proteinburger, 3 pounds for $1.79, but it tastes like dog food, with "Godspell" and I then smoke a bit for it, and find tears rolling down my eyes a few times just for the JOY of THEIR joy in finding someone, in enjoying New York, in dancing and singing and acting, and I just sit with face all screwed up and weep and weep and long for such a fulfillment here on earth for MYSELF. The guy who played Christ was very good and the guy who played John the Baptist was the sexy guy: other two guys and six gals mostly nebishes. Bed directly at 10, feeling VERY spaced out, and fall immediately asleep.

DIARY 9120

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28. Wake bright and early at 6:30, which figures since I got to bed at 10, and don't feel like getting up, but drag myself out at 7:45, not really wanting to lay in bed for ten whole hours. Have breakfast and glance through the TV section, seeing that all the parades are scheduled at 9 am, so I turn it on and watch the Hudson Brothers, inane from Philadelphia, Michael (she) Gordon, or whoever, with sexy sons in Toronto, two blacks in Detroit, Jack Lord, or whoever (who looks like he's had a facelift with a too-tight chin line) boredly introducing the parade from Hawaii, which was the good one, since the floats were done with flowers, rather than paper or foam rubber (commercially slick) in the other cities, done by people, and they had lots of shirtless dancers and drummers and conch blowers (Yeah, blow them conches!). Arnie calls and I slip out by saying "John's having some people over" when [and I'm actually TALKING to him right NOW, but his other phone rang] he calls, and I stupidly sit and talk to him in the study while the parade is going on, and then I realize it and take the phone in there. Then at 12 there's an Alvin Ailey special with his repertory group, doing nothing (with no one) who's in his usual group---and it's a VERY funny juxtaposition to see all the ads for toys for the kids on this thanksgiving noon, and THEN see the split-neck pelvis-thrusting sexiness of the Ailey dancers as the sponsored program! Then at 1 watch the beginning of "Mad Monster Party" which is quite ghastly with REALISTIC puppets (since you have puppets, why not use a bit of imagination?) and then watch "March of the Wooden Soldiers" with Laurel and Hardy, and I remember not much of it, and didn't have it marked down, so I guess I didn't see it, and during ads for THAT watch pieces of "King Kong" looking at the finales of BOTH of them at the same time, and even the MUSIC is the same for the two of them. Then shower and wash my hair and get out for "Magic Man" between 3:50 (stupid football game!) and 4:30; called Bob to get a Voice and he'd LEFT, so I got ready and he was here at 5:10 for four or five games of Backgammon, over to John's 7-7:20 for pie and chat with SinCha and Kei and Mal and others (Sergio not coming), over for dinner at 9:30, and THEN he goes next door to Glen Smith's at 11:10, I smoke and come GOOD and hard, bed 1.

DIARY 9121

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 29. Up at 8:45, breakfast with Bob Grossman after he calls at 8:50 and comes over to say that Glen Smith is quite attractive, though they had to sleep on a mattress on the floor since he had the whole place torn apart for re-doing, and it was susceptible to the rumbles of the subway below also. But he doesn't have much of a pot, he says, he's quite young in appearance, has broad shoulders and not too big a cock, and Bob says that I should invite him over when I have another group over. I say it'll be OK if HE does it. Make French toast for him, which we both like, though two pieces each really fill us up, and then he leaves at 10, refusing to play any Backgammon because he says he's so tired. Then do the dishes, since we've managed to dirty the last of them, just as he's leaving, and I fix up the rest of the apartment just as if yesterday hadn't happened. Then Arnie calls and I say I'm determined to get to the Jewel today, since it's the last day I'll be able to make it for the full day, since I have to get the index done by Monday. He says he might meet me there at 5:45 after he leaves Avalon from some matinee, but he never gets there. I wrap the tape to Bill and get contacts together, in case he comes and we DO feel like going to the baths afterwards, and then get out after lunch at about 12:45 to go to the post office, buy the only 84 stamps they have (Einstein) for John's postcard-Christmas cards, and subway to 14th and 4th to get around the corner and into the Jewel at 1:30, in time to see the end of Casey. Take notes in "The Origin of the Brunists," really wrecking that poor book, and it's quite easy to sit through 6, but some of the de Rome films are boring a third time, but "American Cream" is fun enough for me to sit through "Left-Handed" the last of the ones I'd seen, and then "Erotikus" and "Drive" turn into two of the best gay flicks I've seen, though maybe it's just simple brainwashing that's taken away all my critical abilities. Out to my amazement during a SECOND showing of "Casey," where he fakes his FIRST come, and it's 12:41 when I get out, and muse waiting for the subway that I've seen 11 hours, 11 minutes, and 11 seconds of CONTINUOUS, UNMOVING movies (see DIARY 9121-9123)! Home at 1:45 and make some eggs, wash, smoke, and come with ENORMOUS watery ejaculate, sleep at 2:40.

DIARY 9124

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 30. Up at 11, still feeling somewhat logy from the entire yesterday spent seated in one seat in a movie theater, and don't even bother to eat breakfast as I type three pages of diary, go down for the mail and get a letter from Don O'Shea as the first big return from my correspondence orgy, and then have lunch. Decide that I really have to finish the nursing re-done index so that I can be free in case anything comes up to do, and start in at 2, with a pause from 4:25 to 5 when Bob Grossman calls to say that the Monday night skating spectacular is on TV, and I call Arno to tell him about it, but he's not there. They don't show the best people (though when Arno called he said that the English fellow Curry had been shown (or was it the other, McCollum?) earlier on the program), but it was interesting to re-see. Then Arnie called to say that he had all sorts of plans for the rest of the day that didn't include going to the Marchais Gallery anytime today or tomorrow, and then I got back to the index, finishing it and everything connected with it by 8 pm, glad to have done SOMETHING, at least, during the month of November, but now it was essentially DECEMBER. Warm up the chicken and corn from Thursday while starting on "Science Fiction in Gaslight Age," for lack of anything else to do (yes, I put the draft for "Bicycling in the Kathmandu Valley" on the desk as the next thing to do, but I didn't really think to get around to it), and then ate at 8:30 and went out for the Times and the Voice (both for 954, almost $1 for two newspapers!) and back to glance through the entertainment section, completely finish the crossword and the puns and anagrams, and glance through a lot of the rest of it before 1:25, when my eyeglasses are causing just too much pressure on my ears, so I have to get to bed. Wash and smoke and play with my cock which refuses to stay stiff, and I work on it for over an hour, finally coming very soft, and then rouse myself from the bidi-dizziness to finish the last piece of cake from Thursday from Éclair, having two pieces of toast waiting for it to warm up, and then finish with some pecan cookies, and sleep at 2:45, finally.