1975 1 of 8
DIARY 9201
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1975. Up at NOON and turn on TV while eating breakfast to watch the Tournament of Roses parade, with some really spectacular floats introduced by a really pretty Michael Landon. Channel 4's coverage is over at 1:30, which is when channel 5's rebroadcast starts, and watching THAT until 2:30 takes me to the point where I'd come in, great stuff going down the street, sadly most of them made by COMMERCIAL float-making firms. Not quite the same as the Akron U. Acme-Zip floats. Then watch the "Big Showdown," and come up with a final list of all the contestants that I'd seen (see DIARY 9202). Then watch "School for Wives," which turns out to be a ballet by Birgit Cullberg with the best codpiece I've seen on TV, and call Bob Grossman to tell him to watch it too. He does, and we enjoy Mats Ek as the old man and Luigi Bonino of large-crotch fame as the lover is nice, too. Then continue with the Dance Festival, recording the music to the MacLaren "Pas de Deux" finally, and that's followed by some of Laura Dean's dancing, and then I watch the "Money Maze" on 7, sorry to see that it's for married couples only. Finish TV at 4:30, eating lunch somewhere in there, and then type 4 datebook pages to finish those off, put them away, change calendars---quite a trick right ON the first of the year, and then type 9 diary pages that almost catch me up to date, but more importantly takes me to page 9200, so I stop and let the rest of the pages go until the next day. Cook the pork butt, wash dishes, wash socks, and make a list of things to do IF I get a call tomorrow about going to South America, and then smoke about 11:15 (after Pope calls at 11 and I go over to pick up Arnie's mail, which is one of the last things I wanted to do around here before I left for my day in town tomorrow), coming up with notes on my fantasies (see DIARY 9203). Forgot that during the day I copied down some attempts at verses for the play "New York City" (see DIARY 9204). Also forgot that I jotted down a note on John (see DIARY 9205) and what I'd done on various New Year's Eves (see DIARY 9206). To sleep about 1:15, thankful that I don't KNOW that I'm going to South America, so I can't get nervous about the flight.
DIARY 9207
THURSDAY, JANUARY 2. Up about 9, have breakfast, type a diary page, do some other things on my list of things to do, and then phone Fran at 10 to find that everything's ready for me to pick it up. Subway down there to about 11:30, all the way back, reading and later finishing "Sadness" by Barthelme, all of whose books seem essentially the same: a string of rather absurd jokes, ala Bunuel. Call TDI at 1:15 from Bob's and find that I'm GOING! Call John, play some backgammon and Bob serves me lunch, but I'm terribly nervous about the coming trip. Watch "The Big Showdown" for the last time, just to see Linda lose and to finish the list on DIARY 9202, and then leave Bob's at 4 to chat with Richard at the Trans-Lux, take the tickets and the tote bags up to Lou Sands and tell him where I'm going, and get home at 5:15, arranging to talk to John at 7. Make out a list of the newspapers and the jobs I want him to do for me and the food I want him to take, and I make a list of things to do, don't have time to get to the list of pages of notes that I'd set out for myself on DIARY 9201, type a note to Mom, get stuff together for the trip, and phone Rolf, Bob Rosinek, Susan, and Norma, and then Toby Marotta phones quite by coincidence and asks if he can possibly come over. He's staying at the YMHA and the subway is fast, so he gets here at 10:40 and we go through all my Mattachine things, telling him where the files are at the office, which even Rich Wandel said didn't exist, and gave him copies of things that I'd written but NOT copies of my articles, since he's mainly interested in New York Mattachine politics, and I'm interested in the whole thing. He copies down lots of names and phone numbers, thanking me mostly for those, and then makes out a list of things that he's taken and ends up taking the list! He leaves at 11:45 and I haven't done anything about really packing yet, and I fuss and fuss until 1:30, when I finally get to bed but DON'T sleep. Finally get up for some grass, and then take a Compoz at 3:30, see the clock at 4:30, 5:30, and up at 6:30, though I probably slept some few hours between that. I don't have dreams about the flight, but I'm still anxious about FLYING and not so much about the troubles I'll meet on the trip from the passengers. Reluctantly out of bed on a new day.
DIARY 9250
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21. Bed at 12, stoned. (Notes from the back of "A Fall off Moondust," written on the plane that morning.) Wake at 3 to piss, at 4, at 5, and up at 6:10 to shave and shower by Bill's bathrooming at 6:35. Pack and call cab at 7:10, which comes at 7:20, $11.75 to airport at 7:45, check in finished at 8:05 (when I found my bags still in the lockers and changed shoes, jackets, bottles, and bags in the hallway where almost no one even gave a glance at me), to gate 46, onto plane at 8:45, moving to seat 8A when she sat me ABOVE the wing rather than AHEAD of the wing, and DELIGHTED at flying time of 4 hours 49 minutes. SAY we take off at 9:11 (it's now 9:07) [and we actually took off at 9:09!], we get in at 2 pm SF time or 5 pm NYC time! "Great Salt Lake---Wasatch Mountains," I thought. "Great Salt Lake---Wasatch Mountain Range to the East," the captain said. "Unusual visibility, Seminole Mountain Range in Southern Idaho to the left (then it WAS Rainier before off to the very distant left!) 250 miles away, some "some of the most spectacular mountains on earth" in the Rocky Mountain National Park. And I GRIN with my pleasure of the flight. But they don't have breakfast so I pester everyone for more peanuts, which fill me up until dinner is served (fairly awful beef stroganoff) a couple of hours later. (And I forget to charge drinks and wine on THAT flight to TDI!) Snow everywhere below, on mountain peaks and dusted across circularly-plowed middle western fields. Clouds partway over the Mississippi, then see a piece of Detroit and clear until past Rochester, then cloudy sunset until we dip between cloud layers to come out over water and land at 5:15 at JFK. Get luggage on truck and get into cab which goes around Belt Parkway for $16.45 on meter, so give him $17 and a tongue-lashing, up to give wine to John, who says "I felt like 'The Exorcist,' everything fell." Phone Bob Grossman, listen to messages while sorting through mail, phone Daisy and Avi and Paul Bosten, then watch Channel 13 for "The Ascent of Man" from 8:30 to 9:10 when it goes off from Washington, read through some of the Timeses and some of the Voices until I just get TIRED at 10, so I smoke and jerk off MOST satisfactorily and am VERY happy to be home as I drift off to sleep at 11.
DIARY 9251
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 22. Wake at 6:30 and lay until 7:30, when I get up and water the plants and get right down to the Times and the Voice, finishing all the old issues of those, finding that I haven't missed too much, and delay getting milk until after I get to unemployment, so I don't have breakfast until 12:30. Out at 11:20 and information gives me something to fill out and tells me to report to 125 Remsen Street. There to a barn of a place and the gal at the desk asks "Did you work?" and when I say "No" she fills in ALL the blocks from January 6 with a no, and I sign for two weeks of checks! Fabulous! Out to buy vitamin E and a Voice and get to the Bohack to find they still don't have limeade, pie pans, or Rokeach soap, so I don't have much to buy, and get home at 12:30 for breakfast, start sorting through things to take to TDI, write a two-page letter evaluating the trip, phone Art who says he wants to see me tonight, phone McGraw-Hill to find the index gone, regret the note from Judy Herbst that my story was no good, and phone Ron Greenburg to find no one there, Daisy to find that Lloyd Moore has bought the tickets, and Pope to say hello, and he says I'll be leaving on a trip again soon. Read magazines and part of the new Voice before I realize I've got to get moving, and sort out the stuff to take to TDI, type up my expense account, and call Bob at 4 to say that he should have lunch ready for me at 5. He, bless him, says OK. Phone for a Scull cab but they say call back in 20 minutes, so I call Cab Ca and they arrive in 15, spend almost the $7 on the ride in ($6.75) at 4:40 and Kerstin says I probably WON'T be going on Monday, but that the February 5 trip is FULL and I might be needed then. Out to Bob's at 5:10, have peanut butter and cola and candy for lunch, chat about the trip, phone John Casarino and Art (which Bob doesn't hear, embarrassing me when I say I'm having dinner with Art at 10), and play a Backgammon set that stops at 9-8, his favor, before soaring to 17-8 in the last game. Leave at 9:50, getting to Art's great apartment at 10:30, and he's a marvelous host, but the sex is going in directions that I don't like, and we'll have to have a nice long talk (see DIARY T3). Doze off after eating and sex, and wake at 3:15 to leave, getting home, tired, at 4, right to bed.
DIARY 9253
THURSDAY, JANUARY 23. Up at 10:30, rather tired with only 6½ hours sleep, but crawl out of bed, go through the Scientific American and all the Travel Agent magazines, try to get Rolf a couple of times, try to get down to some typing, but it just doesn't get started. I'm starting to brood again, sitting and staring, and I feel that I want to COME. Have lunch reading the current Voice, finally caught up at last, even with the New York Magazines, the last one of which is missing, and at least put things away in the kitchen and part of the living room. Then I get hung up with the rocks in water at 2:30, and start growing those until 3, when I can't take not coming any longer, put on the phonemate, smoke some bidis, wait until the radiators get hot, and then smoke some grass, feeling VERY high, and have a satisfactory come at 4, drying off until 4:30, then feeling hungry enough to have some popcorn, so I make a great pile of that and settle down with "A Fall of Moondust," which I finish at 7, and then have dinner of hamburger that tastes delicious, and feel like nothing more than going to bed. My big mistake seems to have been NOT cleaning up the apartment before typing, so that I might get tired of typing and then have something to do. Didn't work. Settle down to listen to lots of music until 9, then figure I can just go to bed, but some of the phone calls yet to make interest me, so I call Roz Sands to find that she had a great trip, the hotel was fine, she only complained about the baggage and trip insurance; Susan is moving to Boston on Thursday, and she'll call me tomorrow as she has guests; Lloyd still thinks of the tickets as MINE, so I say we'll talk about them when I find what the schedule is; Sergio is delighted with my meeting Horacio Roldan, sweet thing, and will give me their phone number if I go back; and Marty Sokol isn't home. That takes me up to 10:30, which is an acceptable time to fall asleep. Forgot to mention that while listening to music I got very hot and came for a SECOND time, very pleasantly, and that effectively drained my sexual desires for the rest of the evening. But think of the possibility of going to the two-for-one Club Baths on Friday, just to get back into THAT after my probable dinner with Norma and Bob in Chinatown after her work tomorrow.
DIARY 9254
FRIDAY, JANUARY 24. Wake at 7:30 and get up at 8, feeling that I needed the sleep after my sexual athleticism yesterday. Fix up some of the apartment, have breakfast, and phone Greenburg to find that the pilot of "Twenty Questions" is being made TODAY, so I've missed out on that, and call Bob Rosinek who has to get right to work, and Michael Sullivan who tells me that Ethel's been robbed on Christmas Eve and is AGAIN out of work, and that he thinks Nureyev is going to dance for another two weeks, so I tell him to get tickets for me if he gets them, except for Monday, when I have tickets to the Bengal dancers. Have so many things that I have to do that I make out a list of them---just quick things, and then I get down to typing four pages that catches me up to date from AFTER the trip, and do eight more pages from the trip, feeling good to get that underway. Then call Bob a couple of times to settle when I'm getting to his place for lunch, and then try one last time to Rolf and he happens to be IN, so we talk for about a half an hour before I can cut him off, and I even feel impelled to take NOTES about the conversation, it's so bizarre and full of details about his doings (see DIARY T6). Call Paul Bosten, also, who says he'll have some Buenos Aires addresses for me. Get to 444 Madison about 3, and there's a long wait despite the fact that there's almost no one there, and they hand out a letter telling everyone how to look through microfiche for job offerings. But then my form is handed back, saying there's nothing, and I don't have to come back until sometime in May. Um. Up to Bob's and we have a long discussion about whether I want peanut butter or salami on my sandwich, and then we get into Backgammon, and we end up see-sawing back and forth until it ends up a 9-9 tie, and I have to get down to Norma's for dinner. Bob HAD the choice to go, but he ends up sobbing at the door "You always leave me to have dinner with someone ELSE." Down at 8:45 to her sausage and squash and noodles and salad, and we chat about Arnie and the ship and my duties and her boss's trip to Macchu Picchu, and I leave just before 10, feeling too tired to go to the baths, and get home to jerk off very quickly and nicely, eat a lot of things, and sleep at 12.
DIARY 9256
SATURDAY, JANUARY 25. Also, before I went to sleep I jotted down a note about fortune-telling with ejaculate (see DIARY T8). Also talked to MARTY last night and HE came up with a lot of things that were happening to him (see DIARY T9). Up at 8 and don't feel like typing yet, so I settle down and finish "Come Back, Dr. Caligari" by 9, when I have breakfast, and then I start in on typing the 14 pages that I'd finish by noon, when Bob Rosinek calls to ask if I want to go to the "Start Your Own Business" show, and I say I'd said no to Bob Grossman if it was over $2.50, and it's $2.75. He's going, but will come over afterward for smokes and sex. So I get down to fixing up the apartment in earnest, putting away records, watering plants, stapling the threads to the Indian painting over my bed and nailing nails to support the hangers, so it'll NEVER come down until the fabric ITSELF rips. Then decide to nail the Geneva poster to the kitchen wall, too, which looks awful, but at least it'll stay up. Susan calls and talks about moving to Boston on Thursday, but we might meet for lunch on Monday, Art calls to say he'll be going to the country on Sunday morning and staying until Monday or Tuesday, and he keeps saying "WE" and I only ASSUME it's his sister he's going with. Have lunch, wash my hair, shave, and Bob comes in at 3:30, talking about the awfulness of the show, and we smoke some of the Philly grass and it's very trippy, it seems and he comes, then I have to flail away at myself for a LONG time to come, and he doesn't even WATCH, and when we start a SECOND session (after playing with the rock garden for awhile) he demands that HE be let do it, but it just doesn't work, and we NEITHER of us come. I make popcorn and we finish that, putting on more records (go through 8 in all---a record?) and then go back for a THIRD time after another pipe, and this time he comes AGAIN with great groans and sighs (or WAS it his first???) and we caress and finally about 6:50 he leaves, in time to let me return the call to Art. Call Paul Bosten but he's not willing to fight to come over, I have dinner and go out for the Times at 9, and settle down to doing both puzzles and reading interesting articles until 11:30, and then decide that's late enough to go to bed, and fall asleep with no trouble.
DIARY 9259
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26. Wake about 7:30 but lie, cursing out the cat and woman upstairs, until about 9, when I have breakfast, finish reading the Times, watch TV from 11 to 12, surprised to see an 18-year-old Mikhail Baryshnikov dancing rather sloppily in the 1966 Varna Ballet competition, and then see that Nelson Rockefeller is on "Face the Nation" and watch THAT consummate politician evade the issues for a half an hour. Then back to typing, having lunch, and typing. Pope calls at 3, and I go over for an hour to pick up all the mail, listen AGAIN to him wishing his father would die (and listen to Susan TOMORROW wishing that her MOTHER would die!), pick up some hangers from a vital, gray-haired Luther in Arnie's apartment, and get back at 4. Continue typing until I finish 16 pages, which is what I should have done, and see with relief that I only have about 16 more to go, so even if I DO go to South America tomorrow, I could conceivably finish before I left. But the REST of the apartment is still a mess: dishes and vacuuming screaming to be done. But I fix everything else up neatly, because Rolf is coming over this evening to look at slides again. Shower and have dinner and change sheets (putting the sheets hurriedly over the stains on the old when Mrs. Johnson and the plumber come in to have a look at the radiator, and he says it only needs to be drained to put off more heat. The temperature in the apartment is quite high, fitting for the meeting this evening, and I'm not quite ready with everything when he comes in at 8:40. He decides that he wants to see all of the slides, so I go through the two LONG trays and pick out about 100 slides from that that we both like, then sort that down to about 40, and then the 40 to 20 and the 20 to 6, but by that time there's nothing left to LOOK at, so he keeps sending me back to put more of the old ones in, and finally he decides that though it's not EXACTLY what he wants, it's good enough to come off on, and one of the most intense series of sexual encounters takes place (and I feel a stirring in my crotch just thinking about it; see DIARY 9260). We're finished at 2:45, and he decides to accept my invitation to stay, so we're immediately to bed and instantly asleep---and I'm relieved to find that HE doesn't snore at all.
DIARY 9261
MONDAY, JANUARY 27. Wake at 8:30 and want to touch the broad back of Rolf, but resist until 9:30, when he lies so quietly I think he MUST be awake. He sort of wriggles away, making it nonsexual, and then I say that the plumber is supposed to come in this morning, worrying me, and we get up and get dressed while I put on Marty's program on WBAI, listening to "the other Bizet" in such things as Jarmila, King Ivan, and Fair Maids of Perth. We have coffee and toast for breakfast (as we had popcorn and toast last night) and talk about Marty and his opera-recording company, John and his dictionary, and he again goes into a lengthy talk about our economy (see DIARY 9262). I phone TDI and find that Bobby's leaving at 2, so I should get there by 1:30 with Arnie's mail, but Rolf stays on and on, stopping while Marty announced, bouncing from us to John to Arnie to Marty in the conversation, and then at noon I shower and ask if he wants to have lunch, so I make the tuna salad with more toast, using up the last of the butter (about a quarter pound in 24 hours, it seems), and I shave and dress and leave at 1:45, after having written a letter to Arnie summing up everything as I know it. To the office at 1:30 and Kirsten's at a meeting and Bobby's rushing around packing, I give him the rest of the stuff, he packs it with the help of poor Marcos, Ina's rushing to lunch before going to Chicago, Bobby's to Detroit, and I chat with Kirsten to find there are 26 going from Miami by COMMERCIAL airlines to the ship, so I might be the escort for THEM. I should know next week, she says. Then to Bob's at 2:30, but he's at Terry's and I read for a bit before buzzing him again, then up for backgammon that he wins just after 7, when I insist we MUST get out to eat. Down to Zum Zum, which thankfully has seat backs so he can't complain about his back, and the special with seconds of weiswurst (bland veal sausage) and knackwurst (knockers with beef) for only $1.95 turns him on. To Carnegie Hall to sell my ticket for $6 to a gal who'd just been left off a car from Philadelphia for the Chhau dancers, and Marcia is there, as well as John with Cathy Johnson, and the program is unsophisticated and primitive and enjoyable (see DIARY 9263). John drives us back, I get home to smoke and come nicely, to sleep at 12.
DIARY 9264
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28. Ran out of milk yesterday, too, so there's nothing to have breakfast with. Want to go out at 10, but I get into typing and decide I should finish that first, and go out about 12 for groceries, finding that Bohack still doesn't have limeade, Rokeach soap, or pie pans. Don't feel like having cereal, but I'd brought back some Downyflake frozen pancakes and had four of them, not bad, and then Art called to say that I should come over for dinner at 6 before "Galileo," so I figure I've just had brunch and won't eat again until dinner. Type 14 pages through the day, and then my hair seems to be quite dirty, though I washed it on Saturday, so I wash it again too late at 4:15, and dry it quickly enough to be able to leave at 5:15 and get to the Science-Fiction Bookshop and pick up five books by Wells (2), Wyndham (2), and Sturgeon (1), and get to Art's a bit late at 6:15. But he doesn't have dinner ready anyway, we have some Cynar, the artichoke liquor which has SOME of the bite of Campari, but not much, and then he loves my wine (which isn't very good) and we eat rather hastily toward the end to get out at 7:50 to the Greenwich for "Galileo." It starts out VERY strangely with the singers and the subtitles, and I want to laugh at it, except that it seems to be SO serious, but still laughably amateurish. I agree with Art when he says there's something ACTIVELY unpleasant about Topol in the part, and the only good part is Clive Revell and Georgia Brown as the ballad singers just after the intermission. Art sleeps through much of it. Back to his place at 10:45, and smoke many cigarettes and talk on for a long time about his going to the Raffaiello on Sunday, about the delightful weekend he and his friend (the cutie in the picture) had in the country ice skating on the pool in the moonlight to candlelight, so calm it was. We get down to sex on a sheet on the floor before a mirror that he uses quite a bit, but I'm keeping my eyes mostly closed, keeping him out of my asshole for most of the time, and it's not the most turn-on evening of them all, but he seems to come nicely, we caress and kiss satisfactorily, and he doesn't get nearly as annoyed when I have to leave at 2, sitting numbly through the subway while "South Ferry" magically becomes Clark Street, bed 3 am!
DIARY 9265
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29. Set the alarm for 10:30, just in case, but I wake at 9:30 and lay until 10:15, feeling vaguely unwell, and my increased gas and strange bowel movements make me wonder if I haven't cultured something from South America again. Have a quick breakfast and get out with a shopping list to wait from 10:55 to 11:12 for unemployment, long lines that I'll have to start coming late for, and then walk across to the library to find they HAVE the New Yorkers still UNBOUND, and I read the two long articles from September 23rd and September 30th about Natacha Stewart's cruise on the M/V Adjari, a Russian ship on which she gets into more trouble in various ports than ever John and I did in Borneo. That goes until 1, then I'm out to find Limeade in the Food Coop, buy a pie pan, buy the Voice, and get some more Clarke books at the used bookshop, including picking up the latest Van Daniken for only 75¢. Guess I wrote the letter to Bill yesterday. Home to get a call from Michael, and he says he might want to see the double at the Bleecker tonight, and then, while I'm eating lunch, I see that something else that I'd wanted to see starts at 3:30, and it's 3, so I finish lunch, leave EVERYTHING ELSE in the middle of the floor, apartment now in "terminal mess" condition, and get out to enter JUST at 3:30 for "Janie's Janie" a stereotype of a welfare mother raising five children, saying she deserves even MORE, and a funny thing about putting up billboards, and "Men's Lives" where they're sucked into what society wants of them, and then they wonder why they're unhappy. "Man is Not a Bird" is a typical Belgrade rip-off foisted by Sarris and other goons whose taste in movies comes from the smell of their assholes, and "The Killing of Sister George" makes it all worthwhile, with "star turns" by Kate Reid (though she's a bit TOO much, and not QUITE believable) and Susannah York and particularly Coral Browne, perfectly cast and perfectly played. Ate hurriedly at Souvlaki, not very good for $3. Talk with Michael about his involvement with Skinner, and Skinner's decreasing involvement with his former lover, and home at 11:30 to smoke and popper and come very nicely, almost falling asleep before I gorge on Jamaican Spice cookies and falling asleep about 12:15, having forgotten to exercise today.
DIARY 9270
THURSDAY, JANUARY 30. Wake about 8 to the woman upstairs clumping around, almost ready to call her (tomorrow, I DO). Out of bed to have breakfast, call Vi to get in the cheapest bid on the larger job: $25, and then call Susan to find she's just on her way out---too busy yesterday to call for lunch. I say goodbye and say she should write her phone number when she gets it. Start typing the last of the diary pages to bring me up to date, FINALLY get in touch with Bob, who's been out of the apartment and not working at all. Michael calls and I mention ATL tomorrow, and he and Bob both want to go, so I make reservations for the three of us. Then, at last, go through all the stuff on the floor and sort things out, put them all away, getting the last things to type which brings me up to the prescribed 12 pages for the day. Then get to all the bills and the pieces of mail that have to go out, and finish with 7 of them ready to mail. Debate going out for a bit, maybe to buy a half-price ticket for a Broadway show, but nothing comes to mind, and by the time I eat dinner it's too late to do anything. Also, about noon, get to the DISHES which have been piling up since last Tuesday, so that the only major thing left to do is to dust and vacuum the apartment. The wine with dinner makes me want to sit down and jerk off, but I don't feel like doing that, and just sit considering what to do. Decide to catch up with the movie list, however, and sit for a couple of hours putting movies into the list until my eyes get tired and I'm ready to fall asleep at 10:30. Then smoke and look at porno until I'm ready to come nicely about 11:30, and then can't resist THREE pieces of toast and butter and LOTS of peanut butter to keep things chewy while the toast is toasting. Wake the next morning with a lump STILL in the stomach, the height of stupidity, and I STILL haven't remembered to exercise today. Finally get to sleep at midnight, happy to have done lots of things, but still unhappy about all the things there are left to do, though I'm sure I'll get through with a lot over the weekend, and be all ready to leave for the NEXT South American cruise, if Kirsten calls to say that I'm going.
DIARY 9271
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31. Wake at 8:30 to her clumping around, and phone to hear "the cats like to sleep there in the winter" but she might think of moving the cat box OR might look into carpeting. Great. Have breakfast and get right back into the movie list, with a LONG LONG detour into updating the first-page map in the atlas, computing that I've gone across the United States AT LEAST 20 times (with 21 for NYC-Houston-NYC for SHARE), across the Atlantic 11 times (with 11 for NYC-mid-Atlantic-NYC for USSR), across the equator 6 times, and across the Pacific twice. Then make up mileage and figure I've traveled AT LEAST from the Earth to the Moon, about a quarter of a million miles VERY roughly; and make the list of places yet to be seen, and then type one diary page, first day ON schedule since the first of the year (on the last day of the first month). Call Art to join us at the dance performance, but he only invites us over afterward. Make out ONE list of things to do, sorting through correspondence to do, write two letters to the Voice, and get everything ready for going out. Have dinner and shower and wash my hair and shave and brush my teeth until 7:40, and then smoke a large pipe in preparation for the Paul Wilson Theaterdance Asylum at ATL, and THE MOST BEAUTIFUL man cruises me on the platform, white trousers, blond hair, FABULOUS skin and profile, but little eyes and small eyelashes, and then a most beautiful BLACK sits next to him: marvelous tiny beard like a chin-cleft (with a girl), and get off at 18th in a dither of desire, getting to the theater at 8:20 to find the tickets still there and Michael and Bob chatting. The performance is VERY kooky, thanks to my being stoned, and in one dance they manage to be serious, funny, very good, and very bad all in the space of a few minutes. Definitely something to see again, and the little kid is VERY sexy, while the women aren't that good, but the ENSEMBLE is wittily whacky and wonderful. Out at 10:15 and call Art; Bob complains "just south of 14th and a bit west, hum?" but they like his apartment, and we get very stoned on Art's good grass, not leaving until after 2:30 (see DIARY 9272), I get home to porno mail and decide to come, nicely, sleep at 4 am!
DIARY 9273
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1. Wake about 10:30, but laze and doze until 11:55, when I get up and have breakfast at noon, figuring the whole day will be about four hours behind schedule. The first thing I get to are the slides, and I sort and sort and sort and finish putting them into a new order, with new filing principles based on SHOWING the whole batch and letting OTHERS pick out the samples that they want to see, which means the whole thing can be more easily organized in the future. Leave the whole plastic box full of about 200 slides for Rolf to check through the next time again, when it won't be quite so tedious and more stimulating since he KNOWS exactly what I have. Then type two diary pages, talk to Bob, and watch skating and gymnastics exhibitions on TV from 5 to 7, eating lunch at 5, again four hours behind. Then decide that I really have to do the New Century work, so I do THAT from 7:30 to just before 10, when I figure that the small amount of time I put into estimating it and talking to Vi on the phone will make my time commitment EXACTLY two and a half hours for $25. Gives me something to put into my "Money book" for the month of February. Also total all my earnings from the surprisingly large number of companies last year, over $8000, and figure that I still need tax statements from Basic Books and from Latham, at least, before I can even START to make out my return, and it looks like my declared income will be small enough so that my expenses will drain my income, and I'll get a refund of everything that I paid in via Logical Technical Services: about $100. Neat. Forget to rinse socks, shave and don't even have time to shower before catching the subway at 10:20 and get to the Grand Finale just before 10:40, when Bob and Bob are already drinking at the bar. We chat nicely about the confusions last night, then get a good table (admiring many of the GROOVY guys at the ringside tables, many with women, though Holly Woodlawn was there, too), have a not-so-good sole with simple dry rice and touch broccoli, and two glasses of $1.50 wine and a mushy quiche to start, which brings the whole evening to about $13.50 for me. GREAT show with Wayland Flowers (see DIARY 9274) and home at 2:30 to work the crossword puzzle and look at the TV section of the Times until 3:30.
DIARY 9275
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2. Up at 10:30 and watch the last bits of "Sunday" until 11, having missed the Royal Shakespeare Company, and then watch Blanche Sweet on "Camera Three" talking about D.W. Griffith. Have breakfast beforehand, then type two diary pages and intend to get to letters, but somehow I never do. Finish washing socks, put out the laundry and papers to be taken out, read all the Times, and at 3:30 just getting ready to leave for the baths, having talked to Bob Grossman who say's he's met someone last night so he's not feeling sexy, when Nick Sanabria calls and we talk for an hour about Seth, the fact that he's not involved with Actualism because he kept getting everyone else's shit onto him during the Karmic Cleaning, Pope and astrology and auras and Rhine and his feelings of HEAT from other people. He tells me about Jo Roc who lives down the street at 60 Remsen, from whom I might get some jobs, and he hangs up at 4:45. I shower and smoke and get to the baths at 5:30 anyway, about the third last person to get there, and the crowd's not that bad at all, and I'm about the last to leave at 7, when it seems to be closing (see DIARY 9276). Home just before 7:30 and check the TV section to see that I have the Ed Sullivan Tribute marked, and watch lots of good acts on videotape, moderated by Dick Cavett, until 9, when I have dinner, then decide to watch the slides that I put into such order yesterday, but they really don't make me hot, so I get into the regular pornography and finally come, fairly soft, but quite feelingly, so much so that I don't even bother to wipe myself off, just lie there until I start dripping then slosh all the liquids around so that they'll dry faster, and then up to have some peanut butter and some popcorn, kicking myself since Bob said there was a chance of his coming over after unemployment tomorrow, and obviously he'll want popcorn during the day, but I'll have to wash dishes anyway, so that's the way it is. Get into bed about 11:30, feeling tired enough nevertheless to be confident of falling asleep with no trouble, and I fall asleep with no trouble, as predicted. Thump from upstairs at 8:10 am, but I forgive her THIS time if it doesn't happen again.
DIARY 9277
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3. Lay until about 9, then up for breakfast, wash the dishes, then get started with dusting and vacuuming in time for Bob to call at 12 and say that he'll be over about 1:45. I finish with just about everything, the apartment looks great for the first time since the first of the year, and then get into the shower with the door open while I wash my hair, and Bob rings at JUST 1:47, and I'm still drying myself as he comes up to hang up his coat, remark about the apartment, and then browses through the Village Voice while I put the dishes away. We play a [oh, forgot that I also took out all the laundry in the morning, thereby passing "Leaf 'n' Bean" and seeing their advertised lunch for $1.50, and found that the used bookshop was closed on Monday---just as the pizza place was closed on Tuesday when I chose to go to the movies] few games and end up 2-2 when we decide to go out for lunch at 2:50. Leaf n'n (HA) 'n' Bean has a few of its tables filled, the waitresses are sitting having coffee and chatting, and Bob has the special while I have the egg drop soup for 55¢ (a gyp) and a ham and creamed mushrooms sandwich which is VERY good, but hardly worth the $1.60 that it costs. Then some custard pie with coconut on top for 50¢, and I have a $3.35 teeny-tiny lunch in pleasant surroundings, but not much more. Bob likes the place. Back to play a couple more games until I win the first series 12-6, and then he wins the second series 10-6 JUST as the "Conversation with Charles and Ray Eames" comes on TV at 8. I say I'll make dinner for him if he says the frozen veal is OK, and it's ghastly, not even quite enough for 2, when it says it's for 4, but for $1.69, what could I have expected? He insists on watching Rhoda at 9:30 when I wanted to watch Blake, but he says he gave up Maude so he could watch Rhoda, and I'm totally vindicated for never watching it: it's totally vapid, formula, completely predictable in its stupidity, middleclassness, and unfunniness. Smoke and listen to "Little Night Music" and leave at 10:15 to get to the Club Baths at 10:40, and I almost suspect Bob won't join me inside, but he follows me, pleased that it's so close, and we'd FROZEN on the way to the Willoughby Street station. It's not bad (see DIARY 9278) and I bed at 3:45 am.
DIARY 9279
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4. Up at 10:30, not quite seven hours sleep, and don't feel totally rested. But I've got this hard-on that won't stop, since I didn't come last night, so I jerk it off quickly, balls VERY tight but cock soft, and come with those funny white spurts that covered my hand and lower belly but that didn't FEEL as good as a huge BLAST would have felt. Water plants, then decide to harvest the dead plant and most of the live plant, and then pick leaves off the other plants and get THEM into good shape. Don't really feel like doing anything, and though I TRY to get down to typing, the only thing I can do is two pages from SUNDAY, and that's all I feel like doing. Down for the mail to see which of the two films at the Brooklyn Heights are being held over, and they BOTH are. But I have lunch and go see "Lacombe, Lucien" anyway, from 2 to 4:30 (see DIARY 9280) and then go pick up the laundry, come back, put it away, look through the rest of the mail, and AGAIN don't feel like writing, working, or doing ANYTHING. Sit and mope for a bit, debating about smoking and coming, but then I've just COME this morning, call Bob and chat with him, call Bob Rosinek but he says he's very busy, and this leads me to think that ALL my friends are becoming busy recently (see DIARY 9281). So much feel like not doing anything that I get out the TV section and watch a "Star Trek" from 6-7, with a VERY tanned and humpy Michael Forrest as Apollo, but even THIS series is totally predictable, showing humanity at its stupidest "Well, I guess we could have gathered a FEW laurel leaves," says the impossibly chauvinistic Captain Kirk at the end. Make an apricot pie for an incredibly expensive 93¢ for filling and 55¢ for crust = $1.48, but it IS good, and then John Casarino calls and I can tell HIM I'm making it. Then have dinner and watch "Death Be Not Proud" from the Gunther book I read in Reader's Digest so long ago, and it was quite good, though obviously very sad, from 8-10. Still don't feel like doing anything, and think that I will have to DO something (see DIARY 9282), and the next morning wake with the thought that almost EVERYTHING might turn sour with great age (see DIARY 9283). To bed at 10:30, hoping that I might just be TIRED from too much sucking the last two nights, no trouble sleeping.
DIARY 9294
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5. Up at 9:30, flabbergasted that I felt OK staying in bed for 11 hours, but it might be as much depression as anything. Have breakfast and water plants and it's time to get off to unemployment, which I do, and then buy hangers, Ouspensky's "In Search of the Miraculous" from the second-hand shop, and groceries, and then type 7 diary pages just past 3 pm, which means that I don't get off to the movie that I wanted to see today. Talk to Bob and Polly and Michael about going to Lar Lubovitch on Friday, but I try them once and when I don't get an answer forget to try them until the following morning, when it has to be changed to Thursday. Then have lunch and again feel that I don't want to do anything, so I watch the ABC "Afterschool Special" of "The Skating Rink," a great tearjerker about a stutterer who is befriended (yeah, we know) by a skating-rink builder and trained into a partner for his wife. Then from 5:30 to 8:30 I determine to answer letters, and write to Rita, the Seavers, Claudia, and Mike, taking time to sort out Central American stamps for him, and though I intended to send him only half of them, I find that I've described them all, so they all have to go off. Then have dinner [forgot about the cascade of water from above: "the cat was playing" through my bathroom, and I trouble the Grays (she while she's eating for her diabetes, which I didn't know she had; MUST eat at 6 pm) and Mrs. Johnson and particularly Mrs. Watson.] while watching" "The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd" on Channel 13 by the Long Wharf players, quite good, though it was telegraphed that she wouldn't go off with Mr. Blackmoor when her husband actually DIED, though she was willing to run away with him when he was still alive. Typical moralistic masochism. Then smoke and come from 11 to 11:30, and up again to watch "In Search of Howard Hughes," and it DOES sound like he's having fun. He DOES seem to be a real genius: aviator, designer, moviemaker, tool company director, landlord. Then watch "Zontar---The Thing from Venus" with a gray John Agar, horribly poor and terribly cheap to make, but I'd resisted the impulse to watch "Star Trek" again. Bed at 2:45 after eating two slices of apricot pie, many cookies and milk, two pieces of toast, and a glass of soda. Absolutely RIDICULOUS!!!! Door buzzes at 12:30, but I ignore it.
DIARY 9285
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6. She clunks something above my head at 8:10 again, and it's all I can do to restrain myself from phoning her again. But I sigh and burrow deeper and decide not to. Up at 10:45, have a late breakfast, phone ATL and find they don't have seats for Friday for Lar Lubovitch, so I call Michael and Polly and Bob and change it to Thursday, except that Polly won't be able to make it. Then do the envelopes for the letters I did yesterday, write Don, and then down for the mail to get the bank statement, which I also send back quickly, and then type 1 diary page, and it's almost so late as to worry me about finishing the NC work before 5:30. Start on it at 1:55 and stop for lunch at 3, then work 3:15 to 4:30, when I suddenly remember I have to wash my hair, and shower and dry it almost completely by 5, and finish the work from 5 to 5:30, phoning Jo to find she's not there ANYWAY. Called Kerstin about noon, and she says they have some woman to escort the plane from Miami, so that's the end of THAT. Debate that my depression was simply not KNOWING what was going to happen, and that KNOWING that I'm not going---and thus should WRITE---might make things a bit easier. Out at 5:35 and leave the work off at 60 Remsen St., then to the subway and the Village at 6, and stop in at the Studio Bookshop, where they DO have new books for $7.50 and $10, ridiculous, so I don't even look at them. The best things are series of drawings, 6 for $4, but I don't buy them now. Too busy to ask about poppers, so I'm around to the Pleasure Chest, which is crowded with people, all buying the horridly expensive stuff (imagine $60 for a piece of plastic that HAPPENS to be shaped like a cock 16 inches long and proportionately thick?) Then to "The Yellow Brick Road" where Bob is drinking his $1.50 drink at the bar, and we have a good meal, I duck, HUGE, with lots of too-sweet cherries for $4.95, and soup, good and cheesy for $1.25, but we wait too long for the check and get to ATL at 8:20, but they still have my reservations for me. Pay for Michael, and then have to get his money back when he doesn't think of asking for me and pays $3. The performance is passable, the people beautiful (see DIARY 9286) and I come right home, jerk off to 12:30, and DON'T eat ANYTHING!!!
DIARY 9294
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7. Up at 9 and determine to finish up with things around the apartment so I won't have to add them to the list. So I scour the sink and tub in the bathroom, wash the dishes (after eating breakfast and putting on the record player to hear an ominous hum that might necessitate adding something to the list), and type two diary pages. Then type 3½ title pages for last year's diary. Down for the mail, determine to stop at the corner place for notarizing the Westchester letter, and get out after 2 to find the place on the corner not answering their door. To Pope's at 2:30, when I said I'd be there at 2, and interrupt him in meditation, which means I pick up Arnie's mail and leave right away. To TDI and leave the mail off, find that Chuck, the accountant, is a notary and chuckle about getting a free notarization from a travel agency to get $175 from a travel agency! Polly's out, so I leave her a note to say there are two reservations at ATL if she wants them, but Lubovitch wasn't good enough for me to see twice. Meet Sol, the Spanish gal who's taking the flight from Miami, and I tell her to say hello to the people on the ship. Chat with Richard for a bit and get to Bob's at 4 to hear his depression about his third interview at a company in which he would be over-qualified, and then we settle down to Backgammon, where what I call his incredible luck wins him all three series, though I win lots of individual games by doubling him when he doesn't accept. But HE wins all the HIGH stakes games that come up when we throw doubles. Bob Rosen's leaving for St. Martin's for 10 days and calls at 5 to come over at 7 to chat, and then we're out to Mayfair at 8, and have a good meal of great liver (though only a little of it, totally covered in onions and bacon), awful squash, and decent cherry pie under icy ice cream, all for $8. Leave at 10, say goodbye to Rosen, and back to Bob's to get the book, which I never get, and we play another two series, and I win the last one when he's too bleary-eyed to win. Watch the roast of Lucille Ball from 10:15 to 11, then Chita Rivera on the Johnny Carson show from 12-12:30, listening to the audience snicker at Truman Capote's voice, and I leave at 2, my watch having stopped, and subway slowly home by 2:45 and get to bed, tossing a bit before sleeping at 3:30.
DIARY 9295
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8. Up at 9:45, worried about John's coming in and finding me still in bed, tired after only 6¼ hours sleep. He knocks about 10:15 and says he's going to Oberlin, leaves me keys and says to water only twice and to pick up the mail. I type a diary page and then get to typing more pages for the complete table of contents of the diary, called "Title Pages" because the tag was too short for "Table of Contents." Finish them with 5, resisting the temptation to get to the Broadway Ticket Office at noon in the hopes of picking up what may only be a few discount tickets to "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" that Michael said the new Brick was so impressive in, and today's the last day and there's an orgy tonight. Have lunch and get to Times Square about 1:15 to find that "Cat" isn't listed for a discount, so I walk up to the theater and ask "Let me have the least expensive single you have," and she says "How about an orchestra seat for $4.50?" Since the orchestra seats for a matinee cost $7.50 (which would be $3.75 + 50¢ = $4.25 at the discount place ANYWAY), I say "Yes" with glee. Inside the lobby filled with humpy numbers to read more of my book until they start flashing the lights for everyone to go in, and I sit NEXT to the blond doll with the blond-doll wife. The play's not bad at all (see DIARY 9296), but it's over at 5:20, so that I get home about 6 and miss the skating championships on TV from 5 to 6:30. Finished "Reach for Tomorrow" in the theater and find that "Prelude to Space" has been TOTALLY read when I get home to check ALL the stories in it. Painless passing of book from "unread" to "read" section of shelf. Shower and get ready and dinner of smelly meat that gives me momentary flagrantly fragrant gas, Michael calls to verify the time, I try Rolf but there's no answer, and leave at 9:15, getting there when there's already a crowd of naked people, Ted James most obnoxious of all. Smoke there, too, finally, and it turns into a fairly passable night (see DIARY 9297). But can't see any reason to stay past 1, leave, getting the Times, and home to scan the TV section and work the puzzle completely, eyes dizzy from the contacts, and get into bed at 2:30, weary and disgusted.
DIARY 9298
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9. Up at 10:30, reading the Times, and I just don't feel like turning on the Camera Three for D.W. Griffith, since I've seen most of the films they're going to excerpt. Eat breakfast late, almost as an afterthought, and then read everything in the magazine and even part of a book before watching TV from 1-3 for the European ice skating championships with a MARVELOUS John (?) Tim (?) Curry. Then have lunch and read some more, and shower and get out about 4:15 to the Wall Street Sauna, and again it's a merely passable time, but I'm feeling increasingly unhappy with EVERYTHING that I'm doing! John Casarino had called, but to my knowledge he didn't show up, though I surely didn't see EVERYONE who was there (see DIARY 9299). Home at 4:30 and tell myself that I should start something useful, but just can't get to it. Call Paul Bosten to think that he might come over, but HE goes into a long story about HIS personal relationships, broken only when his lover DOES return (see DIARY 9300). I have dinner of the rotting hamburger and can't think of anything to do except jerk off, so I smoke and get the sexy pages torn out of the two magazines I bought on 42nd Street yesterday for $9---this is LAST night!---and---NO, last night I TRIED to jerk off with the pages, but it didn't WORK and I simply stopped trying and went to SLEEP. [Also, earlier Rolf had called and said that he'd manufactured amyl nitrite, and then he came over to deliver me a bottle for $5, which he then spent on dinner, needing to go to the bank today.] I took the bottle and put too much liquid into an inhaler and tried to come AGAIN over the pictures, but the best I could do was get excited in a soft way and AGAIN spray myself with come, then wipe myself off and get to the TV to watch the last 20 minutes of "Monty Python." Then at 10:30, having come TWICE today, I have nothing to do but read (quickly judging that typing would be no good after 11, but this might have to change quite quickly if I'm REALLY going to start writing), and end up finishing "Case and the Dreamer" by about 1:30, being thoroughly impressed with Theodore Sturgeon, and wanting more than ever to get something of my own PUBLISHED so OTHERS can read it and like it as I read and like things written by other authors.
DIARY 9301
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10. Up at 10, feeling disgusted with myself for having to sleep for 8½ hours. Think about getting LOVE into Babbitt Brighton's relationship with Ozymiranda, and take some notes for the beginning of yet ANOTHER story (see DIARY 9302). Bob calls and says he's coming over after his unemployment signing, and I go through my daily routine with some speed, having breakfast and watering John's plants and mine, and fix up the apartment and then start looking for the timer for meditation, and though I search EVERYPLACE that I think it can POSSIBLY be, I just can't find it, and end up sitting down in breathless disgust before a regular clock, thinking it MIGHT be better since they said NOT to work with an alarm, and just to gently open the eyes and glance at the clock is OK. Anyway, I can get my OWN feel for 20 minutes that way, too. But Bob rings the bell even BEFORE 1:45, cutting my meditation short at about 15 minutes, and he comes in to read the Voice, so I call Michael and he says No to Thursday and Yes to Saturday and Elizabeth Keen. Call Polly and she can't on Saturday but could see the Woodbury/Dunn duo on Friday. Bob wants to see Ted Striggles, but admits he'd probably like the athleticism of the duo even better, but I'll have to talk to him later about that. We get into backgammon, and I win the first few games, eventually winning the first tournament. We have lunch, but he's put on the "Night Music" record, so there's no room to say anything, and I feel rather depressed about that. Then back to the game, switching sides, and he starts getting his doubles and lucky throws, and I get angry with him and then HE gets angry with ME, and I'm sorry for the first time that I've made him so angry. He won't let me watch "Star Trek" so I won't let him watch the 7 pm news, and after I win the third tournament when he's won the second, he says he doesn't like to play with me now that I've read the book. Leave at 8 for Atlantic House, for VERY little veal in the veal Georgia, and he says his shish kebab is "palatable," and I don't walk him to the subway at 10, only point the way, and he goes off furious. I call to apologize at 10:40, but he's not home, and I read part of "Wanderers of Time" and then jerk off MOST beautifully (see DIARY 9303) and bed at 1.
DIARY 9308
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11. Again don't feel like getting up early at ALL, and finally crawl out of bed at 10, needing to stay in bed for 9 hours for some reason. Wake with the strange idea that people have to WANT the plane to fly for it not to crash (see DIARY 9305) and the idea that the next framework for graffiti will be money (see DIARY 9306). Just about to have breakfast when I determine to exercise, which leads me to the idea of a new daily framework (see DIARY 9307), and then I eat breakfast and start typing diary pages. Type up to 13 pages by about 1, taking time off to watch "Search for Tomorrow" at 12:30 and "The Guiding Light" at 2 to see if Michael Zaslow is on either of them, and he isn't. Then meditate about 1, getting lots of ideas (see DIARY 9304), have lunch, and keep trying to call Bob Grossman and the two dance places for reservations. At last decide NOT to see "The Odessa File" today, feeling good about that, and take all the diary pages into the living room with the blue sheets that I distribute on the coffee table and on the sofa, and sort them all out in a surprisingly short time: the categories actually seem to make SENSE at this point, except for the Subjective and Objective Autobiography and the need for a new section on John. Get through to Bob to apologize for last night, and to the two places for reservations, and down for the mail, and then it's getting to 5:30, and I decide to meditate to be sure I have enough time to finish everything before 6:45, and Art calls at 5:45, breading into what would have been my first real 20 minutes, and we talk until 6, which leaves me exactly enough time to fry up some hash, shave, eat, shower, and get dressed to leave the door as close to 6:45 as makes no difference. To the Plymouth Theater and the student seats on stage at 7:15, as directed, and I'm not overly impressed with "Equus" (see DIARY 9309), though some moments are quite striking. Out at 10 and walk north on Broadway looking at the people, stop into the 57th Street bookshop to buy two books, and then walk up to the Grand Finale at 10:40, getting a seat at the bar, and Bob comes in at 11, we find TWO seats at the rail, watch a fabulously dancing Chita Rivera who isn't so successful at singing, a DOLL of a Chris, and Tony. Show goes until 1:15, we look for a place to eat but can't find it, home and bed at 2.
DIARY 9310
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12. Up at 9:30, already dreading the thought of exercising when I get up, but do it, have breakfast, water plants, type 2 diary pages, and then get started checking through the Journal insertions and typing up pages of contents, deciding that THESE aren't important enough to have DIARY page numbers, and then get to Travel and the Autobiography sections, separating out all the pages I can for "John," and the number of pages of the two largest volumes that I'm adding to actually go DOWN, rather than up, so the situation is under control until at LEAST 1977 (!). Since I don't have to go in for unemployment today, I don't go out at ALL, and woke to find that it's been SNOWING in a glorious all night, putting down about 3 inches, and this was doubled before it stopped at about 3 pm, by far the first and best snowfall of the year so far. I remember predicting a large snowfall in February and a large snowfall in March, and to date I'm half-right. Art called again and I invited him over HERE to walk in the snow on the Promenade, and I don't even shower, but I DO do almost 20 minutes of meditation before lunch and almost 20 minutes just after 5, when he rings the buzzer at 5:25. He's up with pina colada already mixed from Jamaica, and I get dressed and we're out to look at the clear skyline from the Promenade and then walk the Heights streets, looking at the houses and down some of the mewses and admiring some of the people coming home on the subway. Back in about 6 to smoke some of his stuff from Jamaica, which he'd smuggled in by sewing it under the armpit of his raccoon coat, and then we talk and talk until about 8:30, when I say I'm hungry, and I take him out to eat at China Chili, the chicken and snow peas tasty, the shrimp in hot sauce MARVELOUS and spicy, and the bill only comes to about $8.50, and then we stop for ice cream and walk home. Smoke more and watch the Cher special with Bette Midler, Flip Wilson, and Elton John from 10-11, a real smoker's dream, and then we're into the bedroom for typical sex: I play with him and he gets VERY hot, but hardly touches me, and then he comes and we cuddle and he drowses off to sleep about 1:30. He snores almost constantly until about 3, when he finally hits his stomach and I drift off at last.
DIARY 9311
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13. Wake about 9 and up about 9:30, having coffee with him even though it leaves such an awful taste in my mouth. I hadn't showered last night, but it didn't seem to matter. We talked and talked and talked (see DIARY 9312) until about 11:30, when he left to see about unemployment, having no idea what he's going to be doing in the near future, except wondering when to go to his place in the country, and then I exercise and decide that I've had coffee for breakfast and then I clean up the apartment a bit and Paul Bosten (mentioned yesterday by Art) calls to inquire about the popper-liquid, and I call Rolf, who says that his stock is sold out, he's about to invest in $250 worth of equipment, and he'll have some by the weekend. Decide Paul can have some of mine, and he decides to come over at 3, later changed by me to 3:30. Bob suggests that I'm about to step into the shower to "clean off from the last trick and get ready for the next trick" and that's absolutely true, except that I don't bother to tell him that I didn't come with Art, and FEEL like coming, and Paul will surely take care of that. Watch "The Girl Who Couldn't Lose" on ABC Afternoon Playbreak from 1:30 to 3, and when Bob (whom I'd called to look at the doll of a Frank Stell) says that Julie Kavner plays Rhoda's sister, it's obvious that it's a pilot for yet ANOTHER spin-off series, this time about INTELLIGENT people for a change. Shower and wash my hair JUST as Paul rings at the DOT of 3:30, having driven over and found a parking space right away. WE talk a lot, then smoke some of his and some of mine, I put on some music and we're into sex of the MOST glorious kind: he's totally up and panting on the brink, and doing nice things to me, and we're testing all kinds of poppers and grasses, spread out before us like an apothecary's shelf. He comes gloriously, we cuddle, smoke again, popper again, start playing again, and end up jerking off side-by-side for an INCREDIBLE spray by me, and our conversation afterward is one of the funnier moments of the busy-busy day (see DIARY 9313). What do I do NOW? He leaves about 5:45, I turn on Star Trek while eating dinner, back in New Rome in the 20th century, and leave for Andy DeGroat at 7, leaving (see DIARY 9314) at 8:40 to see "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" with effective Maureen Stapleton and Charles Durning, and "Woman in White."
DIARY 9316
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 14. Up at 10, still seeming to need 8 hours sleep, and struggle through the first time exercising at the 3rd level, then have breakfast, don't water the plants, though I water John's, and then get out to buy groceries from 11:30 to 12, getting almost $19 worth in one shopping bag, thinking that this should have been done on Wednesday, so that all that's left is for the Korvette's shopping that should have been done on Thursday. Type 5 diary pages, but still don't do anything more on the diary pages from last year, and things are getting pretty awful again. Meditate and type DIARY 9315 about it, then have lunch and dash out to the bank at 2:30 (before it closes for the next three days), cashing the Westchester Sports Club check for $175, and then walk over to Korvette's in the slush to find the cheapo belts and pants not worth buying, get 8 pairs of socks, the camera for $8.88, then up to the Mezzanine to get a copy of the "Orchestral Tubular Bells" for $5.79 when it had just come in, and get two rolls of film and flash cubes for the camera, and then the $9.99 hair dryer and pick up shampoo and toothpaste for 99¢ each and a pound of tiny Mars bars (oh, criminal!) for $1.69, which seems terribly expensive. Home surprisingly quickly by 4, phone Bob to find that he's coming tonight, and the United Parcel Service delivers my Bissell carpet sweeper I won over 6 weeks ago. Phone Polly, whose in-law is on "The Night Stalker" tonight, so she won't be coming, and Michael, who is coming. Call Art and he asks us over tonight and invites me to the country with him on Sunday and Monday. Debate meditation, but just have time enough to shave and shower and eat dinner before having to leave at 7:50, getting to the loft at 508 Broadway at 8:25, but it doesn't make any difference: and they even accept my last three THEATER vouchers, which is great. The performance of Woodbury/Dunn isn't that great (see DIARY 9317), but it's over quickly at 9:40 and I talk nicely with Tom and Cathy Johnson, and then I phone Art, explain to Michael what happened last time, and we get there about 10:30, and Arthur Whitfield is SO pale that I'm quite turned off, though it turns into a NOT unacceptable evening finally (see DIARY 9318). Leave at 2:45 to get in at 3:30, very tired.
DIARY 9320
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15. Mrs. Johnson wakes me at 10 to let in the exterminator, and then I shit a most vile-smelling mess that leads me to tell Art that there's a chance I won't feel like going with him tomorrow: some sort of intestinal flu might be catching up with me. Then turn on TV and watch "Gorath," "Journey to the Seventh Planet," "The Magnetic Monster," and "X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes" (see DIARY 9319), which kills until 1:30, and then I have talk to Bob and watch two hours of sports from 2 to 4, fertilize the plants, type 4 pages, and catch "Star Trek" where Spock's father has to be operated on while all sorts of odds and ends are happening on the ship. Then do some more work on the diary pages, again getting the feeling that this is just shit-shuffling, but that I'm about 2/3 through putting the pages into the proper books with the proper tables of contents, and the only nerve-wracking job afterward will be putting the volume-page numbers onto the master table-of-contents list so that I'll be able to FIND the pages after they're distributed. "John" is coming along fine; looks like there might be upward of 500 pages in that book without any struggle. Get a letter from the New School that I should phone them for an interview about my class. Great, but I can't get enthusiastic about it at THIS time. What if I continue to get tour-escort jobs from TDI? Michael calls to offer me tickets to the Philharmonic at Alice Tully Hall, which I refuse, and talk to Bob about last night, and Art about last night, and he says he'll call me in the morning. I exercise about 4, meditate about 6, then again about 8:30, but it doesn't quite work, and then I made dinner and watch "Summer of '42" a bit of an exaggeration, but there are some marvelously funny things, but the idea of her husband being killed and being consoled by this 15-year-old boy is a BIT extreme. And Martha's Vineyard or wherever, is so disgustingly upper-middle class that I can't see how ANYONE could identify with it unless they were AWFULLY well-to-do. It's over at 11, I decide to get the Times, glance through it, work the crossword, and get to bed at 12:30, feeling tired, setting the alarm for 9 to wash my hair before Art calls at 9:30, and have delightfully little trouble sleeping without pot.
DIARY 9321
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 16. Up about 8:45, shutting off the alarm, and exercise and meditate---no, I don't exercise, I merely wash my hair, then water John's plants for the last time, leave a note for him, have breakfast, and look at bits of the puzzle, and then Art calls at 10:30 to say I should be there at 12:30, and I type one page, wash the dishes while listening to "Tubular Bells," and pack not quite in time to leave at 12, but at 12:15, getting to Art's at 12:40, but his sister hasn't called yet. I look at his books and he gives me one called "2150," then his sister's waiting for us downstairs and I carry out laundry to take, and finally (in the rain) there comes red-haired Bill and Tammy Grimes-lookalike Joyce Ostrin, with their calico bundle of neuroses, Zumella Pussy, who proceeds to shit in her kitty litter and litter the car with her kitty-shit smell. We get along well together, despite the fact that Art later says he really didn't care for Bill at the start, but he seems to be passably OK. Up in the increasing fog and warmth, fearing that the snow will be totally gone, but we get off at Purdys and shop at Plevka's, getting colored popcorn kernels into the bargain, and get to the narrow road, relieved to find it plowed, and block the road as we get out and enter Art's dark-wooded outside to the incredible brightness of the plant-colorful glass porch. Then to Joyce's new-wood outside large sleeping loft with kitchen and bath, breakfast of eggs at 3:15 and then back over to mix up some pina colada with orange juice and sit around Joyce's table talking and smoking. This is after Art cooks dinner, after he shovels the snow away from the pavement in front of his garage so that the car can be swung around out of the road. We walk up the road a bit to see the house at the top of the hill, but he doesn't seem to want to go further. We watch bits of television, smoke another joint, eat chicken and drink wine, and then get back to Art's to talk more and walk into the large-flaked snow, and get back to watch Judy Garland from 11:30 to 12:30, and then he puts candles on and we cuddle for a bit with the radio going, and I play and play until there's nothing to do but do him, and I do, and then he turns the radio off and we fall asleep on the floor with me on the sofa cushions, he merely on a pad on the floor in front of the dying-popping fire in the fireplace.
DIARY 9322
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17. I wake about 8 because of the glare of sunlight from the snow all around, but we get up at 10 when Art does, who entreats me to stretch first lying down, then standing up, then to squat and leap and put cold water on the face and behind the knees for a morning getting-up ritual. I don't do it. Coffee and an English muffin for breakfast, and we simply sit and talk until about 1, when we can go to the other place for showers and chat, and a thrift shop calls to say that they're open and have some things for Joyce, and I dress and go out with them while Art tends to all the laundry. The first place has lots of books, and I find a Halliburton hardcover where HE retraces the voyages of Ulysses, and two paperbacks, and then we go to a second place where I find three MORE books, and he insists I should take "The Godfather," and then she talks of a third place and we insist she go, though it's 3:25 and it closes at 4, and she finds two fox stoles for $25 and I find a 15-volume set of the MacGill Masterplots for $10, which I buy with her card which means that I don't pay any tax. Pay her back, then pay for the almost $5 in groceries we get at the A&P, and then we pick up peppers and Charleston Chews and get back just about dark. Art's working on dinner of clam sauce and tomatoes on noodles, and he's done a fishless sauce for Bill, who hates seafood, and we drink more, watch more TV of the Smothers Brothers, who are awful, even though we're stoned again, and then we all watch the AFI honoring of Orson Welles from 9:30 to 11, and it's pretty good because we have dry roasted peanuts, Charleston Chews, Archway cookies, and drinks and grass to keep us busy. Back over at 11, admiring the snow and putting on and taking off my boots for about the fifth time, and we crawl into bed again to cuddle and talk, and then I do him so slowly he's begun to reach for me, and when I've done him I rub against him so that he uses his left hand on me -- so slowly that I'm brought to an orgasm torturingly leisurely, and when I come it's with such a spurt that he has to go get the towel, and it's one of the LONGEST as I draw up his leg to "Crush out the last spasm" as Humbert did so long ago, and then we drop off to sleep about 12:30, no crackles because of no kindling for another fire.
DIARY 9323
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 18. Wake at 7:30 to bright sun, lie until about 9, when he gets up with his usual stretching. We have slightly watered pina coladas with our coffee and English muffins, and I start putting everything together, going over after Bill's finished in the shower to go to the john, and then about 10:30 we're all packed up and leaving, me carrying the two much heavier items that I doubled in weight since I arrived. It's still gray and overcast, and Bill sinks into the newspaper, Joyce into the driving, and Art into the mail that Joyce has gotten from the post office that morning. I finish by reading an enormously funny sex-ad paper. Into the city by 12:30, letting Bill off to subway across town to unemployment, and we get down to "Early Halloween" where I have to pound on the back of a backing car to keep him out of the space I'd been saving for Joyce, and her sweetness saves me from a possible punch in the nose. Their shop is TOO much: full of old clothes, mainly dressy dresses, and shoes and junk, and beaded bags, and a guy calls and asks about shoe sizes and finally Art says "Oh, WOMEN'S shoes," and I say "You cater to THEM," and Art smiles and says "Almost everyone who shops here is one of THEM." He gives me shopping bags for my books and a yellow shirt for my back and we leave about 12:40, and I debate about staying right there at the Elgin for the double feature that starts at 2:30, but I have no idea what to do for two hours, so I lug the stuff to the subway and get home at 1:15 to call Bob, chat, and then call Pope and arrange to meet him at 3 at "Murder on the Orient Express." Have lunch and type two diary pages, leaving the stuff scattered all over the floor, and the movie's fun---all TWELVE people did it! Out at 5:30 to my place and Rolf calls to say he has the five bottles for me, and he's over to say he's very hungry, so we go out to the Peking Palace and have super chicken with orange sauce and Mongolian lamb, and he invites me to one of his Indian curry dinners. He talks and talks about the coming collapse of the Eurobanks (see DIARY 9324) and we're out for ice cream and to his place for GREAT coffee, and he tells me of his fantasies for making 5000 bottles, then I leave at 10:30 and he debates going to the baths. I'm home to listen to "Bells" to 12 then jerk off VERY quickly, read "World of Li'l Abner" and start Ouspensky to 2:10.
DIARY 9325
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19. Wake with the damned woman clunking upstairs at 8:10 again, and then up at 8:30 to sense that my place is a mess and I just HAVE to fix it up. Exercise and have breakfast and start putting tings away, and then go to unemployment at 11 to a very long line that's then broken into three lines, so it moves quickly. Get Rootone and find they have no fertilizer, so it's a good thing I don't need it. $1.39 for .4 oz seems not possibly worth it. Back to produce a new shelf for the Masterplots and books to read and have read, and John comes over to pick up his keys and listen to a bit of "Tubular Bells," then Mrs. Johnson rings for retarded children, and then John rings, thinking Mrs. Johnson's ring was from ME. Finish reading the Times and send out three letters, one for "assistance" from a novelist, one with "The Ois Have It" and one for a technical-article writing part-time job. Feel hopeful that SOMETHING will come from it. Then meditate, call Bob to get no answer, find that Merce Cunningham is sold out for this weekend, reserve for Elizabeth Keen, and Michael says he'll buy one of the bottles for $5 from me on Friday at the dance. Type two diary pages and FINALLY begin to feel caught up by the time I finish lunch. Get back to working on typing the diary tables of contents, and that goes well until Michael calls at 6:10 to say that Skinner gave him two tickets to "La Forza del Destino" tonight at the Met. I dash into the shower to wash my hair, shave, cook dinner of smelly meat, and get out at 7:10 to get there at 7:45, meet Skinner, and get the two Family Circle seats. The whole thing isn't very good (see DIARY 9326), but it gets out early at 11:40 and I'm home by 12:15 and finish reading "The Outward Urge," really a rather BAD book by an early John Wyndham in collaboration with someone else. That's finished at 12:45, and I don't have any trouble falling asleep at 1, since I'd already been nodding during the opera and even during the dreadful reading. Feels good to be able to fall asleep immediately without masturbating or smoking grass. Feel content with what I've been doing recently even though it DOESN'T directly involve writing, but I don't know how long the good feelings will last, so I'd better FINISH things up.
DIARY 9328
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20. Wake at 8, but the alarm still jolts me a couple of minutes to 9, and I turn on the television and watch "The Last Child," a rather effective story about a couple wanting to have a second child in a future time when each family is rigidly restricted to one child. Their first child died five days after the ten-day limit of survival that would entitle them to a second. The basic premise was impossible to understand (though it might be as impossible as an exceptionless antiabortion law), but they did well with it once that was accepted. It was refreshing to hear the explicitness of "Everyone has a right to life," "Everyone does NOT have a right to life if the world is too crowded to support them." Exercise and breakfast and get out to Pope's at 11 to pick up Arnie's mail, and Pope's telling me about his upcoming class for high school kids on astrology. Back, look through Arnie's Variety and my mail, then type two pages and work on the diary pages, then call Bob and say that I'll be over between 4 and 4:30; talk to Bob Rosinek, who's been left with the thought that I'd gone to South America, who's very busy this week and will have to see me next week to test the amyl nitrite; call Eddie and Paul to get no answer. Have lunch during the "Honeymoon Hotel" "By a Waterfall" and "Shanghai Lil" segments of "Footlight Parade" between 2 and 3, then make a list of restaurants to go to in Bob's neighborhood, glad to come up with as many as 16, and leave at 4, chatting with George in the office, leaving the bag for Arnie with his mail, and leaving a note on Kerstin's desk that "I'm available for the last Galapagos trip." To Bob's at 4:50, giving him a bottle of AN on consignment, and we play Backgammon until 8:45, he winning two tournaments out of three by sheer luck, since we seem to be about matched on strategy, now. He listens to the restaurants and we go to a different one, Le Muscadet, for GREAT duck and good kidneys ill-cleaned with hors d'oeuvres, caviar, vegetable and onion soup, salad, lots of breads, and mousse and poor caramel for $9.50 for him and $8.25 for me, and then 50¢ for coat ransom. I have HIS sweater home now. I won't join him at Gypsy's for a nightcap, finish reading "Psychology of Man's Possible Evolution" by Ouspensky by 12, then smoke and popper to come rather quickly, and fall asleep about 12:45, totally contented with the day.
DIARY 9329
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21. Wake about 7:30 and lounge until 8:30, then up thinking for a moment that today was Saturday and I'm to see Marty's taping, but then exercise and have breakfast and type two pages (one of them the dream that I had this morning, and that I typed first so that I wouldn't forget any of the details I could remember). Actually get to the final phases, typing the new table of contents for the entire volume on "A., John," after I sort all the pages into order, and that leaves me with just the Workbook to finish, and when I look at the contents it's obvious that I have to break it into separate volumes, and I don't even bother to check whether the breakdown is OK: I merely sort out the pages that are to go into the workbook and find that there's at least one new page for each of the seven proposed new volumes, so that everything seems to be current, and then I put the pages into strict diary-number order (can't even remember why I'd put them OUT of order), renumbering most of the pages for the THIRD time, and let's hope I get them right THIS time. Call Bob and say that we'll be having dinner after, at the Chateau Brazil, and so I try to delay lunch as long as possible, but the work on the diary pages goes so well that I FINISH all the new typing, put all the new and old volumes away, calculate the number of pages per volume (and it comes out 212 pages per volume EXACTLY, much to my amusement, since that can only happen every 44th pages, and I just HAPPENED to finish the 44th pages this morning), and leave myself a note that all I have LEFT is to renumber the V and W volumes and to add the page numbers of the newly distributed pages. Almost finished! Call Rolf and he says the best time for me to pick up the five bottles for Eddie is right now, and so I go over at 4 and chat for a bit and get back just after 5, starved, and make the last of the smelly hamburger (just one week old today) for a VERY late lunch, and shower and get out to the City Center and Elizabeth Keen at 7:10, getting there at 7:45 easily to find Bob waiting and Michael gets there at 8:05 JUST as I'm about to sell his ticket. Most of the dances are marvelously funny (see DIARY 9330) and we're out at 10:10 to eat what's NOT a mixed grill at Chateau Brazil, sell Michael his bottle, and get out at 12, home at 12:20 to watch the last of "Ben," dreadful, and bed at 1:25 am.
DIARY 9333
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22. Up at 9 and work a bit on the page numbering, having finished the "A." volume yesterday, and the redistributed Workbook volumes go quickly. Exercise and have a large breakfast, since I think it's going to be a long wait until lunch, and get out at 10:15 to get to the WBAI studios exactly at 11 am, with only a few of the people Marty invited having actually shown up. The "Ruy Blas" recording goes quite well (see DIARY 9332), and I'm glad it's over at 1:30 and I get home about 2:15 to have lunch of a few eggs and many pieces of toast. Call Art and make arrangement to eat at his place, and then call Eddie to find that he's not at the theater, having a chest cold. So I arrange to take the amyl nitrite to him at 7, be at Art's at 7, and see the movies afterward. Type four diary pages and very quickly go through all the new contents pages and add the code numbers of all the pages, AND IT'S ACTUALLY FINISHED AT LAST, and I cross the item off the DO list, having taken just about two weeks to DO it, incredible waste of time. Watch the beginning of "The Tuaregs" on Channel 13 from 6 to 6:30, but it's pretty much of a dull bore, except for the tourist attractions of Tammanrasset as the center of the whole area. Off to Eddie's, sell him the stuff for $25, then to Art's, and he's making clam sauce with tangy lemon and crisp celery for his thin noodles, which he overcooks, and we have wine and he's had a drink, and we get to talking, talking, talking about his early life and hang-ups (see DIARY 9334), and by the time it's 8:30 we really don't feel like going out, so decide to stay in, and then I mention that Treigle has died and we listen to Marty and Chet Ludgen and Nancy Shade from 9:15 to 10:25, but we're smoking, too, and he turns it off and we play with each other's feet, he plays some Joni M., and then I suggest we go into the bedroom, since I'm feeling almost like falling asleep, and he's not willing to roll more joints than two, since I suggested last time that we smoked too much. Torn. We cuddle nicely and he comes up strong, playing with himself standing over me and me on the floor, and we both come off, lie for a bit, and then I leave, surprisingly early at 12:45, buy the Times, finish "The Future of Man" work part of one puzzle before I'm exhausted to bed at 2.
DIARY 9335
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23. Sort of pictured today as going through the scrapbook putting-away as the last thing to do before writing, but then I looked at the TV section and the day was shot by watching TV. Up at 10:10, but then recall that today the clocks are set ahead to daylight savings time, and up to watch a Camera Three program on Michael Tippett which hadn't been announced in the Times. Then finished the puzzles and had breakfast at noon, and read the rest of the Times and turned on TV at 2 again to watch the ABC Superstars, a totally "produced" sports event that O.J. Simpson had no trouble winning away from the far sexier Bob Seagren and Kyle Rote, Jr. Some of the athletes, like Phil Villapiano and Steve Smith (looking like Rolf) and Jack Ham are terribly sexy to watching straining away, and it didn't seem fair that Seagren, who came in second, wouldn't be eligible to complete for a third year because he'd won in 1973 and hadn't won since. Kyle Rote will be out next year if he doesn't win to bolster his 1974 win. But since he was about 10 points behind "Juice," it doesn't look well for him. Too many of the competitors were thick-waisted football players, but there were some GORGEOUS hunks. Kept reading the Times until 5, when I turned on "P.J.," not very good at all, with a bruised-face George Peppard battling against the monolithic wealth and wishes of Raymond Burr as the gray-haired heavy. Then called Bob, who wasn't home, and Art, who wasn't home either so he's gone to the country. Shave and have dinner of the almost-rotten sausage, cleaning out the fridge, and leave at 7:15 to get to Reno Sweeney's at 7:55 and get told at first that I could get a refund, but after I checked back they made me feel so bad about how much they needed money that I just let it go. The evening was fairly entertaining (see DIARY 9336), but it was over too early at 12. Home to smoke and come quite nicely, and almost get away with not eating ANYTHING, but I just can't resist having two cookies, but I stop it there before it gets completely out of hand. Had reset all the clocks in the house, but it still seemed too early when I conked out at 1 am, which just yesterday would have been as early as midnight.
DIARY 9340
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24. Wake at 9 to record notes from a dream (see DIARY 9341) and eat breakfast and get down to typing five pages, and then decide, rather than shooting my whole DO list by sorting out scrapbook stuff, to work on the travel article, based primarily on my writing ultimatum (see DIARY 9338). But first I have lunch, and meditate, and scrape the moss off the plants as I'd been wanting to do, and repot the asparagus fern, surprised to see tuberous growths on the roots, and then, about 3, sit down and actually start on the draft for "Enryakuji Temple-Mountain." Once started, it goes quite well, as is usual with these things, so that I get most of the first draft finished by 8:45, when I warm up some stuff to eat (franks and beans, really running out of EVERYTHING) while watching TV for the rest of the evening, feeling very good about having gotten to some writing at last. Bob calls to ask me to see the preview of "Funny Lady" with him tomorrow, I'd called Art in the morning to say that it was so rainy here that I wouldn't come up to help him move stuff (and later he says that it rained all day and he didn't even get a chance to move anything), and while I was watching TV Rolf called to say that he'd bought a recipe book for LSD, grass, hash, cocaine, psilocybin, and various other exotic substances from California at some bookshop on 8th Street for only $2. Watch "Butterflies are Free" with a cute Edward Albert, a too-sweet Goldie Hawn, and an excellent-as-usual Eileen Heckart, and there's a nice line about HER being emotionally crippled and therefore worse off than he as a blind boy. Then drink some wine and sit through the 11 pm news, and watch "The Elevator" with a bug-eyed Roddy McDowell, an over-acting psychotic James Farentino, and a rather unbelievable sequence of happenings around an elevator that finally crashes to the bottom with no one inside. That the crook would blithely attempt to blowtorch the cables of the car was just a bit too much. That's over at 1:15, and I try to sleep, but it just doesn't work, so at 1:45 I'm up and come with grass and poppers, and then STILL can't sleep so I start reading the first 90 pages of "Lost Worlds of 2001" and finally feel like falling asleep at 3 am, cursing myself for needing grass.
DIARY 9343
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 25. Up at 10:30 and go out to the supermarket to pick up milk and the rest of the stuff that I need, have breakfast about 11:30, and then Art calls to ask me to the country on Friday, which I say would be fine, since I haven't scheduled anything for the weekend yet, but then I have to call Bob Rosinek and ask him if it would be OK for him and Norman, his former rabbi-friend, to entertain themselves ALONE in my place on Sa-turday, as he'd (ha, that's NOT the way to hyphenate Sat-urday) be willing to pick up the keys on Wednesday when they'll be coming to look at some houses in the Heights. Fine. Continue working on "Enryakuji Temple-Mountain" and decide after going through the first draft a couple of times that I could actually type the final copy from THAT, and start to do so, but there doesn't appear to be enough time to finish, so I stop and shower and wash my hair and change clothes and have lunch and get out at 3:30 to get to the New School at 4, finding Lester Singer's office with difficulty, and he seems nice enough, chatting with me for about 15 minutes, saying that I should send in the application form by the end of this week, and then I sit in the lobby and hassle about the form and look through the spring bulletin until 4:45, when I leave for the Lexington subway to get up to the Tower East Theater at 5:15, but they've been sold out of seats for the "Funny Lady" preview since 4 (as Bob later told me) and I figure this will be a perfect time to see the double at the St. Marks, and I leave after trying to call Bob, but he'd left already, and I feel a bit guilty about leaving without telling him, but figure he won't stick around long when he sees it's sold out. Subway down to "The Lords of Flatbush," reasonably sexy with Perry King devastating as Chico Tyrrell and Henry Michler [Winkler?] as a sexy Butch, but curious that Art's company gets no credits for costumes (he tells me the next day that they SOLD them the costumes; only costumes DONATED would get on-screen credit: he'd tried that and it wasn't very good). "The Odessa File" isn't terribly good, revolving about the fact that the officer, a hopefully made-to-look-older man that Maximillian Schell killed, was John Voight's German father. Out at 9:45, starved, home to eat, talk to Bob G., and jerk off from 11:45 to 12:30, feeling good about it and falling asleep quickly.
DIARY 9345
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26. Up at 8:30 and breakfast, type six pages, get out to unemployment and finally pick up the laundry that's been out since about the first of the month. Finish typing the second travel article and write the covering letter and send THAT out, but the time just seems to go too quickly, and it's all I can do to exercise and meditate once before the day seems to be over. Bob Rosinek said he'd be here between 5 and 5:15 to pick up the keys and finally comes in just before 6, leaving me with some time to sit around and try to think of what I'm going to do next. Have dinner and get out to the Joffrey very late, trying to sell my final ticket, and there are lots of others trying to sell them, too, and despair of getting rid of it when I accost someone going right up to the window who said he was getting a $2 cheapest ticket to the balcony, so I sold him MY ticket for $2 just to get SOMETHING out of it, and since he wasn't sitting next to me, it's obvious he just wanted to get in and then moved downstairs to get a better view. I found it was better to sit in the balcony and use my binoculars without making it quite clear which crotch it was exactly that I was looking at. The program is really quite excellent (see DIARY 9346) and as I'm leaving I bump into Henry Messer and Carl House leaving the downstairs. We chat on the way to the subway, and I decide to take the BMT with them down to Times Square, and as we're putting in our tokens I look at them in the light for the first time and see that Henry's VERY bruised about the right eye and touched on the left, and just after I ask him what happened, I see that Carl has some purplish bruises around HIS right eye, too, and then they tell me the horrible story of their victimization in Queen Anne's county in Maryland and their fine treatment by friends in Annapolis (see DIARY 9347). They invite me to their place for a drink, and we get there about 10:30 and I leave about 12, after having said that I was leaving about four times. Home and feel sexy, so I jerk off again (having jerked off this morning lying in bed with nothing better to do) with grass and bidis and poppers, getting to sleep about 2, fine.
DIARY 9348
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27. Up about 10 and note dream (see DIARY 9349) and do some things, but then get a call from Ron Tiekert about a brochure to copyedit for Monday, and I say I'll get there at 12:45 to catch Tom before he goes to lunch. Work on some typing around the place, then subway out and Tom's AT lunch already, and there are two pieces of things to do, which I first estimate for $100, but then when there's a page missing and it seems I'll have to spend a lot of time going over what I'd done with them on Monday, I add $20 more to the estimate. Out at 1:40, having spent an hour there and two hours in all, and finish "ABC of Relativity" on the subway on the way back, having not really gotten much from it, but there were a few new ways of looking at things that I hadn't thought of before, and Russell certainly went at it from a completely different ANGLE. Back at 2:15 and have lunch, then start on cleaning up the last bit of correspondence and decide I have to get some more things xeroxed, so I go to the bank and get more money out and then get 10 more copies of the resume and a copy of the "Male Homosexuality" outline that I'd sent to Singer, and send out 8 pieces of mail in all: to Irwin Strauss for the Sci-Fi convention list; How to Overcome Fear of Flying from RET; note to Adam Koczynski about being here when he arrives next Friday; send contest try to Sunset House; send for the Writers Workshop next Saturday at the New School; send for a one year's subscription to the "Advocate," write to a NY Times ad, and send out the proposal to Singer for the New School course. Happy to get it all together and drop it in the mail when I get out to Kei Takei at BAM. Try to sell the ticket, but it doesn't work when there are so many performances in one place, and sit and talk with Art Bauman and Jeff Duncan, but not Rodney Kirk, who's embarrassed that I'm not invited to the dinner he's giving everyone afterward. The performance is quite mixed (see DIARY 9350) and I get home at 11 to watch the news about the telephone fire that knocked out the whole lower East Side, and then watch David Frost host a show on ABC about "Homosexuals: Out from the Closet" that wasn't bad at all, but not terribly new, though I make some notes that might come in handy for my New School course (see DIARY 9351); bed at 1, but CAN'T sleep until 2:15, and FINALLY smoke and have an orgasm by 3 am---UGH!
DIARY 9352
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 28. Wake with an incredible idea for a masturbation series (actually, this is what I copy down at about 3 am this morning), and type it up before I go to Art's (see DIARY 9353). Art calls about 9 and says that I should meet him at the shop at 10:30, but I get involved in packing all my laundry (and inadvertently pack Bob's sweater, thinking it's Art's until I take it out) and get out late, getting to his place late, but he doesn't seem to mind, and we're out to the car, which takes a long time to warm up, and drive up rather nicely to his place, though I feel a bit awkward with the car, and a couple of times he puts out his hand to the dashboard in the universal signal of sheer panic at something I'm doing. With fewer people in the car the back doesn't drag so much, which is nice. Arrive about 12:30 and he makes some eggs for a brunch, and we sit around and talk while he waters the plants and I unpack some stuff, and then we're dressed and out to the garage to start lugging stuff out to the storage shed, after we spend lots of time in there putting things on top of other things to make room for the stuff moving in. He has very SPECIFIC ideas about where he wants everything, and it's a bit of a time before I simply do what he wants me to do. The worst things are the huge sofa and the heaviest piece of marble that we cart over by the dolly. Colder and colder, and we finish about 5 as the sun sinks behind the mountain, and we're indoors to have some tea, which makes me strangely sick to my stomach, and he makes a fire that warms up my feet for the first time today. He makes chicken stroganoff for dinner while I stand and talk to him, we eat at the small table in front of the fireplace, feeling extremely good, and drink wine and smoke grass and watch the fire and go out to look at the incredibly brilliant stars, and take clothes off and play and play and play, and he admits that he had to stop himself from coming about six times, and it's pleasant, except that I would have liked to come (and him to come) at SOME point in the evening, but I just figure that'll make tomorrow night even more incredible and tense and sexually oriented, and I have some trouble sleeping under the sleeping bags on the floor, but later push the sofa out to be able to STRETCH out.
DIARY 9354
SATURDAY, MARCH 1. Up about 9:30, not having wakened for the morning sun, and he's up quickly to make coffee, and we sit around and eat muffins and then we're out to some thrift shops (oh, forgot that we stopped in Pleasantville on the way up yesterday, and while he didn't buy any of the oak pieces he looked at, I plowed through some books and found "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" by Jerome K. Jerome, which I picked up with glee, and then went BACK to the three first editions of Doctor Doolittle that I'd seen and decided I really didn't need, but then bought them anyway for $2 for the whole lot), and in something like "Poor Man's Lot" we pick up a first edition of Virginia Woolf's "Flush," a copy of the complete Dewey Decimal System, and a small Gibran; an orange deco teapot and two pictures for Art, all for $2. Then to some other places in towns of Brewster and others for a couple of hours, picking up some red snapper for dinner, lots of groceries and booze and cheesecake, and he gets clothing and other stuff, and we're back about 3 with the car loaded. He sends me over to Joyce's for some old curried tuna fish in her fridge, and while I'm eating that on an onion roll, his sister Eleanor and her husband Herb and their daughter Debbie and her fiancé George (?) come in, give me a half a club sandwich to finish, and we sit and talk most outrageously about their life style (see DIARY 9355). The parents go to see Nancy down the road while we sit and talk, and then they're back about 5 and leave, and Art starts working on the snapper, putting in lots of lemon, and he seems to like lemon, the chicken being quite acidic last night. Makes cauliflower on which I put lots of butter, which is becoming my local joke with him, and we don't put out the cheesecake until too late, and it's all we can do to delay eating half of it before it defrosts and becomes creamy. Again we smoke, some of the stuff that Eleanor gave to Art that Nancy had given her, and we again enjoy a perfect "Hollywood" fire in the grate, putting on an enormous log that doesn't quite burn through during the night, and again we sex jazzily without coming, and it's getting to be sort of a chore, and I even debate masturbating, but don't. Showered before John and Ron came over to chat. Sleep about 1.
DIARY 9356
SUNDAY, MARCH 2. Wake about 10 and again have muffins and coffee and chat, out to the garage to move some more stuff around so that he can clear out the rest to prepare for Werner's coming tomorrow to start on the bedroom (which Art says, amazingly, will be finished by this WEEKEND), and then I insist I have to get to work, not feeling hungry, and I work from 1:20 to 2:40, going somewhat quickly because the advertising brochures are rather well written to start with, and Art comes in to say that lunch is ready. Over to eat very thick chicken-rice soup with buttered onion rolls, delicious, and back at 3:15 to work through until 6:35, when I'm finished sooner that I would have thought. Also, before that, the sun came out for a bit and I took my camera out and dashed around the pond and into the woods and up the slopes taking pictures of the place, about 7 of them, feeling pleased to be able to do it, but neither Art nor I have done ANYTHING about the work we brought along for the New York Magazine competition, though I read his and told him he had quite a unique style, though I didn't want to make his self-conscious, which would be hard since he says he's writing it for HIMSELF, the best way. The pond that had completely defrosted the previous day now had a skim of ice on it since the weather was VERY cold now, going down to zero, and we sit around watching TV and finishing the laundry and drinking booze (me with his lovely chocolate mint liquor with half-and-half on top), and then we left at 8:30 to pick up Joyce and Bill at the station, and drive back talking about their adventures in the city, and he's not feeling well and stays in Joyce's while we three look at his purchases and eat the ratatouille that he makes so perfectly, and the squash is marvelous with the tomato juices soaked into it. Smoke some of her joints and his pipe and eat her Lilac Chocolate-covered apricots, and then she leaves and we neck for a bit, but it's 11:30 already and I have to get up at 6:30 to meet John on the road at 7 to get to the station, Joyce refusing to get up before 11 (she actually slept to 1, says Art), and I fall asleep quickly, not even concerned that I almost have blue balls from not coming since Thursday night.
DIARY 9357
MONDAY, MARCH 3. Wake at 4:40, peering at the clock, sensing that Art's awake too, worried about his "getting up if he wakes up," but he doesn't. Look at the clock again at 5:30, and then up just before 6:30 and wash a bit and pack things, and Art calls to find that he IS leaving at 7, and I'm out to find him waiting in the car at the end of the driveway. Park at Croton Falls and buy a NY Times, having taken Art's copy of the TV section and the puzzle, bless him, and onto the train at 7:15, FREEZING cold in the country. The car is terribly overheated, I watch the scenery glide by while talking with John about his math-teaching job and traveling, and into Grand Central at 8:50. Walk down to New Century at 9:10 and find Tom in already, and he seems to say that Ron clears everything, and I sit working the puzzle before Ron comes in about 9:40, and he says everything looks OK, I do a few things on the missing page 5 and write up a new style sheet and put in a bill for $100 for only 9 hours work at the most, over $11 per hour, good. Subway home on the jammed train and pick up lots of mail before the mail for the day comes, and Bob actually calls at 11 to say he'd called the office already. Call Bob Rosinek and find that Saturday went well but that he's having trouble with Nina about buying the house (see DIARY 9358), but I recommend that he call her and talk about it more, HE making the decision. I read the mail and work on the Times puzzles for a couple of hours, and Bob comes in at 2:15. We have great popcorn for dinner, play backgammon in which he wins two tourneys with incredible sets of doubles, and watch "The Other Man" in which Thinnes (Roy) hardly appears, poor with volume off. And the author from the Village Voice calls for a long time (see DIARY 9359), then Daisy calls about the Bolshoi, and we're out to eat at China Chili at 6:15, having the not-too-great "special #4" of lamb in Tung-Ting sauce, flavorful and scalliony, but the meat is sort of tasteless; and marvelous shrimp and cashews, which comes in the fabulous black bean sauce. Out at 7:30 and meet Peter Ream, introducing Bob to Peter and they might have clicked a bit, and get to Carnegie Hall to sell the extra ticket for $5 at the last minute, which means I JUST get back my $17 from $6+6+5. The performance is electrifying (see DIARY 9360), and jerk off not TOO well at 12, eating not TOO much.
DIARY 9362
TUESDAY, MARCH 4. Up at 10, mystified about having to sleep so long, though I really didn't get that much sleep the night before. Then I eat so much during the day that I'm really concerned about too much food and too much sleep (see DIARY 9363). Ron Greenburg calls and I say I'll be there on Wednesday at 6 pm for "Smart Money" tryouts. Lauren Rubin calls from McGraw-Hill, recommended by Dick Sime, and offers me an interior and window display book to rewrite for about $1700, and I think that Bob Grossman might help me with it and say I'll be in to look at it on Thursday at 4. The apartment is full of stuff to do, and I settle down and finish reading the Sunday Times before anything else, clipping out lots of articles, finally finishing the rather difficult Times puzzles, and put the rest of the stuff away except for the stack of junk on my desk. But still don't feel like getting down to the large number of pages needed to catch up with the diary (which has been 16, I now find), and I've had breakfast and lunch and STILL feel hungry. Phone Paul, then Art calls, try to call Rolf, but still can't get down to writing and look through the TV section to find "Return of the Giant Monsters" from Japan, and watch the totally stupid battle between Gammera (a turtle-like creature that acts like a kid and whirls through the air like a pinwheel) and Kaios (named by the kid "from the roar he makes"), who can't turn his head because he has a double spine, and hates heat as much as Gammera loves it. Stupid and silly, but I sit through until 6, devouring popcorn too, and then going to COOKIES. Watch "Star Trek" about a stupid medusa in a box who makes everyone crazy who looks at him, and then put on the pork butt for dinner and get to typing 6 pages, which really doesn't even BEGIN to catch me up to where I should be. Dine while watching an effective Martin Sheer in "The Last Survivors" about a first mate who orders the deaths of 10 people to lighten a raft to 12, who survive, and he actually had to spend 15 months in federal prison---stupid legal system! That's over at 10 and I watch a bit of "The People's Choice" awards, but when John Wayne wins over Paul Newman and Robert Redford, and Olivia Newton-John ties with Barbra Streisand, I shut if off and go to bed; Art calls at 11; sleep!
DIARY 9365
Wednesday, march 5. Wake at 8, feeling great, not too late (rhymes I HATE!). Decide I've GOT to wash my hair, so I do after breakfast, and then try to do something about the flaking skin on the bottoms of my feet by putting on the athlete's foot medication, though it doesn't seem to be anything more than chilblains (?) from standing in the cold over the weekend. Fix up the apartment completely and get started on the diary, intermission by going out to unemployment (which I don't have to return to until the 19th) and getting the Voice, then home to read the mail, meditate, exercise, have a late lunch, and finish typing the 13 pages to bring me back even with the diary. With the time left, I actually type three pages (DIARY 9391-9393) of the first draft of the New York Magazine entry, feeling great about doing so much. Look at the horoscope and see that it IS supposed to be a generally up time. Art calls and says that Nancy hasn't called yet, Bob says I can come over and maybe he'll help me on the display book from McGraw-Hill, and I watch the best parts of "When Worlds Collide," but decide not to say that I saw it today, since I'm not really watching the MOVIE, just the best three minutes about 43 minutes into it. Out at 5:20 to a VERY slow Lexington train, and I finish "Lost Worlds of 2001," not terribly satisfying---a real "let's print this ANYWAY" book, and get to 101 Park at 6:05, but Ron Greenburg's not there anyway. "Smart Money" starts out fun (see DIARY 9366), but we go through all the stuff by 6:35 and then we're free. I call Art and find we're going to "Absurd Person Singular," so I leave and have a roast beef and brew at Zum-Zum, just in case he decides to have dinner beforehand, too, and at 7:05 get to the library, quite dark looking, but the reading room's open and I do research on masturbation (see DIARY 9367) until 7:45, then out to meet Art and plump, wigged, glassed Nancy at the Music Box for a very funny "Absurd Person Singular" (see DIARY 9369). Out at 10:50 and they want to try the Chateau Brazil that I turned them onto, and Nancy and I share a HUGE tureen of fejoida, Art has a great shrimp omelet (with the crisp tails that he likes) for $2, we have 4 drinks for $6, and still the bill with tip is only $20.50. Long subway delay gets me home about 2, tired.
DIARY 9372
THURSDAY, MARCH 6. Wake at 8, surprisingly, and decide to get out of bed after only 6 hours, actually feeling good. Take mental note of a dream fragment I recall (see DIARY 9370), have breakfast, try calling Cyndy and Bob Rosinek and keep getting a "circuits busy" busy signal, and no answer from Rolf. Type 7 pages of diary for just the one day, wondering if I might be going just a bit far (see DIARY 9373), and then go over to John's about 11 to seek information from EB 1911 about masturbation, and find out where he is (see DIARY 9371) and if he wants to help me with the Display book. Then immediately get into NEW YORK 4-9 (see DIARY 9394-9399), interrupted by lunch, and at least have put 3000 words down on paper for a first draft. Forget that I also watch "Nana" with Anna Sten (praised in the paper, but the whole thing is so ABORTED it's ridiculous: no mention of lesbianism; she's a good singer rather than a body, nothing about her affair with the actor, and most ridiculously, George Hughon is made the brother of MUFFAT; and she ends by shooting herself when the brothers find they both love her) from 12 to 1:30. Quite a busy day! Then have no time to shower on exercise or meditate before getting out Latham and Trans-World stuff to take in to Lauren Rubin (and wonder what's become of George Allen), and leave at 3:10 after trying to call HER and getting a "circuits busy" recorded message. There at 3:40 and it's too-well defined: "take these 8 books and make this competitive with no new ideas." We chat about DECA (Distributive Education Classroom Association, or something) and her not being in town, and I leave at 5 to get to Bob's at 5:20, and he reads "New York" and critiques it nicely (earning his percentage) until 6:45, and then he tells me about HIS early cruising (see DIARY 9374) when we leave. I wander across 55th and eat at La Fondue, good Chicken Princess Amandine for $4.50 and an OBSCENELY rich chocolate-cream cake for $1.25 for a very filling, too-expensive at $7 for everything, meal. Sell the Joffrey ticket for $2.75, just even, and the performance is disappointing (see DIARY 9375), but THERE is George ALLEN with whom I talk during intermissions (see DIARY 9376), and then talk with Marcia Siegel and Someone Harris (see DIARY 9377), and home at 11:15 to watch "Black Noon" rather effective with a whole town of Males (Salem?, get it) against poorly-acting minister Roy Thinnes (but PRETTY), 11:30-1, come, bed 1:45.
DIARY 9378
FRIDAY, MARCH 7. Up at 10, possibly even coming again (as I did one of these mornings), and type 6 pages, thinking that I'm typing too much (see DIARY 9373). Then have lunch, but don't feel like doing anything else, particularly not working, so after I go buy groceries I can't think of anything better to do than to sit in front of the TV and watch "Western Civilization" from 3 to 3:30, with a younger Anthony Hopkins playing some revolutionary in 13th century England, then watch a bit of Tai Chi Chu'an, but there's nothing sexy about either the old instructor or the students, so I turn to "Match Game," where 6 way-out panelists attempts to guess someone's filling in the blank, like Mary is so fat she need a shoehorn to fit into her blank," and some say girdle, Volkswagen, and bra. Then "Tattletales" at 4 has Glenn Ford, Milton Berle, a young comic and their wives trying to see who tells the truth more about their other half's wishes, acts, and likes. See a bit of "House of Frightenstein" and it's a comic strip with a live Vincent Price. Then watch "Conquest of Space," that I probably saw when it first came out in 1955, since it was by George Pal, but it's very poorly done, with silly human-interest overtones with the Japanese saying we must go to the planets so everyone doesn't live like the Japanese, someone as the typical Brooklyn, Irish, WASP, etc, and the trip to Mars is just a joke. Don't even feel like getting out to the New School, but I have a very late lunch and don't feel like dinner, so I leave at 7:30 and read while waiting for "For Heaven's Sake" in which Harold Lloyd roughs up toughs to get them into his new-love's missionary temple established in his name, and the chewing on the powder puff and the sponge was the best of the lot, particularly the "joke" to take the sponge OUT of his mouth: *presto* from pocket to mouth. "The Kid Brother" I'd seen the climax of on TV, the chase on the ship with the fabulous monkey walking in the heavy shoes, and the tree-climbing scene Everson told us to watch for WAS funny enough without his falling out of the tree. Home at 11 and have some eggs and get right to bed, coming soon, setting the alarm for 7 for class tomorrow at New School.