1975 2 of 8
DIARY 9379
SATURDAY, MARCH 8. Jolt awake with the alarm at 7, groggily get ready for the day without showering, and get out at 7:35 to get there at the dot of 8. Take notes (see DIARY 9380) and leave at 5:15 after calling Bob and finding that Mr. Universe is on TV. Walk there to see Lou Ferrigno winning that title, which I thought had been awarded at the Felt Forum just a few months ago, and then we start on Backgammon, me winning the first series in only two games, he leading in the second when we leave. It was a confusing evening: I called Art just by chance and found that his guests had had bad colds and left this morning. He was willing to join us for dinner, but Bob hits me with the news that he refuses to be seen in a straight restaurant with a man on Saturday, so we have to go to a gay restaurant. I shout "No," but then he suggests Company or Uncle Charlie's restaurants, neither of which I'd been to. About to decide between the two of them after we shout at each other about us BOTH taking a subway down to the 30s and then him subwaying back RATHER than we both taking a subway down to the Village, where I won't have to subway and Art won't have to subway to end up back at his place, and then Bob suggests that he WOULD eat at the Big Dish. I'd been there before, but thanked him, called Art, and said we'd meet at 10. We got there at 10:15, Bob delaying shaving to finish the game, then berating me for not calling Art, which I'd thought of but decided not to do since he was ribbing me about how much I'd been considering ART'S convenience and no one else's. My chicken marsala doesn't have any prosciutto on it, but it's good, as is Bob's beef stroganoff, but Art likes the place without liking the food. Leave about 11, wind bitingly cold, the worst I've felt in the city this winter, and we smoke, watch the end of "Fantastic Voyage" and then have sex on the floor, where he almost falls asleep and I have to drag him into bed, which is a hi-riser, and I spend the first night under his thick blankets with the sound of the wind whistling outside, and he decides he might want me to drive him to the country on Monday, since he'll be leaving on the Raffaello on Friday and won't be in the country, otherwise, for the next two weekends. Bed about 2 am.
DIARY 9386
SUNDAY, MARCH 9. Wake at 10, pad around the house in the bathrobe while Art drinks coffee which I don't feel like drinking, and finally leave at 12, feeling it's been a great waste of time. Home with the Times, which I read while eating breakfast, then finish the single crossword very quickly, read the rest of the paper, and then have lunch before getting out to the 3:30 "organizational meeting" at the Unitarian Church for the Metropolitan Community Church. They're awful people, snipping and bickering; they're money-grubbing, charging $3 for each meeting AND 50¢ for soda and beer, and it's nothing like the in-apartment meeting like I'd wanted, so I said nothing and left at 4:30 in time to get home and watch the figure-skating championships until 5:30, looking through the marvelous first issue of Advocate at the same time. Then, having showered at Art's yesterday midnight, wash and shave and get to Paul's birthday party at 6, late at 6:45, giving him the bottle of popper fluid for a present. His roommate Jim is blond and attractive but fairly stupid, and he smokes a few and leaves for bed early. Jim someone else is older and strange, lives right near Art, and Art likes him too. Danny and Hugo are twins, talking about the repression in Argentina where they come from. Little Ben is cute and sexy and a Bette Midler mimic, and is eager for sex, but handsome Stevie is "too young" for that, according to Paul, so he stops whatever there might be in the direction of sex. Art furnishes grass for the whole place, with Paul's twisted pipe and my pipe-filling, and everyone gets stoned to soporificity, but the pretzels and cheeses and his cake taste VERY good afterward, and the wine makes everyone muzzy. José and his roommate from the building are nice, but most of the younger kids I don't even meet officially, saying goodbye to ones that are leaving that I hadn't even said hello to. But Paul is still pleasant, thanking us for coming, and even my popper fluid gets a lot of go-arounds, making the whole thing quite a trip, and I feel close to being sick, but just lie back and relax and make it down the two flights of stairs with Art without any difficulty. Home about 1:30, very tired, phone near bed to get call from Art in the morning, about going to Westchester tomorrow.
DIARY 9387
MONDAY, MARCH 10. Art wakes me by calling about 9:15, and I agree to meet him at the shop at 10:45. Shower and shave and pack a bag and have breakfast and get out, trying to phone Arnie and forgetting that he'd be at TDI all day today, and get there at 10:40, saying good morning to Joyce, and we're off with chairs for Joyce's place. Stop in Pleasantville again to see if she has anything for Art, and I pick up a copy of something of H.G. Wells that I'd not even HEARD of before: "The History of Mr. Polly." Then to find that the garage-cum-room had turned into something huge and spectacular already, with Werner's brother-in-law (wife's unmarried brother) Michael truly as attractive as Art had described. I work on a bit of NEW YORK while he puts things into the laundry, and then phones Dorothy Gwynne and says that we'll be there at 2:00 (and we'd had eggs and muffins for lunch with coffee, delighting in the semi-sunlight over the still-gray woods). Out to her place, reeking of cats, who have deposited three litters in various boxes, for about 11 new ones in all, some of whom are sick and wheezing behind chairs. She sells the fan her mother, Minnie Hauk, used in the first American production of "Carmen" and some clothes, all for $20, and one of the dresses she sells for $1 he says he can clean and sell for about $65. Whew. Around to a few shops and then back to move things in and out of the car, then back to the house to work on NEW YORK and he prepares dinner, and then it starts snowing with large flakes, he makes dinner of great chicken, roast squash with lots of lemon, and broccoli, fabulous, and then we're smoking and tending to the fire and he even forgets to make the salad, but we've had oatmeal cookies toasting in front of the fire, more grass, and we get down to sex after an incredible talk after dinner (see DIARY 9388). I feel like falling asleep, and have to go for the sleeping bag at 1:30, and then get up to put out the light in the high window and the candle, but he gets up at 3:30 to put another log on the fire and wander outside in the still-snowy evening, and then we're off to sleep with the last of the fire dying in the grate, comfortable at last on the rugged, padded floor of Joyce's place because his is all dusty from the work on the garage-cum-room Werner's working on.
DIARY 9389
TUESDAY, MARCH 11. Wake about 8:30, surprised at finding Art still in bed, since he said he'd be up and doing things at dawn. Up for muffins and rondele pepper-cheese and coffee which I don't have, do a bit more on NEW YORK, and he checks with Werner and Michael and we're set to leave about 10:30. Stop in Pleasantville on the way back, and she gives him information about many other thrift shops in the close vicinity. To the shop about 12:45, closed since he's to be in at 1, since Gabor isn't going to be in today, and I subway home to find a great number of calls on the service, and phone Bob Grossman and Arnie and Alice Duskey for the proofreading job, and then watch Gabor win $550 on "The Big Showdown" but lose in the final round, while eating BREAKFAST at 2:30-3. Fertilize the plants, begin to put things away when Arnie shows up at 3:30 to pick up his camera receipt, two bottles of AN for $10, give me a toothpaste-containing toothbrush, take my desk temp/humidity indicator, and say that he's going to inquire at TDI and Four Winds about new jobs, though he's happy with the unemployment he's going to be getting. He leaves about 5:30, and I decide to have lunch then, finishing the last of a New York Magazine and a Village Voice, then get to the desk determined to do something, and start typing the first of 11 pages of the evening, each one a torture, and then get to the Advocate and send out 10 requests for porno for a total of $23, and send out three other items of mail, and then finally get through to Rolf at 10, and he tells me about his skiing with his sister in Waterville Valley in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, sort of an upper-class eastern Vail, and finally I eat dinner about 10:30, talk to Marty who says we can all support each other's classes by enrolling in them as freebies for OUR classes, though I think I might want to enroll in some writing courses with Jacobs or Offitt, and then get into bed at 11:15, much later than I would have thought, to smoke and bidi and popper and come by 12, not even tempted to eat anything since dinner was so recent, and despite the torture of the day, I actually managed to get a lot done, and it's just a matter of GETTING to it that's so difficult to do.
DIARY 9400
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 12. Up at 8:10 to listen to her bopping around upstairs, then out of bed at 8:30 to have breakfast and get to a diary page, but get caught up in the packet of stuff from the class on Saturday, and read all through the first issue (reprinted) of the New Yorker, and lots of the Writer's Digest, and other handouts, sort of deciding that it would be GOOD to take classes at the New School in writing if only as a way of finding the current markets, getting current comments about my writing, and getting a schedule to which I'd have to adhere in writing for publication. Put away the writings that I'd gotten together, file the stuff, and find that it's noon already. Bob calls and says he's coming over Saturday, Bob Grossman's going to see "Funny Lady," I go down for the mail and call Arnie to check on my paycheck and whether he wants to see the dance performance at Town Hall, but he doesn't, so I don't either. Meditate, wash dishes, exercise (in the inverse order, dammit), and have lunch about 2:15, hungry for it for a change, and then get down to finish the revision of "NEW YORK," and get so far into it that I decide it really needs another typing, and go through eight full pages of GOOD stuff (see DIARY 9401-9408), which makes another day of 10 pages, good. Then start proofreading and come up with lots more new ideas for revisions, and end up at 7 pm with a second draft that's pretty thoroughly reworked. Celia Brewer calls with a proofreading job; I call John who wouldn't take the two-week-solid job with Foreman, but would take the Brewer book if he could start on the 24th. Shower to wash my cruddy hair, and Art calls, but has a cold, so I don't offer to show him what I have at this point. Work an hour on Display from 7:35-8:35, too! George Allen and Marty Sokol call, too, and I finish dinner at 9 KNOWING that I'll want to read for the rest of the evening, so I pick up the hardcover, fragile "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow" to read from 9 to 10:35 pm, marking notes (see DIARY 9409-9410) since, at final thought, it's not good enough to keep and I'll take it down as a house gift to Don O'Shea, so I don't mark it up. Then I've exhausted my eyes and my body sufficiently so that I don't feel I have to smoke and come before bed, and get to sleep probably by 11, providing the framework for the incredible dreams until 8:45 am (see DIARY 9412-9415).
DIARY 9411
THURSDAY, MARCH 13. Up at 8:45 with an incredible set of dreams to transcribe on DIARY 9412-9415, breakfast and type more pages to get up to 8, get calls from George Allen and Marty Sokol and Rolf (see DIARY 9416) and Paul Bosten and decide to have an orgy here on Saturday night, since Arnie so obviously wants one and can't have it at his waterless apartment that's such a mess after his being away for three months. Down for the mail and try calling Rolf, and watch "Condemned" from 12 to 1:30, terribly romantic with the waters roiling as her ship pulls away, being transformed into a locomotive that brings him back to her in a ridiculously short amount of time from Devil's Island. But the effects were good for 1929, as was the sound. Then work on "Display" from 1:30 to 2:30 and start talking to Michael and try reaching John and talk to Art Bauman and try to get others for the orgy on Saturday, and then get back to work at 4:25, feeling that I've been on the phone a long time, and work until 4:55, when Rolf comes over in a dippy mood because he's been fasting for a couple of days and he says his body craves carbohydrates. He talks about his desires to analyze writing from the word, sentence, paragraph, piece, parsing levels to help his writing, and I start showing him many of the reference and textbooks and guidebooks that I have at those various levels, and finally say that I have to leave at 6:45 in order to shave and get to the Pennsylvania Ballet on time. Meet George in the lobby at 7:25 and we chat while watching, and I say hello to Joe Easter's old friend, who'd been suddenly dropped when they started talking and disagreeing about art, and to Rudy Perez, there with a cute young kid, and the program isn't nearly as bad as it was last year (see DIARY 9417). Out at 9:55 and race to the subway to try to get home and see as much of "Of Pure Blood" as I can, turning it on at 10:15 and MAYBE getting the beginning, since it seemed like it, they were in the middle of a fund-raising spiel, and it was over at 11:45. "Lebensborn": Love-source is a nice name, but it seemed to vacillate between a maternity home, a fucking agency for SS troopers, and a determined attempt to change the genetic heritage of the world---and it doesn't sound NEARLY so awful now as it must have seemed then. Think about coming, but Arnie calls at 12 and talks until 1, so I stagger tired to bed 1:15.
DIARY 9418
FRIDAY, MARCH 14. Up at 8:55 and type dreams on DIARY 9419, George Allen calls and I give him Leonard Foreman's phone number and the date of the next Brooklyn Academy dance performance, still feeling guilty about charging him $2 for the $1.25 ticket, but charging him $2 for the NEXT also will mean that I only lost $1 by not selling the two other tickets, which isn't bad. And George doesn't seem to mind. Have breakfast and over to Arnie's to show him the revised NEW YORK article, and he gives some great suggestions, saying frankly at the same time that he doesn't see it winning any of the prizes because it isn't personal enough and it's limited because of its specialized sex so far in the past. I guess I agree with him, but want to discipline myself to finish it anyway. And I guess I'd like Art to read it and Bob to read it one last time, too. He looks at the Advocate, gives me Rokeach soap, suggests I stay for lunch, orders tickets for "Do I Hear a Waltz?" free on his ELT subscription, gives me Maté tea, candy, and I leave, shockingly late, at 2 pm. Home to find the manuscript for proofreading, which John looks at and says it'll be $95 for what's there and $6 per hour for editing. I phone Rolf who says HE'LL send away for TWO applications from 2 banks and John Casarino and the duo on 19th Street for the orgy and start the first few pages of Ellis's "How to Master Your Fear of Flying," call Bob Rosinek to tell him to bring grass tomorrow, and then type 2 pages and this fragment, staggered that it's 4:25 at this moment and I haven't really done ANYTHING yet! Then waste time until I start on DISPLAY from 4:45 to 6:45, have dinner, and subway to Larry Richardson's space on 14th Street for the first dance performance I've seen there: Gus Solomon's group doing "Steady Work." 14th Street has become Spanish-telephone heaven, as helmeted workmen change shifts while still trying to get the phones back in order from the fire over two weeks ago. The performance is pretty awful (see DIARY 9420) but at least it's over at 9. Michael got there at 8:05, pissing me off, and then gives me one of his DTF tickets in exchange for MY ticket. Subway home, finish "The Creation of the Universe" waiting for "Hello Dali" on TV at 10, a FABULOUS "Mr. Axelford's Angel" until 11:45, then "The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll" with the sexy-handsome Paul Massie (pronounced mass-EYE) until he bared a flabby chest. Bed at 1, no come STILL YET!
DIARY 9421
SATURDAY, MARCH 15. Wake about 8 and strip the sheets from the bed to air the thing before its double usage today. Then decide to use candlelight for the evening and get out the candles and meditate about how to use them, and finally hammer nails through a wooden stick to support them, then nail the stick to a plank to steady it, and it works beautifully, even thinking of soaking the candle ends in hot water before forcing them down on the nails to pre-form the holes. Feel proud of that. Wash the dishes (no, only after Bob left) and dust the furniture, deciding to leave the vacuuming to afterward, which is VERY wise, since there's fluff all over the place when it's all over. Decide just how the evening's going to be, and finally by 11:30 I'm ready for work on DISPLAY, not even judging that I have enough time to type out the diary pages. Work from 11:30 to 12:15, and Bob Rosinek arrives ALREADY (of course I showered and shaved and brushed my teeth before that, too, drying my hair into a huge pouf of fluffiness, which Bob said "If you play around with it, you might get some style into it.") and we talk about his problems, I suggest lunch, but the $1.39 white albacore smells horrible and nothing I can do with it can make it flavorful, just have to keep getting LIGHT tuna rather than white, and he doesn't even eat half of his. We smoke some of his joints (1½) and then put on "Tubular Bells" and get into some of the most incredible sex ever (see DIARY 9422). Then he lays around (having said "It feels like a vacation being here.") while I think about all the things I have to do, but only Bill Wolf calls to let him know anything's going on this evening. He leaves about 5:30, I do the dishes, fix up the apartment for the evening, and settle down to DISPLAY between 6:15 and 8, having worked a total of 11 hours and gotten MORE than the 11 first-draft pages looking pretty good. Went through about half the references adding anything I'd forgotten. Then shower again and have dinner of ham and eggs, since I have nothing better, and settle down to watch the profile of Beverly Sills on TV from 9 to 9:30, at which INSTANT Arnie buzzes in, then Bill Wolf and Rolf arrive, and things start going about 10:15 (see DIARY 9423). Frank Gerrity (see DIARY 9424). Arnie brings me the Times at 2:30, I start both puzzles, resort to eating peanut butter, bed at 2:55 am.
DIARY 9425
SUNDAY, MARCH 16. Wake at 9, feeling somewhat sore of cock, and laze until 10, when I finish the last of the milk for breakfast and start drinking the rest of the wine in glasses and putting away two cans of beer that people started and didn't finish. Work on the puzzles for a bit, until the double crostic becomes so intractably wrong that I can't possibly devote the time to finishing it, so I tear it into little pieces and dump it into the toilet, where the red candle wax from last night is still dripped over everything when the matches stupid people had left in the bowl caught fire and sent up black smoke and sent down red wax onto the green carpet. Watch Richard Lester (rather cute) on Camera Three from 11 to 11:30, read the paper some more, then watch Beverly Sills "In Profile" from 12:15 to 1:45 while reading the paper and finishing the crossword, then watch the "World's Strongest Man Weightlifting contest," not much fun since they're not HANDSOME, just HUGE, and then watch the end of "Souls at Sea" for the explosions and fire, while telling Bob Grossman to turn it on, too. Then (after having lunch) get down to DISPLAY from 3:05 to 6:05, and I finish putting in everything that's needed and even manage to type the first three of the final pages, very confident that I'll have about 20 final pages of GOOD stuff tomorrow. Good! Then Marty calls at 6:10, as I'm shaving, to say HE has 2 tickets to the "Idomeneo," so I try calling Arnie, Bob G., Michael, Sergio, and Avi, but get no's or no answers, so I call him back, then leave too late at 6:25, missing a train, and get off at 7:05, into the lobby to hear the music and "It's just started." Think someone's in my seat, but they're not, and at intermission THERE'S George Allen again! They and I think it's a bore (see DIARY 9426) and I'm glad I have just one opera ticket left for the rest of the year. Out as scheduled at 10, home by 10:30, but the pledge-week fuss on Channel 13 delays "Monty Python" until I make dinner of Treet, and watch that until 11:15, come quickly and softly and copiously by 12, then up to listen very stoned, to MORE of "Tubular Bells" and I LOVE it, and finally get to bed at 1, without having done ANYTHING about cleaning up the apartment from the horrible mess that they left it in.
DIARY 9427
MONDAY, MARCH 17. Up at 8:30 and immediately type the dream I just had on DIARY 9428, which is a good thing, since when I look at the page in the evening, I quite forgot I TYPED it, let alone remembering that I HAD a dream, let along let ALONE remembering what it was all about. Have some eggs for breakfast without bread, which surprisingly goes down pretty well (and there goes another limitation!), and work on DISPLAY from 9:10 to 9:25, then fix up the apartment a tiny bit, and work straight through from 10 to 2, finishing up the typing, delighted that it's gone to all of 24 pages for $240, and have lunch, shower, phone to see that she's in, find a movie that I want to see in the Village Voice, and leave about 2:45 and get there at 3:25, actually early, and Dick Sime drops in again (I have to remember to SEE him when I go, since he's responsible for LOTS of money for me---not to mention that he's a nice guy, too), Lauren starts reading my first page and says "This starts out very well," and I say "That was my worst worry, the rest of it I wasn't concerned about," and she reads farther to say "This is excellent," and I put down what I was browsing through, and she exclaims "This is marvelous; I'm so happy I found you, you did exactly what I'd hoped you'd do; I don't think there's going to be any problem at all." So I ask her my list of questions, she suggests I add activities and might have to delete some of the longer words, and laughs "You really went AT it," when I say there's one 36-word sentence. She asks how long I took and I say "30 hours, about" when it was ACTUALLY 16 of WRITING and 4 of fussing around with it, so that's $15/hour for WRITING, $12/hour for EVERYTHING, and $8/hour from HER viewpoint, which is probably pretty good, so she's content that I'm being paid well enough---saying future chapters will go faster! Out at 4:30, meeting Ginny Croft in the hall, see a piece of the St. Patrick's Day parade crossing Fifth Avenue to subway, to Ron Tiekert to get 13 OYOs (On Your Own), stay there till 6:30, down to see "Film: The Art of the Impossible," "Stuntman," and "Special Effects" at the library, long wait in a subway with switching problems (Bob G later says people were held up 2 hours), home at 9 to have dinner, type 8 diary pages, finish "How to Master Your Fear of Flying" and update the opera list from 10:45 to 1:30: ridiculous, but NEAT!
DIARY 9429
Tuesday, march 18. Up at 8:45 and fix apartment up quite thoroughly. Out to the supermarket about 9:20 and back for breakfast, then get down to work on the "On Your Own" (OYO) project for New Century steadily from 10:40 to 1:25, not even finishing them, and they DO take a lot of time. Call Ron and find I'm not to go in today, so call Lauren and she's not ready either. Eddie calls and wants AN, so he might have to pick up from me when I'm working tomorrow. Type 1 page, have lunch, then start the tedious job of scraping off the wax from the drips from the candle in the bathroom from the orgy. Get the front part reasonably clean, then take up the rear section and into the kitchen for a series of three scrapes, waiting for the wax to cool and become brittle after it's been heated by my rubbing into a sticky glue. Then vacuum the carpets for what APPEARS to be the first time this year, and I guess it COULD be, though I hope not. At least I ran the carpet sweeper when I got THAT. Then it's clean enough (the rug) and I put it back down and the apartment looks "together" for the first time in ages. Playing music throughout, and it seems the woman upstairs might not like it, since she clump-clump-clumps through the ENTIRE afternoon. At least the two black dogs that barked sporadically from the roof next door for two nights are gone. Thank God! Then wash dishes, get the socks ready to wash, get the laundry ready to take out, and then shave and shower while the hash is baking in the oven along with the Aunt Jemima coffeecake, which turns out so dreadful that I'm almost tempted to write back and get my money returned. Try calling Jim about the porno, but there's no answer. Get out at 7:15 and get to the City Center just at 7:50, and there's a huge crowd, and Bob said he was watching the premiere of "Tommy" across the street at the Ziegfeld. Upstairs to see Arnie in the SAME row, he bought the ticket downstairs for only $3. Give Bob $10, which with the $3.50 for the tickets, amounts to the $13.50 of the ticket he ordered for me for "Chicago" with him. The program is pretty bad (see DIARY 9430), out at 10:30 and debate where to eat, but eat nowhere since we can't agree on pizza or ice cream. Home at 11:15 and come nicely, not fitting into the old parsley bottle, then listen to "Tubular Bells" and get GREAT feelings (see DIARY 9431), eat too much, and get to bed at 1:30.
DIARY 9433
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 19. Up at 9, breakfast, type four pages, and get to the last of the OYOs at 10:45, working to 11:15 (showered, too), then out to unemployment at 11:27 to a VERY long line, but it moves quickly and I'm out at 11:40, told to come back in two weeks, and then the week following THAT is my LAST! Subway to New Century, buy pills at Falk, and still get in at 12:15, early, and Ron isn't ready for me yet, so I just give him the OYOs and go out to lunch at 12:30, down to the Red Flame Coffee Shop that I noted as being new on the west side of Park, and have sole that's overdone and of strange consistency, and then have DREADFUL gas through the rest of the afternoon at work. There's more to proofreading the OYOs than Ron thought, and I've barely gotten into the FIRST one, what with reading all the conflicting specifications, by 4 pm, when I have to leave to get to Lauren and Chapter 2 of Display. Out to find it POURING rain, and I duck downstairs and grab the subway---going DOWNTOWN. Disgusted, but ride down to 14th, wait about 10 minutes for the LL across to 6th, then up to the concourse under Rockefeller Center, thus not getting wet during the rest of the trip. She's cut Chapter 1 into TWO chapters, still saying that it's excellent, but she wants BOTH chapters in by THURSDAY, since they're closed on Friday. I say OK, chat with Dick Sime on the phone, who says that Ginny Croft saw the back of BARRY LENNER'S head, and HE's freelancing at Mc-H, too! Out at 5:45 and across to 7th in the rain to catch the RR up to 59th and 3rd, then walk down to give the two more bottles to Eddie for $10, chat for a bit, then down to Bob's at 5:15, and we play some Backgammon which I win some and HE wins some, but when I keep TRACK of the doubles, I get more than HE does. Hmm! Then at 7:30 I call Jim from the Advocate, and he asks us to come over this evening, so we get there at 8:20, look at the stuff until 10:20, and it's pretty much like mine, but I buy 20 slides @ 35¢ and a book for $1 and 14 pictures for 15¢ for $10.10. Out to Country Cousin and have the not-so-good chicken Cordon Bleu for $4.95, he creams over cutie at the next table, and we leave at 11:40, I subway home and come (almost in spice jar) over the new stuff, eating too much AGAIN, and to sleep at 1 after MORE music on the hi-fi tires me out completely.
DIARY 9434
THURSDAY, MARCH 20. Up at 8:30 and have breakfast, look through the notes from Lauren on the DISPLAY book, look through the mail from yesterday and do some other things, then to New Century by 11:45 to work to 1:45 on the editing of the xeroxes of the boards of the OYOs, then, realizing that I'm not going to be finished by the time Dave Cradle gets in at 4, out across the street to eat lunch at the Sacred Flame Coffee Shop, a VERY good bacon-cheeseburger for only $1.40 or something, but AGAIN in the afternoon I get an impossibly gassy case of indigestion, and I'm wondering if I might not have a touch of some kind of flu. Finish about 4:30, and Tom'd called Dave telling him not to come in. I leave at 5:10, putting in a bill for the finishing of that project, and get home to finish the last pages of "The World Set Free" in the subway and at home. Message from Rolf, so I call him and he'd like to see the slides I bought last night, so I say that he can call anytime in the evening and come over if he decides he's finished enough work for the evening. I finish "Sound and Foam," not nearly as good as "The Prophet," though there are a few things I underline, and then get to "Basic Drug Manufacture," seeing that there's STILL not really a chance to manufacture anything in the book since most of the ingredients are controlled. Then Rolf calls at 10 and says he'll be over, and I delay him until I can take a shower, feeling very gritty from coming TWICE this morning in some sort of frenzy of feeling over the new porno, and figure I won't be participating with him much. Also managed to get out yesterday's diary page, but then fell the farthest behind in a long time when I'm typing THIS page all of FOUR days after it happened. He's over at 10:30, agrees with most of the pictures that I'd gotten, and he glances through the Advocate and all the ads that I'd sent for, AND at the first response to the 10 ads, a perfectly dreadful selection of folders from California. Then he strips and I get the slides out, and we're into another incredible evening (see DIARY 9435), interrupted when the guy downstairs comes to ring at 1:30, saying the music is too loud, and Rolf finally leaves at 3, and I haven't come, but have been so hard so long I feel exhausted sexually anyway. WHAT a LAY he is.
DIARY 9436
FRIDAY, MARCH 21. Up wide-awake at 8:05, and shave and shower and get out early enough to get to NC at 9:30. Still some things to finish up on the xeroxes, then Tom asks me to lunch at 1:05, and we're over to Munk's Place where he has THREE drinks to my one, but the fish and chips are LUSCIOUS, and my Bloody Mary lets us talk about myself and my strange relationship with Bob Grossman without sex, about his 15-year relationship with his Swedish friend that he met on the street who currently does I forget what, and about my former thing with John and my current thing with Art. Back at 2:30 and start typing the specifications after getting everything in some kind of outline, and finish at 5, asking someone to look at it, but they're all busy, so I finish by 5:30, saying that I'll call next week but will be very busy, and get off as quickly as I can over to Peerless to price a 1019 spindle for only $9, and have information where to get it or telephone about it, and then subway up to The Symposium Restaurant at 6:05, meeting them there, and we start with the great assorted appetizer platter, then I have relatively plain mousaka, Bob has what he says is great shish kebab, and Arnie has the still VERY lemony mezedakia. Three honeyed desserts, and we're talking until 7:30, when it's time to get down to "Do I Hear a Waltz?" at ELT, with the same dreary theater but somewhat brighter paint job, and the same kind of VERY hard-trying people: the GOOD ones you feel sorry for for having to appear in such straitened circumstances, the BAD ones you're embarrassed for when they sing off key or act like high school students in their class play. It's not bad, with everyone agreeing that Rosalind Harris looks like she MIGHT be Rosalind Kind, Barbra Streisand's sister, but she's not. Out at 11 to call Art again to say that Arnie and Bob WON'T accept his invitation down for a chat, and I get down quickly at 11:20, kiss him welcome, he's had a poor voyage because there was a lot of roughness at sea, didn't order tiles though he loved them (too heavy), and didn't have a chance to do any snorkeling or find me any shells. We smoke, chat, have a good sex session at which he comes bounteously, then I'm totally exhausted at 2, drop off to sleep even before he crawls into bed, feeling good to be with him.
DIARY 9437
SATURDAY, MARCH 22. Wake at 9 with some cousin of his calling to say he'll be in town, then others call, including his sister, who says that their party is Sunday from 1-5, so he wants to go up to the country after his commercial tryout on Monday at 10:30 am, and I read his thing for the New York Magazine contest, and he wrote the second section in two sittings on the ship, and they flow much easier and are much more unified than his earlier struggles about school and work, seeing as he's into the theater stuff that I thought he wanted to write about. Finally it comes out that he WANTS to do what the FIRST thing was about, and the theatrical thing of the Music Hall and the Roxy and the Kiss Room would then be some sort of fluff, so I say that he has to decide between being LONG and SERIOUS, and giving himself a deadline and finishing this piece of fluff. He'll think about it. It goes on for a LONG time, but his sister opens the shop and it's quickly 1:45, when I leave, reading, and get home at 2:30 to have BREAKFAST, determined to make a good day out of it, but I don't FEEL like writing, so I settle down to read, deciding on "Flush," and take down notes on THAT since I'm not about to mark up a first edition that may have a high sales value (see DIARY 9438). That takes a couple of hours, and then I just CAN'T keep my hands off my cock, so I smoke bidis and come with the porno, pulling down the shades and looking at slides until I just concentrate on the highly stimulating book that I got from Jim: "Hand Job." Then want to type diary pages but I don't even feel like doing THAT, feeling dreadful, and get into Halliburton's book about his following of Ulysses. Then stop at 8 (had lunch about 6, too---but it didn't go anywhere toward making the day more productive) to watch the TV version of "Pagliacci" conducted and directed by Von Karajan very effectively, but I don't care that much for OPERA anymore, and then I put on the pork chops when that's over at---NO, watch "Art is..." until 10 and then "Family at War" with the sexy son in "Hazard" from 10 to 11, and THEN put on the chops while I go out for the Times, and read the WHOLE thing after working BOTH puzzles, getting in bed VERY tired at 2, not even having to jerk off to be tired enough to fall asleep the instant my head hits the bed.
DIARY 9439
SUNDAY, MARCH 23. Up at 10, determined to at least get to the Asia House exhibit of the Rockefeller bequest to them, and eat and shower and wash my hair, and John rings to give me a copy of "Diary of 'Light'" that he wants me to proofread. I watch Richard Lester on Camera Three from 11 to 11:30, then get engrossed in the book and keep on reading, stopping for lunch and for the Wide World of Sports, that talks about the skating championship but they only show ONE Russian skating VERY unexcitingly (he won first prize because he didn't make any mistakes, and the Canadian Toller Cranston came in fourth, which should show, per Bob Grossman, how awful the competition IS) and spend lots of time on double-lane downhill ski races, the Ali-Wepner weigh-in, and other non-goodies that permits me to read the book in the interim. Get John over to listen to some of the notes (WAIT, I DID get out at 12:45 to Asia House, loved the exhibit so much I later GOT the ear-guided tour for $1 and BOUGHT the catalog, mainly for one wooden Buddha and the "man from mars" in Jomon style, returning home by 3:30) and he doesn't care when I question WHAT he says, but he likes my corrections of spelling and SOME of style. Watch "The Crab Nebula" on Nova, and I guess I DID watch part of it before, then watch "Vienna 1900, Games of Love and Death" by Arthur Schnitzler, because Arthur Ostrin said they were good, but I got quite bored by the story itself, being the second part of "A Confirmed Bachelor." Then at 9:30 they show pieces of "Hearts and Minds," anti-Vietnam film, but also lots of junk, and I keep on reading, then watch "Flying Circus" from 10:30 to 11, and finally finish the book. Dinner and smoke and come with great stonedness with Rolf's grass and bidis, and up at 1 to watch "The Man Who Wanted to Live Forever" which seems like a TV pilot again, with Stuart Whitman as a doctor coming to meet Sandy Dennis as another doctor in Canada, where Burl Ives has set up a clinic seemingly ONLY to insure himself an endless supply of hearts and tissues and organs among the people working there. NEAT idea, but it was stupidly done, though it could have made a GREAT series for thinking people, none of whom seem to watch TV or be interested in any of its series. Finally fall into bed at 3.
DIARY 9440
MONDAY, MARCH 24. Up at 9, breakfast, get the book back to John with great thanks, and call Tom to say that I'll be in on Wednesday, after I call Ron Greenburg and he says I should come in on Wednesday at 11, so I can be in the neighborhood. Pack a suitcase with papers and stuff for Art's, then get out the clothes to be washed, leave a "Happy Birthday" message on Arnie's phone unit, type four pages, and then start watching "We Live Again" at noon. The "best version of Tolstoy's 'Resurrection,' beautifully handled" turns out to start with the soupy farm days with everyone singing in Russian, going to newly floored churches with lots of incense, sowing with extras chosen from the Slavic files, and filmed in the south to make it look like the poor sweeping lands of Russia. Then Art calls at 12:30 to say he's ready, and I leave about 12:45 after dressing too warmly, get to Joyce's at 1:20, and request that they turn on TV, and I watch the last segment where HE goes off with HER, and there's nothing LIKE the altruistic end of the book, so how good a version could it be? Leave about 1:45, taking stuff from the apartment and from the shop, stopping on the way up in the closed Pleasantville shop and getting in about 3:30, after eating a FABULOUS Black Mountain ham and Pyrenees cheese sandwich for $1.95 and a delicious, highly-overpriced pecan tart for $1.25 (and Art has a curried tuna sandwich for $1.50), so that whole things is $4.95, a bit much, but GOOD. It's raining a bit, so I get down to work, working from 3:50 to 6:30 with only a BIT of side-talk with Art, who DOES want to chat, and then he builds a fire, I look at the surroundings, particularly the funny white ooze from a downed tree, and we smoke and he makes broiled steak SMOTHERED in garlic and "Polish potatoes" which are almost black spuds fried in olive oil, soggy and dark, and a vinegary artichoke-heart salad. Smoke more, watch the fire, listen to music, chat about the New York pieces and about our lives, then I start doing him and never get above the waist, we don't even KISS, though he touches me a lot through the evening. Then I'm tired, it's about 1 am, and he unpacks the bed to find that it lacks sheets, I crawl in, he stays up for a bit, and then I'm almost instantly asleep, not even concerned about not having come.
DIARY 9441
TUESDAY, MARCH 25. Wake at 8 with the light coming in, get up about 8:30, he has coffee and I have nothing, and then we're out pretty quickly to do the errands: shopping at a couple of places, and I pick up slide trays for 50¢ apiece, or $5 for 10 of them, which I hope is a good bargain (not to mention that I hope they WORK). Take in my typewriter to be fixed, don't bother to buy butter, and stop to fill up the rear tire when it seems to be VERY low. Back home at 1 and he warms up the steak and serves that with a raw salad of lettuce and raw mushrooms, and I'd worked before from 1:30 to 1:45, and after from 2:30 to 3:30, and it seems I WILL be finished by Thursday. Then help him move some furniture into the newly-finished bedroom, pluck some old buds off the rhododendron bushes, go down to look at the goldfish and the pussy willows around the pond that he wished he could buy, get out later to look at the two legs of the rainbow in the sunny-rainy sky, and discover that the tire is totally flat now. He calls AAA while I work from 4:45 to 5:45, essentially finishing the whole thing except for the cutting and typing and pasting, though it isn't in as good a shape as the FIRST chapter of the DISPLAY book that I TURNED in. AAA calls at 6:30 to say that they're lost, Art curses them, and finally we're ready to leave about 6:45, I having stuffed everything into the one suitcase, so he finally gives me the two cuttings of the begonia that's so gorgeous in his window. Drive home in the mushy-feeling car, getting darker, under the West Side Highway in pitch black, and out of the car at 8 and home at 8:30, having called John, who was having dinner at 7:30, to hear that people are coming between 8 and 9, and Sergio doesn't show up until 10. Wash and shave and put some stuff away and get over at 9, still suffering a bit from the SEVERE diarrhea I seem to have gotten from the steak, but Sergio says he can't eat raw mushrooms, so I try JOHN'S in the salad and get NO adverse effects. Odd. He starts with GREAT oxtail soup with parsnips, then turkey (dry white meat) with a good white sauce and FABULOUS pine nut stuffing, cranberry sauce, the mushroom and endive salad, and then the INCREDIBLY DELICIOUS Oz Hat, which I type the recipe for Bob Pierce (and the party's work noting, see DIARY 9442), can't sleep at 1:30, up at 2 to come DELIRIOUSLY until 3 (see DIARY 9443); sleep.
DIARY 9444
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26. Put my finger down to the alarm JUST before it goes off, and it's not even 8, but BEFORE that, and my finger lingered as close to four seconds as I could estimate. Amazing! What sense would THAT be? Up and breakfast and get out at 8:40 after leaving the cutting with John and calling Jo Roc and giving the name of Stepdesign to John (who says he might not take it, and he doesn't call; but I do and give them MY number for LATER jobs), and get to work at 9:15. Tom and I go over the specs, and I can't believe his total UNcaring about content and total FUSSINESS over the particular phrasing of a statement. Have to leave at 10:55 to get down (up) to 40th and Ron Greenburg (see DIARY 9445), then back at 11:45 to call Bob Grossman, Springer (no answer), Lauren Rubin to say I'll be in on Thursday at 4, Art (no answer), and Michael, who had a nice time in LA. Back to work at 12:15, calling it 12, and give the thing to be typed after putting down examples, and they give me 25 OYOs to copyedit-check, and the person who did the original work that was so awful was VI WIENER! Oh! Leave at 1:45, leaving the specs on Tom's desk, home to get a note from John saying he apologizes for being so indecisive about taking work, have lunch, clean out the receipts from the supermarkets to find that I have them dated from June through February for $285, about, for 240 days, but $1 a day is patently impossible since I can easily spend $18 every week when I'm eating in all the time. But the average of the 20 slips is a staggering $14+. Then decide to subscribe to Psychoenergetic Systems and the Soho Weekly News and send off checks to them, unpack and put the dishes away, and get to cutting and typing and pasting Chapter 1 of DISPLAY from 6:15 to 9:30, so the whole thing will take about 12 (or 18, to them) hours, which sounds about right, but it's just not as GOOD as the first chapter was at the start. Dinner of smelly pork chops somewhat pink after cooking for 40 minutes, then smoke at 10:30 and get VERY hard with slides in the new tray, but Arnie calls at 11:15 and I'm down by the time I watch the "Superparty for Tommy" from 11:30 to 1, then I'm nodding, nearly napping, and get right to bed and to sleep, and Roger Daltry's FACE might be homely, but his BOD is NEAT!
DIARY 9446
THURSDAY, MARCH 27. Up at 8, surprisingly, and have breakfast and put away all the NC stuff for later---Tom calls to say that I can have it in on Tuesday, which is fine since I'm worried about the New York Magazine stuff and Bill's visit. Then type two pages, and get into the DISPLAY chapter 2 cutting and pasting from 9:45 to 11:45, gratifyingly short, since I thought it might be as long as THREE hours. Don't even bother to see if I have everything there---leave it up to Rubin. Then make a grocery list for tonight, and find that I don't have but $20, which won't be enough, and have to go to the bank first. Out at 12, long line moves fast at the bank, and get groceries, pleased that the supermarket has BOTH kinds of nuts that I need for the Oz Hat. Back at 1 and have lunch, then shave and shower and get out to McGraw-Hill at 3:15, getting to talk to Dick Sime a bit before Lauren gets out of a meeting at 4:05, and she looks and says the chapters look fine: most of the things I'm worried about will be the problem of the copyeditor, and she says she KNOWS of the temptation to think that a writer can be a perfect editor at the same time, but she says it's not really possible, so I feel better. She gives me Chapter 3 and we three chat for a bit, and then I leave at 5:05, anxious to get home and cooking. Art calls at 6:10 while I'm trying to cream the sugar and egg yolks, having met John going TO the subway and asking to borrow his mixer. He wants to come "within the hour" but I panic, saying I thought he'd be here at 7:30, and he DOES come at 7:30, which lets me finish the cake and finish with MOST of the chicken preparation before he enters with the salad stuff. The cake isn't done after 30 minutes, but after 45 it's STILL moist in the center and overdone at the edges. And it's expanded, too. And then it comes apart as I try to take it out of the pan, messing up completely, and I put it up to cool, terribly saddened. The chicken finishes well, we settle to eat at 9, chatting past 10:30, have salad, but I get water in the icing, making it impossible to harden, so I put it in the fridge, we watch Geraldo Rivera and a report on the JFK two-shot probability, with gasps from the audience at the second bullet, from 11:30 to 1, then have sex, rather quickly since I'm tired, and getting a cold, then at 2:30 test the frosting and it's HARD, so I frost it and we EAT it before 3, getting stuffily to bed then. Whew!
DIARY 9447
FRIDAY, MARCH 28. Wake at 7:30, feel him sleeping next to me, and then we talk for a bit and up at 8:30, making him coffee, and I'd read through his story the night before, and I get to typing it in rough draft so we can look at it, and then we start correcting it about 10, after I have breakfast and he has some cereal too, and call Arnie at 11 to arrange for lunch at 12:30 at the Peking Palace, and we don't quite get finished by 12:30, so we're late, and there's Arnie walking toward us on the street. In and get items 1, 2, and 3, the vegetables smallest and worst, the chicken flavorful but too little, and the shrimp best of the lot, but still rather bland. The conversation is a bit stilted, but we manage to get through the meal OK, then to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream cones (at 40¢, a new high) for dessert, and then back for more of the cake for a SECOND dessert. Art and I finish going through his while Arnie reads it, and he comes up with the SAME suggestions that I did: cut out the school part, get to the entertainment section quicker. But STILL Art doesn't, though he's delighted at the attention. Both have another piece of cake, and various coffees and teas, and I'm dirtying more dishes today than I did yesterday. Then at 3:30 I turn on the "Harlequin" again, Arnie watches, napping, until he leaves at 4:05, and then Art leaves at 4:15, and I finish watching it, then sit and watch more TV just from laziness, and moving stuff from the table discovered that Art's left his grass here. Can't resist, so I smoke, look at slides, and come GLORIOUSLY (see DIARY 94661) with the tightest-up balls ever, and then it's 7:15 and I shave quickly and get out to Fashion Institute at 7:45 to meet Bob and see the INCREDIBLE performance by Kathy Posin, Lance Westergard, and the fabulously beautiful Ricky Schussel (see DIARY 9448). Out at 10, saying goodnight to Bob, ostensibly I'm going home to work on my New York article. But in and feel like jerking off again, so I select the best slides from the first tray that I put together (after talking to Rolf, who's had an abscess lanced in his armpit) and some new ones, and come in the "grabbing everything-I-can't-STAND it" model (see DIARY 9461) exhaustingly, and get to sleep with the apartment in shambles about me at 1 am, having to work HARD tomorrow.
DIARY 9462
SATURDAY, MARCH 29. Up at 8:30, fertilize the plants, have breakfast, and get down to revising my story for New York Magazine for the third time. Then Art calls and I say I'm typing his, and he wants to come over to read his final version and my worked-over version this afternoon, but Joyce doesn't get back to the shop and they're very busy, so he never DOES get here, deciding he has to go up with her this evening in the station wagon because she can't unload the thing herself, and I think he's being very selfish, but there's nothing I can say to him. He'll be back Sunday sometime and look over both things, so I'll have to put it into the mailbox on Sunday evening to make sure it gets there Monday or at LEAST Tuesday, since the "Deadline is March 31" is so vague on the entry form. I get busy typing Art's thing, making him a copy and myself a copy, since there's as much of my encouragement in it as there is his writing (see DIARY 9449-9459), and then get to mine. Bob Grossman calls about 4 with nothing to do, but he doesn't want to come over to read my thing this evening. Arnie's tied up so he won't be able to read my thing again, either. Lunch in there somewhere, and finally I get to the 8-page retype of my piece, glad to see that it's again increased to about 2950 words with all the things I've been adding about how I FELT, and then it's about 9. I have dinner, convinced that if Bill comes in after this, he will have eaten dinner, and then finish reading Halliburton's "The Glorious Adventure" and type up the page on that (see DIARY 9460) and another page I'd forgotten, and change the calendar entry to read that I typed 15 diary pages today, plus the 8 from my story, so it's no wonder that by 10 I feel that I've had a full day. Out for the Times, leaving a note for Bill, and I'm just getting into it when he comes in at 10:30, having been left off somewhere around Canal Street after getting lost for about an hour in the Bronx. He states early on "I brought nothing for you," and he looks ghastly in clothes too big for him, his paleness, and his increasing baldness that's bared the entire center of his head. We talk until about 2, then he prefers the sofa, I give him the stuff, the apartment is starting to look even more of a mess, and I get to bed with earplugs.
DIARY 9463
SUNDAY, MARCH 30. Regret through the day that no one remembered it is my birthday. Bill said something about going to Mass at St. John the Divine, and I even find in the Voice that it's at 11, and we're up at 9:45, I make a bowl of farina intended to serve 6, and we're finished at 10:30, but he says that's too late to get to the Cathedral. So we talk some more about his depression and decision to inquire about Gurdjieff's schools in Virginia through Amy Chasen, and then he says he wants to go to the Museum even though the restaurant isn't open today, so we subway off about 11:30 and get there about 12:15. Up the stairs and through the Momoyana after dawdling at the permanent Chinese vases, and I decide to get the guided tour for $1.50 that he doesn't want, and there are some nice things, but I decide not to get the catalog. Then look to see what else will be leaving soon, find that the "Great Wave" about the influence of Japanese prints on American and European art seems to be mostly imaginary except in some rare cases where actual possession and study of certain prints is proved, and then laugh through the scrawlings of the homosexual Bacon collection, grin through the glistening surfaces and surface pathos of the Victorian Academicians. Had seen the bronzes from Southeast Asia. Then the only thing I haven't seen is the costume collection, so Bill's to sit in the restaurant lounge and I'm to meet him at 3:15, but I see ALL the Garbos and Dietrichs and Norma Shearers and Rita Hayworth and Lana Turner and Hedy Lamarrs and Mary Pickfords and Marilyn Monroes and Mae Wests and Judy Garlands and Audrey Hepburns and Vivian Leighs and one Elizabeth Taylor and many "The Swan" from Grace Kelly for a GOOD show, and to Bill at 3:20, and we're to the subway to look on Court Street and find Pierre's Falafel, where we have Shawerma, shish kebab, hommos, baba ganough, and he has coffee, baklava AND apricot pudding for dessert. Then back by way of browsing in the Warlock Shop and other bakeries, back at 5:45 and Art comes over about 7, Rolf comes over to borrow $10, Bill reads the thing and says there's little emotion in it, Art changes a few things in his typescript, says I didn't say how I FELT about any of the shows, which was true, and then while they talk I finish "First Day" (see DIARY 9464-9475) till 11, out to mail it, Art can't stand coffee shops, only thing open, eat to 12, back to talk to 1, then I'm tired and go to bed.
DIARY 9476
MONDAY, MARCH 31. Up at 8:30 and Bill's started making the farina this time, and when he finishes he says he wants to go out to the used-book district around 4th Avenue, so he goes and I start in on editing 24 OYOs for New Century that I have to take in tomorrow, and they go somewhat quicker than I thought, but not as quickly as I'd hoped. Work from 9:45 to 1:30, stopping many times to talk on the phone to various people, and then watch a fabulous production of Bach's B-Minor Mass from 1:30 to 4, eating lunch, watching the deadpan Karl Richter conduct perfected matched soprano and mezzo, pretty tenor, and beautiful Hermann Prey with tears in his eyes giving the Latin Ss a Germanic Z sound in the Rococo church of Diessen-am-Ammersee near Munich, with a great camera angle of vibrating tympanum-head reflecting vibrating church window. Work from 4:05 to 6:30 on the OYOs, finished in 5.5 hours of work, deciding that I should bill him for 9.5 hours, or about $12 per hour. Then Bill comes up with the mail and I get THREE things from the Advocate, none of them very good, but there are only two pieces left to get now. Decide we'll have the chicken here tonight, and I ask him if he wants it heated, and since it doesn't matter, I leave it cold, cooking some corn for vegetables. He meticulously picks off all the sour cream and then scoops it all up in his fingers, and already his eating habits are driving me up the wall: slurping over every bit of food, humming deep in his throat in his loneliness, even when he shaves, burping and cleaning his teeth as if I weren't in the room, and generally getting on my already frayed nerves. Ray and Christy had called during the day, too, and he kept making all sorts of phone calls without once asking me, nor do I think he called collect or billed them to HIS number. So they'll show up on MY bill! He paid only for dinner ($1.50) last night. I look through the books he's bought and talk about my questions, and he seems not so much to answer them as to sit in authority, and I can't really get anything out of it. Play him the "Tubular Bells," which before he's seen the title, says "I like bells!" and then there's nothing to do, so I skim more of the Times, work both puzzles while he reads, and then tumble into bed at 1 while he stays awake even later.
DIARY 9477
TUESDAY, APRIL 1. Wake about 8:45, he's still asleep, and have cold cereal for a change and get out at 9:25 before he's even out of bed. To New Century at 10, Tom looks at the stuff I've given him, I proofread the specifications that she typed well except for unaccountably NOT indenting the paragraph material under the numbers, and then go through the art specifications for the Challenge in reading OYOs, logging them in and making folders for them, and get a new batch of 43 OYOs, to copyedit (after Vi had made a mess of them), calling Tom on Friday to see if I'm bringing them in on Monday or Tuesday. Leave on the dot of 2, buy long envelopes and two IBM ribbons for $3.20 each and subway down to St. Marks, finding a broken-down coffee shop for a meatloaf meal for $1.70 from a guy who thanks me very much, sir, for leaving $2 on the counter, and get to the theater just in time for the lights to go down at 2 for "Street of Shame" and it's pretty good, with William Powell the gambling brother of someone married to a squeaky Jean Arthur, and he's finally killed while cheating, trying to get his brother out of gambling, and his CHEATING drives him out of it. Then "Four Feathers" was silent, made the same year, 1929, as the other talkie, but it's a great spectacle of herds of hippos falling off a cliff into a river, thousands of camels being wheeled about by Kipling's "Fuzzy-Wuzzys," and it must have been made in the Sudan where it was SUPPOSED to take place, with it's funny reliance on courage and the White Feather of Cowardice. Called Bob from work and he said to come over, so I subwayed up at 5:15 to call Bill finally at 6:30 to say I wouldn't be home, and Bob and I played Backgammon for three series, he refusing to admit that his 50% more doubles did NOT win him the games, then out at 9:30 to pass Mangeoire's, with it's come-on for the $4.95 prime ribs of beef, which Bob had the last of, and I had a GREAT duck in peach sauce for $7.50 with good wild rice and creamed broccoli, and a nice place where AGAIN he stared at someone who interested him. Out at 10:30 and play some more, until 12, winning one each, and leave at 12:15, finishing "Dead Run" on the subway but for the last 5 pages that I finished at home while Bill still read on into the night, after we chatted till 1:30 and then saw Nam June Paik's "Suite (212)," excerpts, and I used the earplugs again, debating masturbating under the covers, but too tired. Sleep.
DIARY 9478
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2. Today Bill's to meet (he went to the MMA restaurant yesterday with Amy Chasens) Christy at the MMA restaurant---Amy Chasens he just talked with for an hour during her lunch break on 57th Street---and then she drove him to Howard Leighton's place in New Jersey, where they were to go to dinner and talk until about midnight. When he left at 11, I felt a sense of relief, and I went out to unemployment, determined to masturbate when I came back. Bought the bit of groceries that I needed, got back at 12 to get a call from Michael, then put the phone service on and smoked and got out the porno to work myself up to a real frazzle of an erection a few times, but when I finally came it wasn't quite unbearably hard, and not that much semen came out, so I had lunch, finished "The History of Mr. Polly," really a very funny and warmly written book, and then simply felt like coming again, so I did, trying it with music, but that seemed poorer rather than better, and I came off VERY strongly, whipping my foot around at the right moment to cause the second of the fantastic sensations of coming today (see DIARY 9479). Then felt quite tired and strung out, feeling that I should have been working today---even Bob called and wondered why I was "out" when I said I had so much work to do. Lunch was bacon sandwiches because I just didn't feel like the usual tuna fish when I was still stoned, and the dishes had begun piling up in the sink---Bill had washed a few, but when it came clear that I wasn't keeping up with them daily, he didn't bother except for what utensils he'd actually used himself. Then out to the State Theater to see "Die Tote Stadt" by Korngold, rather ruined by Corsaro's scrim and films, having little or nothing to do with the flavor of the original: Bruges-la-morte (see DIARY 9501---what a DELAY [23 pages beyond this one]!). It's over at 10, and I get back at 10:20 to watch the end of "School for Scandal" neatly done, but the story is just too extreme---who'd believe such scandaleers? Then watch "Corky," noted for the shirtless scenes with Robert Blake, muscled, and Christopher Connolly, blond, and not much with Charlotte Rampling, playing a pretty, long-suffering wife with a couple of ignored children. Another piece of Nam June Paik's "Suite (212)," and bed at 1, Bill staying up again, me exhausted for orgasming.
DIARY 9502
THURSDAY, APRIL 3. [24 pages since the last day!] Bill and I sleep until 9, but he has some calls early, and then I'm up volunteering to make the last serving of farina (18 servings in only THREE meals!) for us, but I get a phone call from Art, and we talk for a bit, and Bill makes arrangements to meet Ray Reyes at 11:45 at Bowling Green for the ride to the Bronx with his friend to see his mother, and then Arnie calls and I don't even have to EAT with him, with his slurping, which is nice. Then I call Dr. Ziedenberg at 10:15, as directed last night, when he sounded so totally stoned trying to think of his phone number, but he's not there and he calls at 11 to give me the information about the marijuana program (see DIARY 9493), and I say I'll go along with it, but then I call Arnie and Art and Bob and tell them about it, and they let it be known that I'm probably out of my mind. It's very windy out, Bill leaves, I water the plants and do a few odds and ends, and then call for the schedule for "Amacord." Have lunch and smoke and get there at 2:20, but there's a kid and his family that keep talking behind me, and then the movie is episodic, very artificial in its huge liner "The Rex," the rose-plaque of Mussolini, the waves of the ocean, and even the little town where he grew up, and the party for the wedding of Graciosa, or whatever it is that means "I accept" looks just like the self-indulgent party at the end of "8½." Stoned or not, I don't care for it. Out at 4:40, have a hot fudge sundae, home to jerk off from the fringes of the grass, thinking the thoughts on DIARY 9492, have a message from Ziedenberg "I've changed my mind. No." read some of "In Search of the Miraculous," have an early dinner and have time to shave but not shower before leaving at 6:45 to meet George Allen in the lobby of BAM at 7:20 to see Laura Dean and Steve Reich in one of the most incredibly evocative, stunning, and impressive evenings I've ever had in the theater (see DIARY 9503), though smoking grass may have helped somewhat. Invite George back at 9:30, Bill's in, they chat; Rolf calls and wants to come over to watch slides, which depresses me no end, but he can't. George leaves about 10:30, Bill and I chat about Ouspensky with difficulties I get into on DIARY 9484, make some popcorn, and stay awake until 12, setting the alarm for 7 for Bill to leave at 8, bed tired.
DIARY 9504
FRIDAY, APRIL 4. Wake at the alarm at 7, then doze until I wonder what time it is, thinking "It must be 7:50," and pull the alarm from beside Bill's sofa and find it's 7:50. Up to bid goodbye to him, not touching, as at his entrance, and then I feel a great relief that he's gone. Have breakfast, water plants, and get down to work on the OYOs at 9:20 to 10:05, when Arnie calls, and I tell him I've decided not to go to the hospital (in fact, I called yesterday and left a message with him), and we think we might go to the Jewel today. Work from 10:25 to 1:10, taking time out to find that the Jewel isn't showing "Brothers," decide not to go, since Arnie's meeting Norma for a movie at 4:30, and I have lunch, back to work more from 1:40 to 3:40, and then I feel like coming again, so I do, without smoking, and then type four pages to get SOME start on all the things I have to do now, and don't have time enough to shower, only to shave and get out on the subway at 5:45 and get off at the wrong stop, Canal instead of Houston, and walk up to the white and Bob's blue and green pleasant Ballroom Restaurant. He starts with a scotch and water (that I think is wine, but of COURSE he'd drink scotch and water), we split a quiche (not great) and salad for $2.50, then I have the GREAT quantities of delicious ham and perfectly sweetened raisin sauce for $4.50 and he has the breast of chicken stuffed with shrimp on a bed of rice for $5.50, and we have an awful white Bordeaux for $5, and I have a black bottom pie that's not too great for $1.50 and he has coffee, and the whole thing comes to $21.60 with tip, $11.50 for me and $13.10 for him. Wow. Late over to Erin Martin's Tears Studio at 8 for a lousy show (see DIARY 9505), but Art's there, Michael's there with Frank and Mary, and the last two leave, Bob doesn't want to go to the Jewel, which Michael wants to do, and then Art invites us to his place for some smoke (see DIARY 9506) and they don't seem to want sex so we go over to the Jewel at 12 to see "The Speciman" and "Whatever Mama Wants" pretty dreadful, and it's over at 2, which I think is a cheat, but doorman says "Tell the manager." Out in the freezing wind and home at 3, having arranged to meet Michael at BAM at 1:50 on Sunday to see Laura Dean and "Drumming" again. Stoned and exhausted.
DIARY 9507
SATURDAY, APRIL 5. Wake at 10 and out of bed at 10:45, have a very late breakfast for the first time in ages, then put some things away and decide I just have to get down to typing. Type two pages (DIARY 9478 and 9479) and then stop at 12:05 to masturbate, as noted on DIARY 9481, and resume typing at 12:50, ignoring the apartment around me. Continue through lots of pages until I'm starving, then have lunch about 3:30, and then back to typing until I've completed 29 pages, about 5 pm, feeling sore in the shoulders but good in the head. Called Polly Brown during the day, forgetting that it was Saturday, and debate about not going to the Cubiculo, but I get into the tub and wash my hair, and then have dinner, and there seems to be nothing better to do, so I smoke and get out on the subway at 7:20, quite stoned, so stoned that I recall that I have to get off at 50th Street and that the Cubiculo is one block away, but I go down to 49th, looking along a street that I don't remember, then get to the 44x address that I seem to remember, but I've been smart enough to bring along the ad, and find that it's really 414 West 51st Street, so I round the corner in the windblown cold weather and get to the door at about 8, to find that I don't have a membership and that it's not sold out. In to a fairly poor performance by Maya Kulkarni and Janak Khendry (see DIARY 9508), and out about 10:15, having nodded during the performance for the first time in ages, partly from the boredom and partly from the grass. Subway back home, picking up a Times and a pint of vanilla ice cream for $1.15, and get a call from Art, who'll be selling at the Westbeth Bazaar tomorrow and won't be able to come along to the Laura Dean repeat performance. Warm up the last of the chocolate syrup, very good, and go through about half the almond slivers to make a fabulous hot fudge sundae. Then I'm putting the ice cream away and see the soda, and have a small SODA in a wine glass, feeling about full then, and read the Times until 12, when I watch "The Dreamer that Remains" and some awful music and commentary by Harry Partch, and his instruments are more interesting than his music. Work the puzzle only partway and sit till 12:55 to see a rather lifelike section of "Suite (212)" by Nam June Paik, and bed at 1:30.
DIARY 9509
SUNDAY, APRIL 6. Up at 9:30, work on the puzzle through breakfast until I finish it, counting 11 words that aren't in the dictionary. Finish the Times and watch Boulez on Camera Three, then have lunch and debate smoking before leaving to see Laura Dean again, and decide to see what it's like without smoking---and not wanting to be stoned for the rest of the afternoon, since I have to work. Out at 1:15 and get there at 1:35 to find they're sold out, but Michael arrives, others wait, and we finally get in after I shout at the "Treasurer" who thinks dance companies perform for HIS convenience rather than for the audience's. It's poorer this time (see DIARY 9510), but Michael likes it. Home, having the subway open its doors for us when it was already closed and about to pull out, at 3:45, saying I can't invite him up since I have to work, and type two diary pages and start on the rest of the OYOs at 4:30, working to 7:20 when I make dinner and watch Jacques-Ives Cousteau and his gay-looking son Phillipe (who's obviously being groomed to take over "Cousteau Productions" when his father dies) as they waken sharks that are sleeping in caves for some reason, and there are some great shots of a "grunt-monster" of a wall of grunts so close they're black from the air, a flotilla of flapping manta rays, and sea turtles. Finish the OYOs from 8:30 to 9:30, working 4.5 hours today, not bad, wash the last of dishes to 10:30 and watch "Monty Python" to 11, and then smoke and start looking at the slides, SO much easier now that they're in trays. Look and get the "I know I chose this one for a finalist, but it's old hat now and not terribly exciting" syndrome, but manage to come off fairly soft with a GREAT deal of feeling, just letting it sit while I almost fall asleep in the sweet aftermath. Then up to wipe off, have some peanut butter and the last cookie, and then want to listen to music, so I listen to "Bells" and jot down some notes on things that occurred to me (see DIARY 9511), the first time I've done that in awhile, and then AGAIN neglect to brush my teeth (and actually afraid to check when my next appointment is) and fall into bed feeling marvelously tired and pleasantly exhausted, feeling the warmth of the bed in an almost sexual way, surprised to find it's as late as 1:30 am.
DIARY 9513
MONDAY, APRIL 7. Up at 9:15, have breakfast, finally put the things away from Bill's stay, put all the dishes away, and then go pick up the package from Rita for my birthday with a heather-type pullover and a yellow corduroy shirt with "Pearl" snaps for buttons, and buy groceries. Back to find a message from Dr. Zeidenberg wondering where I had been at 9 am, and I try for a long time to get back to him, but I can only leave two messages at both numbers. Then type 4 pages, and Bob's over at 2 to play backgammon. I cooked up artichokes which are overdone at 30 minutes (or because I weighted them to the bottom of the pan) and eat them with melted butter; he insists that we try throwing dice to see who gets more doubles (see DIARY 9514), and I win the next two tournaments. Start shaving and showering at 5 (after we have popcorn for lunch at 3) and out at 5:40 to Su-Su's Yum-Yum for dinner. The Szechwan beef is tasty but not peppery at ALL, and the shrimp egg foo yung is good, and the egg drop soup was good with great crisps to put in. But the whole thing came to $5.20 apiece with tip, which is a bit much, and there was the constant noise of frying, sizzling, and cooking from the open-area kitchen, unique in Chinese restaurants in my experience. Would be fun to sit at the counter, however. Back to the subway and he says it's rude of me to read my book while we're riding, and we shout back and forth at each other for awhile. Then to Madison Square Garden for the 1975 World Figure-Skating Tour, and it's fabulous (see DIARY 95515), just what the OTHER one should have been. Try to spot Gabor, but I can't, though there are some real DOLLS in the crowd, including the one that I jokingly suggest collect tolls when everyone crosses his third row seat to get into the front two rows. Out at 10 and home to get a message from Regina that there was a ticket available to the "Siege of Corinth" and from Art. Try to call him, but his line's busy, so I work on reading the background for chapter 3 of DISPLAY from 10:30 to 11:15, then talk to him until 11:55, and work more until 12:25, but then I can't sleep. Toss and turn, then smoke ONE lungful of grass at 1:05, and THAT doesn't really work, finally fall asleep about 1:30, concerned about all I have to DO, and this is NOT the way to relax! Wake in the night and finally again at 7 am, waiting for the alarm to ring at 8 am. DAMN!
DIARY 9516
TUESDAY, APRIL 8. Shut off alarm at 7:55 and leave by 8:40, getting to New Century before Ron arrives at 9:15. Hand stuff in, copyedit another IPI News, and pick up only 8 hours worth of work, saying it wasn't getting worth it anymore, and this was the minimum. Leave at 11:15, after 2 hours, and home to type three pages, finally get a call from Dr. Zeidenberg, who doesn't seem to want to talk about my decision, and then get down to the chapter on Display from 1:10 to 2:25, when I have to stop to eat lunch, then work again from 2:45 to 7:15, when Art calls to say that he still doesn't know when we might be going to the show with Nancy this time, and that I should call him tomorrow afternoon. Is it my imagination or does the relationship seem to be losing steam? But then I've been complaining how busy I was, too. Gratified to see how much I get finished in just one day, but it's going to be the most catch-as-catch-can chapter yet, and from 7:30 to 8, the last stint in my 6.25 hour day on Display (and 2 hours at NC, not to count travel time), I don't get to do the draft of the Activities at the end of the chapter, the last item left in my "first and last draft." Then to watch the animation festival from 8 to 8:30 on Channel 13, very good, and I call Bob to watch it too. Then watch the 5th Annual Jimmy fund on 13 from 8:30 to 9:30, with lots of people I saw in person just last night: Berezowski and Porter, Dorothy Hamil, who fell; Joel and Gale Fuhrman, a good pair; Gordon McKellen doing his same thing; Ann and Skip Millier being pretty and blond and not so great; and Lynn Nightingale and Toller Cranston not yet worked to "Veste la guiba." Then get dinner ready and watch the Academy Awards from 8 to 1, finding I have a Jack Jones haircut and that I have two shows to see to see ALL the winners this year: "Godfather II" and "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." Smoke and jerk off to REALLY STAY at the plateau for gasping moments, feeling just GREAT, with an INTENSE feeling even with my ankles around my ears, continuing marvelous through uncountable spasms. Almost drift off to sleep, and then shut off the lights at 1:45, quite a difference from last night, and I fall asleep almost instantly. Wake at 7 again for some reason, and then doze and get out of bed at 8:15.
DIARY 9517
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9. Out of bed at 8:15, breakfast and everything else I have to do before settling to work re-reading the chapter on THE ELEMENTS OF DESIGN and finishing the rough draft from 9 to 10:50, and then it's time to go out to unemployment for what SHOULD have been my 52nd and last week, but she signs it and says that I should come back on the same line in two weeks, so I'm now officially on my THIRD extension. Back with the mail and don't even have time to read it, but do some phoning and get back to the book from 11:50 until 12, when I catch the Channel 13 production of "Bartleby," by Herman Melville, an arresting story of a man who'd "rather not," but it's a great mystery how he survived before getting the job with his "keeper." Have lunch during this, and then make some revisions and decide that all the figures should be numbered consecutively, and do this, too, by about 12:45, and then I'm ready for the final typing, going constantly until about 3:35, then phone Lauren to say that I'll be a bit late. Oh, also showered and washed my hair before getting back to work in the morning, and proofread what I'd typed on the subway, proofing the last five pages IN the 50th Street subway station at 4:15, getting up to her at 4:20, and she says she found NOTHING wrong with Chapters 1 and 2, and that she MIGHT have chapters 5 and 6 for me at once, and that there WILL be only 8 chapters, so when I finish the Chapter 4 I now have (by Friday or Monday) I'll be half through! Felt VERY good to have been able to finish on time. Out at 4:50 and walk down to Town Hall via Leonard Radio, and pick up an AW-2 spindle, finally, for $10.50, and get to Town Hall to find an enormous crush, so I buy two tickets, only to find out later that they say it's sold out! In to see Sergio with an empty seat next to him, and then chat and out to get Bob in, and Twyla Tharp is her usual self (see DIARY 9518). Out at 7:15 and tell Bob that I'm going up to Hunter for the Peru thing, so we eat in the Japanese Kitcho Restaurant, $5 apiece for not THAT much food, though the beef teriyaki and the shrimp tempura were good, as was my suimono. Out at 7:50 and dash across to the subway and up to Hunter for a $6 ticket to an interesting National Folk Ensemble of Peru (see DIARY 9519), out at 11, home at 12, come to 1, eat three pieces of toast and finish peanut butter to 1:45, bed happy.
DIARY 9520
THURSDAY, APRIL 10. Up about 9:30, possibly coming again, have breakfast, then feel so good about having done the chapter on time that I decide to work on stamps, so I put up the table that's still out, having soaked the stamps before I ate breakfast and then put them out to dry just after breakfast, and read through various newspapers and mail while they were drying, and then went straight through them from 11 to 3, seeing for the first time that the stamps from the United Nations due on March 14th hadn't come yet, and I probably won't have enough money in the account for the stamps AFTER that, so I put out the letter as something MORE to send correspondence out about. Make the last of the bacon at 3:30 and eat three giant sandwiches of the lovely stuff until about 4:30, then shower and type three pages and fix up the apartment a bit and get out at 7:30 to meet Nancy and Art JUST at 8 in front of the Golden Theater for "P.S. Your Cat is Dead!" (see DIARY 9521). Out at 10:30, too late to catch the first show of Mabel Mercer at the Mabel Mercer Room (formerly the St. Regis Room) at the St. Regis Hotel, but we taxi over at 10:50, watch Nancy greet old friend Mabel during the intermission, and I wander the lovely lobby and admire the brass cupolas around the two revolving doors into the lobby, and we later marvel at the outdoor kiosk for the taxi man, still shiny and Parisian in its filigreed metal. Drink and chat about various things, looking at Nancy Walker at one back table, don't recognize Morgana King when she comes up to Mabel, and certainly DO recognize Rex Reed when he sits in front of us with a tall faggot that he introduces as "Brian Bretton" (and what DID become of Brian Breton?) who drinks what looks to be a brandy Alexander. Mabel starts out slowly at 10:10, but when she gets going her voice is still good, and her interpretations of some songs are so strange that it's about halfway through that I think "Oh, it's THAT that she's singing." Then I REALLY get into it and she's marvelous, particularly in things I know, lots of things with April in them, and finally "The Clowns" from "Little Night Music" followed by "They All Fall" by Cole Porter, a follow-up to "Birds Do It." Out at 1:30, delighted by the evening, walk Nancy to her hotel on 58th, then walk to the subway to Art's for a LATE dinner of chicken and wine and pot, sex, bed about 3:45!
DIARY 9522
FRIDAY, APRIL 11. Up about 10 and home by 11, with the knowledge that I'll be back at the shop at 2 for the trip up to Westchester. Phone Bob and say how much I disliked "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!" and bid him farewell for the weekend, and call Arnie and say the same thing to him. Shower and shave and pack, deciding to take up the stamp catalog since I don't have laundry and will be picking up the typewriter on the way back. Get there late, at 2:10, and Eddie's waiting there for the amyl nitrite from me, and I have an extra bottle for Art, who said that he spilled his on the rug. Meet Gabor at last, who didn't attend the skating show, and some other woman shopper, and out to the car and up to 53rd to pick up two VERY heavy pieces of marble and two white chests to be taken north to be stripped. Up along the sunny highway, liking the warm afternoon, and stop in Pleasantville where she has a record player going with 78s, and what should be there but two Caruso one-sided records! I think of not taking them, but then figure "What the hell," and do, looking through others and finding two more, and picking up an Yma Sumac record and a Lily Pons record also, all for $2.50, which Art owed me, as it turned out, for lunch at the Peking Palace. Take a lot of time there and get out about 5:30, and up to the stripping place to find it closed. He goes for groceries, which I can't help with, since I only have $15 with me, and I finish reading "2150" in the car, with kernels of good detail, but no REALLY believable at ALL. To Art's and the crocus and almost-blooming daffodils by 5:15, delighted that it's still light out, and he cooks artichokes and makes rolatini-pasta with clam sauce, and we sit near the fire and drink wine and talk about nothing much until he gets out the grass about 10:30, and then we smoke and look at the stars for a bit, and then start playing around with sex, and I chew and suck on him in some sort of wrong way, so he's forced to take himself in hand and bring himself off, leaving stuff over my ear, and I don't really feel like coming, so I don't, and then we're again under the overly-hot down sleeping bag on the floor that I wake during the night to find that he's taken completely away from me, and I maybe get some traces of the cold that I carry until this very day!
DIARY 9523
SATURDAY, APRIL 12. Wake VERY early and lay for a long time, and then he gets up and does his cold-water dabs and sitting-up squats, and then finds that it's only 8:15, and wonders why we've gotten up so early. I brazenly go off to a shower while he finishes the dishes from the previous dinner, and then we're ready to go out after coffee, picking up my typewriter for $11, and I start the basics of a letter to Rita in the car, take the chests to the strippers, throw out garbage in the field that's now almost level, and try a few of the shops, where I can't see anything that I like, which is fine, since I have no money. Back about 12:30 and he does a real number on the tuna with hard-boiled eggs, curry powder, and various spices and vegetables thrown in until it's more than enough for the two of us. Then out to help him a bit with raking and chopping up deadfalls and pulling old logs off the grassier sections around the pond, and then I'm quite tired after helping him move around the pieces of marble and moving other stuff into the storage shed, and I'm into Joyce's apartment to start on my income tax, quickly miffed to find that I didn't bring along 1973's return to see how much in deductions I took for rent and everything else. And also disgruntled to calculate that my first stab at the amount of taxes is over $600. Can't get much farther, and he comes in about 6 to chat, and then I'm back over where he's already built a fire, and it seems even more difficult to find things to talk about, other than John, Bob Grossman, and Lee, and a little of Joyce and Billy. He makes chicken with lots of soy, but serves me so little of it that I have to go back for seconds, and the wine isn't as good as it used to be, but then there's ice cream for dessert, and when the pipe comes out and we have sex, this time I take care of myself, then out comes the rest of the food: the cookies, the mint chocolate liquor that he floats half-and-half on top of, and then peanuts to shell, as last night, in front of the fire, getting the rug covered with junk. Talk about the future of the cottage and his lack of summer plans and my need to work to earn money, and finally get to sleep about 1 am after lots of grass and lots of talk about nothing much in particular.
DIARY 9524
SUNDAY, APRIL 13. Up about 9:30, into the store for a copy of the Times, and I'm just about reading it when Eleanor drives up and fills my ear with tales of the way George (?), her new son-in-law, drives her up the wall by cutting classes, picking at the edges of his fingers, and whining in his nasal voice about how everything's against him, and she says she can see her daughter doing EXACTLY what she did in taking a child-husband to mother-wife. The pictures from the wedding take a long time to see, Art goes about his business as she chats with me, and then I excuse myself (after she's made lovely scrambled eggs for our breakfast, with tub butter for the matzos) to work on my OYOs from 1:45 to 5:35, when Art comes in to chat about leaving, and I say I'd just as soon drive in the daytime, and that's what he'd planned, too, so I finish and pack up and we're leaving at 6 pm, driving to the bright sunset while he tells me that he has memories of a former life in Atlantis! A cat had been doing a "charm dance" the past couple of days, and I couldn't get away from the idea that Art was doing a "charm dance" to be more interesting to me! Many times I drove too fast, causing him to reach forward to his dash-handle, scaring myself a couple of times, and I really should calm down on the road, though he finally said that the car has been put into a garage to get new shock absorbers. Hadn't watched the sports program on TV that I wanted to watch at 4:30, and get home about 8 after leaving there at 6, being driven to the subway by Joyce who comes down from her apartment, from whence Art called her while I was moving the car around over the bags of garbage that he leaned against it! Read parts of the Times, cook dinner of the hamburger that I wisely put into the freezer, and find that the "Americans on Everest" program was one that I'd seen before, so I continue with the two puzzles and the rest of the Times until Monty Python, and I CONTINUE reading every section and clipping out lots of stuff until 12:55, when I'm surprised that Channel 13's gone off the air, and see that the 12:00 misprint was really intended for 12:25, after "Yoga for Health" at 12, and so in disgust I shut off TV and the lights and get to bed at 1 to jerk off after smoking and bidi-ing and poppering and working myself into a high frazzle.
DIARY 9525
MONDAY, APRIL 14. Wake with a dream that's so strange that I sit down immediately I get out of bed at 9 and write it down (see DIARY 9526). Then have breakfast and talk to Arnie about his dinner this evening, and find that I have NO money at all, so I take my bankbook with the $147 check dated back on March 10 from TDI. KNOW that I want to see Mariano Parra at his lecture-demonstration at 1, since there's just not enough evenings in the week to do all the things that I have planned, but can't manage to leave until 12:35, which gets me to the door at 1:10, which is locked, so I presume nothing's going on inside, though it was probably going on and I'd missed it. Down the street to Belmore and eat inside with the constant annoying burr of the ticket-dispenser that accosts everyone who enters, and have good what-tastes-like-frozen flounder fillet and a huge portion of thickened creamed spinach and a pineapple cheesecake that's perfectly mediocre for a total of $2.92, and that leaves me with no cash at ALL. To work at 1:45 and find that I have a stack of pasted-up tear sheets from various parts of Math Achiever to correct, and there are LOTS of errors by everyone concerned: Vi, Ron, and the paste-up person, so there are lots of flags and lots of time taken, and they ask me to come in tomorrow, too. At least I'll get another chance at Mariano Parra. Leave at 5:15, uncomfortable in the heated office with the vaguely smelly Ron, and get to the subway banking window just at 5:55 to wait until 6:10 to get my check cashed and buy TWO gallons of wine from the Montague shop, one quick-chilled in five minutes, and then just cart my bottle of red upstairs, getting the mail, and then immediately down to dinner at 6:30 with Arnie. I'm the first there, then comes Cathy and another escort Ellen, then comes Bobby much later, after we've finished most of the pita and tamasalata and paté from Argentina, and his chicken is great, the sweet potatoes a change, his spinach-mushroom salad fine, and his mousse a welcome throwback. Lots of wine, lots of jokes, lots of pictures, and the two girls leave at 11, and I figure there might be sex coming up, but they talk and talk, and I feel decidedly inferior, so I leave about 12:30 and get home to smoke and jerk off as usual, but with a very limp spasm-spasm-spasm when I'm still trying to find new areas and having to settle for awful old ones.
DIARY 9527
TUESDAY, APRIL 15. Up at 9 and type ANOTHER wild dream (see DIARY 9528), then breakfast, water plants, and actually cut down the grass, harvest the rest of the tops, and cut up the rest for future butter-making. Nice to get SOMETHING done at last! Then talk to people on the phone and shower and (OH, YESTERDAY I decided when washing my awful hair that I had to cut it, so I went through the whole thing with the trimmer, and came up with a fairly passable simulation of a subway-station haircut! That's what took up the morning time YESTERDAY, what did it today I can't remember) try leaving for Mariano Parra at 12:25, but the subway is very slow, AGAIN I just missed the train as I came down into the Borough Hall station, and I don't get to the final stop until 1:10 AGAIN, so I decide to leave Mariano for tomorrow and eat in the Sacred Flame, this time the flounder again, somewhat tastier than yesterday's, though not so much of it, but with French fries and a salad with mushy plastic orange-red tomato slices of a surreal size. To work from 1:30 to 6, surviving through a silly typist who makes remarks like "Is this for all the students, or just for the ones that need---uh---medieval reading?" and constantly jangles her bracelets, even as she mumbles to herself through whatever she's doing. I finish the boards and start on the translation sheets, taking time out to do a few other odds and ends, including xeroxing for Tom, and at $8 an hour, I suppose he can do what he pleases with me. Out at 6 in the rain, and decide to see what's become of the house whose wall tumbled down, and walk down to see it STILL in the same state, except that there's a TV crew there saying that the owner has until tomorrow to start demolishing and trying to save some tenant valuables. Decide to see if Rolf is available for anything, and he answers the door in some surprise, saying that he'd just called me about having dinner out somewhere. In to see his working on his consulting job for $6000 on computer leasing companies, chat about TM for a while, and then to my place at 8 for the Animation Festival with an increasingly wearying Jean Marsh and some cute films, then watch a bit of Shirley Maclaine's film on China till 9, out to Bali Rice Shop (which I'll describe on DIARY 9529) with the rest of the evening with Rolf.
DIARY 9530
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16. Wake with a jolt at 9, but he's still sleeping. Wake and doze, but finally cuddle up to him at 10:55, and he's shocked to find it's so late. We both wash and dress and I'm out at 11:30 with him, bidding him goodbye at Hicks and Montague, and I get to the office at 12, work until 1, then go to Mariano Parra and his two sisters for their lecture-demonstration at 1 (see DIARY 9531) and out at 2:15 to wander the streets for a place to have lunch and spot the Brazilian restaurant Luso, in for the Portuguese veal, good for $2.95, and, surprise!, they have Guarana on the menu for 75¢, and the bottle is almost frozen, with a mush of ice on the top that makes LOVELY drinking, and the buttery potatoes are tasty, too, and I chat with the waiter and waitress and bartendress, get the address for a place that distributes Guarana here in the states, and get back to the office, feeling great, at 3. Proofread the IPI news, do some other things, and STILL don't finish all the work they have for me to do, but take home about 8 hours of work and say I'll be back Monday, hoping to get some work done in the next few days. Out at 6, delays on the subway get me in at 7, and then discover that I've missed the "Rational Book Awards" that I wanted to see at 7 at the Americana Hotel (though I call Marge Thursday to see how it was, and she's on vacation so she wouldn't have been there, anyway), and that depresses me. Don't feel like eating yet, debate working on the editing right away, but don't feel like doing THAT, so I glance through the Voice that I bought in the stationery shop since the outdoor stand was closed, and then feel that I want to COME with SLIDES, so I put the phone out of commission by dialing my own number (Marty called and wanted to talk about Caruso, and I said I'd be home all evening), and smoke, knowing that I'm killing the rest of the evening, and when I'm finished coming in a not very pleasant way, I can't think of anything better to do than just nap for a few hours, and then wake up, to my surprise, at 12:45! Out of bed to put the phone back on, and almost instantly Art calls to ask what was wrong. I tell him the whole story, have some scrambled eggs to stand in for dinner, and read some more before going back to bed about 3 am, putting in earplugs just so I'll be able to sleep.
DIARY 9532
THURSDAY, APRIL 17. Another dream, recorded on DIARY 9533, and after breakfast I actually manage to type another two pages of the diary. Got up about 11, talked to Arnie and Bob, risking calling him at 11:45, but he'd just gotten up, and then shower and wash my hair again and eat lunch and read lots of the incredible spate of junk coming in now: Newsweek, Voice, New York, Soho, Advocate, Travel Agent, and get out at 1:45 to subway quickly to the Max Ernst exhibit at the Guggenheim from 2:30 to 3:45 (see DIARY 9534). The bus ride down Fifth Avenue in the 70° weather is very pleasant, and I walk down 54th Street without a jacket on for the first time this year, and it feels great! They're waiting for me even before the 4:15 agreed on, and Arnie says that he now notices my haircut, so it's not as good as Monday, when he DIDN'T notice it. They figure I cut it myself, but I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of admitting it. In for the movie of "Tommy" at 4:30, not really very good (see DIARY 9535) and out at 6:15, gratifyingly early, and subway down to Madison Square Garden, over Bob's protests, to get $4.50 tickets very quickly, and out at 6:45, when I think of Paddy's Clam House on 34th, and we're over to find the place really crowded, noisy, and just like it must have been for the past thirty years: blank-walled, bustling, and acry with children screaming. Arnie has the scrod dinner with a dishwater-gray clam broth that I try and dislike a spoonful of, the same scrod fillet that I have, not bad, while Bob struggles with his broiled scampi which comes in their shells and with a very orangish butter that doesn't taste good on potatoes or bread, and I slather on the tartar sauce, which helps, and fill up enough to enjoy the final bite of Arnie's nesselrode pie. Out at 7:45, say goodbye to Bob, look at the BRIGHT star, and in to the almost empty Felt Forum for the boring Oba Koso (see DIARY 9536). There's no intermission, so we're out at 9:45, and Arnie reminds me that Harry Berry of the Islanders had invited Arnie down to the 12 West, or the West 12, for a party of the Islanders that George Papagapitos was invited to, since TDI may handle them on the Daphne. Walk down, picking up five great books at a place on 9th, and there's QUITE an evening (see DIARY 9537). Out at 2, home at 2:30 to come and get to sleep at 3:15 am. WHAT IS THIS?
DIARY 9538
FRIDAY, APRIL 18. Up about 9:30, disgusted because she upstairs seems also to have gotten up at about 9:15 and is clunking around. Eat breakfast but simply CAN'T drag myself to work. Fuss around sitting at the typewriter, but decide I just can't do anything, and give myself the "treat" (though I hardly need one; discipline is what I need, but I'm feeling too sorry for myself to impose discipline on myself) of reading one of the books I bought lat night, and pick the one with biggest type and settle down from 10 to 1 to read "The Challenge of the Sea" by Arthur Clarke, stopping to jerk off when it appeals to me, and reading lunch during the last part of it. Then at last I feel that I can get down to typing the diary, and it takes 13 pages to catch up with it. Write a few checks, talk to a few people, and call Lauren Rubin to find that I can bring in my chapter on Wednesday, and by that time she'll have TWO chapters ready, so I'll only have two more awful deadlines to fret about after this one. Call Michael and he's not joining me in much, call Lloyd and get him the following day, and he'll send me AT LEAST a single to "Ivan the Terrible" by the Bolshoi. Bob Grossman moans that he has nothing to do, but no one will join me at the New School tonight. Work on OYOs from 4:40 to 6:40. Discover a bit late that the hamburger under the freezer has totally frozen, and broil it because there are no frying pans clean. Leave at 7:35 but still get there in good time, and Everson is as boring as ever establishing parallels between two totally forgettable directors. "Down to the Sea in Ships" DOES have some remarkable footage of chasing whales in little boats, the whales upsetting boats, sharks floating in the clear waters off Haiti, and gripping shots of ladling waxy spermiceti from the "case" in the skull of the whale. Clara Bow looked like she was about 16---well, I've just checked and she was 17, unless she hadn't reached her 17th birthday when she was being filmed. But the lunacy of the father INSISTING at the risk of his OWN heart that she must marry a whaler was just ludicrous. "The Shock" was stock Lon Chaney as a cripple standing at the end, with some funny process-shots of the earthquake in SF: streets catching fire, room-floors collapsing, houses toppling off a cliff, leaving her on the porch, and ceilings falling in. Home at 11:30 to come, eat a lot, and note DIARY 9539 at about 1 am.
DIARY 9540
SATURDAY, APRIL 19. Set the alarm at 8:15 and it jolts me awake with a decided grass hangover, but that gives me the energy to get through an almost milkless bowl of cereal and take a shower for the day ahead. Out at 9 and get to CUNY at 9:30 to find the crowd drinking coffee and eating danish so dreadful and uninteresting that I move into the auditorium and sit reading while they finish with the lighting system for the videotaping and the sound system, which is hardly ever used. The meeting itself is a bore, and I meet the "I know better than any of you, why don't you listen to reason as I present it" attitude that I've seen in me so much lately. Then Barnes talks about his "rare-data first" index, and it's actually quite good and some of the points about it are given on the page about the meeting (see DIARY 9541). Then to lunch upstairs with John McCollum joining me from Waterloo, near Hamilton, which I must have passed through on Chuck's and my camper trip, but I've just checked the notes from it, and they're awful for the first few days of the trip. Talk to Peter Rooney, who's not working much on indexing either, and lunch was good. Over to the New York Times building in the rain and up to the WQXR auditorium for a teeny-tiny slide show on the New York Times Information Bank, and then at 4 we're over to try the consoles, and they're just great, and I do lots of research (probably continued on DIARY 9543). Out at 5, hoping to get my off-print in the mail, and home to burn hash to the bottom of the pan while trying to get it crisp, and out to the magician's show at 7:35, getting there about 8:05, just when Arnie and John do, and we're in for an amazing exhibition interspersed with perfectly AWFUL commentary (see DIARY 9543). Out at 11:15, Arnie gets invited to John's, and I subway home to buy the Times back at the 7th Avenue station, though I took the Lex home, and it's getting very windy again. Read the Times and work BOTH puzzles from 12:15 to 2, and then am so tired that I can fall into bed (getting a new earplug from the cabinet, since I still haven't managed to locate the one that dropped out a couple of days ago, and I FINALLY find it by tearing the bed apart---under the foot of the bed---the next morning. Warm blanket feels so comfortable now that spring makes the radiators unnecessary. But I bet it's below 55° with the wind-chill.
DIARY 9544
SUNDAY, APRIL 20. Up about 9, finish the puzzles completely (the mind DOES fidget during the night), make Wheatena for breakfast since I have no cereal, finish the Times, type 3 pages, almost deciding not to see Manual Alum today since there's no one to go with, water John's plants, putting my phone off the hook, and Arnie calls from 72nd and Broadway and says he'll go to BAM with me, so I guess I might as well go, shaving and brushing my teeth and meeting him at the subway at 1:40. Alum is older and not terribly interesting physically, but there are some interesting things about his dance (see DIARY 9545), but not enough to keep me after the second intermission, during which I leave with Arnie at 3:30 and get to the St. Marks just about 4:05, in time to get the plot-line for "Politics," and Marie Dressler is quite marvelous, but "Prosperity," where her husband is ALSO dead and she's now not mayor but the president of a bank whose son lends out the bolstering bonds, she closes the bank, works in a store, the son recovers the bonds, and everyone lives happily ever after, no thanks to Polly Moran, who's the heavy in all except "Reducing" which gets boring in the middle, so I walk out on it at 7:35 to make sure to get home by 8:30 to the Tony Awards. Good thing, too, since the downtown local takes only tokens through the unmanned station, so I have to go UPTOWN to catch the express back home, and it's greatly delayed, but get in at 8:20, in time to put the last of the hash into the oven to brown, using the casserole since everything ELSE in the house is dirty. The Tony Awards are surprising with so many for the "Wiz," which Art and Nancy should be glad they saw when they did, and I even take notes during THAT (see DIARY 9546). It's over ON TIME at 10:30, I watch Monty Python, then 15 minutes of the news to watch a boring beginning to "Fragment of Fear," which Arnie said was a COMPLETE red herring: David Hemmings killed his old aunt, charmingly played by Flora Robson, and had paranoid delusions about everything else. A bit hard to swallow. The Susskind Academy Award movie was "Hearts and Minds," which I'm not interested in, and the film on reincarnation has been moved around by Channel 9, so I just come devastatingly at 12:30 (see DIARY 9547) and get to sleep contented by 1 am: must get up EARLY 4/21.