1975 3 of 8
DIARY 9548
MONDAY, APRIL 21. Wake at 7:45, a fairly typical time of late, and lay until 8:15, waiting for the bitch upstairs to get started, and then realize WHAT I'm doing and get up before she does. Don't even feel like breakfast, so I get right down to the last half of the OYOs waiting for the office, and do them from 8:40 to 10:40, calling Tom and saying I'll be in about noon, and then I shower and wash my hair and shave and eat tuna for brunch since I have no cereal, and try calling Art but he's not home, and leave at 11:30 for work, getting in at 12:15 to put in a bill for 8 hours for the four hours work, look at some boards and some other flags, and then there's nothing for me to do, so I start working on the files and stick around until 4:10, when I leave early for "The Godfather," which is a good thing, since I have to buy a hotdog from a Sabrett cart to assuage my hunger, and then get to the box office at 4:30, when the phone said it was starting, to find it had started at 4:20. In to a jammed theater at a point where subtitles tell me where it is, and again I'm appalled by the audience's reaction (see DIARY 9549). Out at 8, after a pleasant "Windy Day" by the Hubleys and a perfectly ridiculous short by Paramount from the 50s of a male chauvinist making a mess of a beach in a speedboat. Home to put in Treet as a roast, finding my phone unit out of order again, call Bob and tell him about my making reservations for Saturday AND Sunday for Merce Cunningham, and then Art, who's got Arthur Whitfield and his lover Jerry over for Arthur's birthday, and it turns out he'd tried to get me from 3:30, but I couldn't be reached. (But then he DIDN'T think of trying my number at NC, if he still had it!). I eat, and since there's nothing on TV, decide to start (since I didn't have wine during dinner) reading for the Display chapter, so I sit down and do that from 9:50 to 10:50, when I'm tired, and Art said he'd call, so I fuss around fixing up the apartment, putting away the stuffing in which Bill sent two cans of chocolate syrup and two bottles of maple syrup as "Thancs" and "Thanckques" for his stay here, but I can't fuss beyond 11:30, smoke and start toward coming, and he calls at 12:15, destroying my hard-on, inviting me to dinner at 6 tomorrow, and I can't get it back up again, even with bidis and poppers, so I decide to leave it alone, munch on a few pecan supremes, and sleep about 1 am.
DIARY 9550
TUESDAY, APRIL 22. Up at 8:30 and since I have nothing there for breakfast, start typing diary pages at 8:50 and finish 9 pages by about 11. Then out to the supermarket and buy $16+ of groceries with no trouble, and back to have breakfast, and then start on the 4th chapter of the display book at 11:40 and get a large number of phone calls during the day: Michael having trouble getting verification from England that he's had travel experience; Celia Brewer saying she was sorry I gave it to John, and that I should do the rest by next Friday; Art, finally, chatting with Gabor about the glories of the Sky Rink for ice-skating, and he's glad that I changed dinner from 6 pm to after the movie; someone from ACC, saying that Abramson will be sending me an index next week that has a deadline of a MONTH away; and a couple of others that I don't remember. Finish for lunch at 3:30, marking it back to 3:10 because of the calls, and have lunch and work from 4 to 6:15, essentially finishing the first-and-last draft, and then shower while thinking of some dynamite chapter-end activities, and get out at 7:15 to get to the Greenwich at 7:40, seeing them start the line in at 7:45, and Art's there a couple of minutes later, but we get good near-front seats for "The Maids," starting with Susannah York imitating Madame, Glenda Jackson as an incredibly caricatured maid, and Vivian Merchant as a remarkable combination of Billie Burke, Bette Davis, and Tallulah Bankhead as the Madame. Hard to tell where to draw the line between fantasy and reality, so it's not REALLY clear if the tea (which was suspiciously low in the cup, VERY poor editing) actually killed Susannah or if it was yet ANOTHER red herring; but Art sort of summarized by saying that he really didn't CARE. Out gratifyingly early at 9:45 and he starts on dinner, with artichoke done so well that inner leaves are 2/3s edible, and wok-prepared marinated meat, a treat, with vegetables and mushrooms over fantastically well-textured and tasting whole-grain bulgur. Art's birthday cake for dessert after smoking a lot of his great new grass, talking, and HE came nicely in my mouth, but I had to work and work, but I DID come---he moved away from my orgasm MUCH too soon, then cookies, cake and potato chips, and to sleep about 1:50, muzzy-grass.
DIARY 9551
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23. Wake at 8:15 when the alarm rings, I hadn't realized he'd set it. Out about 8:45, and get home to skip breakfast and get right down to the display re-reading and typing from 9:25 to 11:05, then to unemployment, where I'm told to come back next week for some reason, and back to work at 11:50. Only remember about TV at 12:15, and something's wrong with the Short Story Theater, and I put on a movie that I don't have time to watch, and then get back to work after eating lunch. Work from 11:50 to about 2:50, taking off about 40 minutes for lunch, but then shower and wash my hair and get out at 3:15 to McGraw-Hill, getting there just before 4 pm, and she finally confesses that she hasn't really gone over it in DETAIL yet, and it takes ME to realize that I've only done 74 out of the 240 manuscript pages for HALF the chapters, and have already used up 40 of the 45 illustrations possible. Obviously, some of the diagram pages will take up more room than ms. pages, and illustrations will be combined more frequently into figures with sketches within them, but she COULD have told me about these parameters in the beginning, so that I could slant the book in the right direction. But she's still pleased with what I've done. Sadly, she had to go to a funeral yesterday and didn't get two chapters ready for me, so I take only 5 and STILL have at least three deadlines to go. And then she said I might be able to work on the teacher's manual, her index, and possible rewritings if the authors want any. Out at 4:40 and get to Bob's at 5:05, but he's not home yet, so I sit and read, and then Arnie and Bob come in about 5:10. Read Arnie's Times for a glowing review of "Spartacus" last night, he leaves, and I proceed to CLOBBER him in all but one of the about five games of Backgammon, and he weeps and groans. Out at 6:45, or even later, and cross the street to eat in Furyu, good shrimp in the tempura, but too-vinegary sauce for the chicken and pork in the Kushimono, or whatever, and the whole thing, at about $6.25 apiece with tip, is a bit much for too little. Dash out at 7:30 to walk swiftly to Lincoln Center at 7:55, chat with Shelly Dobbins, and see a mediocre "Spartacus" (see DIARY 9552). Out at 11:10, home by 12 (to Borough Hall), home in rain, come, sleep by 2.
DIARY 9553
THURSDAY, APRIL 24. Forgot that Marty called yesterday and gave me the translation of "Vesti la Guiba" (see DIARY 9554). Called Ron yesterday, also, and he said that I could come in all day, so I woke at 8:15 and had breakfast and typed a diary [NO, I didn't] and got to New Century at 10:45, working through to 1:30 on type-marking very basic OYOs, looking at some boards, and doing more filing, managing to FIND a copy of practically everything for a change. Very overheated room, so I move outside, where it's pretty hot also, and girls cracking gum, kittens mewling, and phone ringing made it no bargain as a place to work. Did it faster than Ron thought, so that by 5 I was done. Had eaten lunch at the Divine Flame, finding that the veal don Bleu was no don good, and going to the used-filing cabinet place to find they had NONE the exact size I want, that they charge $40, which is ridiculous, and they only charge about $6 for delivery. But that's not the place to get them. Fuss around and bill 7 hours until 6:30, and then subway down to Art's, who'd called me to say I could get there at 7. Get there at 6:40 and he's not in yet, but he arrives just as I take off my jacket. He IS taken with Michael, but he ALSO tells me of his two OTHER quick fallings-in-love in the past few months: "I fall in love with young kids and have long dreary affairs with older men." He gives me a drink and gets a call saying he'll be going to Hamburg for 10 weeks starting May 1, and wants to meet Michael. We go out in the rain about 8:30 to Avenue A and the Odessa, which no longer makes oxtail stew, has run out of stuffed cabbage and corned beef, and so we settle on DELICIOUS and tender beef flanken and cheese pirogi, a huge plate of them, and he eats almost nothing and I eat lots and still leave lots. He pays for the $6 bill over my protests. Home for tea and looking at his perfect-condition stamps, cataloging upward of $200, so maybe if I can get them for $100 it would be a good deal. He has lots of phone calls to make, so I leave at 11, saying I'll try to set up something with Michael for lunch, will try to get German books to him, and will call him later. Home to read and get very tired at 1, and even manage to get to sleep without smoking or jerking off. Rather unusual, but nice.
DIARY 9555
FRIDAY, APRIL 25. Wake at 8:15, delighted at the thought of the free day ahead. Have breakfast, don't water plants because they seem wet, decide that it's far enough into spring to stop the humidifier for good, and then start putting things away in the apartment. Decide to take things off the do-list and chop back on the poinsettia and the avocado, but only one branch, and then repot the spider plant and the fern, getting the rocks from the front closet, setting the dirt and huge rocks and vermiculite into the large planter in preparation for planting the pot, only a month late. Cut my finger while cutting the red band off the pot bottle from Art, and suddenly it's noon and time to have lunch. Down for the mail, saddened about not getting anything worthwhile except the TDF vouchers at last, and then decide that the guilt about not writing letters has piled up enough, so send letters out to Mom and Rita and John Parker, two pages each to the first two. But still don't really feel like DOING anything, and I play records while I'm doing two sets of dish-washing because there wasn't enough room to dry all of them the first time around. Decide it's about time to clear out the bedroom closet and make it more useful, and debate moving the cabinet under the kitchen sink into the bedroom as a base for the Travel Agent collection in the gray holders, but then decide that it would probably be better to use the shelves in the closet first, after they're cleared off. Got to get RID of some of the JUNK in this place! Oh, Eddie came over at 3, ate fish, and left at 5:30! Listen to music, but very conscious of the noises outside, the guy next door moving plants and metal around on his balcony, the people below moving lawn furniture in and out and both of them playing music very loudly. Then put on pork chops to try and get into the shower a bit too late at 6:30, wash my hair, dry it while eating dinner, drinking lots of white wine to get high, and then to Arnie's to see the ever-more-drawling Stephen finishing dinner (they'd had sex, spoiling Arnie's taste for the Club Baths) and we're to the car at 7:45 and to the Kitchen at 7:55 to find that the performance has been delayed until 8:30, and then no one likes it but me (see DIARY 9556). Pick up Bill Wolf, drop off Bob Grossman, drive to the Club, but Bill decides to go back to the Shady Lady with Arnie, and I'm home to smoke and watch Alice Cooper from 11:30 to 1, bed, sleep.
DIARY 9557
SATURDAY, APRIL 26. Up at 9, have breakfast, wash socks, fertilize the plants though I do nothing more with the pot, nothing more with the table tiles, so the stuff is still leaning against furniture in the bedroom. Type 6 pages to get up to date, glue the chair just to get something done, look at more stamp lists to see if I can't order more stamps, but I can't, read some more of the magazines that endlessly come in, but still don't manage to get the stack of letters to be answered on the desk worn down at all. I sort of scan them, think of three or four thoughts for each, and then do nothing. Horribly unproductive, terribly frustrating, and totally time wasting. Feel quite disgusted with myself and my lack of any ability to pull myself out of the syndrome of doing nothing. Listen to music for awhile while I'm moving things around the apartment, and spend lots of time sitting starting at things. If anyone were to call, the news would be negative, which may be why I'm afraid to tackle the correspondence, since my negativity would come through. Talk to Arnold, but he doesn't think he's coming to Merce this evening. Finally the day has gone far enough so that I can eat dinner and get out to Merce at 7:15, and Bob's waiting there already. He's cruising someone next to him (who ends up sitting next to us) and I move away from him in disgust, and then when he buys a ticket for $3 and I pick up Michael's ticket for $1, and Michael's not there at 7:55, I decide to go up to 7 and offer the ticket to Art. Bob gets extremely annoyed with me, and I can't blame him, since I'm depressed and disgusted with everybody. Art says he'll go, Bob and I settle on the edge of the stage, Art joins us, and just as the doors are about to close, there's Michael! So everyone got in! No thanks to me. Merce is interesting (see DIARY 9558), but none of the others really like him. Down to Art's at 10:10 and he makes all the meat he has for dinner, which we JUST finish at 11 in time to watch "Ladies of the Corridor" which we get high for (except Bob, who leaves about 11:30 after stacking the dishes), and I remember that it was funny, and that's about all. Michael washes the dishes and leaves at 12:45, Art and I have good sex with me doing nothing, and we're to bed, me exhausted, about 2 am.
DIARY 9559
SUNDAY, APRIL 27. Wake about 9:30 to find Art washing clothes again. Up for some Russian cornbread and cream cheese for breakfast, and then I'm out for the Times, since he's wise in suggesting I just stay around for my movies across town at the St. Marks. Read much of the Times, clipping out almost as much as I read, and leave at 12:30, having forgotten about lunch, and walk quickly across town to get into the St. Marks literally seconds before the first show starts at 1. Awful back row, and it fills up so much that people are being shown to their last remaining seats with flashlights. Straight next to me starts to smoke, and I insist there's no smoking in the theater, and he knots my insides by calling me a fag, and I debate shooting back with "straight" with his same voice, but I figure to sit on my knots and let it go, and finally he goes to the lobby to smoke. "The Scoundrel" is fascinating, with Noel Coward coming back to life as Tony Millaire to find someone to shed tears for him, a young and pretty Julie Haydon, and Alexander Woollcott isn't announced in the credits at ALL! "Private Lives" seems quite perfect with Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery, and I'm sure no stage show could equal the perfection of their lodge-shattering knockdown drag-out fight that splinters all the furniture. Even Una Merkel and Reginald Denny are good, with Gene Hersholt appearing as a Swiss innkeeper. Out about 4, starving, and home to whip up three eggs in an omelet as I try to finish the puzzle, which remains obstinate. Watch Beverly Sills and Danny Kaye introducing kids to the opera from 5 to 6, try to watch anything else, but there's nothing, and finally figure that I haven't come in four days, so why not enjoy it, so I'd drunk white wine with the eggs, and I got quite stoned and enjoyed the first come of the evening from 6:30 to 7:30, then nodded and dozed until I got up at 8:30 to have more corn and steak before getting out to "Spring Rites" at 9:15, conceived by Tom O'Horgan for La Mama, and it's quite a thing (see DIARY 9560) until 12:25, when Art's left and I leave, coming home to smoke AGAIN and come AGAIN (see DIARY 9561) with TREMENDOUS impact. Slip off into sleep about 2, totally comed and tired.
DIARY 9562
MONDAY, APRIL 28. Wake at 8:30 and lay and lay, savoring the comfort of the thoroughly used sheets on the bed, there for over six weeks, another of the things that I have to do and of which I seem to be doing none of them. Out of bed at 9, breakfast, type nothing, water plants, and get out about 10:15 to New Century, choosing to take along nothing in the line of errands because I can't think of WHICH errand to take along. To work at 10:50, redoing pages for space that I merely proofread before, and then at 1:50 I have nothing more to do, so I'm out for liver and onions at Divine Flame, not bad, and back to work from 2:20 to 5:50, fretting about having so much work to do when I have so much other stuff to do at home, but knowing that if I WERE home, I wouldn't be doing it. Horrible state to be in! There's just too much ON MY MIND! Phone Bob but his line's busy, so I call Arnie and he's talking to Bob. Think about baths tonight. Home at 6:30, read New York Magazine until 6:50, call Arnie to get his message, so I guess he's having sex and we won't get to the baths. Want to work but find the still-undone puzzle and double crostic, so I settle down and do THAT until about 8:30, when I finally demand to type five diary pages, at least, and then I'm hungry, so make hash and peas and finish at 10, when I decide I'll come and get to bed early. Arnie calls back and tells me about TDI as Alice in Wonderland (see DIARY 9563), and Art calls to say he'd been hepped up to go, but since I don't care to go, he won't go but will wait for later. Also, I'll see the plays later. Smoke, inhale, puff, jerk off, use the rubber band, and eat in an orgy of sensations (see DIARY 9564), and find myself eating popcorn at midnight, listening to the Beatles, and turning TV on at 1:00 to watch "Stand In" with a milquetoast Leslie Howard as a banker investigating Colossal Studios, where Humphrey Bogart directs, and Joan Blondell steers him straight. When that's over at 2:15 I turn to "Dinner at 8," seemingly watching most of it, at least the Times-mentioned Renault farewell when John Barrymore commits suicide because he's old, and the battle of the Packards: Wallace Berry and Jean Harlow. THAT'S over at 3:50, and I stagger, shaking my head "Oh God NO," into bed at 4 o'clock in the AM.
DIARY 9565
TUESDAY, APRIL 29. Wake about 9:30 and out of bed about 10:10, still not having had quite enough sleep from my 4 am bedding. Have breakfast and settle down to type letters for part of the day, before getting to the proofreading that has to be done by Friday, when John knocks and offers me 20 pot sprouts! How about THAT for solving the problem of planting pot seeds too late? Delightedly transfer all of them into the white planter, but then he says he didn't want me to take them ALL, I hassle the feeling of guilt for taking everything when he'd only offered me part, and hope that the plants aren't affected. But by 6 pm the following day they look quite healthy, so I guess they came through OK. Then get back to letters, ignoring the dirt on the living room floor, which I have to vacuum SOME day, and write to L.T. Simpson checking about the $5 sets of photos, to Elaine, Mike, having selected 107 early Hungarian stamps, since I have no US to send him, Grandma, Claudia, Helen, and Laird. Also go through and select the books to take to Art Bauman on Germany. Type 3 diary pages, shower and wash my hair, and eat lunch VERY late because I was so into letters, and out at 4:30 to meet Arnie at the subway station to get to the Americana Hotel for the Travel Industry Fair, and there are about a hundred exhibitors with at least a thousand brochures, and I collect a stack quickly, hating the hail-fellow-well-met smiles and handshakes---and Steve Goodman is working for Regency and asks me to lead a group---if I get it together!---thanks a LOT! Same guy. Linda is there, fatter-assed than ever, but I don't look at her. Arnie knows lots of people through TDI, collects lots of stuff. Leave about 6:30, and walk over to the Peruvian that Bob Grossman refused to look at the menu on, and we go in and order even after looking at the FOOD, which looks dreadful, but the beans are tasty, the beef stew not bad, the shrimp soup spicy, and it's too expensive with the $6.65 bill and $1 tip, for $3.85 each. Walk up to the Met and in in plenty of time for "Ivan the Terrible," almost worse than "Spartacus" (see DIARY 9566), but out early at 10:40 and subway home, smoke, and come nicely, without poppers, and am so tired that I just slip off the bathrobe and go right to sleep about 12:30, without eating ANYTHING extra. Good!
DIARY 9568
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30. [Typing this TWELVE days late, the latest late since January and the trip!] Up early, probably by 8:30, since I went to sleep so early last night, but who remembers? Do whatever until 10:30, when I start proofreading Werley's manuscript on systems determination for nursing training and practices, the thing that Celia sent to me because it has so many formulas in it, and I work on it until 11:45, when I suddenly jolt up and remember that I've missed unemployment. Wanted to take out laundry and get groceries, but all that's forgotten as I grab up the book and dash out to get there in five minutes, no line, get it signed, and get back in time to watch Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" on TV, a good production, but it makes it look like an AWFULLY skimpy story. Read it afterwards to see what they did, and they almost did it word for word, cutting off at the same point: her screams from behind a crowd of people with the rocks. Have lunch, then get back to the proofreading from 12:15 to 2:20, when I probably talk to someone on the telephone, and then get back from 2:45 to 5:45, finishing in 5.5 hours and billing $72, not THAT good at only $13+ per hour. Then do whatever until 8-9, watching "Magnificent Monsters of the Deep" about right whales off the Valdez Peninsula in southern South America, even farther south in South American than I've been in Puerto Montt. Great picture of the guy and family who recorded the "Song of the Humpbacked Whale" and his love of whales is quite touching. Then probably smoke, listen to records (see by the notebook that I typed three pages, wrote Paul and Ron Miller and Chassy, thus able to cross off another item on the DO list, but about this time I'm making up ANOTHER one, since there are so many things that I NOW want to do that I haven't been adding because I didn't want to expand the list, but there are so many things in my head that I MUST add to the list), come, eat a lot, drink a lot, and worry about where I was going to get more grass. Probably come nicely, since I'm into the rubber band bit about my cock for GREAT orgasms, and listen for another time to the marvelous "Tubular Bells," perfect music to get stoned with. Bed whenever.
DIARY 9571
THURSDAY, MAY 1. Was probably told to get into New Century as early as possible, but I didn't get there until 10:15. Oh, I remember: I'd clipped out a cheap tape-sale place, so I wanted to go there, and then I told John last night that I wanted a bill from him for Werley, but when I was ready to leave at 9, he wasn't over yet, so I buzzed him, he gave me the bill, I typed up a new one for $211, and subwayed down to 14th, walked up to 18th to buy 12 tapes for $14.40, or some such, then over to Springer to give the flag-filled galleys to Celia, then walked up to New Century at 10:15, saying I was delayed. Tom had some other meeting, so I had to catch onto what I was doing, and I worked until 1:45, got me out to eat something, I don't remember what, but maybe I went to say hello to Michael, saw Tom Aloisi's name on his desk, since he'd bought his tickets for his trip there, and then went over to Chock Full O' Nuts alone because Michael didn't want to leave the other gal alone in the office. Had a pastrami sandwich, not too great for $1.40, from a Jewish-mother type waitress who kept trying to start conversations, and then back to go from 2:30 to 6:30, asking Tom if there was any time that would be better or worse for my taking a vacation, but he said he had NO idea of the schedule. I worked through matching Math Achiever Practice Problems to IPI units, then left, eye-weary, at 6:30, racking up 7.5 hours for the day. Home to dinner and probably AGAIN had an early dinner and drank a lot of wine and got high and decided to come BEFORE watching TV, and did so, with gusto, one of these nights being VERY hard before the mirror, panting at my own image and my own hardness, coming up with a class of "better than best" with porno. Then watch "Columbia Pictures 50th Anniversary" with more Oscar-winning pictures than any other studio, and then watched the Tomorrow show with an unpleasant (and stupid) Tom Snyder, NOT very cute, talking to Orson Welles, who tried to debunk lots of myths: He is NOT rich, he did NOT think "War of the Worlds" would attract such attention, he's not gotten the right offer for his new movie yet. I got rather bleary-eyed toward the end and fell exhausted into bed at 2 am, sorry about staying up so late.
DIARY 9572
FRIDAY, MAY 2. Up at 9, but by the time I get everything out of the way, I don't even have time to shower, and my hair looks somewhat bedraggled. Decide to take the little typewriter back up so that I'll have it up there, call him again to make sure he brings his stamps with him, call Bob and Arnie to tell them I'm going, but assuring Bob that I'll call him in time for us to meet for dinner tomorrow. Pack all my dirty clothes, and I've been drawing undershorts out of the laundry through the week, just WAITING for this chance at his laundromat. Take the chapter of the Display book, too, and other things to read, rather silly for only a two-day stay, but get out at 11:30 and lug the heavy largest suitcase to Art's by 12, and he's next door somewhere, while I watch the sexy numbers loitering around the street corners. Drive around the block to the shop so he can load up, then up to Pleasantville to find that the woman has closed her shop because of an enormous increase in rent, and up to the house to find the hyacinths out and the daffodils ALL over the place. He picks some and they SMELL up the sun-filled room just fine. I get the laundry in as soon as possible, and then take over clean underwear when I take a shower, not washing my hair because it's still rather cold out and rainy. He makes the last of his beef dish in the wok, and we eat and smoke in time to get out at 9 for the last showing of "The Four Musketeers." Teenagers making comments from the front make it hard to get into, but I don't think it's as good as the first one, and he dozes through a lot of it, and we've smoked a bit, so I'm a tiny bit stoned. Out at 11 to total fog, and drive home VERY slowly through the almost complete obscurity in certain regions, and the windows steam up to make things worse, and the headlights are worst of all. Thank goodness he's gotten the steering and brakes fixed so at least the car CONTROLS well when I know where I'm going. Back and smoke more, build another fire, and we get down to sex, but I don't come and he comes very nicely. OH, forgot that during the EARLY evening I sorted out the stamps, helped him look up some, and found one $1.50 one and that's about it. He was sad. Bed about 2 am.
DIARY 9573
SATURDAY, MAY 3. Wake about 8:30, putting the cold water at least behind my knees and ears, to appease him, and he wants me to do more. Don't have breakfast, and then he does things like moving things around for the yard sale tomorrow while I take the typewriter and Chapter 5 of Display over to Joyce's from 10:15 to 12, reading the new stuff, trying to think how to put things together, but it just doesn't GO. Type a page and a fraction, but it's disgustingly slow, and then type "Tranquility" on DIARY 9570 because I want to do SOMETHING, but not WORK. Then over for lunch, and he says there's some curried tuna from last time, and it's still good, so I take it and matzos and cookies down to the pond, and he comes down with a beer and some cookies, and we look out over the flowers, bitch about the kids screaming from the road, and I've wandered up the road to see if there are any mushrooms, and it seems too early yet, though May 6, 1973, was the date of the LAST morel hunt that John and I went on! But THEY were only the vanguard, and Ward Pound Reservation is a BIT south of North Salem, so NOW would be about the perfect time, and Art's on the SHIP! After lunch we're into the car to see about arrangements for the table outside tomorrow (and it rains, and they don't go), and into a few other towns, and then I'm back to TRY to work, but again don't feel like it, and simply scan the New York Times Magazine report by John Gunther on Gerald Ford, fairly boring, until 4 pm, and then we're making tracks to go back, getting back into the city about 6, saying hello to Gabor and Joyce at the shop, and then I lug my luggage off and get home to call Bob, arrange to meet him at 10:15, and get into the shower and get to him late, but he's picked up the tickets and we go around the corner to eat in Rocco's. We order a 1/2 bottle of wine, then a bottle, and the bill is wrong so it's $15 for the two of us, the hot appetizers a rip-off, the brains I had overcooked, the salad not much good. High enough to Charles Pierce, and I get a photo of him, but the most spectacular part was the puppet show of him as Baby June, climbing the walls. Over at 1 am. Bob has a incredible experience (see DIARY 9574), and I'm home to jerk off.
DIARY 9575
SUNDAY, MAY 4. Stayed up until about 3 finishing the puzzle before jerking off, and don't get up until about 10:30 to go through the Times and watch Camera Three's "Zen and I, Self-Portrait of the Great Turtle Priest," and I copy a note (see DIARY 9576) that I find beautiful. Art calls at 12:30, saying he's early, and he's up with his stamp list and has a LOT to say about how much he doesn't know how to see Europe. He looks through the brochures while I finish the vacuuming I started at 11:30, finishing the last of the things on the OLD list of things to do, making it official that I have ONE to-do list with 20 items on it. Same old thing. Then Art talks about how seldom he can talk about dance intellectually with anyone, saying that strangely enough, it's going AWAY from super-mechanism into EMOTIONS, and I come up with the concept of dance as a CONTINUUM and it's MET the other side by going to the extreme of ONE side (see DIARY 9577). We go on and on, I ate breakfast only, and then when we're about to have lunch I say it's 3:40 and he gasps and says he has a meeting at DTW at 4! He washes and leaves, and I have some eggs for lunch, not knowing what else to do, and look through his list of stamps, and then watch "Son of Frankenstein" from 5 to 7. "Frankenstein" (1932) is Colin Clive, he's drowned in swamp, comes back for "Bride of Frankenstein" with Colin Clive again (1935), then "Son" (1939) with Basil Rathbone as the son puts (no, Harkwicke does this) Bela Lugosi's brain into Boris Karloff's corpus. He falls into the sulfur pit, shooting Lugosi. "Ghost of Frankenstein" (1942) has Cedric Hardwicke as a SECOND son and Lon Chaney as the monster. "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" (1943) puts Chaney as the wolfman against Bela Lugosi as the monster, and "House of Frankenstein" is 1945. Whew. Dinner and probably come, then watch Monty Python from 10:30 to 11, reading the Times between times, getting rid of the host of other magazines, and generally feeling rather poorly, not a BIT like working, telling Bob I'll be working tomorrow, though I really don't FEEL like it. Watch bits of the end of "Psycho" too. Feeling quite disgusted with myself, not even like doing anything on the typewriter, even catching up with the diary, of which I'm VERY conscious of the time lag growing bigger.
DIARY 9578
MONDAY, MAY 5. Wake about 9 and put on Marty's Massenet program about 9:30, and it's got some good music, and I decide to play it innocent and say that I was supposed to have CALLED Ron, rather than gone in. He's not confident enough to contradict me, so he says I should come in tomorrow. I put records away from last night, wash dishes, do lots of things to take up the time of his music, and then have lunch and work on the 10 OYOs that I brought home with me from 1:20 to 2:15 and from 1:10 to 2:30 am! Called Bob and said that I wasn't going to work, and he said he'd try to get over early for Backgammon. He arrives at 1:30 and doesn't want to go out to lunch yet, so we start playing, I putting on the most distracting ultra-modern music I can think of to hassle him, and I win most of the games again, sometimes with ridiculous doublings up to 16, which is easy when we shake three consecutive doubles to see who goes first. In one game it actually seemed that we shook doubles more than we shook regular numbers. He can't stand my winning, and bugs me by delaying lunch until 4, when I realize that the restaurants probably won't be open. I fume, then decide to make eggs for us, and he loves them, and we finish up the raisin toast and white toast, and then he makes popcorn, much too much put in while I'm talking to someone on the phone---oh, Graham Gross, who had an ad for writers in the Times on Sunday, so I called, he said he'd call back, but he didn't by today yet. Finish the popcorn about 5, play on through to 7, when I turn on "Victory at Sea," and we finish at 7:30, Bob going off to his first sex with Rick Waters, and Arnie meeting me at 9 for the baths. Watch "Year of the Wildebeests," a great thing about eating, fighting, and death among the gnus of Africa and the Serengeti, millions of them, and watch pieces of the DC-10 crash in the intermissions. Arnie's over at 9 to bring me the record of "Tommy" and we're to the baths by 9:45, and though it starts slowly, it builds sufficiently so that it wasn't a complete waste (see DIARY 9579). Out at 12:45, taxi home VERY nicely, pay him $1.50 for the cab and we fuss with other finances and he owes me $5 for the tapes, and I'm home to jerk off with porno.
DIARY 9580
TUESDAY, MAY 6. Ron wanted me in at 9, I get in at 9:30, he doesn't get there until 9:35. I work from 9:30 to 5:30 with a 20-minute lunch, during which time I go over to Chock Full and have a fish sandwich which isn't so hot, and a piece of cherry cheese pie that increases my bill by 60%. Work on various Center News copyediting, OYO editing, filing, and matching more IPI work, and Ron's seldom there, so I can chat with Bob and Art and others on the phone while he's working elsewhere. Keep telling myself that they are doing me a FAVOR by keeping work for me, that I should be HAPPY they have all this work for me, but I still think they're trying to keep me away from my pleasures, and I have this chip-on-the-shoulder attitude toward them that I can't quite shake. Out at 5:50 after Ron's left (which means that I probably leave at 5:30), and get home to have dinner after watching "Victory at Sea" again and tuning in the Animation Festival at 8 to find Gerald Ford giving a press conference about something. Decide that I REALLY want to look at Art's stamps, so I get out the albums and the table is already set up, and I plug "Tommy" into my ears by means of the headphones, and record "Tubular Bells" for Arnold before I realize that an 1800-foot reel plays 48 minutes at 7½ inches per second, and "Tubular Bells" is over 50 minutes long. And the right speaker kept going out and I had to restart. Things are NEVER finished! Go through all the stamps and keep about 68 of the hundreds he has, again finding with amazement that though he may have ONE of a country, and I have 4 of the 5 in a set, he'll still fill a hole. This goes on until about midnight, when I've sorted out $6.99 worth of stamps for him, and later call him and say I've degutted it, and he says that I can send the rest of them to Mike Schaeffer, which gives him a charge, so I guess I'll have to do that. Just about the right size collection to keep me busy for an evening, and I debate going to bed without smoking, but I can't quite get around it, so smoke, come with gusto without rubber bands, at least ONE of these evenings, and feel very content with the sex I'm having with myself, except that I'd ALSO like to have sex with SOMEONE ELSE, TOO!.
DIARY 9581
WEDNESDAY, MAY 7. Keep trying to get people for the orgy on Friday through the week, and Arnie still ends up inviting most of the new people that I haven't met. Wasted the whole morning somehow, probably around the trip that I read about in Travel Agent that goes around Indonesia, to all those little islands that I'd love to see. Mark out the map in the atlas, call Fran to have her send me some stationery, which she does, on which I can say that I work for them and have done tour escorting for others, and Kirsten says I can use her name and Polly will be back in the office in a few days. I call her Friday and she says OK too. Watch "My Old Man" on Short Story Playhouse from 12 to 12:30, and finally get back to the display book at 1 to 5:30. Can't imagine what I did for the rest of the day, except that I went down for the mail a couple of times, and the Travel Agent magazine kept coming, New York, Soho News, others and others kept coming, and I had to read them all. Haven't been doing much---OH, decided I DID have to file the Travel Agent magazines, and looking at the bookcases, decided to get rid of the porno box under the typewriter, and sorted through all the porno from the past (finding some good stuff still there), putting it in a stack for the new filing cabinet, and put the box in the closet, which meant that I had space for TWO large stacks of the Travel Agents, and could clear off the top shelf for more important stuff, like telephone directories and Advocates and Newsweeks. Then watch "Victory at Sea" while eating dinner and getting ready to dash out the door at 7:25 for the Bolshoi, and get there in plenty of time, but the "Giselle" isn't really worth it (see DIARY 9582). Out at 10:30, disappointed, and get home by 11:15, but the movie on TV isn't for another 75 minutes, so I smoke and jerk off, almost having to speed up considerably to get off by 12:30, and watch "Ghost of Frankenstein" which is pretty bad, ending with the monster's face burning and peeling in the castle in the fire, and get to bed VERY tired at 2, knowing I have a LOT of work ahead of me with the display book tomorrow, to get it ready by Friday, and then I have all the other work to do, but at least I'm not QUITE as depressed as I was earlier in the week.
DIARY 9583
THURSDAY, MAY 8. Up about 9:30, feeling tired, and again the morning routine seems to take SO much time: eating breakfast, making the bed, throwing away the ashes from the grass last night, watering the plants, putting various things away. Get back to the Chapter 5 of the Display book at 10:30 and work through until 2, when I stop for lunch, and possibly call some people for the orgy tomorrow, since I don't get back to the book until 3:30, and work through until 7, doing most of the work on it, and then call Lauren and she says she had a bad week and won't be ready for me tomorrow, so I can postpone it until Monday. Great! Watch another "Victory at Sea," with the HORRIBLE commentary of the likes of "The Germans killed all these innocent people and Hitler gave them medals, the rat," followed by "And we won a glorious victory for freedom," showing our bombers saturation bombing the towns below! The music is VERY repetitious, and when I play the album it seems to capture all the best parts of the TV program. Back to display from 7:30 to 8:30, getting to the point that I'm typing out the questions and the final summary, and then I start making dinner so that I can watch "An Avoidable Accident" at 9-10, and I don't see how ANYONE would be safe-feeling on a DC-10 for quite awhile. Then watch "Prelude to War," another table-thumping series of films about the "awful" enemy and our "courageous" troops. Doesn't ANYONE hear this nonsense??? Then go to bed and jerk off with tremendous gusto (no, actually, I think I DON'T come, and think that I'll just be saving it up for tomorrow night) and get out of bed at 12:30 to watch "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman," and it's not very good, ending with the dam blowing up and blasting through the ceiling of the castle, burying Frankenstein and the Wolfman until NEXT time. Bed at 2, aching with desire to not do any more work, aching with desire to write, to get things out of the way, but I'm due in at New Century tomorrow and have the rest of the display chapter to do and the index hanging over my head. At least I've gotten out of the habit of just SITTING around, and at least I'm doing something: I've reached the bottom, and the only things to do is WORK and crawl back up again.
DIARY 9584
FRIDAY, MAY 9. Morning things pass, and Ron calls at 10 to say that I should come in, so I work from 10:45 to 1:45 proofreading and filing various things, and call Michael, go talk with him, and we go up to 34th Street to have a delicatessen lunch, and my roast pork tastes more of mustard than it does of pork, but his eggplant parmigian is good. It takes longer than we thought, talking about ballet all the while, and back to work from 3:30 to 5:30, doing more with the IPI modules, this time matching them with Math Modules, and the pairing is easier. Tom hasn't come back yet, and Ron has no idea what might be coming in the next week, so I say I'll call him on Monday, but there's nothing on Monday, so I just tell him to call me when he needs me, and he hasn't called me by THIS point, 12:30 pm on Wednesday, and that's good. Home to pick up a gallon of white wine to go with the gallon of red I picked up a few days ago, but then remember that I forgot butter for the popcorn Bob Grossman will inevitably ask for, so I call him to bring some, and he pushes me to the limit of my endurance with him, whining that he wants to know who's coming, that I always have the same group (though of course HE never invites anyone, and who and how else can anyone new GET here? If it weren't for Arnie, whom Bob particularly doesn't want to have sex with, my groups wouldn't even be POSSIBLE.) Bill Wolf has called (in fact, FOUR messages wait for me) to ask what floor I'm on, and I fall behind schedule, at least showering and shaving and washing my hair and eating my hash just before Arnie comes in at 8:45, with the butter, with a quart of ice cream, and with Hershey's fudge topping. Fabulous Arnold! Then Stephan Waite come in, and I recognize his face, and I'm dashing around putting away Art's stamps, and he's said I should send them off to Mike in Poland, and I'm changing bulbs in the kitchen and bathroom, getting drinks for people, hanging up coats, and trying to get the right atmosphere ready while Arnie acts as host. By the time Art arrives at 9:30 the place is pretty well together, John Casarino has brought lots of grass, everyone starts smoking, and a fairly good evening gets underway (see DIARY 9585). Glad to have the music changer, but the channel keeps going out, everyone leaves by 3:30, and I get to bed at 4 am, after having more ice cream and fudge.
DIARY 9586
SATURDAY, MAY 10. Wake at 9 and doze until about 10:30, feeling very good laying and lazing around bed in the comfy covers---slightly greasy from the Vaseline last night---and there's a smutch on the sofa that I try Glamorene once with and it doesn't work, so I try it again RIGHT NOW. Washed the huge stack of dishes last night, and have another stack of dishes to wash now. Don't have breakfast because I don't have cereal, and have some eggs about 12:30 when I'm hungry after cleaning up and re-changing light bulbs. Then off at 1 to see Art's new piano and help him lug stuff into the cab, with a groovy driver that everyone likes, through the magnificent early afternoon to pier at 52nd Street and the Oceanic. Wave "staff" at the guys who want to collect $1 for passenger visitors, get to his tiny cabin for some vermouth, and then we're off to see the ship from the elegant deck-terraces at the top for the penthouses, the open roof over the echoing swimming pools where people are snapping photos with the lifeguard, and the VERY elegant grand lounge and dining rooms (where I steal a deluxe menu from the previous evening's dinner) and down BELOW the crew deck to the movie theater, which makes the whole thing 12 levels, or 13, if you count the captain's lounge above the bridge and the kennels in the funnel above everything else. Loud raucous people, and Bob shoves out his hand and gutturals "See you, Mack," after Art and I kiss goodbye and he wants to kiss Bob. Bob draws more attention with THAT then we did with the KISS. Off at 4 and watch the Doric sail from the other place, and the Oceanic sails at 4:30, me waving my blue jacket back at Art waving his scarf, even into mid-Hudson, and we go back while Bob moans about not knowing how to find his way back to his apartment, and I walk north to pass the Gallery of Modern Art and decide THAT might be a way to kill time, and see "Judge Priest" with a laconic Will Rogers who gets his nephew to go with the right gal, who's the secret daughter of the Civil War hero who was a lifer who was freed by the guy who's now the minister---etcetc. See "Three Centuries of the Nude" for $2, not worth it, and then up to buy $3 ticket for Lasarium, not worth it (see DIARY 9587), out at 8:30, finishing "Treasure of the Great Reef" on the subway and watch part of "Nicholas and Alexandra" until I try to jerk off, but don't.
DIARY 9589
SUNDAY, MAY 11. Finish the puzzles that I'd started before and finish reading the Times, then get back to Chapter 5 of the Display book from 11:15 to 12:45, when I make lunch, but the Wolf Trap that I want to watch is NOT Beverly Sills in "Daughter of the Regiment" that I still want to catch, so get back to work from 1:15 to 4:45, typing about Mother's and Father's Day and feeling guilty enough that I phone Mom, who just got in from taking Grandma out to dinner, so I talk with both of them and Rita, feeling good that I did that, and Mom wants me to check on a TWA flight to Rome for her. Talk to others on the phone just to moan that I'm working so hard, but I manage to finish the typing and proofreading from 5:30 to 7:15, and when I call her up tomorrow, she says that she'll give the WHOLE REST of the book to me, so essentially I have now only ONE more deadline, which I'll make May 30th, to get the last three chapters to her. Fine! Had LUNCH at 5, and there's very little left to EAT since I haven't gone to the supermarket in over a week, and I have no more of ANYTHING left except eggs, which makes a good, low-volume meal that I like. Watch the summary of "Nicholas and Alexandra," and the coincidence that the Massie's new book is out, talking about THEIR hemophiliac son, but I didn't miss much by not seeing the first half. Then tune in a ragged-looking Rod Serling for "UFO's, Past, Present, and Future," and it DOES seem like there's something out there, an exciting thought. Then watch the end of "Nicholas" for the shooting, the blood on the walls, and then back to the samovar flame, and then "Monty Python" with dinner, then the Animation Festival from 11:30 to 12, and watch Geraldine Page as a nun and a hippie in an old "Name of the Game" episode before I watch "Brigadoon" from 1 to 3, with a BEAUTIFUL body and face on Jimmy Thompson as Charlie Dalyrymple, and Hugh Laing was the dark, brooding, beautiful Harry Beaton. Then have a FANTASTIC come with bidi and popper, first in four days, and REALLY UNTOUCHED, the come blurting out about three inches from my straining cock, continuously connected, all of it, but the feeling was not the greatest in the world---THAT came the following TUESDAY (see DIARY 9594)! Asleep again about 4 am---this is really too MUCH!
DIARY 9590
MONDAY, MAY 12. Up about 10:30 again, finishing the last TINY bit of cereal and, having finished the last eggs last night, having NOTHING left to eat (no, I guess I finish the eggs TONIGHT), and water the plants and fuss about before leaving at 11 to get to McGraw-Hill about 11:45, return the chapter to Lauren, pick up the books for the last three, and type up a bill for $750 for the chapters 3-5. Then to Dick Sime's office, and he's made reservations (when I called him this morning) for the Safari Room, and we're up to an elegant 50th-floor restaurant with charming hostesses and waitresses since Dick's taken their pictures for a book he was in charge of. There's also a cocktail lounge that the waitress shows me, looking south, glorious view of everything, north is blocked by the Exxon Building mostly. But the daiquiri is good and strong for $1.50, the egg drop soup has celery and onions in it, the red wine with the meal isn't bad, and the Italian Sampler is covered with mediocre tomato sauce, so the final bill of $8.69 is quite a surprise, though the final hot fudge sundae was super. We spent most of the time talking about loving chocolate and various other stoned treats. Out at 2, leaving a note for Lauren about the ballet ticket for tomorrow night, and then home, finishing "In Search of the Miraculous" finally on the subway (and now I can think of making a tape for Bill), and start on the agonizing task of typing twelve of the needed diary pages, of which this is STILL one of them. Rolf left a message, I call, he delivers 20 bottles and I owe him $100 and we chat 3-5 about travel to Indonesia, India, in a 60-foot boat, and Alaska. Think I'm FINALLY seeing light when Jo Roc calls about 7 pm and says she has a job for me, so I go right over and pick up chapters 5 and 6 of a book with illiterate quotes from stupid artists (see DIARY 9591), and I finish typing the twelve pages, HATING to do more, and start on the chapters at 10 pm and it takes a half hour to do the FIRST page, and 4 hours to do the first chapter, until 1:40, actually, but it took me 20 minutes to pick the stuff up at her place, cluttered and she's surely NOT married, as the doorman said. Her dog is almost as fat as she is. The book is horrible, but I committed myself to it, so I feel I must plow through it. Too tired to jerk off at 1:50, when I finally tumble into bed, and I go to sleep with no difficulty. Oh, Stephen Waite called (and I'd talked to Arnie about going to the baths, but he had someone coming over) and is coming Wed PM.
DIARY 9592
TUESDAY, MAY 13. [Yesterday at LAST, after 12 pages on Monday, 2 on Tuesday, and this is the 9th today!] Wake about 8:30 and laze until 9:30, then up and right to the copyediting of the art book from 10 to 12:30, and Avi calls and talks for 30 minutes about his slamming his finger in the door and possibly losing it, and I mentioned that I'd called him on Saturday and he wasn't home. At 12:30 I'm starved, since I had nothing for breakfast, and go out to the store and spend almost ALL the $14 I have for food. Back for lunch, reading an incredible article about blood-farms in New York, and then back to the chapter 6 from 1:45 to 3:45, for another four-hour chapter, and I think Jo was CRAZY when she said it was about two hours per chapter. Then get into chapter 7 from 3:45 to 5:15, with 15 minutes out when Lauren Rubin calls and we talk about ballet again, she thanking me for the offer of the ticket tonight, and I can't stand doing any more. Jo called during the day, saying she got in two more chapters and wanted to walk her dog, so she came over here (undoubtedly to see how I live: she was impressed) and left two, I complained about how bad it was and she sympathized with me, saying she'll call me when the final chapter, still with the reader, comes in. I decide I MUST do the dishes, so I do, and then have some FRESH hamburger for a change, and the transitions are funny: when it's FRESH, the bright pink outside covers vague gray matter inside. When it's ROTTING, the outside is a horrible putrid gray while the inside looks PINK by comparison. What DO they do to FOOD? Type 2 pages just to cut down the burden SOMEWHAT, and then wash and have dinner and take chapters 6 and 7 over to her, having smoked and made myself somewhat dizzy, then get to the subway JUST before the rain comes and subway stoned to the Met to sell the ticket to a little old lady for $13, who wants to make sure it's in the center, and she loves it. FINALLY the Bolshoi comes up with a great evening (see DIARY 9593), and one of the longest ones, too, since I leave at 11:35 and walk up Montague at 12:25. Home to smoke John's grass and have an INCREDIBLE orgasm that sets a new high for feeling (see DIARY 9594), then gorge myself on two huge pieces of toasted bread, and eat chocolate while listening to "Tubular Bells" until I feel tired enough to sleep at about 2:30 am.
DIARY 9598
WEDNESDAY, MAY 14. Up about 9:45 after waking much earlier and laying in bed, enjoying the comfort and threading through the number of things that I have to do in the next few weeks. Arnold calls about 10:30 and talks to 11, when I leave for unemployment, stop in for poppers that they don't have and I have to pick them up the next day, cash a check at the bank for $400 to pay Rolf $100 and do lots of shopping to finish the DO list, and buy the Voice and get back at noon to find the "Short Story Playhouse" isn't on for some reason. Get down to typing, then have lunch about 2:30, and type more until I FINISH, at last, up to date, with 14 pages. Then tackle the last chapter I have from Jo, doing that from 4:20 to 6:50, conscious that Steve is coming over in just about an hour. Shower and wash my hair while the hamburger is burning, eat dinner, put dishes away, put another batch of Glamorene on the Vaseline stain on the sofa and it STILL doesn't come all out, so I turn it around, and then change the sheets on the bed and my shirt just as he buzzes at the perfect time: 8:15. I'd called Jo, who said that the last chapter would be in FRIDAY night; Ron Tiekert called, saying I should work on Friday; and I called Rolf, who's behind schedule and not going to the Poconos tomorrow, and will accept my $100 in cash (so as not to connect us when one of us gets busted for popper production) anytime tomorrow afternoon, and may be going to the mountains sometime next week, so I should get AHEAD of my schedules, rather than farther behind. Steve and I talk, and he's rather a bore. Start smoking and disrobing at 9, and I've put on the phone service, so when Dror calls, it just rings twice and stops. The session isn't one of the best, but it's not the worst, either (see DIARY 9599), and at 10:45 he inquires about the time, and leaves at 11. I still curse out the people moving furniture upstairs, fantasizing that she's moved out and monsters have moved in, and I'll be forced to move within a month. Funny that I'd think ANYONE would be worse than her and her damn cats! Call Dror and talk to him, sexy, until 11:30, then add his name to my address book and bring THAT up to date until 12:15, sip triple sec while listening to Berlioz on the earphones to 1, thankful that it's quiet upstairs except for the cat, and surprised to wake at 6:30, again at 8, out of bed at 9:30, and this, disgustingly later, at 10:40, the first time I've said NOW in ages!
DIARY 9608
THURSDAY, MAY 15. DIARY 9598 tells me that I got out of bed at 9:30 and typed three pages after breakfast, taking me up to 10:40 am. Then want to get rid of stuff from my shelves, so I send the stamps to Mike, send notes to Mom (after calling TWA and finding out about her trip) and Griswolds about the pattern for my sweater. This all finishes about lunchtime, and after I eat I get started on the index for the book on "Understanding Aging" from 2 to 2:30, and from 2:45 to 3:15. Then I gather things up to take to the post office, and find that I have to get something written outside the envelope to Mike, which happens to be only "Contains stamps," but that was after I got terribly annoyed at the silliness of the whole thing. If I send 100 stamps 5 times, nothing happens, but if I send 500 stamps once, something has to be done specially. How silly the world is! Back to call lots of people: Bob Grossman to see what of the things I want to see for the rest of the weekend HE wants to see, and only the event at the Third Eye interests him, so I make reservations for that for Friday. Call Michael and find that he's busy tonight, wants to see Ze'eva on Saturday, and then in sorting through things, I come across Joan's flier for "Ritual" and call Bob to see if he can't influence Bob Rosen, whom he's having dinner with at 8 to come to this, but he said that Bob's not very interested in different things, and that he wouldn't want to go. Talk to Arnie for a long time, and he asks me what it's going to be like, and I admit that it'll probably be awful, so he said that he didn't want to come along. Probably shower and wash my hair to get ready for the evening, and decide that there's no time to eat. Also, today, worked on the resume for the tour-escorting jobs, and then Arnie said that it would be MUCH better rearranged, and I agreed with him, but didn't have time to do anything about it. Out at 7 to Bill Dunas, experiencing the audience-of-one evening described on DIARY 9601-9605, but I guess I'll do another page on Dunas just to have a page on Dunas, DIARY 9609. Home to type up the page, then jerk off and eat in no particular order, and watch "It's Magic" on Wide World Special, what sounds like it'll be one of a series, rather fun, from 11:30 to 1, then watch "I Married a Witch" with Veronica Lake taking Fredric March away from Susan Hayward, and I'm totally ready for sleep at 3 am, when it's over.
DIARY 9610
FRIDAY, MAY 16. Wake early but lay around until about 10, to get at least 7 hours in bed, and up and breakfast and water plants and get off to New Century by 11:15, and the desk is loaded with stuff to do, but the checking of the composition for the OYOs goes very fast, and then the checking for art goes quickly, too, since there are so few pieces, and I make the mistake of thinking there's no more to do, so after I find that Michael's not working on his 24th birthday today, and won't share lunch with me, I call Bob and find he'll be in, shaming him into buying cream cheese for my lunch at his place, with the threat that he'll never have lunch at MY place again if he doesn't, and then recall that Ron said I should match the Math practice problems with the Math Modules, not math with IPI, which is pretty well matched ANYWAY. I smile, but there was only about an hour's work there, and THEY get paid for mistakes, so there's no reason why I shouldn't get paid for mistakes. Then call Bob and say I can't come, and go out at 2:45, quite hungry, to have lunch at Chock Full again, MARVELING at the tight jeans and shorts wandering by on the streets, for a fish sandwich, and back at 3:15 to start on the matching, and he says they want me to set up a schedule of working for them one or two days a week when the stuff starts coming in. Just as long as I can finish my OTHER jobs! Work till about 7, after everyone's left, and I put in a note of being there until 7:15, just a bit of a rook, and catch a slow subway up to Grand Central and shuttle across to Times Square and walk up to St. Clements at 7:20 for the Third Eye. The production of "The Women of Trachis" is totally mis-thought (see DIARY 9611) and Bob hates it too, and we're out at 8:50 glad it wasn't longer. Subway down to look at restaurants, and convince him into Jules Verne. Two friends of his come, too, and he has a tough but spicy chicken and I have overdone but tasty bass for $6.95, the cold lettuce soup which was GREAT, and the crème brulee which was the hit of the evening, along with a Pinot Chardonnay for $7, bringing the bill up to $30 and change, or $34.50 in all. Bob said his would be $10, and I owe him $7 for the "Chorus Line" ticket, he owes me $1 for the TDF from tonight. My dinner is $1 more than his, so he gives me $10.25 and I pay the rest! Over, thanks to his pleas, to 12 West for an evening (see DIARY 9612), home at 2:45 to jerk off and AGAIN get to sleep at 3:30. This is too MUCH!
DIARY 9613
SATURDAY, MAY 17. Michael calls about 10:30, getting me out of bed, and right after that the exterminator comes in, a BEAUTIFUL kid with GREAT arms on his short body, and he sort of looks at me and sprays around a LOT of the white exterminating fluid. There's some other man upstairs, and it dawns on me that I haven't been driven up the wall by the woman clumping around, the worst time being on the 14th when Stephen was here and they were moving furniture around. Turns out on WEDNESDAY of next week [today] that she'd been in California for two weeks and Mrs. Johnson was taking care of the cats for her. So THAT'S why the smell was so awful?? Michael and I aren't sure if we're going to Ze'eva tonight, so we decide to let it ride. Art calls about 11 and talks for awhile, and he's not sure when he's going to the country, but says he'll call me back, and then I'm relieved when he calls about 7 and says that he's going to the country and won't be back until Tuesday morning, so that leaves me free to do what I want to do, since I can't go up till Tuesday with tickets for Sunday and Monday. [Also got home last night to hear an 11 pm call from Rolf to go to the Club for 2fer night last night.] I get into the AGING index at 11:30 until 2:30, when I have lunch, and water the plants, and then work from 3 to 7, a total of 7 hours, and I JUST finish with marking the book when Art calls, and then I call Michael who JUST got in from bicycling, and he decides maybe he WILL get up to Riverside for Ze'eva. I don't have time to eat, so just shower and get out about 7:20, and get off the subway at 8, dash to the wrong door, then walk ALL AROUND the place, find the banner, dash in and pay the ticket at 8:10, and it starts just as I settle into my seat. Not a bad program (see DIARY 9614) and Michael shows up at intermission, we chat, then back in for the finish, talk to Jeff, and he's interested in supper, so we go down to the Symposium where we have a Roditis wine and I have the veal with orza, a shell-like pasta that's tasty with the tomato sauce, and the meat is good, too, and I get home in time to watch "Harper" (EVERYONE'S evil and Paul Newman probably lets Arthur Hill GO at the end for killing the missing billionaire!) at 12:30 to 2:30, between working the puzzles, and get to bed AGAIN exhausted from a long day.
DIARY 9615
SUNDAY, MAY 18. Up AGAIN about 10, having breakfast, finishing the puzzles, reading the Times, watching a good half hour on Borobudur on Camera Three that ends up with MARVELOUS clouds and fog wafting over the terraces, and they're taking the WHOLE THING apart! Sometime in here Jo called to say that the last chapter of the book was in, and I went to get it---Today, I guess, but I'm really concerned about the trip to India, so I think and think about it (see DIARY 9606) and decide NOT to go, so I get out the old letters from Paul and write him a letter saying that I'm not going, and then fertilize the plants and finish reading the Times and do heaven knows what until Bob calls at 4:45, when I'm deciding to catch up on the diary before getting to the reading---but probably NOT getting to the reading since I have so many diary pages to do, to say that we're supposed to meet at Bob Rosen's at 5:45 and then have dinner before "A Chorus Line." Well, there goes THAT day. Get into the shower and Rolf rings downstairs, but I'm all soaped up and don't answer it. He calls back to say that he'd like to go up to the Catskills tomorrow if the weather is nice, and I say that I've got tickets to "Chicago" but would love to go with him if I could be back in town by 8 pm. We'll think about it, we decide, and then I put on my brown pants without underwear for the first time this year, and put on my black-and-white striped shirt open almost to the navel, and go out feeling quite sexy. Well, I shouldn't have, because I had that awful "faggot" experience on the subway that stuck with me through the next few days (see DIARY 9616). To Bob's at 5:42 and ask for a stiff vodka tonic, feeling better, and then we're out looking for a place to eat, I refuse Cedar Tavern, and there's a new Chinese place on 8th, that used to be the Lichee Tree, open under new management for $4 a person. In for chicken egg foo yung, shrimp in lobster sauce, and beef and Chinese vegetables in VERY small portions, but good soup and so-so egg roll, I SHOUT for a plate that turns off both Bobs, and we get THREE fabulous fortunes: Bob R on "The more you get the more you want" when he was talking about his size predilections, Bob G gets "An early bird catches the worm" and I get "As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities." Loaded, every one. To "A Chorus Line" just fabulous (see DIARY 9617), home for Monty Python and Animation Festival, smoke and come juicily.
DIARY 9618
MONDAY, MAY 19. I'd called Rolf at 10:15 and we decided to leave at 7:30, so I set the alarm for 6:45, shut if off at 2:30 for some crazy reason, and woke with a jolt (with earplugs in, so the alarm couldn't even have CLICKED for me to hear) at 6:47. Took more time to get ready, called him at 7:30, and we're off at 7:45 for the 135-mile trip. Wheels have to be changed on the highway until 8:30, but then we get up to Phoenicia, down along the Woodland Valley Road, and see the sign to Mt. Wittenburg, starting on the trail at 11:10. Rolf carried the huge pack, going somewhat slowly and sweating "like a pig" to quote him, and I felt just great, stopping at the lean-to halfway up for some warm Coke and a shit in the horrid outdoor loo, then up to the place where there was still some ice, and then I got to carry the pack the rest of the way up. Passed three humpy numbers with fabulous legs coming down, who'd slept up there last night, then encountered a PR or an Italian who kept shouting at his date to "Geddover here," and Rolf would add silently, "You silly cunt!" The Scampe wine tasted fine even with the black-littered ice in it, his choice of cheese and ham and chicken and pumpernickel and oranges and tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs was just perfect with the salt and peppermill and mustard and mayonnaise he brought along, and the wine glasses were a nice touch; next time he wants tables, chairs, and champagne. Look at the cave, over the misted-in Ashokan Reservoir, then start down about 2:45, hoping to get down in 2½ hours, and he's sweating, we're talking about sex, working out, trips, and other times in the woods, and the place is pretty: still earliest spring on top, intermediate stages of lushness in the moss-meadows between, and brightest untainted green below. Stopped for another Coke, he's REALLY sweating, and quickly into the car (after gulps at the marvelous cold springs) at 5:20 for a quick trip back to NYC. He makes up to 90 on the highway, I change clothes and leave a dirty undershirt with him, and he leaves me off RIGHT at the door of the 46th Street Theater at 7:45, where I encounter Bob, Frank Garrity downstairs when I go down to wash, and an awful production of "Chicago" (see DIARY 9619). Out at 10:30 and look into Great Aunt Fanny's for a good Fannyburger across from Frank and Layne, next to possibly three from Chorus Line, and Bob is ogling everyone. Leave about 12:10, he goes to a bar, I get home to FALL very tired into bed without even bothering to shower, certainly not needing to come.
DIARY 9620
TUESDAY, MAY 20. Wake quite refreshed at 8:30, and get out of bed about 9:15 to finish the last little bit of cereal, then get to the last chapter of the art book from 9:30 to 2, then call Jo and take it over, giving her a final bill, and that's ONE job out of the way! Buy groceries and get back at 3 to find a message from Art, saying to meet at the theater at 7:50, and then I have lunch of a liverwurst sandwich with munster, for a change, since they only had two cans of tuna mismarked at the old price of 59¢ while the rest were marked to 73¢. Then at 2:55 get to the index for Understanding Aging until 6:25, a fairly interesting book, and then do some things around the apartment until 7:20, when I leave for the Greenwich, getting there at 7:40 and Art comes up at 7:50 and gives me a big kiss and compliments me on my "Early Halloween" tee-shirt, and then I finish the last page of "I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream" before we get into the movie. "The Man in the Glass Booth" is a real surprise (see DIARY 9621) and when we get out at 10:10 we talk about it for a long time, debating who wrote it, and I'd forgotten the controversy about the difference between the play and the film that lead Robert Shaw, the author, to remove his name from the program, leaving only Harold Pinter's on it as the original director. Art said it didn't do very well in NYC, and I can see why. Back to his kitchen after I buy another bottle of Scampe for the meal, and he's in frying BACON, that really freaks me out, and he mixed up mushrooms and raw spinach and lots of parsley into a huge salad bowl with the crumbled bacon pieces, and it's great with the wine, and we smoke during and after, and then he serves some almost-melted chocolate ice cream with Amaretto poured on top of it. We sit while he gives me 400 in four rolls of Bahamas pennies (that's $140 worth of tokens!), a large conch shell of my choice, and shows me his muscleman plastic doll with the "jerk-off fist" and other goodies that he's picked up, and I get the idea he's constantly trying to entertain me. We get undressed after I start playing with him, and he's up strongly with his ring and I'm up too, but he doesn't touch me after he comes, so I do myself with a strain and he says "You look so good," and I FEEL good, too, and we sit around until I see that it's 2:30 and say we've GOT to get to bed, stoned from good grass.
DIARY 9622
WEDNESDAY, MAY 21. Wake at 6:30, lounge and laze until about 8, and then Art's up and cuddling and hard, leaning against my backside, and so I go down on him and play for awhile until there's nothing for him to do but thrust and come, which he does, and then I stretch and dash water behind my knees and on my face, pick up my goodies, and leave about 9:45, getting home to have breakfast, water the plants, and start back on the "Aging" index from 10:30 to 12, when I have lunch while watching Conrad's "The Secret Sharer," with obviously gay overtones (is this being overdone along now?) and then back to finish the index from 12:45 to 5:45, working 6.5 hours today and encountering a definite feeling of letdown when I'm finished with the stuff that I HAVE to do and am left only with the Display book, the last of the last---before writing and applying for jobs and doing the DO list! Then get into the diary, typing up 12 pages before it's 8, when I look at the TV schedule and decide to watch "Depression" on "Feeling Good," and I can see why the series got poor reviews, even with Dick Cavett on: the portrayal of the depression was so CONVINCING that it made ME feel depressed, and the "real-life" portrayal of the PR who was depressed and finally went to a doctor, and his coworkers in the auto-repair shop sympathized and didn't laugh at him was so bad that I almost shut it off. Then came Crumb's "Ancient Voices of Children" with gamelan-like percussion effects without the beauty, and Jan DeGaetani seemed to think that beauty was composed of making as odd faces as possible while coming out with grunting, strained, screaking sounds with no relation to the music, all the while Virginia Johnson pursued a boy soprano around the stage. Real LOSER. "Three by Balanchine" filmed in Munich, was even worse: quick camera cutting totally DESTROYED "Serenade," "Tarantella," and "Duo Concertante," though Peter Martins never looked thinner, sexier, and better; Bonnefous was puffy, and Kay Mazzo bizarre in her huge eyes and vanishingly pointed chin. That over at 10, while I ate, I smoked and looked at slides and came nicely before 11:15, when I watched the end of "The Best of Groucho," pretty ghastly, and "A Salute to the Beatles," with an increasingly unpleasant, sarcastic, and supercilious David Frost and some good old memories of their songs, and the strange coda that they MIGHT get back together, "If there was a really good reason." Um. Gasp at the FOOD (see DIARY 9623).
DIARY 9624
THURSDAY, MAY 22. Up about 9 and don't manage to leave until 9:50, so I get to ACC with the Aging index late at 10:30, but Steve likes it anyway, and then I walk over to Fifth to see about getting a rug at Sloans, and find a gold 40% wool and 60% other blend just about the right size that's been marked down from $209 to $159, more than 3 times as much as the remnant, but this puts the bedroom on the SAME status as the other two rooms, and it's about time, I feel, so I shell out the $200+ with glee. Then try Lord and Taylor's for Mom's charms, but they don't have them because "they're not the thing anymore," and I can only retort "They are in Ohio!" Down to Altman's, which Art tells me has been WILLED to be the same as when it was established, and that's why it's so 50s-ish, and it'll stay that way until it passes out of the control of the family and then they tear it down and put up something else. Get sent upstairs to the children's department, and buy FIVE of them, sending a card for "Birthday, Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Anniversary, and Summer," with the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, a cross, an ankh, and "Mother" on a disk. That should get her, each packed separately and sent that very day. At last! Stop off at Michael's and chat with him, getting ANOTHER copy of the TWA Holy Year vacation book, and get to work at 11:45 with a load of stuff to proofread. Work until I'm starved at 2:45, make a deposit at the bank with Michael, eat at the deli, where Joseph comes a dozen times to the table to schmooze, and back at 3:30 to set up ONE day in the office next week and TWO days the following week, to get things going, and work through until 8, totaling 7.5 hours, and leave early at 8 to walk down to 14th, search for the office equipment shop that ends up being on 23rd Street, and meet Art crossing 6th, amazed that we encounter each other. Smoke a few tokes in the john, but it still doesn't help the awful performance and concept of "Bluebeard" (see DIARY 9625). Can't quite get the feeling of Art's liking for Ludlam, but we talk about it while he's making soft-shelled crabs in the worst possible way: without breading, boiled in butter so that I can SEE just what it looks like and TASTE just what it looks like and SENSE the crisp crackle of the shell. UGH! Sex neatly, and I come myself again, and AGAIN it turns into 2:15 before we're in bed, and I fall asleep almost INSTANTLY!
DIARY 9627
FRIDAY, MAY 23. Look at the clock next at 8:30, and there had been thunder through the evening, with the sound of rain on the air conditioner (or was this on TUESDAY night?) being very pleasant. Art still seems to be resting, so I kiss him, stretch, put on water, and get out about 8:45 and get home to pick up lots of mail and read through all of it. Have breakfast and put away all the stuff that's been piling up for me to do, settle down to type the five diary pages that bring me up to date, and then send out three checks for various things that came in the mail and have lunch, very late, about 2:45, with the kitchen window open to the sunlight for the growing grass. Then think to get back to the book on Display, talking to Arnie on the phone and finding out what the plans are for this evening, and calling Michael to say that I'm down to my last TDF coupon and could he bring one for Arnie, and Tom calls and we have a LONG talk about how I'll keep up with the work until after May 30, when I'm under such PRESSURE for the Display book, and we decide that it'll be OK if I come in on Wednesday and bring back all that's LEFT on the following Monday and keep it up to date after that. Then Ron calls at 5 to say that something's come up, and I should come in on Tuesday as soon as possible (probably around 1) also, to match IPI with the Baltimore something-or-other. Feeling the pressures again, and Arnie's going up on the weekend, so maybe he can bring me back on MONDAY to put in a full day's work here. Get to the three letters of application, one to an ad for a secretary in the VV for a travel writer, one to Hans Ebensten for a tour escort job in general, one to World Travel for the "Isles of the Orient Sea" tour, calling Arnie and checking their goodness with him, and HE is a marvelous editor, TOO! In fact, going off "Easiest Fantasy" on DIARY 9626, maybe I should ask HIM to be my agent for some incredible percentage!! Then work on the DISPLAY book from 5:45 to 6:15, but then shower and make dinner and have wine and get to Arnie's at 8, to ATL at 8:30 for Jeff Duncan's evening (see DIARY 9628), and leave at 10:30 to pick up Bill Wolf on the corner and get to the Club Baths at 11, which has only one encounter, but it's VERY nice (see DIARY 9629) and we leave at 1, I come home to smoke, come, and eat THREE pieces of moldy bread as toast, and lots of other stuff, and get to sleep at 3:45 am!
DIARY 9631
SATURDAY, MAY 24. Up about 10:45, lazy morning, typing 4 pages, talking to people on the phone, looking at mail, and then from 2 to 4 watch the swimming meet on TV, marveling at how GOOD some of the high school students look at 17 or 18, particularly the tanned ones who stand out from their Florida schools, and they take second and third places, as a team. Art calls that they're leaving at 6 rather than 7, so I should come to his place, so I shower and wash and pack and get there right on time, taking along a lot of work, only to find that the door of the shop has expanded and Joyce had to take the thing apart before she could leave, so we're not gone by 7. Then up to 78th, or thereabouts, to pick up "Bob the Tooth Fairy," who is surely a welcome change from the lackluster Billy. He's humpy and talkative and bearded and very agreeable to practically everything. I sit in the back with the two big window boxes while they sit in the front and talk. My old polo shirt is smelling something awful, so when we get up there, I change into one of Art's shirts for the rest of the evening. Up just at dark, about 8:30, and he's so proud of his new deck that it's hard not to enjoy it along WITH him. He makes a good dinner of a huge tossed salad, and then we're sitting on the deck for a couple of hours to watch the lunar eclipse until the clouds block out the moon about 1/3 covered at about 1 am. In to smoke a bit and have sex, but don't really look forward to the evening on the floor. Keep thinking that I really have to talk about sex with Art, in that he hardly EVER makes an approach to me for sex, and then when I make the approach, he never tries to do anything with my cock. And his body just isn't the most appealing in the world, so that I feel that I must have sex with him all the time. Sad position, yet I don't know whether talking about it might just make the whole thing worse. He keeps talking about what kind of railing he wants on his deck, how the bathroom is going to be finished, and how great Gunther is. The bust of Apollo is sitting in the candlelight on the corner of the deck, and my binoculars are a great success in looking at the moon. Bed about 2:30, very hot under the down coverlet, but cold when I stick something out to enjoy the cool night breezes. About 50°.
DIARY 9632
SUNDAY, MAY 25. Wake about 9 and Joyce goes to get the Times, there's no milk for coffee so she brings some, and I glance through the Times and cut out a few things that I want to save, including an ad for a freelance writing job that sits until I send a letter out on it on Friday [today] at last. Start looking at the puzzle, and then think that I have another day on the book since I won't go into the office on Wednesday, since the emergency call by Ron on Friday said I should come in on Tuesday. Arnie calls and says that he'd rather not come up, and is relieved when I say I won't want to get back on Monday anyway, and he doesn't come up but cleans out his hallway---not throwing much away, but rearranging a LOT. They're going to the something County airport for a 250-participant flea market, and I decide to go along, and it's QUITE a set of stands and people, and I pick up "Jesting Pilate" by Huxley for 50¢, a Sturgeon title I hadn't head of, and a book by Carl Sagan. Great to find such things. They pick up stuff too, Joyce starting out with $70, spending money, and then counting her money at the end to find she has $70. Great budgeting. I have two hot dogs to keep my stomach occupied, and we met, decide to spend another hour, stop at a few more places, and I finish both puzzles, the double crostic from SHEER guesswork when I only know ONE original definition, the crossword fun for its use of the symbol "pi" for the letters "pi." Home about 6, then out again for "Shampoo" at 7, which Art passes up, and I think the START is ugly and unbelievable and the end is good, Bob identifies with Warren Beatty's character, finds the beginning great and the ending a copout. When Joyce assures me that such people definitely exist, and would ask to suck his cock right there at the table, I enjoy the movie as a whole more. Back to have dinner of spaghetti and clam sauce with Joyce and Art and lots of wine, since they don't like the vinho verde that I finish, and have some of Joyce's grass, which is so strong it tastes like it has hash in it, and I sit on the sofa, feeling vaguely lousy, and then rapidly feel MORE lousy, and gradually sink down to nap until everyone leaves, and then get zonked into bed, feeling sorry for Art who cuddles, but I just don't have the energy for sex tonight.
DIARY 9633
MONDAY, MAY 26. Wake somewhat foggy about 8:30, sit around chatting with Art while he has coffee, and then get down to work on the display book at 10:15, interrupting when Bob wants to see what I'm doing, Art decides to make me matzo-brieh for brunch, which is great, except that I'm sorry to hear he doesn't care for eggs at all, and matzo-breye not much more, and I can't expect him to do a lot of this. But the service is just marvelous as he even does my laundry FOR me while I sit and work. He's out in the garden doing things, Joyce goes off somewhere shopping, and Bob is practicing his Dylan-like singing for "I ain't nothin' but a dream" when I go in every so often for a shit. Eleanor comes over a couple of times, others come over to chat, I continue working, typing a few pages, but mainly getting everything organized into numbers of chapters by specific pages, good for my head, and maybe I CAN finish all three chapters by Friday. Then their parents arrive, and I feel rather a fool sitting with my hair uncombed, my face unshaven , and my blue jeans with a hole in the knee from recent over-use. They sit and talk, I take a shower and change clothes after stopping work at 4:15, for a total of only 5.5 hours today, and talk with them until we hop into the car to go around to Nancy's at 6 for a "picnic." Joyce had put on a GHASTLY red tulle-and-sequin dress when her mother insisted she dress for the party, and she arrived, staggering across the lawn ala Chloe, to the great delight of everyone on the porch. A cute little boy showed me the black Labrador pups and disquieted me somewhat when he said his name was "Rachel." Oh. Chip, the boy, was pleasant, too, and the father broiled the steaks while Eliot Evans (?) who designs sets for the New York City Opera held forth in his VERY faggot voice with his chubby lover-of-a-year-and-a-new-record friend Charles Fletcher. Ate steak and chicken and potato salad and chatted with the parents over FABULOUS lemon cream pie and strawberry on REAL shortcake until it got dark, and then we all went home to show Eliot the new deck, and sat again under the moon talking gently about the evening, and I didn't look forward to going to bed, but we did, cuddling softly while we talked and watched the little fire die, and then he fell asleep, rousing to blow out the candle and I gratefully rolled over and went to sleep, sexless again.
DIARY 9634
TUESDAY, MAY 27. Wake about 6:30, again about 8, remember now that there were some jelly donuts for breakfast on Sunday, and some bagels for breakfast on---Sunday, too, I guess, with lots of butter on the toast. We intend to leave for the shop at 11, I sit around and collect everything and pack clothes and sit out of the sun looking at the robin's egg that's just hatched into a mahogany double-lump with honey-colored pin-feathers that didn't seem to require to eat, like the ducks, for the first few hours after it rested from its struggle out of the egg. Art thought it was about 11, my watch said 10:35, but then Joyce came out and said "It's 11:15, what are you doing here?" and my watch had stopped AGAIN, as it had on Friday at 10:10 at Jeff Duncan's. Something MORE to fix! Dash around getting everything ready, and Bob drives off with a rush at 11:35, and we leave him off at 12:40, and I drive downtown to get Art to his door at JUST 1 pm, glad to find a parking space right across the street, AGAIN jamming the tires against the curb! Some people just park TOO well! Leave my two tons of earth for repotting the grass in his shop, go next door to wait 20 minutes for a FABULOUS lach shinken and muenster sandwich for $2, stop off to price file cabinets on 7th Avenue for $25, then on the north side of 23rd for only $10, except they want $10 for delivery, too. Up to New Century at 2, start matching the Chicago program against Math Modules, and then Charles Walthur calls at 5 pm to ask for the results THEN, and I work through until 6:30, for a 4.5 hour workday, taking about 9 hours of work with me to bring back on Monday to catch the department up on its proofreading of OYO galleys, and walk back to Art's, getting there at 7, and severely straining those humps of muscle between the deltoids and the neck by carrying the 35-pound parcels in each hand to the subway, happy to be able to use a Bahaman penny at 18th Street. Home just before 8 to find that some tennis tourney has blocked out the International Animation Festival, so there's only ONE thing to watch this week [and by coincidence, it comes in half an hour!], the worst in a long time. Put things away, talk to Arnie for a long time, Toby Marotta calls for next Wednesday, and I smoke and come with FABULOUS sensations with a break into a NEW popper.
DIARY 9635
WEDNESDAY, MAY 28. [and I wonder when the LAST time was that I had as MANY as 5 days together without a SINGLE intervening page. Quite a LONG time, I would think! 4 days Dec 1-5, 1974, Mar 30-Apr 2, Apr 11-14, 75, and also Feb 15-18, 75, but no FIVE-day-solid blocks in the past YEAR other than this.] Up at 8:30 and have breakfast and water the plants again, having practically drowned them last night when I returned, with THREE helpings of water, and they really weren't THAT dry, some of them STILL having water from my last Saturday's watering. Work on the Display book chapter 6 from 9 to 11:30, when I go out for unemployment and come back to read more mail, something that takes an increasing amount of time, since Travel Agent is STILL coming over a month after it SHOULD have been cancelled [got one dated June 2 today, when my subscription was up May 1]. Work more 12:30 to 2:30, stop for lunch while clearing up reading TWO back issues of the Village Voice, leaving only THIS week's one, which I just bought, to get through. Then work from 3 to 5, taking longer on Display Materials than I would have thought, but I call Lauren and she says that I might NOT be able to make it on Friday, would Monday by OK, and I think that's JUST fine! Then wash my AWFUL hair, do some other things including putting on pork chops that are beginning to smell a bit foul since I bought them about a week ago (actually, only 5 days ago), and rushing through shaving when Stephen Waite calls. I get rid of him FAST, get out at 7:30, and subway to the 66th Street stop JUST at 8, getting to my seat at 8:07 and the curtain goes up at 8:09. Disappointed (and Shelly says "Thanks for making my evening great.") that Reyn is dancing, but pleased to find that she'd grown quite a bit since I saw her last in 73 or 71 (see DIARY 9636). Out at 10:15, and I'm happy that we'll be going to Clark Street, but get to Times Square at 10:30 and stand until 11, reading "Immense Journey" and almost finishing it, when an express comes that thankfully still goes to Clark Street, even though after 11 it should turn around to Borough Hall. Work on copyediting the author's MS and my writing from 11:30 to 1:30, a total of 8.5 hours today, and I should be able to finish THIS chapter tomorrow and get a good start on the NEXT, maybe HAVING two of them by Friday, though it'll take a LOT of hours and work. Bed tired enough to get to sleep without smoking or coming at 1:45.
DIARY 9637
THURSDAY, MAY 29. Up at 8:45, seemingly quite content with only seven hours sleep. Breakfast and fusses over early, I get down to the display book at 9:30, interrupted for 15 minutes when Pope calls to say that the meeting of Est next Tuesday will probably be more interesting than the testimonials and hard-sells tonight, and he talks on for quite awhile about his impressions of EST (see DIARY 9638). Then I get back to work and Art calls about 11:30, saying that he's waiting for another job this afternoon with his bartending, saying that last night some people he knew were freaked out by his serving them at the Bronx Zoo's gala at $80 a person at which they STILL have to pay $2 for a drink. "If that's where their head is, that's too bad," is all he could say, but I can't blame them. He's left with lots of food from the thing, encouraging me to come over and share it with him, but I have to work. Down for the mail and again there's a lot of it, including the slides and book from Target, what a pity there's only ONE hard-on by the beautiful slide-fellow. Work until 1:30, just about ready to start typing, and stop for lunch, looking out the window at the guy next door sunbathing nude on his front and only with his trunks wrapped around his cock on his back. Tried calling Bob Grossman a couple of times, but he was never there: probably enjoying his $75 ticket for the entire summer at the Continental, and he even gave his locker key to Arnie for the weekend, since he's going away, starting 10:30 am Friday. Back to work at 2, typing away in the heat, making up the questions as I go along, forgetting almost the summary, and when I finish at 10:15, I've done 33 written pages and two pages of illustrations for the longest chapter yet, but I've worked 11 hours, $165 not bad for a day's work at ALL. Put on hash to cook and phone Eddie, and we chat for a long time about my not wanting to go to Riis Park with Richard, and about his reluctance to march in the Gay Liberation parade if they're going to concentrate on drag queens. We talk until 11:30, feeling good to talk to each other, I eat and drink until 12, smoke and bidi and popper until 12:45, coming nicely, all over the mirror for an added kick and go to sleep WITHOUT eating, feeling working and triumphant all in one.
DIARY 9639
FRIDAY, MAY 30. Wake at 6:30, thirsty, so I get a drink, pee, and lay around thinking about all I have to do, so I get up about 7:15, doing the rough draft of the "Appendix Sheet" for Lauren and the Display book from 7:45 to 8:45, then have breakfast, read lots more magazines in order to throw them away, clear away all the mail that I'd been putting on the sofa for the past two days, talk to Art, Arnie, Eddie, and maybe others on the phone, come up with a list of 40 items that are places that I want to GO to see, relaying it to Michael who calls to chat, and then decide I have enough time to catch up with the diary, so I type 8 pages just in time to watch "The Two of Us," with Michel Simon as an anti-Semite taking care of one of the most despicable little boys ever to appear on screen. Have lunch during this, and skim through more periodicals at the same time, and am relieved when it's over at 3. Back to Chapter 7 of the Display book (thankfully the next to the last one), and I call Berta to see her at 3:30 on Monday, Ron calls AGAIN to say that I should be in all day on Monday, and I tell him I have a 3:30 appointment. Come up with a rough outline for the whole chapter by 8:15, at which point I'm so hungry that I have to eat dinner, finishing the last of the hash, and get back to work from 8:45 to 12:30 editing that final version, but I just can't get through the last bits, and THIS chapter is going to be EVEN LONGER than the one before: staggering, but she DID want more pages and it DOES mean more money for me NOW, and maybe NO more need for additional writing later to pad out the book. The only thing she can do is bitch and not pay me for the probably more than 100 pages I'll be handing her for the last three chapters. Think that I'm tired enough to fall asleep, but I'm troubled with tiny pimples on my ass and upper thigh, and hope it's a heat rash rather than some sort of VD-connected rash, and I've GOT to get to a doctor to make sure. But then I smoke one of the two joints I made for the Club Baths about a month ago and jerk off SO stiffly I try to come a SECOND time for a bit before it seems to be impossible. Inhale bidi and popper to my cock's content. Bed about 1:30, thankfully not eating anything.
DIARY 9640
SATURDAY, MAY 31. Up about 9, and somehow the whole morning goes without my really doing anything. Work about an hour trying to make a good poem for New York, but then give it up. Type one diary page for the day, call back and forth to Art, calling Joyce to say that I won't be going up with her to Art's after the store closes, and she says that she was about to call ME because SHE wasn't going up anyway, going down to Philadelphia to pick up some stockings from someone, and it's nice how these things DO work out. Call Art upstate and chat with him for a few minutes, and then finally get down to work on the display book at 1, working until I'm starved at 3:15, have lunch while still trying to read lots of the things I have to read through the mail, and work from 4 to 6:15, not remembering WHY I stopped then, and went back from 6:45 to 9:45, when Rolf called, saying that he was going to burn a certain undershirt unless I came and picked it up, and it's ONLY been in his possession for 19 days, for heaven's sake, and I say I was just finishing typing the last few pages of the next-to-the-last chapter and about to go out for the Times, so I'd come and pick it up. Get there about 10:15 in the beginning-to-rain pleasantly-cool evening, and his place is very neat. He's decided NOT to do ANY more writing, has been drinking a bit too much because of the writing he's had to do on his project, and says he might go back into the amyl nitrite business. Would I like to see his seltzer maker? THIS starts off the evening! I say that I'd be afraid if he used two of the cartridges in one bottle, don't care for the seltzer, but still like his coffee, though it isn't the great stuff he had before. Then we try to find out how many atmospheres or pounds per square inch might be in the cartridge, and he gets out his catalogs from chemical supply houses. I look in stoned amazement (I'd asked if he'd eaten, he said he just stuffed himself; I hadn't had dinner yet) at the lists of chemicals and their formulas in the books, marveling (1) at the poor people who had to proofread this and (2) at the QUANTITY of materials available and the EXTENT of chemical and physical knowledge available to anyone who might want to use it. THAT starts off a WHOLE chain of conversation (see DIARY 9641) that lasts until 4 am, when I'm STARVED, and we come to my place to have hamburger and drinks and MORE talk until he leaves at 6:15, I've bought the Times, see that I want to see Camera Three at 11, set the alarm, and go to BED at 6:35 am!!
DIARY 9644
SUNDAY, JUNE 1. Alarm rings at 11, waking me for "Film Reality and Film Fantasy," about the optical printer on Camera Three, praising "Citizen Kane" as using more optical printer workings than any dozen present-day films. Talks of the psychedelic 7-Up commercial with the split images, reproductions of dancing girls, and glitters, and looks at some slit-camera views of someone's visualization of "Tristan and Isolde." Read through the Times, work the puzzle, and watch "The Dark Angel" on TV from 1 to 3, really freaking out with the morality as depicted in the film (see DIARY 9645). Had breakfast about 2, got back to the last few things, like typing up the figures page and the appendix page, for Lauren and the Display book from 3:30 to 5, delighted that I have only ONE more chapter to do in that. Then have lunch at 5, reading, reading, reading, and wash my hair before going to the dance program, then start doing the OYOs that I should have had finished for tomorrow at 5:55, but stop at 6:25 to dry my hair and get out to see Sachiyo Ito and her dances at the Open Eye from 7 to 8:45 (see DIARY 9646), and get home at 9:10 after finishing Loren Eiseley, "The Immense Journey" on the subway and get right back to the OYOs until 10:25, but I can only do the phonics part and about 4 of the Read Achievers, and I figure I'll just have to take in what I have and do the rest TOMORROW night. Then watch Monty Python, the Animation Festival with a HIGHLY overrated Hubley cartoon of "The Hole," Oscar-winner from 1962, a silly improvised conversation between Dizzy Gillespie, or someone, and some hard-hat white, about disaster, accidents, nuclear deterrents, etc. And a VERY depressing "Passing Days" with a poor guy who keeps getting beaten by cops, cuckolded by his wife, exploded by his combat-booted muse who offers him an apple, and ends in the cemetery. Then watch "The Magnificent Ambersons," which I guess I DIDN'T see before, since I don't remember ANYTHING but the gloomy staircase, and don't remember Delores Costello as the mother-beloved of Joseph Cotton, nor Clay Collins as the typical-faced old plump uncle. Tim Holt was too unlikable, and Anne Baxter totally unbelievable as a smiling person who says "I don't care for you." But they seem to get together at the end, as does Joseph Cotton and Agnes Moorehead, around the mother-beloved's deathbed. Confusing but great. Bed at 1, thinking to sleep, but up at 1:15 to smoke, come, and then listen to music in a stoned way and get to bed at 2:15---just ridiculous!
DIARY 9647
MONDAY, JUNE 2. Alarm rings at 8, and I feels that acid-eyed clogged-chest ghastliness that most people feel EVERY weekday morning, and am delighted anew that I have this freedom (except that I usually woke up FINE in the AM, turning off the alarm before it rang anyway). Shower and out to a just-left subway as usual, getting in at 9:15, and Tom's concerned about my finishing everything, saying that I should have brought the OYOs back, and I admit to my mistake and he drops it (probably pleased that they're done, anyway) and I call Michael who's busy for lunch (no one would be in the office), and don't have lunch at ALL because Tom's disturbed about my leaving at 3:30. Some organizing and proofreading, getting him a status report, and there's not THAT much more coming in to DO. Leave at 3:30, working 6.25 hours without a break, and get up to ACC to pick up an index on Nursing and the Law, due on June 23rd, and look at a "Clinical Obstetrics" book that'll be due sometime in mid-July. Then up to leave the two Display chapters on Lauren's desk, since she had to go to a doctor's appointment this PM, and chat with Dick Sime for a bit, who says she's getting more money, but it's not really a PROMOTION to the editorship of "Today's Secretary," or whatever it is she's gotten into. Out at 4:30 and pass Farm Foods and see their window sign for Matzo-Brei, and go in, have a textureless circle with applesauce, cinnamon that's blown all over the tablecloth by the fan, and regular clover honey, and out having spent $3.71 for almost nothing. Down to Goody's to look at their 39¢ record sale, pick up a couple of goodies, then across to shop their basement store for more goodies, spending all the money I had with me, and get home about 6. Put things away, and work on the rest of the OYOs from 6:30 to 8, doing one in about 15 minutes. Then watch an awful "In the Beginning" with Kenneth Clark managing to make the Egyptians come "out of the dark ages in a hundred years" and "this is undoubtedly the first stone building" and "this was the first man to something else," and it was DREADFUL to 9. Then "The Uncertain Paradise" gave an equally dreadful picture of Micronesia, (comprised of the Carolinas, Marshalls, Ponape, Truk, Yap, and Palau (with its incredible rock islands) and Guam, all told holding 100,000 people, and having a 12th Century temple complex at Nan Matal in Ponape) falling apart, and watch "Nutcracker Suite" from Wolf Trap with Ogden Nash verses while doing more OYOs, considering that I do them from 10 to 12, when I stop, finished, and get to bed for ANOTHER jerk-off session to 1:15, seemingly not capable of getting to bed EARLY, but jerking off is such FUN.
DIARY 9648
TUESDAY, JUNE 3. Shut the alarm off before it rings at 8, feeling somewhat better after a night's sleep (having nodded off during proofreading---just like Arnie, and being somewhat heavy-eyed during some of the TV programs), and take my watch in to be repaired, with a final bill of $33.50 to fix the bridges that are broken, enabling it to move around too much, the crown to keep out more water, and "it's VERY dry" to lubricate it and fix it for the first REAL time since I GOT it. In at 9:30, Ron calls to say he'll be late, having forgotten to leave a wake-up call, and he seems to be growing a beard, looking quite scruffy. Sadly, too, I somewhat smell like shit, despite the morning's shower, and the shirt is too cruddy to USE. Call Bob, having a very cold chat about "Let me know if there's anything to DO," and Arnie says he's going through a VERY poor time. Not so's I'D know about it! Leave word with Pope to thank him about the message that you have to have a ticket for tonight's introduction to Est (just talked to Joyce, who liked it, and she said they let EVERYONE in, all 1500, standing, from 8 to 10:30, and she said "They don't encourage taking notes because it's supposed to be an EXPERIENCE." I guess I can see that.), and call Arnie to have Pope call at JUST that moment. Art invites me over to dinner, so I work from 9:30 to 1:30, calling Michael who's at lunch, so I go to Chock Full for another fish platter, and from 2 to 7, 9 hours in all, getting very antsy about doing the SAME editing over and over, but I take the last of the 9 home to do, subway to Art's, buying two more Sturgeon books from the Sci-Fi shop, and get to his place to shower, put on one of the body shirts from India, and find him rushing around cooking a GREAT chicken with sesame seeds, artichokes at the start with a LOVELY lemon-butter heated sauce, and Stephen Waite is surprised to see me when he gets there at 8. He brings wine, which we drink, have cassis and vermouth cocktails, smoke grass, talk, have somewhat unsuccessful sex as Stephen's sexier than Art and I do him first, Stephen won't let Art fuck him, I try sucking Art and I THINK he comes, and Art pulls SO hard on Stephen's ring that he COMES, then only EJACULATES after Art lets GO. Funny to TASTE. He kisses me, I give him some come, and he draws back, which afterward he said was "OK," but his drawing away was still there. Strawberry tart for late dessert, lots of smokehouse nuts from his bartending job, and I crawl onto the sofa to nap about 2, Art blows candles at 5!.
DIARY 9649
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4. Wake somewhat blearily at 9, to find myself covered with a sheet, but I'm still on top of the woolen coverlet, which I feel has almost adhered to my skin. There's a sleeping head on the floor that I take to be Art's, until I hear someone clinking around in the kitchen, so I decide the head must be Stephen's. We're both up, Art had set the alarm for 9, but shut it off when he'd gotten up from the SOFA a few minutes before. Stephen has coffee and leaves, Art gives me the fabulous body shirt, with some kind of remark about "Maybe you won't gain so much weight." I leave about 9:30, getting home to find a message from Wendy Griffin, and I have the index to do for "Son of Energy Facts" by June 20th! There seems to be no END of jobs for me to do! Call Lauren and say that I'll be in on Friday at 11:30, call Art to tell him I have the new indexing job, type 9 diary pages, have lunch, reading stuff, watch TV 3-4 on the Crown of Thorns that kills coral, and finally get back to Chapter 8 at 4:20, working on through until 9:50, when it's essentially finished except for a long day of typing tomorrow, coming up with the questions and summary as before. Now that I've gotten into a system for doing it, it's finished! Have a Spam dinner, running low on groceries again, getting down to NOTHING before I feel I have to go out for them, and then decide to listen to records that I bought new while having dinner and washing the huge stack of dishes from 11 to 11:45. Eddie calls during dinner, after BILL calls to say that he will be down on Saturday, which pisses me because I'd been planning not to be here. I say that I'll try to leave the keys with the Grays, but then find they don't have a listed phone number. Call Eddie back and he wants more popper stuff, a bit disappointed when I say that it's now $8, and he has to call me back to say how many he wants. Smoke surprisingly early at 12:15 for a change, and get VERY hard for a LONG time, and with bidi get out the Baby Magic and start using the hard touch, getting some incredible sensations from my ravaged cock, veins standing out because of the two rubber bands around the base, and come with a VERY heartfelt feeling that sends me into spasms about my middle, jerking as with palsy, terrifically sexy. Wipe me off and get to sleep at 1:15, looking forward to a full evening's sleep.
DIARY 9651
THURSDAY, JUNE 5. Wake at 8:30 and out of bed at 9, then Toby Marotta comes over from 9:30 to 12:15 (see DIARY 9650), and I'm having lunch about 1:30 when the buzzer goes and it's the carpet deliverers from Sloan's and I write them a check as they maneuver it around the corners of my rooms to put it against the wall in the bedroom, and go out relieved that they're finished carrying the two rolls up three flights of stairs. Then Arnie had said he'd give me the Bette Midler tickets, so I go over at 2 and stay until 3 to pick them up, and then [or now, scanning what I'd done precisely one week ago, not finding any performance that I went to that evening, not seeing any TV programs for that day, not remembering that anyone else had come here or that I'd gone anywhere else, so I have to go back to the calendars and see if they give any CLUE, and sure enough, I'd had to take in the Display chapter on Friday, and so I check back to the hour-list for the display book, and THERE'S the rest of the day: 7.5 hours from 3:40 to 11:10, and another hour on Friday that I didn't put on the list, and so the total number of hours that I worked for the WEEK, having been put down at 36.5 before, a regular working week, zoomed to 45 hours, a good 6-day working week of 7.5 hours per day, so it's no WONDER that I had the feeling that I was doing more work than not, particularly since, like today, I didn't often get STARTED on the work around here until sometime in the afternoon when I cleared up everything that I wanted to do around the apartment] type two diary pages to keep up to date, a relief from the 9 pages I needed yesterday, and then get down to the final typing of the LAST display chapter from 3:40 to 11:10. I kept thinking it should be a SHORT job and it kept getting longer and longer, until finally it TOO stretched out to 30 pages, making the bill I had to take in something like $950, a good chunk of money for ESSENTIALLY one week's work. Feel myself getting sloppier and sloppier: no longer do I skim through to see how much I've missed, and add it; no longer do I correct things that I figure will be changed---more, there are a whole list of things that I KNOW will not agree with Chapter 7, and resolve to make up a list for Lauren tomorrow. Then have dinner and remember that I have the New Century stuff to do, so I work on THAT from 11:50 to 1:25, doing just over half of them, and then fall into bed without smoking or coming, getting to sleep at 1:45.
DIARY 9652
FRIDAY, JUNE 6. Up about 9:15, have breakfast, and finish the OYOs that I have to take in today from 9:45 to 10:10 for the last 2, and then call to find that they haven't gotten in anything more, and start proofreading the last chapter of Display from 10:20 to about 10:40, when I just can't stand to sit around anymore, so I dress hastily and zip out about 10:50, proofreading the last pages on the subway, getting annoyed with these silly people who want to sit next to me when I'm working in my opened briefcase on my lap as they can plainly see, and get to NC about 11:15 to drop off the 9 that I'd done and say I'll see them on Tuesday next week, since it's certain that I'm going up to Art's until Monday night, when I have to be back for Bette Midler. Then subway up to 50th Street, proofing the last pages in a flurry, hardly the atmosphere in which to FINISH work on the largest, most lucrative project I've ever had ($2100 at LEAST, at last report), but that's what my scheduling has led to. Walk quickly across town and get to Lauren's office about 11:45, and she gives me a 35-minute talk on how good the three short ballets by the Stuttgart were last night, and then I call Dick to say that we'll be late, surely after the 12:30 appointment he'd made upstairs, and he says that's OK, NOT telling me that he has a meeting at 2 for an interview for LAUREN'S job, while she moves up---rather, as Dick says, across ---to the editorship of "Today's Secretary." Then we get to the chapter, she says she's been changing lots in the manuscript, and we agree I'd like to see what she'd done, so I say I'll be in Friday (tomorrow from NOW) next week to look at it on her last day in her present job. To Dick's about 12:50, he has some stuff to finish, and we're up to the Safari Room for their regular menu, somewhat limited, and I have the shrimp that's so BREADED that I quote Art's thing about breading entirely taking away the taste and texture of the food. Beer is good and really frosted on the bottom, and we're finished at 2:20. I get back to Lauren's to write her a bill for $950, call Bob to say I'll be there between 4-5, and get out to a LOVELY hailstorm (see DIARY 9653), to Asia House for a stunning exhibit from the Guimet Museum in Paris from 3:30 to 4:30, taking the tour and buying the book, then get to Bob's about 4:50 in the FRESH CLEAN air of the city, play a tournament he wins by 7, read the guide while he watches TV from 7 to 8, then starts watching a boring "The Games" on TV, I leave, saying I'm going to "French Connection II," but come home, eat, Rolf calls at 10, comes over at 12, talks to 4:50 (see DIARY 9654).
DIARY 9656
SATURDAY, JUNE 7. Up about 10:30 or 11, have breakfast, and decide that since I'll be saving the marking of the index pages for Art's, there's really nothing crucial to do, so I can indulge in reading, and get out EB to read about Heidegger and get involved in reading Hegel, to the extent of writing down a list of words that should be defined in my "system," and I have lunch in there somewhere about 3, and type DIARY 9655 on the Pressure of Ideas to show where my mind gets to. Art calls about 4 to say that he's closing the shop at 6, and will be catching the 7:13 train, so I should meet him at Grand Central at 7 pm. I shower and start packing, washing the dishes to get them out of Bill's way, putting them away still wet, and loading up the plants with water, and then start packing, and there's no time to go through the list of words and type them into an alphabetical list as I'd wanted to do, and not even time to catch up with the diary, sort of knowing that I always have trouble keeping up with the diary when Bill's here, and it's true, I didn't do a page while he was here until the very last day. Get out "ridiculously" early at 6:15, just to make sure I get there, and it's beginning to rain (oh, also, called Eddie to give him the seat number for Bette Midler and he insisted on coming over, so when I had the hash for lunch, he had some with me, and WE talked for a long time about how his therapy is going, how positively he feels about it, and I get a very STRANGE feeling about how much Rolf and Eddie and lots of other people and I just seem to keep on talking and talking), so I duck into the BMT entrance, intending to go through to the Lexington, but somehow I just wait for the train there and wake up at Bleecker, glad I started "ridiculously" early, and transfer at 14th, waiting a long time, getting to Grand Central JUST at 6:58 to find Art looking around rather frantically. Make our way to the train, and when it starts it gets cooler, so that his pound of butter doesn't become a "puddle." We talk about things, about his shop's possibly moving, his summer plans, plans for the house; I talk about Rolf and Eddie, and we get there in 1.5 hours, wait about 20 minutes for Nancy and Joyce, get home at 9:15 for artichokes and more fabulous chicken till 11, smoke, have good sex, and a good fire, and get to sleep about 2, again sweating/freezing under the coldness of the air and the warmth of the sleeping bag that he takes most of.
DIARY 9657
SUNDAY, JUNE 8. Up about 9, chat while he has morning coffee and points out all the plants that have come up, and the greenery around the pool has finally developed to the point that it looks lush and tropical. The robins and the towhees (or whatever) have finally left, and Joyce reported that the dog had floated up by the time she got there on Friday. Joyce gets the paper, I glance at the TV schedule to find there's nothing much on this week, and then get to work on the index from 10:50 to 12:50, at which time he mixes up some fabulous tuna salad that we go out onto the deck to eat with glasses of white wine. It's fairly cool, but it's cooler in the house than outside, and he's left the door open, so there's a sort of cool breeze through the rooms and I'm feeling chilly most of the time. Back inside to work from 2:15 to 2:45, but then Joyce goes off to somewhere and Nancy calls that she wants to go to some farmer's market nearby, Art's going, so I say I'll go along, and we drive out along the pleasant roads to a huge concrete block structure that looks like a combination Hunt's Point Market, Essex Street market, and a European town: crowds of people, incredibly muscular workboys with dirtied points on their orange tee-shirts at their nipples, and the shirts leave about four inches of tanned, defined flesh between its bottom and the tops of the painted-blue texture that might be a pair of levis; heaps of produce, lots of which I'd never seen before, burpless /seedless cucumbers, crinkled cabbage called Cohol, or something, and then back for meats, candles, glasses, hardware, soft drinks, plants, and endless produce. Drive back along Hickory Kingdom Road, pass Cremaillaire and it's nearby octagonal house, looking at lovely clouds and beautiful French farmhouses and other goodies in the area, and back about 5. I work from 5:40 to 7:40, when it gets too dark to continue, and then we eat quickly in order to drive to Brewster and the Cameo dollar theater for the crowd to see "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore," and we both break up at the unexpected HUMOR of the film, as well as a great set of performances by EVERYONE. A marvelous film. Back at 11:30, talking about it, smoke, have sex during which I jerk off with a frenzy, don't even want to make popcorn, and back into bed with a blazing fire finishing "its thing," beginning to get the sniffles and sneezes.
DIARY 9658
MONDAY, JUNE 9. Up about 9 and Art makes me some kind of breakfast, it seems, and I get involved in the puzzles, finishing them both, crowing about the rirosyng and pocposyket and the Roo Ms and Ho Use as "ring around the rosy, pocket full of posy" separate rooms and a house divided, and Joyce can still think of me as Bob Smart. Don't need to go through the Times since Bill has hopefully bought one for me, and then we have the last of the tuna for lunch and I finish marking up the index from 1:30 to 2:30, glad to be through THAT, but just don't quite feel like getting into the philosophy kick, though I take the stuff down to the plastic chair at poolside to work on in the blazing sun. It gets warmer and warmer, but I get more and more uncomfortable, very much aware of the layer of pollen over the pond, and I sneeze a number of times, and have been aware that I've been washing my face often to get rid of the scratchy feeling around my eyes. There's some chance of going up to see Lee's place, but Art goes as I leave, and I pack and put everything away and tell him to tell Nancy that I'll pick up the pots she so graciously offered me some other time. Leave just before 5 for the train at Golden's Bridge at 5:08, and it comes precisely, kiss Joyce goodbye, who observes that I seem to be getting a cold, and I climb aboard to look at the greenery passing by, and then settle into reading more of "Cosmic Rape," which I'd shown to Art as an example of how I'd LIKE to write about characters. Surprised to see Jack Seelye getting on the train at White Plains, and I wave him to sit with me, and he tells me that Lloyd's been to court today to plead against a charge of molestation (see DIARY 9659). I'm totally floored, only at the end changing the topic to the Stuttgart Ballet, and then we get off at 42nd and I dash over the Chock Full for a Chockburger at 6:40, finishing at 6:55, and dash up to Donnell for a great Kavkazi concert from 7:05 to 7:45 (see DIARY 9660), and then dash out for Bette Midler, meeting Eddie in the seat at 8, and the curtain goes up at 8:15 for an incredible performance (see DIARY 9661). Out at 11, meeting Pope at the 42nd Street subway station, so I invite him over to talk to Bill about EST, which he does (see DIARY 9662) until 1:30, and I get to bed, finding it VERY difficult to get to sleep because of a CONSTANTLY running or stuffed nose.
DIARY 9663
TUESDAY, JUNE 10. Wake about 8:30, but chat with Bill and shower and get out at 9:30 and get to work at 10 to find that there are NO more OYOs in, and the only thing to do are the matchings of Math Mods against MACH Practice Problems. It finally gets going rather well, and by 1 I feel that I can finish it today, but I've become ravenous. The cold is getting worse and worse: sneezing, sniffling, and beginning to cough. Out to find Chock Full chock full of SMOKE, so across the street to Booze and Brew, where a PR has been waiting for a seat and we sit together, I apologize that I have a cold, we eat through one martini/vodka tonic brewburger dinner that's so tasty we agree to share a second order, but they bring TWO burgers that we eat, he keeps insisting that he'll pay for mine, I tell the waiter he messed up the check, and I leave $5 on the table when he says he doesn't want ANYTHING from me. What a GUY, talking about his fishing for blues, going to Florida, and finally, his wife. Back feeling GREAT at 2, and the rest of the day goes rather well, checking with Ron and Tom that there aren't many matches, and I come up finally with a way of presenting it that Tom understands, so I type out some notes and write out the table to be typed later, and everyone leaves, and I get out at 6:30 to walk quickly across to the Lyceum Theater just at 7 for a crowded entryway because there's only ONE ticket taker for all THREE doors. Great. The thing finally starts at 7:15, and we're all the way over on the SIDE for Paul Taylor's first season without Paul Taylor (see DIARY 9664). Out about 9:30, home at 10, finish "Cosmic Rape," make some French toast after pipe-cleaning mold from the tops of the maple syrup and putting them into the fridge. And invite Bill in to chat with me. Drink hot tea (started last night with Pope and Bill) with honey and triple sec, very tasty and bracing, and talk to Art on the phone and with Bill about his visit with Ram Dass (see DIARY 9665) and finally get to bed at 1, after thinking that I'd go to bed early. Smoke some grass while he putters around reading (no, maybe it was Lilly this evening and Ram Dass tomorrow morning---it really didn't matter), and I don't have any trouble getting to sleep.