1975 4 of 8
DIARY 9666
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11. Up about 10 to hear Bill moving about, saying he wanted to get out early in the day, before 11 anyway, and I had breakfast, thought about working, talking to Bill either about Lilly or Ram Dass, whatever I DIDN'T talk about last night, and then got out at 11:15 to get to unemployment, a longer line than usual, and then buy the Voice and get groceries for the first time in ages, getting home to read through mail, talk to Art, talk to Arnie and hear that Norma's cut her leg over the weekend and is feeling VERY poorly, have lunch, and also sympathize so much with poor Bill for not being able to find his Mason jar tops that I call Art and John to try to help him, he tries calling a few more places, and then I look in the Yellow Pages, point to Baehm Paper Company, he says HE'S not going to call, and I do and they have them! I feel VERY pleased. Wendy calls me back to say that things are still being set up for my getting the index. I call for information about the authors of the various chapters, and she says she'll send it to me, and that sort of excuses me for not working on the index today. Read through the New York Times that Bill had gotten for me on Sunday, and also, when Bill gets back around 4, I start clearing out the bedroom and he helps me put down the carpet and padding after I vacuum the floor, and by the time I'm plugging in the electric clock, it's about 6 and the "simple" job has taken two hours! Particularly ironic when I get a letter the next day from Robertson saying that my rent is going up $20 a month! Then ask Bill if he wants hamburger, he says yes, and I shower while frying it up, washing my hair, and we sit and chat about his reading and Ouspensky while we eat, and I get off at 7:15, not really early enough, since I'm waiting in line for the tickets for Friday and Tuesday, but something TELLS me to get upstairs at 8:03, and I JUST get to my seat as the lights go out, and the performance isn't very good, though I'm VERY depressed with my horrible cold (see DIARY 9667). Out at 11, too late to expect Clark Street, but am surprised when we STOP at Clark Street. Buy red wine, the last thing I needed from the store, drank two cups of tea while soaking in a hot tub with a pipe, and staggered off to bed about 12:30 feeling VERY hot and sweaty, disgusted with the world, myself, Bill, the cold, and Art's place for "causing" it.
DIARY 9668
THURSDAY, JUNE 12. Wake at 10 to the telephone, which Bill answers, and it's Arnold, saying that Norma can scarcely walk, so she won't be going to the ballet this evening. I talk for a bit, hang up, go back to the breakfast that I'd started while Arnie was talking to Bill, and just as I finish, Art calls and says he'd love to see the Trockadero. Bill and I sit down about 11 to talk about "In Search of the Miraculous," and he manages to clarify a lot of questions that I have about the historical, personal, philosophical, and theoretical connections between various parts of the book, jotting notes in red ink in the margins where I hope they'll do some good. He's really into it, and I feel that I'll probably order the book by Bennett, "Gurdjieff: Making a New World," that gives so much information about the intricacies of the personal relationships and the word derivations in "Tales." We talk on until about 4, when Arnold calls again to say that HE won't be going either, so I call Eddie and he'll come along if Art brings some smokes. Bill goes off to get a carton for his stuff and some Chlorospetic for my throat, which I insist on paying for $2 for, saying that if he's taking me to dinner, which he suggests, at the Promenade, I'll have what I want and will be embarrassed to eat to my contentment if he doesn't take the money. He says he would feel that way himself, and takes it. We get out about 5:30 and I have fish and chips, good for $2.25, and a piece of cherry pie that tastes good, too, as I ask the final questions I can think of about Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and Bennett, who died only last December, as the director of the school in England. He packs his last bags, I shower and shave and pluck more grass to take to Art, and leave at 7:30 to get to the rainy Monte Carlo at 7:55. We're down to the basement to smoke quite openly, people staring (enviously?) at us, and then into the somewhat disappointing performance by Les Ballet Trockadero de Monte Carlo (see DIARY 9669). Out, Art hasn't really clicked with Eddie at ALL, and decide to accept his invitation for artichokes, so subway to his place, have Bristol Cream and lovely artichoke, smoke my grass, and play in front of the mirror until he comes, then he puts a sheet on the bed, I'm NOT that snotty or sneezy or coughy, thankfully, and we fall asleep about 1:30, alarm set for 9.
DIARY 9670
FRIDAY, JUNE 13. Wake at 6:30, groggily, fall back asleep at once to 9, when I get up to shut off the alarm before it goes off, then decide that since I'm going in to McGraw-Hill I should have the manuscript, so I get out immediately and get home at 9:30 to call Lauren. She has some pretty awful things to say (see DIARY 9671), but when I get off the phone at 10:30 there's nothing more that I have to do. Have breakfast of cereal, water the plants, and sit down to finish reading the last 40 pages or so of the Sturgeon "Caviar," and he's a most marvelous writer. Look at the next book to read and discover that "The Dreaming Jewels" that I just paid $1.95 for is merely the original name of "The Synthetic Man" which I'd read, so there's one LESS book to read. But I don't feel like writing the diary, don't have the information for the index, and don't feel like getting into Philosophy with a cold, so I select "Crashing Suns" and read it straight through, amused by the SAMENESS of the five stories, and disgusted by how BADLY the whole thing is written. You've GOT to have a thesaurus if the CHARACTERS aren't worth writing about. How I've DEVELOPED! Then don't feel like doing anything more than reading "From the Land of Fear," by Ellison, and he's so much a progress after Hamilton that he's a joy, except that these are just jottings that his current fame has allowed him to publish, and I'm jealous. By this time I'm ready for lunch, have it, reading, and get back to find that "A Planet Called Earth" is next. Since it's now about 6, I sit in the chair and put the light on. Start nodding, and decide to have dinner between it, and finish the book about 10, and decide to keep on going, so I attack "Jesting Pilate," deciding not to mark the book but to type notes from it when I finish. That takes me to midnight, when I get to bed figuring to fall asleep, but I can't. Toss and turn, get bigger earplugs, refuse to smoke, but think about all the typing I have to do, all the writing I want to do, sadness about not seeing Bob Grossman (see DIARY 9672), wonderment about what to do with Art, and feeling in general pretty depressed about things. Oh, forgot that I jerked off at 10:30 am, rather sensationlessly, just to come off since Sunday. Finally fell asleep about 2:15, exhausted.
DIARY 9674
SATURDAY, JUNE 14. Up about 9:30, feeling quite a bit better about the cold. Have breakfast, read junk, put things away, and get down (after calling Art and finding no answer, assuming he's gone up to the country) to the diary a week late, putting things together and struggling through the reviews to some degree of torture, and go down for the mail when I think it's here, reading more stuff to throw away, and keep going until about 2, when the Village Voice author calls and says he'll call tomorrow and come over to read my stuff then. I call Joyce at the shop to let her know I won't be joining her this evening on the trip up, and Ceil (?) is there, so I talk to her for awhile (see DIARY 9673) and then determine to catch up before having lunch, getting to that point about 3:30, starving, and have tuna and an orange while reading more old Village Voices. Put some stuff away in preparation for the author's visit tomorrow, and then decide I really MUST get to the rest of the Law and Nursing index, so I start typing out the cards at 4:15, finish with them about 6:15, and get to sorting them and find that I have a lot of "extra" work to do on them, which is bad for my hourly rate. Struggle through, washing my face every so often to combat the increasing heat, and the thermometer in the living room reads 80° F and 70% humidity, which probably produces a pretty uncomfortable THI. Finally get the cards into an acceptable shape for typing at 10:15, and I've put the hash into the oven to cook, and eat that and green beans and wine, then decide I have to get through the OYOs sometime, so it might as well be now (it's quiet upstairs at last; when SHE came in, the cat started galumphing over the hardwood floors above my head so determinedly that I called, found her on the phone, and went UP and said to PLEASE keep the cat under control. The damn barking dog keeps barking, and I worked part of the time with earplugs to keep our her radio noises. I don't mind WORKING, but I sure hate her NOISE!), so I start with positively the WORST case of composition in ages at 10:55 and finish at 12:55, very slow, 2 hours, for 5---disgusting. By that time I'm so tired I fall into bed and actually fall asleep almost immediately---after putting in earplugs.
DIARY 9679
SUNDAY, JUNE 15. Up at 9, breakfast, out to buy the Times, back to work on the puzzles, doing both fairly quickly, watching an icky Faubion Bowers talking to various people in Tokyo on Camera Three, finish reading the Times, and then get through in time to watch Zubin Mehta conduct Mahler's First from 1 to 2, coming up with the INCREDIBLE flight of fancy embodied in DIARY 9675-9678. Have lunch, type that up with a diary page for five pages in all, and then get to the typing of the Law and Nursing index from 2 to 6:45, finishing THAT, and it's good, however briefly, to be TOTALLY CAUGHT UP with work, except for going in to New Century tomorrow and getting two more indexes on MONDAY! Finish up the bill for the job, and all through the day I've been sort of shaving, fixing up the apartment, and keeping space for the author's arrival, but he finally calls at 7:45 to say that his plans for the day have changed and he's NOT coming over. So it's a good thing that I didn't spend a lot of time getting things out for him to read. It sort of takes the sails out of the rest of the day, however, and I call various people and get no answer, and talk to Rolf for a long time, and he's got a deadline of Wednesday, after which time he'll be free, and talk to Arnold for awhile, too, since he just got in and was thinking I'd be in the country with Art. Then watch Monty Python (delayed a bit because Susan McMahon called and told me about a trip to Costa del Sol that her sister and two other people want to make, which I can look into for them) and Animation Festival and a portrait of Renoir, drinking wine with dinner of Spam and then some sherry to get very tipsy, then smoke the LAST of the old grass and some of the new, and get to an INCREDIBLE edge of near-orgasm, going with bidi and rubber band and not-much-coming-since-Friday-morning sensations, and come with such INCREDIBLE force that my whole body curls around the throbbing cock, and I start counting, rather blindly since the whole THING just clenched, and got up to the astounding number of 52 before I stopped, and then actually counted FIVE separate dripping drops of after-fluid, a record probably set for ALL time, and one of the most incredible sensations of all time. Too spaced-out even to EAT, and I put stuff away and fall asleep about 1:30, cold gone.
DIARY 9680
MONDAY, JUNE 16. Wake at 8 and feel pretty good, so I'm out of bed, putting back the blankets to dry out: it's cool but VERY damp the past few days. Shave and shower and eat and get out about 9:15, getting to the office at 9:50 after buying $6 worth of vitamin C and cough lozenges at Falk, and TWO boxes of folded cards for $10 at Apollo. There are some OYOs left to do, I retype the letter about the matching, proofread the OYOs, get out to lunch with Michael at 2:15 at the deli, having a very messy meat loaf hero sandwich, and stop by to find that Gateway-Globus doesn't seem to HAVE a U-drive-it tour for this year. Phone Berta to get to ACC as late as I can, finish all the OYOs there, get everything away just at 4:50, and leave in the rain to struggle up to her place with the cards in a paper bag getting wet, and she's got the Obstetrics book all wrapped up for me. I take it into the lobby and sit with it, having called Pope to arrange to go with him to the Hilton tonight for a guest lecture about EST, and I read from 5 to about 6:15, and get down to find that it's pretty near stopped raining, and stop into a Chock Full to have ANOTHER chockburger just at 6:30, which happens to be their closing time: a good conclusion, since they have no SIGN saying what time they close! Then up to the Hilton just as it's starting to rain again, and I'm concerned about money, since I spent my last $1 for the hamburger, but I ask the crowded guest desk how much it is and they say it's free. Into the big room, and who's giving the introductory lecture but Lou Epstein! He chats for about 10 minutes, and I go with Marvin Mittelman into another room with about 80 others for an introductory lecture, and during it sometimes I decide to take the course, particularly since it's a new-set one the next few weekends, and it's obviously going to be a THING in the country in a short time, and I might as well get in vaguely at the BEGINNING. So I sign up, giving the wrong bank name, and Pope is delighted I'm going to do it, and I don't even have second thoughts about it: in fact, I feel GREAT about becoming an "addict" of EST (see DIARY 9681). Home at 11:30, sweaty, get to bed to smoke some of the new stuff, come nicely with a LONG time at the brink, though NOT for 52 spasms as last night, and EAT four slices of toast and lots of chocolate, and I FEEL it in the MORNING!!!
DIARY 9684
TUESDAY, JUNE 17. Wake at 8:30 to feel FULL from last night's eating, feeling that I'd ALREADY had a taste of the "experience life, don't think about it" that EST is known for. Called Joyce and Art and Norma and Arnie, went out to pick up the article about Werner from Pope (that I want a copy of), got to the post office, then bought groceries, and got home about 12:30. Read some junk, did little things that I'd made a list to do last night, and then typed three pages to get the diary up to date. Lunch, washed dishes, cleaned up the apartment, and did not much else until 4:30, when I watched "Deadly Fathoms" till 6, about a goony (sexy) team of skin divers who looked under Bikini atoll to see the ships that went down in the atomic blast, and they're all covered in coral, so THAT can come back, but some of the comments were just asinine "It was an incredibly wonderful ship to dive in, it was on its side, and there were dishes and bombs and skulls and bodies all mixed together, a really great place." Shower and wash my hair and have dinner of the last of the Spam before leaving at 7 for the Stuttgart, and, true to my good demon, I got seat E101, DEAD center in the balcony, for the top price of $7 that I was willing to pay. Talked to Michael during the second intermission, and run into Lucy Harms, and we three chat, Michael liking her, and the evening was pretty good (see DIARY 9685) though it was over at 11, when I said I'd get to Art's at 11. Stephen had called, and I almost expected to see him there when I got in at 11:40, but he wasn't, Art and I talked, had some more artichokes in a not-so-good sauce, smoked, and he put on the radio and we went into the bedroom before I fell asleep, and I swung on his joint for him to come quickly, and I hardly got up at all, even though he tried on a too-big and a too-small cock ring, saying that he'd get one for me HIS size. Fell into bed, requesting a blanket but being content with a sheet only, and it was probably around 2 when I got to sleep, though I never seem to look when I'm at Art's. It's nice BEING with him, but it's not so great PLANNING to be with him, because his charm is IMMEDIATE, not thought-about. He was happy about my taking EST, which was nice, since it'll occupy me two weekend that I'd ordinarily be in the country with him. Sleep well.
DIARY 9686
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18. Wake at 9 as Art crawls out of bed, and he comes back to make SURE that I do the exercises he wants to incorporate as part of my life (and what I REALLY want to do is get back to the exercises I do, which I DO do today, the 19th), and that's ANOTHER thing about him that annoys me. He makes some toast with cream cheese, good, and I get out about 10:30 to subway (losing ANOTHER penny in the 14th and 7th station, so I WILL stop putting them in there) down to Chambers to his shoe store, and get a 9 EE leather boot that I hope I don't slip around in TOO much (no, just tried it on again, and I WON'T), after turning down a MORE expensive CANVAS-topped boot (this was $17.99, whopping $19.43 with tax), and then subway "free" back up to 50th at 11:30, having enough time before the shows at 12 to drop into Zum-Zum for a roast beef and brew for $2 with tax and tip, not bad, though the burger and booze is better for only a little more, and then get to the 55th Street Playhouse expecting to find a line waiting outside, but there's only about 4 people inside the chilly theater when the movies start promptly. Most of them are fairly good (see DIARY 9687), but "Demi-Gods," the first porno cartoon, is woefully disappointing. I could do better! Out at 7:35, feeling somewhat ass-weary and DEFINITELY horny, and get onto the local platform to catch a quick One, and then the express is waiting, so I get home about 8, listen to messages, get a call from Stephen who doesn't want to come over, having been up late last night with company, and smoke and jerk off well ENOUGH, but not spectacularly by 8:45, and prepare to watch "What Price Glory" when the author from the Village Voice calls, will see me at 9:30 if that's OK, refuses to come to my apartment, and we agree to meet in front of the Promenade Restaurant. I'm stoned, but select out a goodly list of things to take to him, we meet on the dot, and talk until 12:40, a bit surprised that it took so long (see DIARY 9688). Home rather dizzy from the whole thing, jotting down an idea about "Between Years," and have French toast at 1, then glance through Newsweek and the Voice that I'd bought and got today until 2, getting to bed without jerking off AGAIN, tired and hot.
DIARY 9692
THURSDAY, JUNE 19. Wake at 8:30 to the cat thumping on the floor upstairs, disgusted that I only got 6½ hours sleep, but get out of bed at 8:45 and actually start back on exercising, back at level 1, and, having been away from it for about three months, even THAT feels like a strain, and the next morning when I exercise there's a bit of soreness that I'm working out. Breakfast, type 10 pages, including the first three of BETWEEN YEARS (see DIARY 9689-9691), which seems to be coming out OK, and maybe I'll AIM for three pages per day, so that in 100 days I'll have a 300-page book, by the end of September. Then read the ads and the movies in the Voice during lunch, and decide to write to a few of them, so I write to the cartoonist about writing for him, UNPA for souvenir sheets, the ad by the 60-year-old who wants a "youthful companion," and notes to Mom, Susan, Elaine, and Paul Bosten, for a total of 7, leaving the two more until tomorrow. Phone Cynthia to ask her about EST, and she says she'll be in this evening, why don't I meet her at 7 and we'll have dinner. I'd gone through the dance listings while cleaning off my shelf and circled a number of things I wanted to see, and came up with some for tonight, but phoning Michael reveals he's at a ticketing class, and don't want to call Arnold, and Eddie calls to say Tuesday's OK, and I call Art who's not in the shop, but he calls at 6, saying he's back, and I can tell him about meeting Cyndy. Also called Washington to find that Wendy left on TUESDAY, so it was good I called, and find that the pages ARE final the way they are, so there's no repagination. So everything's OK except that there still doesn't seem to be TIME: I know I have to get to work on the Energy Facts index, but did these other things all day and there was no time left. Also went to the bank at 2:30 to get cash to treat Cynthia, and took out the cylinder on the lock, got that changed, gave a new key to Mrs. Johnson, who says she'll make me a THREE-year lease if I paint myself, so that sounds OK, and then at 6:45, intending to leave, I'd showered and now have to put BACK the lock, leaving at 7, calling to say I'll be in at 8, for a GREAT lightning storm, and we talk about WILD things (see DIARY 9693), eat at Oscar's for $16.75 including tip, I get home at 12:30, call Art till 1, do two I Ching till 1:30, and read the Soho News until 2, getting to sleep instantly, muzzy from dinner wine.
DIARY 9697
FRIDAY, JUNE 20. Wake at 8:30 by the cat again, again disgusted at only 6.5 hours sleep, but up at 9, breakfast, write responses to the last two Voice ads for 40-year-old friends, determine and DO send out the two Times travel articles to Caskie Stinnett at Travel & Leisure magazine, type 5 diary pages, including three more of the BETWEEN YEARS (see DIARY 9694-9696). I'd also gone down to pick up the mail, getting almost nothing, and then had lunch about 1 (oh, yes, exercised, too), getting through more reading and stuff to throw away. Well, before lunch I decided to at least LOOK at what I'd done before with the Energy Facts index, and ended up typing up a list of sees and see alsos that should be useful, and then page through to see how many pages are continuation pages, not very many, but I verify that all the pages that should be there are there, and there doesn't appear to be any mistakes in pagination, as there was last time. THEN I have lunch, but instead of working on the index, I sit down and decide that I WON'T throw out "The Godfather," but instead of reading it laboriously, I look at a few pages and decide that it's NOT notable for style, only for plotting (and Art the next morning verifies that even PUZO doesn't think of it as anything but a joke, written for fun), so I sit down and skim at the rate of about 5 pages per minute, indicating juicy parts like Sonny's big cock and the attempted "mating" of the Academy Award winners, and stop about 4, showering and shaving and getting out to St. Marks at 5:20 to see the end of one movie, then the brilliantly Technicolored "Thousands Cheer" with a soprano Kathryn Grayson and aerialist Gene Kelly and all the Hollywood clichés, and then a black-and-white "Strike Up the Band" with a Mickey Rooney who acts circles around Judy Garland, a great fruit-band concert, and Busby Berkeley doing all he can with 1943 wartime austerities and high-school La Congas, band concerts, and school dances. Out at 8:40 to have a slice of pizza and a butterscotch ice cream dinner, marveling at the country-western drum, and 2-oboe-1-bassoon ensembles along 8th Street, and I note Greene Street JUST before a bicyclist wants to know if she's going right for GREENE Street! To Art's for NO food but beer, smoking, and neither he nor Stephen even TOUCHES me, but I suck both of them, Stephen thrice, and Art says HE came three times. Stephen leaves about 1 and I crawl EXHAUSTED into bed at 1:30, too tired to be hungry.
DIARY 9707
SATURDAY, JUNE 21. Up about 9, doing my exercises in front of Art just to excuse myself from HIS exercises, and they pass judgment by him. He's still in bed as I get toast and cream cheese ready for myself, having three pieces in all, and he's mentioned the filing cabinet available at an apartment sale on another floor, so we got there at 10:10 to see a red-painted cabinet with doors that stick for which I offer $5, but they've promised it to someone else. Back and talk about my BETWEEN YEARS, and he doesn't like the computer section, but says that, in all, he liked reading this MORE than he liked the New York story! ...DAMN! Get home about 12, finding I've missed the exterminator, and again I don't feel like doing anything, so I finish reading the final few pages of "Center of the Cyclone," not really liking the way it ends and definitely not liking Lilly. Then finish reading "Jesting Pilate" and "Determinism and Free Will," and after lunch about 3, get down to typing 10 pages of diary that includes all of them. Then I also get a few MORE pages of BETWEEN YEARS typed (see DIARY 9702-9706), and feel good to where I've gotten. Art's at a party, catering (turns out to be Thomas J. Watson at a formal dinner for about 150), and won't be back until very late, and he said he'd call when he got in to see whether we'd take the 9:15 or 11:15 train up to North Salem on Sunday. I'm thinking and thinking about whether I really want to GO up there this weekend, thinking of all the work I have to do on the index, and decide to tell him that I've gotten involved with the diary and want to work a lot of BETWEEN YEARS into pages from old diary pages. Recall the feeling of relief I had when I thought "EST will prevent me from going to Art's for two weekends, and give him an excuse he'll AGREE to," and it felt VERY good. Arnie said that Bob Grossman called him on Thursday, so I guess it's official that he's not calling ME. Out for the paper at about 9, back to have dinner while looking at it, and then struggle through both puzzles for quite some hours, finish reading it by 12:30, and manage to stay up until about 1, still not putting the phone on (Art's not home yet) message since I want to tell him when he CALLS that I won't be going up with him. Fall asleep quickly without smoking.
DIARY 9708
SUNDAY, JUNE 22. Art calls at 8:30, getting me out of bed, saying that he got home at 3 and is leaving at 11:15, and he accepts my working on the book. Up for breakfast and read some more things in the Times, finishing it off, and get down to working on the energy index from 10:30 to 2:30, going fairly quickly because of my background in doing the book two years ago. Open the windows for the first time, and it makes quite a difference in the heat and all the difference in the world in the humidity to have the air moving through from the living room into the study. Lunch at 2:30, and back to work from 3:10 to 7:10, when I finish the underlining of the words in probably record time, and stop to wash my face. My hair is the worst it's ever been, since I LAST WASHED it on Tuesday, and I won't wash it until tomorrow, 6 days terrible. Then get back to start typing cards from 7:20 to 9:20, and there are going to be a LOT of cards. Concerned about when Ron's going to call for work (he does tomorrow for Tuesday), since I want to (1) xerox the Erhard article, (2) pick up my watch, and (3) buy ten boxes of index cards. People call through the day: Arnie, back from the Island, telling about how relieved he feels to be away from helping Norma, who's made marvelous progress, able to get around without crutches out at the Island, and will be working from now on: Eddie, and we make arrangements to meet at Coney Island, and someone from "E.S.P." that I don't understand, and then she makes it clear that it's est and tells me about the pre-training session tomorrow. Take all the time out, quit work about 10 and say I stopped at 9:20, then have Art's artichoke he gave me yesterday, cook hamburger, and tune in the start of "Monty Python" and actually get fooled that I'm watching some kind of movie by mistake when they do a takeoff on a pirate-cape-and-feathers thriller. Sit through the Video and Television review from 11 to 11:30, and "What Price Glory?" from 11:30 to 1:45, very long and slow-starting, but great battle scenes and good use of tint throughout (though Arnie FLOORS me with the Variety article that someone has found how to REFILM BACK AND WHITE FILMS IN COLOR, using a process called Telechrome, to bring "Intolerance" in COLOR!). Bed at 1:45, again without smoking, preparing for est and its strictures.
DIARY 9709
MONDAY, JUNE 23. Up at 9, exercise to the tune of 12 pushups and situps with the rest of level 2, breakfast, water plants, fix up the apartment, and get down to more typing of cards for the energy index from 11 to 3:30, when I have lunch, and reading MORE stuff and almost caught up with EVERYTHING by now, even able to get into old issues of the Advocate (though I'm less interested in that now that I'm not teaching the Homosexuality course at the New School), though Scientific American is totally forgotten about. (HEY, I never got Sci Am for June 1975!) Continue working from 4:15 to 5:30, taking fifteen minutes out for talking to Ron and Rolf, who calls to try to get me away from the pre-training to go to the baths with him, but I say I'll call him after I come out, though I'm concerned about the I Ching that I threw that warns me NOT to go out on full-moon night, which is tonight! So I figure I'll go to est and NOT go to the baths. Wash my hair for the first time in 6 days, feeling good to do it, and have a rough time shaving because my beard's so long and my shaver seems to be getting weaker, and get out at 6:15 to the Lexington Avenue subway, and there's Pope waiting for the train, and he IS going to the Commodore (so Arnie COULD have joined the both of us there!, and he'd called too), and we chat about his poor knee, my reading of the Sagan book, and he's gotten the Weil book that I'd wanted to read, and he's looking forward to how I like the pre-training, which he can't remember anything about. In at 7 to wait on the payment line, having to switch because they have it arranged by the alphabet and I'm in the wrong line, and then they say I have to fill out a FORM, to be gotten in parlor A, and I go back there, have a run-in when I just WANT one, and she insists I have to wait in line to GET one, and look across and there's Joan Sumner! We chat, I get the form and fill it out, getting specific about my aims (see DIARY 9710), and then it's 7:25 and everyone is ordered into the training room, and then everyone without a card is ordered BACK to pick up their card! Assy! It finally starts about 7:38, and is rather well run by David Norris, out at 10:50, when I meet Pope outside, ride back, chat with him over beer (my first transgression of a recommendation!) until 12, then home and jerk off WITHOUT grass, bidi, or popper, and sleep at 1:15.
DIARY 9713
TUESDAY, JUNE 24. Up about 8:15 and smile when I think that I'm FORBIDDEN to do exercising! Breakfast and get ready to go to work, but decide that I should transcribe what happened at the EST pre-training beforehand, and that takes DIARY 9710-9712, after catching up on the three days I was behind. Out about 10, get there at 10:30, and the table is covered with a stack of about 25 Phonics OYOs on boards, and I get the specs of what to check, and I work through only a few of them before Tom's going to lunch at 10:45, and he'd said he wanted me to join him (to repay him for the time that he paid for MY lunch with three drinks of his to my one) at lunch, and I told him that I wasn't going to drink, but we went to Munk's Place anyway. I give him a background in est, and he talks constantly about my being Dionysiac to his Apollonian, and at length I tell him that I really want to WRITE, and haven't been able to finish "Acid House," and he asks would I mind if he read it, and I say "Of course not." Stop off at Apolle (hm) stationers to pick up 10,000 folded cards for indexing at a 10% discount, bringing it up to $48 and change ANYWAY for the 10 boxes at $4.50 a box, and lug it to the office convinced that I'll NEVER get it home in one sweep. Stop at the watch place, but they won't give me the watch without the tag, which I left in my shoulder bag at work. Back at 2:45 and try to rush through all the OYO boards left, then about 5 start trying to call Eddie to say that I'll be late, and when I finally get to him at 5:30, I just decide to come BACK to the office tomorrow (the HELL with getting the Energy index done on time, how they expect two weeks of work for $800 is beyond me, anyway), and leave the stuff there (happy I didn't pick up my watch, since that gives me the cash that I need for the Coney Island expenses for Eddie and me tonight). Out at 5:45, having worked 5.25 hours, get the local to the N train, and ride out JUST as the rains come crashing down onto the open chasm subway line through Brooklyn. Get to Nathan's JUST at 7, when planned, and the evening starts VERY well (see DIARY 9714). Leave about 12:30 and home about 1:30, feeling VERY tired, and I wash up and fall into bed, instantly asleep but I've broken the agreement AGAIN with the thoughtless beer at the park!
DIARY 9715
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25. Up about 8:30, leaving everything exactly where it was, and I shower after eating breakfast, and the milk's beginning to go sour, but I have it the next day and Friday too! Call Art, who called me last night, and tonight I got a call from Cyndy who's been finally let go from Arica and she's going up to Boston to visit family for a week, I give her Susan's name, and Marty's number for freelance programming work, and I guess I talk to Arnie for a long time in here, too, because the morning just seems to go. Leave at 10:45 for unemployment, having to go back only ONE last time on July 9, and get to work at New Century at 11:30, get through all the revised proof, in terrible shape when they did the galleys backward, and take a half hour to get out to a quick sandwich at the Blarney Stone so that I can read the News about the 727 airliner crash at JFK that took 110 lives yesterday afternoon. Finish the proofs, do one OYO, and Eddie's come with the book to lend me "Keep the River on Your Right," and I take 9 OYOs with me, saying I'll bring them back Monday though I don't see how I can with est over the weekend, and repack the ten boxes into a shopping bag and carry five home with me, leaving at 4, stopping at the post office to pick up the LOVELY sweater that Mrs. Griswold knit for me, and get back to leave the place in a mess, making sausage to eat at 6 in order to shower and leave at 6:50 to watch the crowds coming into the Metropolitan Opera House for the premiere performance in the United States of the Bolshoi Opera with their production of "Boris Godunov" (see DIARY 9716). There's a Jewish truck hollering out something about enjoying the opera while the Jews aren't free, and I don't care for that, and Arnie talks so irritatingly that I think I'll go up the wall. In at 7:40 for both national anthems, and the opera's not very good. The opera's very long, getting out at 12:05, and Art had called about my coming over, but I call him to say I'm tired, but let slip that I don't have anything to do TOMORROW night. Tell Arnie that I'm thinking of letting him go, and he observes that I had it in mind for a long time, and am only acting on it now. Good for him. Home at 1, tired, but still have no trouble getting to sleep without grass or wine.
DIARY 9717
THURSDAY, JUNE 26. Up at 8:30 and come rather gloriously with only the pressure of the last five or six days to produce a grand sensation, and then Art says he wants to come over when I ask him to, and I tell him again that HE should suggest it more often. Work from 9:30 to 11:40 on the index, finishing the typing, and I have over 2000 cards for a LARGE index that I hope isn't TOO much over 2000 lines. Down for the mail, read a lot, had called Rolf about the Museum, but since he didn't answer, guess he went to visit a friend "across the Poconos." Eddie's gone to the beach, so I have to see the Brooklyn Museum alone, even Arnie, who called, not interested. Art calls about my sharing a room with him on the Golden Odyssey, so I call St. Louis and send a resume to McKee and Quilly of INTRAV. Out about 2, after lunch, and the "Vision and Fantasy in the US" that I want to SEE is really very poor, but there are BETTER Coles and Ryders back in the "Century of American Painting," and some sexy boys, too, and I get my eye knocked out by a muscle-builder with a girl, but he's got SUCH a chest I can't take my eyes off him, and what tanned ARMS and SHOULDERS! Down to 4 to wander for maybe the second time through their rooms, dizzied by what they've got; down to 3 for the seals and find that a lot of the best early stuff is off to another exhibit; down to 2 to see their Indian section for possibly the first time, and it's not very good, though they have some good Japanese stuff. Down to 1 to look at the special Japanese painting exhibit, poor, but buy a GREAT 75-colored-photos book of Indian miniatures for only $1.95, for $8.50 spent THERE. Home on the subway going through the guide, until 5, and I work from 5 to 8:50 editing the cards through E until Art comes. He reads stuff of mine (saying nothing about them) while I fix up the place and have a shower, and we're out to eat at China Chili at 10, getting kicked out at 11:10 after a good chicken bird's nest, tasty eggplant, and VERY good noodles in bean sauce, all for $11 plus tip, which I pay for entirely. Wander the Promenade for a few minutes, back at 11:45, he smokes, we chat, he dozes, we get into bed at 12:30 and he's CONSTANTLY brushing against, rubbing me, so I can hardly sleep; he's up for a swig of "apple juice or iced tea" and gets the MAPLE SYRUP, and then is up AGAIN to read for a bit, and I wake at 6:30 and out of bed at 8, feeling lousy, he leaves at 11:30, simply much too late for my schedule.
DIARY 9720
FRIDAY, JUNE 27. As I said "yesterday" I wake at 6:30 and out of bed at 8, feeling lousy, and decide that Art's gone back to sleep, so I start editing the cards again and work straight from 8:15 to 11:15, when he finally gets up and comes out, saying he enjoyed sleeping here, and then leaves. I have breakfast then and get back to editing the cards from 11:50 to 4:50, with an hour of typing later and I type at about the rate of 11 pages per hour, and then take an extra couple minutes to see that I'm getting 350 lines from 300 cards, so I'll have 2150 lines, approximately, for the final index WITHOUT turnovers, so I'll have to call someone Monday to tell them that it'll be late, and that it'll be longer than they think. But my rate will STILL be somewhat over $20 per hour, so that's just FINE! Then have tuna and the last orange for lunch that late, and I'd been thinking of going to a dance performance this evening, but then want to catch up on the diary before going to est, so I finish reading "Keep the River on Your Right," which is quite a book (see DIARY 9718-9719), and then get to typing seven diary pages up to date, with the two mentioned about the book, and then call Eddie and tell him that I'll be taking the book back to the library. Then I get back to typing final ms pages for the index from 9:40 to 11, when I stop just to give people around me a rest from typing, and I put on the sausage for dinner and get into the shower to wash my hair, and eat dinner at 11:30, without wine, and let my hair dry and do some few things around the apartment getting ready and set the alarm for 7 am to be SURE to get to the training on time, and it turns out to be a good thing that I did that, otherwise I MIGHT have been too late into the room. Think that I might have trouble getting to sleep, but I'm sort of bone-weary from the 9.5 hours on the index and then the other time working, so I feel that I have a lot of things done (though I don't know WHEN I'll be doing the 9 OYOs that I brought home with me for Monday, though I'll do them SOMETIME), and I feel good about tomorrow's training without being anxious about it, and get a particularly strong attack of the "mympts" and fall almost immediately asleep at about 12:45, after shaving and combing out my hair and deciding what to wear.
DIARY 9721
SATURDAY, JUNE 28. Wake at 7, recording an INCREDIBLE Beatle dream (see DIARY 9722), water the plants, make a three-egg breakfast which leaves me feeling pretty stuffed, and try to shit but can't and wonder if that's going to affect the training. Everything takes a bit longer than I expected, and I'd set my timing to get to the hotel by 8:15, and leave the apartment (glad I closed the windows, because it DID rain) at 7:50 and get to the Lexington line to find it CROWDED with people who had been waiting a long time, so schedules are VERY slow on Saturday, and take some notes that I'll transcribe below on DIARY 9723, and then the train comes about 8:02 and I pull into Grand Central at 8:20, thankfully fast, go into the side room to get my name card after seeing NO ONE in the lobby, going upstairs, finding no one there, saying it was downstairs, try AGAIN to crap and can't, and go down, getting into my seat, surprised that almost everyone's seated already, at 8:30 almost exactly. But I'm not the last one in, so they start late, saying that this is the way it is, and they probably don't REALLY plan to start before 9, but they can't tell everyone that or they wouldn't start until 9:30. Good planning on their part. From then on, I'll rely on the notes that I wrote up quickly (and VERY sloppily) while waiting for the subway that evening. Meeting started at 8:40, we go out of the hotel about 9:50 to go eat, and Joan and I went to the coffee shop next to the Club Car to eat, and I had a strip steak for $5 in all, and Joan had a cheeseburger and we talked with Jan from Minneapolis, then went back, and was VERY surprised to get out at 2:10. I walk toward Madison, following an unseeing Bonneau, and get down to the subway to write the notes from which the notes on the est training sprang (see DIARY 9723), and walk PAST my apartment to get the Times, and back to glance through a few things, but by then I'm REALLY tired, so I fall into bed about 3:30, not changing the phone unit that's gotten no messages today, and set my mental alarm for 7:20, appalled at the thought that it's only 3 hours plus away, and by some strange mistake wake at 6:20, just before the alarm, that I'd set INCORRECTLY, goes off. Strange things working here. Feel pretty bad in the morning, but then I'm used to feeling GOOD when I wake.
DIARY 9736
SUNDAY, JUNE 29. Wake rather crazily at 6:40 rather than 7:20, in time to shut off the alarm and then reset it, wondering why it was that I did THAT, and then got up WITH the alarm not before it. Had tried the "going through the body" but that was such a bore that it didn't work, and I went back to the blaze of the mympts and went DIRECTLY to sleep. Up feeling pretty lousy, unfortunately, but I'd showered the evening before, had two quick scrambled eggs that didn't leave me as full as yesterday, and got out at 8:10, again after I wanted to leave, but the subway came much faster this time and I got in early, to be greeted by Heather calling me "Bob" and being proud of it. Get to the hotel about 8:40, training starts promptly at 9, and the day is so stunning, so---yes, use the word---traumatic, that I don't go out for dinner, and come to a satisfying series of realizations, hopefully giving me the attitudes I need to more realistically work on the stuff I want to go through. Surprised when I don't react to the LAST process, and disappointed then in the day in general (see DIARY 9743). Out surprisingly early at 1, jot down lots of notes while it's all fresh, as I did last night, and get home, after waiting for a second subway, about 2, to get a message from Pope, saying to call him because he'd thought of me a lot during the day and wanted to know how it went. Looked through the Times to see what TV programs were on, still feeling slightly hyper, and I make two soft-boiled eggs to fill my now complaining stomach, though I certainly wasn't hungry until THAT time. Look through more of the Times, and actually sit down and quickly go through the crossword while recording more notes to complete what I'd written, and get into bed at 3:20, listening to dogs barking with great displeasure, and I scratch my asshole and find a slimy layer of excrement just at the rim that darkens beneath one fingernail and I marvel that THAT may have happened during the day, and I get up again to get rid of it, having put the phone service back on and the ring off and the earplugs in so that I'll sleep as long as I need to before getting up and doing ALL the things I have to do tomorrow. Instantly asleep at about 3:30, feeling rather weakened by the trauma of the day's events.
DIARY 9746
MONDAY, JUNE 30. Wake about 9 and feel good enough to get out of bed at 9:30, and I call Tom Aloisi, who says I can do the stuff later and send it in by messenger; Arnie, who's eager to hear about the weekend; Pope, who asks me to tell someone about Jane Roberts and Seth who's getting a chart from him; then call Wendy Griffin after trying to get someone at the Library of Congress, and she says that it's perfectly fine if I mail off the manuscript on Thursday or Friday and is happy that I called. Try calling Art, but he's not home, and then I get to the transcription of some of the notes, and Joan calls for about an hour to clarify some things with HER, and then I call Pope back to tell him that I won't be seeing him today, since my notes from the first day of training have extended from DIARY 9723-9735, for a whopping 13 pages, and then the second day extends from DIARY 9737 to 1945, a somewhat more reasonable 9 pages, for a total of 26 pages for the day. Then call the Gudde dancers for a reservation, call Michael who will join me, and then talk to Norma for about a half hour until 5, who says that Jonathan probably wouldn't have talked with her about anything ANYWAY, and I wanted to do OTHER things around the apartment, but the entire day was spent with the aftermath of est, which I guess is only proper, and lots of tomorrow will be spent talking with Pope about it, too, and there's going to be other---and the concept of "Too much to do, too little time" seems to get stronger and stronger, and I hope I can make a breakthrough next weekend in this---even though it's clear to me NOW that I'd have to GIVE UP some stuff that I don't consider as important, except that what's to be given up is PEOPLE, and that IS what's important! Get out at 7:30 to the dance theater, amused to FIND myself on 42nd Street, as was recommended a scant 19 hours ago, and Michael hasn't arrived when the performance starts at 8:15. It's pretty awful (see DIARY 9747), but thank goodness it's short, Michael joins for two intermissions of chat on the street before people ordering various drugs for between $25 and $30, and we get out at 9:30, he doesn't want to see a friend yet, so we have dinner at Molfetas, not bad, he has chops, I mousaka for about $4, and we're out at 11, I call Art about 11:30, and talk for about 20 minutes, Joyce asleep. I'm home to come in GREAT agony with Baby Magic and a bellyful of come at 1.
DIARY 9748
TUESDAY, JULY 1. Up about 9, read through the Times, sort out socks to wash and laundry to take out and trousers to get cleaned. Start defrosting the refrigerator, play various records, talk to Rolf, and try calling Susan about Michael's coming up on the holiday weekend, and finally Pope calls at 1:30 to say that he wants to stay out on the Promenade, so I go out with the 22 pages of the est training and his copy of the East-West Journal article and talk with him to about 3 (see DIARY 9749). Then get groceries, put them away, eat lunch, and Avi calls to wonder why it is that I haven't been calling him. I detail what I've been doing and why I've been too busy to really get to him, and we agree to meet at his place at 9:30 on Tuesday to see the various exhibits at the Metropolitan, and later Arnie and probably Bob want to join us again. Been talking so much about Bob Grossman that I decide to call him, and find why he hadn't been talking to me, and he puts the blame on my not liking Donna McKecknie (now, it wasn't her---yes, I know, you didn't like her dance choreography, and then you SAT on your HANDS) and he's been house-bound for the past week with SOMETHING wrong with the knee: he'd had it drained last week, the fluid was being analyzed, and he'll go back tomorrow to see what's wrong. I'm amazed at how STRONG his concentration on himself is to create Bell's palsy and now THIS! Invite everyone to "The Gambler" tonight, but no one's interested, and Rolf doesn't call before I leave at 6:45, having showered and let my hair dry without the dryer for a change, and have trouble selling the ticket because there are a lot of OTHERS selling tickets, and the box office seems to have even $7 tickets, but finally a guy comes up and buys it for $10 and I read the synopsis just before the opera starts. It's pretty bad (see DIARY 9750) but some of the effects are nice. Out to find myself alone in an elevator with a woman in a wheelchair who sees EVERYTHING in opera (and, sadly, degrades ballet), and talk with her, push through the crowds waiting for Baryshnikov, and subway down to Art's at 11, and we have an incredible talk while he works on spaghetti and clam sauce for dinner (see DIARY 9751). Get to sleep about 4; he just doesn't want to let "me" go.
DIARY 9753A
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2. Wake about 9, and he's up already and moving around and talking on the phone, and I leave fairly quickly at 9:30---forgetting to see what he got for me that was so interesting---and even get into the 14th Street subway with the penny at last. Home for a number of messages, and try to call Joan and Susan and Arnold (who's having an orgy on the 14th) and Avi, finally getting all but Susan, so I call Michael and say "Sorry," but have a good time in Boston anyway. Ron calls and says I have to send in the stuff today; ACC says that the final pages are now coming in on July 22 (coincidence!) and that I can delay the mailing about a week if I have to, so I WILL be doing it. Breakfast and finish the "Cosmic Connection," thinking of another story idea (see DIARY 9754), and decide that I really have to copy down the information that I learned about Tekeyan (see DIARY 9755), and call Pope to get the number of the page so that I can type the 6 diary pages to almost catch me up to date, but this is AFTER I work from 12:30 to 3 (with about half an hour off for telephoning) on getting finished with the 9 OYOs (and there are only 15 left to do forEVER), and Ron calls to say some silly thing that Tom says about spacing, and then they do what I'd specified anyway! Get through to Joan about 4, and we talk about her headaches and about the est meeting tonight, and then get to Avi about 5, saying that everything's OK for anyone who wants to come on Tuesday, and I don't hear anything from Bob, so he'd better call tomorrow (he does, while I'm sitting down to watch the Animation Festival). Shower and have been having meals VERY late today (breakfast at 11:45, lunch at 4, dinner at 11:45 pm), and decide to get out fairly early to the Sheraton, leaving at 6:20 to get to the hotel about 6:55, starting to reread "The Phenomenon of Man," and it's GREAT in connection with est! Talk to Bonneau and others (see DIARY 9756) and we get out at 10:39, not a very interesting meeting, and Bonneau and I talk down to Port Authority, and the subway takes me to Clark Street at 11:15, I put on the hamburger, watch the "Unauthorized Biography of James Dean" with his "roommate" saying that he never saw anything of Dean's homosexuality, and there he sits in gray jeans and a leather jacket in his faggotry. Bed at 1 after coming quickly, sleep at 1:15.
DIARY 9760
THURSDAY, JULY 3. Though I went to sleep at 1:15, I'm awake and feeling VERY chipper at 7:15, so I decide to get out of bed and start DOING things. Start by washing the mirrors in the bathroom and bedroom, feeling good about doing it, then water the plants after taking the time to remove ALL the moss that had been growing up around the surface, to let them breathe as Art says, and then spooning in new earth that I sort of sift the roots and rocks out of. Take all the deadfalls off the grass plants, getting quite a bit, and then I start fixing up with the rest of the apartment, getting into the income tax to see how I made the mistake that means that I owe $10.99 to the New York State, and it WAS a mistake, and then I type the 8 pages that catch me up to date with the diary. Make the last of the telephone calls, finally getting the last one, Eddie, on July 4 about noon, and get all sorts of things together, having breakfast about 8, and lunch at 11:30 while watching the Animation Festival. Arrange to meet Bob at the NYU building where Kei is performing, Art calls to say that he might not be able to join us, and then I get down to working on more typing from the Energy index from 2 to 5:30, and then shower and dress and shave and get out at 6:10 to get to the place at 6:45, and Bob's tanned and walking very strangely, we eat at Szechuan at Second and 6th and the evening with him turns out, even in that short amount of time, to be a LARGE downer (see DIARY 9761). Leave him and go down to the Public Theater after VERY much enjoying Kei's "After Lunch" (see DIARY 9762), and find that the Anthology Film Archives had moved to 80 Wooster Street about TWO YEARS ago. Debate going there, or going to Joan's or going to Art's, but I don't feel like anything, so I've been reading "The Phenomenon of Man" and get interested in physics again, so I get home about 10 and start in trying to read Wheeler and other books and doing some figuring, but nothing comes together (see DIARY 9763), and then I call Art, and keep forgetting that tomorrow is the 4th of July, and he's going up to the country, sounds disappointed that he's not seeing me, and I keep working until about 1, when I get to bed without getting anywhere, and don't feel like coming, and I go RIGHT to sleep with no trouble at all---long day!
DIARY 9768
FRIDAY, JULY 4. If yesterday was an EARLY day, today is a LATE. I wake about 8, surprised that it's so late and that it's quiet upstairs. Laze and doze until 9, when I wrench myself out of bed: after all, it IS 8 hours! Breakfast, noting that everyone's out of the building, and water my plants and get over to water John's, looking at his table, reading the "Ballerina Coloring Book" and looking through other things of his, put my dishes away, and decide that I'll scrub the kitchen floor and dust and vacuum before I go to bed tonight, so it'll look nice when I get back from est. Then sit down to work on the typing of the Energy index at 10:15, finishing it about 12:15, and then get right into proofreading, finishing that by 3:15, feeling VERY hungry, but happy that all I have to do are the paperworks for Wendy. Lunch, read some things, and get back to work at 4:15, working somewhat more slowly, and hammer out the new Introduction to the Index and the cover letter and the bill, and finish at 8:15, for a total of 46 hours on the Index, what with the 1 hour on Monday for mailing, comes out to $17 an hour, better than most, but not the $20 I'd hoped for. Call Rolf and he says I can bring the stuff over to him, so I go over with his popper container, his book on Free Will and Determinism, and some mailing stuff that he's gotten all of. Out to the Promenade at 9, meeting Marcia Siegel on the way, and the fireworks from a barge in the harbor are QUITE spectacular, though Marcia says that their beauty is in the transience, I quote Aldous Huxley about the "vividness" of the colors of another world, and Rolf says that they remind everyone of the bombing and blasting of warfare. There are some great displays uptown, too, and we stand until 10 talking to Pope and HIS John about est, then I come up for an ice cream cone (and Rolf sneers about 500 calories as I palpate my cellulite---and I WEIGH only 152 pounds!), he comes up to chat until 11, I have dinner after washing my hair, and then settle down to type all THESE 9 pages (cheating because two of them are the formulas I worked on last night, and I think about the final est weekend (see DIARY 9767) and then type THIS at 12:40 am, JUST before brushing my teeth and going to BED! NOW! Get into bed at 1, but have trouble falling asleep. Summon mympths, put in earplugs, and finally doze off at 1:45.
DIARY 9769
SATURDAY, JULY 5. Wake with a jolt at 6:15, then back to sleep to get up at 7:10, just before the alarm at 7:15. Right up to shower and water plants and shave and eat breakfast, but leave apartment LATE at 8:10, but train comes fairly promptly at 8:20. Pleasant morning weather. Feel pretty good---too much salt on two soft-boiled eggs, eyes scratchy. Ass VERY conscious of subway seat---I think I'm being overanalytical. Get there and find no one really to talk to, sitting way over on the right, and I write up the notes of the day for the DIARY (see DIARY 9770). Go through a lot of stuff about the anatomy of reality, and when the first break is announced at 2:50, everyone's very surprised. Out onto Penn Top and look over the city below, warming in the sun from the too-cold auditorium, and wander around terrace feeling pretty good, then back in until 9:30, keeping going, but still easy to do, and when we're back to 9:35, there are no more breaks for dinner (so I can't join Bonneau at Paddy's Clam House as we'd decided), and we're out at midnight, surprisingly early. Home on the Seventh Avenue subway and it goes to Clark Street so that I can pick up the Times, writing notes all the way, and then finish writing them up when I'm home, thumb through some of the Times, and again no one's called me all day so I can just leave the message minder alone. Have a plate of French toast for dinner about 12:45, writing all the while, looking at some of the Times, and crawl into bed at 1:30, not even feeling particularly tired. Bits of notes float through my mind and I record them until 2, and then nothing more comes to mind, I just don't feel like "locating a space in my left foot" to get to sleep, so I conjure up the faithful mympths and go immediately to sleep. Watered John's plants, too, and it takes a long time to do them. Have no dreams that I can remember, but then I don't put on the "dream switch" of wanting to remember them, either. Relieved to think that this is the LAST night I'll have to go to bed without wine and without grass, and that after tomorrow I'll be THROUGH with est. Today wasn't such an extraordinary day, but tomorrow promises to be that and more.
DIARY 9784
SUNDAY, JULY 6. Wake at 6 and then again just before the alarm at 7, feeling not so bad as LAST week, with the five hours of sleep, and check that it's only at 20% chance of rain so I leave the window open, then get the shock of going out to dinner and finding it had rained, though nothing seems to have come in the window. Water my and John's plants, and have two more eggs and feeling pretty reasonable, but don't get into the subway until 8:20, the latest YET, with two subways to get to 55th and 7th. It is good that it's the last day. But the train is RIGHT there when I get down to the platform, so it's OK. There's no one there to talk to, and I sort of really feel left out of the group. It starts somewhat late, because people seem to be coming in late, and it's somewhat slow in starting, builds to a climax that I think ISN'T the climax, and end reasonably depressed when it's time to go to dinner. Wait around for Bonneau to come up the stairs, and he says he's invited someone, and it's Neva, somewhat of a bitch, and he wants Chinese food, she isn't hungry, so we go up to Yangtze River on 57th and it's almost empty, so we have shrimp on sizzling rice, he insists on Chow Mein Cantonese style (imagine!) and she has some beef with snow peas, and then I manage to monopolize the conversation when they find I'd worked 10 years for IBM and retired. He asks her to dinner, she warns him that she's going steady, and it's very awkward with me along, but I ASKED him if it would matter, and if he's stupid enough to say NO, I'm stupid enough to go along. Get back to the place at 10:50 for the start, and then it goes on and on, with many stretch-breaks, and get out almost exactly at 3 am, feeling somewhat depressed. Take notes (see DIARY 9785). Home to get a call from Sergio, turn the ring on the phone off, and climb into bed at 4:25 with earplugs in, prepared to sleep as long as I have to to come back to some sort of normal. Eat a bit too much for dinner, and read a bit more of the Times before going to bed, but have no trouble going to sleep, the sky just beginning to turn pink, and the big personality changes I had hoped to come about through the training just haven't happened. Maybe THAT is the primary reason why tomorrow is such a LOUSY day for me!
DIARY 9802
MONDAY, JULY 7. Wake about 10 and doze until 10:30, getting up and calling Pope, chatting to him for a bit, and then try to get to typing up the notes from the weekend, but I don't FEEL like it at all, so I decide to read the Times, and work both puzzles, and then sit in the chair AGAIN trying to type, but it just doesn't work, and decide that since I haven't had an orgasm in about 6 days, I'll smoke and have a GREAT one. Smoke a pipe of my grass, but it's VERY harsh in the throat, and I choke, maybe inhaling a bit of tar or resin from the bottom of the pipe, and there's a dreadful taste in my mouth, there's the beginning of a headache, and I come rather quickly without really being hard, wipe myself off, and feel just GHASTLY. No possibility of getting back to the typing, and I try listening to some music, and even THAT doesn't do much good. Can't decide to read, try to get into it, and talk to a couple of people like Arnie and others about it, trying to explain to MYSELF why I'm so depressed about it (see DIARY 9803). Try calling Wendy Griffin, but she's not home, so I don't even get out except to pick up the laundry and dry cleaning that I couldn't get over the holiday weekend. Art calls while I'm out, saying that I should call him when I get out of the opera, maybe to go over, and I call Michael and make arrangements for the opera tonight. Feel so lousy that I doze until 6, then shower and shave and try to feel better for the opera tonight, hoping that my lousy mood won't affect my enjoyment of "Eugene Onegin." Out at 6:50 to get there JUST at 7:27, but the reservations line is so long that I can't possibly get it in on time, and there are DOZENS of people begging for a seat, so I decide that if Michael doesn't get there by 7:30, I'll just SELL the ticket and hope he understands. But there's him coming through the crowd, we JUST get to our seats, it starts, and it's not at all bad, the best of the lot so far (see DIARY 9815), and we're out at 11:10, I call Art, who's just left Lee and his new lover Richard out the door, and I go down to chat about est, refuse to smoke, and we have a GOOD salad for dinner (I had ONLY tuna fish all day today), get into bed to talk at 2, and then I remember I wanted to watch "The Mortal Storm," so he puts it on, falls asleep, and I watch the MGM repertory company of Maria Ouspenskaya, Bonita Granville, Henry Morgan, Margaret Sullavan, and James Stewart fighting against the Germans and trying to get across the border to Austria, except that Sullavan gets shot and dies; bed at 3.
DIARY 9804
TUESDAY, JULY 8. He set the alarm for 8:30, but I was up about 8:15, getting everything together, using his toothbrush, and out at 9 to get to Avi's just at 10 after calling Arnie, who has 102° temperature and will be staying in bed, and Avi to make sure it's still on. Meet his dog, a pop-eyed leg-jumper who can already sit and roll over, and then we're out to have breakfast at the coffee shop across the street, and the cheese omelet weighs like lead in my stomach. Out about 10 and across the park to the Museum, past all the fences to look at the "just-put-there" look to the Lehman wing from the outside, and get disturbed to see all the "There will be a __ minute wait for the Scythian Gold/Lehman Wing." Since the Lehman is on the ground floor, we go there first, and the paintings are mostly old Italian, mostly NOT of the best, though the El Greco room and the farthest Crivelli/Holbein room were pretty good. I didn't mind the room settings, but there WAS a bit much cut velvet, and it was too bad to tap the wood (or something) and find that it wasn't real. Good drawings in the lower level, with many rooms still to be filled, and then across to the Scythian gold about noon. Crowded, but the pieces are totally spectacular, and I even buy the guidebook, that they HAVE to be losing money on, for $5.35. Out of there about 1:30, sort of tired, but try the French painting exhibit, and there are both pretty pictures and pretty people looking at it, and I'm smack up again the problem of beauty once AGAIN (see DIARY 9805). Home about 3 to phone Tom Aloisi, who wants me to come in Thursday; Joan, who chats a long time about est (see DIARY 9806) and finally get in touch with Mrs. Scott B. Smith, the former Wendy Griffen, and get to the post office to mail the thing to her for $3.13 at 5, back to look through the used books and find none, and type many pages of notes, watch a pretty awful Henry Hope Hodgson tale on "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes" from 9 to 10, and Rolf calls at 10:30 to come look at slides. Since I'd just put the pork butt in the oven, and want to type, I tell him to just come over, which he does, he looks at the Unitrex and suggests somewhere to fix it, and then goes in about 11:20 to jerk off, I eat from 12 to 12:30, and then start fixing up the apartment, and he comes out at 1, dripping semen, much thinner and sexier, and leaves at 1:15. Oh, I'd come between about 3:50 and 4:15, very nicely, and get into bed at 1:30, looking to type.
DIARY 9708
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9. Up at 8:15, exercise, water plants, and eat breakfast by about 9:30, wondering where all the time went, and then sit down to begin, persist, and end in typing 23 pages about what happened to me in the last weekend, calling Pope about 3 to ask if I can come over and get HIS outline from a friend about the training, in order that I can take my stuff apart and put it into a more time-oriented framework. Over at 4, have a long talk with him until 5 (see DIARY 9809), and get back before it starts to rain, which it looks like it'll be doing. Bob calls to say that he has a temporary JOB, which makes both of us very happy, but he won't be going to the est introductory session because he'll be working; Art's going to some sort of bar-serving, so he can't go, Joyce has been to one already, and Arnie wants Bob to go some other time so they can go together. Also, about 11:15, go out and get a check from Jo Roc at her apartment AND go to sign up on the longest line yet for my LAST unemployment check---65 weeks of benefits, and the last I get until I work in a COVERED way for 20 weeks again. Have to start creating THAT situation! Still rattled by the noises around me, and I'm wondering what est did for me ANYWAY! Actually used up the LAST sheet of typing paper! Shave but don't have time to shower, and get out at 6:30 and barely get to est at 7, seeing Michael, who's waiting for Mary who never shows. He goes to his meeting and we get into a VERY fruitful summary of some things with SE, clearing up a LOT of things in my mind and reminding me of a lot of things that I hadn't remembered. Sign up for the Friday seminars, take a lot of notes on the subway on the way back (see DIARY 9810), Michael's left before, and get home at 11:30 to make scrambled eggs and ham for dinner with lots of tasty white wine, and then I smoke for the SECOND time and get VERY sexily stoned this time, not even space left to smoke a bidi or take a popper, it just takes me up, I start grooving on my cock, and it get so great that I writhe around without touching, grease myself up with Baby Magic, and start on one of the STEEPEST pleasure/pain slopes with RASPING at my cock while continuing to approach orgasm, and have a GREAT felt sensation, almost falling asleep again, and get up to listen to "Bells" while opening the SECOND AND LAST can of the chocolate syrup and GORGING myself. So SENSUAL! Bed at 2.
DIARY 9814
THURSDAY, JULY 10. Wake at 8, exercise, shave, shower, don't eat breakfast, and gather everything together for the crowded evening into a shopping bag. Out of the subway at 9:30 find that the jeweler's are closed till July 21, and Apollo gives me 11 packs of paper for the price of the OLD ten, since I find one with the 65¢ price tag on it, so for $7.02 I get 1100 sheets of paper, or .638¢ per sheet, somewhat more than the .5¢ I'd hoped for, but it's good paper, and it's better than the 1¢+ a sheet that the Brooklyn HEIGHTS place wanted when I tried THAT one. Into the office at 10, get through a stack of Phonics corrections to find still MORE, end that at 1, get to the next-to-the-last batch of OYOs, out to Chock Full for a fish burger at 2, back at 2:30, and through the day I'd called Art, to tell him Michael's coming; Michael, talking to Mary who might come on the 25th with me, and Michael thought he might like to take it in the far future; Avi, wishing him Happy Birthday, and he was delighted; Arnie calls and we'll meet at the theater; Richard, who DOES want the poppers and will leave the theater at 6:30; and Sergio still doesn't answer so I guess he's gone. Barry Lenner is in, checking the boards and flaunting my "5-6 errors on the first six boards," and we chat about work, travel: he's going to California for the summer in a couple of weeks, and I finish the last-but-six of the OYOs (which they'll MAIL to me) by 5:50, I repack stuff to bring TWO packs of paper and TWO boxes of cards, leaving 9 packs of paper and THREE boxes of cards to take back when I get my WATCH, and subway up to the theater at 6:10, selling the stuff for $8, washing my face, finding the damned library CLOSED for the Schneebaum book, and it's $1 overdue ALREADY, try to eat at the Spaghetti Factory but see a TINY pizza going by for $3.75, so I leave and eat in an AWFUL place where two GHASTLY slices cost $1.08, and get to chat with Arnie in the plaza, up to the LONG and mostly boring opera (see DIARY 9816) (Whoops, forgot "Eugene Onegin" DIARY 9815.) of "War and Peace" and out at 11:10, thankfully; Arnie waits to see Bob (who saw it last night also) and I get to Clark Street at 12 (getting letter from VV's ad's Joe Brock), that's nice, and smoke and come AGAIN very nicely, really digging porno, getting VERY hard (and I'll have to take rubber bands to Arnie's orgy, along with slides, and have syrup and then POPCORN, ugh but good, take Werner Erhard-fantasy notes on DIARY 9817 and get to bed at 2 am!
DIARY 9827
FRIDAY, JULY 11. Up at 10, exercise, have breakfast, water plants, wash dishes for the first time in ages, and type 10 pages to catch up on the diary, lots of pages about est and the post-training seminar, and then have lunch and get down to the typing of the 8 pages of Gary's notes that Pope gave me, and I call him at 3 and he says to come over at 4, and I give him the copy of the notes that I typed, the four pages of the post-training that he reads while I'm there, and HE gives ME five pages that HE typed for HIS journal about his impressions on reading MY notes, and we chat about other things and I get back here about 5, adding the notes to the stack of stuff that I have to take to the office the next time I go in. There's a chance that Art might come over tonight, so I fix up the apartment, dust, and get into vacuuming, except that he says he'll call after he closes the shop at 7, and I wait around for his call, and then start to vacuum, taking the phone along with me, and he decides that he has to keep to himself to think about what to do about the many trips being offered to him: mainly an 11-day trip on the Lermontov up to the Gaspé and Quebec City, which he'd like to do, except there are money problems that are finally solved when one of his catering jobs is cancelled and they send him the plan for his luxurious room that sleeps four that he has alone, and they'll fly him to Boston so he can do the reading for some play's touring company on Monday. Then I watch "Haunts of the Very Rich," an interesting pun when you get proved at the end that these people ARE haunts, ghosts of the very rich, with the crushing arrival of Lloyd Bridge's wife who LOVES him and FORGIVES him, causing him and Cloris Leachman to go running off into the swamps around Vizcaya, standing in for "The Portals of Eden" as a black-run resort for the dead. Then watch the last half of "Around the World in 80 Days," rather like "The Greatest Show on Earth," not much of anything, except the extreme camp of Shirley Maclaine playing an Indian princess and Robert Newton as Fix pursuing the Passpartout of Cantinflas and the Phileas Fogg of David Niven, too unflappable to be funny, and they cut OUT Hermione Gingold and Glynis Johns as prostitutes, much to Bob Grossman's disgust. It's over at 11, smoke and come most delightfully, and have MORE popcorn, DISGUSTING, and chocolate sauce. YUM! And write long notes on ten fantasies (see DIARY 9828).
DIARY 9831
SATURDAY, JULY 12. Up about 9, feeling tired, not having breakfast anymore, call a few people to ask them to the park for the Indian Festival (Michael, Avi, Bob Grossman) but since it looks like rain, no one wants to come. I finish vacuuming, glad to get THAT over with, and then watch parts of "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead" on TV, and I'm just as happy I haven't gone to see the whole thing, since it's not terribly talented for people who won Tony Awards: it's more for the IDEA than for the play or the acting itself. That's over at 1, I subway to Central Park by 3, and though there are a few sprinkles from the sky, they have the festival before a small Indian crowd of people (see DIARY 9832). It's pretty bad, particularly the food, where I spend $3.35 for essentially nothing, and phone Art at 5 to hear he's leaving at 7, and has called Michael. So I leave at 5:30 and get home at 6, shaving and showering and washing my hair and then get around to watering the plants for the long weekend, and he calls at 7 to say I can be there BEFORE 7:45, but I have yet to pack, throwing in all the sweaters to wash, and get there JUST at 7:45. He calls Michael and Joyce, I pick up the program and the paper doll book I'd left there on Monday, and we're downstairs when Joyce drives up. Pick up Michael on his corner at 8:20, and drive quickly up, talking about est in great detail, and I apologize and tell them they can stop me just by saying so. Get up there about 9:30, the cat anxious to get out of the car, and we're in for Art to make a GREAT chicken and onion dish with a large salad. Michael went over to shower and came back having smoked, so Art and I smoke, they talk about how POOR they are, having to sell things (yet they still have money to BUY things) and how depressed she is, getting all sorts of psychosomatic diseases, and she leaves, Michael goes to sleep, and Art and I have sex. Michael's put to bed in the garage, Art gets out the sleeping bag and again I feel the hot-in, cold-out feeling of it, getting the sniffles already, and it begins to rain, which it does for the rest of the weekend. Joyce has been thinking that Michael is very sweet, and it's good, since we've had to stay indoors the whole time.
DIARY 9833
SUNDAY, JULY 13. Wake about 8:30, but wait till Art gets up and moves around making coffee and drinking it before I get up about 9:30, and Michael sleeps on until about 10. I go over and shower even before JOYCE gets up, and Art and Michael and I chat about the house, and then Werner comes over to see about the spouting that Art had to go out at 4:30 in the morning and stop the water from pouring down the windows and along the foundations, and they talk for about an hour while Michael and I go on about est, what one wants from life, and where one's going. He'd been about to make me a cheese omelet, but he's so tied up with Werner that I make it myself at 3:30, getting what everyone calls "scrambled eggs with cheese" and then Art makes an incredibly beautiful omelet for Michael and cuts tomatoes to put into his, sprinkling it with catsup to take away the eggy taste that he doesn't like. Joyce is going somewhere and Michael goes along, and I get to taking the notes from Gary and transposing more definitions and list-items to the group, but I really don't feel like doing much with it (oh, I'd gotten out the bathing suit to exercise today, but didn't---did it tomorrow, though), and then they're back, we talk some more, and Art's making dinner for us about 7:30 so that Michael can catch the 9:02 train from Brewster, we having decided NOT to take the free tickets to Angela Lansbury's "Gypsy" tonight because it's raining so hard. In one of the spaces, Michael and I climbed the hill to find a lot of kinds of mushrooms, but none of the choice edibles, and then it's raining before we get back. My sweaters are dry except for the woolen ones, we have dinner of a "pot au few" stew with franks and black beans, good, and another salad, and then we're off to drop off Michael at the train, back to smoke, and I do him again, having gotten off yesterday myself, but working and working AND working, but not being able to get myself off tonight, and we fall asleep: he'd fed me Yoo-hoos last night, too, which were nice, and I'd been snitching chocolate cookies from Joyce's cookie jar to fill the space in my empty stomach. Again it's raining, and it's nice to listen to the pattering sounds on the roof as I fall asleep.
DIARY 9834
MONDAY, JULY 14. Wake about 9 and exercise, working more on my notes while he moves around the apartment, doing some things outside, too, including putting out beer (yesterday) in a pan which attracts slugs to their deaths in the garden. Mosquitoes around, too, but the grass is growing well in the garden. Yesterday he's gotten the Times, too, and I read it and did both puzzles during the day, and TODAY I worked on the est notes, but was just as glad when he decided that we can take the 2:02 so that Joyce could do what SHE was going to do (this was after we drove into Danbury about noon to see some shop that he wanted to get to, and to pick up some huge glass windows that he's going to put into the front for a solarium, helped by a beautiful blond kid with acne and arresting eyes and nice muscles whose name was Kevin and who couldn't seem to stop looking at me every time I looked at him. Fantasy material! Back to a muffin for lunch, then Joyce takes us up to the train in the rain, and we chat on the way back, and I read a bit, but I'm feeling nodding-asleep by the boredom of the whole thing, and I'm glad he'll be leaving for 11 days. Home at 4, unpacking and putting my sweaters into the hall closet for a change, so they won't get all wrinkled above the clothes closet, and put out the three woolen sweaters to dry (and they're not dry by WEDNESDAY in the exceeding dampness of the air). Heard that New Jersey had 8 inches of rain, and the city was STILL humid and damp. Home for a couple of messages, and Tom Aloisi pleads with me to come into the office tomorrow, Arnie calls about a James Bond double feature tomorrow, and I call Rolf, who finally calls ME, and he's coming to Arnie's party tonight, too. Meet John in the hall when I come up, tell him about the party and HE comes. Wow! Arnie says he wants MORE slides, so I get out all of them and fill ALL the trays, taking LOTS of stuff over to him. Shower and don't wash my hair (which needs cutting), and have ONLY lunch of tuna about 4, over at 8:30 after smoking, freaked out that I'm carrying THREE illegal substances: home-grown grass, homemade amyl nitrite, and pornographic slides. Get to the party which turns out to be a real downer (see DIARY 9835) and leave about 12, coming home to try to jerk off, but I have to lay about with Baby Magic and come soft, then up to make MORE popcorn for dinner, and have more chocolate syrup, and get VERY stoned and strange-feeling to bed about 2.
DIARY 9836
TUESDAY, JULY 15. Alarm rings at 8, and I'm up to watch the FIRST televised Russian launch (and the first one, they say, that they showed the Russian PEOPLE, too), watching that until 9, and then I get things together to take to work, getting there at 10, going through stacks of boards checking corrections on Phonics, and then at 12:30 Tom wants to go to lunch (takes me) and we go to Munk's Place where I tell him WHY I'm frustrated with writing (first-person Acid House vs third-person; first drafts vs editing; everyone says no vs everyone says I write well), and HE tells of his frustrations with Frank Gil and his job. Back at 2, and Arnie calls to say that the movies start at 3:11, and then I find that I have to PROOFREAD 10 Phonics lessons, call Arnie too late, and leave work at 3:30, taking the LAST SIX Challenge in Reading OYOs with me to do at home, and walk to 42nd and 8th for "The Man with the Golden Gun" and "Live and Let Die" with the effective Roger Moore who doesn't have a GREAT body, but it's OK, and lots of FUN things with double-decker busses, chasing motorcycles, flipping cars over Bangkok canals, a funny Louisiana sheriff with a chaw of tobacco, and lots of pretty women, karate, killing, explosions, particularly the solar-cell factory in the flower-pot islands at the end of "Gun," who's Christopher Lee, with a funhouse killing of gunmen who get shot by Bond. Very sexist plots, but the women don't seem to mind. Out at 8:15, home at 9, intending to see Pope, but meet Bill Whitener on the street after the subway elevator, and he's going to South America in November, so we talk until 10:30 about his coming trip, and he has a NICE crotch when he sits! YUM! Then call Pope and go over to pick up my stuff from Arnie, and he's watching my slides, so WE talk before I get my grass and pipe and he gives me a sprouting can and mung beans, and then I'm over to talk to Pope about HIS displeasure with est (see DIARY 9837), and then he chases me out at 11:45, when he wants to get to bed. Home, smoke, come VERY nicely, and have NO dinner (after fish and chips at Munk's Place) but only GORGE on chocolate sauce, then on apple sauce, then on rice cookies, until I fall asleep at 2, stuffed and feeling pretty awful, with so MUCH to do and so little interest in DOING it!!
DIARY 9843
WEDNESDAY, JULY 16. Wake at 8 to hear her rattling around upstairs, and then finally get up at 9 to exercise, have breakfast with milk that's 13 days old already, scrub the kitchen floor before the heat of the afternoon hits it, and get down to type 12 diary pages to catch up, with five additions to the diary with Pope's notes on my notes (see DIARY 9838-9842). Earlier, I got into a THING about bookcases and filing cabinets and what to do with everything in the closet (brought on by looking at the stuff I got out last night to show Bill Whitener about South America), and that leads to a LONG train of thoughts that I record in CONCLUSIONS, FOR NOW, on DIARY 9826, to get started. My typing is interrupted a number of times, by Mrs. Johnson asking for the rent, which I'd forgotten, Ron asking if I proofread the foreign languages, which I didn't, Stephen asking me over tomorrow night (and I hope to go), I call Joe to tell him (and he realized it) that it WAS for Thursday, not Tuesday, and Bob Grossman calls to tell me about his job-finishing, possible future work on Friday, and doctor's appointment on his braced knee on Thursday; and then Arnie called earlier to say he was going to a matinee, and I called him later to ask what in hell to do with the sprouting mung beans. Finish with all that about 4, and then have lunch of the last can of tuna fish, and I've GOT to get to the grocery store soon. Then spend an hour on OYOs from 4:35 to 5:35, and decide it's time to cut my hair, so I take a shower and snip and shear away again, getting hair all over the place, and again it's a bit too short, as it should be, and I get finished just at 6:50, in time to whiz to the Metropolitan Opera House to sell the LAST ticket I have on the list, for a really spectacularly sung "Pique Dame" (see DIARY 9844), for the last opera in the season of the Bolshoi Opera in America (see DIARY 9845). Out at 11:45, reading some FANTASTIC sentences at the end of the third part of "Phenomenon of Man," and it is SURELY some sort of fate that I'd lent my copy, never got it back, and found the used copy to read NOW, making it ANTI-EST, and we'll see how THAT comes out. Home at 12:40, smoke, have a marvelous orgasm, doze off until 3:10, have some more chocolate syrup (thank god it's about gone), and get BACK to sleep, amazed that I DID doze off, the first time in AGES.
DIARY 9846
THURSDAY, JULY 17. Wake about 10:30, exercise, finish the milk at last, and then Cyndy calls to say that she'd like possibly to stay at my place tonight, and it's JUST at 12:15 when the Apollo-Soyuz rockets have linked in space, as shown on international television. The program is over at 12:30, so I shave and shower and get out about 1, getting to Cyndy's just after 1:30, when scheduled, and I tell her some negative things about est, and she rather petulantly states that I haven't taken ANYTHING of Arica's, and we talk about "The Phenomenon of Man," and I give her a spare set of keys and leave at 1:55 to see my second of FOUR new apartments today (see DIARY 9487). 8 Gramercy Park South is not QUITE on the park, but Joe Brook's apartment is pleasant, containing a DUPLICATE of John's armoire in the living room, sent to him by a gay hotel-owner in a small town 25 miles north of Lyon. We talk about his gay grandmother (how's Lillian Russell for a first trick?) and gay father, my colorless forebears, his and my travels a bit, his wanting someone "steadily" and about 5 I ask him "Where are we?" and he says he'd like to meet again, so we say we'll call, and I kiss him goodbye at the door. Subway up to Michael's rather early at 5:20, and he doesn't arrive until 5:50, and I've stood watching a LOT of gay people pass by, some of them nice. Up to his place and meet his roommate Stan Place (whom Bob Grossman knows through the show he did at Clairol, saying Stan's one of the best makeup men in the business, and probably makes PILES of money), and the apartment is nice, and then we leave at 6:40: he for his dance class at Carnegie Studios, me for Stephen's up on 79th, and the old front door is kind of neat, but the apartment is spacious and unlived-in-looking, and we chat, drink beer, I look through "Pumping Iron," we talk about admiration of bodies, smoke, have more beer, and get to bed for a THREE come for him and a TWO come for me, feeling TOTALLY sexed out, as usual, from the grass and multitudinous poppers, and then he makes me a tuna salad sandwich with lettuce and pickles and cauliflower that he keeps saying isn't enough, but I think it's fine, and we'd dozed off, so it's actually 1 am when I leave, getting home at 2, and I sort of move around the apartment until 2:30 just getting settled, finding it a VERY strange day.
DIARY 9848
FRIDAY, JULY 18. Up about 10, or maybe even 10:15, feeling awful for doing so. Exercise, replace the screen in the bathroom faucet while rinsing out Arnie's mung beans for the sixth or seventh time, fertilize the plants, and then get out to buy plant acid, the Village Voice, stop in at the used-book shop and find a GREAT find of 5 Idris Shah books, so now it looks like I'll be getting into SUFISM! Buy groceries and get back at 1 to find a message from Arnold at 12:30 that he's having lunch at Su-Su's with Ed, and I'm intrigued with the idea of talking about his friend Allan, and find that he'd known him for three years at the gym, this is the ONLY time they'd actually TOUCHED, and that he seemed very nervous at the place, and that I was the only one who did him, and did he come? I was too stoned to give a DEFINITE answer, but I don't think he did. Arnie's sending him a number of MMA postcards, but I doubt that'll do anything. Then to his place to pick up the slides, and he has them ALL out of the trays, and I call Rolf, who's leaving for Maine tomorrow, and we talk about a NEW business for the three of us (see DIARY 9849): the Free-Lance Editor's Association (or FLEA, as I just made up). Talk for a long time, until Arnie has to leave for the bank at 2:45, and I bring back all the slides, knowing that I'll have to spend a lot of time putting them back in order. Tom calls: come in Monday; Alice Duskey calls: "I'll call Tom." Bob calls, saying that he's finished with his job after arguing with the woman, and won't be coming to the meeting tonight, and we chat about my new job with FLEA, and he says he foresees that we'll all end up millionaries from it; hardly. [LIKE that word: millionaries!] Have lunch about 4, and then get into sorting out the slides, but it takes a long time, and at 6 it occurs to me that I should LEAVE for est at 6:30, and shave with the increasingly nonworking shaver, shower quickly, and get out to the Commodore, getting in about 7, mailing letters that Bob Kunikoff gave me to mail for him (metered seems to have to leave from the CITY on the DAY postmarked), and I take notes for the first "Be Here Now" Seminar (see DIARY 9850). Out at 10:45, home at 11:30, finally finish the pork butt in scrambled eggs at 12, and work on the slides until 2 am, getting them admittedly into good shape, and then smoke and come and get to sleep (after FINISHING the chocolate syrup) about 3 am, knowing tomorrow will be pretty bad!
DIARY 9852
SATURDAY, JULY 19. Up at 10:15, feeling very guilty, exercise, feeling that it's beginning to be a strain now that the number of pushups and situps have mounted to 15, and when I shower later I decide to do something about my formerly-broken toe that's beginning to crack from athlete's foot, so I put some ointment on. Michael calls and says he has a ticket to the American Ballet Theater standing room tonight at 8 for $2, and I call Bob at 11:55 to tell him I won't be seeing him tonight, but he's not home. When he DOES call about 5, he's very annoyed that I'm going off with Michael, but I THINK I finally make him see that it's really not fair: as HE said "If someone offered me a ticket to "A Chorus Line," I'm certainly not going to say "Well, I DID make tentative plans to be with Bob," and if I felt badly about it, he said quite candidly "I wouldn't give a shit," or "fuck," or whatever. Working from about 10:30 to 2 on bringing the ballet list up to date, since I can't tell if I saw "Undertow" yet or not, and it turns out that I didn't, so it's a GREAT night to go! Have lunch at 2, thinking to have dinner before I go, read the last 12 pages of "The Phenomenon of Man," a shattering book, and type 6 diary pages to catch up to date. Look hard at the list of things to do, but end up doing nothing on them, and then finish up the OYOs TOTALLY from 4:30 to 5:20, and the ONLY thing I have left is the index. Bob Grossman calls as I'm running the water for my shower, and I get in about 6, out at 6:15, then shave, so there's really no time for dinner, and I leave at 7:10 for the ballet, knowing that Michael will be later than his "ten or five minutes before 8" meeting time, but the question is HOW much later. Begin reading Idris Shah's "The Way of the Sufi," and it promises to be an EXCELLENT series of five books that I now have to read. Michael arrives at 8:01, and I pull him away from his friend, and we get upstairs AFTER the curtain goes up, getting standing places right in the center. And it's a good new program (see DIARY 9853), though there are disappointments in it, too, mainly that Makarova isn't doing the "Etudes." Out at 11:10, talk with Michael, buy a book for $2, and subway home at 12 to buy a Times, read part of it, start working on the puzzle, and then literally nod until I leave it unfinished and sleep at 1:45, after having made hamburger for dinner at 12, using the last of OLD beans, and some mung beans.
DIARY 9854
SUNDAY, JULY 20. Up about 10, look through the TV listings to see that not much is on TV this week, and then finish the puzzle and read the Times and then exercise and have lunch and type two diary pages. Then there's not much that I want to do, so I work on the Obstetrics index from 4:10 to 7:40, finishing only the first 100 pages, and it's pretty hard slogging. After that 3.5 hours I just feel that there's nothing more I can do, and then take time to look out at the tremendously heavy showers that are coming up. Had talked to Bob about the possibility of coming over this evening, but he was willing that I go there and not willing to come here, saying that he was going to be in Brooklyn on Tuesday for an interview anyway. While working on the index, Roger Evans calls from Cardiff-by-the-Sea in California, talking about 20 minutes about est, his moving back and forth, his sister's interest in dirty movies and the psychic Frank Andrews, and I'm pleased that he's called. Then don't feel like doing ANYTHING else, so I smoke and watch slides for an enormous number of hours, going through lots of pornography and finally come off about 10:30, in time to stagger into the living room to watch "Monty Python," which I remember very little of since I was so stoned, and then I make some French toast because I haven't eaten dinner but am not really interested in eating. Then I read some more in "The Way of the Sufi" and get to bed, feeling pretty confused about things, not sure what to do next, not wanting to work, not wanting to write, but that's supposed to be what I DO want to do, and it's the same thing all over again. Oh, I DO remember what it was finished off the evening: I sat stoned in front of the TV to watch the Video Television Review from 11 to 11:30, some films of natural landscapes and objects by someone, and it's perfect for someone who's stoned, but not someone who's stoned who's about to fall asleep. Then I get hooked into watching Buster Keaton's "College" introduced by Lillian Gish, and he's the coxswain having to steer with the fin on his own ass, always after the same girl who wants him to go into sports, fighting the bigger, better guys than he is, winning out in the end to grow ridiculously old together with all their kids. Bed EXHAUSTED at 1 am.