1975 5 of 8
DIARY 9855
MONDAY, JULY 21. Wake at 8, but I seem to remember that the shaver place doesn't [no, idiot, this is WEDNESDAY'S START!], but by the time I shower and get everything together for the busy day, it's 10 and I don't get to NC until 10:30, to a large stack of Math Achiever blues that I have to say "Drop in new name" on EVERY one, and it changes as I go along: no real NEED for me to start always at the TOP and thus have extra strokes for the D, R, P, N, N, N, M, and the printing I start doing is actually LEGIBLE! Call Michael for lunch, but then at 2 they say that all the other stack MUST be done, so I call him back to say it's cancelled, and finish the next stack by 2:30, when I leave, drop in on Michael to say hello, and then get to the Hotel Wentworth at 3 to read the "TM Book" and the prospectus for the World Plan of the Maharishi before asking AGAIN at 3:30 when I can be checked, and then someone takes me, and it's OK, what I'm doing (see DIARY 9856). Then continue north to take in the shaver to the repair place on 51st, willing to pay $10.75 to get it tuned up and new blades, though the NEXT step will probably be to buy a new one. Then get down to the Bijou at 5 to find that the movie is THREE hours long, so there's no time, and get down to the Statler Hilton at 5:30 to call Pope and say I'll meet him at the hotel. Sit in the lobby and read the INCREDIBLE book on the Sufis, looking at the 40 kids and few parents on the tour from Sao Paulo that stopped two days in Niagara, four days in NYC, two days in Miami, and two days in Orlando for Disney World---what a TRIP! Up to the table about 6:50 and find that Lew SHOULD have said that I should show up at 5:30, but Don, the same guy who talked to me at MY introductory session, is willing to have me help, and prints me up a name tag, and they're up at 7:20 to a rather interesting session under Jason that doesn't end until 10:35 (see DIARY 9857). Out with Pope, who's had a somewhat better session with Michael, and we chat on the way home on the subway, he gets to bed, and I don't know WHAT to have after having had a DREADFUL Burger King double-meat cheeseburger---AWFUL soggy, tasteless, lukewarm, uninspired mess---about 5, and have a couple of boiled eggs, then smoke and come, eating a DREADFUL amount of food, but almost getting to the end of the NEXT batch of awful munchies: the rice cookies. Bed about 2.
DIARY 9858
TUESDAY, JULY 22. Up at 10 again, exercise, shower, get down to open the door to the mailman when he rings MY bell to get nothing in the mail but at LAST the invitation to Werner's talk at est, and the Newsweek that I skim through and read RIGHT THERE since I don't want to have it hanging around. Working on the list, trying to get it down to size, and then Bob calls at 12:15 and says that he'll be over if I want him to be, and then Arnie wants to join us for lunch at China Chili to give him back his book, so I get out and wait for about 15 minutes before he appears, bearing his box of Topps bubblegum from his interview with them at 36th Street in Brooklyn. Into the restaurant and there's a lunch special for $2.25 that's half fried rice and half something else: and we have shredded beef in special sauce, mixed seafood combination, and chicken and shrimp, none of which was really spectacular. Bob kept reading the copies of "After Dark" and "The Saturday Review" that Arnie brought along about "A Chorus Line" while we talked about other people, and then we left at 2 while Arnie went down to the Promenade and MET someone (Tony, who's coming on Monday) and we came back and played three Backgammon tournaments, all of which I won, some only of the games interesting, mostly a BORE, and I sat rather disgusted trying to figure why I was DOING this. Bob and Arnie set up their trip to Fire Island next week, Bob watched his TV news at 7 and left at 7:30, and I sat down to think, then to read, and then came to a passage about "Serving others," and got off into a LONG funk while it got dark, thinking about how I was living and what I was doing, and finally left a message for Arnie, who called back at 9:30 and talked until 11:30 (see DIARY 9859)! Felt better after talking with him (and he'd just come from his Sex Information counseling, too), and again smoked and jerked off and ate entirely too much junk. There was some kind of gathering next door that kept flashing bright lights all around the back courtyard, and then the FULL MOON rose with a magnificent light, and I idly wondered how much THAT might be having to do with my changeable frame of mind---it's partly est, of course, but it might be something else, too---and I see by Pope's astrology that July is "tricky and disruptive" and that July 25 starts a "highly favorable transit." Bed at 2.
DIARY 9860
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23. Wake at 7 to the woman upstairs knocking around, then up at 8, seeming to remember that the shaver place didn't open until 9:30, though it opened at 8:30, so I watered the plants and exercised and gathered things together to take and phone numbers to use, and got to 50th Street to pick up the shaver and give myself SOMETHING of a trim, then south to 36th and drop off the Unitrex for a week or two, having to buy a new cartridge, too, and get into work at 10:50, going through more Math Achiever, and then start counting pages in Century 21, out to lunch with Michael at 2:20, buying a fish dinner from across the street and waiting a LONG time, reading the Village Voice about a trip to Central America, and then we sit in the sun in the park and talk. Back to work about 3:20, and work through until 6, doing great things like exchanging the 18" chain for a 24" chain (for $2 more, or $9 in all), making an appointment for Rosey Shiek on Wednesday at 11:30 and making an appointment with Azak TONIGHT. Get involved talking with Ron about science fiction, and he recommends Niven, but I don't see a copy of "Ringworld," and then I subway up to Azak's at 6:15, and he's not yet changed after coming back from work. He examines me and gives me the same bull "You'll never die of a heart attack, you have perfect eyeballs, marvelously clear pulse, good ears, will give you the oral smear because it's essentially free, come to the hospital to give a fresh feces sample, your ass is fine, your weight is just perfect for someone of your size and age." Out at 7:30 and pick up lots of paperbacks from the Bookmasters, but not finding "The Natural Mind." Home at 8:30 and decide to make the chicken dish, which goes into the oven at 9:30 and is out at 10:30, and I forget and leave it IN the oven until morning, so I hope it's not gone bad. Then smoke and come rather nicely---and I forgot that on TUESDAY I had a marvelous set of fantasies that I took notes on all through the evening, in the process severely blistering my elbow from the coarse sheets, and these are transcribed starting on DIARY 9861-62 (and communicate to Werner, see DIARY 9863), and that on the SUBWAY I looked at a man of beauty this morning and came up with the WE CREATE MORE BEAUTY idea on DIARY 9864. Start reading Sheckley's "Options," hardly his best, but Sheckley nonetheless. To sleep exhausted about 2 am.
DIARY 9866
THURSDAY, JULY 24. Wake early again, but lay for a long time and not getting out of bed until about 10. Exercise and water the plants and finish reading Sheckley's "Options" just because I want to see how it turns out. Start and read a lot of "Meetings with Remarkable Men." Then get to the desk and find with all the things I did from the OFFICE yesterday, I can actually make out a NEW do-list, which I do, rather discouraged to see that it stretches to 22 items, but it DOES include EVERYTHING that I'd had in the back of my mind, such as answering letters and even calling the four people that I've had on my list to call EVER so long, and actually cross one of them off the list because the phone's disconnected, and GET two other of them---AMAZING! Sometime during the afternoon I get to feeling horny, so I go into the bedroom and jerk off in fairly short order (or maybe it's done in the living room, I don't remember), Type 11 pages to again catch up with the diary, and lots of things are getting done that I feel good about, but I'm STILL totally debating what to keep, what to throw away, when to work, what to do next, and Ron calls a couple of times and finally we settle that I come in on Tuesday and don't have to come in on Friday. I get things together and decide I have to see the movie at the Bijou tomorrow, and by that time I've had lunch and am hungry again, so I put on the chicken to reheat, and then see, for whatever reason, that it's 9 pm and NOT the 10 pm that I wanted to see "Touch of the Poet," so I look at the TV schedule and put on "An Act of Murder" at 9, watching Frederic March drive off the road with his terminally-sick wife, Florence Eldridge, and he's just saying that he may not be LEGALLY guilty, but he can be MORALLY guilty, just as someone can be LEGALLY guilty and NOT be morally guilty, and then Art calls, crowing about being back, saying it was a good trip but he doesn't want any more of them, and he talks through the start of "A Touch of the Poet," which I watch, and when he gets off at 10:30 I can see just about where it's been and where it's going, and Carrie Nye is preternaturally cool and beautiful as the mother of the daughter's lover, who's never seen. That goes until 12, and I watch Fred Astaire and the end of the Fox Musicals, until 1, and I've been nodding almost asleep, so I go to bed, having come in the afternoon, and fall immediately asleep.
DIARY 9867
FRIDAY, JULY 25. Wake about 6:30 to hear the goddamn cat rambling around upstairs, and I really resolve to myself to go up and TELL her to keep the cat out of the bedroom until she leaves for the day. But I don't. Up and exercise for the LAST time at level 2, which means 20 situps without holding my feet, and I think it's going to be a huge pain, but it really isn't, and tomorrow I can start on the new level. Again the morning seems to go, and though I'd intended for the past three or four mornings to get to the windows and wash them before the sun hits them, today it looks like rain, so I have an excuse. Call Bob at 11 and say that we'll have dinner BEFORE, and he's pissed, and we agree to meet in front of Cattleman on 5 E. 45th at 5:45. Shave and shower and out at 12:30, reading Gurdjieff, and get to the 42nd Street exit just as it's raining, but run up to the Bijou (holding onto the figa, since I'm wearing it to show Art that I DO wear it tonight), and get in for the "World's Young Ballet" movie, and take a lot of notes on some of the as-yet unseen stars in the young ballet world (see DIARY 9868). Then sit through "Prince Igor" with subtitles, and I never REALIZED that it was a LOVE story between Igor and his Polovetsian Kahn captor, and his son falls in love with the kahn's daughter, who has a deeper voice than he does. All the people are pretty, the singing is quite good, the staging is klutzy but obviously authentic, and the scenery is quite spectacular. Sit through the ballet program a second time, not really THAT good, but take more notes, and out at 5:30 to shop around (but can't find) "The Natural Mind" and then get to Cattleman and meet Bob at 5:40 as he limps up. The prices are AWFUL, but we decide on a mixed grill for two for $16.95. He says something about Art, and I'd called him this morning, but he wasn't home, so I call at the shop, tell Joyce to tell Art I'll be there at 11 when he's not in the shop, and then Art CALLS BACK to say he made a dinner engagement, so he says he'll call me in the morning. Bob is TOTALLY pissed, AND with the "no got romaine for Caesar's salad" and the grease on the grill (TOO much for 2), and we have the chocolates and after-dinner liquors and leave $10 apiece and RUN out to get END seats for the BE HERE NOW #2 (see DIARY 9869), and get out for him HATING me bugging him, and I get home at 11:30 to jerk off WITHOUT grass and bed at 2:30 after READING some more.
DIARY 9872
SATURDAY, JULY 26. Up about 9:30 to a totally beautiful weekend: the sky is clear, the humidity is below 50% for the first time in ages, the temperature is in the 70s, so that it's actually COOL in the morning, and I don't feel like getting into ANYTHING, Art calls about 10, I say I feel lousy, then John Bolos (?) calls and says he's BUSY this weekend with GUESTS. I call Art back at 10:15 and he's LEFT, so much for THAT. So I look at the bookshelf and there, sitting, waiting to be read, is "Watership Down." I figure since everything is now DOWN on the list and none of it looks TERRIBLY important for me NOW, and since I still seem to be swimming in uncertainly about WHATEVER I'm going to be doing, the least demanding way to spend the day seems to be in reading, so I settle down (possibly after exercising and mediation, but I don't remember) to reading it about 1:30, interrupt for some kind of lunch, though I don't have any chicken or tuna, so I have to settle for French toast for lunch, and finish reading it at about 7, VERY disappointed that it's not NEARLY as engrossing as "Lord of the Rings," not NEARLY as well written, and is even quite silly in some parts, and that sort of puts me away from modern fiction for about the dozenth time---there's nothing IN it at all! Then finish reading "The Way of the Sufi," the last 100 pages or so, and it's pretty good, and then back to the bookshelf and find "The Promise of Space" sitting there, and I get into it until I get tired about 9:30, and then go out for the Times and come back to have dinner of the last of the chicken legs, and it seems that it's preserved itself well enough from the week-old chicken, months old sour cream, lying in the oven without refrigeration overnight, and a couple of days of post-cooling. Then get back to the Times, working on the only crossword, thank goodness, and it seems rather hard, so I don't even finish it before I'm just very TIRED. May have come AGAIN during the day, rather frustratingly, as I recall, since I couldn't really get HARD, and then tired myself out enough reading the papers and books so that I didn't have to smoke before I went to bed, since there really isn't that much to SMOKE, and I keep looking at the pot and think I should CLIP the edges of it, too, and wash the windows---and lots of OTHER things, but I read all day and it felt GOOD, so THERE!
DIARY 9873
SUNDAY, JULY 27. Up about 9, wondering why I feel so awful these days when I get up, though it's probably just a physical weakness from a lessened intake of food, since I'm down to 150 pounds or even below, if I weigh myself just before I eat. Exercise and meditate, but it's a RARE day that I meditate twice, and talk a long time on the phone to Pope about it, and then after I finish "The Promise of Space" and start on "Tibetan Yoga" I read even MORE about meditation, and get a GREAT rush that leads me to type DIARY 9865 with two other pages that's just a tiny stab at the number of pages I need to do to catch up. John brings over a copy of the PRINTED "Change of Mind." I reread it and it's STILL great! Sometime yesterday or today it floats through my mind to go out and read on the Promenade, to see who'd pass by, but I don't feel terribly attractive (though I want someone terribly badly), and I feel that it would keep me from concentrating on the books, and anyway I probably wouldn't find anyone ANYWAY and just waste a lot of time, so I don't go out at all. Have popcorn with HULLS to fill stomach. Shower and wash and shave and misjudge the time of leaving so that I don't have time to meditate for the second time, as I'd wanted to, and have JUST enough time to fry up some Spam and have some dinner before dashing out about 6:50, and the subway's so slow that I get up to the lobby to sign in JUST at 7:30, and there's only one person, so it's pretty slow, but then three people come out to help. The session doesn't start until about 7:45, and Marvin Mittelman, or whoever, is the leader, and though he's very funny and helpful, the seminar MATERIAL is just lousy, and I'm cursing through most of it (see DIARY 9874) for the same reasons again: the ORGANIZATION is awful, but the MATERIAL is just great. There are about 220 people in the room, we divide up about 11, and then run out of processes and just sit around and talk until we're called into the training at 11:45 (see DIARY 9876). That's quite interesting, and it goes SO quickly that I'm surprised when I finish giving the Personality Profile (see DIARY 9880) at precisely 4 am. Down to the subway and read a bit, not even taking notes, feeling very tired, and into bed at 5, seeing the day beginning pink in the east, putting in earplugs for the first time in a long time, since I just DON'T want to be disturbed by ANYONE until I choose to get up.
DIARY 9881
MONDAY, JULY 28. Wake about 9, then about 10, but don't really feel as if I'd gotten enough sleep. Meditate, water the plants, and then get out to buy groceries, buying chicken for tonight without getting the sour cream to make it in, so I was glad I bought hamburger, too. Art gets back about 3, calling to say what a fabulous weekend it was, three women and he kept jumping into the pond naked---how about THAT not to turn me on?---and then his sister and husband (whom Joyce just the PREVIOUS weekend said should never come back) and daughter and son-in-law and baby boy (a doll, says Art) show up and sit around all afternoon, making them disgusted. I'm glad I wasn't there. Bob calls to say that he'll be here more like 6, and just before he comes I meditate and even start to exercise for the day but he arrives at 6:10, so that's the end of that. Al Barash calls a couple of times and decides to come, but when he arrives he looks like Henry Messer, so scratch HIM off my list of people to see. Talk to Pope a long time about Sunday's training, and type 5 pages just so I won't forget what it was that I want to remember on DIARY 9876-9880. Call to find my Unitrex isn't ready yet, that Joan's phone is "temporarily out of service," that I'm to go into the office tomorrow, and that Bold Venture will send me a brochure about their trip to Central America for $263. And I can't for the life of me think of what ELSE I did, washed dishes, except I got the STRONG idea that I was on the phone most of the day, not leaving enough time for ANYTHING else. Bob arrives at 6:10, bringing back "Seth" books and reads the est article from SoHo while I cook up hamburger. Drink wine and Grand Marnier to get a glow, we talk about his problems (see DIARY 9882), Art arrives at 7:45 with a LOT of Russian stamps, and they're just MARVELOUS, and I get out the album to PROVE that they're not dupes. Then Azak and Al arrive, we start smoking, and I finally get everything ready and root them out at 8:45, before things get started HERE. Feel GREAT walking over to Arnie's, it gets going quickly, I have a FINE time (see DIARY 9883), and I leave at 12:20 when I figure the evening's over enough. Home and eat some cookies and get to bed at 1:30.
DIARY 9884
TUESDAY, JULY 29. Up about 9:30, calling Michael to get a DETAILED report about the INCREDIBLE Alicia Alonso, at 53 or 55, making a transcendent experience for Michael in the Odette pas de deux with Jorge Espinal. Talk to Arnie about last night, hinting that I liked Dean; and Bob Rosinek called to say what a GREAT time it was---in fact, he got me out of bed. Art calls too, to say that he has a reading for "All Over Town" at 3:30, and I say he should call me at work to let me know what came off, and I meditate, exercise---and get the idea that these days are just running into each other because of late nights, concentrations on est, reading, coming, and exercising and meditation---and there's no time left, it's time to pack a liverwurst sandwich for lunch at NC and get out at 12:45 to buy a copy of "The Natural Mind" (and Pope called to tell me that LAST night wasn't so bad in his seminar), buy some Binaca, and get to work at 1:30 to find Ron out. Eat lunch and read, and he's back and I have blues to look through for Phonics and no tapes to audit, which is good, since I'm finished at 5:45 anyway! Phone Art and he says it went well enough, and leave at 6 to find Chock Full closed at 6, so up to Bun'n'Burger of 34th for a GHASTLY burger of TINY size with PHONY cheesy gunk spread over top for $1.55, including tip! RIDICULOUS! Up to the Commodore (they called, too) at 6:30 to find me on the top of the list, pull out a chair to read until they open the door at 7, and then Bonnie Simpson bends our ears until 10:30 (see DIARY 9885). Sign up for the post-training seminars, figure I'll get home faster by subway than by waiting around to see if Peter has room in his car to Brooklyn, and down to read and home at 11:30, smoking, using bidi and popper, but still not able to keep an erection, so I lather up with Baby Magic and come with GREAT strain, so heavily that there's a 1/2 inch by 3 inch STRIPE of white come ABOVE the navel, which I lick off, then have some more cookies and milk, mentally complaining about when I'm EVER going to get off it, and have just smoked the LAST of the grass, though the very NEXT day I pinch off 205 tops, which will furnish a LOT of smokes, and get to bed about 1:30, exhausted.
DIARY 9887
WEDNESDAY, JULY 30. [AGAIN I'm a week behind, after totally experiencing the difficulties with getting so far behind BEFORE. Just no learning!!] Feeling quite marvelous that I'm not really concerned about going to the dentist today, even though she said some of the porcelains would have to be replaced next time, and I KNOW there's a crack in a HORRIBLE filling in the lower left next-to-wisdom tooth. But I get up about 9, meditate and exercise and shower and Pope calls for a Personality Profile, I say I'll get one, take off typewriter cover to DIARY 9880, "Giving a Personality Profile," move a top sheet, and there are 2 of them. I call him RIGHT back, and he comes to pick it up at 10:30 and wash my teeth for the last time before the exam, sorry that there's still a bit of pink in the toothpaste, and leave at 10:45 to get there RIGHT on time, she takes me immediately, says there IS a crack in the back and IMMEDIATELY cleans it out with the fast drill, and then while she's cleaning the rest of the mouth, a SECOND filling falls RIGHT out, a large one in the second pre-molar in the upper RIGHT jaw, and she reams THAT out a bit and fills BOTH of them, then says that everything else looks OK! MARVELOUS, and I leave at 12 feeling just GREAT! Walk through a real CIRCUS of a Harlem on the way up to the hospital (see DIARY 9888) and read while waiting for Azak, who gets in about 12:30, says he hasn't had a chance to look at my exams yet, gives me two containers for feces and urine (not explaining when I say that I urinated for him BEFORE), and then we go to lunch, he paying for my $2 in the cafeteria, AWFUL tuna salad and COLD French fries, a tasty tomato soup after salt is added to it, and blueberry pie. Finished at 1:35, he's late for a 1:30 meeting, we'd been talking about the orgy: he wanted it "rougher," liking fucking more than kissing. Subway home by 2:30, go through agonies typing up 14 pages to get up to date, and don't feel like doing ANYTHING so I smoke and get into bed about 8 for a LONG session with the slides and porno, coming VERY nicely, and then get up to have dinner and read a bit in an exceedingly stoned state. Had clipped 205 tops off this afternoon, sweating profusely while doing so, getting the smell and the grit into my fingertips, and put in on the stove to dry out VERY well, furnishing a POTENT smoke that really had me VERY stiff and hard for the first time in ages, with a DRIVING orgasm that makes me feel like having FUN again with my cock and pornography.
DIARY 9889
THURSDAY, JULY 31. Up about 8 and can't really decide what to do, still don't feel like doing what I HAVE to do, and get caught up with the idea of resorting my travel stuff, so I get into the file and start throwing away some of the stuff that I collected for the Teller's trip, putting them into the metal containers that I cut cards down to the right size for labels, write labels on, and then start getting down boxes of souvenirs and sorting THEM out into the various countries, not really throwing away MUCH in the line of junk, only things that I can't identify. Come up with little envelopes for the ticket stubs and train chits, and even sort through the coins and currency that I have, so that it's ALL together. Will feel MUCH more organized if I can pull out the ITALY file, for example, and have ALL my old souvenirs, including hotel and restaurant bills, newspaper clippings, possible future places to go, and all the money, postcards, and everything else that applies to Italy. Work without stopping until about 2, when I get out to the bank to cash my largest $950 check from McGraw-Hill, search for a copy of Psychology Today with its article about est, but can't find it; buy plant spray and envelopes, and get home to call Pope about borrowing HIS copy so that I can make copies of it at work tomorrow and have read it before the seminar tomorrow night. He calls about 4:30, I go over, we chat, I read it, and it's not as negative as he seemed to say, but I immediately get the idea I should formulate a response letter to it. Back home about 5:30 to get calls from Art, who wants me to come over tonight---he can't come over HERE (even though I've gotten sour cream, too, for his chicken) because he's waiting for a phone call about a long tour in a tiny part in "All Over Town"---but I plead being in the middle of souvenirs and the response letter to est and don't WANT to go over. He says he understands. I continue going through stuff, getting down to the last two unused boxes, and now I have to figure out what to do with all the EMPTY boxes, probably throw out most of the ODD sizes, but keep the "regular" sizes for additions. Even NOW debating NOT to get the filing cabinet. Smoke early again, after dinner, AGAIN highly excited with the new grass, and come AGAIN very nicely.
DIARY 9890
FRIDAY, AUGUST 1. Up about 9, do a few details on the travel resorting, making room for myself to exercise, then shower and shave, water the plants extra-full since I might not be coming back until Sunday, and leave about 10:30. To work at 11, going through more blues, then more boards for Phonics, taking a half-hour off to have a fishwich diet lunch that leaves me so empty I buy a cherry "pie" for 30¢ downstairs at the office to nibble on. Finish with the boards about 4, Tom leaves for a week's vacation, I get two cassettes to audit, which I do until 5:30, and then goof off until 6 (helped Ron finish the crossword puzzle, too), and put in a bill for the time I spent in the last three times in, but they say I'll be called back for more work---the boxes and papers STILL under the table waiting for me to bring home. Have a VERY dry ham and cheese on a French roll at Chock Full for dinner at 6:30 on 34th, then walk up to the hotel on 56th and 7th at 6:50 to find that it's been SWITCHED down to the Statler at 33rd and 7th! Everyone curses, I'm debating what to do about Bob, but as I LEAVE to walk downtown at 6:55, he's coming IN the door, and we walk, talking, down to 50th, where Penny smiles at me and I tell her to turn around and come with us, and I talk to Bob about my wanting to get AWAY from feeling pressured by Art, going up for the weekend only to TALK about that. We're down to 41st, feeling tired and hot, at 7:05, figuring we're not going to make it by 7:15, when someone behind me shouts "Bob," and I look around to find Steven and friend in a car, so he carts the three of us down, IMMEDIATELY finds a parking place on 32nd, and we're into the ballroom in GOOD time! The seminar is the worst of the three so far (see DIARY 9891), but it DOES end at 10:29, go to find Bob's SIGNED up, take him over to introduce to Lew, who remembers him (and later even says "We fucked together," to Bob's chagrin: "In front of STRANGERS, yet!"), and I leave at 10:45 to walk past a bopping gang of hoods leaping on car hoods and ripping awnings, to get to Grand Central at 11, THEN remember that I was supposed to have called Art, but he's getting tickets, paying for mine, we're on the 11:13, talk, get to wake a sleeping Joyce in the car at 12:30, and TALK to 3:30 am about his problems, smoking and I've had two eggs for "dinner" (he tries pawing me into sex, but I'm just not UP!) and I zonk out on the sleeping bag, he goes to read, falls asleep in the OTHER room.
DIARY 9892
SATURDAY, AUGUST 2. Wake about 8:30 with Art moving around in preparation for leaving for the North Salem Church auction, and dress and out at 9 in the hot sun to drive to the church. They see some things in the auction that they want, I look through books and can't get interested, the white elephant table opens at 10 and there's a HUGE rush, but Art gets what he wants, and then the auction starts at 11, and they get the fur coat and the two metal outdoor chairs that they want, too. Load up the car with one and the top of Dick and Ginny's with the other, and they come out to dip in the pond with the three of us. The pond IS nice to float around on rafts on, though I wouldn't bubble the water through my mouth as Art does when he putt-putts around. Blue dragonflies, tame frogs with bits of tadpole tail left, shading trees in one end, variably warm-and-cold water along the surfaces, and Art say there are THREE springs feeding the pond. Don't care for their excessively business-oriented talking, mope around the deck about 2, telling Art that I really just want to LEAVE, but making it clear that (1) I hope it's not being selfish, and he agrees that it MUST be, and that (2) I hope he doesn't take it that I don't LIKE it here, I just like it better at HOME. I smoke, sit around, look at the grass, eat tomatoes, don't feel like eating, and finally when they say they're going to the supermarket, I ask for the train schedule and there's one at 5:02, so I'm out with them at 4:40, get to the station, say goodbye, and stare out the window on the ride back, not really knowing WHAT I want. Back at 6:30, eager to come, subway home by 7, up to water plants, then smoke at 8 with the slides and TRY to come nicely, but it doesn't WORK nicely, so I have to do it NOT nicely, and that makes me more depressed than ever. Get the Times, watch a few things on TV that I can't really get interested in, having missed the parting of the Red Sea, and the END of "Moses the Lawgiver" was very tranquil with Moses being talked to by God for why he can't see the Promised Land, and it's amusing that it's THEIRS though there are other people LIVING ON IT. So they TAKE it. Great RELIGION, that! Watch the news, then try to watch "Luv," but it's a bore, and I'm VERY tired, so I get to bed at midnight for a VERY hot sleep with the fan going STILL not preventing me from SWEATING!
DIARY 9893
SUNDAY, AUGUST 3. Wake during the night with the damn cats yowling, and find that the fellow next door actually sleeps OUT through the night, and wonder how HE stands the cats. He's also taken to totally nude sunbathing, but still his body doesn't really turn me on. Read a bit of the Times while watching a Merce Cunningham dance performance on Camera Three that I'd seen before (still not able to get enough of the INCREDIBLE body of Brynner Mehl), and then call Pope to return the Psychology Today, and he comes up with the MARVELOUS locution "If it's convenient for you, it's fine with me." This sounds SO much better, it strikes me, than what I usually say: "It doesn't matter," or "I don't care." This is a nice way of saying "I care for YOU before me." He asks my help in finishing part of the puzzle, and then I get home about 12:45 to get a call from Arnie, back early from his week away with Bob Grossman, and he tells me about it for about an hour and a half, to 2:15, while I'm watching the weightlifting program from 1 to 2. Then I get to the puzzles after finishing the Times, and it's after 4 before I'm ready for ANYTHING else through the day, like exercising, watering the plants, and meditating. Then STILL don't feel like getting into anything, so I pull out the last book left: "Partners in Wonder" with Ellison, and read that, looking in on the Carmen DeLavallade repeat with the Boston Pops from 7:30 to 8:30, and then continue reading until 10:30, when I watch the Flying Circus, and then stick in (eating dinner, the last of the chicken) to watch "Peck's Bad Boy" with a cute little Jackie Coogan, a neat black dog, and lots of improbable dialogue and ideas from a six-year-old. Then, though I'm nodding, I sit through Chaplin's "The Rink" for the fifth or sixth time, enjoying his terrorization of the huge black-eyed fellow, and when that's over at 12:45, I'm tired enough to even be able to get to bed without coming---though, now that I think of it, it may be that I smoked and went through an agonizing orgasm with lots of pornography BEFORE watching the Flying Circus, since I seem to have ONLY sex on my mind, and I'm beginning to think that I should STOP smoking and STOP drinking, since it seems to be interfering with my thought processes and especially with meditation.
DIARY 9894
MONDAY, AUGUST 4. Out of bed about 9, feeling totally tacky from the excessive heat and humidity, though the sky is cloudy enough to make it look like a heat-wave-breaking rain today. Saturday was the highest of the year at 97°, and yesterday they said it might hit 100°, but I kept phoning through the afternoon and the OFFICIAL hourly reading never got above 94°, which means that the high for the day MAY have been 95°, but not much above. This morning, the temperature was actually below 80°. Then decide that I MUST call Eddie at 9:45 to get Richard's phone number, and have a SECOND encounter with est as serendipitous forgetfulness (see DIARY 9895) when RICHARD answers, and OF COURSE he had told me that he was staying at Eddie's. So he comes over at 12:15 to pick up two more bottles (and it's a good thing that Rolf is in the process of making again), and I've gotten a phone call from Tempositions, saying that I can come down to interview for an assistant editor's position for three months at 2, but when I GET there I find that it's only for $5 an hour (with time and a half for lots of overtime, which I'm not interested in) for copyediting, and I do very well on the test but turn it down, and she says they got in 500 resumes for that ONE job, which is just ASTOUNDING, and that some of them were SO highly qualified that she felt awkward about calling them to come in for an interview. Things are really bad, and I'm doing so WELL. Had called Unitrex and they said it was ready, and I get there at 3:30, sit, and they say they can't FIND my old one, they must have sent it to someone else, will I accept a NEW one?? I register amazement, saving $12 for the repair of my old one and $5 (plus tax) for a new tape, so I say OF COURSE that's fine with me, and they apologize for the wait, and I leave at 4:40 delighted with a new box. But then I get home, get a call from Arnold that cutie Dean at the orgy now has syphilis, and then Bob calls to say the same thing at 6, and then I work to record a message and the TAPE doesn't seem to work, and I get thrown into a DREADFUL depression that I really can't get out of. Debate going to a baths, but I don't FEEL like it, so I collect new grass droppings and get SO stoned that I barely realize I've come after coming, and toast banana bread with lots of butter, then have POPCORN, and get to bed STUFFED and SWEATING at 1:45.
DIARY 9896
TUESDAY, AUGUST 5. Again wake during the night for cats, lay until 9:15, feeling pretty bad, and then up to meditate and exercise, phone for the schedules of the movies for today, water the plants, call Arnie to leave word for him, and then decide to leave a bit EARLY to pick up another tape, after calling them and finding it probably IS the tape, not the machine, which they tested before they gave it to me. So I leave at 11:40, but the subway's slow in coming, so when I leave 9 E. 37th with my new tape (hoping it will work---it did, too) at 12:15, there's just NO chance of my getting to the theater on time, so I flag the first cab in ages at 42nd and 5th, getting VERY quickly up 6th and over to 7th and 55th for "only" $1.45 with the tip---but if I'd gotten there LATER, he might have had CHANGE for my $10 and charged me $3 rather than the $2 I paid to get in! "Kriemhilda's Revenge" is one of the most bizarre films ever, the primitivity of Attila's Huns contrasting strangely with the sophisticated 15th and 16th century music used for percussion effects, but the delicate string and woodwind instruments made the barbarity of the sets and costumes (and dirt and swinging tits) even more pronounced. Spears, arrows, and even axes buried themselves in the enemies, and the final burning of the stronghold is really spectacular, as are the horse scenes of battle. "Destiny" isn't so posh, with the same couple living through four different stories, though the double image of the army coming out of a box in the Chinese episode is strikingly well done. "KR" was set for 90 minutes at silent speed, but only 60 at sound speed, so there was a half-hour intermission during which I cruised but didn't get cruised back by several humpy numbers in the audience. Out at 3:25 and walk up to find the season sold out at the ABT, and then subway up to Olympia, buying pizza, and in for "Stavisky" and "The Seduction of Mimi" (see DIARY 9897). Out at 7:40, down on the subway and STILL try for a ticket, stupidly, at 7:59, but wait around till 8:35, nothing shows, I get home to exercise, meditate, and get a call from Art, who turned down the job, and from Arnie, who talks about his day, and Bob R., who got a call from Lou that he HAS a ticket. Eat the last of the awful sausage, lots of wine, smoke, bidi, porno, but can't really keep it up, so I let it go and hope to have a better orgasm later. Really MUST cut down on SMOKING so much.
DIARY 9899
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6. Up about 8:30, and just ready to meditate when I figure I don't know what to do with my hands. Call them later at 10 and they say "Do whatever is most comfortable," and that having the circuit open or closed isn't the important thing. Pope later calls me to tell me the same thing. Settle down to type part of the diary catch-up, but then about 11:30 decide that I have LOTS to do, so I meditate, exercise, have lunch, shave, and even have a chance to shower before leaving at 1:05, putting the message minder on for the first REAL time. Arnie's sad about the misfit of his tee-shirt on me, we subway to the Carnegie Hall Cinema with his 1/2-price discount from Vantage Cigarettes, and "Targets" and "Badlands" are reasonless exercises in bloodiness (see DIARY 9897), and we leave at 5:15. Subway home and get to the supermarket by 6, home to get messages from Azak, Michael, Bob R (who's got his ticket for Thursday), and another, unanswered one, from Michael, and he says you CAN get tickets for both matinee and evening, but since there are only 40 of them, the line will be pretty big even at 7:30 am!! Well, maybe I'll try it. Called Avi earlier to see if he'd be in Saturday, and he said to call and find out. Art's out with the fellow from Leroy Street, whom he called yesterday, so I don't have to worry about HIM. Finish typing the 12 diary pages for the day by 8:35, meditate (it STILL feels like that's all I DO), put on hamburger and watch "Tempest" with John Barrymore and Camilla Horn from 1928, a good thing from old Russia, and they even restrained themselves from saying that the intense-eyed peddler was someone like Lenin or someone famous. And Horn was quite beautiful, and even Barrymore had his shirt off to reveal an acceptable body, even at age 46! Then watch an APPALLING film on Hiroshima-Nagasaki for the 30th anniversary (!) of the bombing there, ending with a swollen head being turned toward a camera and an eye slit pried open to show milky melted matter within. Continue through "Minamata," where the offending company (with mercury poisoning of fish) Chiso is now paying $80 million in damages, and then watch "Black Journal" from 11:30 to 12:30 with numerologist (white) David Swarm and psychic Lillian Cosby, and BOTH of them say that Ford might not last the term, things will be rough, but we'll survive. Jerk off fairly nicely WITH porno but WITHOUT grass, and fall asleep at 1:15 am.
DIARY 9905
THURSDAY, AUGUST 7. Up about 8:45, meditate, get a call from Bob who picked up his ticket yesterday, and call Azak back to find that I still have cysts of Giardia lamblia and Endamoeba coli (not the more dangerous endamoeba hystolica), so when do I want to pick up the medicine? At first I want to see him in the hospital about 5, but he's leaving at 3 and home at 6. (This is after I said I'd meet him tomorrow at 6, thinking I had a seminar, but had to call him to change it back to today.) Then talk to Pope and it sounds like 6:30 getting there will be too late, so I call Azak BACK (but he's not there) and leave word for him to call me. I then type 6 diary pages, among which are the draft and revised draft of a letter to the editor of "Psychology Today" (see DIARY 9900-9903). This takes me up to 1:20, and then call Azak's secretary and say I'm LEAVING now and he should either BE there or leave the flagyl with her, and she says OK. It takes just an hour to get up there, reading the continually incredible "Tibetan Yoga" book, get the stuff from him, and for awhile he thinks I have the cysts in my MOUTH. I don't get it, he checks and finds that the throat swab was clear. Out at 2:30 and home to 3:30, quite starved, but I listen to the messages, exercise to the point of weakness, and have lunch about 4, remembering to take the first of the flagyl pills, and then seem AGAIN to have no time for anything, only to water the plants, shower and wash my hair, brush my teeth, brush my hair, get things together, and leave to meet Pope at the subway at 5:35. To the Felt Forum to meet Bob at 6, and there are surprisingly few people. We chat for a bit, then do our second meditation of the day outside, which Pope likes (he says it makes him high!), but I don't care for it, getting distracted by car noises, conversations, and intense smells. But the air DOES look clearer and colors brighter when I come out of it! Talk to Bob and get in at 7, he quickly getting a name tag, and thank goodness the colors DON'T mean anything, or I would have BITCHED a LOT. Werner comes onstage at 8:05 for an interesting evening (see DIARY 9906), over at 9:35, I call Art, who invites me down for an individual serving of chili and rice, we chat about possible "Man of La Mancha" work as Sancho for him, drink wine, smoke, and get to bed about 2, lying alongside him enough to start sucking, he comes rather quickly, nice, avoid kissing, sleep about 2:30.
DIARY 9911
FRIDAY, AUGUST 8. I wake early and can't see what time it is on the new clock he has. Lay and lay, and finally he gets up and I feel free to be awake, and find that it's 10 am, much too late! Hop out of bed, urinate, and dress and leave almost immediately, getting home about 10:45, and meditate, exercise, again at the 25 level, since I still can't do all the pushups at once, and then get out the stamp album and send out an order for over $40 for US stamps from the Philatelic Service. Then decide to WORK on Mom's trip, so I call Fran, who says that FunTyme of Brooklyn went bankrupt last night, costing them $3000, and they're in danger of going out of business too! But she gives me info on Mom's trip anyway, and I figure I'll call her tomorrow, when the rates are cheapest. Arnold calls when I'm exercising and I call him back later, and he's going to the Island tomorrow, so he won't be around for the weekend. Then get down to typing up the five pages, four on Werner Erhard, that catches me up on my diary, have lunch about 3, and then at 4 take out the letter to Psychology Today to Pope to look at, and he shows me the letter HE wrote about astrology, and I get the GREAT feeling that he's eager to say "I think so and so" to me and I'm eager to say "I think so and so" to him, and we do very little listening (at least HE does very little listening to ME). But he suggests strongly that I cut it down a lot, and that does seem to improve it. Come home at 5 and type a second revision (see DIARY 9910), and then phone him to get two MORE paragraphs to cut out, and then type up the letter and get thrown into the typical quandary: what do I do NEXT? Debate going to the Promenade to watch the sunset, go to the baths, jerk off, eat early, and in my quandary go into the bedroom to think about it. WELL, the black on ONE side is letting the dog bark and bark and bark, and a black on the OTHER side is shrieking along with a Diana Ross record, so I get plunged into the BLACKEST despair and get out of bed and meditate in GREAT difficulty as the woman upstairs and the cat are jumping around, and then eat dinner about 9, with LOTS of wine, and then smoke at 9:30 (oh, wash dishes beforehand, too, with the radio on, but I don't care for it) and come SO greatly that it deserves a separate page (see DIARY 9912), Mom calls in my stoned state to say don't reserve until Monday 9 am if she doesn't call, sleep at 11.
DIARY 9913
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9. Wake at 3:30, dazed and debating going to wait on line this morning for the ballet, and then wake again at 6, but decide not to go, and then up at 8:30, after jerking off, feeling totally spaced out from all the eating: my STOMACH feels warm when I've eaten a lot just before going to bed, and I sure don't feel like eating "breakfast" until about 2 pm! Meditate well, exercise, still at the 25 level, water plants, forgetting to fertilize them, which I'll do tomorrow, type 2 pages, and FINALLY get back to the index at 11:10, work through till 2:15 when I have lunch, then work from 2:40 to 5:15, a total of 5.75 hours, marking through the first 352 pages for an average of 3 hours per 100 pages, which is quite slow. Then figure that all the typing done at once will be a pain, so start typing at 5:15 and go through until 7:45, when Michael calls for 20 minutes to ask me out to eat in the Village, and I say no, doing just under 200 pages, 736 cards, which isn't bad, but it's not going to give me a total of 4000 lines. Then watch the one-hour special broadcast of "All in The Family" and it's about had it as far as I'm concerned, and during intermissions watch the beginning of "Ice Station Zebra," and it's not bad once I figure that they're looking for satellite film of all rocket launching pads all over the world. The effects are poor: the underside of the pack ice looks the SAME whether it's a sub or a microphone that's near the surface of it. That's over at 11, I'd eaten and drunk wine during the program, and at 11 I smoke, smoke bidis, take poppers, and try to come, but I just don't get hard. Keep trying, though I know I jerked off so incredibly last night, and then I jerked off AGAIN this MORNING, but I really want to come, getting up to about 7 pre-drops, but determine that since I DON'T come by 12:15, I'll come WITHOUT TOUCHING the back of the cock, no matter WHAT, and finally have to get out the Baby Magic and really whack away, with no resultant hardness, so I finally strain and struggle, red-faced from poppers, to get to the orgasm point, and then, totally soft, let it plop down on my stomach when I come, and it just DRAINS out, moving about a half-inch away from the cock head, with NO spasms whatsoever, only a feeling of release-at-last, and that's NOT the way to do it. AGAIN get into the kitchen to eat cookies, toast, and even open up a bottle of soda to drink some of, and get to sleep at 1 with a thoroughly bloated stomach.
DIARY 9914
SUNDAY, AUGUST 10. Wake at 9, same awful feeling of fullness, and get out to buy the Times in the cool morning, though not as cool as yesterday, which was just about ideal in the apartment. Look through the TV section and that's about it, and watch the second part of Merce Cunningham on Camera Three, and I hadn't watched it before (oh, worked on index from 10:10 to 11, before Camera Three). Start doing the puzzle during the boring parts, and finish it at 12:50, both of them, when I start back on the marking of pages. Finish at 2:15 for lunch, then back to work at 2:40 until 4:40 on marking through the enormous chapter 13 on forceps, through page 581, and then get back to typing from 4:40 to 7:30. Then watch "The Manhattan Transfer" from 7:30 to 8:30, and it's silly because they're RIGHT out of the 30s and I didn't like it when it was CURRENT, but they're sort of fun to watch on TV---a whole evening of them would be a BORE. Then type from 8:30 to 9, catching UP with my marking---and this should have ALL been done WEEKS ago! Then watch a somewhat familiar National Geographic program on Reptiles and Amphibians (while eating the second part of the hash that I baked in the oven in these reasonably cool evenings) and it turns out that it was done in 1968, so I'm SURE I watched it before. Fertilize the plants during the intermission, and sit through the 10 pm news just to get to Monty Python at 10:30, and that's over at 11 (a rerun, too), and I crawl into bed to smoke again and this time determine NOT to exhaust myself with poppers and bidis, and mash out about 3 half-drops, followed by three FULL drops when I'm really working on coming, and I've gone through ALL the folders from worst to best, moving things "down" so that the best few folders won't have so much that's NOT too sexy in them, and it sort of WORKS: end up with about 30 items spread around so I can see the cocks and coming, and don't have to use Baby Magic to agitate the cock into coming almost soft, then STOP in VERY strange places, balls tight up, though the scrotum is loose, and I'm semi-hard when I come, though only counting about 17 spasms, and then there are 4 full-fledged drops (exaggerated somewhat for the last) from the cock, and I go in for the last slice of raisin-bread toast, and two more slices of regular toast, and then take the box of raisins to bed with me and finish THOSE, getting to sleep about 1, loaded to the gills again!
DIARY 9915
MONDAY, AUGUST 11. Wake at 9, still seeming to NEED 8 hours sleep, and shit the incredible black stuff (smelly, too), that I've been excreting since taking the Flagyl to get rid of the Entameba coli and the Giardia lamblia cysts. Type 2 pages, water plants with only one two-quart container because the fertilizer is still there from yesterday, and leave for work at 9:55, getting in at 10:30. Blues to check, Tom's still on vacation, and I call Michael and we have lunch together from 2 to 3, and he talks about starting his own business for "only" a capitalization of $30,000 for the first year. Back to work from 3 to 4:15, and Ron says "That's all, and there might BE nothing else," so I fill out a tiny bill for $38 for the day's work, pack up the three boxes of index cards, 8 packs of typing paper, "The Natural Mind," and "Acid House" manuscript, and the Crest and vitamin E I picked up at Falk today, and take it ALL home by 5:15, taking three subways so I won't have to carry the heavy bag far. Rolf called, and he wants to come over with 20 new bottles of amyl nitrite, so I say he can, and I remember I've forgotten to take my flagyl after lunch. Call Pope and chat about the est article in the News, and then Rolf arrives about 6. He's taking penicillin and antibiotics for an ear infection he got from blowing his nose too hard from the cold he got running in the rain in Prospect Park for exercise to the point of exhaustion, and is feeling dizzy and nauseous. I say we should go out to eat about 7:30, so he takes his stuff home (along with my Purchase Power card, since we'd been talking about an organization that takes orders from PEOPLE and buys ordered items from the FACTORY), and we end up at Adnan, where I have the "Adnan special Glaba" which isn't so great, but the bill is only $8 and we've drunk three tall cans of beer. Walk Cobble Hill (me for the FIRST time, and find where the emergency entrance to Long Island Hospital is) and back to get a paper at 10:20, and he comes up to read it, I read other things, put things away, and we talk about est again, and FLEA, and he leaves at 12:30. I debate eating a second meal to take my pill, but decide it's too much trouble, so I just change the sheets (finally) and crawl into bed to sleep with earplugs in at 1, sticky-tacky in the 80° heat of the night.
DIARY 9916
TUESDAY, AUGUST 12. Up at 9, make French toast for breakfast to give myself a full meal as early as possible in order that I can take a pill today that I didn't take yesterday and still keep it within something like twelve-hour periods between days. And then water the plants and type a single diary page to catch up, maybe talk to some people on the telephone, and then start to work on the index from 11:15 to 3, taking 30 minutes off when Arnie calls to talk about the weekend at length, and then have lunch, reading almost anything in order to READ something: all the magazines and newspapers seem to be of VERY little interest: who CARES that the stupid newspaper "literary" set are concerned about being a traitor to Elaine Kaufmann by going to have drinks at her former cook's place, Nicola's? Then back to marking from 3:45 to 4:30, and then get out over-early to get to the Olympia at 5:45 for the movies, so I have a slice of pizza and walk up to 110th Street to see what's going on, and it's pretty depressing: everyone looks poor, hot, and sweaty, the streets are smelly and dirty, the apartments rundown, the faces harried looking and unhappy. What a heavy burden it is living in New York City! In to the movie, and "Night Moves" reflects modern life: harried, rushed, uncommunicative, sensation-seeking, unknowing, uncaring, as various former husbands of a tit-y former movie star get killed along with her daughter trying to get various things that they don't really LIKE: sex, Yucatan curios, broken arms, because there doesn't seem anything better to do. The end, with Gene Hackman shot and pushing the boat into a circle around the downed plane and the killed woman skin-diver, goes in circles like the film. "O Lucky Man" is a bit older, and quite a bit better, as Malcolm MacDonald goes from getting his hands cut off in a Nigerian coffee field to a trainer for Imperial coffee to a hugely successful businessman-assistant to rich Ralph Richardson, then to jail, to the slums, to a barrel rolling down a hill, and finally to a "we need a star" gathering with Lindsay Anderson (I presume) and an incredible Zen-like slap and the command to "Smile, don't ask why, just SMILE," and he BEGINS to do it at the blackout. Home at 11 to put on pork butt, eat, smoke, don't succeed in coming, ART calls at 1, comes over to 2, I'm TOTALLY spaced out (see DIARY 9917) and get to bed at 2 without coming, without even THINKING!
DIARY 9918
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13. Wake about 8:30, listening to the damnable noises around me, and finally get out of bed just before 9 to ignore (as I have for a number of days, since Sunday, to be precise) meditation and exercise and settle down to mark the LAST chapters of the book from 9 am to 1:10, then talk to Pope on the phone and make arrangements to play Scrabble tonight, and then from 1:25 to 2:15, when Rolf calls and I call Larry Price and we agree to meet for lunch early nest week to talk about my investing $3000 with him on the stock market in a couple of months, when the market is ready to go back up again. Then I have lunch, remembering to take my pill, and my mouth feels funny (sour, I guess) from the things that I've been eating and the pills (though maybe it feels sour on THURSDAY because I had breakfast with milk on WEDNESDAY morning?). Then back to work from 2:45 to 6:45, just FINISHING the marking of the pages, and it's ghastly when I passed the place that I should have BEEN to about two WEEKS ago! Then shower, put on the ham to warm, have dinner, shut the doors for a quick summer thundershower (and it's never really STOPPED raining here, so I hope it's also rained in the Midwest, where they're growing something like 40 BILLION bushels of corn this year for some INCREDIBLE record of growing, even with their sending billions of bushels to Russia), and get out to Pope's at 7:45. He's making popcorn, brings out peanuts and grapes later, and serves delicious Schweppes Ginger Beer with a great taste, and we play three of his special 9-tile, 50-points for a seven-letter word brand of Scrabble, challenging me SUCCESSFULLY for sieze and unsuccessfully for oozy, and I win the first two (though he's managed to tie me a few times), and then he wins the third, saying that he really WANTED to win that one, but we're probably pretty similar in playing skills. I doubt it. Then home at 11:15, smoke, an get into such an erection from not having come in TWO days past that I KEEP it up through all KINDS of plateaus, and shoot out a great jet above my navel for tremendous satisfaction: 39 spasms and 6 after-come drips for a "score" of 51, only one short of the record, and it felt GOOD. To sleep at 1, feeling still-warm in the closed-in bedroom in the heat.
DIARY 9919
THURSDAY, AUGUST 14. Up at 8:40, and go immediately to the typewriter and start typing the last of the cards from 8:45 to 9:45. Then take time out (I guess that's when I finish typing up the last of the cards) to wash the dishes and water the plants, and get back to start on the editing at 11, working through until 1, and then Bob Grossman, of all people, calls with the non-traditional "Are you sitting down?" that I used when I called HIM before, and we talk for about an hour about what we've both been doing, and I find it easy enough to let him talk about "Little Night Music" and being in the sun and why we're BOTH not intending to go to Arnold's on Tuesday, and HE mentions est more than I do. Back to editing at 2, and then at 3:45 feel a bit chagrined to find that I've only worked 4.75 hours today, and I've sort of worked "all" I can. Also typed three diary pages to catch up in the morning. Then have lunch of chopped Spam in eggs, not wanting to go to the store, but really NEEDING to go to the store, and shower and wash my hair and shave and wash my teeth and take my pills, and get out at 4:50 to get to the Commodore Hotel at 5:30 almost on the dot. Sign in the paper at the end, where EVERYONE has said they've signed in at 5:30, and I'm delighted to get two assignments, with two people that are close to friends of mine; Gertrude (who assisted Bob Rosinek and made such a dynamite impression), and Chris Gore (who assisted Bob Grossman and made such a dynamite impression). But there are confusions; I'm not registrar, and the whole evening is a bit depressing (see DIARY 9920), and I finally leave at 11:45, not finding anyone to look at me and say "C'mon along with us," so I leave, not talking to William Kopiecki and a friend of his as they come to the Heights with me on the subway (at least the friend does), and I'm still reading the truly DYNAMITE Tibetan Yoga book, and get home to have a meal of a couple of eggs to put some food into my stomach so that I'll have something to take my pills with, and then decide to get back to the editing while it's cool in the evening, the time going VERY fast from 1 to 2:45, by which time I feel that I'm making more mistakes than not, so I quit and go to bed directly without smoking or coming, and fall immediately asleep: worked and helped: PERFECT!
DIARY 9923
FRIDAY, AUGUST 15. By some surprise I wake about 9:25, not even 7 hours sleep, but I feel OK so I STILL ignore the exercising and meditation and get to the desk to continue with the editing at 9:40, and go through until 10:20 when Rolf calls and comes over with the two Swiss bank things that he's evaluated in favor of the Bank Leu, and I'm GUILTY about the letter from Peter Holliday about his slides---and lots of OTHER things, but the index comes first---and he comes over to look at the THIRD one that comes in, and we decide that I'll NEXT write to the Austrian and the BAHAMIAN banks for THEIR information, since I should be willing to get MORE money for my money in the US. And Rolf startles me by saying that there ARE laws that you can get back 25% of the 30% that the Swiss banks keep for taxes IF we make it legal with the US government, but they're ALREADY instituting little things that will restrict money going out of the country: taxes like this, legal strictures on Swiss banks, keeping track of checks for more than $500 that are sent out of the country, etc. I get back to work at 10:50, when he leaves, and work to 12:50, when I call Eddie back and he tells me about his vacation. Work from 1:10 to 5:30, totally amazed that I HAVEN'T EATEN ANYTHING ALL DAY, and I've obviously NOT picked up the tape recorder and turntable that was supposed to be ready for me today, NOR deposited my checks in the bank, NOR bought groceries. So I have Spam and eggs for the meal again, showering and shaving like last night, right at the last moment, and get out at 6:35 to MAKE it to the Statler Hilton just at 7, and look around for SOMEONE, and Mary (whom I'd called earlier) finds ME, with her friend Ethel, and they sign in, Joan gives me 5 copies of the Cosmo article at LAST, and we're in at 7:15 to find that David Norris is taking the place of the vacationing Lew Epstein, so the evening is fairly interesting (see DIARY 9924). Out at 10:30 and talk to Mary and Ethel until about 11, and they're actually thinking of coming BACK next week for the special guest event. Home at 11:25 and get RIGHT back to the index until 1:10, when I stop for two more eggs and the next-to-the-next-to-the-last flagyl pill, and then BACK to work from 1:45 to 3:15, when I stagger into bed with my earplugs in, not HEARING Susan when she calls at 9 to cancel the picnic!
DIARY 9927
SATURDAY, AUGUST 16. Wake after 7 hours sleep at 10:15, and immediately get up and get back to work on the editing at 10:20. Art calls for 25 minutes during the day, talking about the incessant rain outside today as the reason why he hasn't gone up to the country, and then about noon Susan calls to say that she'd called at 9 am but there was no answer, and I had to admit sleeping with the earplugs in and the message-minder off. Then I call Bob Grossman about 5 to see what the evening is, and we arrange to meet at 8:45 at Elephant and Castle, when he lets the arrangements up to me, and I insist he call to see if they take reservations, and she even reads the menu to him over the phone, so he's convinced he can eat something there too. I work through until 5, then have two eggs and water the plants and get back to work from 6 to 6:45, finishing all the editing I have to do, so there's nothing left to do but type the index itself, which I hope to have by Monday. Sometime during the day I type 5 diary pages, but don't leave myself enough time to finish the pages on the fourth Be Here Now seminar, which is a pity, because the more time elapsed, the more I forget. Then get out at 8:15, having shaved and showered and brushed my teeth, and get to the place about 8:50, and Bob's waiting inside, and it's not as crowded as I'd feared. Omelets are the idea, but I get somehow suckered into getting an Elephantburger, which comes too rare, which is a blessing, because otherwise there wouldn't have been a taste in the bland dressing, the lettuce, the red onions that barely tasted, and the underdone pieces of tasty bacon. I started with the Danish apple soup, like good applesauce with GREAT whipped cream and sweet crumbs on top, and when we finish and still have lots of time, we split a hot fudge crepe, which is tasty with walnuts, but VERY expensive at $2.95. The bill comes to about $11 in all, not charging him for coffee, and we're down to the theater on 13th to pick up tickets for $5, and the cast looks awful, and it turns out that Bob thought it was LOVERS and kept looking for the leather couple, etc. It was VERY amateurishly produced, with SHODDY costumes and sets, and only funny because it was EMBARRASSING. Out at 12:15, he goes off to a bar and I buy a Times and find the deli closed at 1 am, home to work on the puzzle and get to bed exhausted at about 2:45, feeling pretty awful.
DIARY 9928
SUNDAY, AUGUST 17. Up about 10:15, up to read more of the Times, watch a good Camera Three (rebroadcast) on Hirschhorn the man and the DC museum, and then look at more of the paper and finally get down to typing at 12:30 on the first of 142 pages in the index, working through until 3:25, when Nick Sanabria calls, saying he's been out of a job and is hurting, has seen George Murrill, who's also out of a job, had been to est a couple of years back and couldn't make anything GOOD or BAD out of Werner when the Mind Control people talked to him, and Mind Dynamics was founded by someone out of Mind Control, as are many other offshoots founded by people who take the whole course, find it simple, and start teaching it themselves. He talks for an hour until 4:30, which is a good relaxation from typing, and I get back until 7:05, when Rolf calls and says there's a book about investments that I should read before talking to Larry Price, then I get back to work at 7:55, and Pope calls for five minutes about something, and then I put on the supper to cook while finishing up through page 99 at 10:30, in time to watch Monty Python. So I did 99 pages (would have LIKED to do 100 in one day, though) in 8 hours of work, which is better than 12 pages per hour, not bad, but not QUITE as good as I'd hoped. I get very sloppy, and curse myself for making mistakes that take so long to correct with the correctype and retyping three or four times, but when I start to concentrate on each letter with extra care, it becomes a real nervous-energy drag, so I continue to make a number of mistakes on each page. Keep a fairly clear carbon, since this is one of the best indexes that I've ever done: longest, most technical, best organized, most subject-oriented without the entry of a lot of proper names that are so simple to do. I'd seen the "Attila the Hun" show with Monty Python, but it was fun again, and then I smoke and go into yet another fantastic orgasm (the last was written up on DIARY 9912 from August 8th, 9 days ago) that really takes me to some limits (see DIARY 9912), and go until about 1, and then get up for more toast, cookies from the store, and almost think of making popcorn, but this is ridiculous, and I plop into bed about 1:30 totally physically, emotionally, psychically EXHAUSTED.
DIARY 9930
MONDAY, AUGUST 18. Wake at 7:55, surprisingly, and immediately start proofreading the pages that I'd typed yesterday to see how long it actually takes me to do 100 pages. Finish proofreading and alphabetizing (finding lots of lines that I should ADD to the index) about 11, and then get to typing the rest, interrupted by a call from Arnie, telling me about the weekend and saying that he has two bars of Rokeach for me tomorrow evening at his orgy, and then Art calls to say that he'd been up in the country over the weekend---Sunday, actually, and that he still hasn't heard about his playing Sancho in "Man of la Mancha." I keep on working until I chew on my lips enough to have lunch about 2 for half an hour, then call Berta and Dick Sime about 3:30 and set up things for tomorrow, and Larry Price has called in the AM and I make it tentatively for Wednesday, which turns out to be a good thing since I'd forgotten that I'd had the TM checking for Wednesday, right near his office. Keep on typing and finish about 5, at 142 pages, and then start in on the proofreading and typing in of new lines. Arnie calls again from 4:40 to 5 to say that he doesn't want to go with me to the double feature at the Playboy because of his back and his cough, and I finish with everything, including a letter to Berta "explaining" the index, about 7:45, which is too late for me to catch the last double at 8:10, so I'll probably end up going tomorrow after lunch with Dick, which will postpone picking up the turntable and tape recorder for ANOTHER day. Put away all the index stuff, call Arnie to think about going to the Club Baths, but he doesn't feel like doing THAT, either, and I have dinner until about 9:30 and then decide to come early, by about 11, pretty well, but not as good as last night, and then decide that I can indulge in listening to the radio while stoned, and flip back and forth to a few stations, but what's good they don't identify immediately, it's over too soon, I don't know what it is, and there's most of the stuff that's bad, so I turn it off about 11:30, in disgust, wishing I had my OWN music back, and am appalled to find that one CHANNEL of the earphones goes off intermittently. Not ANOTHER repair job!
DIARY 9931
TUESDAY, AUGUST 19. Up and meditate for the first time in ages, hoping that maybe THAT will help things out. Have been thinking about not shaving and growing a beard, but then decide not to do it until after I meet Larry on Wednesday, and again I find myself simply sitting around with nothing to do. Go through the rest of the New York Times---no, this is tomorrow. Put things onto piles so that at least I know what I HAVE left to do, and shower and get out about 11:20 to get to ACC at 11:50, giving the index to Berta, who seems to like it, and she says they're going seven decennial volumes on pathology, and maybe I can get the index for the second volume---she'll call me sometime next week. So I'm out of a job only to GET a job. Then walk up to Dick's at McGraw-Hill, getting only a TOUCH of universality while noting all the entertainments going on along the street (see DIARY 9932), and get to McGraw-Hill at 12:15 and see if Lauren's in, but she's gone out to lunch. Back to Dick, seeing Cyndy in the hall and chatting for a bit, and Dick ran into Jerry Steinhart a couple days before! I tell him about Nick calling, too. We're up to the 50th floor about 1, and I have their roast chicken after a large daiquiri which makes me tipsy through the meal, and he doesn't seem like talking much about est, so I don't press it. We chat about travel, he telling a number of the same stories again, and we're down about 2:15, Lauren's still not in, and I get up to the Playboy Theater and decide to see the end of "The Terminal Man." Since it got such bad reviews, maybe I can see it for spectacle, anyway. There's NO spectacle, he simply gets shot while his psychiatrist begs them to stop, and then "Prisoner of Second Avenue," has more of the UGLY Simon humor, though the loving wife is certainly a help (played marvelously by Anne Bancroft) to Jack Lemmon's flipped-out fired person---and one wonders how he WILL ever get a job, and there are dozens of references to "God" and "Favorite," so I can see the next, even worse, play in the making. Out at 6:15 and home to feel totally destroyed with Anomie, and write DIARY 9933-9934 about that, and then four more pages to catch up a BIT, and then call Rolf at 8 to find he's not coming because of his ear infection, go over to pick up his Investing book, meet John Woods on the street, who thought Arnie lived in MY building, and take him to Arnie's for the worst evening he's ever had (see DIARY 9935). I leave at 10:30, chat with Michael on his way there, home to dinner, jerk off, and listen to the radio AGAIN.
DIARY 9936
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 20. Up at about 8, pleased to hear that the woman upstairs sounds to be away on vacation, or something, so she makes no noise. Also, the dog yapping has taken from the early afternoon to the evening, when the window is opened maybe, and I'm glad I have things to do on evenings now. Arrange to meet Larry at 12:45 or so, read the Times and the stack of stuff on the sofa and sort THAT out, shave for the last time, and put all my papers for the day into the old-fashioned narrow lapelled striped sport jacket with the tan pants and the blue slightly-tearing shoes, and get out into the pleasant day at 11:40 to JUST get to TM at noon for checking (see DIARY 9937). Out at 12:35 to get to Larry's at 12:50, and we're over to the Yale Club for lunch and a chat (see DIARY 9939). Out at 2:30 and back to his place until 3, filling out a form for the transfer of my stocks (worthless except for IBM) to Drexel Burnbaum, and I subway up to 86th to pick up the two pieces for $42 and change. Lug them back in an afternoon that suddenly seems much hotter, do the transfer at Borough Hall, and get home about 5, not even feeling like putting back the pieces! Go through the mail, do a bit of sitting and staring, and start putting some things away when I recheck the listing of TM lectures and find that SOMEHOW the "Stress Release" is TONIGHT. Give a quick call to Pope to see if he's home, but he gets in only seconds later and misses the call. Subway to the Wentworth at 7, and get into the penultimate empty seat, though about five others later sit at the door. It's not bad at all (see DIARY 9937) and I'm out at 8:30, pleased, and suddenly decide to see a movie. Walk down to 42nd on a darkling 6th Avenue, but don't find ANYTHING aside from blaxploitation films, so walk up to the Rivoli and find that "Jaws" is scheduled for 8 and 10:30, and it's 8:45, so I figure to see it from now, and by CHANCE see the head-in-boat-hole fright first and the FIRST glimpse of the fish, and the climax is so UNBELIEVABLE but well orchestrated that I want to sit through it again, even finishing the little nubbins of popcorn from a huge tankard under my seat, and the shark ITSELF is very phony, but the REAL footage, particularly the shark-caught-in-cage sequence, is great, Dreyfuss and PARTICULARLY Sheider do great acting jobs, and it's fun. Home by 1:30, don't even HAVE dinner, and fall to sleep in bed.
DIARY 9940
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21. Up about 9, debate going to the store for milk, but don't want to leave before Joann Lindner calls, as she did yesterday, about the index that I'm to get today. Can't decide WHAT to do, first day of not shaving, go through an AGONY of wanting to (1) wash windows, (2) catch up on diary, (3) record to Bill, (4) answer letters, (5) work on souvenirs, (6) writing, and end up "deciding" to do THAT WHICH IS LEAST NECESSARY TO DO, namely, read a book that I wasn't even into: "The Natural Mind." Then hook up the turntable and tape recorder, think about going to Alvin Ailey tonight, get the schedules for the movies I want to see at the Brooklyn Heights, and have lunch about noon, still not really "into" the day. Listen to some music, read some more, and then get hung up on the idea that I want to COME, so I pull down the blinds at 3:45, smoke, and get out the porno to come, but it gets beyond the point where it's merely hard, going soft, and I get out the Baby Magic and lather up and really strain to get it coming out (OH, at least I settled to a morning meditation and the first exercise in a along time this morning, at least SOMEWHAT before two weeks away from it, only about 11 days away from it). Depressed when I thought I'd go deposit my checks and pick up the laundry, too, and then find that it's 3:30. Just don't FEEL RIGHT (see DIARY 9941)!!! Then maybe even doze for a few minutes, but I'm up at 5, put things away, get back to reading the pretty good book, more, really, about TM and Cosmic Consciousness than about marijuana, and find that it's too late to get out to the Ailey, so I make dinner at 7, eat the smelly hamburger (and can smell the awful farts NOW, the next noon), and then put on the machine and listen to some music, stoned, realizing that that little double-entry jack might be PERFECT for microphoning and recording music AT THE SAME TIME! Hear the phone, and get it about 8:30, and Pope asks me over for more Scrabble, so I get out and play three games, winning all three, the first with 400+ (with 3 50-point 7-letter downs, so we move the 50 points to 8 letters down), and end at 12:15, quite a surprise, and get out to read a bit more until I'm exhausted, and get to bed at 1, depressed.
DIARY 9943
FRIDAY, AUGUST 22. Up about 9, meditate, and then decide I MUST get to the diary, and I get about 12 pages done, which feels good, but after I finish reading the ten pages I have left to read in "Tibetan Yoga," I can't get into anything else. Recorded the somewhat sore throat in JUST DON'T FEEL RIGHT (on DIARY 9941) as the first page, and even BEFORE that I made sure that I remembered the dream that I finished this morning when I typed up DIARY 9942. Then figure I MUST get the stuff to the bank, so I get out about 2 and deposit about $2200 in checks in the account, check to find nothing at the used-book shop, pick up my laundry, and then get to the store for the groceries that I need, and they're still out of Spam. Then I sit and debate what to do NEXT, reading a bit of "The Natural Mind," but not being able to get into anything else. Things are lying all around the apartment, but I can't put anything away. Call Pope at 3:15 after someone calls from est and gets me to volunteer to be on the "production team" for the September C training, which volunteers me for 7 ADDITIONAL evenings in August and September, but I figure quite quickly that it ONLY gives me an average of TWO nights a week for the entire months of July, August, and September, which was what I had SAID would be OK anyway, though it's rather depressing when I tote up that I have 11 out of 25 nights taken up with est. He talks for a bit until 3:30, when his soap opera gets heavy, and then I start clearing things off my desk, getting out some bills and orders and throwing things away until I ACTUALLY get down to the point of mailing out resumes, which is pretty far along, wash dishes, and then I decide (after AGONIZING about whether I should have the older sausage or the new hamburger and Lipton's extender) to have hamburger for dinner at 5:30, after meditating and exercising, and meet Arnold at the subway station at 6:35, getting to est at 7:05, and there's Mary and Ethel, and they sit together for the worst est session yet (see DIARY 9944). Out at 10:30, and home with good connections at 11:15 to see a mediocre "Picture of Dorian Gray" with a pretty Shane Briant as Dorian, until 2, but it was scheduled until 2:30 and I'd made POPCORN, which I still have left, so I watch "Sands of the Kalahari" from 2:30 to 4:30 with a nicely muscled Stuart Whitman acting the crazed hunter who kills baboons and who is later attacked and killed by the herd after he won't join the helicopter that rescues the still-lovely Susannah York and Stanley Baker. AMAZED as I crawl into bed at 4:45 am!
DIARY 9946
SATURDAY, AUGUST 23. Though I went to bed with earplugs at 4:45, and even put the phone ring off and the message service on, for some reason I hear what sounds like someone buzzing a buzzer at 9, and ANSWER it, thinking it might be the stamps from Washington, and the mailman comes up the stairs with the new INDEX from ACC. I open it and look at it from 9:15 to 10:30, coming up with a long list of questions for Joann, marveling at all the changes they had to do in my formats without TELLING me about them, and then AGAIN tried to decide what to do. Meditate about noon, called Arnie to arrange going to the ballet this afternoon, though I debated not going, and then meditate not very successfully and finally feel so INCAPACITATED that I have to sit down and type DIARY 9947. Think to continue with the transcription of the "Mystic" number system of DIARY 9948, but don't finish it at ALL. Don't eat before leaving, just leave, and then, not too surprisingly, the Alvin Ailey ballet isn't that great (see DIARY 9949), though I meet Shelly Dobbins and his friend Sid, and "Smart Money" may be sold to CBS, and am I available? Then out onto the terrace at the first intermission and there's FRED COURTNEY, looking older, but still with fabulous legs in shorts, and they LOVE the afternoon. Out at 4:15 and subway home to look around at what to do and ACTUALLY decide to do something: get rid of the overflowing desk drawer's contents of SCRAPBOOK material. So I clear off the living room table and spread out all the scrapbook folders, and with the BOTTOM drawer empty, take the opportunity to SWITCH the letter file to the BOTTOM with the SHORT file-support rods (since "Acid House" in front isn't in Pendaflex anyway), and move SCRAPBOOK up to the top and second drawers, which puts general filing (without Pendaflex) in the next-to-bottom. Sort out some of the "odd" folders and invent about 6 new ones, have dinner about 9 (though the Lipton stuff, like that awful ham and cheese before, seems to give me the RUNS again!) with an ear of corn, and get BACK to the filing until about 10, finishing in triumph (though I have to PUSH myself to put the stuff AWAY), and decide NOT to go out for the Times, right when a LOUD party starts on the terrace at 10:30 next door, and I put in earplugs, smoke, and get off a TERRIFIC ORGASM by midnight (see DIARY 9950) and sleep right away, after consuming four cookies to dirty my teeth after brushing for the only time.
DIARY 9951
SUNDAY, AUGUST 24. Up about 9, no noise from upstairs feeling like a blessing, and get out for the Times and look through it until 11, when I watch a rerun of the Varna Competition from 1966 when Baryshnikov was 18 (see DIARY 9970), then look AGAIN at the rerun of the "Prostate" program from 11:30 to 12, work on the puzzle, watch Indira Gandhi from 12:30 to 1, and then weightlifting and high-diving from 1 to 1:30, and then decide to get right down to the diary, feeling somewhat better today (see DIARY 9952). Get six pages done and then decide to answer the letters, and see who I have to write to, and to get out the letters that I'd written LAST, I decide to sort them out and refile THEM, which I do, and it all feels so GOOD. Finally get around to sending out the three tour escort resumes to the three people Ron Miller gave me, then write a note to Ron, too. Then send out a regular resume for an ad in LAST week's Sunday Times, and send two bank letters to get them out of the way, and then write to Mom and Rita to get THEM out of the way, and that leaves ONLY the important ones to Mike, Bill, and Peter Holliday! Then decide to record Arnold's recording of "Tommy" and put that on while I'm sorting through old job applications and filing THEM in order (and the NEXT day I throw OUT most of them, simply because there are too MANY of them, and who NEEDS them from 1970, anyway??) That goes until about 10, when I put on the hamburger to broil, and eat the last of the awful Lipton extender while watching a new Monty Python, and then when it's finished decide to watch "The Riders of the Purple Sage" when they say that it isn't Warner Oland who's the star, but Tom Mix. And then one of the subtitle pictures leads me to hope THIS might be the movie that did that incredible scene that I remember as a kid of the herd of cattle stampeding off the cliff and bouncing on the rocks at the bottom. But it's not, and it's a DREADFUL film, and they follow it with a couple of Will Rogers shorts: "Big Moments from Small Films," and a Hal Roach variety thing with him. That takes me to 12:30, and I'm dying of fatigue and drunkenness, having drunk a half-glass of Ponche Crema with a slice of peach pie. Get to bed without smoking and coming, and it feels good to snuggle under the light blanket in the 60° weather we've had lately.
DIARY 9953
MONDAY, AUGUST 25. Up about 8:30, and meditate with such a passel of thoughts crowding up that it's obvious that it DOES perform an "unwinding" function and that I miss it when I don't do it. Exercise also, then type two pages to catch up, and then decide to clear out the REST of the desk drawer, coming across the gay-folder file, and get that out but get diverted into the index files, and I get out all the bills and time sheets and folders and actual indexes themselves and file THOSE into different files, bringing the log up to date, surprised that I'm MISSING some of the hour sheets, but I've put them SOMEWHERE. It's only a matter of FINDING them. [And just to make SURE it's not in the pile of stuff to put away, I look through now and find that it goes back to JANUARY 1974---over 19 months ago!---and the sheets aren't there.] Then type another sheet, 9952, stopping at 1:15 and showering and washing my hair (in case I want to see the stage productions in "Funny Lady" a second time, since they're at the front, as Arnie tells me, and then go right off to est) and eating a piece of pie with milk for "lunch," and I'm just ready to leave at 2:05 when Rolf calls to say that the "nig-nogs" have savaged his car: stolen the wheels, battery, seats, lights, broken the windows and dented the body, and the windows ALONE would cost $450, and he only paid $800 for the CAR two years ago. Then I tell him about lunch with Larry, and at 2:30 I hang up from him and start going through the mini-stamp collection that Mrs. Johnson brought up while I was saying how down we were on the human race. That takes until 3:30, and I find all of 17 stamps that I didn't have out of the hundreds her brother-in-law gave me, and then I'm back to look at the filing, then make dinner of sausage and eat before leaving at 4:45, getting to the Marriott Essex House at 5:15, then ask where est is and they say in the Casino, and get in for the evening of assisting (see DIARY 9954). Out at 9:55, signing out at 10 for 4-3/4 hours, and get home by 10:30 in order to watch the last half-hour of "Beacon Hill," and it's all UGLINESS again: people being unfaithful and HATING it, people manipulating people, politics, votes, lives, children, lovers, and I'm not interested! Then smoke at 11:15 and stay at a peak for almost 3 minutes, fantastically hard and ready-to-come, and then COME, and eat two huge slices of bread, toasted, and down four more cookies, and go to sleep smiling about 1:30 am.
DIARY 9956
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26. Up at 9:30, still feeling sort of worn out, so I MUST have some kind of low-grade flu infection that demands that I get more rest. Meditate, but never get around to exercising. Type three diary pages, then get back to the task of sorting out the gay stuff, throwing much of it away, all while listening to records nicely. Get through the rest of the index brouhaha, and even dump the pile of souvenirs on the floor to see if any index sheets aren't included in that mess. Then talk to Pope for about a half an hour about his last Be Here Now seminar, at which everyone was TOLD to make out the registration card, and when he didn't they were "very angry with him." He'd also blown up at Gary this morning, saying that it was only ME that he would talk to about est without grating about the jargon or their "too-goodness." Then say I'll bring over the Weil "Natural Mind" reviews. Have cereal to put something in my stomach, water the plants, and then Tom calls to say that he'll send me the IPI World ms for copyediting today and I'll do it tomorrow. Then out to Pope's at 1:45 and chat with him until 2:05, when I'm out to "Funny Lady," which is rather a flop, with some of the most outlandishly awful stage productions I've ever seen, mostly "There's gonna be a great day," which is ALREADY terribly dated and too awful even to be funny. So there goes the idea of sitting through a second time. Out at 4:30 and find that the Good Humor ice cream shop has closed, and then back to continue putting stuff away, getting a call from Byron, a friend of John Woods, who comes over for a vial of liquid, after I'd been to the store and spent all my singles, and he has to buy something at the St. George to get change for his $10 for my $8. Then put the ballet, opera, plays, and stuff into the booklet, and even get to the pile of stuff BESIDE the filing cabinet, when I jerk my head up and it's 8! So I watch "I See a Dark Stranger" (they say another name for "The Adventuress," but the titles gave ISADS). Then Eddie calls and comes over at 11:30, smoking some of my grass, claiming two books and three records that I was throwing out along with the Greek calendar, and we eat toasted banana bread and he drinks wine and we listen to "Mephistopheles" until 1:30, and he leaves, and I get to bed at 2:45 after fussing with the LAST of the things to be sorted out. Bed and sleep.
DIARY 9957
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27. Wake at 9 when buzzer goes for NC's copyediting, study it from 9-9:45 and call for questions. At 10, have cereal for breakfast, type one diary page, and then can't decide what to do with the day, and it occurs to me that est is going to be moving its office soon, and that if I want to see what 156 W. 13th Street looked like, I'll have to see it very soon, so I phone at 11 and say that I can be in at noon, and Christa says, predictably, "Far out, c'mon in. Fabulous!" Then I try to meditate, but I haven't left enough time, so I cut it off after ten minutes and leave at 11:40, getting to the building EXACTLY at noon. In to a noisy, busy, but productive office and stay there until 5:30 (see DIARY 9958). Then leave and walk across to the east to 111 E. 12th and Priapus, and they have a wide selection of very cheaply-priced magazines. Though the models that GOT me there aren't that good, and I buy two magazines for $7, list price $11. They're in a blue-paper bag and I walk toward the subway stop at Union Square and pass a Blimpie base in which I order a hot pastrami sandwich, and it's FABULOUS, it seems to me, for only $1.35: warm, bacony, filled with their "garni" that's tomatoes and lettuce and an oil-vinegar dressing, and mustard. Great dinner, and then I'm into the subway and get to the Hotel Wentworth a bit early for the 7 pm lecture, and there are only about 30 people this time, as opposed to the 40 last time, so there's more room in the room, though an awful old lady directs the air-conditioner's vent downward to make the room much warmer. The videotape isn't working AGAIN, so they just have to talk about the lecture topic (see DIARY 9963). Out at 8:30 and subway home at 9:10 to get a message from Art inviting me to dinner with him and Nancy at his place at 10:30 after they see "The Ritz," but I decide not to, put on the Unitrex, and smoke with a glass of white wine and read the books and get into a FINE orgasmic feeling, coming with gusto at 10:30, and then up to make popcorn, THEN have three slices of toasted banana bread, AND eat two oranges while I'm waiting for things to pop in the popper or the toaster. Really RIDICULOUS. Listen to "Mephistopheles" and a few other things, and finally get to sleep about 12:30, really zonked out because when I crawled back into bed with COOKIES I decided to come AGAIN, and DID a second time---and even came the NEXT MORNING at 9:30 before I got out of bed at 10!
DIARY 9964
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28. Wake with a partial erection from the friction of last night, and I jerk off AGAIN at 9:30 before getting out of bed at 10. Have breakfast after meditation, then call Pope to tell him about yesterday, and we talk for about an hour. He's very pissed about his messing up with Bonwit Teller, and when he says "I KNEW it would happen," it hits me very strongly that THERE he caused it, and when I tell him HE agrees, too. Then read the last few pages in "The Natural Mind," just to finish it, and type 7 pages to get me up to date in the diary, but again I don't feel like doing anything. Meditating at 4 when Bob Rosinek calls, and we talk about 45 minutes on the differences and similarities between est and TM, and we agree that at SOME time when he's finished with est, he'll probably get the mantra from TM, but now he's going mainly on what he learned from BIOFEEDBACK. It's ALL connected! Art Bauman calls and says tonight is NOT good for him, that it should be TOMORROW night, and when he asks about stamps, I say that I DON'T want them, and then get to thinking about it and call Bill at 5:20 to ask HIM, talking for 10 minutes, and he says that dealers are SELLING for 30% of Scott prices, so he wouldn't PAY any more than 25%, unless I wanted to be "Bobby Goodfriend," in which case why don't I send HIM $1000 or so?? So I'm glad I told Art no, though I feel guilty about not trying harder to get rid of HIS stamps for him when HE took the trouble to get ME stamps from four different countries during HIS travels this summer. Look at them again with some idea of buying them, but can only come up with the figure of $70, which is the catalog value of his top 6 stamps, but he probably won't take it unless he's DESPERATE, but that's up to HIM. Then I try to read the investment book, but can't get into it, and finally turn on TV at 6:40 to watch the end of a Star Trek, watch a silly "Avengers" from 7 to 8, then the Ben Vereen show that Art had recommended, and HE'S fine but the SHOW is perfectly dreadful, mindless, stupid froth that's tasteless and a waste of GOOD money on AWFUL stuff. Eat during that, then smoke and get very hard TWICE, but don't manage to come off, so I FILL my stomach with toasted banana bread, toast, orange, and cookies, and get to sleep about 12.
DIARY 9965
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29. Up about 8:30, meditate and exercise and have breakfast, and then start looking at the stamps and the places I SHOULD have sent them, and decide to make up a list of the numbers so that I can type them out and give xeroxes of them to Art so that he can mail out inquiries if he wants to. That takes a lot of time, and I get into the shower to wash my hair about noon, waiting for the call from Art to see if he'll have the chance to let me use the car to pick up the bookcase at the Door Store, hoping that I'll have enough time to finish the copyediting of the IPI WORLD in time to take it in, and actually do the dishes before having lunch, and get it all done by 2:35, when I finish the copyediting until 3:50, and then call Ron to make sure he's still there, and call Art to find that he's tied up, but that if I want I can bring the poles to HIS place. So I'm out at 4:10 and get to NC at 4:50 in time to give the stuff to Ron before he leaves, and then walk down to 23rd and the Metropolitan bookstore and buy two books on antique sex and the Roth book for 94¢ each, they don't have the Ram Dass books, and pick up a copy of the TM book at 20% OFF! And a discount paperback of "Alive." Lug those down to DTW to leave them with Art for a bit, then walk down to the Door Store (looking into another half-price bookshop, but they don't have anything I want, thankfully) and lug the poles and the hardware across town to Art's, getting in at 6:15, and then decide to bring the REST of the stuff there, since it's too heavy to even THINK of walking all the way to and from the subways. So I walk back, grab a cab for $1.55 back to Art's, and then sit and read until he arrives at 7:20. John Torres calls I'm ready to leave, drinking wine to get me high, and get back to DTW at 8:10 to find that Art INSISTS on selling the stamps for $75, so I'd be silly not to take it, and I do, giving him a check for $121.40 for the great stuff he picked up from Germany, England, Denmark, and Netherlands, and as I'd passed Beaupere and thought about it, I suggested we eat there, so we get down, pick up a bottle of Inglenook rosé, and I finally have the fabulous duck (expensive for $9.50) and he has garlic chicken, and we have salads and desserts and the bill comes to $30, and since I only have $13, I owe him $17! Out at 12, walk to his place to talk, leave at 2 and home at 3, VERY tired.
DIARY 9966
SATURDAY, AUGUST 30. Up about 10, meditate, and Arnie calls to say that he'll come over to pick up the recording I made for him of "Tubular Bells" and "The Planets," and what else did I want from him? So I ask for the South American music and "Spartacus," and he comes over (later) at about 4:30 and stays until about 5, saying that he'll be going out to Norma's tomorrow to stay through Monday with her. I do the recording in the morning, and listen to some other music while doing things, then fertilize the plants and decide that I really want to read the "TM Book." This gets me into really thinking about the differences between est and TM, and I'm sort of hung up on them (see DIARY 9967). I forget to call Art B as I'd agreed to, to tell him the name (David Barron is the name he uses there, for the Dayton Ballet, for whom he's choreographed "Déjà vu.") of the fellow I want him to get another complimentary ticket for, but he's left DTW already. Again I can't think of anything to do in the evening, so about 6 I smoke and jerk off, again to the wonderful Priapus books, and almost doze off in my bliss at coming so nicely and feeling so good, hoping that John won't be "the love of my life" and I'm dry for the first sexual encounter with him. Laze around until 8 by watching someone on "To Tell the Truth" on TV, and then decide I MUST shower before 8, and just getting dressed in order to watch the beginning of TV at 8 when Art calls to say he's back early, and I should get there as soon as possible. Take "Alive" to start reading it. Get there at 8:35, sit around drinking and smoking and talking with a voluble Nancy and quiet John, but he starts making grimaces about Nancy's vociferousness, and then we're out at 9:30 to a cab that lurches through the streets, sending us into gales of laughter when Nancy says she can't be frightened and needn't close her eyes in the cab because she's sitting so low she can't even see out! Get to Grotta Azzura to find a line of 16 people, and we decide to leave at 10 if it hasn't moved enough, and Art calls La Chaumiere and gets pissed when they don't come back to him, so we wait to get in at 10:15, and then he hates the crowd and the noise and the claustrophobic basement. We have two bottles of Soave, good, and mostly shrimp parmigiana (tough but tasty) while John has whiting, good sauce. Out at 12 and cab back to Art's, talk to 2, Nancy leaves and Art "suggests" I walk her to a cab. So goodnight to me! Subway home at 3, buying a Times, and start on the puzzles until about 4, getting to bed exhausted again, then.
DIARY 9968
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31. Up at 10:30, feeling rather tired still, and read the paper and tune in Camera Three as Art calls to talk about last night, and then the damn dog keeps barking and barking and barking, so instead of going out of my mind, I decide to block it out by playing records, and I then decide to do something spectacular: RECORD the records that Arnie JUST GAVE ME to record, so that they're NOT hanging around, and I DO that while struggling to finish the puzzle, feeling marvelous---so marvelous that I actually CALL him and leave a message that his records can now be picked up. Joan calls during the playing, and we chat for about an hour about her play with Paul, Paul's training this weekend that she's doing Personality Profiles for, and HER unhappiness with est, though SHE agrees that she's getting a lot out of it---if they only wouldn't SELL so hard! Then water the plants, still pretty full from the fertilization yesterday, and finally finish the puzzles at 4, having started off in the POOREST POSSIBLE WAY: there were only 4 initial words that I had right, and in the course of trying wild guesses I had 10 wrong words, and out of 25 in all, that's not very good, but I DO finish it! Then go out of my mind trying to locate the "do" list to cross off the things that I've done, but find it, putting some of the stuff away in the process from my desk, which is in BAD shape, and again sort out the letters that I have to write to people. Then have dinner at 5:30, of the rotten-smelling hamburger and the almost-soured green beans from LONG ago, and then leave at 6:45 to subway up to Central Park for the Dance Festival, finding two tickets instead of the one I expected, and comb the waiting lines to find no one I know, so I go in, feeling rather depressed, and watch a VERY mixed evening (see DIARY 9969). It gets VERY cold, and I can feel myself shivering through the last half, and it's over at 10:30. I wait around for Art to come out, to pay him his $17, but he doesn't show, and I get into the AA station to transfer to the D and then to the A, getting home about 11:30, and then decide to read more of "Alive" since I don't feel like coming. Read to page 200 by 2 am, have two eggs and toast to fill my empty stomach, and then finish the entire book by 3:40, feeling rather stoned, and get to bed with the earplugs in and the phonemate on, NOT wanting to be wakened at ALL. Up at 11:15!!
DIARY 9971
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1. Wake at 11:15, as judiciously noted by me on 9/1 at the bottom of the DIARY 9968 page, and type six pages rather easily, but then remembered that I wanted to see the Brooklyn Parade. Called Arnie and left a message, and then called Bob Grossman and HE didn't want to go, so I decided that I probably wouldn't go at all anyway---in my mood, it wouldn't be terribly interesting anyway, probably. Then decide to answer the letters from Peter and Mike, so I sort through the Yugoslavian stamps and write a response to Mike Schaeffer, and then get out the slide projector and look at the 20 slides of Peter Holliday's again, writing comments on each of them for future reference, and decide to send him "The OIs Have It" as another example of my writing. Then call Pope to suggest we play Scrabble tonight, and he's agreeable, and by 5 I don't have ANYTHING to do, and since the slide projector is already out, I decide to smoke and come, and do so with a constant pressure on my cock that changes to a sensation of pain in the urethra after I piss immediately after I've come, and urinating again doesn't help the pain, so all I can do is lie back and try to live through it, wondering if this is the beginning for penile troubles for me, but then decide that if I THINK about it a lot, I'll CAUSE the troubles, so I get up about 7 and decide to start on the updating of the restaurant list, so I get out the datebook book and the restaurant book and type pages three and half of four pages by 8 pm, at which time I dress---unwashed as I am---and get over to Pope's for Scrabble. He gives me a few Journals of Parapsychology to read, my book reviews back, and he manages to win a close game, the middle of the three we play, and we stop to watch a rerun of "Rhoda," entirely ridiculous and laugh-milking and unreal, and he gets out Cheetohs and limeade for both of us, and it tastes good to the point that I remember I haven't eaten anything since lunch of bacon this noon. Meditated once, too. We talk until about 12:15, and I get home, debating going to the Promenade, except that I feel so awful, and laze around the apartment until 2 am, when I get to bed, still feeling that things aren't going right, disgusted by the smell of rotting meat coming from the refrigerator that I'm not eating, and still not managing to get into the routine of TWO transcendental meditations per day, as prescribed.
DIARY 9972
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2. Pope calls at 8:30 to say that Joe Franklin has a TM program on this morning, and there's Doug Hemmings and the guy who wrote the hardcover book and Lee J. Cobb's daughter and some former-famous model all talking with smiles about how it's changed their lives, and (whether truly or not) Joe Franklin says they've convinced him, and he'll be getting into it. Then I don't feel like moving, so I watch "The Lucy Show" with stupidity equal to the "Rhoda" show last night, and shut off TV at 10 to meditate and then have breakfast. Continue to work on the restaurant list for a while, trying to call Art but no one's home, and finally get off at 12:30 (after talking to Bob and Arnie (Arnie for a LONG stupid argument about how he REFUSES to admit that the dance audience might be getting bigger and the Broadway audience smaller) about the dance programs on Saturday and Sunday) to Art's shop at 1, talking to Joyce about her possible meeting with Psychic Ork or Orik Bolivar on West End Avenue. Leave about 1:30 and drive Art around to three or four places in the Village trying to get rid of lamps, but he doesn't, and we end up back at his place about 3:30, and I decide it's too late to get back home, so though my hair is a mess and my white shirt is wrinkled and my pants are dirty, I decide to buy a ham and cheese from next door for $2.25 and eat and go right to the Essex House. Stop in a tiny park on 24th and chat with an old lady about various things, then walk up to the hotel, getting in at 5:25, washing and shitting and pissing and drinking water, and at 5:35 start my phenomenal evening volunteer work for est. We can leave at 8, but they ask for volunteers for the logistics staff, and I volunteer and get put in the kitchen as "security" for the door back there. Had finished "The Dermis Probe" on the subway earlier and managed to finish "Thinkers of the East" between meditations, eating pretzels and frozen parfaits, and investigating all the costs of functions in the ballrooms (see DIARY 9978) and making copious notes about all that happened to me that evening (see DIARY 9973). The training is over at 2:05, I sign out at 3:20, get home about 4, eat two eggs and jot down some notes to ask Nyree about, and tumble into bed too tired to sleep at 5 am with the earplugs in and the phone unit on, taking about 10 minutes for the mind to simmer down enough to allow sleep.
DIARY 9979
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3. Wake surprised at 9 for something clunking upstairs, and Arnie calls about 10:30, so I only get about 5½ hours sleep. Talk to him about the dance over the weekend, saying that people would probably stay away because it was so expensive, and he says "But THAT'S not expensive," and I say "But YOU'RE not going because it's $6, and might go if it were $1," and he says "THAT'S not the point," and begins to really BLUSTER about it, and I just break up and say "We're having an argument just like we had yesterday," to which he retorts "NO WE'RE NOT!" and I just keep laughing and change the subject. Finish updating the restaurant list through 1974. Call Eddie at 11:30, but he'd gotten to bed at 8, so he says he'll call me back. I call him at 5, he's out, and he calls AGAIN last night! I phone Nyree with my list of questions, and she makes quite a different light on things (see DIARY 9980). She says that I should call Ruth and Evan and Wayne, but when I try twice, none of them are there, so I don't. Call Pope to tell HIM about it, and he calls at 3 to remind me of the TM lecture at noon, which I'd TOTALLY forgotten about, and he was there for a tape of the Maharishi, and he SAID he wasn't, but I get he WAS pissed that I wasn't there and he WAS! I was sorry to have missed it. He then watched his program and called back again at 4:15, while I took the interim to shower and wash my hair. About 2 pm I'd scraped the crap off the steak that had been stinking up the refrigerator and ATE it, and it didn't cause too much stomach upset last night, so I'll have the rest the following day. Then Paul Bosten called and seemed to be interested in it, and WE talked for about a half-hour while I got the steak ready, and he's looking forward to seeing me---and I him! Type three diary pages, but don't feel like getting into the previous evening, though I know TONIGHT will confuse things a bit, but water the plants and get things together and decide to LEAVE at 5:05, so if I get there WAY before 6, that's OK. In at 5:55 to find there IS no production crew tonight, and the evening goes quite a bit more smoothly than last night, though I'm still pissed (see DIARY 9981). They break at 1, just as I'd created, and I signed out at 2:10, for 8¼ hours, and got to the station to be ON the A train at 2:20, home at 2:45, smoke and popper and jerk off nicely, eating LOTS of toast and cream cheese and jelly until 3:45, bed TIRED.
DIARY 9986
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. Up about 10:30, again feeling tired. Meditate, think of exercising for about the fourth day that I don't do it afterward. Eat cereal about noon in preparation for an early dinner, then get down to typing the twelve pages that brings me though the past two evenings at est, and it seems that my LIFE recently has been involved in est: get up late, write about it, prepare for it, do it, get home to jerk off and fall asleep late. Work on the Center News for New Century from 2:15 to 3, calling Ron for questions and saying I'll bring it in this afternoon, and shower while frying up the last of the rotting steaks, eat it without seeming ill effect, and leave at 4:20, concerned that I really won't get there on time. Get to 440 Park almost exactly at 5, frustrating wait for all the elevators to stop on many floors on the way down with exiting people, and drop the stuff off on Ron's desk, poking my head into Tom's room to get the quick, "You growing a beard?" from Tom. Then hurriedly walk uptown, sweating in the warmth of the day, and get into the lobby of the Sheraton just at 5:30, to find Bill Kopiecki already functioning as a greeter who directs me up to the Skyline Room where almost everyone's there already. This is by far the most successful evening of volunteering, and things go very well (see DIARY 9987). Out at 11:55, signing out at 12 for 6½ hours, and again an AA train comes very quickly, and sit next to an amiable Spanish drunk who weaves down on the seat near me to say "I got a few drinks, you unnerstan?" and wants to get off at Jay and Boro Hall. I say he's on the right train. A neatly-dressed black stares at him coldly as he tries to see where he is, and again he weaves close to me, saying that people don't unnerstan him, but he asks forgiveness and offers thanks and I say "It's OK" and "You're welcome" at appropriate times. Home and debate what to eat, and scramble two eggs, then don't REALLY feel like smoking, and go through the TELEPHONE BOOK TO FIND WHAT'S THE FIRST NUMBER NOT USED (how's THAT for madness, and find that there's no 74, 94, 97, 102, and higher numbers, neither as "Seventy-four, Seven four, or seventy-fourth." Then smoke anyway and get nice and hard at times, but don't keep it, and keep drowsing off to sleep, finally conking out completely about 2 without having come, and I'm so tired it doesn't make any difference.
DIARY 9991
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. Up about 10, seeming to still need the sleep, and meditate late in the afternoon to bring to a crux what's been preying on my mind: the incredible amount of time I'm spending with est, preparing for it, sleeping because of it, and writing from it, and I phone est and talk to Wayne to tell him that I won't be coming in this evening. He insists that since I made an agreement, I have to be responsible and either go MYSELF or duplicate myself with someone else who's a graduate. That puts it as clearly as it can, and there's no use my being obstinate: I have to go. But it brings about a whole mess of thinking about my commitments and responsibilities (see DIARY 9992). Had watered the plants, eaten breakfast, typed five diary pages, and realized that I had to get money from the bank for the weekend. Down for the mail at 2 and find two registered slips from this morning, and they're not available until after 3. Quandary: want to get out early for groceries and watch the TV program from 3 to 4, but then I won't be able to pick up the packages. Finally solved by not watching the program except for the last half, from 3:30 to 3:50, and it's pretty bad anyway: "The Assyrian Rejuvenator" turned into a hoax that someone was pulling on gullible Britons on "The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes." And then they re-showed the Canadian cartoon "Evolution," such fun, afterwards while I finished eating the tuna fish that I decided to have for lunch with a big piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie that left a smirch on my tan dirty trousers so I had to change into the black for the evening. Read an article on Pope in "The Journal of Parapsychology" that he lent me, but much of the day was just batting my head against the wall (and LITERALLY slapping my own face during meditation just to try to get OUT of self-recrimination). Miserable day, though I made SOME advances---and the next day formed MANY resolutions (see DIARY 9996). Call Bob Grossman, who doesn't want to go to "Dancers," and Joe Farinas, who's busy today, and get out at 4:30 to pick up one ticket for each of the two performances of "Dancers," then down for a YUMMY walnut-chocolate sundae for $1.10 including tip), and then to Essex House at 5:45 for a painful/painless evening at the training (see DIARY 9993). Home at 12:30, have scrambled eggs, smoke, bidi, popper, and come, to sleep at 2:30.
DIARY 9997
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. Up about 10, feeling strangely sore in the muscles, and I seem to be getting some sort of cold sore---last night when I got home I found very soft white pimples aside my nose, and under my nose was something that felt like a pimple but which wouldn't squeeze like a pimple, Then this morning there was a scab under my nose, which later washed off when I was showering and washing my hair. Typed 6 pages, and again wanted to get to the index, but again don't feel like it, and settle down to read the ENTIRE book of "Be Here Now." The apartment is getting into sad shape: really should dust and vacuum, the bookcase pieces are still standing in the corner to be put up, I'm feeling guiltier and guiltier about not sending Bill his tape, and it's only during the day that I realize I won't be here at ALL next weekend, so I WILL have to get going on the index if I want to finish it even by its PROPER date of next Monday, let alone an EARLY date of THIS Monday. But I finish the book, get down for the mail and read through those things, finding lots of sex in one envelope, and then get into the shower to wash my hair after meditating about 5 pm, and Stephen Waite calls to give me his new phone number. I say that I'm going to be in his neighborhood, would it be OK if I came over, and he said yes. Ate hash, ignoring the fact that I have chicken AND hamburger in the refrigerator going bad, and even smoked before I left at 7:15. Into the crowded basement at 7:50 and get a side seat, wishing I'd brought my binoculars that I'd remembered only at the foot of the stairs, and sat through a very up-and-down set of 8 dances (see DIARY 9998). Out at 10:40 and walk up CPW with a typical cruising team: one or two DEVASTATING people who don't look at me, lots of uglies who do. To Steven's at 11, walking down the stairs to his living room after walking up onto the platform (that everyone shakes when they enter or leave the building) to his door, admiring his new red velvet couches before the enormous mantel of the fireplace, scooting around them to get to the kitchen and bathroom, and mix our stuff to smoke, get into a GREAT sex session with both of us very hard, except that I have to strain to get myself off, and he comes MAYBE twice, and I'm not sure, and he says that I can stay, so I had two beers and some mixed nuts and got to sleep about 3, easily in his small bed.