1975 6 of 8
DIARY 9999
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7. Wake about 9, then he wakes about 10 and I feel him to find that he's STILL got a hard-on, though one ball has slipped out of the cock ring. After a bit of playing, I slip him back IN gently, and he comes up hard enough to get ME excited, and he whacks me off without really LOOKING at it or enjoying it, and then he takes off after HIMSELF, coming with the little spurts that he usually does, and I guess HE jerks off a lot, too. He also has FILMS but not a projector, leading me to think (when he calls in the evening to apologize for not giving me peanuts before I left) of borrowing the projector from Pope and MAYBE getting him to offer HIS films, too! He's going to the 11 o'clock mass, I leave, reading fairly awful Roth, and get in with the Times at 11:30 to start working on a DIFFICULT crossword, and keep at it through the day, feeling AGAIN like a traitor to the things I have to do, and then get out at 1:50 for "Dancers" again, disappointed to find that it's largely the same program (see DIARY 10000 [THAT MAGIC NUMBER FOR THE FIRST TIME!!!]) [though I MAY just refer to DIARY 0000 after this since there could be NO confusion about pages 10,000 pages away, though if I ever start GRAND cross-references, of course, I'll have to use the five-digit numbers. For now, I guess, 4 will be good enough.] Out at 4:40 and decide that I DON'T want to see the ballet in CP tonight, and that's the first of an EXPANDED set of commitments that I made to myself (see DIARY 10001). Home to find FIVE messages waiting for me, the most yet, and call Wayne at est to talk to Drew and say I'm WORKING this weekend, so I can't volunteer for the SAME time, Eddie who wants to come over for poppers tomorrow, Joan who's going to have a party Friday after est, and we chat about 40 minutes about our respective problems with it, and then Paul Bosten, who sort of wants to come over (though he had a BALL at the Strap on Friday), Mom calls to say Grandma's in the hospital with a heart attack, and then get back to the Times and make chicken and find that Monty Python has moved to Thursday at 10---BOOO! Watch "The Iron Mask" with Douglas Fairbanks going through his typical thing (though not so athletically), COMBINING the three books of "Three Musketeers," Twenty Years After," and "Vicomte de Bragelonne." That's over at 1, and I don't want to jerk off, so I read "Gurdjieff, a Very Great Enigma," and LIKE IT A LOT, and get to bed about 2, falling asleep immediately!
DIARY 10002
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. Up about 9:30, feeling (if only) psychologically better for not having smoked last night, and meditate, water the plants, think about exercising but don't. Arnie calls to say that he HAS a job with AAA, and I type five pages to get the last two days into the diary. Finish reading the last few sections of the Times, and Eddie calls to get some grass, so he comes over about 11 and stays until about 12 with a friend of his, Kevin, from a farm in Nebraska or somewhere, and they smoke some of my grass, Eddie takes the three records, two books, and set of Greece calendar art, and he has some cookies and milk before he goes. I had breakfast and then spent a long time getting all the dried leaves off the pot, and then down for the mail, which takes a long time with the merchandise contest to enter, the Bahamas mail to look through, and the New York to scan. It seems that the time just GOES! Get down, at LAST, to the pathology index from 3 to 5:30, reading about 150 pages by then---now I notice that that's EXACTLY one page per minute! Then put the rest of the chicken on to cook, call Mom about Grandma (see DIARY 10004), eat dinner, shower, brush my teeth, and John Woods calls that HE wants some popper fluid, and I go downstairs to meet him at 6:50, and he says he's sending someone ELSE over for some, and meets ANOTHER friend on the street; that's the way to live in the Heights! Subway to the Hellinger, reading "The Only Dance There Is" and getting hung up on the style of Baba Ram Dass, and get there at 7:15, chat with Arnie (who finally says the beard's beginning to look good) and her until we go in for a terrible play "The Sin(HA) of our Teeth" (see DIARY 10003). Out at 10:10 and walk to Norma's car, chatting about my commitment insights with est, and Bob Grossman's sister had left before the third act and HE leaves at the 8th Avenue subway. We drive home and chat with Arnie about his leaving tomorrow morning for DC, and I get home at 11 to get a message from Pope and settle down immediately to do ANOTHER third of the pathology index, up to page 300, from 11 to 1:30, and then I'm tired enough to go to bed and get to sleep with only about 5 minutes of tossing around, but I'm so tired that barely a THOUGHT of smoking or coming crosses my mind. That's precisely exactly the way it should ALWAYS be for me!
DIARY 10006
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. Out of bed at 9, as noted on DIARY 10005, at the bottom, and finally get down to what I think of as work at 11, as noted, but then decide to trace Cathy Harlin through Daisy Roach, and do so through IBM's locator service and talk to her for awhile, and even leave a note with Madge Meyer. By the time that's all finished and I've checked through Cue to see that Thwaite's is the only restaurant on City Island that advertised in the restaurant issue, it's 12:20 and I get down to doing the last pages of the pathology index from 12:20 to 3:30---also decided to have breakfast in there, too. Pope calls and chats for about 10 minutes, and then I shower and wash my hair for the long est stretch and get back to the first set of typing from 4 to 4:30, broken and extended by putting the hamburger into the broiler because I don't have any pans left, and I actually have to eat dinner off two saucers because there are no dishes of EITHER larger size left. Another time when I'll have to wash dishes in TWO shifts to fit them all in. Spend more time on the grass-drying, too, letting it go slowly so that it doesn't get so dry, and I've sort of fixed up the place since I'm not likely to REALLY clean it before next week---provided Grandma doesn't die and throw my WHOLE schedule out. Then get out at 5:15 for the Holiday Inn Coliseum, and the subways go very quickly and I'm there at 5:45, walking through my old neighborhood to find that there's a restaurant in the old cleaners next door, and Evan's in charge of the evening, so it does rather well (see DIARY 10007) until 11:45, when we leave, and I walk Philip to the subway, chatting about our common "Be Here Now" seminar, but when we part, he says he'll see me tomorrow night in the seminar, so we're NOT in the same one. I guess the first time I saw him was in my FIRST post-training seminar. Home, still cringing while reading "The Only Dance There Is," (and I have nothing to read at meals so I'm trying to get through "The Great American Novel" THAT way), and find there are three messages on the phone with no one there, and fear that something's happened to Grandma. Call Art and he's still not sure about Thursday's meal, and we talk for about 20 minutes about my grandma and his and Arnie's possible jobs, and then I scramble two eggs and get to bed at 1:20, tossing a bit until 1:30 when I get to sleep AGAIN without grass or come.
DIARY 10009
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10. Wake early but go back to sleep and get out of bed at 8:30, meditate and exercise, water the plants, and manage to finish everything in only an hour and a half and get back to typing index cards at 10, getting over halfway through by 11:15, when I have a total of 402 cards, somewhat more than 1.5 per page, and it looks like it'll be OK for the 30-35 pages that they want. Then shower, in case I decide to stay in town ALL the time, and get out what appears to be too late, getting a call from Arnie and then a plant from Mrs. Johnson just at 11:35, but the subway is right there and I dash into the intermediate TM lecture even a bit EARLY, which feels good, and I read a bit more Ram Dass before they start at 12:05 with only 20 people there, the smallest group yet AFTER they've moved to the larger room! The lecture's pretty good (see DIARY 10010), but I leave before it's over at 1:20 and JUST get into Rosalind's office precisely at 1:30, and she asks me if I'm accurate, and for some reason I say that I'm ACCURATE but I'm DISHONEST, working fewer hours than I say I do, and she insists that I must be HONEST to the quarter of an hour, and can't work for ANYONE I contact through her. But she wants a COMPLETE list of people I've worked for and puts me down for any job at $6/hour or over, and she wants to see an index WITH the source document! Oh, boy, but I decide she can see "Energy Facts I" and the Hematology Decennial on Friday. That's over at 2, and see someone else who looks like HE'S going there, and I walk over to Times Square to see NO good movies playing, so I come HOME and have a message from Madge, to whom I talk for about a half-hour, her daughter's having a birthday party, maybe, on the 20th and they've JUST moved into a new house: I ALWAYS call when something's happened! Then, aha, wash the dishes for the first time in ages, and that takes me to the time that I have to leave for the Commodore Hotel, getting out at 5:10, KNOWING that I'll be late, and I am, barely, at 5:33, but sign in at 5:30 and get Chris Gore AGAIN! The evening's VERY INTERESTING, turning me OFF (see DIARY 10011), and get back at 12:30 to have FOUR people called: Walter Rowena from Quality Technical Services, Art, Rolf, and no answer, and Art doesn't answer at 12:40, and I have some cream cheese and jelly on toast and AGAIN get to bed at 1:30, BUT I decide to come, and do so quite nicely, VERY hard and up-balled, without drinking or grass.
DIARY 10013
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11. Up at 8:30, feeling somewhat weakened from the come last night---so maybe it's not the booze or the grass, it's the ORGASMS that string me out. That awful thing under my nose is still acting up, and my HIP-JOINTS are sore. But I meditate and exercise and call Art, who tells me that he had to cancel out of tonight, which is nice because now I can watch the TV I wanted to watch, and he's going to audition for Gypsy's late in the evening. Arnie calls and talks for a LONG time about someone from TDI he didn't recognize on the street, and I say I have to get to work. I start working at 11:10, and finish the typing sometimes in the middle of the day and start on the editing. Then Bob Grossman calls about 12:30 and talks about various things, mainly using the subscription things that Arnie's gotten them from the Public Theater, and then Paul Bosten calls for about 15 minutes with arrangements for tomorrow night, and then Arnie calls again, and Pope calls and invites me over for Scrabble, and I say that I want to watch TV, and then HE calls back to say that he wants to watch too, but that we can play around it. I work STRAIGHT through to 6:40, having hoped to finish the editing, but haven't, but make dinner of sausage and shower and eat it, and then call Rolf through the day, and then Michael calls to tell me about his trip to Hawaii, and I get to Arnie's to give him his records back and his mung beans and get some alfalfa seeds to sprout in return, and then over to Pope's at 8 to start a game, get off at 8:30 to watch the premiere of a new series called "On the Rocks," and then I win all three games, even while taking time off to watch a boring Monty Python from 10 to 10:30, and we talk about est and esp and alphaphones and biorhythm, and he lends me a little machine. Leave at 12:15 and get back to fuss with the machine, getting out my book and checking my calendar, and in general goofing around until about 1:30. I'd eaten popcorn at his place and had some toast and cookies before getting to bed tonight, and I feel like everything's cycling around tomorrow, and there probably won't even be enough time to do everything I want to do, but at least I'll be ready for the WEEKEND (see DIARY 10014).
DIARY 10015
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12. Up at 9, go through the regular fusses of the morning, and get down to the last little pieces of editing at 11:05, and start typing about 11:30, and it goes a bit slower than I'd hoped, so that I'm about half done at 1:30, and there have been some minutes taken out with phone calls, and it becomes clear that I won't be able to finish the index AND get the supplemental sheet for my resume typed to take to Rosalind, so I stop for lunch and do some more telephoning, and Joann says they're not working on Monday, a Jewish holiday, so I can bring it in on Tuesday, and that the length of the index is fine at 40 pages---she just didn't want 53 pages, as someone else once brought in. I get back at 2:45, but it occurs to me that I have a lot of OTHER things that I'd rather do, like type up the rest of the diary pages so that I'll have a clear sheet for the busy weekend, so I stop at 3 somewhere in the Ls, having worked only 2.75 hours today, and water the plants and get out for groceries, and then talk to Paul who says that he'd be GLAD to come here to dinner, and I'm glad that I'd bought the pork butt, since that's easy to do, and then I shower and wash my hair and fuss over the sore at the top of my upper lip under my nose, slightly worried about a pain in my hip, which then vanishes for the weekend, thankfully, and I get the butt into the oven at 5 and get down to typing, not nearly finished when he comes in at 5:30, so I sit him down to read the est articles and finish typing the six pages at 6, not actually finishing the last of them, DIARY 10014. Then warm up the corn, set the table, he's drinking wine and I'm staying with water, and we talk mainly about his troubles with Jim through dinner, and I'm trying to push him and he's saying it's not going to take long, but when we leave at 6:50 we're only PARKING at 7:15, so we get a confront outside the room and get in AFTER the guests have left, so he's not in the seminar room at all. But the BE HERE NOW #6 is the best one so far (see DIARY 10016), and again I'm very up on est. Paul's waiting for me outside at 10:30, and he didn't like it, and he's willing to drive me home, so we stop in at the Shady Lady from 11 to 1, he again talking about Jim (see DIARY 10019), and I'm in to bed to not be able to sleep, so I jerk off quickly and nicely till 1:30 and zonk out.
DIARY 10020
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13. [Bad page, REALLY counts as Saturday Training Assisting] The alarm goes off at 5 and I get out of bed before I can feel badly, only sad about the TOTAL darkness outside. Scramble some eggs for breakfast and water the plants and leave at 5:30, on a subwayful of blacks going to maintenance work, and get to the hotel at 6:15, between Michael's 6 and MY 6:30. Nyree assigns me to help David put up the chairs, and that starts VERY badly: he's not SURE how to line them up, starting with the side rows LUDICROUSLY close, thinking there's one side row for each center row, then figures how to offset them so that there's the same space BETWEEN the rows as in the center, using a CHAIR as a spacer. He asks James if he can use string, and James gets VERY angry at the thought of using string and forbids it: "String is the invention of the devil!" Try to help, get in the way, get angry, David gets annoyed, Evan gets annoyed, James starts shouting at everyone, saying we're slow, and finally I tell David that I'll line up ANYTHING behind ANYTHING that he sets up, and it finally gets going. Then we have a meeting and everyone says that it went poorly, but it'll go better the next day, and they're looking forward to a dynamite training. I was supposed to get down at 8:15, but get down at 8:30 for greeting to 9:30, Ruthie at top of escalator, Mary in back. I'm put in CHARGE of the production team with Ruthie Ingrisono, a marvelously ditzy redhead from Brooklyn, and Mary Gillis, a short quiet actress who comes more and more alive as we work together. Ron Bynum is the trainer, James is the training supervisor, Nyree is the assistant training supervisor, with me and my two-people team reporting to her, and James has Lesley and Philip and Michael Purman and Michael Blackburn and Evan and David and plain Jane as logistics coordinator. And Michael Rosenbaum---no, he's the training supervisor, and I guess James works under HIM. Anyway, the people start gathering, and we sit around outside with the discarded "rockers" (chairs with leg supports missing that make them rock), and Nyree says that we should hang loose, and then sends us down for breakfast about 9:45. The prices in the coffee shop are ludicrous, from 50¢ for coffee to $1 for a danish, so I get a half-melon for $1.60, at least VAGUELY worth it, and bring stuff up for them. Then Nyree's out and gives me receipts and $10 for taxi fares and the instructions
DIARY 10026
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14. [NOTES IN THE BACK OF "THE ONLY DANCE THERE IS"] 7:15 am 9/14: ALARM yesterday at 5 am, in at 6:15, out at 4, home at 4:45, listen to 4 messages to 4:50 and bed at 5:03, OVER 24 hours in one day! SET alarm for 6:30 and WAKE then, feeling SURPRISINGLY UNBAD---probably in a state of SHOCK. Pack $20, a new book to read, a comb, lip balm, and this book, using a red turtleneck to try to get away from the chafing of my neck from the yellow corduroy yesterday. The people (if they have EYES, and of COURSE I'm looking at it from the wrong point of view) should FLIP to realize that I GREETED them yesterday, said GOODBYE to them this morning, will GREET them this morning, and will give them their APHORISM book as their LAST touch tonight. Down into subway at 7:14 and meet the crowd from a city-fleeing train, and five minutes later ANOTHER one (2 and 3, probably) passes, and I start worrying about being LATE, something that HARDLY seemed possible after I showered, ate, watered plants, dressed, and packed and left EXACTLY at 7 this AM. Yesterday, was an INCREDIBLE roller coaster, from the bracketing LOWS of "suggesting" the chairs be laid out well FIRST rather than laid and moved and moved and moved in the AM to the ABSURD bit of counting the dots again and again in the early morning to make SURE they're right. But the graduation WILL work rather nicely because of it. But the HIGHS of working with Mary and Ruthie and Myra and Phyllis and even Ann and PD on the fruit and vegetables, taxiing back, and forth" and the train came and I got there at 7:45 almost exactly. [Now I'll be careful and NOT do with today what I did with YESTERDAY.] (see DIARY 10027) Don't care for breakfast break, stop only for a sandwich just before 7 pm just to keep up physicality, getting closer to Mary all day, incredible scenes with Ruthie, finding that Michael does Rolfing, fantastic scenes with Nyree and James, setting up the chairs with Mary and then ALONE, writing notes during the aloneness, taking over a Personality Profile seminar, listening to the crotchy Ron after it's all over at 4 am, putting the name tags in order, leaving at 6 am and getting home IN THE LIGHT to have two quick eggs and get to bed at 7:15 am! Putting in earplugs, putting off the phone ring and on the machine, and going to bed to let my BODY see when I'm going to get up, and not BEFORE!
DIARY 10037
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15. Wake at 1:15, rather surprised that I just needed 4 hours sleep, but there it is, weigh myself between 143 and 144 lbs, lowest in ages, and I get up to have a couple of eggs and start looking through the Times. Get hung up on the crossword, but it isn't easy and I can't even get INTO the double crostic, so I plug away for awhile and then just simply set it aside. Almost finished reading the paper when I suddenly remember there was a movie I wanted to watch at 4 and it's 4:25. "Secret Ceremony" is pretty awful, with Mia Farrow the mad adopted daughter of Elizabeth Taylor, who's rather mad herself, and it just seems an excuse to show VERY luxurious surroundings and VERY unhappy people. Then don't feel like moving from the TV set at 6, so I watch "Star Trek," and it's the beginning of a double feature that I don't even bother to watch the end of on Tuesday. Then pull myself away at 7 to put dinner on, put some things away, talk to a few people on the phone, and then watch a program about Charles Ives that really doesn't say very much, just touting Slonimsky and his early concerts of Ives' music. He still doesn't sound very interesting to listen to a lot of---orderly cacophony. Start dropping off to sleep and almost do so, but there are a few more phone calls: Pope and Bob Grossman and Paul Bosten. I've been feeling somewhat tired through the day, and don't really have the energy to exercise, though I might have had the courage to try a SECOND meditation to get really into the swing of it. Apartment loaded with things to do, and I don't even finish working on the index, knowing that I'll have enough time to do that tomorrow, and find myself finally at 12:30, amazed that I've stayed up this long, and get out the electric blanket which I don't hook up, but it's gotten so chilly it seems clear that we're into fall. The leaves on the grass are dropping faster than they're growing, it's more cloudy than sunny lately, and the tacky humidity has been replaced by the chilling humidity of early fall. Which doesn't officially start until NEXT Sunday, but it's obviously here already. Too tired to even debate about smoking or coming, and again put in the earplugs to give myself a chance to sleep as long as I'd like to make up for the tremendous LACK of sleep over the weekend.
DIARY 10038
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. Up at 8:30, better from 8 hours sleep, and meditate and get to the end of the index typing from 9:10 to 11:40, calling Rosalind and leaving a message, than going through the list of companies that I've done indexing and editing for for her, and pack the briefcase with the galleys and index for the Pathology book, books to read, Energy Facts for Rosalind with the resume supplement, and various addresses. Called Tom and said I'd be there at 12:30, but when it gets to be 12 and I've not yet dried my hair, I call to say I'll be a bit late. Out and meet him at 12:45, and he's on a diet of two glasses of wine for lunch, so I suggest the Brew Burger, and we're there to have a long talk about est and the nature of reality and delusion, and he wants to know why I talk to him, and we get into a long series of conversations (see DIARY 10039). Back to the office at 2:30 and call Rosalind, but it seems she's decided not to accept me, because she refuses to see me, saying that I should xerox a couple index pages and a couple of ms pages and leave it with the starter. I do that and then get up to ACC at 3:15 to give the Pathology index to Joann, and stop by Berta to tell her I've given her name as a reference, and she says the authors have looked through the Obstetrics index and are VERY pleased with it, having to add a very little information to satisfy them, and she'll be in touch for more work. Great! Back to find a message from Art, and he wants to do the birthday dinner tonight, so I call Arnie for New York Magazine information, and when he's not there call New York and talk to someone who SOUNDS like Mimi Sheraton, who says that the Captain's Table is the best and cheapest, but hurried; Seafare of the Aegean is best and expensive, and Ann's Harbor Bar best on City Island, but don't forget the OYSTER BAR in Grand Central. Art loves it, so we meet there at 8:30 for a GREAT dinner (see DIARY 10040) and to his place at 11 to smoke and drink some Cynar and have some cheesecake, and then watch "Five Graves to Cairo" with the marking from the German depots the five letters of the map-name Egypt, clever, but not clever enough to keep us watching, so we turn it off about 1, have sex until 1:30, both bring each other off ourselves, both coming LOTS, and he even asks the next AM if I'd come much, and I say no. VERY tired to sleep at 2.
DIARY 10041
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. Don't recall NOW what day it was, probably Monday, but since I'd forgotten it then, I'll do it now. since I'm not typing currently, I jot down a card of notes that I want to get to eventually, and that includes (1) boundary-pushing (see DIARY 10042), (2) vocabulary building with est (see DIARY 10043), and (3) and incredible dream of a South American mountain with buildings clinging to its sides (see DIARY 10044). Wake about 9 to find Art already up, and we sit around and chat for a bit, and I debate waiting around and going up to the Wentworth, but figure I'll just spend a lot of the day on the subway. Finish "The Only Dance There Is" on the way home, and it's quite a book (see DIARY 10045). Home about 10:15 to meditate and exercise and listen to a lot of messages from someone who keeps hanging up, and I guess it's from Byron Nelson who's only home in the evenings when I'm NOT home. Call Pope to see if he'd like to join me, and we talk for a long time until I realize that it's 11:33 and I have to LEAVE, and get out to the Wentworth for an introduction to SCI (see DIARY 10046) which almost lures me into TAKING it before I think AGAIN and decide to just leave it GO. Back down to 42nd Street to see if there's nothing I can spend my time on there, but there isn't, so I subway home AGAIN (I thank god for the pennies) and debate typing, washing the dishes, taping to Bill, and end up mainly talking on the telephone with Rolf, who's found a new book published by Heidegger, and three or four people from est, who are AGAIN driving me up a tree, insisting that I have to come into the OFFICE to fill out an assistant's card, and that's not on my SCHEDULE and why don't they do it over the phone?? Volunteer for tomorrow's post-training, too, just to complete my transaction with September C (and see Ron and Art's Mary JO GILLIS) (?) and Michael again). Meditate a SECOND time to keep up with that and decide to wear a red pullover and get out at 5 for the middle session of the post-training commitment, and it's lousier than all the others (see DIARY 10047), not even having a meeting after, which permits us to leave at 11:35, and I'm disgusted enough when I get home to fry up the SECOND batch of rotting bacon that I had the FIRST batch of for lunch today, just to get RID of the stench of my farts from it all at once, and it DOES taste good, and then I drink white wine and smoke and jerk off FABULOUSLY, WITHOUT TOUCHING THE BACK OF IT, and gorge myself on food, bed at 2:50.
DIARY 10048
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18. Up just after 10, feeling that the whole morning's gone, and call Pope after setting things up for the day, but I'm meditating at 11:20 and exercising until noon---and a lot of time has been taken getting all the dried grass leaves off the plants, since this seems to be the fall season for them and they're definitely yielding faster than they're growing. Again talk to various people during the day: saying goodbye to Arnie, since he's leaving tomorrow; commiserating with Bob Grossman, who went to bed with someone Saturday who had a cold, and he's now got it, and he wants me to ask Paul Bosten if he can have a job in a box office somewhere. Then yesterday Lauren Rubin called to say that her name has been changed to Lauren Barr, and that she gave my name to Sheldon Czapnick for rewriting for Prentice-Hall, and HE calls today to say that I have an appointment with him tomorrow at 3; and I call Bob Rosinek and talk about things, and Joyce called yesterday saying that someone said "Congratulations, you just signed up for est," and she and I hadn't TOLD anyone she was signing up, and I finally called John Woods (who called back on machine) to say that I haven't been home, and he said TWO people have been trying to get in touch with me for poppers. And James called to make sure I'm getting there, though he didn't like my getting there at 6. Type throughout the entire day, getting 18 pages done in all, though I've only succeeded in typing less than three days (Friday, Saturday, and not all of Sunday). Debate starting a worksheet of the number of hours that I TYPE, but figure it would be too much interrupted with telephone calls. Out at 5:30, going the wrong way and taking the subway back, but it comes quite quickly and I'm there at 5:55, and James gives me post 3, which means I have a microphone during the evening! Feel pretty good during it, though there's lots of bullshit, too, but it's a good wrap-up of the whole September C training (see DIARY 10049). Sign out at 12:05 and get home, and again I feel like jerking off, and I have ungodly quantities of cookies and butter and the last of the cream cheese, and jerk off AGAIN very feelingly, getting VERY hard and having a GREAT time writhing around on the bed before spasming and coming, and am so strung out from the grass that I put the poppers back in the FRIDGE, not freezer! To sleep about 2:30, again moaning that I'm getting into bad habits.
DIARY 10050
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19. Up at 10 again, and it's a REAL pain to exercise after the meditation (which still seems to be dealing with CURRENT stresses, not getting back to the good DEEP feeling I'd had at the start), and I have cereal for breakfast and AGAIN it's 2 hours before I'm ready to get to anything. Down to typing and can only get through 12 pages before it's 2:30. Had debated eating the last of the rotting steaks for lunch, but don't feel hungry, so I just leave and get to Prentice-Hall at 3 (forgetting to call Rosalind and pick up Energy Facts), meeting Sheldon Czapnik and getting the information for my writing test, for which I get $50 whether they like it or not, and he says I knew what questions to ask, so I MIGHT actually be working on it. Walk down to the main library at 4 and down to the Science and Technology library to skim through Don O'Shea's old recommendation of "The Nature of the Chemical Bond" (see DIARY 10051) and find that I want to BUY a copy of "Spacetime Physics" because it looks so good and Wheelery. Then look up the addresses of W.H. Freeman and Rolfing Feldenkrais, but can't find the translation to see if it's "teaching circle" or something, only that Feld is Field. By then it's 6, the xeroxing is closed so I can't copy the story "Fessenden's Worlds," and I get out to Tad's for a smallish $2.19 steak with the well-remembered garlicky roll and oily salad, and it's not the worst meal in the world. Then to the Commodore at 6:45 to read for a bit in the lobby, then in to sit rather bumpishly until things get rolling, and then I start communicating with people and having a somewhat better time. Share a lot, too (see DIARY 10052). Out at 10:25 and get home just before 11 to try Byron Nelson's number for about the dozenth time, still getting no answer, and call Mary Jo Gillis and talk from 11 to 11:30, very nicely, and then call Marty and talk from 11:30 to 12:30, and he's got LOTS to say and is doing LOTS and we compare LOTS of notes (see DIARY 10053) and THEN I make two scrambled eggs and drink lots of wine and smoke lots of grass and get out lots of porno---and lose my erection and feel very sleepy, so I just throw everything aside about 1:30 and drop off to sleep without coming---and not even EATING that much, for a miracle, once.
DIARY 10054
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20. Wake about 9 and go through the normal routine, typing nine pages to catch totally up to date with the diary and keeping the series of pages typed for the last three days constant at 2/3 the pages of the day before---boosted to produce a good 2/3 for the next day, namely 18, 12, and 9 instead of 8 (which isn't amenable to 2/3ing). [So today I should do 6, and NOW I haven't the foggiest idea on what, but I'm sure it'll come. Tomorrow will be easier with four.] Get down for the mail expecting lots of goodies, but still only the constant influx of Travel Agent Magazine and Soho Weekly News, and I'm not missing the Village Voice AT ALL. John comes over to mention that we're leaving very early on Saturday, and that the Harms's might join us for a few nights. Then I get to thinking of the gifts that I have to buy at about 11:30, and decide I MUST go out and shop, so I take $60 and go to Abraham and Strauss and look for the jewelry department in the women's wear section, and find two necklaces that should do well for Betsy Griswold at $11 apiece: a jade leaf on a chain and a string of agate stones separated by brass beads, both very "natural" looking. Then up to the children's department and pass by all the clothes and come to the stuffed-animal department, and finally settle on a rather cute pooh-bear with a yellow up-brimmed hat and a blue jacket and neat button eyes, for $9.72 with tax. Feel great about that, and shop around to see if I can pick up any books, but they don't have any, so I get three new Gurdjieff books at the Penny Palace, or whatever, and then walk down to see the AWFUL hokum of the Grace Court Fair, prompted by seeing a kid with a balloon that they're selling for 35¢. By this time it's 2, and I get back to various phone calls and Stephen calls to come over tonight, and I go over to borrow Pope's projector at 5, and then shower and dress and get out just after 6:30 for Madge's Michele's birthday party at the Lotus Eaters Park at 7:10, and quite an evening THAT is (see DIARY 10055)! Leave at 9:45 and call Stephen, and he says he'll be there in about 45 minutes, and I get home about 10:30 and buy red wine and the Times, and he says he's been ringing for 15 minutes when he gets in at 10:50. We smoke and have GREAT sex (see DIARY 10056) and he leaves the films, I get to bed at 2.
DIARY 10057
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. Wake at 9:30 and decide to see the rest of the films, and there's the duo that I'd seen so many years before from Eddie (and I call him right now and he's disconnected his phone!), and I get VERY hot despite last night's orgasm, and I keep working at it and finally come with a GREAT shot that's VERY fluid---in fact, that's AFTER I stop and watch the cartoons from Warner Brothers from 11 to 11:30, and when I come out, it's about 12:30. Read the Times and work the rather difficult puzzle by about 3, and then meditate and exercise, and call Pope to ask to return the camera, and he says he'd like to see the films---and then Rolf calls and wanted to see the films TOO, but he has no projector. So I go over about 3:30 and he watches the three straight ones and THEN the lamp burns out, which is good since I'd have felt guilty if I'd done it. He gives me a new Biomate in place of the used one (though the used one worked better for MY date), and the Psychology Today article about Sufism that I read right when I get home at 4:30. Then call Rolf about 5 and tell him about the TV show that I want to watch at 6:30, and read the last of the "Secret of the Golden Flower" (sorry, that's between 11 and 11:30), and when he comes and tries to buzz the buzzer, it doesn't WORK! So he has to go to the corner to phone and I have to come let him in. He comes in and we watch "Space-1999" which has great special effects and a confused plot line, and then I turn to the end of "Swiss Family Robinson" and it's dreadful, and I've eaten the LAST of the rotting steak while watching with him, and I'm embarrassed about the smell. He gets hooked into the "Bad and the Beautiful" and then it turns out that my PHONE isn't on a plug, which is what he wanted to test his black box on, so he can't do it, and then he watches a program about the CIA from 9 to 10:20, and meanwhile I go to the desk to get out four letters and bills, call Joan and talk about the downfall of est, Cathy calls and we talk about India and Tahiti and future jobs for her (and Polly's getting married and Kirsten's not there anymore and Marcos is still mailboy), and then Rolf leaves, I finish the book, and watch "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black" from 11:30 to 12:30, watch end of "Curse of the Cat People" till 1:30, strange with Simone Simon "haunting" a little girl as Irina, and look a bit at Butterfly McQueen on Joe Franklin, and then I'm tired enough to go to sleep at 2 without smoking or without coming, even though I DID have wine for dinner.
DIARY 10058
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22. Up at 10 and through the usual two-hour ritual, feeling very WEAK for the exercising, and after finishing breakfast and talking to Pope for the last time, and getting a call from Ed Wochinsky after calling Norma and having to call her back about "Treemonisha," I decided that THIS was the day that I would record the tape to Bill, so I sat down at noon to listen to the first side, fussed around a bit with the reel, and finished rewinding and started recording the first at 1:20, giving a description of what I was going to talk about: Madge's dinner, Grandma's sickness, my work in rewriting and indexing, my beard, our good positions of nonworking, Sufism, Ram Dass, and est. Listening to his tapes, I talked to him about his catharsis with Todd, his erecting the wall under his barn and house, his buying the lot in Linneaus, recommending that the "town misfits" use the PHONE before seeing him, saying that MANY FORCES may be operating within, but that the RESULTANT can be ascribed as INDEPENDENTLY moving the object from point A to point B; that John and I saw eye to eye in hiking, intellectual, emotional, and OTHER things BESIDE sex, but that sex WAS of prime importance to me; remarked about his many ways of consuming his seed, and said that I hoped our "lack of shared vocabulary" didn't hinder our talking about Gurdjieff or est or Sufism in the future. At the end, I went through sections of "Tibetan Yoga," "The Only Dance There Is," and "Gurdjieff, A Very Great Enigma" with him, and finished with the whole thing AFTER finishing up the ham for dinner at 10 pm. During the playing of the tape I ACTUALLY also put up the bookcase and put most of the travel booklet-holders onto the shelves, and then I took to typing the two diary pages before 11, interrupting by calling Paul and hearing about his weekend in awful Buffalo, and then meditated at 11:30, worked on the bookshelves until 12:30, drank the last of the white wine and smoked and bidied and poppered to orgasm about 1:30, then gorged myself on two English muffins while waiting for five biscuits to bake, and ate all THOSE, almost finishing up a quarter pound of butter in the meantime, and got to bed at 2 feeling entirely STUFFED with food and exhausted from orgasm and tired of talking on tape!
DIARY 10059
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23. Up at 10 again---this has got to stop, and don't even have breakfast and still it takes about 2 hours---and not much water to put in, since I fertilized the plants yesterday. Type the one diary page that gets me up to date, wrap Bill's tape and get the laundry together to take out, but the weather is so bad I end up not going down at ALL until the time I leave at 6:45 for Michael Blackburn's. Bob Grossman calls at 11:30 and talks till 12, having signed for his LAST unemployment check yesterday and feeling very depressed about it. Then finally get to reading the stuff for the Sociology test, from 1:15 to 2, until Art calls and says how WET it is in the country, and then from 2:20 to 5:10, for a total of three hours, broken by est and Joyce calling, and then 30 minutes talking to Karen about est, and SHE'LL join me on Friday for the guest seminar! Then put on hamburger to fry and meditate during, a poor thing since I have to get up after 15 minutes and turn the meat, but at least I'm finally into two meditations per day. Call Stephen just before I leave, and he says he's going out, but I might try calling him later, and then shower and wash my hair and get out on the wet pavement to the A train and a slow trip to 239 CPW at JUST 7:30, and the room is filling with BEAUTIFUL boys and some girls, and it's QUITE a seminar by Leonard Orr on MONEY (see DIARY 10060). It goes from 7:35 to 11:45, and then I talk with Eve Kaufman about Actualizations with Stuart Emery, and I'll probably be taking THAT, and then try calling Stephen but he isn't home. Leave at 12:30, wondering how I'll get out of the est commitment for tomorrow night to come back, and walk down to 80th and call from there to find he's just gone to bed. "Would you be very disappointed if I said no, I'm very tired," he said. "No," I lied, "but what if I just came over and we slept?" "OK," he possibly lied, though I asked again to make sure it didn't bother him; and I went up. We chatted a bit, he apologized for not have any beer, I took off my wet clothes and hung them around the banister, and we went to bed to listen to the rain outside, after he made sure I had two pillows and a blanket to my taste, and finally about 1:30 or 1:45 I rolled over and went to sleep, and he later said HE had some trouble getting to sleep, too. That's what he GETS!
DIARY 10069
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24. Wake about 9 when he does, and cuddle a bit wordlessly and then he's still hard, even with the cock ring off, and I go down on him and find that he's not the least bit reciprocal, but he manages to come off in my mouth, and then we're up and I'm out so quickly I forget to take him up on his offer for peanuts, and he actually calls me at home to apologize about that. Sweet fellow. Home about 10:30, meditate and exercise, and then, after breakfast, decide that I have to find a replacement for me tonight at est, since I want to return to Leonard Orr's seminar. Call Joan, and she's busy with the play, but she gives me the names and numbers of Tony Scully (whom she FINALLY finds, she tells me TODAY, is gay), Terese, Penny Wright, who has me also try her sister, Elizabeth, Peter Brown, but all of those say no and I'm really hassled, so I try Michael Blackburn, but he's going to his NEW place, whose phone I forget I don't have, so I don't get it. Also try Mary Jo, A. Berlin that I assume is Ann, and finally get to Myra Somer, and she's hating her 12 hours due in the OFFICE, and when I'm working on the files, INSISTING on getting them off the floor, I figure that she'd do it TONIGHT if I'd take her 12 hours, and sure enough she DOES, and we exchange "I love you's" and I can get to typing the 10 pages of notes from LAST night to clear the decks for TONIGHT. Tried Ruthie, too, but for most of those there was no answer. Then shower and have dinner and get out at 6:45 to Michael's apartment, and he'd thought he'd GIVEN me his new phone numbers, but was glad to hear I'd gotten help anyway. The session didn't get underway until 7:48, though the people here were even CUTER than last time, and I even got some names (see DIARY 10070), and was rather appalled to find that it wasn't over until something like 12:48, or 5 full hours. I'd also remarked about making a book out of the money seminar, and we got to talking and I might be going out to CALIFORNIA (see DIARY 10077)!! Out with my head spinning at 12:45, having also given my name to Bruce Lieber for editing work, knowing that he's friendly with the two cuties who rode up in the elevator and eyed me and who are probably gay, hoping to get INTO that crowd somehow OUTSIDE the seminar group---and maybe into BED. Maybe to sleep without jerking off, but I don't actually remember.
DIARY 10078
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25. Since this is being written two weeks later, I have no clear idea what went on today: know that I knocked on Mrs. Johnson's door to tell her to look after my plants, she said she'd come up that evening and didn't until noon of the next day, when I could give her my mailbox key too, and she said that my plants were GROSSLY over-watered. Then I finally got my laundry out to the cleaners, though I seemed to have something close to eight pounds of stuff LEFT to do [and the next time I took out laundry, Friday October 12, I STILL had a goodly load left in the hamper after I took the laundry out]. Then got the rest of the stuff off the floor and made up a list of things I had to do before I left on the trip, and only at 4:50 did I get back to working on the Sociology test, working to 5:30, and then I got back to it at 6:15 and worked through till 9, with a 15-minute interruption while Lois Cohen called, wherein I took the following conversational note: "Whap. Whap. Whap." "I play tushe [toosh]." "Hey, he just whapped my fanny." "Is that base tushe or alto tushe?" "Base tushe." "Ask if he knows Ben Harms; he plays lead Tushe for the City Center." He didn't. Then I'd called Paul Bosten, who wanted to come over this evening, and when he called about 9 I figured, having gotten through the first part of the work for ONE section, and figuring I could get through the REST of it on time, said that he could come over. Had dinner and worked from 9:30 to 9:40, when he rang the reluctant bell downstairs, and I'd showered and eaten and turned on the oven to make the place hotter, and we sat and talked, and then smoked and he had some wine and we got right down to the usual sex: he gets VERY hard and keep gasping and working on me, and his hardness excites me very much so I get very hard, which makes him harder, and we work away on each other until he can't stand it anymore, shaking his head and screwing up his face and batting about with his hands, and then comes with a MARVELOUS flow of come, and I let him work on me, which he does, and we end up TOTALLY floored, listening to the end of the music, not worrying about the cold at ALL at the end. He leaves at 12:30 and I debate getting some more work in, but decide that's stilly and get to bed at 1.
DIARY 10079
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26. Wake with a jolt at 7, and decide that it's time to get to work, so I work from 7:05 to 3:30 almost without a break, taking longer than I'd expected, stopping for 15 minutes to put some things away and phone Rosalind and arrange to pick up the Energy Facts index, and it's a good thing that I started so early, because it just takes longer than I would have thought, and I end up working about 16 hours on this $50 job, but I keep telling myself that I really want to get my NAME in to Prentice-Hall, particularly with Sheldon Czapnik, who seems to see eye-to-eye with me, and that gets me through. Just finish typing and get right out in the heavy rain, getting totally soaked walking across at 4 pm, and he says that it looks good, shows me how the rest of the chapters will be given out, and I just have to figure I'm getting it, because the vibrations are all so good. Tell him that I'm going away, and he says he'll wait until I get back to phone me---but then sends me a letter saying that he'll keep my name on file since I CAN write, but that others who know more about sociology could organize things better than I did. Had to finish the proofreading on the subway, and never DID get any feeling from him as to HOW I really did, though I had to tell him that the first was OVER-referenced and the last was UNDER-referenced, and certainly if I'd worked on it as I SHOULD have, it would have come out even. Anyway, it did what I wanted: got my name IN to him. Then the following Sunday was an ad in the Times that SEEMED like it would be for this job TOO. Then down at 4:45 and slog around to pick up the Energy Facts book, and she's checked and asked a question about it, and I meet Sheldon coming away from his office, and then get HOME to wash my hair and shower and change clothes and come out AFTER the rain WITHOUT any rain stuff, and it turns out that I don't need it. Get to the Barbizon-Plaza to NOT find Karen there, and have a STRANGE insight into my judging (see DIARY 10080), and Joan later says "I don't see how you had the courage to share THAT." Finish "How to Make Money in your Spare Time by Writing" on the way home in the subway. Get home at 11 and pack---having washed dishes earlier in the day, put those away, and decide I CAN'T do anything else, but set the alarm for 7:15 to get the last things together, water the plants, and meet John at 8 in the hall.
DIARY 10083
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27. Up at 7:15 alarm and finish packing and watering plants and eating breakfast JUST at 8 am, and find that John's already put his stuff into the hall, and he's cleared up his bottom door key confusion with Mrs. Johnson. Walk to car and get off at 8:15, over the George Washington Bridge and up the Palisades to route 6. Stop for lunch at an awful Howard Johnson's, where the "Taste of America" logo appeared on a cookie with the hot fudge sundae (which wasn't bad for 95¢) that was TOTALLY WITHOUT TASTE OF ANY KIND. Sympathize with the German tourists on a charter bus, and out for me to drive for awhile on the highways, and then John takes over when we're back to the side roads to come to the edge of the lake and then get HOPELESSLY lost, finally asking at a gas station, and get into the Bowells' at about 4 pm. Willie's at the pound again, we chat about their job and our jobs and then get into TM, which they've been in for over a year, and Fran goes out to collect some shaggy manes (no, this is BREAKFAST), and we have drinks and talk and talk until Joy absents herself and makes dinner, while Fran complains that there's NOTHING doing in town unless we want to see "Gone with the Wind." Joy amazes by cooking a meal that I find TOTALLY NEW: a loaf, meatless, with nuts and mushrooms and grains and celery and other things, then Ponch Mype, a Welsh dish of carrots and turnips that is quite good, herbed cornbread (or something) from the local nonprofit bakers---and the loaf has a marvelous cheese sauce that goes over it, and a local kind of red wine that's quite tasty, and then for a CLIMAX she brings out "Joy's Chocolate Cake" which is her duplication of the cake that I loved so much that we're missing at Hemlock Hall THIS VERY NIGHT. Just marvelous of her, and she gives us about half to take with us. More cognac after dinner and we STILL sit around and talk, then model our sweaters and go out for a long walk in the night air, marveling at the sound of the strong runoffs from all the rain, that seems to have stopped for today, and then I'm tired and get to bed about 10, showering beforehand and managing to fall right asleep when John joins me about half an hour later in the small bed, and we're feeling MUCH easier together than we did last year.
DIARY 10084
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28. Forgot that last night, after repeating the word "karma" a couple of times, I saw "Autobiography of a Yogi" and took that in the john reading about Babaji the Yogi-Christ, and on the NEXT page found the CLEAREST definition of the karmic law that I'd ever read (see DIARY 10085). Also, told Joy about my index for the obstetrics books, and that I hope I never have to use it, and wake with the memory of a DREAM that has Rita having a baby. Also have another vivid dream the NEXT night (see DIARY 10085, also). John's up early and I'm up about 8 with the rest of the family, Fran's been out and found lots of enormous shaggy manes, and Joy cooks them up for breakfast with scrambled eggs, and we have lots of the rather soggy, crab-like stuff, and it's not terribly good to my matter of tasting it. Then check the maps and get a list of routes to take on the way there, and they drive up to Cortland under lowering skies and then we go off onto 13 until Sheds, 80 until Georgetown, and 26 and then 20 and then back to 26 and then to 12B and 12, and John gets us turned around and I INSIST that we go back through Utica, and we get through to the other side to get off again, for an awful lunch at Heaton's/Talarico's Italian American cuisine with DREADFUL meat and only so-so sauce on the lasagna, and then back to the car about 2 to continue on route 8 all the way up to Speculator, stopping a few times to hunt for mushrooms and finding none except hard things on fallen logs, and get into HH about 5, to find that they'll be meeting us at Riverside Restaurant between 6 and 6:30. So we're down to unpack, John doing it with his usual bustling efficiency, and dress in our new sweaters and take off for Riverside about 5:55, not getting there until 6:35, but no one's there yet at the table reserved for 12. They're in at 7:15. The group turns out to include Mack and Betsey, who says the sweater is NOT too long, Curly and Freddie, Monty and Eleanor Webb, John and Someone Harris, another couple I don't remember, and Jan from the three women makes up number 13, which means we have to pull up another table, which gives our side a BIT more room. Everyone has the steak sandwich, which is enormous, and I have the crab-stuffed shrimp, which isn't so great, very mealy and tasteless, and the New York Rhine wine comes late and is quite flat, but we all drink and toast and leave about 10 to get back, smoke, and get right to bed after staring at the enormous sweep of stars above.
DIARY 10086
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29. Wake just before 8 to find John long up, and I get dressed and get up to breakfast. Notes taken Monday PM: Climbing to Black Bear Mountain's blue-blazed trail, I see all the lakes and hills and trees to the west and I get the strong image that THEY see ME also, and that's one of the unconscious desires that leads men to high peaks: not only that they may see, but that they may BE SEEN. Then at NIGHT under the lights of the Milky Way, the EXPANDED thought that as my MIND is directed outward to our galaxy (and, I guess, by extension, to the galaxies invisible), the mind/minds of the galaxy/galaxies are being directed---ALONG MY MIND LINK/WISHES -- to me. A DOUBLE passage---one as needed as the other. Add to that the idea that the stars are THERE during the DAYTIME, REGARDING, just as much as THEY are at night, though WE are not nearly as conscious of THEM. Tried to talk to John on Sunday night: "May I ask you a personal question about me?" Then, not "yes" but "What?" "What do you think of me at this point?" "I don't know what you mean," not "I think this and this, but "What do YOU mean?" I say, "Do you like me, dislike me, think I talk too much, not enough, ask too many questions, ask too few questions?" "I have no complaints." Not you do this or that or that, but I have no complaints, not even that I'm GOOD or BAD fort HIM. Then I say that he HAD thought of me as a sea urchin, spiny, preventing him from doing what he wanted, but he says, "I don't remember saying that---anyway, that's not how it is now." I WANT to ask, "And if we had sex?" but can't. Then he STAYS UP on Black Bear, to soak in the view he'd refused to follow me to see LAST year, and I walk back down with Bob and Someone Harris. Smoke again after dinner and go out on the dock to look at the stars, and Mack one evening brings out his 30-power telescope and gives John his FIRST look at the satellites of Jupiter, and John says that it's so BORING that the solar system has all the planets AND the satellites in the same plane, but he'll go along with it. Noisy people next door, but I'm stoned and have had some of John's sherry, so there's no trouble going to sleep in the COLD room, at least after things warm up under the numerous heavy blankets in the AWFUL cup-shaped mattress that makes my back sore for the first time in ages.
DIARY 10087
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30. Up and breakfast, trying different kinds of cereals with cream: Cheerios are too tasteless, Sugar Flakes too sweet, they ran out of Shredded Wheat, Cream of Wheat still about the best, never DID have the oatmeal, and John cleaned up the shaggy manes on Sunday night and brought them to me on Monday, saying we should have them with our eggs, but after I gave them to Mrs. Webb he said we could add them ourselves, and so I got them back, but they still weren't very good, and Betsey said she didn't think they were the best. Mack had talked of the Santanoni Preserve yesterday, when he wasn't asking me about TM, which he SAID that he and Betsey were interested in, and when he talked with John about it today, John said we'd go there, not balking, as I thought he would, at the 6 miles in. Walk two miles in for signpost that it's 2.7 miles to Newcomb Lake and 4 miles to Moose Pond. Had put up two mushrooms, two sticks, and a bag filled with a lion's mane, and cars and trucks came past (Park SERVICE indeed!) on the barred road and clobbered a mushroom and a stick and STOPPED when John flagged them down on our way back, but when we climbed on back they didn't "allow" us to ride, which pissed me OFF. We left HH at 9:55, got almost to Newcomb and the parking lot at 10:40, in by 1:20, and John rests and I lay head-down at the lapping tide and the high-water marks from last week, then back at 2 to the two-mile marker at 3:50 and to car at 4:30, blessedly, because we're both quite tired. Back to dinner at main table, and then smoke and soak in tub before Mack's New Zealand slides. Outside for a bit, in to bed and jerk off for the first time since Friday, but it's keen and quick and not so great, so I'm to bed at 10 pm, getting just the slightest bit bored about the whole place, and bridling at the stupidity and boredom of most of the people at the dining tables. John wants to climb Ampersand and I don't feel like it, pushing for Blue, except he says no one ever SAYS anything about it, but that they're building a new tower up there which will give a better view. I smoke every night, not really enjoying it, and wish there were someone to have SEX with in such great surroundings. The height of the red colors seems to have gone about two weeks early due to a very dry summer up here.
DIARY 10088
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1. John's up just about 5:45, I'm up at 6:10 to wash my hair and dry it and meditate at 7:20 and write this at 7:45. Then suggest that he put HEAT on in bedroom and SHUT the door, since he seems to pussyfoot around too much with the door open. Decide to write postcards, so I go up to the hall at 7:50. SEND cards to Mom, Rita, Grandma, Helen & Jimmy, John Casarino, Bill Hyde, Avi, and Arnie, and BROUGHT back cards to Cyndy, Bob Grossman, Eddie Jimenez (who's moved), and Mike Schaeffer. WE both feel tired from the day's walk yesterday and he wants to re-see John's Pond, so we're out to Rainbow Lake Camp and at 10:35 he wants to sit for a bit, so I climb to the next rise and write: "Sounds along to John's Pond. LOTS of yellow and brown mushrooms and a covey of Indian cucumbers as we leave are tasty. Squirrel chitter interrupted by scolds that sound more like sneezes. So quiet you can hear leaves fall, and the needle shower covers the trail with the yellow straw. Trios of birds fly though the trees, peeping, seeming to be one too many. More manic squirrels sounding like babies' push-whistle toys gone wild. Squirrels scoot up tree like frantic elevators: smoothly and effortlessly. The wind rushes through the trees with the sound of cars on a far-off highway. Stop at John's Pond and I go off by myself and watch a colony of tadpoles with barely discernible legs being nipped by newts. Amazing how many living things become visible after I'd thought there was nothing there. Stare at the like-type of microworld of a moss/ fungus/ leaf-covered tree stump. Lovely in close-up. Smoked before Mack's New Zealand slides, feeling very self-conscious to come in almost late when he's focusing the last slide on the screens, but they weren't that memorable that I thought I had to say something to him. Getting colder at night, and I'm wearing almost everything I have in layers to keep out the cool night breezes. Had been wanting to canoe, but the lake always seemed too ripply for my lazy bones, and it turns out that I never did. Started reading "Sexual Life in Ancient Greece" during the day today, basking in the sun of the front window, and some days fried up my own oysters and honeys (starting tomorrow) when John didn't seem to like them, saying they were too water-logged from the rain, though they just wanted proper cooking for a long time.
DIARY 10089
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2. Written at 11:50 am: "Finally jerked off at 7 pm when John went out [I suppose that should be 7am]. He wanted to stay in: cloudy weather, Bob Webb said, would clear off by afternoon if the general forecasts for snow showers for tonight and tomorrow would come true. Heard the girls mention that .9 mile trail to Upper Sergeant's Pond from the Buttermilk Falls road, so I went off at 10, looked at the falls after a shower, no BIT of black rock visible through the falls' width, so butter-milky was the cascade. Then down the road 4-5 miles to the turnoff, park, in to ANOTHER small shower, but then it would clear gradually, the woods would start to glow, small dim shadows would appear, and then the rain-cupping leaves would begin to GLITTER so fiercely you'd have to squint. LOADS of dead brown-black mushrooms and a few logs that were FACTORIES of oysters. Went slow enough so that I sat on the rock beside the pond at 11:45, and now at 11:56 the sun is SO clear it's blazing off the water and I can FEEL the heat through my raincoat. Jot down some more DREAMS: Tue-Wed: NIXON was lecturing in a place that turned into my APARTMENT, but I was happy that the Secret Servicemen got out the vacuum to clean the carpets. He seemed about to make a comeback, but I wasn't happy to be associated with him. WED-THU: I have a date with Sheila Andron for a ball, military, but I'm responsible for decorations and figure we can stay awake all night, as we used to do in college. Then there's a BEAUTIFUL girl, somewhat like Celia Brewer, who'd worked and HAS no date, and I feel very sorry for her. Back to the car and draw notations on my map, and the flickering sunlight lures me down the trail to Grassy Pond, but it's wet, then wetter, then it starts to rain and I sink into black mud to my ankles (though the new shoes mercifully stay waterproof, at least for THIS time), and figure THAT'S enough and go back to the car and back to the place to fry up more mushrooms and read more in the book, and then smoke to hear the slides (and we sat with the awful "gas-station people" at the dinner table, where Mrs. Bolton smiled and said "Oh, yes, they're taken by such an AMATEUR." [Good friends, all.]). John, far from disliking them, said that's JUST want he wanted to see and didn't, so 1955 Germany of small towns and horse-drawn carts was his ideal!
DIARY 10090
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3. Notes taken: "Still incredible dreaming: I'm training blacks to be entertainers, and some are huge successes. Then there's a rich person who gives up part of his house to build a spectacular nightclub as a showcase and I enter through a lavish entranceway to a restaurant area of tables on duff, with live birch trees all around---and I wonder about the sanitary code of eating on earth! I'm shown to a table that's on a cherry-picker hoist and try to clamber aboard by holding onto various black plastic grips, but they let me up to the top and I sit inside and they send the menu up to me on a balloon that whips from side to side, and then my TABLE starts to jolt back and forth like the balloon and I'm wondering how SAFE it is when I wake. Very odd and hugely detailed dream. To Goodnow Mt., great perfect day---out at 10, back 4:30. Curly had been up a number of years ago, and he'd driven up the road where the sign had been removed and they said the trail was still red-blazed within (red for N-S; blue for E-W; yellow for crossing trails, I believe was the convention Curly said they used). We stacked into two cars, I riding with Curly (Freddie always stayed home to read, or tomorrow came in the car and sat and read; she didn't care much for John's book "Diary of Light." "If they don't play music, no one will look at it." Mack enjoyed John's typed talk on 40 pages of notes about Bartok's personality and correspondence), with Jan and Jo in the back, and John riding with Mack and Betsey to talk about Bartok, lamenting that Betsey sort of clammed up when he started talking about something she didn't know anything about. Gentle trail up, I find a GREAT lion's mane that I fry up for us with INCREDIBLE crab-taste and texture in the afternoon, and we get to the fire tower for an incredible view ALL around, and I even locate Blue Mountain fire tower with the help of Mack's maps, and even JOHN says he's interesting in getting the maps now! Terribly windy just 10 feet off the mountaintop onto the cleared fire tower. Share the gal's gorp (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts, with M&Ms and sunflower seeds and toasted wheat germ thrown in), chat with everyone, pleasant jog down at 4:30, and Curly shows his wildflower slides to the lovely accompaniment of popcorn popped by Jan and Freddie, great and slightly burnt in taste, and remember to bring fruit down for the next day's lunch.
DIARY 10091
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4. Notes: "To Catlin Bay on Long Lake, by way of the Lake Placid-Northville Trail. Short---back at 2:30. Down to canoe, find it too windy, sit. Up at 3:30 to John's cooking. Can't get over a feeling of LETHARGY---begin TALKING in Mack's slow drawl and WALKING in the slow short steps of Betsey and DRAGGING through the leaves---if I lived here a month I'd STOP. But I keep wanting to see more, wanting something to HAPPEN. Being stoned leads me to THINK something will happen---first, something NICE. But no beautiful man comes up to love me forever, so I start to think of SPECTACLE: earthquake, 50-foot Indian god, cocks springing from the earth, floods, fires. But when THAT doesn't happen I begin to think BAD: I suffocate, get heart attack, feel teeth ache. POOR scenarios. Then I keep LOOKING for something to happen, NEVER giving up, but giving UP is supposed to be the requirement of ENLIGHTENMENT. How can I get "it" if I NEVER give up, ALWAYS have optimism that I'll be able to make "it" work? Up and down, around and around, still in the vortex. And I HATE the people: whiney kids, fat teenagers, ugly parents, stupid conversations, unpleasant PEOPLE. But that's all ME. I'M unpleasant and see OTHERS that way? But I'm so much BETTER than they are: smarter, prettier, wittier, less repetitious, more profound. They're just NOT." One of the flattest trails yet, and I wander off alone to look at incredible spectacle of oranges against bluest sky, though there's no more red against greenest green, and only rare traces of the OTHER maxi-contrasty-color-schema: violet flowers against yellow-backing leaves. Pass beautiful guys walking together (probably with the married couple led by a three-year-old, with the mother carrying a front-papoose of a TINY infant) and want to be with THEM, envying their youth, trying to tell myself that THEY'RE as messed up as I was at their age---maybe MORE so if they're not sleeping together. DEEP waters prevent me from going onto the "point" which is now an island, back to get into their lunch photos and chat for a bit before I get "between" them and walk alone along most of the path. I've nothing to TALK about. But the party at 5 is pleasant with all the mushrooms, and the meeting at 8 for John's brook-tape is the highest point of the week (see DIARY 10092). Bed at 10, feeling totally ready to LEAVE.
DIARY 10096
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 5. Wake at 6 with all sorts of thoughts about the freelance business whirling around in my head, and get up to write THOSE out (see DIARY 10093), and then observe the rise and fall of mists outside as the sun struggles to come through (see DIARY 10094), but it's not even clear when we go up for the last breakfast at 8:30. Get seated at a smaller table with the same group: the Griswolds, the Hoyts, and the Harrises, and it's pleasant enough with all the laughing about last night, and we're finished early at 9:10, giving THEM a chance to climb Mt. Snowy and US a chance to get back and leave in good time. Ring the bell and give Mr. Webb the two checks and he scrawls "Paid Full" on the bill, and we're down to climb the hill for the last time with the luggage and leave at 9:30. Still time to see the mists on the hills, and John chats about how nice it's been, and he drives to Warrensburg and gets us onto the Thruway, and then I start driving until he's got to stop at the john about 90 miles from NYC at 2:30, and then he switches to driving, I suck on a piece of thorn that seems to have broken off in my finger (and there's a tiny lump there NOW, so it'll still have to be probed for), and it's warmer and warmer, finding it's 74° in the city, and he puts on WNCN to the Sunday opera at 3 and we listen to "La Boheme" for the last ride into the crowded city, jammed East Side Highway and police all over for SOMEONE'S visit in, and find that Brooklyn Heights is also jammed from the art show and visitors, so we just park at the hydrant and lug the stuff upstairs about 4, he gives me the rest of the gorp, I listen to the 18 messages, only 8 of them any good, and then out for the Times, which I read for the rest of the time until I forgot that I called Pope, and we talked for an hour, and he's leaving TOMORROW for California after a VERY successful meeting with his father over the PAST week, and I might even be able to phone him in San Francisco!) and then shower, because Stephen called and is willing to come over. The apartment is cool, so I fill the tub with water and put on the oven, so it's about 70° when he arrives, and the bell STILL isn't working. We have good sex, watching slides, he comes twice, once hitting the cushion from the sofa with his gusto, and then we manage to FINISH the gorp, and I hadn't even EATEN before he came, and he left about 11, and I had two scrambled eggs and crawled exhausted into bed without clearing up ANYTHING from the apartment at ALL!
DIARY 10097
MONDAY, OCTOBER 6. Wake about 7 and get out of bed fairly soon, then decide to spend my time looking through the mail, and get sections of it from the desk and read and read and read, turning over every page of every magazine and newsletter and newspaper---after finally getting the last clue that I needed for the crossword puzzle and finishing THAT after a number of hours of work, and thank goodness I have nothing MUCH to do, because in the mail is the notice that I WON'T be working on the Sociology book, but that he'll keep my resume on file. Separate piles of stuff to be filed and stuff to be thrown away, and about noon start getting a headache from not eating, so I have a couple more scrambled eggs, but then after reading another stack of mail decide I really HAVE to get out, so I pop into the bookshop to find that there's no paperback of "Being and Time" listed, but I DO buy the first volume of "All and Everything," then pick up some coins from the post office, then get groceries. Also, during the day I managed to call the rest of the people who had left messages with me: Marty, with whom I left another message; Art Bauman, who said that he'd get in touch if they ever played cut-throat Monopoly; again Rolf, who bought his new car and then came over today to deliver ten little bottles and ten big bottles; Byron Nelson, who also had called for a bottle and came over to pay for it with a check; Michael Blackburn, who wanted to rebirth me sometime this week, but I had no time, but said he'd keep in touch; and Paul Bosten, who told me about his being laid off next week and that maybe we'd have time to use his car together for something. I still haven't put away the packing, just got to watering the flowers, but manage to make it through until 8 without eating, though I'm STARVED, and watch Channel 13's production [oh, Art called, too, home for some job this evening, and he invites me over tomorrow] of "Roberto Devereux" from Wolf Trap with Beverly Sills and John Alexander, and I'm SO impressed with the marvelousness of being able to watch such GREAT TV fare that I call up and pledge $15 for their New year---their 13th ! That goes on till 11, and I smoke a bidi and popper to come rather weakly, then gorge myself on toast and farmer cheese, which tastes awful, and get to bed about 1.
DIARY 10098
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7. Up about 9, and decide that I want nothing more than to finish reading "The Great American Novel," which I do till about 10, and then meditate and phone Norma, who says that Arnie's HOME, and he does call later in the day and he HATED his trip with awful people from Oregon. Still don't feel like doing anything: there's just too much to DO and I don't REALLY want to do ANY of it, particularly not get into the ENORMOUS amount of typing involved with getting caught up with the journal. So I sit back down and read "Sexual Life in Ancient Greece," all last 200+ pages of it, interrupting toward the end to have lunch of tuna, but that's still not enough, so I pop up a huge bowl of popcorn, which I butter with the anemic butter and don't really enjoy, but finish that book and start on the "Sexual Life in Ancient Rome," but that's not as scatolgically written, so I don't feel like finishing that, but put it up as the NEXT book to read while eating. Get some little sections of the junk put away, since I have to get to my toothbrush and stuff, and I wash my hair for Art's tonight, very late after exercising and meditation, and collect everything that I'll need for a day away tomorrow, and leave about 7:20, finally getting off the phone with Arnie, and get there just before 8 to find him welcoming me to a dinner of lamb chops that he'd gotten from his serving last night, with rice mixed with a marvelous salad of celery and currants and raisins and what turns out to be "Ma-COON" and I pronounce them and "Ma-GOW-an" as he pronounces them, and he gets them from the orchard right next to his place. Watch a bit of Margot Fonteyn and then talk to Joyce, who calls, who wants me to call est for her and she also tells me about the "JO" acronym, with which she became very butch, but she suddenly saw that it meant JERK-OFF and tore the initials off her door, and I laughed along with her, and then we smoked and had the great dinner, talking about his coming trip and my ending trip, and then we listen to music, have brie and apples and then chocolate cookies, and then we undress and crawl into bed, where I have no trouble bringing him off and then try working on myself but in NO WAY can I come, so I roll over about 1:30 and just fall asleep like that, thankful he has blankets in the chilly apartment.
DIARY 10099
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8. He's out of bed at 8 and I follow him immediately, and he makes some corn-like bread as toast for breakfast, and we chat about a couple of things, I call Bob and agree to see him after meditation, and then sit reading the rather incomprehensible Shah-father's book on Islamic Sufism (which I show to Bob when we listen to the review of the Islamic exhibition at the Met), and get out at 11:30 to get up to the Hotel Wentworth to find a GREAT person sharing the intermediate lecture: 6'3", VERY large chest that vees up over the edge of the chair, masterfully outlined in thin-denim-material shirt of blue, but he leaves early and chats with a girl in the lobby, and the lecture on effortlessness is rather pleasant (see DIARY 10100). Then out at 1 and shop around Brentano's to find that THEIR hardcover of "Being and Time" is $15, that there's no listing for the third series of Gurdjieff books, but that the $3.50 book is ALSO published by Weiser's. And some paperback about Heidegger is only an EXTRACT from B&T. To Bob's at 2, I call est and chat with Joyce, who says she'll call and make a reservation for the January 30-starting training, and I wish her a good trip tomorrow, if I don't see her and Art off on the Leonardo at 4 tomorrow. We get into Backgammon and he wins the first game almost totally, and then I bring it even at 1 all at about 6, but he doesn't feel like playing more, getting twinges in the front of the jaw from his filling that fell out and was repaired on Monday, complaining about his knee and refusing to tell me about it, except he asks about the meaning of "synovial," "articulation" and "bursa," which I give as the fluid, joint, and pocket---or sacculation! And they're planning, if it doesn't clear up, to INJECT RADIOACTIVE GOLD into the bursa to clear up his infection! I watch the TV squib on TM (with an AWFUL tribute to Benson about the effectiveness of using "one" as a mantra, which Bob believes and I can't shake) just before 7, and then leave to get home at 8, feeling VERY horny, but I manage to eat before flopping into bed at 8:55 to smoke and come with MORE energy than EVER before, seeming to WANT to hurt myself. Finish at 10:30, or thereabouts, but doze off to wake at 12, when I put everything away and fall asleep, almost SICK (see DIARY 10101)!
DIARY 10104
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9. Bruce Lieber gets me out of bed at 8:30 to ask me for names and tell me about the est training review (see DIARY 10103), and we talk for about an hour. Then I meditate and exercise rather gingerly for only the second time since I'm back from Hemlock Hall, and decide that I really MUST get something done, so I finally put the suitcase and its filling away and water the plants, but I can't quite get into anything, so I decide that the LAST thing I should do is start reading the "Views from the Real World" by Gurdjieff, so I do that until page 102, starting to make me nod, and then I have lunch and get---FORCE---myself to the typewriter about 3:30, typing a page about how much I agonize over the diary pages (see DIARY 10102), and then I manage to get through all of 18 pages, which finishes up THIS CURRENT week, the Leonard Orr Spiritual Psychology seminar, and a few other odds and ends, but it's not even HALF of what I have yet to type. Down for the mail to see what I've got, and I keep piling up the stuff to throw away and the stuff to PUT away, but it's really gotten out of hand. Check through checks and find enough to make up this month's deposit, and there'll probably be enough for NEXT month's deposit, too, but nothing for the month AFTER THAT, though I might hope to bring some money back from California---maybe from working on some OTHER books than Orr's? Spend some time on the phone with Rolf, who's working on his car; with Richard Marin, from the Trans-Lux, who says that Eddie's living in Brooklyn without a phone and wants poppers tomorrow; with Arnie, though I can actually say I'm not interested in various details; and probably with a few other people. Stop at 9---STARVING --- to find that Channel 13's not showing the advertised program on Kataragama from Sri Lanka, but I end up watching "The Ascent of Man," first episode, on Channel 25 with a BEAUTIFUL guy acting as primitive man spearing an antelope---just BEAUTIFUL. Then cook dinner and eat it during Monty Python's Flying Circus, and then continue to watch "Lenny Bruce without Tears," and he DID have poor taste in jokes! That goes from 11:10 to 12:40, and by that time I'm tired enough (and feeling poorly enough as a hangover from yesterday's coming to nausea (see DIARY 10101)) to get to bed without smoking or coming and fall right to sleep.
DIARY 10105
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10. Wake about 8, getting out of bed to avoid HER upstairs, and move around pulling another grand bunch of culls from the grass, as I did when I came back on Sunday, from the plants, until she leaves, and then I can meditate with ONLY the sound of her damn cat bounding about upstairs. Then get out with the laundry, the tan pants to be dry cleaned, and a list of things to get, drop those off, look and find NO good books to be bought at the used bookshop (HA), but buy a faucet strainer ("Fits all" doesn't fit, and the salesgirl has a laughing fit when I take it back that afternoon) and a toilet ball, and that FINALLY stops the trickle and handle-jiggle. Also buy twelve bowls for under the grass, since the aluminum cake tins have developed tiny holes that spreads the water all around, and buy another bottle of Rhinegarten for Joan's party tonight. Lug that back and don't even bother to put it away in order to type 17 pages through the afternoon that I'm not having lunch or talking to Bob G (who found the Sears catalog with the cock on it in his basement!) or Arnie about his weekend plans or fussing about how much there is to DO---getting ENORMOUS stacks of mail these days! Also call the IBM repair number and they say they'll be out this afternoon, but the bell may not have let them in: Eddie phones from the corner, comes up to get Richard's popper juice, I give him a $3 ($5) size---thus he pays $8 at MY cost---I use him to go out for the laundry in return, John drops off his keys for me to water his plants at THAT point, and then he rolls of couple of joints, thanks me for the popper, and leaves just before 6, when I dash into the tub to wash my hair and put the hamburger in the oven and eat and smoke a toke and get out feeling actually pretty good for the session of "Be Here Now" that turns into the best of ALL (see DIARY 10106). Drive to Joan's party with Peter W., but it's a bore except for the lovely yogurt+ snack with crunchy granola atop it, GREAT bread from the bakery across the street, my grass and wine, and lots of the OLDER people from est, except that Louis Ponderoso is VERY like Bob Rosinek and I almost get turned on by him before I leave. But I do so at 12, saying that the eve-night (HA!) has been heavy. Home at 12:45 and watch "Midnight Special" from 1 to 2:15, then get too tired to stay up, so sleep without coming. But the Bee Gees are STILL dolls.
DIARY 10110
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11. Wake at 9 and lay till 9:30, then get up, determined to be up USUALLY in less than seven hours as a habit, and meditate with the DAMN cat that frustrates me so TOTALLY that I PHONE her and give her an ultimatum, and she GETS a carpet, and I'm DELIGHTED with the spurt of energy that I feel in est and TM (see DIARY 10111). Then exercise and have breakfast, and get to typing, about the spurt of energy and a draft of a letter to Leonard Orr (see DIARY 10112) after calling Rolf about 10:30 to talk to him about it and calling Frank at Trip'n'Travel to find how much the airfare is. Then I ADD a lot of things to the do list and decide to DO lots of them, and what better way than to start on the guest list for Thursday's orgy here? So I call and chat with and get REFUSALS from John Connolly (who should call NEXT), John Bryce (who should call NEXT), Sergio Cervetti (who should call NEXT), Fred Courtney (who's back in Europe), and decide NOT to call Avi. Get a maybe from Rolf (with whom I discuss FLARE, and he says that I can write as Charles Cronje and get State Unemployment info) (see DIARY 10093) and Jeff Lampl (who said he'd call). And the list of those who say YES are Art Bauman, John Casarino coming late: Paul Bosten who wants to go to the Club Baths tonight (but I don't go and he later says it's AWFUL on Saturday---the same old walkers around, though Bob Kunikoff said it was GREAT on FRIDAY), Joe Farinas, Dick Kussmaul (who seems to be coming, BELIEVING what I said about Murrel Brite in 1973), Bob Kunikoff, Stephen Waite, Malcolm Simmons, John Woods, and even John Bolon, who'd lost my number and had been in the hospital after an auto accident by a drunk judge who clobbered his car. I leave word with Richard Marin for Eddie to call me, will call Bob Rosinek and Michael Sullivan on Tuesday, and keep trying Jim Steere (Paul Bosten's friend). Keep typing (though I only type FOUR pages for the WHOLE DAY) while on the telephone, and people call back and I talk for a LONG time to John Casarino about est, since someone was asking him about it, and Joan calls at 6:30 and talks to 8:30 (see DIARY 10113), and then Rolf calls at 9:05 and comes over at 9:15 to watch the "Duchess of Malfi," a VERY good production of a GREAT play, and he looks at bank stuff and at Adirondacks stuff and then at "It, the Terror from Beyond Space" from 1-2:30 after he watches pieces of Don Kirchner's rock concert, Saturday Night with George Carlin, some wrestling, some of "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and some of "The Good Earth," but I chase him out at 2:30 and dizzily get to bed without smoking or coming at 2:45 am.
DIARY 10114
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12. Up at 9:30, AGAIN less than seven hours sleep, and I feel pretty good. I get back into the Times and start back on the crossword that I'd started last night, and then Joan calls at 10:45, very pissed, to say what I describe at the end of DIARY 10113, and I don't get to hear the music of Reggae on Camera Three because she talks through to 11:45. Back to finish the puzzle with lots of question marks, and then decide to do the double crostic DESPITE the fact that I don't have more than one word to start with, but I get a few more, and then suddenly "twentieth century" is staring up at me and I get the rest in fairly quick time. Meditate and exercise before having lunch of 3 scrambled eggs at about 2, but then I don't feel like getting down to typing and DO feel like coming, so I get into a chilly bed (in a chilly apartment) heated by the electric blanket and decide, what the hell, to smoke even though it'll probably wreck the rest of the day, and get VERY hard and excited, and have a FABULOUS orgasm, great shooting with numerous spasms and GREAT excitement, so much so that I let it go down and continue looking, pointedly, at the porno and come up again for a SECOND orgasm that's every bit as good as the first. VERY horny and my cock and body feel VERY good. Almost doze off, however, and get out of bed at 4:15 to pop some popcorn, cursing that I haven't washed the dishes yet so I have to wipe out the buttery popper, and watch the introduction of "Duchess of Malfi" with a VERY histrionic professor Goldman from CCNY, and even take NOTES for the impressive list of "nothings" that I heard in it last night (see DIARY 10115). That's over at 6, so I do the dishes, finish reading the Times, read a bit more in Gurdjieff, get calls from Paul (but I don't go out to the Strap with him tonight) and Mrs. Johnson (to write a letter about the cats), and at 8 settle down to type most of 6 diary pages (not quite finishing the last, thus not quite YET caught up with the diary) and then watch "Cinderella Liberty" with a narrow-hipped James Caan and a pretty-ugly Marsha Mason and someone Calloway as a mixed-black kid, but the story isn't really THAT much---one wonders WHY the sensitive, loving Caan had to wait so LONG for such a loser as Mason. The kid helped, I guess. Over at 11:15 and NOW is when I read the Gurdjieff, but tire quickly and get to bed just about 12, NATURALLY without coming, since I came TWICE already today.
DIARY 10117
MONDAY, OCTOBER 13. Out of bed at 9, as noted in DIARY 10116 that sleeping seems to depend on doing, and Mrs. Johnson calls at 9:30 to ask about that letter, so I write up quite a detailed one (see DIARY 10118) and take it down to her when I'm going to the store for groceries. Meditate and exercise, and suddenly it's 11:30. The day outside is bright and sunny, and I eat breakfast watching the sun-line come closer and closer to the balcony, because today IS THE DAY, I HAVE DETERMINED, THAT I'M DOING THE WINDOWS!! And I do the balcony by noon getting the plants all untangled in the meantime, and getting all the junk ready to be swept up. Then do the bathroom and the kitchen, the outside of which is awfully marked by some junk that Mrs. Watson puts into her laundry that hangs above it. Then to the bedroom, very dirty, and to the north-looking window in the living room, and the fellow next door is cleaning, as is the fellow in the outside garage, and today just seems a perfect day for it. But the time passes, 2, 3, and I haven't eaten and haven't finished the roughest, counting panes as they get washed from the original 32, 2 sides of 2 panes in each of eight windows. Down to the 12 to the center 3 windows, and then the agony starts: the leftmost can be done completely, but the tops of both the center and the rightmost refuse to be moved, even after going at them with hammer and a wedge-driven pair of screwdrivers. Can get the BOTTOM of the center by leaning out from the two sides, and can even get the majority of the top of the center from the top of the left, but the rest have to be done on the pole, and that's VERY strenuous and tiring. By the time I'm finished, it's 6, and the plants and everything are just standing in a heap on the floor. Sit and read the mail as pleasure after doing that, then type 3 pages to FINALLY catch up to date, and then have dinner during "Autobiography of a Princess" on Channel 13 from 8:30 to 9:30. Then debate coming, but I decide to CLEAR UP THE JUNK ON THE DESK, and go through and send out 14 pieces of mail: cards to Bob Grossman, Cynthia, and Mike Schaeffer from Hemlock Hall, sex ads from Man's Image, Griffin International ($2), CTS Publications for "The Celebrity Book" ($10), and Brentwood ($2), $200 to Actualizations, $15 to Channel 13; bills to Con Ed, BUG, and NY Tel; request for bank checks, and a stock verification to Price Waterhouse. To bed at 12, jerking off finally until 1.
DIARY 10119
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14. Up again at 9, meditate but don't feel like exercising, and Bob Rosinek says he'll be here at 6, so I have to move up the double feature at the Carnegie Hall Cinema to 1:25. Start moving the plants back, and then Mrs. Johnson comes in with someone to repair the bell and buzzer, and I dust and vacuum and scour the sink and tub, getting all kinds of items off the list of things to do and feeling very good about that. Have a late breakfast, mail 14 letters, and get to the subway station at 12:50 and Arnie's not there. Get to the theater and he is, and we're in for "Sylvia and the Phantom" that strikes me as very dated with the lush musical score, and then it can't seem to decide whether to be serious, slapstick, black-humored, or whimsical, and it suffers from switches back and forth among all of them. "Beauties of the Night" is VERY dated, with too-broad acting by Gerard Philippe, who looks not NEARLY as mysterious or beautiful as he'd looked in my younger days, and the interweaving of the times, which probably struck me as clever and profound before, strikes me now as contrived and stagy and cheap. So we leave at 4:30, both rather sad about the double feature. Stop in the new bookshop on 57th and Broadway, and it has SUCH an incredible selection of books that I FINALLY find a paperback of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" AND a copy of Gurdjieff's "Herald of Coming Good." Pay with Arnie's traveler's check and get home about 5:15 to hastily vacuum the living room and jump into the shower, ringing the buzzer at 6 pm and Bob's been there for about 15 minutes. He comes up and plays his Chuck Mangione "Land of Make Believe" with a good-voiced singer, then showers while I call Joan, and then we eat the pork butt, and I'm VERY hungry, and we smoke his hash and my grass and listen to his Mystic Moods record and get into sex, but though I'm up, I can't come, while I THINK he comes nicely, and I whack away at myself with absolutely no result, making me very glum, but he doesn't talk about it. We listen to more music, and he leaves at 11, pleased to be early, and I don't feel like going to sleep, so I put things away and read the ENTIRE "Herald of Coming Good" (not much TO it!) from 11:30 to 1:20 am, and get into bed feeling depressed about the whole thing, hoping that the orgy here on Thursday is somewhat better.
DIARY 10120
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15. Some damn BIRD from her birdhouse wakes me at 7:15, but I fret, put in earplugs, and get back to sleep until about 9:30, again 8 hours, and I JUST DON'T FEEL LIKE getting to the diary, even though there are things to write, and I jot down a note from a stoned session, probably on Monday, which I develop on DIARY 10121. Eddie's called to say that he's not coming, and I finally call Michael this morning, and HE'S not coming, either, and I meditate and exercise after much grief connected with not wanting to do it, and phone Rosalind Freedman to find she's in tomorrow, and call est to find that Kerry will be in at noon and that I can come in, water the plants in 2 apartments, and get out at 11:35 to the subway, getting to the Wentworth just a little bit late, but others come in even later, and I'm just as glad this is the last of the intermediate lectures (see DIARY 10122). Out at 1:10 and walk down to 40th Street, getting in at 1:30 and getting my $3 back from the taxi fare and getting an assistant's card from Kerry, who says that my PAST isn't what's wanted there---THANKS A LOT!---and I get put to work on the telephones from 2 to 7:15, and I decide that I'd REALLY been there at 1:45, so that's 5.5 hours out of my obligation for Myra's 12, and I take notes that I expand on DIARY 10123. Into the john to wash my face, then walk quickly uptown to buy three bagels, eating the pumpernickel one on the way, and buy a ticket for $5, first-come-first-served, and take lots of notes in the lecture and movie by and about Ida Rolf (see DIARY 10124). Werner Erhard amazes me by insisting that there are no photos of him taken---though at some angles he IS very handsome---and that he doesn't give his autograph out. I chat with Michael, but he keeps talking about "where I'm coming from" and I can't tell him that I think he's very sexy and that I'd love for him to handle my body, so we can't get together. I leave at 11:10, starving, and get back about midnight to whip up three scrambled eggs and do some desultory reading, starting Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason," and smoke and bidi and popper to come to a rather desultory orgasm, and then get up to finish up more of the cookies with butter and get to bed about 1:30 feeling pretty awful about the whole thing---but just going along to see what happens next.
DIARY 10126
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 16. Out of bed about 9:30, mediate, and get the shorts out for exercising, but never really get into it. Have great feelings of guilt about going to EB and reading a large number of articles about philosophy and its history, but then Bob Grossman calls and says WHY should I feel bad about it, it's what I want to do, and I feel somewhat better after that. Turns out he's coming tonight, too, but then Art Bauman calls with intestinal flu and Bob Driska calls about not feeling well, and Arnie doesn't call about guests, so I suppose there's going to be a somewhat smaller group. Work through the article I want to read by 4 (see DIARY 10127) and then start putting things together for the party tonight: move the mirror and bicycle and lamp into the bedroom, move the plants and chairs in the living room, wash the dishes, wash my hair, and the time clips along so fast that I'm only eating at 7:30, and then the first bell rings at 7:40 and it's fuckin-early Stephen Waite, saying that when he's in a hurry it takes a long time but when he's got lots of time it takes only ten minutes. I sit him down reading the rest of his book and back to eating, and Bill Wolf comes in at 7:45. They talk for a bit, I change clothes and the bulbs in the bathroom and put some records on, and at the DOT of 8 in comes Paul Bosten. The four of us sit around listening to Bill's tales of dildo-fucking and tit clamps and various goings-on at the Strap, and then the next people arrive at 8:25---sort of silly---and it's somewhat after 9 that the lights even get turned off. I start passing around the pot, which no one else except one other seems to have brought, and FINALLY people start into it about 9:30. I'm feeling totally out of it (see DIARY 10128), put off by the unimaginativeness of the Irish brogue's line, the pear shape of Bob Boxer, and the lateness of it all starting. John Casarino comes in last at 9:30 and then the first people start leaving about 10:30, so there's no respite there, either. Then I can't locate my container of grass OR my inhaler, and THAT puts me off, so I settle down to listen to the music and leave people out at 1, then look disgustedly at the mess, wipe up the spilled wine, cook up the last of the danish ring and finish off the cookies, and crawl disgusted into bed at 1:30 to fall immediately asleep.
DIARY 10129
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17. Up at 9:30, still amazed that I seem to need 8 hours sleep, and meditate and exercise, but can't get interested in the idea of even cleaning up the apartment from last night. Read a bit, get depressed, and jerk off in the living room. Start typing the twelve pages that I do today (though interestingly I don't FINISH the page that would COMPLETE the pages to do), interrupted by a number of calls from people from last night saying "thank you," such as Arnie (who said that Stephen Pearlburg had borrowed a jacket of Arnie's and therefore wasn't QUITE sure what it looked like, so he took Dick's by mistake); Bob Grossman, who liked Kussmaul and Lee; Joe Farinas, who wanted to come to more, and Stephen Waite, who enjoyed himself. I finally get the courage in the middle of the afternoon to call some OTHER people: Rosalind Freedman to leave a message about the index, Message Minder to be told to bring it in for repair but that I'm doing nothing wrong, and New York State Unemployment Insurance for a mailing to Cronje---so I call Rolf to expect it. Down for the mail during the day and there's a letter from Leonard Orr saying that I WON'T be coming to SF on the 31st, but that he might bring the manuscript with him when he returns to NYC in December, so THAT is some sort of relief. Art calls, too, to chat about his trip, and during whatever free time I have I try to finish reading a number of the books that I have around, wanting to get rid of THEM, too. Make up a NEW DO list with only 20 items on it, feeling good about THAT, too. Shower and have dinner in here sometime, and that somehow manages to get me to the afternoon meditation (being somewhat better with that lately) and 6:45 when it's time to leave for est. Oh, also, the IBM repairman drops in and says (actually, this was WEDNESDAY, but I forgot to say it then) that there's nothing really wrong with the typewriter, the basic call is at LEAST $25-30, and I should request the year's maintenance for $50 as insurance if something DOES go wrong. Thank YOU. Out with a feeling of relief to the last of the Be Here Now seminars (see DIARY 10130) and it's a bummer, and I rethink "assisting at est" on DIARY 10132, and call Arnie who doesn't want to go to the baths in the rain, but Art DOES for sure, so we meet there at 11:10 and go in for an evening of triumph for him and despair for me (see DIARY 10133) and I leave at 4:15 and confuse subways and get to bed at 5 am!
DIARY 10135
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 18. Told Ann NOT to call me before 10:30, so I set the clock by my bed when I get into it at 5, then wake at 10, feeling pretty tired still, and get out of bed at 10:30 STILL not feeling like doing anything. It may be TODAY that I finally throw out the ashes from the trays, put the wine glasses onto the washstand, and move the mirror back into the bedroom from Thursday, but I don't feel like working on typing AT ALL, so I settle down to read, but then have the thought that I can read the stuff that I LIKE anytime, so rather than clearing UP such books as "Islamic Sufism," "Sexual Life in Ancient Rome," "Views from the Real World," and "Spacetime Physics," that came in the mail today, I decide to START with the most DIFFICULT ones until I get TIRED of them. So I dive into the first part of "Critique of Pure Reason," even calling Rolf (who's going on a trip with his French lover starting Wednesday, and my unemployment information's come ALREADY) to ask him about "expanding a priori knowledge," and get some of THAT finished before I cease being able to concentrate. THEN move to "Beelzebub" for a number of pages until I draw a blank on THAT, and then move into "Sufism" until I get tired and then read more of "Rome" until that gets boring. Talk for a bit with Arnie about going to the Joffrey, but I just don't FEEL like doing it, so finally I call him and say I WON'T be doing that, and chat with Michael when HE calls, saying that the EVERARD Baths was crowded and fun on Friday night TOO. This reading at last takes me up to 6 pm and "The Cat Creature" with a sexy David Hedison and a thin-faced Stuart Whitman (who's a turn-on for Art, too!) in a silly thing about Egyptian Bast-woman being imprisoned by an amulet than being chewed to death by cats before she turns to dust---watching Lowell Thomas Remembers during the middle half hour of it for the Hindenburg and other newsreel footage. Read more, then watch "Paradise Restored" about the life of Milton, pretty awful, from 9 to 10:30, enjoying popcorn, and it's raining too hard to go out for the Times, so I CONTINUE to read, finishing "Islamic Sufism" at last, and get into bed about 12 to get VERY hard and have a LOT of fun before I SHOOT very strongly (since Friday morning!), and then eat oranges, mix farmer cheese and maple syrup on bread, finishing the bread, and get to bed stuffed and depressed about 1:30.
DIARY 10136
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 19. Up at 9:30, still raining, so I go out for the Times anyway, getting quite wet and having to change clothes, meditate but can't get up the energy to exercise, watch a Camera Three with Louis Malle that's so impressive that I type two diary pages about it (see DIARY 10137-10138), and then get right into the puzzle, doing it rather quickly, then read a number of articles in the magazine, and manage to keep occupied with the paper until 3:30, when I read some more of "Critique of Pure Reason" and then watch "The King of the Underwater World," about Charles Starck II, or someone, who tries his hand at being another Cousteau with his specially-fitted ship, sexy men (and their wives) and snake-striped suits that repel sharks, with a paunchy Leslie Nielson as master of ceremonies, from 4 to 5. Eat the last of the cereal at this point, and the box stays on the floor until Tuesday morning. Then Bernie Mazie calls at 5:10, saying he's leaving at 7, had called John's number and finally got MY number, and will I come down to see him. Grudgingly, and he knows it, I do, picking up the stuff from Rolf first and getting to Bernie at 6:55 at the Statler Hilton. We're into the coffee shop for drinks for $1.95 EACH, pretty awful ones, too, and he pays the check and I leave a 50¢ tip, and I see him off at 7, then back to see the end of "The Tribal Eye" from 7:25 to 8, then sit through Arnold Schoenberg's music with a Spam dinner from 8 to 9, and the woman upstairs has been driving me batty with her moving about and furniture dragging and cat scampering all week, so I put on loud music and take to working on stamps, clearing up ANOTHER thing from the list, and soak them onto THIS Sunday's Times, which makes my saving of LAST Sunday's Times for that purpose rather ludicrous, and it seems that this PAST week has been somewhat LOST in the shuffle. Stop the music at 11:30 when she goes to bed, and then JUST about 1, when I'm supposed to be through for the evening, I decide to COUNT the number of stamps I have, getting to 10,536 in VOLUME I ALONE, so I probably DO have over 20,000, as I'd hoped, and THAT takes until 2:15, at which time I can crawl into bed without eating, smoking, or coming.
DIARY 10139
MONDAY, OCTOBER 20. Up at 10, meditate, can't exercise, can't even get around to watering the plants, which I last did on Friday, and then get back to counting the REST of the stamps, getting to a grand total of 20,396 for the entire two volumes of the album, and that finishes at JUST 11:35, giving me almost-too-little time to get out with wrinkled green pants and white shirt, just as is, with greasy lank hair, to the first advanced TM lecture at noon, and AGAIN I fall into something interesting (see DIARY 10140). This ends just at the dot of 1:30, I search the 42nd Street theaters, half dreading, half wanting to find a movie to watch, but there's nothing, so I'm home to have some tuna (haven't been to the store for milk and cereal yet), and then get BACK to the stamps to see if I couldn't have put the 20,000th stamp in THIS time, but it had to be back in May 6, when I worked with them last time. Run out of hinges so I can't finish the United Nations section, but go through all the US stamps in great detail, putting aside lots of mint for Mike, get a call from Bruce Lieber on the stupid chain-letter---and he got stuck in rebirthing! Then fix up the stamps in the lower of the two drawers, sifting through the Chassy stuff and throwing lots of stuff out, and then Arnie calls at 9:50 (the second call of the day, one would think my phone didn't work?) to say he's SEEN "Day of the Locust," which may be coming to the Brooklyn Heights Cinema, and I watch Miguel Pinero on "Realidades" from 10:15 to 10:30, and HE sure seems like a rip-off artist! Put albums and stamps and table away (which falls off the support; have to get a stronger one), and had FINALLY defrosted the refrigerator this evening, too. Then watch Joan Crawford introduce herself in "Rain" from 11:30 to 1:12, and it's pretty good, except that Walter Huston sounds more like W.C. Fields than anyone else as the Reverend Nicholson. Have popcorn AGAIN, feeling that I'm LOADING myself up on butter, then watch some muscles on "Muscle Beach Party" until 2, THEN smoke and jerk off (every-other-day goes OK so far) until 2:30, and then in to finish the farmer cheese with honey, butter, maple syrup, and cherry preserves for an INCREDIBLE late-night snack, rather cursing myself the whole time, and get to bed about 2:45, feeling pretty awful, and from no exercise, poor food, late hours, why not??
DIARY 10144
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 21. Jolt awake at 8:15 with the damn cat scrabbling overhead, then get out of bed about 9:15 to meditate and determine that THIS day will be different. Fix some messes in the apartment before deciding that I should really finish the diary first---oh, STARTED the day with a shower, washing my hair, since I hadn't done either since early Saturday morning at the baths and I was beginning to fall apart! Get into the diary and struggle through 13 pages of it, finishing at the ungodly hour of about 2:15, including DIARY 10143 in which I committed myself to 5 PUBLISHABLE pages of writing per day. Then clear away the rest of the messes in time to watch "The Humanities: Philosophy" on Channel 13 from 3:10 to 3:30, and there are some good images, but the "basic" questions as THEY ask them are too tied up with VARIABLES and SOCIETY-ORIENTED questions like values, right and wrong, and ethics. My idea of Philosophy is that it should be more basic than THAT. Washed the dishes before that, finally fixing the dish drainer so that it dries wine glasses on the side without breaking them. Then continue with "Man and the Environment" about soil, another "Oh, I knew that already" program for high schoolers, and then watch a repeat of the International Animation Festival from 4 to 4:30: "Ersatz" and "Frank Film" again. Out for the first time to meet John at the mailboxes, take out a big bag of garbage, Chinese laundry, withdraw $150 from the bank, buy groceries (had tuna for lunch in here somewhere), and back to begin vacuuming the carpets from the orgy, stopping from 6:30 to 7 to watch "Star Trek" as they send their ship into an 11,000-mile long virus cell invading the "body" of the universe, which they explode with antimatter, finish vacuuming and delight in an apartment that's TOGETHER finally. Meditate and EXERCISE for the first time in about a week, then fry a watery steak for dinner and settle down to throw out old "Operative Obstetrics" galleys and fix up my desk area, and get involved in "basic Physics" again until 12:20, chewing away on my fingernails and inside-cheeks, and then turn on "Humoresque," having missed an hour of who KNOWS what, and it ends at 2:15 (I munching cookies) with Joan Crawford's suiciding in the Pacific waves of the Atlantic to a violin rendition by John Garfield of "Liebestod." Weird. To bed to toss a bit thinking of what I plan to say at est's next-to-last post-training tomorrow (see DIARY 10145).
DIARY 10154
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22. Up at 10, and Arnie called to say that he might be picking up the "Treemonisha" tickets for exchanging about 11, but I call and they say the exchange office on Broadway isn't going to be open until tomorrow. I meditate quickly between 10:35 and 11, but Arnie doesn't come over, and then exercise, type a few pages, and then watch "Flight for Freedom," with Rosalind Russell crashing into the Pacific to act as an excuse for an air-sea search that would photograph Japanese war efforts in "The Mandated Islands of the Pacific." THIS might be the film that I remember for flying at 20,000 feet without oxygen, getting "slap-happy" and diving. That lasts from 1 to 3, during which I have lunch, and then get back to typing to finish two diary pages and only 8 publishable pages, but still, 27 pages over the next two days is a possible goal for publishable typing. Take two loads of garbage out and read the mail and have the house so well organized I can hardly believe it. Don't have time to meditate a second time, but I shower and get out at 4:55 for the est meeting, really hating the thought of doing it, and fantasize TELLING them this and they send me home to watch the TV I want to watch tonight. No one's been calling on the phone at ALL and I don't care for it one bit. The next-to-last post-training guest seminar is very predictable (see DIARY 10155) and I leave at 11:45, glad that it's over except for the LAST post-training and the LAST 6.5 hours in the office. Home at 12:30 and catch the last 15 minutes of "The Day the Earth Moved" (a VERY cheap thing which obviously built up to the final scenes that I saw, which were VERY phony, with buildings being pulled over and upside down to simulate the action of earthquakes) after quickly making two scrambled eggs and stuffing them down with two pieces of toast. Then smoke and come for my every-other-evening come, and the porno gets spread all over the place, and the yen for food comes immediately after the 6 final drops from the cock, and I'm munching away on cookies so greedily that I go in and get the butter and cream cheese to spread on them in bed, and I eat about a dozen of them---how AWFUL! Get to sleep about 2, convinced I'll never lead a "normal" life.